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The Associated Worlds
Offtopic / otherworlds
Other worldbuilding projects, by readers.
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TotallyNotHuman 11/30/2018 1:48 PM
first
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Second!
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THIRD.
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😡 LAST. 😡
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 11/30/2018 1:55 PM
not anymore
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*is now last*
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7th
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Enderminion 11/30/2018 2:23 PM
Every Time
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Zeroth
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Enderminion 11/30/2018 2:36 PM
Why?
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Curses in Blender
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 3:35 PM
On the subject of our worldbuilding project and how it has been influenced by Eldraeverse:
15:36
I've pretty much nicked the consciousness thing wholesale, renaming parts of it strategically (e.g. "volition kernel").
15:37
One of my factions, the Union of Created Intelligences, is built much like the Imperium itself.
15:38
Only it's actually a collection of nomadic "Grand Fleets" with no planetary ties that's been around for æons.
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Pheriphery stuff mostly. I like the Eldraeverse to stand on its own shoes, and well... my worldbuilding deals with transhumans/posthumans. I can't transplant most of the worldbuilding because it's linked to decisively nonhuman actors.
15:43
Also, well, for me personally the Eldraeverse's true brilliance's always been under the hood.
15:43
The new-thought slice-of-life nanofiction.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 4:04 PM
Mine is the reason I got into the Eldraeverse. His whole “insanity or inspiration” thing describes my life since I was 3
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My Para-Imperium universe stems from a lot of the same source material as the Eldraeverse, but my own ideas on continuity of consciousness, how peoplewill handle post-scarcity fabrication, and a desire to write about relativistic free traders took it in a somewhat different direction https://paraimperium.wordpress.com
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Mine started off as a paper let's play of Starfire.... I want to say 10-14 years ago? something like that? And it slowly metastized into a whole world.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 4:10 PM
At least I can say it became harder SF over time
16:10
Wait, isn’t starfire by David Weber, Patron saint of missile massacres?
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kinda
16:12
1st and 2nd were originally by Seven Cole (more famous for Star Fleet Battles)
16:13
3rd ed was when David Weber got to take over, and cemented a lot of the core concepts (David was a playtester in earlier versions)
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I think mine might be getting softer. The first novel is kind of
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Apeiron Terminus started off as "let‘s retrofit 2300 A.D. with a bastard mixture of Transhuman Space, Eclipse Phase and Ghost in the Shell" and evolved from there. Now it‘s... somewhere, still fermenting.
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...like “the Expanse” with bioprinted Belters (edited)
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then it was dropped/sold when Task Force Games shifted into the Armarillo Design bureau, and picked up by Marvin Lamb (another playtester), who put out 4th, and then 5th/6th edition (where it is now, which is perhaps better described as a 4.75 I suppose)
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It‘s definitely gotten weirder, Apeiron Terminus. Once you sketch out the weird combined applications of wormholes and warp drives, you can do some wonky shit.
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amusingly enough, Task Force Games also had Ken Burnside as a tester, and he went on to do Ad Astra games, which does Attack Vector: Tactical. Which holds the record for the crunchiest miniature space combat game, full stop.
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Specifically, you can launch a colony mission and connect them up to the network a few years later from your perspective, while on the far end a few decades have passed.
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When I moved the timeline forward to write about star travel, I threw in twin telepaths for limited interstellar communication. Then I came up with UFog-based technomages. Now I’m writing a cosmic horror story where Outworlders use blood sacrifice to make telepathic contact with the Federation.
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Feels like crunchy Clarke‘s Third.
16:19
Like, I have another setting where I decided to throw computerized magic by mathematics ala Laundry together with trans/posthumanism and Shadowrun for the "Awww hell let‘s see what comes out" and that‘s definitely Science Fantasy, full stop tilt.
16:19
With elves, dwarfes, actual Ghosts n' afterlifes and native culture shamans n all the fun stuff.
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The teeps supposedly have entangled particles in their brains, and they can make minor contact with people they didn’t share a zygote with. But it’s a very vague message.
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Also, computer worlds getting possessed by ghosts because Ooops My Evolutionary Algorithsms Computed The Wrong Pattern.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:20 PM
I have an embryonic "fantasy" setting which involves magic, but the magic ends up mostly being closer to alternate physics because I can't seem to write things unless I know how they work.
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Huh, same with me.
16:21
Or, at least, I like to apply some basics.
16:21
ADs magic is still very soft-ish.
16:21
Or, how could you also say...
16:22
It‘s very convinient metaphysics. 😁
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:22 PM
Like the setting I've been developing with TotallyNotHuman and KAL. (edited)
16:22
It has four FTL paradigms, with basis in "slightly different" physics.
16:23
(e.g. "what if the universe as we see it is just a layer of skin on an onion")
16:24
That one, the polyspatial drive, then branched into three types of "translation drive"
16:24
First-generation one just burns through the layers.
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I honestly like the aesthetic of portal networks over “drives”.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:24 PM
Second-gen one rotates the ship in freaky four-space ways until it can use main thrust to do the same, then rotates it back.
16:25
Third-gen one makes a Special™ wormhole-type thing that links layers directly.
16:25
(it's a different kind of wormhole from the spacefolding one, because it only goes hyperradially and doesn't have potential linking behavior)
16:26
The spacefolder drive can only link points of equal potential (gravitational, electrical, and so on).
16:26
Which means that, unless you know what's on the other side, you can't make a stable wormhole.
16:27
However, once you have that data, you can pretty much send as much through the fold as you like.
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@Zarpaulek I‘ve found wormholes and warp drives combine interestingly when you make wormholes timelike-stronger than warp bubbles - it means wormholes displace warp drives out of connected space. You can have a tightly connected, warp-exclusionary inner region of space, and a wild FTL-travelled frontier.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:28 PM
That leads spacefolding civs to slow expansion, with dense territory, and near-instant frontier colonization (once you get there, anyway)
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And in Apeiron Delta, I‘ve screwed around with magic-touched Exoplanets and wormholes that lead to alternate universes (and other stars also.)
16:30
So the world of AD has at least two settled Alpha Centauri‘s, which are very different worlds.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:30 PM
Such civilisations are strongly biased towards defense, because while they can send assets anywhere in their territory nearly instantly, they cannot extend beyond their territory very quickly.
16:31
Then you have the frameshift drive, which grabs a bubble of space which happens to have a spaceship in it and chucks it around.
16:31
It doesn't care about mass, but it does care about volume—very much so.
16:31
So you get hugely dense but tiny ships.
16:32
It also builds up a bow shock from long transits by interaction with the edge of the bubble.
16:32
When you disengage the drive, the bow shock falls off in a tightly-collimated beam of hard radiation.
16:33
Frameshifting civs are, as you might expect, much more aggressive.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:40 PM
Another note on the spacefolder: Because physics is crazy, and models are imperfect without using literally the entire universe to compute itself, data goes stale over time.
16:41
And if there's one thing you don't want, it's to try and spacefold with data that is inconsistent with reality.
16:41
(it's a great way to get your ship smeared across space)
16:41
To mitigate this, a civ has a couple of options.
16:42
First, they can simply send data to everyone more frequently.
16:42
Second, they can coerce reality back into step with their data.
16:43
Primarily via moving mass or electric charge around to make the potentials line up right.
16:43
Installations which do this play the role of jump gates.
16:44
(some of them might even actually be jump gates, since there's no real point in putting a spacefolder on a starship when you already have a perfectly good, hugely massive object there already)
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Such civilisations are strongly biased towards defense, because while they can send assets anywhere in their territory nearly instantly, they cannot extend beyond their territory very quickly. ...... WWI in SPAAAAAAAACE
16:45
if you have two of those go head to head
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2018 4:45 PM
The UCI, being the resident godtech faction, opt for the first option since they have moonlet-sized computronium sessiles.
16:46
Also they've mapped most of the galaxy, being literal gigayears old.
16:48
Technology such as shielding and artificial gravity is derived directly from the same "slightly different" physics that drive FTL.
16:49
Three of the FTL techs yield artificial gravity and "volumetric" shielding.
16:50
Frameshifting, however, yields "surface" shielding and no artificial gravity.
16:51
Surface shielding is effectively a warp bubble with no actual shifting happening.
16:52
It's opaque to most things, but deforms when hit with mass.
16:52
(and you do not want it to deform into your ship)
16:53
Volumetric shielding comes in a variety of types, depending on what it actually does.
16:54
Kinetic absorption applies a force to projectiles so that their radial velocity relative to the ship is reduced.
16:54
(down to zero—you can't use it to accelerate things away from the ship)
16:55
Kinetic deflection applies a force orthogonal to the projectile's velocity to deflect it away from the ship.
16:55
You tend to see more ki-abs shields on larger ships and more ki-def shields on smaller ships.
16:56
Antiradiation shielding acts like bulk mass to electromagnetic radiation without actually weighing as much.
16:57
It attenuates radiation in the same exponential way.
16:58
Because all the shielding still conserves momentum and energy, shields don't need a weird "health" or "integrity" metric—it's adequately described by their thermal balance.
16:58
You can saturate a shield by pumping more energy into it than can be dissipated by its thermal system.
16:59
You can also simply hit it hard enough with a single impulse that it shatters its mounting plates and smashes out the back side of the hull before it can fade out.
17:00
This is the main reason that small ships don't often engage really big ships or installations.
17:00
(well, maybe not the main one, but)
17:01
Antiradiation shields have transmission bands so that sensors can see through them.
17:01
Typically they're carefully selected to avoid common laser bands, but there's not a lot you can do about a FEL.
17:02
So in most milspec shields, the transmission bands are tunable on the fly.
17:02
(civvies typically don't need that functionality—piracy isn't that big a deal in most places)
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so if you needed to render these shields in a game, they'd have a 'Heat' track and 'Cooling' value, which is the amount of heat they can dump per game turn?
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Wait, so how do the wormholes disrupt Warp drive?
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ponders the implicates if the engines and weapons are all dumping heat into the same track
17:06
where firing your giant cannons means you have less ability to withstand damage, at least if you're firing every turn
17:06
Zar: my guess is that that wormholes bend space enough that the warp drive bubble can't fit down the throat of them
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So, why can’t they go around the gates?
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chin taps
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 8:59 PM
@Zarpaulek For Sev's setting? Causality attacks, essentially
20:59
Me personally I went full soft SF with 7 different FTL methods in common use, and a few others possible
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Oh, are we talking about our worldbuilding projects? (edited)
21:18
I have a low-transhumanism kinda thing that doesn't leave the solar system.
21:18
(And a bunch of hardish fantasy settings which I don't think people around here would appreciate as much)
21:21
... It has a period of it's history which was primarly written to allow me to do sci-fi fey in the outback australia.
21:21
(Using arcology-dwellers as the fey, and outback survivors as the regular people)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:22 PM
you're an Aussie?
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I am!
21:22
(Where did you think I was from?)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:24 PM
Generic Anglosphere, you write like a native speaker but I couldn't pin it down (Though it's not like I was actively trying to)
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Fair enough!
21:25
My schedule and incidentals usually out me sooner or later.
21:25
(Esp since I'm pretty sure my city is the only major anglosphere city with a time-zone so stupid?)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:27 PM
are you on a half-hour timezone>
21:27
?
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Indeed I am!
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:29 PM
It's better than Ürümqi's timezone.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:31 PM
Western China. It's on Beijing time, and it's almost on the same longitude as Dhaka
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:32 PM
Hello Adelaidian 😛
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Hello!
21:52
(I really should be more circumspect, but w/e)
21:52
(It's a big city)
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:53 PM
tbf I'm not sure how many non-aussies would know exactly what city you had to be in just by the half hour thing.
21:53
(I'm in Perth)
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I mean, there's one major city in the timezone?
21:56
(And like two small ones?)
21:56
But yeah!
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:56 PM
hey, at least you aren't on train time 😛
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:57 PM
Train time was very practical when you aren’t having to consult in real-time or near-real-time with people far away
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:58 PM
I mean, the Indian-Pacific still uses it for very practical reasons. But a timezone that is out of step with the rest of the world by 15 minute increments is just frustrating conversion-wise.
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Yeah.
21:59
(anyone got any good timezone worldbuilding?)
21:59
(How do spacers time-zone?) (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:59 PM
They Zulu, or the in-universe equivalent
22:00
I’ve actually found that convenient, since it makes it more natural for everyone to operate shipside on the capitol world’s day cycle without a pesky sun interfering
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What's this?
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:01 PM
It’s the military term for GMT, sorry
22:02
Yeah, most likely.
22:02
I'd also consider them using Orlando time?
22:02
Whichever timezone that is.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:02 PM
Mission control for the us is in Dallas, one time zone away
22:03
(I was thinking more in term of symbolic terms)
22:03
(Like how the moon is part of that bishopric) (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:04 PM
Mostly for political reasons, IIRC it was argued for by LBJ. But that would cause unnecessary complications in multinational missions. Planning on the ISS would in that case probably have to be on both Orlando/Dallas and Baikonur/Moscow
22:05
Oh, and I'd imagine worlds like Luna with extremely long day cycles would probably do the same
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Yeah, probably.
22:05
(Though it depends heavily)
22:06
(... I still have no really plausible source of funding for one of the big space-missions that my setting had)
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:06 PM
I know that for lander operations NASA runs on Mars time
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(It's several hundred years in our future, but also a hundred or two before any other serious space-missions)
22:07
(A large tribe of wanna-be transhumanists fleeing "conventional ethical limits on science")
22:07
(To saturn, specfically)
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:08 PM
most likely they pick a convenient time system and stick with it. This may not necessarily be 24hrs in a day; in the absence of the sun to reset body clocks humans naturally drift to 25 or so hours, and that may fit in better with metric, so that's plausible
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:08 PM
calling in a lot of favors? Maybe the rocket is experimental-ish and someone got it passed the ethics board to put a human payload on it?
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Yeah, I was imagining quite a large mission, is the problem.
22:10
Possibly it's privately funded, like a scaled-up space-X.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:10 PM
Maybe have an extremely wealthy member or two able to privately fund it?
22:11
coupled with rider payloads, something that big could negligibly carry multiple Cassini-plus sized spacecraft
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.
22:13
(Large mission in this context is 1000+ people, though)
22:14
(For a permenant colony)
22:14
(Not something which can just be handwaved)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:15 PM
Doing that could easily net a few billion dollars from NASA, ESA, China, private companies, etc. Have enough Silicon Valley eccentric billionaires added to that, plus presumably most if not all of the net worth of the colonists, and you've got a decent nest egg
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
22:18
(The colonists were def sacrificing everything in the name of this; long-term, they do a bunch of really unethical things to get enough biology down to make a new clade of humans which they felt were better, and then committed mass suicide (admittedly in part by isolation and old age) to prevent said clade from inheriting the culture of doing unethical things in the name of science. They were idealists who knew they had no place in the world they were trying to make, and the history of the people they made has ... very mixed feelings about them.)
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Sounds a bit like the backstory of Hc Svnt Dracones with more pseudo-religious fanaticism
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Never heard of them... but yeah; they were "Interesting" people; not actually a group of people I intend to explore deeply.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:21 PM
Ah. Precursors ahoy!
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Yeah; they're precursors, but on a ~hundreds of years, rather than thousands.
22:22
The oldest of the race they created; the "Lastborn", grew up in empty space-stations, raised on idealistic sci-fi and engineering documents.
22:23
And that, plus the pile of mods they have, influences them as a culture a lot.
22:23
(They presumably have enough enhanced int to avoid the three-gen rule, but not enough to alienate themselves by that alone)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:24 PM
that's a hard part to write. Trying to make human-descended people sound alien while relatable is fun
22:25
Honestly, one of the core parts of them is that they have a bio-wifi?
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:25 PM
Telepathy, ooh
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Not enough for true telepathy without machine assistance and a lot of practise.
22:25
But enough for pretty strong empathy.
22:25
And shared lucid dreams.
22:25
So they have a pretty normal-looking social life from the inside.
22:26
But a lot of it breaks down when they try and interact with the other groups.
22:27
That and spacer-mods making living in orbit easy and natural, plus some low-level int and longevity stuff are the main mods.
22:28
(This was the first big human-run transhuman effort in-setting)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:28 PM
No bone or muscle atrophy I'm guessing, but what else?
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More radiation resistance, and a few psychological tweaks so that they're less dependant on enviomental cues.
22:29
(And probably less dependant on external vitamins, as well)
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While parahumans were based on humans and spliced with cosmetic genes from a variety of different animal species, there are a few traits that are common to the majority of the parahuman population …
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That sounds like a similar ball-park, but I'm not certain.
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:31 PM
sorting out the gut flora is going to be vital
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Hmm. Probably the Venusians have something much more like that.
22:31
Yeah, a lot of the more day-to-day medical stuff is taken care of by approx-human-level AI's.
22:32
(They have a single seed which becomes a person if you raise it for 5-15 years like a kid, but a different person based on randomization and upbringing)
22:32
(So there are a bunch of them around, but not a coherent theory of AI design) (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:33 PM
I was about to say I would go crazy sorting out gut flora levels all day, but I spend my work days doing logistics not-dissimilar to blood transportation, so...
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(In general, all the AI's this setting have were unintentional)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:33 PM
I do similar things. It helps keeps the number of high-level AIs in check, keeping them from dominating the setting
22:34
The official "First AI" was a military logistics response chatterbot thingy for one of the first earth-orbit military space stations.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:34 PM
And leads to fun consequences when an AI raised in one very militant culture gets assigned to, say, an embassy posting
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Which was origionally investigated when it was noticed that people were getting dating advice from it.
22:35
(This one stayed on with the stations as it was transitioned to civilian. It's one of the bigger normie/corp space stations now)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:35 PM
I took a different route. The advantage of having a setting with tens of billions of years of space-faring civ pre-Humanity is you can put a lot off on one of the precursors or another
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Yeah, I understand that.
22:35
I do actually have an ancient race!
22:36
Dying martian civilization.
22:36
Which has been hovering on the brink of extinction for a long time.
22:36
With ~100% of living population in stasis for thousands of years.
22:37
Until a routine check noticed that earth had a civilisation they could ethically trade with.
22:37
And about a thousand of them all traveled here out of nowhere.
22:37
(which is about a third of the extant population, and a 1/5 to 1/10 of the possible max population)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:38 PM
not one. No, multiple levels of "civilizations" (aggregates of entire eras of history across billions of years and multiple universes, made necessary by how little information survived to the present)
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Oh, yeah, no, if I was doing a big old setting I'd do that.
22:39
This is a much smaller setting in both time and space, though.
22:39
I intentionally limited scope quite a lot.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:39 PM
What can I say I was an ambitious child, and attempts by me to scale down the settings gets the chorus of voices to ignore me
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Nah, that's fine! Big settings a good! I just didn't do it here.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:41 PM
It also means it inherited all the soft SF/borderline Science-Fantasy aspects of its meta-past, with all the fun that hardening up the setting leads to
22:41
It's at the point where some of the tech is Clarkian relative to civilizations that are Clarkian to us
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Oh, that's always cool.
22:42
I was trying to tinker with a way of doing a urban-fantasy setting like that.
22:43
With multiple layers of secret worlds and magic systems.
22:43
But it never really fell out anywhere nice.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:45 PM
Humanity is the product of a von nuemman-esque series of machinery that caused ~60 trillion simultaneous big bangs after custom editing the BIOS so to speak of each of those universes to all produce humanity (in some form) on Earth (in a more or less recognizable form)
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Have you read Fine Structure?
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:53 PM
nope
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Ever heard of the “aestivation hypothesis”?
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:55 PM
vaugely, though that seems more like for @Archon ?
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I haven't heard of that.
22:56
Though that's very much not what the martians are doing in my setting.
22:56
They just lacked political unity to fix thier planet.
22:56
And then each of the enclaves ran out of resources alone.
22:57
(So there's some bias in the ones who went into hibernation rather than die out entirely)
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It’s a potential solution to the Fermi Paradox: The aliens went virtual and entered sleep mode until the heat death of the universe when they can run at peak efficiency
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Yeah, I read the wiki-page.
22:57
It's an interesting idea.
22:58
Just not one I care to use for this setting.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:58 PM
doesn't work for my setting, for one. There's no hole deep enough to hide in to dodge exploration cruisers/ berserker drones
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Fledgling physicist Ching-Yu Kuang has discovered a Rosetta Stone for all of physics, a treasure trove of advanced scientific breakthroughs beyond all imagination. Exotic energy, teleportation, FTL, parallel universes and near-infinitely more wonders are just within reach; a ...
22:58
It's a pretty interesting story.
22:59
And it's probably spoilers enough to say this convesation reminded me of it.
22:59
So I'll just leave it here.
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Well, I went with Berserkers in my ‘verse, but their parameters are to specifically home in on radio (bye bye Terra).
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I'm pretty sure my 'verse just doesn't have FTL.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 11:00 PM
Oh I went far meaner. The berserkers themselves are a von nuemman swarm controlled by intelligences that would make the Archailects of OA kneel before them in awe
23:01
they just are a perversion on an insane scale
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That's unpleasent.
23:01
I like my settings to not have an apocalypse inevitably happen.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 11:01 PM
Oh no they didn't cause one apocalypse
23:02
They caused at least two multi-billion year long interuniversal wars that ended in the extinction or near-extinction of tool-using life each time.
23:04
They just got didn't know how to look for the boltholes, nor did they anticipated the move that created humanity. Who do show up on stage just in time to "help" deal the killing blow (though if this was a novel series as long as ASOIAF they'd be there for a portion of the length of the last pixel of the last period)
23:07
But they did spur an unbelievable amount of innovation and allowed for a setting with both ancient supertech and relatively young Great Powers
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I work on a worldbuilding project of my own invention (with a friend) as well as helping with @0111narwhalz's
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The Recursive Precursors trope as used in popular culture. Precursors are a staple of a great many Sci Fi and Fantasy settings. While precursors come in many …
09:51
And some of them are still around
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Of course, everyone's transhuman (or trans-whatever) or an AI
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How trans are your transhumans @KAL_9000? Metahumans on Apeiron Terminus are on the soft side of partial distributed minds (soeliences, in Verse terms.)
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Free mind uploading and body swapping
10:52
All biological bodies are heavily genetically engineered
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So the Eclipse Phase baseline, about?
10:53
Ego bridges, genefixed bodies, continous uploads and downloads to biological substrate in a few hours timeframe? Cool.
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Few hours?
10:54
More like a few minutes
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Well that is fast. How do you avoid cooking the brain?
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Excellent cooling systems
10:54
Most digital substrates have liquid helium coolant
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Heh. Well then, your nanotech must be rather high-powered.
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Yes, it is indeed
10:54
That's another thing
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Ah okay, so they have neuromorphic substrate instead of the olde biological.
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Full post-scarcity thanks to nanotech
10:55
Also cheap fusion and fission reactors for element transmutation
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Apeiron Terminus got that too, about. Well, depends on how ressource-consumptive the local sophonts are at the moment. (in AT, if you wetprint to bio-neuronal substrate, it's usually as a point - the substrate can only be overriden so quickly. Makes one rather immune to hard brain hacking.)
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Any direct neural-to-interwebs communication goes through a quarantined test first
10:58
(on a sim)
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So no livestreamed formats?
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Well, given the computing resources at your disposal, the sim's sped up and takes a few seconds
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Like, quarantine firewalls are nice, they can't curtail continous attacks or downloads however. Also, mind the rights of your tester forks.
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Forks are run non-sophont
10:59
(for testers)
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Well, that means you might run into problems with attacks not visible on them.
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Your mind is software
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Best security is still restrictive protocol work.
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program it
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Disable the safety protocols and you'll be inundated with brainmails from Space Nigerian Princes
11:00
true enough
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Your body is a shell, change it
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but direct anti-sophonce attacks are pretty rare
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@Unknown IF you are going to copy the EP line, please post it as one, not as a string post. (edited)
11:00
String posts are annoying.
11:01
@KAL_9000 So they are in AT. Generally something in bad sport, to do in the connected regions. Also given that Soeliences, by their distributed nature, are really great at error correction. You hack the primary core, the secondaries are going to throw protests, and then NetSec comes zooming in as fast as the local Datasphere carries them.
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Your mind is software: program it Your body is a shell: change it. Death is a disease: cure it. Extinction is coming: FIGHT IT
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(And you won't succeed.)
11:01
Hey, fun fack. Do you know what the "Eclipse Phase" is?
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That, too
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It's a virology term. Refers to the asymptotic phase of an infection.
11:02
Now think carefully about that.
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The Cyber Police of your local polity's government and your backups'll have revenge/restoration of you, no doubt (edited)
11:02
oh dear
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<Does not compute>
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On the other hand, out in The Expanse, where the only travel is your local warp-enabled ISV.... well.
11:04
And there are no empires. Well, a few polities are empires, but the primary governments in AT are Governance demarchistic AI-sophont hybrid models. (edited)
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Sorry, should have said polities
11:05
One of the nice things (one of) the Precursors left behind was the ontotech for reusable tangle
11:05
So the galactic interwebs is very fast
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Heh. In AT they use ER=EPR for communications. You have a locked-in matric of entangled QEC. Around that is the infrastructure for a wormhole inflation.
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that works too
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Comes in continous and burst comms, but that's how they built their (a)causal comms.
11:06
Plus tightbeam bouncing along a variety of bigger 'holes that form the backbone of the connected worlds.
11:07
(FYI, Apeiron Terminus has both wormholes and superluminal warp drives, though the two don't really mix, and wormholes are cosmologically stronger than topologically separate space-time bubbles when it comes to spatial-chronal integrity.)
11:08
It's actually quite interesting what you can do despite that.
11:09
But allas, I shall not talk about in too great depth, or Alistair is going to joink it all away. 😛
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The reusable tangle transceiver (if that's the right word) is about the size of a server rack
11:09
So it's easier to transport/build than a wormhole generator, which is quite hefty
11:10
It does require the actual entangled particles be cooled to <= 5 Kelvin, tho :V
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(Hence why AT QECs tend to operate in burst mode. Still gets more than enough data through, especially if the connection is used as the classical channel of a quantum-teleportation set-up.)
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Also: MEGASTRUCTURES EVERYWHERE
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Heh. They are still working on that. On the other hand... well, there's some strange structures beyond metahuman space, and singularity explosions tend to leave their fair share before something happens and the controlling intelligences go somewhere.
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Again
11:18
nanotechnology
11:19
self-replicating nanotech, in fact
11:19
Makes massive builds a lot easier
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Yeah, when you don't want to respect the laws of volumetrics, thermodynamics, and a bunch of other things.
11:20
I like to play nanotech "relatively" conservatively; it's useful but not the end-all of universal work, given it has to be made from conventional baryonic matter. If it was made from a significant build of magmatter or other exotics, different story.
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this is true
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Also, logistic constraints are still a thing.
11:20
Mass takes a lot of joules to get to infall quickly, you have to invest that first.
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Yes, it's not a be-all, end-all
11:21
But "easier" as in you don't have to have literally trillions of engineers working on a Cirys sphere or something like that
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Eh, for Dyson swarm assembly you got auto-facs and sub-sophont mass robotics.
11:22
In AT, most nanotech is confined to assembly enviroments.
11:22
And bulk mining happens by breaking off chunks, grinding them down and then letting a variety of nano-catalysts, bacteria/micromachines and nanomachines munch on the resulting debris.
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Megaprojects take a while, but the nanites and autofacs don't require constant supervision
11:23
That's the "easier" part
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Filterfeed the resulting dense "soup" of enriched units from the work fluid, and you get fine dust of raw materials, which gets further processed into feedstock.
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We just run raw matter into a fusion/fission reactor bank
11:24
Turn it all into osmium to minimize storage volume, and then transmute it into what you need at the other end
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Oh god, the entropic waste.
11:25
Actually, scratch that, that's a total waste of energy!
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It takes a lot of energy, but pretty much everyone has a Cirys swarm
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Yeah but still. Whuah! Stop that.
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Of course, sensible factions do what you do
11:25
The main PoV faction is anything but sensible
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You use transmutation when you don't have enough of something, not for efficiency!
11:26
That's called feeding the entropic dragon, and heartily. No, no, no.
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Again
11:26
The main PoV faction is anything but sensible (edited)
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Yeah, there's sensible and there is stupidious and I know where I put in your PoV faction.
11:26
That's like, Nazi stupid.
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PRECISELY
11:26
everyone's begging them to stop
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You don't even profit from compressing matter into Osmium.
11:26
If there's anything you have in space, it's space!
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This is why half the galaxy has been at war with them at some point
11:27
They're starting to see sense, but until then, entropy's laughing its head off
11:28
It's not so much stupid as much as "most projections say we'll get thermodynamics-breaking ontotech well before Heat Death, so screw it"
11:28
I'm not saying I agree with that rationale
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Also, Osmium is 70-fucking-six on the periodic table, iron is at 26. This is not efficient any way you turn it.
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See above
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Like, no, no, no.
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The rationale is stupid
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Yeah well, I can tell you these morons will be out-industrialized by every person that doesn't waste energy and time on useless intermediaries.
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But it's sort of justifiable if you squint enough
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Someone's been taking notes from the Hive.
11:30
Did I mention their finest scientific minds are in open rebellion?
11:33
I misspoke
11:33
When I say the PoV faction, I meant one of the PoV factions
11:33
There are three main ones that are focused on (edited)
11:34
Two sensible ones and these idiots
11:38
A quote:
11:39
"We're allied with them because they need serious help." -Republic of Jai Minister of Foreign Affairs, 5015 AD (calendar translated to human equivalent)
11:44
Keep in mind, this same civ tried to conceal a Cirys superzorcher
11:44
(The idiots, not the Republic of Jai)
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How is such a crazy polity or whatever still around then?
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They dismantled it before the entire galaxy got around to declaring war
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I mean generally speaking.
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Allies
11:46
They have a few powerful allies
11:46
See the above quote as to how they got them
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 11:48 AM
why though?
11:48
Why don't their allies ditch them or force them to be less stupid?
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They are forcing them to be less stupid
11:49
Reforms are happening
11:51
Sadly, you can't rework an entire society's infrastructure in a few years
11:51
Especially not a society spanning millions of star systems
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 11:59 AM
how did they get that big in the first place though while being so stupid?
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^^ They wouldn't. Not with that bloody notion of thermodynamic waste.
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Millions of star systems is a thousandth of the galaxy
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 12:16 PM
not because of competition,but because of the inefficient of the polity
12:17
you wouldn't expect a tribal government to be able to effectively govern the whole of ,say, the modern US
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civilians use more efficient means of transport and refinement
12:18
Only the government uses terrible stuff
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 12:19 PM
unless it's a government in name only, that's what matters. If it can't effectively control its domain, it doesn't own it
👆 3
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It has a ridiculously large military which it spends a lot of its terribly-earned matter on. It uses this to quash internal rebellions, but territories are largely self-governing.
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 12:24 PM
How did that go for the Soviet Union?
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very badly (edited)
12:27
But that was mostly Gorbachev
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 12:36 PM
The high military spending and inefficient government production? that was near constant throughout its history
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no, the falling part
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Also, the polity is collapsing at the "present" time
14:16
for reasons that should be obvious
14:19
Very much Long Live the Revolution!
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MarcusAurelius 12/03/2018 2:32 PM
Well no crap. But how did it get that big to begin with? Why didn’t the new colonies simply leave?
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2018 12:01 AM
Thing I need to figure out: Airframe shape given a system where the surface itself is a propulsor.
00:01
That is, rather than having engines, the skin actually transfers momentum to the air.
00:08
Would a regular airfoil still work?
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Any directional limitations on the momentum transfer? A conventional airfoil should work if you can transfer it parallel to, or at a close angle to, the surface.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2018 12:13 AM
Parallel to the surface is probably the main mode.
00:13
I imagine normal components wouldn't be useful for a lot, other than creating turbulence.
00:14
(honestly I hadn't even considered them)
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Seems like it should work, then. And conventional airfoils would probably be useful in the early stages of adoption, when you could rig the momentum-transfer wizardry to behave like a normal thrust-providing engine for a conventional aircraft and not have to retrain all your pilots.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2018 12:15 AM
Oh, and then I'd like to apply it to biology :D
00:15
(since the engineers weren't the first to figure this out)
00:15
I expect to see fixed-wing bird-analogues.
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Ultimately -- well, if you have a momentum-transfer system that works in any direction, everything turns into a teardrop (if one direction is preferred) or a sphere (if you want to be able to pick any without changing attitude).
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2018 12:17 AM
Would it be more efficient to retain wings or other lifting surfaces?
00:18
Note that the momentum transfer does not come for free—you still have to put the work in to accelerate the air.
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Depends on the scenario. Thinking of biology, if you're an albatross-analog, probably, since you want to harness the air as much as possible to avoid putting in any work you don't have to; if you're a hummingbird-analog, probably not, as you're built for a high-energy lifestyle and you'd be better off saving on drag.
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I‘d suggest some kind of finely stepped cone as your propulsion module of choice.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2018 12:21 AM
(interestingly, I do have a species with a teardrop-shaped body)
00:21
(the skin is ciliated and they live in microgravity)
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Tendentially with a normal air intake-and-distribution system to get air to all the transfer surfaces efficiently and without too much drag.
00:25
I imagine if you took a bird and applied this system to it, it would first lose most of its flight musculature and keel.
00:26
Probably it would turn into a flying wing sort of shape fairly quickly.
00:28
Also, I'm not sure that a realtime variable-direction momentum transfer device would work out.
00:30
With fixed or nearly-fixed directionality, you'd probably still see wings, right?
00:32
Could also start to see vanes, like on a heat sink, to increase surface area.
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You‘d see manouvering aerofoils, definitely.
01:19
And aerofoils of the right design also generate lift; even if we use straight-forward down-aimed momentum transfer, a wing is a very good surface to do that from.
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Again: Iron fist military policy
08:32
Rebellions pop up all the time, but this is an FTL-enabled 'verse with instant communication (see: reusable tangle), and so the capital gets word of it and puts it down quickly
08:33
This is the first unified rebellion, and it's crippling the government
08:36
The government didn't start out this inefficient, as well
08:42
It's a monarchy, so there was inbreeding, one thing leads to another...
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Need to Import Relativistic Particle Freedom™ at 200GJ per second© intensifies (edited)
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This is absolutely the rest of the galaxy's attitude
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I am reminded of the text blurb about the X-59 Marauder in Xenonauts, while it has wings, it is fully capable of fighting without them
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Hey, why not kill the monarch by sending a basilisk to his Battlestation or big screen vidfeed?
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This is the latest Stellaris version of my own “ParaImperium”
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@Unknown if you're continuing to worry about the entropic waste, don't be:
13:29
translated from the Jaian -REPUBLIC OF JAI INTERNAL MESSAGE: JAI FOREIGN MINISTER TO JAI MINISTER OF THE ECONOMY- ENCRYPTION CODE: [REDACTED] DECRYPTION CODE: [REDACTED] Minister Hogion, I fully understand your concern about the Kingdom of Agurem's regrettable, to say the least, approach to the acquisition, transport, and storage of resources. However, we cannot risk a major war because a currently-collapsing galactic power is, as you so eloquently put it, "getting in bed with Azarel". [NOTE: Azarel is the personification of entropy and the chief demon of the dominant Jaian religion] If you continue to be concerned, I remind you that we are covertly supplying the revolution currently underway in Aguremian space, and that the Memetic Warfare Bureau is currently attempting to bypass the firewall on the King of Agurem's datafeed and inject a basilisk. The Aguremian government is beyond saving, and as such our alliance is over. -Minister Rubsco (edited)
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2018 8:20 PM
I've run into a small problem with one of my species.
20:20
They're heavily reptilian, and if you've looked at a lizard you might've noticed that their faces aren't particularly mobile.
20:21
I'd like to have some kind of expression, though.
20:22
It's fine if they're hard for other species to read, but I'd like them to exist. :V
20:22
I know Eldraeverse has the kaeth, but I haven't found any reference to their facial expression.
20:23
(it's a fairly general problem as well—expressions of emotion in alien species)
20:26
Wonder if you guys could give me any insight.
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2018 8:26 PM
some lizards have more mobile cheeks than others, between that and lips (certain dinos had mobile-ish lips) you can get expressions
20:27
alternative is to do expressions with other body parts. Have mobile frills or the like
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2018 8:27 PM
Adding lips is a little bit of a problem, because my phonology is built with the assumption of no lips.
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2018 8:27 PM
The alien in that fanfic I wrote has similar 'frozen face' syndrome, but they use their big squirrel-like tails for the emotive gestural component of their language
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2018 8:28 PM
They do have substantial tails.
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2018 8:29 PM
Dogs have limited facial expression (mostly snarling) but their ears and tail are quite readable if you know how to 'speak dog'
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2018 8:29 PM
I intend to utilize the nictitating membranes as well.
20:30
Right now they have two pairs of short, (nearly) straight horns on the back of the skull, and I kinda like that.
20:31
But I guess a frill could work.
20:32
I might add chromataphores.
20:33
Would be consistent with their origins (rainforest), and provide a basis for features of their art.
20:33
But then I'd have to draw them with color.
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The kaeth, technically, are closer to saurian-analogs rather than reptile-analogs, so their faces are more motile than lizards'. Their grin is especially well known among people who may not be knowing anything very shortly. That being said, on the one hand, I recommend chromatophores. That being said too, on the other hand, in the 'verse, while there are some cases of near-species being able to learn to read each others' emotive signals (eldrae and dar-bandal, for example), across unrelated species it is by and large much more difficult, especially when those signals may be transmitted in a band that you can't even perceive - even if you know what a dar-cúlnó means by black-blue-flickerwhite-greenspeckle-black and that you should apologize when the codramaju shifts from baking bread to sour oranges, you couldn't even see mobann! emotion even if you didn't need heavy protective gear to exist in the same place...
📌 1
21:04
Thus, in general, people rely on projecting emoji v-tags letting other people know their emotional state with a standardized vocabulary, and while I usually don't include it as a translation artifact because it would be very hard on readers, people and people's translators tend to speak in the distinctive elcor manner.
📌 1
21:04
“Pleased greeting. Human, it is always good to see your kind.” “Genuine Query. Is there something I can do for you this day?” “With barely contained terror. You drive a hard bargain.” Such is the s…
📌 1
21:04
At least Eldraeic, and therefore Trade, has built-in attitudinal words.
📌 1
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2018 9:20 PM
That squirrely one has written attitudinals and would be thrilled it's baked into Trade. So civilised!
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2018 9:21 PM
For context: I'm building this species for two settings simultaneously (duplication of effort boo!).
21:21
While the v-tags would work well in the scifi setting, I'd still like it to work in the lower-tech fantasy setting.
21:22
(so I'm building it with the latter in mind)
21:22
The issue in question is mostly in intra-species emotive communication.
21:23
Inter-species can come after.
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2018 9:32 PM
I'll add some subtle-to-anyone-who's-not-an-Uštn chromataphores, then.
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I actually will suggest that they do their emoting primarily through body language. The principle that most emotion is on the face is a human conceit
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 1:28 AM
It is important though, especially since it can be changed without those who can’t see your face noticing. @o11o1 is that one or two syllables? The world could always use more syllabic nasals
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is what one or two syllables?
01:34
if you mean my user name, five syllables. "oh-one-one-oh-one".
01:34
I've also been called "numbers" and "binary"
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 1:36 AM
Ah shoot I @‘d the wrong person whose name starts with 01. (edited)
01:36
@0111narwhalz, that question was for you
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 2:03 AM
@MarcusAurelius It's two syllables.
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 2:05 AM
Hm, /uʃt.n/ or /uʃ.tn/?
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 2:07 AM
The former, I think.
02:07
As written it could be either.
02:13
I'm glad that you interpreted the diacritical mark correctly.
02:14
I was worried my choice of mark would cause more confusion than it alleviated.
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 2:18 AM
Nah, I think most people are used to seeing it, and /ʃ/ or something similar is the default phoneme people apply to it
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 2:18 AM
I was using the cedilla for a while, but it doesn't compose well with z.
02:19
(also my Unicode insertion is broken in Discord right now, so I can't even demonstrate. >.>)
02:19
like this: z̧
02:19
just kinda hangs awkwardly off the end
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 2:37 AM
Looks too much like ʐ, too
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 2:40 AM
I mean, I'm only using one set of diacriticals.
02:40
So hopefully that alleviates it somewhat.
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 2:42 AM
I meant aesthetically, it looks to much like one of the IPA characters
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 2:44 AM
Oh, while I have the attention of someone who seems knowledgable on the subject:
02:44
Alveolar Dental fricatives. (edited)
02:44
Currently I'm using þ for the voiced one, which as far as I can tell is more or less correct.
02:45
But I'm using § for the unvoiced one, which is a completely irrelevant symbol.
02:49
Have any suggestions for an alternative mark?
02:50
(ideally it'd be easy to compose, if you're familiar with compose sequences)
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 3:59 PM
I like using þ for voiceless (unvoiced is a different thing) and ð for voiced
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 4:16 PM
I don't think there's a compose sequence for the latter.
16:17
Also, what is the difference between voiceless and unvoiced?
16:17
I don't think I've seen a distinction.
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 4:32 PM
There probably is a sequence, as both are still used in a living language
16:33
As for voiceless vs. unvoiced, the first is an absolute term while the latter is relative, though it’s commonly used as a synonym by people outside the field
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0111narwhalz 12/15/2018 4:39 PM
Oh, there is.
16:39
compose d h
16:39
Thanks!
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MarcusAurelius 12/15/2018 5:00 PM
No problem
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/17/2018 8:33 PM
Re: the announcement
20:33
Meanwhile over at Imperial Armored Corps, I have neatly sidestepped this problem because I restrict myself to fusion, and numbers which plasma physiscists etc. have thoroughly worked out by now
20:33
:p
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That's why I don't give hard figures in my Para-Imperium universe.
20:35
Reminiscent of Honorverse ships less dense than fog
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There is an even easier solution: always answer with "A wizard did it" 😄
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/17/2018 8:36 PM
I already spelled out for most people that my upcoming work only involves technologies that are, fusion and FTL obviously excluded, already known factors
20:36
The Tiffanians have railguns, but not ones that are that far beyond what the US Navy is toying around with already
20:36
Ditto lasers
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Using Utility Fog for telekinesis.
20:37
And quantum entanglement for telepathy.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/17/2018 8:38 PM
Either that or they're using conservative extrapolations of models that have been studied
20:38
The US Air Force is getting ready to put laser cannons on its helicopters and aircraft, correct?
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Enderminion 12/17/2018 8:38 PM
maybe within 50 years
20:39
which is what they said 50 years ago when lasers were invented
20:39
its really hard to gauge these things
20:39
the Army semi-recently put a smallish laser on an Apache\
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They’re looking at point defense for lasers
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Yeah, I’m going back to that policy if this is the cost of trying to oblige readers, or at least that subset of them.Well, no more obliging! From now on, all weapons shall be quantified as one of “boom”, “bada boom”, or “big bada boom”. (edited)
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annnnnnd this is why we can't have nice things
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@Zarpaulek they did fix the honorverse ship densities at least :p
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Enderminion 12/17/2018 9:52 PM
@Xveers Partially
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They're at a place where Weber feels they're appropriate for the universe
21:53
Not gonna get much better, unless you have a functioal impeller and inertial sump in your garage :p
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@Overmind You think you've got weird hearts?
11:33
The two main nonhuman species in my project have weirder hearts than the Eldræ (although this isn't a contest)
11:34
Species 1) A spinning rotor powered by a multicellular flagella mechanism
11:34
Species 2) Literally the biological equivalent of an internal combustion engine
11:36
Evolution does crazy things sometimes 😃
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 11:42 AM
How does that second one work?
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It's complicated
11:46
Basically
11:46
The "piston" actuation isn't driven by gas buildup but by muscle actuation
11:48
This drives a "crankshaft" bone, which in turn drives an impeller which moves the actual blood around
11:49
The advantage of this system over a regular heart is that the blood flow is constant, and it has redundancy (one cylinder injury won't cripple the heart)
11:50
If a cylinder is injured, the heart can run at reduced power until it has healed
11:50
(i.e. don't exercise while you heal)
11:51
Up to four cylinders can fail before it becomes life-threatening
11:54
There are two "engines" in the body
11:54
One of them drives oxygen-poor blood from the rest of the body to the lungs, and the other one distributes oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to the rest of the body
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 11:55 AM
How big are these creatures?
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About 2 meters tall, 1.5 meters wide, and 3 meters long
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 11:56 AM
Quadrupeds?
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Octopeds
11:57
The hearts have a smaller load than you would expect, because their homeworld has ~0.7G of surface gravity
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 11:58 AM
Do they have other limbs?
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Yes, two "arms" on the torso
11:59
An analogy would be a centaur with the horse part replaced with a spider abdomen in terms of vague body structure
11:59
Obviously it's much more complex than that
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 12:21 PM
Are there any core organs in that upper torso?
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Nah, it just attaches manipulatory/sensory apparatuses (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 12:40 PM
Nice armored brainpan in the core abdomen then?
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Yep 😄
12:41
Neurons transmit faster than Homo sapiens outside of brain, so the lag isn't increased
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:45 PM
sleiptaur
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Don't even wanna know
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:47 PM
They're eight-legged, yes?
12:47
Like Sleipnir.
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Who is...?
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:47 PM
Odin's mount?
12:47
c'mon man keep up with the Norse myth V:
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Ah, yeah
12:47
No, when I say spider, I mean spider
12:48
They evolved from arachnid-equivalents
12:48
The base torso is arthropodal
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:48 PM
So the pedipalps turned into properly dextrous manipulators?
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They turned into arms/hands, yeah
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:49 PM
(I'm still not sure how Sleipnir is actually supposed to work)
12:49
(all the illustrations I've seen make it look like his legs are subdivided, which is weird)
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The pedipalps and head section slowly migrated upward, eventually making a second torso
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 12:51 PM
It’s called “more is better”. Some have them staggered
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:52 PM
If you have enough legs, you effectively have wheels.
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The exoskeleton transitions into an endoskeleton at the torso connection area, as durability was sacrificed for maneuverability for the manipulators
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:53 PM
That seems like an odd thing to do.
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The arms have twice the amount of joints as on humans
12:54
An exoskeleton inhibits the freedom of movement at some points
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:54 PM
how long before they just go for tentacles?
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They were headed in that direction, but became sapient before then
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:55 PM
Also, exoskeletons are fully cabaple of producing all the joints you need for manipulators.
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And once you have genetic engineering, you augment your current body plan most of the time (sentimentality)
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:55 PM
You ever seen the range of motion on grasshopper hindlegs?
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:56 PM
And they're able to put power down in those orientations, too.
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I want to get away with having a vaguely humanoid face for story purposes
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:56 PM
How vague are we talking? :V
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Primate (edited)
12:57
It becomes important
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 12:59 PM
I just had humans and the main sophont species they interact with be products of similar seeding programs
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 12:59 PM
My uštn are more humanoid than I'd like, to be honest.
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Shouldn't have said vaguely
13:00
The face about as humanoid as the Eldræ
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:00 PM
But they grew out of a combination of my wanting to do sketches involving human characters, and my complete inability to draw a well-formed human face, so.
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I'm chalking it up to convergent evolution
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:01 PM
ehh, I'm gonna say that's pretty thin
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(and Precursor meddling)
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:02 PM
Ok that’s passable
13:02
Convergent evolution only goes so far
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:02 PM
If there's engineering involved, you might be able to pull it off :V
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It's important that this species and humanity be able to relate easily (the timeline has them become allies pretty quickly for various reasons), and faces are a key component of that
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:03 PM
Eh, that’ll only carry you so far
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I didn't say it was all the reason, just that it was part of it
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:05 PM
Meanwhile, one of my other species, the flurian, has a face only a flurian could love.
13:05
Four giant dinnerplate eyes arranged in a square formation.
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Aww, that sounds cute.
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:06 PM
The mouth is in the center, arranged like a beak but rotated 90° from the usual vertebrate jaw orientation.
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:puppy-dog_eyes:
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:07 PM
Several manipulatory tentacles flank the mouth.
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@Tassadar is secretly a flurian
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neat, sounds like an interesting evolutionary path.
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:07 PM
On the margin of the "face," just radial-out of the eyes, are four bioluminescent patches.
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:08 PM
Yup. Haven’t fully settled on their facial structure yet, but the /ɤeʙurkana/ are going to be very, very alien when I’m done with them. Similar body plan to the uštn (assuming their the spider-taurs)
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:08 PM
Also the body as a whole is shaped like a prolate ellipsoid, with the anterior pole truncated by a shallow dome which forms the face.
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:08 PM
In case you can’t tell, the orthography for their language isn’t settled yet either
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No, I'm secretly a 🔻🔺🔺🔻🔵🔶🔹🔷🔴⚫🔸
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:08 PM
Marcus: uštn are mine, the spider-taurs are KAL's
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:09 PM
Shoot, whoops
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No, the spider-taurs are the Jaian
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:10 PM
Four long, muscular tentacles extend radially from the body, about midway between the face and the equator.
13:10
They're in bilateral symmetry, rather than radial, grouped in lateral pairs.
13:10
So something like this: =(: :)=
13:12
The tentacles are subdivided threefold between five and seven times at the tip, depending on various genetic factors.
13:12
Which makes them very fine at the ends.
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:13 PM
Are these guys aquatic?
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:13 PM
No, they're engineered nullgee organisms.
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:13 PM
Ok that makes more sense
13:13
I though these were also supposed to be naturally evolved
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:14 PM
Nah, even I know this isn't a plausible path to develop :V
13:14
They have a pair of three-phase lung structures as well.
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:14 PM
Three phase?
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:14 PM
An anterior spiracle for each functions as the intake, and a posterior one functions as the exhaust.
13:15
They have three sacs each, with an intake and exhaust.
13:15
The air is shuffled between the three sacs with valves and muscular diaphragms.
13:15
The flow is in the pattern of three-phase electrical systems, if you're familiar.
13:16
Also the intake spiracle is peristaltic to minimize the risk of choking, and if necessary the whole apparatus can be reversed.
13:16
With significant discomfort, I'd expect :V
13:17
The entire body surface, excepting the face and tentacles, is ciliated.
13:18
I haven't figured out if this is practical, but the cilia are supposed to be the primary motivator in free space.
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what are they?
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:18 PM
(if it works for paramecia, surely it'll work for a 1500kg creature too)
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Lol.
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:19 PM
If not, they're probably suitable for attitude control and pressure wave sensing/generation.
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Use an air pump for propulsion in nullgee atmo.
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The Jaian basically have a human upper half (thanks, Precursor meddling), but their skin is incredibly pale (the home star emits basically no UV light), their irises are always blue and the pupils are slitted, they have three elbow joints, their hair is silvery-gray, females lack breasts, and there are many, many differences at the cellular level. Let me get all the other macroscopic differences from human for the upper half from my doc...
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:20 PM
I suppose the exhaust spiracles could be modified into mollusk-like siphons.
13:20
KAL: sounds like a graft job gone horribly right
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that's exactly what it is
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Alright: Their shoulder joints can bend much further than humans in either direction, their fingers also have additional joints, their vital organs are all in the nonhuman abdomen, their lips lack pigmentation different from the rest of the face, and due to their species' carnivorous history, their canines are larger and protrude sort of like a vampire.
13:30
Obviously, the nonhuman abdomen isn't humanoid at all
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:30 PM
lucky buggers have lips
13:30
:V
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And biology at the cellular level is quite different
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:30 PM
They can use labial consonants, that’ll make speaking human languages nice
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:31 PM
poor uštn can't even round vowels
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:31 PM
That’s tragic, I love front rounded vowels
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Of course you do, you're Roman
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:33 PM
...Latin doesn’t have any
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Whoops, confused with another type of vowel :V
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:34 PM
Which?
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The mids
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:35 PM
Oh, yeah it has a lot of front vowels (almost as many as English) but all unrounded (edited)
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GTG
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 1:47 PM
My conlangs tend to feature them though. Makarvókín doesn’t have any, but other dialects of Óvadkeðamín do; /iɤb̪mj.kedð/ has 5, and /ɤeʙurzœ/ has 2
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0111narwhalz 12/20/2018 1:59 PM
Is that a bilabial trill?
14:00
←is not great at the IPA outside the inventory of Uštsnuvk
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MarcusAurelius 12/20/2018 2:06 PM
Yup, and the other weird b is a labio-dental stop
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The real reason for their humanoid appearance up top is that I wanted to see if I could worldbuild a human-looking creature with a very nonhuman body plan
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 7:46 AM
Yeah, I stuck with humanoid-ish for the main alien race partially for story reasons, mostly because it meant their conlang wouldn’t need most of its consonants thrown out
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The Jaian homeworld is named Jolton, and the home system is named Joltol
07:46
Both come from the root word Joltor, which unimaginatively translates to "Our Home"
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Morgrim Moon 12/21/2018 7:46 AM
I've often stuck with humanish because other body plans are REALLY hard to dress.
07:48
The Jaian don't wear clothes on the lower body unless they need an environment suit
07:48
They have shirts and things for the upper body
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Morgrim Moon 12/21/2018 7:49 AM
quadrupeds you almost HAVE to resort to the renaissance "separate leggings, connected with a belt, complimented with a loincloth or codpiece"
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They do wear shoes on their eight spidery feet, though. Athropoid feet are more than tough enough to travel rough ground without shoes, but it's a "don't track mud into my house" thing
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Morgrim Moon 12/21/2018 7:53 AM
I made a dinoraptor-descendant for GURPs once, and decided most wear decorative claw covers. Partially gesture of good will in civilised society ("look my footknife is sheathed, I'm not here to cause trouble"), in large part because catching your claw on things is annoyed and potentially damaging and cuts down the time you need to spend sharpening it.
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heh
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Morgrim Moon 12/21/2018 7:53 AM
the practical came first, the "but this is civilised" came later sort of as a result.
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Jaian shoewear is mostly an etiquette thing
07:54
Again
07:54
They basically have the lower body of a giant spider
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Morgrim Moon 12/21/2018 7:55 AM
It could potentially be practical on some surfaces too; spiders struggle to grip on really smooth ones
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(Without the spinnerets, though. They became vestigial after the Jaian's arachnid ancestors stopped using webs to catch prey, and eventually just disappeared)
07:55
yeah but it's not like you're climbing up the walls or sommat
07:57
For that reason, most Jaian interiors are carpeted
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:05 AM
The homeworld for my main aliens (Érikíné in the plural nominative) is called Mallaryssyss “world of Peace”, and their sun Sójakélyaf, “shining mother”
08:12
If you can’t tell, the name of their homeworld is from its settlers, not the native population
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The Jaian homeworld of Joltol (0.67 Earth masses) is the largest moon of the gas giant Juuk'Tidar (3.5 Jupiter masses), which orbits the close binary Joltol AB (Both K-type main sequence stars) at a distance of 0.7 AU
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:28 AM
So is there name supposed to parsed as “Jai-an” with the first morpheme being a proper noun and the latter being the Romance demonym marker? (edited)
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Yes
08:29
In their own language it's Jaiur
08:30
(The latter morpheme being the Jaian language demonym marker)
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:31 AM
Ah, so Indo-European-Esque synthetic fusional?
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very
08:32
I would make it more exotic, but this is my first conlang
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:33 AM
Don’t worry, I did the same thing, though it has some odd borrowings syntactically from Mandarin, and in general its syntax got very weird
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For that reason, the phonemic inventory is similar to English (my native language), with the addition of the glottal stop, because i like it. ʔ
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:36 AM
Same, with some marginal phonemes made fully fledged /ʒ, x, ɛ/ etc.
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TotallyNotHuman 12/21/2018 8:36 AM
As a native speaker of Mandarin I approve of this. :V
08:36
What did you borrow if you're comfortable sharing?
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(He's Chinese-Canadian, so he speaks Mandarin and English natively, I think)
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:37 AM
And some weird, weird syllable clusters. A lot of the particle system 吗,吧,clause final 的, etc.
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TotallyNotHuman 12/21/2018 8:37 AM
Neat.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 8:37 AM
It mixes surprisingly well with a Latin style subjunctive system
08:38
And I guess the extreme freeness of Roots to form as either nouns or verbs is a bit mandarin influenced, though that’s probably just from English
08:41
The second of mine is an extremely inflected language, that is fusional and agglutinative at the same time (the agglutination arose from my inability to make the conjugating tables any bigger without going fully insane). Anyone want 10 grammatical numbers and 9 persons?
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dog is a gender
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9 persons? How does THAT work?
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 9:20 AM
Ten, sorry. 9 numbers 10 persons. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are normal, 4th is for unspecified person, 5th is when both 1st and third apply or when used as an impersonal verb, 6th is the “dominant” (a more general version of the Royal we), 7th is the formal/respectful 2nd person (like the T-V distinction on a verb), 6th is a humble/submissive that could be 1st 2nd or 3rd, 9th is a special third person for people close to the speaker, 10th is like 9th but for people close to the listener
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 9:33 AM
The numbers are more normal; singular, dual inclusive, dual exclusive, trial inclusive, trial exclusive, collective, plural general, plural inclusive, plural exclusive (edited)
09:36
It also has an obscene phoneme inventory, 104 with no clicks
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Wow... Imagine learning that language in school.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 9:45 AM
Yep. It distinguishes stops at 8 places of articulation.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 9:55 AM
Makarvókín and to a lesser extent Ğeb̠urkazø (it gained a Latinization last night) could be pronounced decently by a native English speaker
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:03 PM
Ğeb̠urkazø is on the other end of the extreme, with 18 phonemes, including only one nasal
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oh god
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:14 PM
Yep. It has 5 allophones in total. The sibilants set the record with 6 each. Have fun trying to speak it if they write it without writing the variation for you
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by the eikones, man
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:16 PM
Oh, and they have triphthongs. Plenty of them.
12:21
The current maximal syllable example is ksyaoś /ksy̯ao̯ʂ/, pronounced gžyaot́ /gʑy̯ao̯ʈ̚/
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Oh god that's so bad I can't believe it's not historical spelling
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:26 PM
Eh, it’s only atrocious for non-native speakers. English speakers don’t notice vowel reduction when doing it, or the fact that we have nasal and non-nasal vowels
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Luckily, this is probably set in a post-scarcity transhuman society where you can download the ability to speak a language as well as a native speaker with no effort whatsoever off the Internet
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:34 PM
The mainline civs are Clarkian relative to us, and some of them have tech Clarkian relative to that baseline. But that’s not necessary for this language
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:37 PM
The largest warships mass somewhere in between Uranus and Neptune
12:37
they aren’t overkill for what they were built to fight
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Confguration? I mean: is that mass concentrated in a drive core, or are we talking planet sized ships?
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:41 PM
A little of both. Their main power supplies and FTL are very dense, but they’re planet sized, yes (edited)
12:46
The “normal sized” ships top out at a little over 170 km long
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(((O)))_(((O)))
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Why not.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:49 PM
Those are the new generation dreadnoughts with the “PLANETOIDS REEEEEEE” main guns. And yes, the setting is maybe a 4 on the scale of SF hardness. Its utter madness, and thankfully the HFY is toned down by everyone else being equally fuck yeah (edited)
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SFY, sophonts fuck yeah.
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ACTIVATE ANTI-REEEEEE DEVICE
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With ships that big; "BOOM FUCK YEAH"
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I mean, for the scale I give a +1 for the FTL.
12:51
It isn't easy and shouldn't be easy. And with that light.
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While my largest (Human) ships are in the single digits of kilometers long, still use missiles and some Mass Drivers for offensive weaponry.
12:52
And are restricted to the low (<20G hard cap) 🔺V
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:53 PM
Nah, they’re that big because the battleworlds are archeotech, and hyperdrives have gotten a lot more efficient in the last 20 or so billion years since they were built. The smallest vessels with true FTL are the Gleamers, 42 meters long
12:53
Also, which FTL? The setting has 7 types
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They do, however, have full-coverage planetary shields.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 12:55 PM
Oh, your combat is slow and decisive. Dreadnoughts are considered slow at 215k g sustainable acceleration (edited)
12:55
Combat resembles a kaleidoscopic explosion of hell, especially when both sides are using tactical FTL and onto-weaponry
12:57
...I think you can see why I didn’t ask for a world channel over on ToughSF
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7 types?
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 1:01 PM
Mhm. Here’s the write up: “"There are seven types of FTL in use by the Alliance, four of which are stationary: teleporters, pitchers and mitts, hypergates, and jumpgates. Teleporters are a fairly large and complex system for their capacity, and tend to see fairly frequent use in large residences and private buildings, with less frequent use by the government, due to the frequent maintenance and high energy requirements. One of the end points of the teleportation, unlike in most science fantasy stories, must be within the teleporter. Pitchers, as they are colloquially known, are large stations with a highly specific type of hyperdrive and a large gravity accelerator, together designed to fling a ship (which doesn't require an FTL drive) on a parabolic trajectory up into hyper, with its fall point arrangeable as necessary. Most modern stations can plop a ship of up to exaton in mass anywhere from one hundred fifty thousand kilometers to five hundred million light years. Mitts, while similar, are a different offshoot of the same development. They are stations capable of yanking a ship out of all levels of hyperspace with similar requirements of a pitcher, with a radius of about one hundred light years. Hypergates are stationary hyperdrives designed to open a window without moving through it, and able to hold it open for hours. Many young nations, including Mallaryssyss, rely on them during the period where hyperdrives are expensive and inefficient.
13:01
. Jumpgates are a new development, circa 2003 A.D., which "bridge" two points in realspace with a connection through hyperspace. It serves effectively as a portal, granting zero distance travel between the two ends. The main model is fairly compact, and with external power, can bring through a battleworld with room to spare. Portable models are transportable within an Earth standard 20 foot shipping container, and with their on board batteries can power a connection across one hundred billion lightyears with a five meter diameter and up to ten minute staying power on those settings." "As for the mobile systems, they're a little more boring. You've got hyperdrives, tachyon conversion drives, and the rare Ėzak ring drive. Hyperdrive's operate quite simply, punching a hole in reality and carrying a vessel and anything else that makes it through up to hyper or back down to realspace. Conversion drives take sublight matter and convert it to its tachyonic equivalent, taking an initial dump of energy and allowing a ship to accelerate normally on up above c, while remaining in realspace. They are unable to breach a universal barrier. Ring drives are the fastest available, just barely faster than jumpgates, but require a long recharge time after and are limited in range. Additionally, most models are unable to breach a universal barrier, and those that can require even more energy than jumping across an entire universe does."
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170 kilometer is... very large.
13:20
Way too large for Apeiron Terminus terms. The biggest ships I have on rough draft right now are the 45 kilometer ICCVs that are used to ship military fleets between star systems on a single warp drive.
13:21
Most combat ships would be on the pretty small side, to fit through wormhole apertures - the size disparity for the same sort of firepower would actually be quite noticable, with a lot of mass (and size) of the bigger units just being drives and propellant and fuel for being able to move interstellar (like, an Interstellar Patrol Battlecruiser would probably be a kilometer, one and a half kilometers.)
13:22
And physical acceleration will definitely be meager. 4 to 12 Gs, at the outer end. Once you loose your Waverider drive, it's slow-boating all the way, but that leaves a capital ship still with what will be a multi-megatons-per-second drive under their arses, so.
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Due to the general disregard of physics I hesitate saying something about the tachyons.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 1:32 PM
Yup. It’s an assumption of the setting that every particle of the Standard Model has a tachyon equivalent except the photon
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No that's fine. Not really. But my point was how the tachyons worked.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 1:33 PM
Go ahead, if it’s interesting and doesn’t break anything I’ll keep it
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So, you generally have only one tachyonic field, and if the photon doesn't have a equivilant either you have a dead crew. Also, you will probably not accelerate, but decelerate. Faster tachyons are actually heavier (have less negative/imaginery mass than ones barely above c). You might have to expect that turning the drive on should result in a massive release of energy, so they probably make useful combat weapons. But returning to sublight requires mass intake. So maybe you willing "crash" into asteroids. Where you have to come out afterwards.
13:45
My initial point was actually something really specific.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 1:46 PM
And what was that?
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Pretty much that you could travel instantly over arbitrary distances. Some paper about quantum tunneling and tachyonic strings.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 1:49 PM
Welp, thank you for explaining how teleporters work and where their so energy intensive
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The receiving end would be expensive. The sender just tries to keep itself together after use.
13:53
And in the same sense you might consider STL tachyon drive.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 2:00 PM
How would that work?
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Tschyons have imaginery mass.
14:02
Which means they can have zero net energy, imaginery mass and positive momentum.
14:02
Could potentially even produce powers via tachyons.
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 2:03 PM
Powers as in what?
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MarcusAurelius 12/21/2018 2:07 PM
Oh. The plural confused me, I though this might be going somewhere weird
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Yeah, fire your tachyon beam to recharge yourself.
14:12
Or maybe even get the power out of your tachyon drive.
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2018 3:18 AM
An uštn performing an external visual inspection of a spacecraft: https://i.imgur.com/y0q7MWF.png
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2018 3:29 AM
Notable features: Partial pressure suit—Uštn have tough, scaled skin, so I figure it can probably stand up to vacuum better than our own thin skin. Core thermoregulatory garment—Being ectothermic, they rely upon a technological solution to provide them with the heat they need, and to reject it if necessary. It doesn't cover the whole body because I figure their blood can do just fine for heat distribution. Adaptive filament lanyards—These help keep hold of the object to which they are attached, even if it's let go. Unlike regular string loop lanyards, however, they don't snag on your hand when you take them off or fail irreversably when torn off. Form inspired by vine tendrils. Helmet—Comes apart in two pieces. The posterior component seals with the neck and houses the horns. The clear faceplate is also attached to this part. The anterior component seals to the front of the posterior component and the bottom of the faceplate. It just covers the lower jaw. The split format is because I couldn't work out the logistics of getting a horned, snouted head into a helmet without the neck hole being silly large. I understand that this iteration is not winning any awards for aesthetic. :V. Pack—Fairly limited in size, the pack is pretty much just oxygen. On account of the whole "partial pressure" thing, the air mix is pure oxygen—nitrogen would be Bad™.
03:32
I'm not quite sure about the proportions of the feet and tarsa compared to the other parts of the legs, but then again I'm not great at those proportions even in plantigrade layouts when I have a convenient reference.
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MarcusAurelius 12/23/2018 1:45 PM
That pressure differential at the cuffs of nothing else will be painful, and just because the skin is tough doesn’t necessarily mean it makes a better pressure vessel
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There’s going to be a lot of internal bleeding if you don’t reinforce everything else
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MarcusAurelius 12/23/2018 2:28 PM
At best, there’s going to be painful swelling in the outer limbs and bruising around the cuffs
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2018 4:36 PM
Curse you, and your logic!
16:36
Would mild genemodding help? V:
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Morgrim Moon 12/23/2018 6:15 PM
if they bruise from anything short of non-crushing impact, probably not
18:16
bits that have protective scutes might be okay, but hands won't
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2018 6:16 PM
hmm, hands were the main reason to go with partial pressure
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Morgrim Moon 12/23/2018 6:16 PM
I mean, they'll do BETTER than humans, but probably not enough to build tech around it
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MarcusAurelius 12/23/2018 6:31 PM
For mars type environment they might get away with it, if they have tough enough hands
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Thinking of maximally adversary planetary testing range/proving ground for whole robotic combat systems. As in, army groups of bots and AI commanders get delivered, endurance is measured.
14:37
With deliveries and testing going on for centuries.
14:41
I came up with following: A moon of gas giant on close orbit, tectonically and climatically active, radioactive due to nukes, with strong EM noise due to gas giant, with landscape mostly consisting of mud hundreds of meters deep, sometimes covered with treacherous crust of ash. Both atmosphere and mud sea is full of metals and ceramic from previous generations of bots, with engineered microbiota that feeds on radiation and uses dust of blasted drones for loose structural material, plus recycles some kinds of material.
14:43
Climate ranges from very cold petrochemical mud on poles with crystals of frozen water thrown into the mix to sometimes boiling mud near equator.
14:44
Nuking is encouraged. Full Von-Neuemann replication isn't, limited production is.
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...That sounds less like a testing ground for combat hardware and more like a breeding ground for a set of maximum survival-optimized, high-specialist systems.
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What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
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If you want actual combat testing done, I'd do it in enviroments that are at least aproximate of the actual combat enviroment demands.
14:45
(aka: desolate siberian tundra. Expand from there by doming parts over and terraforming the underlying biome.)
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That can go on a moon that's on higher orbit
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MarcusAurelius 12/29/2018 4:42 PM
Look at what we do now. We tend to test our weapon systems in the most extreme likely environments. The us for example usually does testing in Alaska, some part of the desert Midwest, a frosted area, and swamps
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well, that moon sounds like hell
10:37
inb4 it's actually Io
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limited production is Well I suppose it depends on how that limit is enforced. It tends to suck when a 'glitch' happens and suddenly you have a wild swarm of Faro war-bots eating your world.
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MarcusAurelius 12/30/2018 12:01 PM
That’s what a big old more-stages-than-a-state-dinner-has-courses Teller-Ulam is for
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A large nuclear bomb? The bots will presumably be hardened against anything short of being destroyed directly anyway.
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MarcusAurelius 12/30/2018 12:06 PM
Small moon, multi-gigaton yield, problem solved
12:07
Or sufficiently disbursed for orbital assets to finish off
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The solution to all of life's problems is nuclear weapons
12:07
-The United States of America
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MarcusAurelius 12/30/2018 12:19 PM
More Russia, actually. We tried fewer peaceful use tests and never had as much effort devoted to our nuclear forces
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Count Erskyll said nothing for a moment. He was opposed to the use of force. Force, he believed, was the last resort of incompetence; he had said so frequently enough since this operation had begun. Of course, he was absolutely right, though not in the way he meant. Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer. -- A Slave is a Slave H. B. Piper
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It's not there to test equipment in most likely combat conditions. It's to test AIs in command and endurance of equipment in hell
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:11 PM
@Kerr basically it’s the principal of “our knowledge base doesn’t include these phenomena, so our science has figured them out yet”
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Can you give an example in your setting?
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:13 PM
Sure, a few. Hyperspace, psionics, inertial compensation, (pseudo)-reactionless drives
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Hyperspace: Like another extra universe/dimensions of sorts? Psionics: Do you give an explenaition for them? Inertial compensation: There are a few possibilities. Reactionless drives: Depends on the details.
12:15
The first two are definition problems. The the last two are engineering ones.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:16 PM
Yes to the first Complete mystery on the second
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It works.
12:16
Hopefully very well.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:16 PM
To which one?
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Psionics.
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The first thing is kinda predicted by brane cosmology. The second is completly doable in current physics, just how hard it is depends.
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How the yucky is "bend stuff with your mind" supposed to work?
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:18 PM
Is that To me or kerr?
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I needed to invent a whole separate area of physics for that, and that was after I threw down the gaunlet on trying to justify mass effect biotics the conventional way.
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DNI in combination with some controllable medium. Imagine something like utility fog that surrounds you.
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Like, psionics is "somehow neurons have a unique condition to create field that influence our world" stuff.
12:19
That's cyberpathy.
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If you want to call it that.
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I'm pretty sure that marcus means "space magic" with psionics.
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No one said you have to make it literal psionics and also to explain it.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:19 PM
Yep, mine is also a fundamental feature of some universes in the greater Existence. It’s not everywhere, and is probably artificial
12:20
Best guess in universe, it’s from back when some of the nicer precursors were doing some reality hacking
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It's one of these things were you better leave it a mystery.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:23 PM
Yep. The advantage of a very old settings with lots of precursors and archeotech is you can just say “they have a working knowledge of it, but no theoretical understanding yet”
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Even for hard SF it seems adventagous. You can have some nice stuff like FTL without having some handwave solution are atleast factories massing as much as entire stars and converting daily solar outputs into wormholes and warp drives in a billionth of a second. So how do your reactionless drives work? As in, what do they do? (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:31 PM
The current formulation is externally fed photon rockets. As in, the input power from the ship is negligible, they derive power from elsewhere
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That's it?
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:33 PM
With obscene amounts of power, yeah. There are more exotic ones (carrot on a stick drives basically) but those are rare as primaries, they’re mostly used for translation control
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Those exotic ones sound like your run of the mill space drives.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:35 PM
Nothing too kooky beyond the power to weight ratio, yeah
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Well. The simple solution would be something like a wormhole through which you send power. But that is essentially an drive that works like a perfect antimatter laser which you can refuel using gravel.
12:36
But that makes it loose mass over time. So that's kind of fuel.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:36 PM
They pull power from an, again, unknown source. So if they are like batteries, they haven’t hit the limit
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Sure. But that doesn't matter, if it is an wormhole it will loose mass due to conservation of it. You can always "refuel" it rather easily and continue taping that source. Hm... how fast are these going?
12:38
Personal interest really, wormhole powered ramjets. Eat lots of interstellar hydrogen and use a giant laser beam to accelerate indefinitely. (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 12:50 PM
Max speed in real space is an asymptotic approach to c
12:50
Most military ships are 200k+ g’s of continuous acceleration
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200k g huh? How come they aren't solar system buster?
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 1:00 PM
Oh they are. Active defense are the name of the game, and civilians getting access to drives with anything near that potential is extremely regulated by the states that have them
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Enderminion 01/02/2019 1:14 PM
don't let Jmpr hear that
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 1:15 PM
Which part? My list of his triggers aren’t complete.
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Enderminion 01/02/2019 1:18 PM
civilians getting access to drives with anything near that potential is extremely regulated by the states that have them
13:18
that part
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Don't let me hear that part, either. Oops.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 1:20 PM
Part of it’s scarcity, part of it is power control, and part of it is paranoia from billions of years of extinction-War
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And that is why my drives are pseudo-inertialess and just failover well out of range of planets, making it impossible to weaponize them even if you wanted to.
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Could you not just use it to accelerate a large rock up to, I don't know, 0.99c and then leave it going?
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Nope. The waverider and warp drive are pseudo-velocity drives. (edited)
13:59
Shutting the drive down leaves you with the newtonian vector you started the drive at.
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There's probably room for some meddling, though.
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Well yes. You can enclose an RKKV, manouver it into position, and let go.
14:00
that however is very noticable.
14:01
Waverider, much less warp drives, weight multiple kilotons by themselvews.
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Still seems rather problematic. Anything being accelerated in any direction can be a RKKV.
14:02
Even a small ship fitting inside a 10m bubble could be replaced with some compacted machinery and a 5-7m tungsten ball.
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Not really.
14:03
Again, the drive has a minimum mass.
14:03
Accelerating that out will take a while.
14:03
During which someone will go "hey, wait a second" and then furious slapping of naughty sophs ensures.
14:04
That aside, those are the sort of stunts somebody tries once, and thereafter never because even looking like you're planning to do this can get you pre-emptively obliterared.
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You can also do something like warping to nearish a gravity well, let your thing fall, then warping back up and repeating, though I assume that's not fast.
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With other words, it is a Bad Move. (edited)
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Just set the drive at the RKKV velocity plus some extra velocity. Move in front of it and then activate the drive.
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@gollark Getting up to relativistic velocit would take you several years with that, however. Too strong gravity well and the waverider drive crashes, besides.
14:06
The other point I was making, it's a Bad Move.
14:06
Every actor who is halfway intelligent understands that using RKKVs will make Powers That Be very unamused, and then everyone is heading for the beheading stand.
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There's probably a more efficient way than just falling, at least.
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Which makes it in everyone else's interest to shoot that person before they do something suicidally stupid.
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@Enderminion While yes, the governments are going to do what they can to stop civilians from getting very high power drives, or at least regulate those who have them already, someone is going to manage to break the law anyway. What happens next may be good story fodder, though
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"There is no such thing as overkill." -Republic of Jai Military Experimental Weapons Division motto
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[overkill] "We have a weapon on the drawing board that destroys every point in the universe at every moment along its worldline simultaneously. Does that qualify?" - Eye-in-the-Flame Arms, Ontopathic Weapons Group (edited)
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0/10 - does not destroy entire totality of existence.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:08 PM
Not unless it pushes into the plenum too.
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But, y'know, it only lets you destroy one universe at a time, and who has time for that?
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Wiping out everything which ever has, will and could exist is much more efficient.
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Their other motto is "It is a proven fact that giant mechs make everything better."
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:10 PM
I mean… :V
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Unfortunately, the Ontopathic Weapons Group is having some trouble devising a means of wiping out transfinite realms of extrauniversal chaos in a way that doesn't also leave behind transfinite realms of extrauniversal chaos, chaos being like that.
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16:11
Research philosophers are on the case!
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:11 PM
…Freezing it would work too, no?
16:12
"straightens all worldlines"
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It's not overkill, per se, but the resident Great Old Ones find it rude that you're putting them out of work
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So far that's a mite stuck on the problem of where you get a transfinite realm of extrauniversal chaos to use to freeze your existing one.
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What the
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@Kerr please note this does not actually exist
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No, what pittyful weapon designers do you have?
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you dare call Jaian mecha pitiful? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:19 PM
…I'm not sure how you're going to one-up omnicidal ontotech, but I'm interested to hear it.
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Again: The Great Old Ones need a job just like everyone else
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Hey, I will happily take ideas for weapons that can overkill "destroys the entire universe at every point of its existence simultaneously".
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destroys every universe at every point of their existences simultaneously
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:21 PM
"destroys the very concept of existence"
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"If it was possible to destroy the universe, some idiot would have done it already." -Jar'tel Tweebly, Jaian philosopher
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:23 PM
Who says this is the universe's first go-around? :V
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Assuming there is some kind of hyperspace as predicted by current theoretical physics (string theory, brane cosmology). This is an non-compactified realm in which branes resign in. Such as our 3+1 dimensional one.
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16:24
Interestingly enough gravitons are open strings and can traverse it. In general relativity there are so called pp-waves. An exotic kind of gravitational waves.
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16:26
One of those spacetime solutions is the pp-wave of death. Essentially a gravitational wave consisting out of gravitational singularities that scramble and annihilate spacetime as they go.
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frick
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 4:27 PM
I might borrow that
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How about a Vacuum Decay Inducer?
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Now you have an hyperspac traversing death wake that propagates through 10 spacial dimensions and a time dimension. The distance between branes is exceedingly small. So even nanoseconds after release you get yourself a trillion-fold universe kill count.
16:29
@KAL_9000 Universe (vacua) and speed of light limited.
16:33
Wanna hear another of Kerr's on the edge physics monstrosities? Albeit a lot milder.
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MarcusAurelius 01/02/2019 4:33 PM
Please do
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Oh goody. Kerr is CC-ing from Orion‘s Arm insanities superweaponing again.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:39 PM
"a lot milder" meaning merely one universe?
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The inflation bomb. An small region of spacetime is brought to near planck conditions. The spacetime supercools into a false vacuum. The false vacuum has to be in one the quantum fields. A scalar field (for example the higgs boson) will have negative pressure if there is more potential than kinetic energy in it. The gravitational field can be calculated by: P + 3p P is the energy density, p pressure. w is the ratio of energy density and pressure. w = 0 (matter) w = 1/3 (radiation: photons, neutrinos) w = -1 (scalar field vacuum) So the negative gravitational field inflates the space. The increasing volume maintains it energy density though.
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16:40
@Unknown using pp-waves of death = cc'ing orions arm?
16:43
This mean we effectively generate a new universe. Inside the universe. After the expansion stopped the entire universe has been deformed a bit. The false vacuum decays back into particles of all sort. The two-punch effect is the momentary inflation of the entire bulk of the universe and then energy release of a universe worth of mass-energy.
📌 1
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:45 PM
So what does that do to conservation laws?
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Conservation laws aren't fundamental and don't hold in general relativity (energy and momentum conservation breaks).
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:46 PM
So can we break the second law with it?
16:46
(of thermo)
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Thermodynamics is statistical in nature.
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Second law, no.
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You could try (Ulijen says that doesn't work out).
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Conservation of energy is the first law.
16:48
Second law is entropy.
16:48
Messing with that one means messing with information causality in funky ways.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:48 PM
If you have a process that creates localized energy, it looks a lot like decreasing the local entropy without raising the global entropy.
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Eh.. if you have wormholes and alcubierre drives using ANEC-violations the second law is also broken.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:49 PM
Certainly there's now a gradient where there was none before.
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Is ANEC a global violation of S(e) > S(a)?
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No. But it messes with black hole entropy.
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Hmmm.
16:50
Also @0111narwhalz principally I would say that on an absolute scale, I am just adding more energy.
16:51
I‘m not making any energy there more orderly.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:51 PM
If you're adding more energy in a single volume, you're making the energy of the universe overall more concentrated, no?
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Sure. Hm..
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Got nothing to do with concentration.
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Upgrade time!
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:52 PM
I always understood it as relating to flow.
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Though it‘s weird because percentage-wise, yes you are adding more order.
16:52
Global entropy thus decreases.
16:52
Though entropy stays, as a quantity, the same.
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Why Not!!! Excuse me, I need to go eat dinner.
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If you had 600kJ/K of entropy before, you‘ll have 600kJ/K of entropy afterwards. (edited)
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We can make this one capable of collapsing the universe. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:53 PM
The global entropy being maximal means that there's no more flow to occur, since everything's at more or less the same energy state.
16:54
I guess you don't need to reduce entropy to allow eternal life as long as you can ensure flow.
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Thermodynamics is a bit iffy at cosmological scales.
16:55
And especially at microscopic scales. The second law is pretty much a general statement only.
16:56
Yes, entropy increases from the infinite past to the infinite future. But you have non-zero probabilities of local entropy drops.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:56 PM
Time-local space-global?
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Universally. Local drops is like a ideal gas moving back into a canister. (edited)
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Or a water molecule turning back into a water crystal.
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The particles still follow newtons laws of motion for example.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:58 PM
Which you can do by processes which produce entropy elsewhere, no?
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How would that work? Imagine a high entropy gas in a room.
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@0111narwhalz Chill water down into an ice blocky
16:59
Thermal pump.
16:59
Entropy was generated elsewhere, and the work to do that generated some more entropy again.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 4:59 PM
And heat pumps produce entropy, yeah.
17:00
So while the local, open system experienced a decrease in entropy, the global, closed system experienced an increase.
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They will follow newtons laws of notion. If there trajectories in such a way that they reform into a less entropic structure it will do so without increasing entropy elsewhere.
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Or at least: not a decrease, @0111narwhalz.
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As said, thermodynamics is a statistical science. Violations are possible, just unlikely to ever see.
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It‘s perfectly valid to just move entropy without generating anymore, at least, assuming perfect machines.
17:01
You just can‘t make any less of it, per the Second Law.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:01 PM
Is entropy "attached" to energy?
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It‘s the degree of energetic disorder.
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I recommend reading up on the concept of boltzmann brains. Its a good example of apparent entropy violations in a max entropy universe with infinite time scales. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:02 PM
As in, if you had a process which violates conservation of energy by destruction of energy, could it destroy entropy with it?
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Principally, yes.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:03 PM
neat
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But you do no one a favor.
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Unless you create some new, ordered mass-energy also.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:04 PM
So you could take a process which creates energy, and a process which destroys energy, and overall reduce entropy?
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In which case the first step is uneccesary.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:04 PM
Can you concentrate entropy without creating entropy?
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Well depends.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:05 PM
(assuming perfect machines, et cetera)
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The more energy in the system the higher the thermodynamic equilibrium.
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Define "concentrating" (edited)
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:06 PM
Taking several volumes containing energy at a given entropy and causing one volume of energy to raise its entropy while the other volumes decrease theirs.
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I get a carnot vibe
17:09
Albeit you are describing one volume cooling down and others heating up?
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:16 PM
No energy moves from one volume to another.
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Yes, so one volume cooling and the other heating up.
17:27
Temperature is just a measure of thermal energy per entropy.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2019 5:40 PM
hmm, so entropy pumps are just heat pumps?
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Jar'tel Tweebly is the Jaians' most famous philosopher
18:04
Her book PROVERBS: A SPOTTERS' GUIDE is one of the most sold of all time in Jaian space
18:06
An example: "You can live the rest of your life without breathing. The rest of your life won't be very long."
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MarcusAurelius 01/03/2019 7:00 PM
Does she have a chapter devoted to mercenaries?
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Oh, she has proverbs about everything
17:43
Laid the foundations for modern Jaian philosophy
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MarcusAurelius 01/04/2019 11:31 PM
It’s a joke. She sounds vaguely like the Maxims
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2019 2:01 AM
the conversation in #technicalities is making me want to go back to a magic-realism story I had, where a scientist character was ranting that magic can't be real it doesn't work and the mage was ranting back that oh, she's sorry he hasn't read Koukluse's Theory of Thaumic Transmutation and said theory was one that explained how magic and electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force fitted together, but the strong nuclear force seemed completely incompatible. Although gravity was kinda sorta working. So there was a bit where they were trying to get General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and Thaumic Transmutation coexisting to find the grand theory of everything. Discarded because beta reader said any story that required that much background knowledge was a bad story, which was admittedly a fair criticism.
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MarcusAurelius 01/06/2019 2:06 AM
If handled decently, I think most readers could grasp the rough importance and relation of the concepts from context
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2019 2:10 AM
yeah, I'd have to rewrite it. It was mostly an excuse to have an Egan-style (but not Egan-competance) "look here is a magic system based on electromagnetism and weak nucleaic force!" thing. I was doing too much swotting for exams
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I once read a published novel that replaced the whole of physics with Aristotelian elemental theory and Taoist alchemy. So, y’know, there’s a market for heavy-on-the-background stuff.
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2019 2:18 AM
it did have a good bit about "wait, that means mages can get rid of radioactive waste products?" "mages can rapidly accelerate their decay. When in close proximity. And we haven't figured out how to automate it because magic and semi-conductors don't play nice together. Tell me, what's your radiation shielding like?" "Ahh." And then people lamenting they've forgotten how to make computers out of gears and vacuum tubes, this is really inconvenient.
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@Morgrim Moon it sounds like there would be a unified force of magic and the electroweak force. But that should happen above 246 GeV. Is there any mechanism which enables any strong coupling between the three forces below unification? (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2019 5:07 AM
not sure what you mean by below unification
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Below the unification energy of the three "forces".
05:09
Electromagnetism is still weakly coupled to gravity. Even at our temperatures, which are really far away from unification at the planck temperature/energy. But that coupling can be reformulated into the boring conclusion that EM fields have mass-energy which then curves spacetime.
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2019 5:14 AM
it was about providing alternate energy paths to mess with the bonding so that mammoth energies weren't required. Sort of the equivalent of using a flying carpet to carry an object from the top of one skyscraper to another and not having to remove and then replace all the potential energy like you would if you carried it down the stairs and across the street and back up the next stairs, if I'm making any sense
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Ah, magic
10:45
All magic in my 'verse is the result of Sufficiently Advanced Technology
10:46
(a.k.a. the Precursors fucking with the space-time continuum)
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If in doubt, invoke Heterodyne's Corollary.
10:51
That's how I manage to get a psionic system into a reasonably hard sci-fi!
10:51
😄
10:52
Precursor mindfuckery
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One explenation, that Sevoris didn't like, due it being another cateogory, is that you have some precoursors installing something like utility onto every planet and astronomical body they find. Or limited to certain places like planets. So you this utility fog created by some self-replicating precursor tech that has lost its function and responds to commands, recreating psionics in looks and effects. This might also mean that mages like to stay on and teraform planets instead of living in orbital habitats. They might also don't like to travel through space, as their powers don't work outside of the spacecraft and they are weakened overall. (edited)
13:04
Extensive use of "magic" might be draining. And physical magic is very consuming for the areas they are used and also the user, as the substrate requires power to run computations for the logistics and might also use the users brain to do so.
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As Jar'Tel Tweebly says in Proverbs: A Spotter's Guide: "Keep your friends close and the alcohol closer."
🍻 4
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(in reference to how to deal with discovering you're psionic) (edited)
09:50
Footnote to the proverb: "Seriously, you're going to need them both. It does a lot to your sanity."
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Psionics in my 'verse is a result of the Precursors fucking with reality. In the 'verse, anything that breaks the laws of physics will give sophonts a headache after prolonged exposure. Constant exposure (e.g. getting psionic powers) will severely damage a sophont's sanity, and, if said sophont is left untreated/not buttressed by a support network, it results in an ax-crazy psychopath with psionic abilities, which doesn't end well for anyone. (edited)
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if they're broken, how are they laws of physics? (edited)
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Precursor ontotech
11:46
That kind of breaking the laws of physics
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Morgrim Moon 01/10/2019 6:01 PM
the 'okay clearly this is possible, we just haven't figured out what loophole they're using' sort of breaking?
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MarcusAurelius 01/11/2019 3:44 AM
In today’s edition of “names that the IN would probably enjoy borrowing”, the twin dreadnoughts A.M.S. Gålrúnxavamen Šœ Amelisal (Defender of The Light) A.M.S. Gålhændaf Šé Ñódæas (Wall Against The Night)
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@Morgrim Moon yeah, pretty much
08:50
Whatever loophole it is has the unfortunate side effect of (more mildly) emulating an Elder God's influence on the sophont brain
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is there an observable range to that effect? Watching recording of the event does not cause issues?
10:25
And are high-precision machines also disrupted?
10:26
I'm hypothesizing some sort of byproduct spacial-molecular distortion in the nearby area that brains interprerate as hallucinatory input or disrupted thoughts, while computers might glitch and machines could snag
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@o11o1 watching a recording doesn't affect it, but yes, a byproduct of the ontotech is the scrambling/decomposition of a small percentage of molecules in the affected area. While not enough to severely damage equipment/brains, it does induce glitches/headaches, and prolonged exposure can do damage to specialized equipment/sophont sanity. Thanks for the good idea! (edited)
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I mean, yes, but. That part is actually understandable to me? Like, there's a saying that in a realistic setting there is no such thing as a story...
14:54
Harmony of Horizon. They look nice from outside, but things you don't see are... Yeah. And this is why United Federation of Planets about to go to war with them
14:55
Bunch of shitty uploads playing Sims
14:55
With all the other people
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/14/2019 4:46 PM
A THING! I FINALLY WROTE A THING! YES
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/14/2019 5:08 PM
"...And out across the desert, a few kilometers out from the railstation terminal, she saw all three outbound craft. Even from this distance, the exhaust and vapor plumes easily towered over the rest of the landscape and the natural clouds around, majestically dwarfing everything, and the three just kept on climbing and climbing onwards even as she looked. The aerospace collectives were advertising about their successes daily and everywhere, with the new Imperial government's help. You didn't have to be much of an obsesionado to know these were almost certainly the new type of single-stage spaceplane, the Hailstorm-class. Knowing her place in history, it was humorous to Kheris to look at them as 'new'. For Heaven's sake, it was the year 1995 of the Era. Any schoolchild who had sat on a history class could tell you that the civilizations of old and distant Earth had already mastered liquid oxygen rocketry, linear aerospike design, and reentry shielding for over two millenia by now. The great interplanetary cruisers they would meet up above had propulsive designs first conceived more than thirty years before Zero. Nothing about the technologies that comprised the Empire's rapidly growing infrastructure beyond Tiffany was new in that sense. And yet the advertisements put out were right in another; old Earth had followed a technological development path characterized by inefficiency, political disinterest and fits and starts. Tiffany followed a far more logical progression that adopted only the best concepts and designs available to it within the budget, and with the benefit of hindsight. Forward progress? Not really. It was more sideways progress, but all for the good."
17:15
@MarcusAurelius So I did. For reference, the Hailstorm shuttle referenced here is essentially a highly-refined and larger version of the VentureStar concept from our time.
17:16
This civilization actually originates from a Solar System that was far more advanced than this, obviously. But, they've spent the past millenium with their educated technical classes mostly busy developing colonization and terraforming equipment across their virgin world rather than inventing new breakthroughs
17:20
The infrastructure here is essentially a very long engineering test project meant to restore the Empire's technical capacity to where the Solar System's was before planetfall (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 01/14/2019 9:35 PM
do they know the cause of the fall?
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/14/2019 9:51 PM
?
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MarcusAurelius 01/14/2019 9:51 PM
Of Earth
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/14/2019 9:52 PM
These people left Earth’s SOI a long long time ago
21:52
Most people presume it must be some kind of Type II civilization by now
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MarcusAurelius 01/14/2019 9:57 PM
So is Tiffany one of the earlier colonies, or is there some other reason their powerful? Or I assume them to be, at any rate
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2019 5:59 AM
It's the capital
06:00
Along with the other two 'crown worlds' it shares a star system with
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Communism (n.): A type of economy and system of government in which sophonts produce what they can and take what they need, managed by a central government, which does its best to eliminate inequality. Although it sounds great in theory, in practice, despots and inefficiency tend to turn the system into the means by which a central dictatorship exerts its will on the populace. For the type of government/social system sometimes produced by post-scarcity civilizations, see "Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism" (Post-Scarcity Socialism). -The Encyclopædia Galactica (human translation), Wikipedia equivalent on the Galactic Extranet (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 12:51 PM
@KAL_9000 No it doesn't even sound great in theory
12:51
It means people work for no real tangible benefit to themselves
12:51
Nobody's going to exert themselves more than they have to without punishment or reward, humans are lethargic.
12:52
And we saw this in the old Soviet joke: "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work"
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I wish to quibble with the turn Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism on the grounds that communism/socialism to one degree or another necessarily involve stealing other people's shit. In a post-scarcity civilization, such is entirely unnecessary for any reason other than being a dick, 'cause you can get your own for the asking.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 12:54 PM
@Overmind "Oh it's selfish can't you think of all the helpless disabled and poor"
12:55
(Most of whom would be so much better off if we actually traded effing fairly with them)
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If you have disabled and poor people in your FALSC, you're doing it very wrong.
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I'm sure you can probably work out a better system if you don't go around confining it to either extreme.
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MarcusAurelius 01/17/2019 12:56 PM
It has a baseline appeal because it tries to take how many humans prefer to work in small groups and extend it to societal level
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Cynically, it has an appeal because most people think they'll get more out than they have to put in.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 12:57 PM
It has a baseline appeal partly because it indicts Evil Megacorps, which is a convenient and appealing narrative for people
12:57
And one with a grain of truth, but from such the best lies spring.
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MarcusAurelius 01/17/2019 12:57 PM
I’m talking about the ideology in and of itself, not it’s origins as a reactionary response to the industrial revolution
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That this turns out not to be the case in practice is why every attempt to implement it inevitably requires whips and guns to enforce appropriate degrees of self-sacrificingness.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 12:58 PM
See: The Anarcho-Statists of Spain
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Well, okay, but even then, the small groups people are extrapolating from tend to be either:
12:59
(a) families, in which parents tend to have a selfish reason to support their children, hard-coded by biology;
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MarcusAurelius 01/17/2019 12:59 PM
It also has the downside of being easy to be suborned by powerful oligarchies/dictators during the revolutionary phase
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 12:59 PM
The small groups people extrapolate from are communes, where you know everyone and trust them
12:59
High trust is the key
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MarcusAurelius 01/17/2019 12:59 PM
I was thinking of peer groups and small working groups
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 12:59 PM
The same applies in regard to trust.
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and (b) those early tribal societies also known for their extraordinarily high murder rate, in which it tends to be the case that anyone who isn't generous enough is first socially punished, and if that doesn't work, gets a spear in the back pour encourager les autres .
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:01 PM
It's said that Hadza tribesmen insult each others' catch to prevent people from being too 'bigheaded' or something irrelevant like that
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Heh. My experience of small working groups is that when success and failure is collectivized to the group, the group divides almost instantaneously into (more) free-riders and (fewer) suckers.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:03 PM
Most '''socialists'''' these days cite Scandinavia, to such a degree that they're basically selling it as Paradise come to Earth
13:03
Of course, they never mention attitudes like Janteloven, or the oil keeping Norway's budget balanced
13:03
(or the suicide rates and seasonal depression)
13:05
(or the fact their cancer survival rates are nearly equal to America's within 5-10%) (edited)
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Which is ironic, because none of them have any idea how the Scandinavian economy actually works. Which is to say: far more rapaciously capitalist than the US, just taxed heavily at the output end, because whatever else the Scandasocialists are, they're smart enough to realize that you have to produce in order to redistribute. The average US socialist, on the other hand, in polls will reliably claim that they want a more equal society even if the poor end of more-equal is worse off thereafter. Because they're friggin' morons.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:05 PM
Notch is a billionaire
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(As for Jante's Law... dear gods, that's pretty much Peak Human Social Perversity.)
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Or the elephant in the room: most of europe gets to subsidize most of their medical certification with "if the FDA allows it we do", also military.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:07 PM
@Ian Bruene The elephant in the room is NATO
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(that they then complain about the US being World Police is rather hypocritical of them)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:07 PM
America's basically paying for the defense of everything outside of Poland and north of Turkey
👆 2
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sometimes we (The US) make noise about people paying their fees
13:08
sometimes that gets people to pay a little more
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:08 PM
As well as having subsidized the UK's weapons program. France may be the exception, but they too benefit because of their proximity
13:09
doesnt the US millitary have like several hundred thousand personnel stationed in continental europe (edited)
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sounds about right
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:09 PM
The USSR or Russia couldn't invade them without getting through Germany and the NATO there first
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I suspect there was a degree of post-war "these garrisons will at least prevent the Europeans from firing up "let's all kill each other, Round Three", 'cause that was bloody expensive for us the last two times".
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:10 PM
That was the EU I think
13:11
'The economic interdependency will stop us from killing each other because that's bad for business', which has at least a patina of good sense (edited)
13:11
Fast forward to now and well hue
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They assumed countries would act sanely. They were wrong.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:12 PM
stupidity, uh, finds a way (edited)
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The fundamental flaw of the EU is that it couldn't be everyone's secret plan to conquer Europe at the same time.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:13 PM
You can make a better safety but the universe can raise you a bigger idiot
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(Well, except for the UK, whose foreign policy for the last thousand years has been to keep Europe disunited at all costs.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:18 PM
Macron proposed an EU army
13:18
'empire of peace'
13:18
I think this makes it official
13:20
Of course, nobody’s going to assent to some Franco-German project to unite the continent but that doesn’t mean people won’t try
13:20
And the idea is being discussed
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Of course, it's got momentum of its own now, but when I was a lad, the standard joke was that the French wanted military unification because they were scared of the Germans might do, the Germans wanted economic unification because they were scared of what the French might do, and the British were only there to see that neither of them got it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 1:26 PM
The bicycle stick meme comes to mind. 'Yankees are trying too hard to be a world police!' (falls over) 'america pls help.'
13:30
I can’t judge anyone collectively anymore though
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I'm wondering how the new "Shared Burdens" civic in Stellaris is supposed to work.
15:45
It seems to be "Democratic Socialism" in actual practice.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 4:15 PM
It seems to be Socialism except how it is envisioned in theory
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 8:44 PM
honestly, if I had to pick a regime that was closest to what I see as pure evil, its a tie between inquisition-era spain and confucianism
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Why Confucianism?
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 8:50 PM
Because it promotes an explicit view that people are mostly just meant to be cogs in the system, shut up, and take it
20:51
And from what I've seen in East Asia, it's nothing I want close to myself
20:52
The entire train of thought that children are always subordinate to their parents and are almost literally bodily owned by their ancestors was something I felt pretty revolting when I firest heard of it
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Keep in mind that he lived during a time period when China was in an almost constant state of civil war.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2019 8:56 PM
I know his name is actually Kong Fu Shu or something close
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The Zhou dynasty was practically powerless and their de jure vassal states were constantly squabbling over territory and vying for hegemony. The states that dismantled their feudal hierarchies in favor of bureaucratic systems based on Confucianism or Legalism were coming to dominance, eventually leading to the Legalist state of Qin usurping the throne.
21:01
And Legalism was far, far, more draconian and Confucianism.
21:02
Much less idealistic as well.
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Confucianism was the more humane, and ultimately more successful, philosophy for stabilizing the warring states
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In response to your concerns, the Encyclopædia Galactica is fine with limited amounts of joking, as long as it's clearly marked. Communism sounds great in theory because of the whole "help the poor" thing, not necessarily its government
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TotallyNotHuman 01/18/2019 9:57 AM
so you mean "socialism?" :V
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yeah pretty much
09:57
should have phrased it clearer
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"No," says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor."
👌 2
10:03
it's about 10 times funnier if it refers to Washington State
10:04
and 100 times funnier if someone is inside George Washington's corpse
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I'll be posting a random entry from the Encyclopædia Galactica each day for the next few days
12:50
blue (n., adj.): n. A color of light produced by electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths of 450-495 nanometers (frequencies of 606-668 terahertz) | adj. An object that predominantly reflects light in the wavelength/frequency range described above | details follow (edited)
12:52
Or a couple each day, who knows
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Earth: Earth (Sol III) is a terrestrial planet in the Sol system, third from its parent star (following Mercury and Venus). Earth has a mass of 1 Earth masses, a radius of 1 Earth radii, an average surface gravity of 1G, an average temperature of 288°K, a sidereal day of 23h 56m 4s, an average solar day of 1 day, and a sea-level atmospheric pressure of 1 atm. Earth's orbital characteristics are as follows: Periapsis: 0.983 AU, Apoapsis: 1.017 AU, Semi-Major Axis: 1 AU, Eccentricity: 0.017, Orbital Period: 1 year, Average Orbital Speed: 29.78 km/s, Mean Anomaly: 358.6°, Inclination: 1.579° to the Sol system's invariable plane, Longitude of the Ascending Node: -11.26°, Argument of Periapsis: 114.2°.
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No mention of "original planet of humans"?
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Earth has one natural satellite, Luna, more than 2,500 artificial satellites, and an orbital ring. It is notable for being a Class I Habitable World, the homeworld of the sophont species Terragenæ Homo Sapiens, and the capital of the Earth Republic.
13:06
Had to split the post b/c character limit
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@gollark
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... ???
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Earth has more than 5 million extant species native to the planet, and it is believed that life originated via abiogenesis (no evidence of panspermia being available) approximately 4.1 billion years before the present date. Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, approximately 9.3 billion years after the Big Bang. Earth's current sophont population is 150 billion sophonts, 15 billion of which are inhabiting biological/mechanical bodies on the planetary surface at any given time.
13:09
brb bathroom
13:16
bak
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>Terragenae homo sapiens
13:31
Are there... non-Terragenae homo sapiens?
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No, Terragenæ is Origin, above Domain on the organizational chart. It refers to the world this particular instance of life originated on
13:34
Your question is like asking "Are there non-Homo sapiens?" (edited)
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You mean, humanoid aliens?
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no, species sapiens not in the genus homo
13:37
It's the equivalent of asking about non-Terragenae Homo Sapiens
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Ah, I see what you mean, offworld variants of human beings. (edited)
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no, they'd still be Terragenae
13:39
The particular abiogenesis event that created their lineage still happened on Earth
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It would be one heck of a shock if we found other, or the remains of, human civilizations on other planets, a bit like EVE: Online (edited)
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non-Earth human civilizations :V (edited)
13:41
We think we're the first civilization in human and Earth history to achieve space flight
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The motto of the Earth Republic is stupra chao, a Latin phrase which roughly translates as "screw entropy"
14:17
The equivalent of "screw entropy" is to be the motto of most trans/postsophont polities in the known galaxy, as it happens
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The Jaian motto is Frytion! Larcon! Obnorambon! Nekon! Bahe pizatil enulsecen!, which translates to "Freedom! Justice! Prosperity! Negentropy! And a cold beverage of your choice!"
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 4:18 PM
@KAL_9000 no i does not, it translates to "rape with chaos!"
👆 1
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 4:23 PM
the Latin for his nation was... off
16:24
if he wants to keep "fuck" something closer would be something along the lines of "abolescetionem pedicet" "may decay get sodomized"
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Methinks some entropy has afflicted the language databanks.
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 4:41 PM
It’s also just very hard to translate
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A linguistic oops has occurred
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whoops
18:49
You see, it turns out Latin doesn't have a direct equivalent of "fuck", nor does it of "entropy" besides "chaos"/"decay"
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:33 PM
Chaos in Latin almost always refers to either the underworld or the primordial deity though, not the modern meaning
20:33
It has a lot of equivalents for "fuck" in its literal meaning, just not the English exclamatory ones
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I'm guessing David Drake wasn't much of a linguist.
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:35 PM
Why?
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His Romans tend to be as foul-mouthed as his modern and future soldiers.
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:35 PM
Oh they have a lot of profanity, just a different way of expressing it
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Morgrim Moon 01/18/2019 8:36 PM
Romans were foul mouthed, ju ^
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:36 PM
also, many of those more vulgar words may have been lost
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Morgrim Moon 01/18/2019 8:36 PM
the pompeii grafiti has a small selection
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:36 PM
Nah, some survived in actual writing
20:36
for example, the opening 2 lines of Catullus 16
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Well, it's been a bit since I read Ranks of Bronze but I think they were using mostly modern profanity.
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:37 PM
"I will sodomize and face-fuck y'all, faggot Furius and Cocksucker Aurelius"
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Except the ones referring to divinities which mentioned Mercury or Hercules.
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Best relatively-clean translation of that I ever read was “I’ll sodomize and Clintonize you.”
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:40 PM
Clever
20:40
If you want it to be clean, you use the scientific terms
20:41
In the original Latin it's consider dirty though
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Yeah, the more colloquial translation I own goes with “I’ll fuck you up the ass and down the throat”.
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MarcusAurelius 01/18/2019 8:45 PM
Ah. Keeps some of the rhythm to it, nice
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0111narwhalz 01/20/2019 3:55 PM
Speaking of elder gods: Anyone here have tips on building convincing a priori religions?
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Morgrim Moon 01/20/2019 6:02 PM
a priori?
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MarcusAurelius 01/20/2019 6:02 PM
From the beginning/ first principles. In this case, without basing on real world religions
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0111narwhalz 01/20/2019 6:02 PM
Yeah, what he said.
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Morgrim Moon 01/20/2019 6:03 PM
I tend to start with working out what niche the religion fills in the culture
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MarcusAurelius 01/20/2019 6:04 PM
What can I say, possum latinam fari
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Morgrim Moon 01/20/2019 6:04 PM
and understanding you're going to get some influences from real world religions, at least on the cultural level
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0111narwhalz 01/20/2019 6:04 PM
Of course.
18:05
Main thing is to avoid amateurish caricatures.
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MarcusAurelius 01/20/2019 6:05 PM
That’s why I try to be conscious about my inspirations. It makes it easier to contain the comparisons
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0111narwhalz 01/20/2019 6:06 PM
And then, once you've gotten attached to one constructive religion, how do you build another, contrary one? :V
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Morgrim Moon 01/20/2019 6:06 PM
like when I was creating Avatariee, I wanted a fairly religious-based culture, with a pantheon, where very few people were atheist but most were 'attend appropriate celebrations of major deities on major public holidays' and not much more than that, parallelling our culture's "celebrate these 4-5 days of a year"
18:06
and then had some people choosing to devote themselves to one particular deity, how this could be expressed for different deities, what sort of cultural impact this would have
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MarcusAurelius 01/20/2019 6:07 PM
Ah. For me, I used two fundamentally conflicting branches of an original faith to exaggerate a cultural split
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I would suggest looking for/at the GURPS Religion book. Pretty good foundational look at building a religion
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I concur; also, if you can find it, the old Primal Order books - specifically "Knights: Strategies in Motion" - are excellent.
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Tbh, a lot of the GURPS books are excellent reference books
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/20/2019 8:13 PM
I was contemplating how you'd go about building a Dyson Swarm cheaply
20:13
And now I'm sitting here wondering about how you'd make mylar really fast
20:18
Land a few 100-meter Orions, or their cargo onto the surface of a tiny Mercurial world and let the Pseudo-Neumanns have at it digging for minerals to build factories to build more diggers that will also contribute minerals to help build solar collectors that will fuel the mylar refineries to launch from mass drivers to reflect onto solar capture devices to get the energy to build more diggers that will build more extruders
20:18
THE FACTORY GROWS
20:21
The real endgoal of this, however, is to gradually disassemble the planet's surface and get more energy to send off to other places in the star system, thus paying for itself and ending any energy problems people may have forever
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Found the Factorio player
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/20/2019 9:10 PM
@Xveers only played factorio once
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0111narwhalz 01/20/2019 9:10 PM
(he means he hasn't stopped yet)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/20/2019 9:11 PM
>_>
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Factorio is like Eve Online. You never stop. You only take a break
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/20/2019 9:16 PM
one hell of a break so far
21:16
Just waiting to get the full game
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TotallyNotHuman 01/20/2019 9:17 PM
>take a break >factorio
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For the record, if you're waiting for it to go on sale, you'll be waiting for a very long time
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Factorio consumes all
10:00
(of my free time)
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spacer (n.): Colloquial term for a sophont who spends most of their time on a spacecraft as opposed to a world or megastructure. Spacers can usually be distinguished from grounders (see article on grounders) by their unease in large, open spaces (typically not found on space-efficient starships), distaste for greenery not in a predetermined spot, and instinctive glances to spacesuit HUD status readouts, even when not wearing a spacesuit. -Encyclopædia Galactica (edited)
12:09
ansible (n.): A faster-than-light communication device operating via quantum entanglement. Ansibles are distinguished from tanglebursters by a Precursor ontotechnological mechanism in the device, which allows the entangled particles used for communication to be used for a theoretically unlimited number of transmissions. Although the mechansim by which the Precursor ontotechnological attachment works is as of this writing unknown, it is constructed out of known materials and is thus buildable by standard fabricator, thanks to exhaustive studies into the original artifact's design. -Encyclopædia Galactica (edited)
12:13
tangleburster (n.): A faster-than-light communication device operating via quantum entanglement. Tanglebursters are distinct from ansibles due to the lack of ontotechnological attachment, meaning that an entangled particle pair can only transmit one bit before decohering. Tanglebursters are not widely used in the known galaxy anymore, thanks to the discovery of the Precursor reusability artifact. -Encyclopædia Galactica
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@KAL_9000 Add to spacer: tendency to check that doors are firmly closed behind them
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that too
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I liked that as a highlight in a Mass Effect fanfic, where Kaidan says he can see Shepard was born on a spaceship, due to that habit.
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... I object to the lack of greenery thing.
19:08
Because my local spacers are really pro-greenery.
19:08
Partially because they fill every space they can with it.
19:08
And partially because a good plant is a treasure beyond measure.
19:09
To someone who hasn't made landfall in three generations.
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MarcusAurelius 01/22/2019 7:09 PM
they also make oxygen as a side effect, which is a nice positive
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That's one of the reasons they are treasure beyond measure.
19:10
(The food and psychological effects are also pluses)
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MarcusAurelius 01/22/2019 7:10 PM
They're not that efficient for it, but I'd think for most civs they'd be most useful for decoration and food (edited)
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(As are the occasional organic dyes)
19:12
They're pretty multipurpose.
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See, greenery outside of its predetermined area on a starship usually means that mold snuck aboard
07:50
I fixed the entry
07:50
changed "hydroponic incubator" to "predetermined spot"
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that or someone is slacking on pruning the decorative hallway plants
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Nicoll-Dyson beam (n.): A Class II Megastructure, the Nicoll-Dyson beam is essentially a Dyson Swarm in which the orbital elements concentrate the entire energy output of a star into a single, massive phased-array laser. Such a laser is capable of obliterating entire planets in a short period of time, and it is considered one of the most powerful weapons a civilization can build with present-day (as of this writing) technology. The Treaty of Earth following the Human-Aixion Conflict of 3556 was the first treaty between star nations to ban the construction of such weapons, and the later Hyperweapons Ban Treaty of 3728, signed by more than 83% of all extant polities in the known galaxy, expanded the ban to all signatories. -Encyclopædia Galactica
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The Aixionian government later reneged on its obligation to both treaties and began constructing a Nicoll-Dyson beam in secret in 4325. In the short-lived war that followed (see entry on the 4325 Peacekeeping Action), the combined battlefleets of fifty-two interstellar polities annihilated what had been built of the beam and its construction site.
11:14
The Ixfractil system (see entry on the Ixfractil system), where the beam was being built, is considered a travel hazard this day due to unexploded ordinance and memetic weapon broadcasters.
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how do you tell a Nicoll-Dyson beam swarm from a normal Dyson swarm? (edited)
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When they test-fire it
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ah, so you get one firing
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 11:23 AM
Lel
11:23
But anyway
11:23
What can you do with ludicrous quantities of energy exactly
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lots of things
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 11:24 AM
Beside pushing things around or vaporizing them
11:25
A humongous energy surplus that dwarfs 2019 Earths energy usage
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The fifth planet in the Ixfractil system "inexplicably" (according to the Aixionian government) vaporized
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 11:26 AM
Lelllll
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now see, what they should have done is melt-blasted a few surface layers off and then swarmed it with mining ships so that it's an industrial strip-mining activity
11:27
use only a very small fraction of the full power
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At that point why not save money and use fewer lasers?
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the mining is a cover for your actual full strength
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 3:43 PM
Man
15:43
If any of you folks on this server knew Tabac, you know why I regret not being able to get along with him
15:44
He genuinely knew a lot about storytelling even if he was abrasive
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MarcusAurelius 01/23/2019 3:44 PM
He's actually a decent dude
15:44
He just doesn't tolerate anything he sees as idiocy well at all
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 3:44 PM
I couldn’t get along with his group in the end though
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MarcusAurelius 01/23/2019 3:45 PM
He just doesn't tolerate anything he sees as idiocy well at all
15:45
he essentially has two modes/personalities, and you only saw one
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 3:45 PM
I think I saw some of his ‘other’ side
15:45
Actually had a lot of DM contact
15:47
Even had a thing I owe him which I never finished
15:51
At least he pointed me in the right direction and made me actually get off my ass and start thinking about how to tell a story instead of building a world
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Meh. Leaving aside the virtues of dickishness as an aid to persuasion, et. al., in the speculative fiction business it helps if you can define non-idiocy as something other than "skullfuckingly conventional".
17:44
ANYWAY, I came here to talk about NDB detection.
📌 1
17:45
The remarkably obvious point being that megastructures aren't subtle. Anyone keeping an eye on things with a telescope - and you'd better believe space-age milint outfits own some telescopes - can see what you're up to long before it's even close to complete.
📌 1
17:48
Anywhere within range of an NBD is also plenty close enough to resolve the individual swarm elements, too. If you're building a swarm out of laser projectors, or something that might be them or other suspicious elements, that's more than enough to get a relativistic probe doing a quick fly-by of the construction site to see if you might be Up To Something. No need to wait for a test firing.
📌 1
17:49
And if the probe confirms that, yes, that really is a giant swarm of laser elements, a quick follow-up visit ensues for your neighbors' combined task groups. Or as they call it, OPERATION PREEMPTIVE KERBSTOMP.
📌 1
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 5:55 PM
what if the probe provokes them because it's a missile
17:55
Charles Pellegrino where are you (edited)
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Don'e have to aim it at them
👆 2
17:56
a 1-LY flyby will still get you enough data, while keeping a nice wide berth
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Also, much like US-Soviet missile tests, you inform them about it in advance.
17:57
If they shoot it down before it can see what they're up to, that's as good as a confession.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/23/2019 5:57 PM
A 500AU flyby would serve, also informing them about it might give the game away if they're already close enough to finishing it, not to get too argumentative
17:57
I try to think two or three steps ahead
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MarcusAurelius 01/23/2019 7:53 PM
How would a missile threaten an ND beam instillation anyway? It's relatively tiny, and a kinetic impact wouldn't even take out that many members
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Submitted manuscripts for paperback and ebook of my next book to Amazon
20:08
@MarcusAurelius I would guess one of those x-ray laser warhead missile buses
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MarcusAurelius 01/23/2019 8:17 PM
even then, how many lasers could you get from it?
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Following the detonation of the fifth planet in the Ixfractil system, the Human government (the Aixions' main rival) launched a probe towards the Ixfractil system, alerting the Aixionian government in advance. After the probe was destroyed, the Human government began preparations for OPERATION ASSKICKING. (edited)
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My story collection is now in paperback and ebook from both Amazon and Smashwords https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/book-launch-tales-of-the-para-imperium/
The compilation of the first three years of Para-Imperium stories and worldbuilding articles is finally available in both print paperback and ebook formats. For those who find it easier to read on …
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/25/2019 5:11 PM
We're gonna be in close competition
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Congratulations, hope both of you sell well
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:14 PM
Assuming FTL, would a single species expanding across the universe undergo any sort of meaningful allopatry or homopatry? (I realize that's not a word and there are other three types, but text!)
21:15
(Also, no meaningful use of genetic engineering etc. to deviate from the presumed norms)
21:17
(Timescale <10 Kiloannums)
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Humanity started dispersal across the globe without modern transportation tech 200 Kiloannums ago and the most allopatric differentiation we got was some changes in melanin and respiratory systems
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Which may also have been influenced by some of our ancestors practice of interbreeding with Neanderthals.
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I have isolated colonies of my parahumans losing their ability to “breathe vacuum” within centuries but that’s from a shortage of natural sources of dietary iron
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On the other other hand: the diversity of worlds across the galaxy is likely to introduce a lot of evolutionary pressures notably more diverse than a single planet will. If Clan Bob lives on a 4G superterrestrial and Clan Joe on the planet of an A-type star...
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:25 PM
Yeah, the Tiffanians aren't changing much from the Kya of isolation (Departure > Colonization > Splintering > First Empire)
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:25 PM
humans can evolve faster than expected under suitable pressures
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There’s a Polynesian tribe that developed an enlarged spleen for longer deep dives
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(Also: obligatory shout-out to Traveller and the Hivers, who have an entire government department devoted to sending floating cocktail parties/orgies around between their worlds to ensure the gene pool stays well mixed and no-one wanders too far from the norm.)
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:26 PM
a huge chunk of the european disease resistance came about in under 3 generations, due to losing a third of the population to plagues
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0111narwhalz 01/26/2019 9:26 PM
The smaller the population the faster it'll drift, no?
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:26 PM
Not really?
21:26
The stronger the pressure the faster the drift, but you need enough genetic diversity to have something to drift WITH
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:27 PM
The T's, for reference, spent 800 years on the planet of an F-type subgiant, then 200 years until the Current Setting Present aggressively terraforming everything in reach
21:28
So that might keep incipient speciation down
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:29 PM
if you're aggressively keeping people alive and adapting environment to yourselves, then the only real pressure is going to be stuff that smacks in early childhood and stuff that impacts mate-attractiveness, which slows drift down considerably
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:29 PM
Although created through genetic science, the Imperial government is Sinically conservative and tends not to allow anyone use of high-tech.
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A smaller founding population tends to lead to diminishing genetic diversity from inbreeding. Africa was the most genetically diverse continent millennia before neanderthal hybrids recolonized it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:30 PM
The founding population was 10,000, for reference
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And I mean the ones led by Alexander III of Macedon, if not earlier
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:31 PM
the founding population of homo sapiens was about the same >.>
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:33 PM
So even a while after the First Empire and its mad rush to grab everything in sight we won't see much patry of anything
21:33
On the other hand, the Second (and later, because there's more than two regimes) Empire's gonna be a piece'a work.
21:33
Spoilers.
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:35 PM
Height is increasing in human populations in part because 'tall = attractive' seems to be a low level background influence across a very large group of human cultures. Plausibly you could have something similar: a trait that is pronounced because for the last few centuries everyone has agreed its sexy.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:35 PM
@Morgrim Moon so then I think we just gather up all the Tiffanians under the aegis 'Zoanthropus vialactis' and be done with it for now, be thankful I'm not gonna be moving the story much farther than the 1990s IC as of yet :P) (edited)
21:38
A thousand years of natural selection without further guidance of technology could curtail a lot of flamboyant/useless elements as Zarp pointed out though
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@Morgrim Moon The other reason average height has been increasing so dramatically, especially in East Asia, is a shift in diet
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/26/2019 9:42 PM
I could write in something like, "So many of the old Houses had fallen by the wayside, unsuited to the shinsekai's harshness, and gone extinct, or so reduced in numbers that they were effectively extinct, and no more than sad footnotes in demographic tables." (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 01/26/2019 9:45 PM
I know, but even removing that factor height is still increasing. The last paper I read suspected they were linked, in that tall tends to mean 'got a good diet in childhood' (or really good genes for extracting nutrition) and thus an indicator for fittness, and that's why tallness being attractive seems to pop up in multiple cultures
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Hivers also kill their young if they can't raise them right, not really the best example
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And “raising them right” means abandoning them to the wilderness until they can form complete sentences
23:40
And they have sex by shaking hands
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well yeah
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Eh, not everyone's a K-stratrgist.
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I find it a bit comical how you would cheat the laws of physics, only to then habitate planets with sufficient evolutionary pressure to drift off. Anything interstellar is probably just going to make their enviroment drift towards a state equivilant to their home planet, rather than the opposite. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/27/2019 11:05 AM
Wat
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@BizarroLand ♀ Assuming FTL, would a single species expanding across the universe undergo any sort of meaningful allopatry or homopatry? (I realize that's not a word and there are other three types, but text!) (Also, no meaningful use of genetic engineering etc. to deviate from the presumed norms) (Timescale <10 Kiloannums)
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Megastructure (n.): Megastructures are truly enormous constructs built in the vacuum of space, usually for the purposes of resource acquisition, energy collection, and/or habitation. Megastructures are divided into three classes: Class I (planetary scale), Class II (stellar scale), and Class III (intermediate between planetary and stellar scale). -Encyclopædia Galactica
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Morgrim Moon 01/29/2019 8:38 AM
seems odd that III isn't between the others
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it is tho
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Morgrim Moon 01/29/2019 8:40 AM
as in size wise you have I < III < II
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Yeah, I realized that Class III was a thing after I came up with I and II, and am too lazy to retcon
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Enderminion 01/29/2019 8:43 AM
never put off till tomorrow what can be done the day after tomorrow
08:44
For example, an example of a Class I megastructure is an orbital ring around a planet, an example of a Class II megastructure is a Dyson Swarm, and an example of a Class III Megastructure is a shellworld a million kilometers across
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MarcusAurelius 01/29/2019 2:47 PM
There’s lots of scales like that. A lot of protein chains are numbered like that, star classifications, etc.
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Interestingly enough, the treaty does stipulate that three Nicoll-Dyson beams be built and controlled jointly. Mostly because the various eldritch horrors the civilized galaxy's run into so far are still vulnerable to the energy output of an entire star focused into a laser shooting at them.
18:09
There are really dangerous ones, but the civilized galaxy hasn't run into them yet. (edited)
18:12
One particular eldritch horror is a living super-Earth... that eats other planets
18:13
Needless to say, it was named after the first thing the crew of the exploratory ship thought off
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/31/2019 6:13 PM
galactus?
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Unicron?
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ELDRITCH HORROR 531: DESIGNATION: OHSHIT
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/31/2019 6:14 PM
Clever (edited)
18:14
Saves time when you have to do panic dialogue
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The Beast Planet?
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See, Galactus is a picky eater
18:15
So's Unicron
18:16
OHSHIT doesn't care whether it's eating something with life on it
18:16
While Galactus and Unicron prefer that sort of planet
18:17
OHSHIT does have an atmosphere
18:17
Interestingly enough, it's composed mostly of vaporized acids of various kinds and enough oxygen that half of OHSHIT's surface is on fire at any given point
18:18
Jokingly: It is believed that OHSHIT's best friend is Venus
18:18
they have so much in common
18:19
OHSHIT has a mouth.
18:19
To eat other planets with.
18:20
Its mouth is a circular hole roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean, and the "lips" are covered with innumerable city-sized teeth
18:21
Have I mentioned that the surface is covered in writhing tentacle monstrosities yet? (It is an Eldritch Horror from Beyond Time and Space™, we have to stay on-brand)
18:22
And the fact that it apparently moves itself around by biological reactionless drive?
18:23
(That last one is the most horrifying to anyone who knows physics. But, you know, Eldritch Horrors from Beyond Time and Space™ like to give physics a big middle finger.) (edited)
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"vaporized acids of various kinds and enough oxygen" somewhat redundant given how corrosive oxygen is
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seems like a rather apt name
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Yes.
18:25
A controlled test showed that it is vulnerable to Giant Laser™, so the Nicoll-Dyson beam could destroy it if it gets too close to any inhabited systems.
18:26
Unfortunately, the battleship that burned a crater into the surface with its planetary bombardment 500TW gamma-ray laser was devoured and never heard from again.
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has / how long did the wound take to heal?
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A few weeks
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fun
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The crater was several kilometers across, too!
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has somewhere else to be in a hurry
🏃 1
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like IRL or away from OHSHIT?
18:29
i wouldn't blame you for either
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/31/2019 6:33 PM
That name saves you time screaming out in a panic
18:34
like you don't even have to waste time saying Oh shit it's X, because that's already its name
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away fomr OHSHIT
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Oh shit it's OHSHIT!
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"Named for emphasis"
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/31/2019 6:36 PM
somebody get Saitama
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/31/2019 6:52 PM
Time to find out how to move the full force of a Wolf-Rayet or GRB onto that thing because no. just no.
18:53
We are totally vaporizing every element of its body to the atoms and I will accept no other outcome
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I think tentacles is a bit too much, actually, i think I'm liking the cartoonishly large mouth more
00:13
does it start at the edge of a system and work it's way in?
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You have to keep with the theme, @o11o1
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Tentacles are not actually required for eldritch horrors
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really?
00:14
i don't think i've ever heard of an eldritch horror without them \s (edited)
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King in yellow doesn't bother, for instance, nor does the color from out of space
00:15
I belive there is an array of infinate revolving spheres one as well.
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The Color from out of Space was... weird as fuck, even by Lovecraftian standards
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Do note a general theme of fractal self symmetry, which tentacles meet but that's not the only way to do it
00:21
so the hungry planet probably has some wacky geography
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yes very
00:25
One notable feature is a triangular acid ocean (it has them, BTW) with ever-smaller islands forming a Sierpinski Triangle. It will always return to exactly its original configuration after being disturbed, and the self-similarity continues down to the atomic scale
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 12:31 AM
@KAL_9000 feed, it, a, super, nova
00:31
nao
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shush you
00:32
eldritch horrors should be harder to kill than that
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You wanna defeat eldritch horrors using science? The scale or technology has to be terrifyingly incomprehensible as well.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 7:01 AM
What about...
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@KAL_9000 How many nicoll-dyson beams exist in the setting?
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The signers of the Hyperweapons Ban Treaty jointly operate three, the Sagittarian Star Alliance (a non-signer) operates six or seven, and the five extant Precursor civilizations have a few dozen each
12:23
That's not a lot: The smallest of the major powers has 3 billion star systems under its control
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 12:24 PM
3 billion seems to be a sizable amount of the milky way population
12:25
and much like galaxies in the upper percentiles of distribution,
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I said smallest of the major powers
12:27
In modern-day terms: Superpowers are America and China, major powers are places like the countries of Western Europe and Japan, and minor powers are tiny countries like Serbia and Lesotho
12:28
(Of course, both IRL and in-universe, power levels are a lot more continuous than a three-tier system)
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@KAL_9000 What type of reactionless drive is it? Just movement without remass?
12:29
not even an EM drive thing
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Similiary to something you would do using alcubierre warp bubbles and magnetic coupling.
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Yes, but Alcubierre warp bubbles are momentum-conserving.
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Yes, they are. But why is that important for you?
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You have the same relative velocity to a reference frame object when you reenter realspace that you did when you generated the warp bubble
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You don't even have to embed the planet inside such a metric. You can have many small bubbles filled with some anchor mass and they tug the planet behind using some force like magnetism or even gravity.
12:33
It simply is a lot more expensive to put the entire thing inside the minkowski spacetime interior of the alcubierre metric. But those eldritch being might have some magic that conveniantly warps spacetime for them.
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Anyone who has gotten close enough to investigate up-close has gotten eaten
12:35
Or their probes have
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Sure, just that the alcubierre thing would put anything stated before into the realms of mundane boringness.
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...Which means that it is 100% ruled out
12:37
Mundane boringness is the opposite of what Eldritch Abominations are. (edited)
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Not necessarilly, just that having planet-scale alcubierre-like metrics is really damn impressive.
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I love how we've reached the point where friggin' warp drives are mundane and boring 😄
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The tug warp bubble concept would still work tho. You have warp bubbles containing mass that gains momentum due to the coupling with the planet and they are also filled with fuel.
12:41
So that might actually gain 0.1c or so proper speed, and then decelerate recovering some or all of that energy and momentum. The warp bubbles are just taking some kind of remass with them in an reactionless fashion.
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That would take a lot of energy
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It's meant to be an eldritch abomination beyond comprehension.
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What @gollark said
12:43
The true drive mechanism would drive mere mortals insane
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I was saying that in response to the energy issue though.
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Is it really an issue though?
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Not for eldritch abominations!
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that too
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Well, theres always the possibility of variable speed of light.
12:46
Well.. "possibility". Those beings change the laws of physics surrounding them.
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I think there's a certain fundamental issue (not a problem, but something that needs handling) with eldritch horrors in SF, namely that SF universes tend to be full of people who, upon being confronted by the ineffable, declare "pass me my labcoat and goggles, I'll eff the bugger".
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How is that an issue?
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That's exactly the kind of attitude we should have!
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Because it changes The Call of Cthulhu into The Cataloging of Cthulhu , possibly followed by eight scholarly papers on The Chemistry of Cthulhu .
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...this is wrong?
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Those scientists failing miserably just testifies the madening incomprehensible nature of those beings. (edited)
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Which is fine an' all, and my preferred read, but it ain't what you might call the traditional eldritch-horror genre.
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 12:50 PM
I'm reminded of an incident in a Dwarf Fortress game, wherin a necromancer's tower with a dozen necromancers in it turned into a circular exercise of critiques on critiques of one another's work.
12:50
And very little actual necromancing.
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One day Dwarf Fortress will end up developing general AI, I tell you.
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And that's how the field of theoretical necromancy was born. (edited)
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@Kerr Yeah, but that's the genre convention difference. If they actually are maddeningly incomprehensible, that's Lovecraftian horror. If it's an SF 'verse, there's an underlying promise of comprehensibility.
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"When do we get to start raising the dead to make our armies of doom?"
12:51
"That's experimental necromancy."
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(He said, boldly drawing lines on the literary map, but IMO there's a genre break in between whether HIC SVNT DRACONES is a warning to sailors or the promise of a thousand fascinating papers and maybe a Nobel or two.)
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 12:52 PM
If you actually command the army of doom, it's applied necromancy.
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"Have you done your done homework on the covariants tensors of necromatic eigenstates?"
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"Today, class, we learn about spontaneous symmetry breaking as related to zombies and skeletons."
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That would probably be an interesting setting.
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"As you see.. the fundamental symmetries of corpses don't actually lead to undead.. this is why we need a scalar necromatic field with symmetry breaking at the rotten flesh decomposing scale in order to give life to corpses"
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Eldritchology is an acceptable field of study in-universe
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Aha! We need a theory that unifies quantum mechanics and eldritch horrs.. quantum horrors. We tried strings, but those things sadly cut them. (edited)
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And an eventual development of eldritch engineering.
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Insanity-Inducing Eldritch Mechanisms and their Countermeasures, by respected Eldritchologist Ret'kal Broonam, is a fascinating read, especially if you already know the basis of memetic hazards and how they work
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Spin-0 : scalar fields. Have real numbers at each point of spacetime. Spin-1 : vector fields. Have vectors at each point of spacetime. Spin-2 : tensor fields. Have tensors at each point of spacetime. Spin-%ͤͯ̅҉̡̛̣d͛ͭͧḡͦ̊fͨ̂̈h̔ͨ͊W͗̾͆҉̢̤͟4̿̊̄: Eldritch fields. Have %ͤͯ̅҉̡̛̣d͛ͭͧḡͦ̊fͨ̂̈h̔ͨ͊W͗̾͆҉̢̤͟4̿̊̄ at each point of spacetime. (edited)
13:04
Anyways, the peak would be eldritch social studies.
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The Eldritch Quantum Field has an [UNTRANSLATABLE] at each point in spacetime, determining several properties of the Unknowable Horror it is contained in at [UNTRANSLATABLE] locations.
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:06 PM
"We call it quantum odor."
13:06
"As a foulness you shall know them."
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The SO[UNTRANSLATABLE] symmetries use a form of [UNTRANSLATABLE]calculus. In order to solve it just type your formula into your calculator and press [UNTRANSLATABLE]
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Eldritch Social Studies, with Professor Cthulhu
13:07
Coming soon to a university near you
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:07 PM
"Be sure to switch your calculator's angular scale to 'wrong—' if you leave it in radians you won't get the correct answer."
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"Flip to page 534 of your Necronomicons so we can begin learning about quantum field theory as applied to summoning rituals." (edited)
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"Don't forget to sacrifice something before calculating it. Forgetting this may cost you points in the exam!" (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 1:09 PM
To me, HC SVNT DRACONES is a middling RPG
13:09
But that's just me being a smartass.
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:09 PM
"Always remember to clean your lab workbench. This means putting down that which you raised."
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Why do I actually want to take a course on this now?
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:12 PM
Because you haven't read the Necronomicon yet?
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Ah, no, I'm already insane
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Course on what? There is a wide variety of fields.
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all of them
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I wouldn't recommend it.
13:14
The Yukawa coupling of the eldritch tensor to massless scalars alone.. ugh.. 😩
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and that's how @Kerr lost his mind, kids!
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Its an old story.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 1:17 PM
I would just prefer to make those bastards eat gamma-ray bursts from a hundred ly away and never worry about them again
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:17 PM
Yog-Sothoth draws the veil back for an eldrae (eldrus?). Two weeks later and there's a new university.
👌 2
13:17
I want pp-waves of death.
13:17
And that's a valid vacuum solution to einstein field equations, yikes.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 1:18 PM
To be fair, Lovecraft himself was such a total xeno-neophobe that he would've gotten an instant heart attack at the kinds of things Eldrae already get up to canonically (edited)
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Good enough for science? Not Aperture Science!
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What if
13:18
What if
13:18
The Eldritch Horrors aren't incomprehensible nightmares
13:19
And Lovecraft was just being racist at them
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 1:19 PM
That's literally it in many of the stories
13:19
Pretty much all the villains really did wrong was to have the wrong gender/skin color/social class (edited)
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Did someone say social class?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 1:20 PM
uh
13:20
you realize
13:20
that's the Christian Cross
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LET THE RULING CLASSES TREMBLE AT A COMMUNISTIC REVOLUTION
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:21 PM
Cross, hammer, same deal ⍩
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THE PROLETARIAT HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT THEIR CHAINS
13:21
THEY HAVE A WORLD TO GAIN
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A world dominated by mass-murdering fuckheads stealing all their shit, but hey, who's counting?
☝ 2
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:22 PM
only the bourgeoisie
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This is all in good fun, I'm not actually a communist. Please don't get the wrong impression.
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@KAL_9000 Let's meet afterwards, we need a plan to kill those capitalist pigs!
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:23 PM
thank the kraken for link previews
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@KAL_9000 Anyways, do the sapient people in your setting have access to metric engineering?
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Define
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Capable of manipulating spacetime geometries for use in propulsion and weaponry.
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The primary FTL method is the Alcubierre drive, so yes
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And in my personal definition: Control and potential engineering of quantum field configurations.
13:27
Ah, so pp-waves of death are an option.
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yes (edited)
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Somethings wrong with that?
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Well, atleast there is some last resort. Just bring some ceres worth of mass-energy with and you and you should be save.
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:29 PM
Eldritch Horrors and Conservation Violations
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Let that eldritch abonimation experience the abonimation that are einstein field equation solutions with lacking symmetry.
13:31
Ya knauw. Symmetries are the hot shit in theoretical physics. So conservation violations are properly called designated symmetry breaking. (edited)
13:31
Time-translational symmetry breaking: Energy conservation violation. Space-translational symmetry breaking: Momentum conservation violation.
📌 1
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:32 PM
What about conservation violations in more subtle things, like baryon number?
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Global gauge invariance. Or really just a phase rotation of the baryons wavefunction. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:34 PM
neat
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Also, we discovered QED by trying something out that fixes an key issue in the schrödingers equations.
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0111narwhalz 02/01/2019 1:38 PM
not sure if quantum electrodynamics or quod erat demonstrandum
13:38
(QED? QED!)
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PBS Space Time!
13:39
They're one of my favorites!
13:39
😄
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One of my favourite episodes.
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Due to the prevalence of automation and nanotechnology there are very few jobs in Federation space in the fields of mining, agriculture, or manufacturing, and the ones that exist are primarily supe…
13:57
Think I need to explain patronage networks or “the clan as economic unit” to make that sound dystopian?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 3:11 PM
more dystopian yes
15:17
still sounds way better at first glance than a lot of similarly likely outcomes in Real Life. you'd have to do a bit of extra clarification on both fronts to make clear that it's not paradiasical post-scarcity (edited)
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I think Pallene patronage would be somewhere between the Roman system, culturally assumed cronyism, and the mafia.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/01/2019 7:58 PM
Yikes
19:58
At least in the Empire, your boss will eventually die
19:58
Assuming they're older than you
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um... no
👆 1
21:18
people don't die of old age in the Empire
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0111narwhalz 02/02/2019 9:18 PM
There are a lot of Empires around the place.
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0111narwhalz 02/02/2019 9:18 PM
It's entirely possible Bizarro wasn't talking about the Empire of the Star.
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When you say "Empire" on the Eldræverse Discord, I assume Empire of the Star (edited)
21:19
Because this is the Eldræverse Discord
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0111narwhalz 02/02/2019 9:19 PM
I'm not very familiar with the Parahuman setting, but there's probably an Empire there :V
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Morgrim Moon 02/02/2019 9:19 PM
this is the otherworlds channel, thouhg
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mebbe be specific
21:19
everyone has an Empire faction
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The Parahuman setting has a "federation" that acts like an Empire.
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Ah, just like the Star Trek Federation
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/02/2019 9:26 PM
@KAL_9000 Tiffanian Empire
21:27
(the verse I'm currently cooking up in my brainpan and over at ToughSF)
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0111narwhalz 02/02/2019 9:35 PM
hmm, so it was even more of a non-sequitor than expected
21:35
I'm with KAL, then :V
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0111narwhalz 02/03/2019 3:50 AM
It turns out 205–220cm is pretty tall. https://i.imgur.com/PeTvFgo.jpg
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I like how 'kerbal' is also there as a reference
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MarcusAurelius 02/03/2019 11:12 AM
Jeb is the definition of a woke soph
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/03/2019 11:30 AM
kerbals are the most human of us all
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On reading about the Federation’s profit-sharing schemes one might be forgiven for mistaking it for some sort of non-coercive basic income system. Imagine if your great-aunt or great-great-grandfather signed the lease on your home and could revoke it if you refused to join...
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@Zarpaulek Wait, you can get in hot waters for refusing to break laws in the Federation?
14:05
Isn't the Federation, belike, The Big Government of the setting?
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Yeah, but it's not like they have the death penalty for everything.
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It certainly reads dystopian enough right there.
14:06
You can be brought up just to forfil crimes, and that is wholesale legal-ish.
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Your gepatrono would subsidize your fine, in theory at least.
14:08
The urban Houses would be a bit like Vetinari legalizing the Thieves Guild
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I think this might be going so distopian as to veer towards the point of "can't actually function as written". Is your story about the process of this society collapsing?
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It's based on the Roman Republic.
16:10
They managed to run like that for a few centuries
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The advantage of clan-based societies is that they're not very volatile.
16:19
The disadvantage is the same.
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MarcusAurelius 02/03/2019 4:33 PM
It wasn't quite so extreme in Rome, but of course back then it was a lot easier to just start fresh somewhere a little farther away
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Well, they did have a whole continent and trinary star system to colonize before developing conversion drive and wormholes.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/04/2019 10:15 PM
stupid megaproject idea: build a Gibraltar, Trans-Siberian, and Trans-Darien Gap highway to make the entire world technically driveable
22:16
(except australia because too far apart)
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Morgrim Moon 02/04/2019 11:17 PM
New Zealand is annoyed at being left out
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MarcusAurelius 02/05/2019 12:50 AM
Time to build the Oceanienbahn
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Morgrim Moon 02/05/2019 3:08 AM
There's multiple ferries that carry vehicles, we're part way
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/05/2019 9:55 AM
The gap between papua new guinea and the Australian mainland is 100km
09:56
If building a bridge to cross the Gibraltar and the Bering strait was hard this is almost impossible
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Morgrim Moon 02/05/2019 9:59 AM
doubly impossible; that 'close' bit is kind of notorious as only being accessible by sea. In WW2 the Japanese invaded mainland Australia. Australia didn't know this until a few years later, because they all died before they made it 2km inland.
10:00
not exactly a place you want to put your fancy transcontinental highway
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With enough money, and cheap disposable labor, anything is possible
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First we need to build a bridge to Hawaii, such that the existence of interstates on said islands stops being ANNOYINGLY WRONG.
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(Incidentally, obviously Lovecraftian horrors are made up of strange matter. Except for Nyarlathotep, who also has charm.)
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MarcusAurelius 02/05/2019 3:00 PM
Who said it had to be on the surface?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/05/2019 3:02 PM
@Overmind rename the Hawaiian interstate to intrastates
15:02
Problem solved
15:02
Literally change a few signs and that’s it
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MarcusAurelius 02/05/2019 3:03 PM
there’s a good chance it would cause weird legal issues
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Interstates are funded at the Federal level, right?
15:06
so not having Interstates would imply getting shorted on funding everyone else gets
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Partially by the state and other local governments, which owns them
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/10/2019 6:37 PM
It looks like most super-Earths may actually have thick atmospheres like Venus
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No surprise there
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/10/2019 7:12 PM
?
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Morgrim Moon 02/10/2019 7:14 PM
Big gravity well = pulling in more atmosphere
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and fundamentally a thicker atmosphere at the surface.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/10/2019 8:18 PM
It looks like the lifeworlds threshold then is larger to the 'less gravity' side then the 'higher' side
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Too little and there's not enough of an atmosphere to support life, too much and it's too thick.
20:21
Heck, there's some half-credible hypotheses of life in Venus's upper atmosphere now
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"It's amazing what a group of competent, uncorruptable leaders working towards the common good can achieve. Unfortunately, we are talking about politics, so such a combination is impossible."
12:06
-Jar'tel Tweebly, Jaian philosopher (edited)
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“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S. Lewis
12:11
...crap, I just implied something good about politics. To wit, that it allows civilization to survive by promoting incompetence and corruption among leaders.
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You'd disagree with Jar'Tel's proverb?
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Well, I'd agree with it insofar as atrocities can be considered amazing achievements.
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you really have no faith in sophonts at all, do you
12:15
i can't blame you
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They haven't exactly given much reason for that faith.....
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Another proverb: (edited)
12:15
"Most sophonts are good people. However, the few assholes are exponentially more likely to be in charge."
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Depends on the sophonts. In my cynical experience, though, pretty much anyone who talks about the common good is some kind of son-of-a-bitch or another, with a shopping list of things that need to be sacrificed for the common good by other people . Hell, sometimes those things are other people.
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Sorry, when I said the common good, I should have been clearer
12:17
How would you phrase a genuine aim of improving society without hurting anyone?
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"My product costs <X> dollars"
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So, y'know, unless they're asking for volunteers and accepting no for an answer - which 'leaders' usually don't...
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"The mark of a true leader is their willingness to let their followers say 'no'."
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Actually, "society" is one of those shibboleths, too, being one of those big non-consensual groupings made up of individuals that aren't yours to tinker with. So I tend to prefer things in terms of offering products and services, giving away useful things, advocating for your memes, and so forth, and other ways to sell betterness to the specific people who want it.
12:22
Those things have consensualist affect. "Improvement", though, that's something that one usually does to property .
12:23
...note: I'm writing right now and so may be accidentally defaulting to in-universe linguistic nuances. 😎
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See, that solution is what works best for corruptible, inherently violent humans. Because I like having my main civ be the fucking good guys for once, the Jaians are less corruption-prone and "sacrifices must be made"-ey.
12:24
So things work out a little better
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I had a piece a while ago on the terrible dangers of philanthropy, so far as the Fourth Directorate are concerned: https://eldraeverse.com/2018/02/02/the-world-is-a-mess-and-i-just-need-to-rule-it/ Because, as per the Lewis quotation, they aren't corruptible or particularly violent. They honestly believe down to the bottom of their souls that they're helping people and making things better for everyone. And that's how you get, say, the Equality Concord. (It's what makes them one of my favorite "villains". Unlike, say, the People's State of Bantral, which was a product of all those bad tendencies in plenitude, the Concord was the creation of people who genuinely believed that they were the good guys, and ushering in a golden age for everyone. And that some people will come down on the side that they were right, especially compared to the Empire's severe ethical stringency that permits people to harm themselves and Bad Things to exist beyond the borders because of their commitment to not forcing improvements on those who don't want them, is exactly why.)
I ran across this excerpt of a post on one of the Fimfiction blogs I follow this morning, and while I’m using it out of context and off-topic – it’s actually talking about the Lex…
12:41
Or, for a local proverb: "Good, in the moral sense, is difficult and may be impossible to define objectively. I prefer to concern myself with ethical correctness, which is at least calculable." -- Ianna Quendocius, "Scientific Ethics"
📌 1
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i like that proverb
12:42
I meant good, of course, by my definition
12:43
Which boils down to peace among sophonts, prosperity, negentropy, etc.
12:43
Or, in other words:
12:43
Moral good is maximizing happiness while minimizing suffering
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Consequently, maximizing the moral good is converting the universe to hedonium
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Nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned hedonism!
12:50
:V
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No, not that.
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Or With Folded Hands .
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They're different.
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*maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering without fucking lobotomizing everyone, which should be obvious (edited)
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Based on the number of laws we have in reality to prevent people from doing happiness wrong, I'd conjecture that it's actually anything but obvious. (Disclaimer: not attacking your concept; I'm willing to believe for SFnal purposes that someone can theoretically strike this right. But if there's one thing that fiddling around with AI motivations teaches you, it's that the obvious isn't.)
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well, obvious to us with our moral system, anyway
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/12/2019 12:57 PM
The real reason is simply that Darwin's rules tend to favor assholes who are also good at lying about their assholery (edited)
12:59
I want to believe there's something better in store for political reformers than playing endless whack-a-mole with the corrupt
12:59
But there really isn't
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I’ve generally observed that sociopaths aren’t that great at building or inventing things, but they are good at usurping control.
13:40
Just look at the Dotcom boom, and the development of many other great inventions
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/12/2019 2:01 PM
There might be some mode of societal organization that can avoid it for long periods
14:01
I.e. bhutan etc
14:01
But mostly they’re tiny out of the way communes that have no effect on the greater march of history
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More than 100 years of Jaian history following the development of sapient-level AI architecture saw all scientific research devoted towards a single goal: Creating a superintelligent AI (or group of said AIs) that could effectively govern the Republic according to the above philosophy without lobotomizing people or some other such undesired outcomes. Eventually, the project would succeed, and the AIs are used to sniff out corruption and provide advice, with the ability to take command of the Republic in an emergency (and with authorization). Basically, the Transcend, but explicitly designed for government.
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When I tried to develop a vampire variant I first thought of a protein deficiency ala Blindsight
16:40
Then I realized that baseline Parahumans would require an iron-rich diet to maintain the hemo- and myoglobin to remain functional in vacuum for a few minutes.
16:42
And I thought maybe a haywire nanite infection that demands even more raw material than normal could compound things.
16:43
So, basically the Para-Imperium doesn’t so much have “vampire” myths as documented ghouls and gumiho
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BluejayHurricane 02/13/2019 10:19 PM
Wouldn't that be treatable, though?
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If you have a Core Worlds clinic, yeah
06:02
If blockaded contagious nanotech gets loose on an Outworld the Guard might just nuke the site (edited)
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BluejayHurricane 02/15/2019 11:19 AM
So less pure vampire, and more bloodsucking zombie, then.
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I'd say that a bit over half of the Federation's colonies are "penal colonies" of the "dump a bunch of dissidents on the planet to fend for themselves type" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_B_CJ3yieM
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BluejayHurricane 02/16/2019 4:39 PM
So there are half a galactic civilization's worth of planets hosting aggressively infectious nannies, and everything hasn't gone Kablooie how?
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No. They usually remove the nanofacs and bots while the “involuntary colonists” are in stasis. Ghul outbreaks crop up when someone smuggles something past quarantine or a visitor’s microbots malfunction.
16:47
And a Ghul’s reasoning ability varies on how recently they’ve fed. Some take a little black blood every night, others wait until they’re hungry enough to kill and gorge themselves on parahuman flesh.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/16/2019 4:52 PM
The Tiffanians had nanotechnology (edited)
16:53
Then that nanotech got loose and wound up indirectly killing billions of their people
16:53
Now they don’t have it, there’s just a few nanites locked up in Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouses
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2019 4:54 PM
One of my setting's factions had a nanorobotics incident as well, though it was specifically involving autogoverning goo-swarms.
16:54
They call it the Sarnath Event.
16:54
(probably mostly because I read too much Lovecraft that week V:)
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/16/2019 4:55 PM
The event was known as the Collapse, and its the reason why the Tiffanians turned from a diverse one system culture on the verge of a slow EotS singularity to an expansionist, conservative imperialist group
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While there’s many perks to having integral microbots, occasionally things can go drastically wrong.  Aside from the usual glitches in template settings or programmed apoptosis, every now and…
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:08 PM
Interesting xenobiological feature I haven't seen before:
14:08
Polarizing light filters, instead of irises.
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with rotation on them to switch to different polarization angles?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:17 PM
Two filters, one (or both?) of which rotates to gate a variable proportion of light.
14:18
I suppose rotating the first filter would be neat for admitting specific polarizations too.
14:19
It looks like polarizing filters are typically structural optics, which already have plenty of biological precedent in pigmentation.
14:23
Wonder if you could rotate the actual molecules instead of the entire matrix.
14:25
I'd expect this kind of thing to be advantageous in a very bright environment with lots of reflected light.
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quartz crystal deserts
14:27
rotating the molecules sounds like it'd be a pain in the eyes
14:28
while rotating the lens back and forth across a ninety degree spread doesn't sound too nasty to put togther using biology
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:28 PM
I mean, there are tons of really complex moving parts on the protein scale.
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facial expressions including eye rotation and adopting different angles
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:30 PM
That's a little like "facial expressions including pupillary contraction," which, while pupillary contraction does convey information, seems more like a side channel than actual expression.
14:33
The main problem with rotating the polarizing molecules in place, I think, is probably in control and oxygen.
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control?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:34 PM
In our own eyes, the iris is opaque (so who cares how many blood vessels are there), and the lens itself is largely inert and actuated by musculature around it.
14:34
Innervation.
14:35
You have to get control impulses to the motor, whatever it is.
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Have you seen the shit regular eyes are capable of focusing on?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:35 PM
…unless…
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fine control in biology ain't a problem, m8
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:35 PM
Transparent fine control can be.
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weren't we talking about spinning the filters?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:36 PM
We're debating the merits of spinning the entire filter versus spinning the structural molecules in-place.
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spinning individual molecules? I mean, yeah, proteins are capable of weird shit, but how do you get them to do it all at once?
14:38
Chemical signals are too slow to spin it all at once, so you need neurons running down your filter channels
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:38 PM
How about this: Photosensitive motor proteins which are stimulated by the light which passes through the filter, attached directly to the optical molecules themselves.
14:38
Bam, control impulse done.
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alright, genius, stop the proteins from spinning out of control on their own
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:39 PM
(add in a chemical "trim" in the goo inside the eye to let the brain or retina weigh on the operation)
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They're gonna be bumping into a fuckton of other molecules inside the cells, each one of which could change the protien's angular momentum in a collision
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:40 PM
They can be attached to some sort of structure.
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then how do they rotate?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:40 PM
There's this thing called a "cytoskeleton"
14:40
They're only attached at one end V:
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alright, alright
14:41
how is this more efficient than simply rotating the entire filter, again?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:42 PM
Super-rapid response, no macroscopic moving parts, no rotating moving parts that require complex linkages or rigidifying structures…
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great
14:43
let's fill an entire cell with selenite or something and crowd out all the other protiens
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:43 PM
eh?
14:43
calm down, man
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Because otherwise you're only getting tiny spots of light
14:43
sorry
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:43 PM
you just need long, straight protein strands
14:44
Most of the cell is transparent anyway.
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yes, but it's not polarizing
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:44 PM
yes, that's what the long protein strands are for
14:45
why is this system better than an iris?
14:45
seems like it's a lotta work for the same output: vision
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mad science projects
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:46 PM
Rapid response, glare reduction, max opacity near 100%…
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Hey, my eyes are pretty rapid-response
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:46 PM
…and alienWeirdness++
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Have you heard of this wondrous new invention called pupil contraction?
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there are probably upsides to being able to see the polarization of light though
14:47
I'm not sure what, since I can't see it myself
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 2:48 PM
Actually, human vision has a very small sensitivity to polarization.
14:48
(stby: researching pupillary contraction latency)
14:50
248ms to respond to a sudden bright light.
14:52
Compare to 30ns for a liquid crystal shutter.
14:53
Your eyes are not as fast as the ridiculously tight loop which can be built with literally physically connected proteins.
14:55
Oh, and this method would also tend to dampen the dynamic range of incident light, since the structural molecules are controlled locally, instead of globally.
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 3:03 PM
Consider also, if you will, the possibilities of a vision organ with zero moving parts.
15:03
Or, zero macroscopic ones, anyway.
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electrically manipulated crystals?
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 3:07 PM
Nah, it's more like a wire grid polarizer.
15:08
It's the difference between rotating the whole grid, and rotating the individual wires.
15:11
Only in this case the wires are proteins.
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2019 3:30 PM
So I'm seeing some weird stuff about nonpolarizing LCD shutters with super high transmission rates.
15:30
Anyone know what kind of physical mechanism could make that possible?
15:32
(and no, I don't think it's working with prepolarized light)
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The clan-based economic system implied by the Federation’s profit-sharing schemes  bears further elaboration.   Imagine if your great-aunt or great-great-grandfather signed the lease on your h…
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BluejayHurricane 02/22/2019 6:46 PM
You know, I’m not sure that would be a terribly stable system, especially over transsophont lifespans. The only way for most to advance would be rebellion, and so they would make easily convinced soldiers for the rebellious elite. Unless the upmost level is so massively far above the “scheming noble” level (power dynamics wise, not actual nobility), I can see a huge number of civil wars and inter-clan violence. What are the containment mechanisms for that?
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A Federal Guard with ortillery
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BluejayHurricane 02/22/2019 6:49 PM
Well, yes, but I am thing in terms of CGP Grey’s “Rules for Rulers”, and I see a lot of motivation for the military to defect.
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Rebellious Houses often end up “settling the frontier”, voluntarily or not.
18:51
And the patronage system, the military, and government allow an outlet for dissatisfied junior members.
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As anti-corporate as the Pallene are the Praetor simply cannot be everywhere at once. While the Federation leaves a great deal to local governments to handle anything more than a light-second outsi…
The Federation, known by many as the Centauri Empire or Imperium, is officially a representative democratic confederation but it has some elements resembling more of a constitutional monarchy. Whil…
In the 21st century after leaving Sol, many things that troubled Earth in the 21st Century AD are practically unknown in the Federation of Parahuman Species. Poverty, war, mortality, there’s …
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I can't help but note the irony.
06:40
The Parahumans were created as humans-that-aren't-humans by corporations seeking to turn a bigger profit.
06:41
Now they have recreated something similiar, where everyone is slaves to the interests of a few seniors.
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It’s something of a running theme
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I mean, have you read the first book? The founding parents of the Pallas Republic were rebelling against anarcho-capitalist feudalism under the thumb of a pseudo-religious organization.
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Definitions again!
08:31
b/c it's been a while
08:31
And since we're talking about money...
08:36
Currency (n.): A medium of exchange in an economy that eliminates the need for barter and provides a universal method of transaction-making. The standard Galactic currency used for interpolity trade is the Standard, agreed upon in the Galactic Joint Market treaty as equal to the average value of the currencies of all signatories, as defined by their relative exchange values. Currently, the Standard sits at approximately 1.3 Standards per Jaian Credit and approximately 0.8 Standards per Earth Dollar. Currencies come in four forms: fiat, backed, commodity, and crypto.
08:37
Fiat currencies do not have any commodity 'backing' them, and their value is relatively stable if the local polity can keep inflation and other market factors under control.
08:38
Backed currencies are backed by a commodity, typically an expensive one (see Article: Gold Standard). Most backed currencies in the modern Galaxy are backed by the price of antimatter (an expensive and stably-priced commodity) on the Galactic Market.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/25/2019 8:39 AM
@KAL_9000 HS or Unibersity
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Commodity currencies are a commodity, typically coins or something similar made out of the most valuable material in the economy. Energy-based currencies are uncommon but not unheard of, but in societies with fusion reactors and Dyson Swarms, they're not very valuable compared to the Standard.
08:40
@BizarroLand ♀?
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 8:41 AM
Are you a student in high school or college, I think he’s trying to ask
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 8:42 AM
Also, your standard‘s basis would almost certainly be a pain in the ass to work with
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Cryptocurrencies are completely electronic currencies produced and traded on a blockchain system, and ideally limited to a certain cap on maximum production to avoid hyperinflation due to processor mining on quantum computers. Most cryptocurrencies do have a physical backup for emergencies.
08:43
@MarcusAurelius weighted average
08:44
the stabler the currency, the more influence it gets
08:45
This means that the Standard's value hasn't changed significantly in over 500 years
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I’d count cryptocurrencies as fiat since you can’t even burn them for heat
09:23
While there's crossover between commodity and backed currencies. Didn't Britain once issue gold coins backed by a pound of silver?
09:26
And medieval Japan attempted to fix the value of the gold ryu to a koku of rice.
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 9:28 AM
in that case it seems more like a combo of maintaining prestige (we can't be the barbarians with a non-precious metal coin) and making forgery harder
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I sometimes wonder if precious metal coinage wasn't originally intended to make counterfeiting harder
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 9:32 AM
it was probably a secondary consideration, after showing-off/ providing "intrinsic" value to a currency
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I mean, most early empires collected their taxes in grain, and we started taxing whiskey to stop farmers paying taxes in booze
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Morgrim Moon 02/25/2019 9:32 AM
and honestly until the electronic era there's nothing you CAN do with gold but show it off
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Never underestimate the desire to show off
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 9:52 AM
It's pretty, and doesn't deteriorate
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Something else: how much shiny would have been available back then? Nowadays shiny is cheap and considered tacky ostentation, but so are a lot of things that were once markers of tremendous wealth. In a world where everything is mud or wood a gleaming piece of metal probably looks amazing.
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And not just that, it stays looking shiny
14:04
But again, it falls into the mess of requirements i mentioned earlier. Gold is both somewhat uncommonl, but also fairly useless otherwise. You can't make many practical things out of it, so there's not as much of a deflationary push as you potentially remove coinage to make a golden pickaxe, for example
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 02/25/2019 2:06 PM
WTB solid gold frypan
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in Pathfinder you can get frying pans made out of mithril
14:14
in addition to bypassing silver damage reduction when you smack someone with it, it's also non-stick!
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 2:18 PM
For when you’re cooking, but still need to smack a werewolf upside the head.
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that one disney movie intensifies
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MarcusAurelius 02/25/2019 2:22 PM
Tangled?
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yeah that one
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can also get mithril waffle irons
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0111narwhalz 03/02/2019 10:47 PM
Reflexive pronouns in conlangs: Worth the effort?
22:47
How common actually are they?
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MarcusAurelius 03/02/2019 11:46 PM
very, in certain languages
23:46
Latin uses them all the time
23:47
generally you see them in more synthetic languages, analytic ones tend to mark the construction with word order or particles and agglutinative in either way or with clitics
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0111narwhalz 03/02/2019 11:50 PM
I think Uštsnuvk is synthetic?
23:50
I have the affix tables one would expect from a synthetic language, at least.
23:53
Is the role they fill one that especially needs filling by a dedicated object?
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 1:16 AM
that, or specifiying something is acting reflexively without using different verbs or a middle voice construction, i.e. "he washed himself" as opposed to using "he showered"
01:16
and yeah, sounds synthetic, though possibly agglutinative depending on how exactly it works
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 1:29 AM
There's a unique affix for each cell on the matrix, or at least there will be.
01:29
Which I think makes it more synthetic than agglutinative.
01:30
But I'm very new to this whole thing :V
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:05 AM
How complex are you making your verbs and nouns? Are we talking 2 numbers and 4 cases like Greek or 3 and 8 like Sanskrit?
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:06 AM
Nouns have two numbers and four cases, yeah.
03:06
Verbs have…
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:06 AM
Nominative accusative genitive prepositional?
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:06 AM
…well, there's a bit of a combinatorial explosion between aspect, tense, person, and mood.
03:07
Uhh, ergative absolutive genitive dative, actually.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:07 AM
Ah, nice choice
03:08
So particles are mostly governing the genitive and dative I would guess then
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:09 AM
They're marked on the nouns.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:09 AM
Ah, so they’re clitics instead of independent words? Interesting
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:10 AM
you know I hadn't considered how to mark phrases
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:10 AM
What exactly do you mean?
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:11 AM
Well, the idea is that the case markings are stuck directly onto the nouns themselves.
03:11
Clitics weren't the plan.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:11 AM
Well case and particles are separate things
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:12 AM
I thought particles were a general term for word-objects with primarily grammatic meaning.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:13 AM
Yeah, but they’re usually independent of the main word, not part of the morphology
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:13 AM
Some of the common/"old" words have the affix fused into them.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:13 AM
It depends on how exactly it does it, they can be quite independent like Japanese gas them or like in most IE languages they’re heavily integrated into the root (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:14 AM
For example, the plural absolutive affix is "-žen" but you don't say "uštnžen"
03:14
It's fused into "uštžen"
03:15
(where š is esh and ž is ezh)
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:15 AM
That looks more like a synthetic type ending, and it’s seemingly fusional which helps typological placement
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:15 AM
However, this behavior is probably not typical.
03:15
(I say "probably" because I don't have very much lexicon right now)
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:15 AM
I.e. one ending carries multiple meanings, in this case “plural absolutive”
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:16 AM
aye
03:17
I'm trying to make some sense of how I generate these affices, with some kind of connection between phonology and meaning.
03:18
Because otherwise it's really hard for me to effectively make stuff up on the spot.
03:19
So far the plural and singular markings for a given case are related, but the singular has a stop while the plural has a fricative.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:19 AM
do you have enough phonemes in your inventory to do that?
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:20 AM
And for the two of, what, a hundred? verb markings I have so far, which differ only by aspect, the perfective one is basically the same as the imperfective one, only it has a stop at the end.
03:20
So far it's worked out.
03:21
The different case pairs have different… shapes?
03:21
And the ergative pair are prefixes.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:22 AM
you want to just go ahead and post them, so I know what you're talking about? And I can't think of a natural language that does that, but it's interesting
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:22 AM
yeah, lemme whip up a decent plaintext table real quick
03:25
Singular Plural ERG Ø -žen ABS da- ye- GEN -ad -ið DAT -atl -ixł
03:26
(where Ø is unmarked, as you might expect)
03:27
(or maybe it's the null marking? I 'unno)
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:28 AM
those are basically the same thing, the pedantic differences shouldn't matter here yep, and i'm guessing that last consonant cluster is /xɮ/?
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:30 AM
It's supposed to be a palatal lateral approximant.
03:30
so /ʎ/
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:30 AM
oh, it's a digraph not a cluster?
03:30
or is it /xʎ/?
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:30 AM
no, it's a cluster
03:30
yeah, that one
03:30
sorry for the confusion :V
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:31 AM
nah, makes sense enough. I used arbitrary and random endings for my synthetic language, I didn't have to deal with this
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:31 AM
←makes things hard for himself in the name of making things easier
03:32
I've tried to keep the transcription one-to-one phonetically.
03:33
(and by "tried to" I mean "carefully combed the possible diacritic marks to find one set that applied to all the things wot need diacritics")
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:34 AM
that's a good idea, getting into digraphs just makes life harder (other than having an ASCII compatible romanization, which I usually do to make things easier when I can't easily use unicode) so, how do you want to handle adposition particles (i.e., how would you say "he is going to the house?"
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:34 AM
I don't know yet.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:35 AM
well, since you have cases the traditional way is to have prepositions start the phrase, followed by the object noun in an oblique case
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:35 AM
That sounds perfectly functional to me.
03:36
Is "dative" a subset of "oblique cases?"
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:36 AM
yep, oblique is less useful of a term here, it
03:36
's used mostly when discussing nominative-accusative languages to refer to non-nominative cases
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:37 AM
so… mostly all of them?
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:37 AM
yep
03:38
because in most languages prepositions can govern pretty much all of them, in Latin they can use the genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative, for example
03:39
since you don't have an ablative or instrumental or prepositional case to take most of the load, you could either go the Greek route and dump the work on the genitive mostly and secondarily the dative or the German route, which is mostly the inverse
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:41 AM
The latter seems to make more sense to me.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:42 AM
same here, the first happened because the ablative (which takes the brunt of prepositional work in Latin) merged with the genitive in Greek.
03:43
Having multiple cases does allow prepositions to govern multiple ones though, e.g. the Latin "in" means "into, onto, against" when governing the accusative but "in, on" with the ablative
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:50 AM
but I do feel your pain. for my foray into agglutinatives, I ended up with a noun system 17 cases and 9 numbers
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:50 AM
oof
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:51 AM
still simpler than the verbs
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:51 AM
I mean, my verbs are a bit out of control.
03:51
Two aspects, four moods, four persons (the usual, with clusivity), and—the real kicker—nine tenses
03:52
because I just had to do it :V
03:52
If you can believe it, there were also numbers at one point, and I think another couple of moods?
03:53
so yeah, like three hundred semantically distinct affices
03:54
I do not expect to make them all actually distinct.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:55 AM
10 persons, 9 numbers, 2 aspects, 7 states, 7 base tenses, 4 relative tense modifiers, 12 moods
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:55 AM
There will be mergers where context is expected to be sufficient to distinguish them.
03:55
oh dear, I take it back
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:55 AM
yeah
03:56
you can very much say "y'all three (exclusive) will in a long time be about to possibly eat, I'm guessing" in two syllables (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:57 AM
And is it worth it? :V
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:57 AM
it's meant to be obscene, and there's a reason it's the one I use the least
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 3:58 AM
so the answer is "nope," then
03:58
I suppose it must have some crazy clustering rules and/or an expansive phonemic inventory to be able to pack that much information into two syllables?
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 3:58 AM
oh yeah
04:00
θkɪʊ̯n lan (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:01 AM
man that's a load of phones I don't know
04:02
(by which I mean two)
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:02 AM
Ah, so unvoiced “th” like in think, normal k, unstressed “I” like in thin as the start of a diphthong with unstressed u like “pool”
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:03 AM
yeah, the dental fricative is familiar
04:03
the vowels are the foreign ones
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:04 AM
Hell, the language’s name for itself is iɤb̪mj kɛd͡ð (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:04 AM
ye gods
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:05 AM
...It's pronounceable with a lot of practice
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:06 AM
okay it just about makes sense
04:06
I think
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:07 AM
yeah, you can safely guess that the /m/ assimilates to the labiodental pronunciation and the /j/ is realized as palatalization
04:10
Makarvókín is much more reasonable, 3 numbers and 6 cases for nouns, 3 numbers (or for the 1st person a clusivity distinction), 3 persons, 9 tenses, 4 moods
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:11 AM
that sounds almost reasonable
04:12
An interesting artifact of my use of matrices for organizing the language, and the compulsion to fill them that comes with it, is "nðužd"
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:12 AM
yeah, especially since the subjunctives and passives are highly predictable and not really separate endings
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:12 AM
The first person inclusive singular pronoun.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:12 AM
I might fill a role like the intensifier pronoun in Latin, ipse
04:12
"I myself"
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:13 AM
I figured it would be useful for talking to oneself.
04:13
Which then suggests that the uštn are in the habit of talking to themselves out loud :V
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:14 AM
emphasis, showing that the speaker is talking about himself even when in indirect discourse, or like one of it's more entertaining uses in Latin, being used when the leader of a group is talking
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:15 AM
hmm
04:16
That kinda makes sense.
04:16
"You and I as one"
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:22 AM
mhm. I personally enjoy having large pronoun sets, it allows for making things very difficult for translators while the speakers know exactly what they're talking about
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0111narwhalz 03/03/2019 4:22 AM
That's… not really what I'm going for here, but you do you.
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MarcusAurelius 03/03/2019 4:23 AM
That's one side effect, but it also simply allows a lot of discourse to take place quickly and fluidly, especially if pronouns use a different/simpler declension system
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MarcusAurelius 03/06/2019 5:11 PM
...I just ran the numbers for another server, iɤb̪mj kɛd͡ð has 423360 verb endings, and I haven't even come up with a voice system for the verbs
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 9:08 AM
…how do you even
09:09
Are they all distinguishable?
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 9:13 AM
Do you mean meaning wise or pronunciation wise? And the answer Is yes to both
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 9:15 AM
That's a ridiculous amount of information to encode into an ending.
09:15
How many of them are polysyllabic? :V
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 9:15 AM
All monosyllabic
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 9:16 AM
Crazy consonant clustering?
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 9:16 AM
Max is 3 initial, IIRC. I’ll check in a few minutes when I get back to my notes
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 9:17 AM
I'm just amazed that you can fit that much information into a monosyllable.
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 9:17 AM
It’s just an aggressively agglutinated syllable, each phoneme in it encodes one of the variables above
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 9:19 AM
Ah, it makes more sense as an agglutinative thing.
09:23
So that's what, about nine to twelve distinct phonemes in each position?
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 10:00 AM
it varies between 90 for the person/number initials (including a few semi-affricate clusters), and only 2 for aspect
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 10:01 AM
well I'm going to stop complaining about my 250 affices then
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 10:08 AM
the breakdown: 10 persons, 9 numbers, 2 aspects, 7 states, 7 base tenses, 4 relative tense modifiers, 12 moods 423360 verb endings
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 10:57 AM
so you can say for an extreme example, /çwɤi̯hnxk.ø/ "those three who are close to you (but not I, and who are a distinct group from you) might eventually have begun to sing"
11:03
a less broad transcription might be [çʷɤ̃i̯̊xk.ø] (edited)
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A book I read recently had a bunch of alien species that breathed oxygen with different atmospheric gas mixtures. (edited)
11:28
I.e. oxygen with sulfur, ammonia, hydrogen bromine...
11:29
Thought it a little odd that one of the oxy-nitrogen breathing species could get drunk off glycerin though.
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 11:48 AM
what book?
11:50
The setting is on TVTropes as "Hayven Celestia"
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MarcusAurelius 03/07/2019 11:52 AM
hm. I don't really know enough chemistry to say much, but aren't most of those toxic to humans?
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2019 11:56 AM
I think the word you're looking for is "all"
11:57
I thought they're all reducing, though.
11:57
How do they avoid burning out of the atmosphere?
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0111narwhalz 03/08/2019 5:00 PM
Some brief searches have confirmed that conductive organic polymers do indeed exist, and they may be conductive enough to act as wire grid polarizing filters.
17:02
This suggests that my scheme of polarizing light gates (as opposed to the spatial solution of irises) may be viable.
17:04
Also, they don't seem to be especially crazy compared to other molecules used in biology.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/08/2019 5:21 PM
@0111narwhalz So research is starting to suggest that levo-proteins are more likely to concentrate in comets etc
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Notes on Sublight Interstellar Travel:
10:04
The Jaians in particular had a small interstellar empire before the invention of the Alcubierre Drive (the most common method of FTL travel in my 'verse). Nothing major, their territory was basically a sphere a dozen lightyears across centered on their home system and encompassing the nearby star systems.
10:05
Sublight interstellar travel was conducted primarily by lightsail, powered by various laser arrays at first exclusive to the home system but later built around the colonies.
10:05
Deceleration without a laser array at the destination is accomplished by detaching a second lightsail that acts as a mirror for the incoming laser beam from the origin.
👌 2
10:08
Although FTL travel was not yet in use, FTL communication was, first by standard tangle shipped at great expense and only used for high-priority messages, and then later by reusable tangle after a Precursor ansible was discovered by detection of its emergency locator radio beacon on Alpha Segmentis IV.
10:09
Before reusable tangle was discovered, tangle was only used for high-priority and emergency messages, and most transmissions had to make do on radio waves or tightbeam laser. (edited)
10:12
Although fusion drives had been invented and were used for in-system transit, the higher top speed and weight-saving advantages of the lightsail made it ideal for interstellar travel, especially because (unlike in-system travel) interstellar traffic only used a few narrow routes, whereas building laser arrays for every route that in-system travel could take would be a logistical and resource-use nightmare. (edited)
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sees Lightsail launchers I love you @KAL_9000.
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@Unknown #bestSublightInterstellarPropulsion
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/13/2019 4:57 PM
I know this is some heresy but thematically I kind of dislike spacehabs (edited)
16:58
They lack the same sense of placement that planets do
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...Stop being such a monolinanglophone
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/13/2019 6:31 PM
lolalation
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0111narwhalz 03/13/2019 6:54 PM
¹H protium, ²H deuterium, ³H tritium, ³He threelium, …
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/13/2019 7:03 PM
@Unknown what
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/13/2019 7:39 PM
?QUE ME PREGUNTAS?
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The Jaian homeworld of Jolton is the largest moon of the gas giant Joltir, which orbits in the habitable zone of the Joltol (Jol- being a linguistic root for many things that have to do with home in standard Jaian). Being a gas giant of about 2.3 Jupiter masses, Joltir is no stranger to Trojan asteroids in its L4 and L5 Lagrange points. Indeed, the dwarf planet Dorces trails behind Joltir at the L5 point, accompanied by three asteroidal moons and a veritable entourage of Trojan asteroids clustering its orbital space. However, by far the largest and most significant Trojan of Joltir is Kharth, a planet of 0.87 Earth masses leading ahead of Joltir at its L4 Lagrange point.
10:23
Because Kharth is similar in size and composition to Earth, has a reasonably thick atmosphere (0.93 atmospheres of pressure at sea level) with a composition quite similar to Jolton or Earth, orbits in the habitable zone along with Joltir, and has a strong magnetic field, active plate tectonics, and abundant surface water making up a stable hydrosphere covering 65% of the planet's surface, it is easily mistaken for a habitable planet. Nothing could be further from the truth.
10:25
All of Kharth's landmass, except the polar ice caps, is covered with a thick layer of fine grayish-black dust. The first Jaian probes to land on Kharth in the early exploration of their home system discovered that this mysterious dust was a kilometer-thick layer of ash, soot, and gunpowder. (edited)
10:30
Half of the planet's landmass is a fiery inferno at any given time, as even the smallest of lightning strikes can ignite massive firestorms that burn across whole continents.
10:30
Kharth has three captured asteroidal moonlets and two moons of note.
10:30
The smaller, outer moon orbits roughly 100,000 kilometers from the parent planet, and there is not much to say about it.
10:31
The inner moon orbits inside Kharth's Roche limit, and is slowly being torn apart by tidal forces, creating a spectacular ring system.
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Popular political parties in the Federation of Parahuman Species include the Agorists and Oikists, and the Centralists and Localists.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/19/2019 4:35 PM
The Empress, unlike most monarchical systems, is not usually chosen by inheritance. Rather, the situation in most successions is the Joint Chiefs (highest-tanking officers beside the Empress) get together and negotiate to choose some accomplished female general to the post
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@BizarroLand ♀ So, a bit between a military dictatorship and feudal elective (to use the CKII term)
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/19/2019 4:37 PM
Yep
16:38
Along with being feline it’s requirement. The accomplished military career is not an official requirement, but it helps, as well as being connected to the higher levels
16:40
The best ethnically is being a female tiger.
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0111narwhalz 03/19/2019 4:42 PM
that sounds like herding cats
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Anyone who knows some Greek care to guess what those political stances I listed entail?
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MarcusAurelius 03/19/2019 7:20 PM
Market boys vs communists?
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Well, the one comes from "agora" (market) and the other "oikos" (house).
19:24
And then there's the other axis.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 03/19/2019 7:24 PM
kakistocracy?
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MarcusAurelius 03/19/2019 7:26 PM
Federalism vs unitary states
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That was a bit obvious, wasn't it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/19/2019 7:38 PM
The ultimate fate of the Empire will be, of course, collapse
19:38
But it's anyone's guess whether it'll be more like the Eastern Bloc collapsing... or 1792
19:39
Inuniverse there's already an unsolvable problem of people rebelling en masse or just packing up and leaving
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0111narwhalz 03/24/2019 10:39 PM
How the Uštžen conduct business (sketch): https://i.imgur.com/chAGI6l.jpg
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I'm tempted to write about the US in the same way that historians write about Ancient Greece and Rome.
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yes pls do it
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BluejayHurricane 03/26/2019 2:25 PM
I’d read that.
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Me two.
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I was thinking of how Athens' empire was technically a network of "allies" who paid them tribute. And for a long time the Romans thought of their provinces as a mix of trusted allies and defeated enemies who owed them recompense rather than their possessions.
21:02
La Usona Imperio: The Americans were one of the last great empires of the Terran era. In just 400 years they managed to rise from a coalition of rebellious British colonies along the eastern North American coast to a global contender for dominance. According to their popular mythology the “Founding Fathers” were incensed by Britain’s taxation of the colonies without allowing them representation in the legislature, but the facts of this story are debated hotly by historians. The general consensus is that the likes of George Washington, Ben Franklin, and “Uncle” Sam Adams were likely members of the local aristocracy taking advantage of Britain’s financial problems at the time to seize power themselves. With aid from Britain’s rival nations the thirteen coastal colonies were able to secede and form a representative democratic-oligarchic federation they named “The United States of America” (USA). The individual colonies, now calling themselves “states”, largely governed themselves by the same exclusionary democratic and/or aristocratic principles while sending popularly elected representatives and state-appointed (later popularly elected) senators to the newly established capital at Washington D.C. To act as chief executive the Founding Fathers established the position of President elected by a complicated process that evolved with the USA over the centuries. Presidents served for terms of four years, with the opportunity for re-election at least once. To check the power of the two legislative houses and future Presidents, the President was able to appoint life-term judges to a Supreme Court that judged whether laws fit with the “Constitution”, a document that the Founding Fathers wrote to ensure the continuance of the power structure they instated, even as it was amended by later generations. (edited)
21:03
Almost immediately after seceding from the British Empire the USA began to extend its own fledgling empire westward, conquering and displacing the native nations with whom the British had signed treaties limiting their expansion. New states were founded as the new empire’s territory expanded and their population swelled with immigrants taking advantage of their liberal migration policy, many states allowing citizenship to any free man from an array of European countries and later expanding the criteria to include additional countries and women. Upon crossing the trans-continental Misipi river the USA encroached upon the American territories of other European-descended countries and seized them by a combination of warfare and purchase, reaching the western ocean. By this point the states had largely consolidated into three power blocks, the urbanized northeastern states, the agricultural fiefdoms of the southeast, and the western frontier. Tensions between the north and south had been growing for decades over the southern states’ use of slaves from Africa, which an increasing number of northerners had come to see as morally repugnant while the southern economy had become dependent on them. When the western territories, many populated partially by escaped slaves, were admitted as non-slaver states the southeast attempted to secede from the empire. They failed, and the south was economically devastated as punishment.
21:04
Upon securing their continental holdings the USA cast its gaze overseas. Trade with other nations had gone on from the beginning, but with the industrial revolution in full swing the joint-stock corporations that dominated trade began to purchase resources and factories across borders. In a series of wars in Central and South America the USA demonstrated its’ willingness to use its military to open trade opportunities for its’ corporations. While they rarely conquered these countries outright their military interventions often rendered them into corporate vassals, their industries serving to grow the American economy. The USA also extended its reach across the western ocean, colonizing a number of islands for their strategic value and coming to the shores of Asia. In 170 BX the first World War began, the USA managed to stay out of the conflict until the last year, but they were able to demonstrate that they were a match for the other global powers in the conflict and seized credit for the victory of the Allied powers over the Axis. After the bloodiest war in human history to that point the empire retreated to its home territories, causing the economy to crash a decade later. When World War II commenced circa 150 BX America was again reluctant to join in, only entering when the Axis bombarded their oceanic state.
21:04
During WWII the USA developed nuclear fission technology and employed fission explosives to force the last of the Axis nations to surrender after burning two of their cities. The other major nations of the Allies obtained the same technology soon after, including the Russian empire. Russia had been considered an ally-of-convenience by the other Allied powers until the Axis was destroyed on account of their embracing the economic philosophy of Communism, as opposed to the Capitalism of the other Allies. The expansive territory of Russia’s empire combined with their oppositional philosophy worried the USA, but with both empires possessing weapons capable of rendering the other uninhabitable they couldn’t risk an open war. Therefore they spent the next century expanding their influence among the less-powerful nations. As the international game went on America’s political parties oscillated between favoring and opposing the use of military force to support useful factions in the disputed nations. Twenty years in the two empires made a brief foray into space, with the USA landing the first human on Terra’s moon in 120 BX. After this prestigious landing, however, the Terran empires restricted their activities to near-Terra orbit for seventy years, focusing on radio relay satellites.
21:04
As the final pre-Exodus century crept on it became clear that Terra’s resources were running out, and a few corporations picked up where the empires hosting them had left off. In 50 BX the first parahumans were produced by a corporation primarily staffed and owned by Americans for the purpose of colonizing Sol’s Asteroid Belt.
21:07
I've also been writing on the Para-Imperium's dominant religion. Not sure if I understood the concept of egregores correctly. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CaSR30RXwIMaZVjpfGZzhheemjD28vS0cO6RnZVu19I/edit?usp=sharing
The Noospherist religion is distinguishable from most faiths in that it does not believe in a divine creator or an immortal soul, rather they believe in emergent phenomena from the primordial chaos. Balls of acid and lipids form cells, cells join together into biofilms, speci...
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MarcusAurelius 03/26/2019 9:08 PM
Ah, but what about America's willingness to firebomb cities into nothing?
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Keep in mind this is supposed to be written ~2000 years from now after Berserker probes burnt Earth to a crisp
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/26/2019 9:46 PM
So wait
21:46
120 BX = 1969 AD
21:46
X = 2089 AD? (edited)
21:47
So you think we'll have furries by ~2040
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It’s a possibility
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-40 Before Exodus: Creation of parahumans.   -24 BX: Parahumans emancipated and corporations that enslaved them dissolved.   -17 BX: Events of The Pride of Parahumans.   0 Post Exodu…
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 11:50 AM
Rip
11:55
Crap I chose the 2,000 years from now date as well
11:55
Except the IC calendar epoch is 1999 AD
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 5:54 PM
^(at least in the federation you're potentially immortal and have a few nondestructive outlets for your energy)
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It's probably better than current Earth, but not exactly a wonderful society to live in.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 5:56 PM
(if you're a tiffanian in 2020 IC you live as people in 2020 AD did because of the Imperial Conservatism, will die in five score and ten years and the only outlet for all the stress society piles onto you is to sign up with the military to bomb/shoot/laz0r rebels) (edited)
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Also, everyone knows that time begins in 1970, not 1999.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 5:57 PM
@gollark time will also end in 2038
17:57
:^)
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Life expectancy is 110?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 5:57 PM
Oh yeah... I should have said four score and ten
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I'm wondering how many 32 bit Unix systems will be around in 2038. Probably a lot. Inevitably a few will be in some sort of critical system.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 5:58 PM
Life expentancy is 175 if you're one of the lucky few who have the connections, time, and cash to get extension treatments, which are mostly experimental still
17:58
You might live to see the Imperial population push a trillion in 2100 (edited)
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How do you end up with a stupidly large civilization but barely any life extension stuff?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 6:00 PM
@gollark Being biocons, but pushing the terraforming and colonization angle really hard
18:00
Even at 0.09 growth factor population can go from 30 billion to 1 trillion in about three centuries
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Âh, weird cultural stuff.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 6:02 PM
@gollark like Tifanian's dont breed like rabbits and there's no quiverfull 'you gotta have 6 children per female' thing
18:03
its just the mathematical weight of billions of people
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Morgrim Moon 03/27/2019 7:25 PM
also the science of interspace colonisation and of life extension are pretty much entirely separate tech trees, it wouldn't be hard for a culture to run down one and skip the other
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 7:26 PM
@Morgrim Moon this
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Morgrim Moon 03/27/2019 7:26 PM
hm?
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Especially if you go down the "unrealized principle of FTL travel" route
19:27
Or you find a precursor portal network or something.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/27/2019 7:28 PM
i mean that is more or less what i'm trying to say
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sdschildberg 03/27/2019 7:38 PM
Which explains such societies as seen in many other SciFi works
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In case you were wondering, yes I developed half those "archetypes" in the Gdoc from tarot draws.
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The Great Explosion tripled the brightness of the Milky Way Galaxy for an extended period of time and was visible across most worlds in civilized space, at various points in time due to light lag. From Earth, the event epicenter shone brighter than the full Moon during maximum brightness.
08:24
For a time, people were panicking about unstable Precursor technology or a new covert superweapon developed by some rogue polity, until someone realized that Eta Carinae was located at the exact spot of the explosion epicenter and had mysteriously vanished.
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What was the Great Explosion?
08:25
A Supernova?
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Eta Carinae finally blew
08:26
Largest Milky Way-based supernova in most polities' recorded history
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BOOM
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Thankfully, since no one was stupid enough to settle within the supernova danger envelope of the galaxy's most massive star, there were no casualties
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 8:28 AM
that would be an embarrassing realisation for a lot of people. "Oh. Right. Yes. Supernova. We probably should have thought of that FIRST"
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"Right, Nature sometimes gets to have her say. She kill anyone this time?" (edited)
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Except for a few unlucky bastards that unwittingly were flying spacecraft through the path of the gamma-ray burst jets
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How many?
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ouch
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Only a few thousand sophonts, all of whom had backups elsewhere.
08:30
Which is pretty much nil in a galaxy of 10^37 sophonts
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 8:32 AM
that's a lot more than I'd expect
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Millions of Dyson swarms be like
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 8:32 AM
I am now learning about Eta Carinae. This is my cool thing to learn of the day, thank you
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and remember, most people are digital most of the time
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ZZZAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPppppp
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 8:34 AM
and I meant 'a lot more killed than I'd expect', given no major habitted areas were in the path of the jets and so only a few small ships were blasted
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You can run a simulated human brain for a few milliwatts in the modern age of nanotechnology and highly efficient quantum computers operating as close to the Landauer Limit as possible
08:36
Yeah, the jets are several AU in radius and continue to travel for many thousands of lightyears
08:36
The volume of space traffic is such that a few ships get intercepted
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 8:41 AM
you've also got FLT communications and the potential to yell to get the hell out of the way, so I'd think only a few dozen ships would get nailed
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*FTL
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 8:42 AM
Yes. I don't know why I swapped those letters
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yeah, this was before they figured out which direction the jets were going in
08:42
Because they hadn't hit any sensors yet, you see
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 3:52 PM
@KAL_9000 wait wouldnt they figure it out immediately
15:52
or was eta carinae like out in the boonies and so no one noticed
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probably more the usual thing where people get to the point of being able to control enough of their environment that they simply forget about natural phenomena as a threat
16:29
(and of course if you get a sufficiently subtle case of this people can easily start forming conspiracy theories about who is causing the problem)
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 9:48 PM
wait, there are parts of the world where people stop thinking about large scale natural disasters? o.O
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:49 PM
@Morgrim Moon I survived a Category 5 hurricane
21:49
It was a grim reminder, you could say.
21:49
And I say that only half-jokingly.
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 9:50 PM
I guess I'm used to annual public broadcast campaigns reminding people that yes, these are a thing and you need to take these protective steps and the government is unable to help you until a few days afterwards, be ready
21:50
(mostly about firestorms)
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:50 PM
Puerto Rico is right in the middle of Hurricane Alley
21:51
For the first 17 years of my life, though, for some reason we were blessed with no severe storms (they kept menacing the country but either swerving away or turning into mild cat 2s)
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0111narwhalz 03/29/2019 9:51 PM
People live on the slopes of volcanoes.
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 9:51 PM
"There will NOT be a fire truck parked in front of your house. If you stay and defend, you may not have any formal assistance. If you cannot adequately defend your property without help, you MUST leave and leave early" Play on loop
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We’ve been having “historic” flooding this past year
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:52 PM
I'm pretty sure it was no government advisory that saved people from Maria/Irma
21:52
It was the fact most houses here are built of solid concrete, not wood or anything that can be thrown around easily
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 9:56 PM
if you get a firestorm severe enough there is no construction technique on earth that will save the building. But the main reason for the warnings here is that most deaths happen when people say they'll defend and then panic and try to flee at the last minute.
21:57
Fire is instinctually scary and humans run away from fire. But fire will outrun you.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:57 PM
>firestorms
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Especially when you have native eucalyptus
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:58 PM
eucalyptus is the worst cash crop ever
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 9:58 PM
Er, yes? That's the proper term for it. It's when a bushfire becomes intense enough to make its own weather and then you've got fuck all chance of putting it out, you just try to steer it a little and get the hell out of the way
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:59 PM
Thank God I live in an Af/Am climate
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Morgrim Moon 03/29/2019 9:59 PM
well, here gum trees aren't a cash crop, they're just the native flora 😛
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/29/2019 9:59 PM
Here it's all water no flames, God lied to Noah. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/31/2019 3:55 AM
Capitalization on species names: When should you do it, and when should you not do it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2019 6:14 AM
When its at the beginning of a sentence
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0111narwhalz 03/31/2019 6:19 AM
well yeah
06:19
but I was asking about slightly less trivial cases
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Are you talking about the Latin species names or what?
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0111narwhalz 03/31/2019 6:20 AM
Xeno species names :V
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Morgrim Moon 03/31/2019 6:21 AM
as in when to call them Humans and when to call them humans?
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0111narwhalz 03/31/2019 6:21 AM
E.g. one of my species is the uštžen—or is it Uštžen?
06:21
Yes, that.
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Except for those trivial vases, never .
06:22
That's a Star Trek-ism that's infected SF like a brain bug.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2019 6:22 AM
You don’t capitalize the names of animals every time either
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The quick brown Fox jumped over the lazy Dog.
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Morgrim Moon 03/31/2019 6:22 AM
There's a lot of variation. Generally, if you're referring to in a formal way - like using as a nation - capitalisation can be valid. Like if you're meaning humans in a biological sense, lower case. If you're meaning humans in a "United Empire of Mankind except we can't pronounce their nation name", capitalise
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(I practically applauded when Mass Effect didn't succumb to it.) (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 03/31/2019 6:23 AM
Use german vs German as a guide. The only times you use German is when you're shorthanding for "the nation of Germany"
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0111narwhalz 03/31/2019 6:23 AM
What about when the species name is derived from a capitalized place name?
06:23
ah
06:23
I guess that answers it :V
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Yeah, but that's one of those trivial cases. Part of a proper name, and all. So, y know, the human empire, vs. the Empire of Man.
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Morgrim Moon 03/31/2019 6:24 AM
Yeah but it's the usecase that trips people up a lot, so perhaps not quite trivial
06:25
(I mean, I write in a RP setting where one particular species gets Capitalised by another particular species, but that's because of distinct cultural reasons and they're as close as you get to a hivemind without any sort of biological linking; think how fish swarm and make them theoretically sophant but still nobody ever chooses NOT to swarm/are rejected as aberations)
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It's hard to tell, for me, because the Capitalize All Species meme is so pervasive. Even with counterexamples right in front of folks -- such as my carefully not doing it. (Although it would be a mite petty of me to enforce the "people who capitalize 'eldrae' will be cut" rule I haven't made.) (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/31/2019 6:29 AM
My main setting refers to humans as "Tellurites," and it just looks weird to write that all lowercase.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2019 7:46 AM
The real coup was that one author who wrote that actually, every species came to call their planet Dirt or Earth or something equally similar
07:46
Which is why people came to start using other names
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Petition to rename Earth to Planetland.
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"Behold, a human from the planet Dirt."
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At least we have a non-generic species name.
18:13
"Behold, a being from planet Round."
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I think there's a few settings where that's the case
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"Humans are from Humus."
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A chickpea and garlic paste?
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Organic-rich dirt.
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Hey, hummus tastes better than that.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2019 9:42 PM
Heh
21:43
That man would break open a blood vessel about world building
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MarcusAurelius 04/01/2019 2:41 PM
Nah, I at least managed to dodge the "planet named dirt" bug. Though that's mostly because most of the planets involved where not named by a sophont species native to them
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/03/2019 6:05 PM
Hm
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I capitalize Jaian because it should be capitalized according to Jaian grammar rules
08:03
Although it shouldn't be in English, I use whatever capitalization the native language (if it used the Latin alphabet) deems appropriate for species names (edited)
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Nationalities are capitalized in English.
08:41
Is Jaian based on any “current” human language?
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Yes, I'm talking about the species (edited)
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I know that in German every Noun is capitalized while non-Latin writing systems usually don’t have an equivalent to capital letters
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using capitalization as a replacement for emphasis here, pretty much 🤷
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MarcusAurelius 04/04/2019 2:47 PM
@Zarpaulek Pretty much only the related Greek and Cyrillic alphabets do, and I think some of the other Phonecian derived scripts do as well. I, like Kal, capitalize based on in-language rules, so capitalizing articles and such
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Just Capitalize Every Word, It's Consistent And Easy.
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MarcusAurelius 04/04/2019 2:48 PM
It also ruins the point and is jarring to many speakers
14:48
and can come across as implying a patronizing or sarcastic tone
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Or AlTeRnAtE tHe CaSe.
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MarcusAurelius 04/04/2019 2:49 PM
I'd rather not, Mr. Krabs
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2019 2:12 PM
I bounced between 'imperial' (it doesn't involve conquering and subjugating other polities, since there aren't any as of 2019 IC) and 'military' (the Empress tends to be a female general, yes, but the governors and vicegovernors and their deputies are generally civilian) and 'theocratic' (only theocratic in the same way the Chinese or Japanese monarchs were considered theocrats) to describe the TE. (edited)
14:13
Ultimately, I decided upon the most succinct summation of the Tiffanian Empire: as 'a bioconservative, pseudofeudal military junta held together by M. A. D. and a common origin.' (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 04/06/2019 8:46 PM
Semi-representative oligarchic military dictatorship, federalized kingdom, and federal republic are the three great powers. Their chief opponents were a technocratic militant empire, a hegemonizing swarm driven by an array of near-archailects acting in cooperation, and a highly decentralized insurgency
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Morgrim Moon 04/06/2019 8:51 PM
https://www.deviantart.com/concavenator/art/The-Featherless-Biped-775925572 this isn't mine, but it's a fun "sophonts grappling with potential other sophonts" thing
Inspired by Viergacht's mammaloid. Happy enough with the drawing, the colours definitely need work. ---    "... in any case, the possibility of advanced intelligence among mammals remains...
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Oligarchic semi-hereditary elected federalized republic. Major member states include a clannish republic, post-feudal parliamentary monarchy, and a grandfathered in corporate state.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:10 AM
Turret arrangements and mounting strategies on ground vehicles.
00:11
Azimuth-altitude "yoke" mounts like on contemporary turrets seem pretty well-understood, but is there a batter way?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:11 AM
there’s a reason 99% of post WW-1 tanks and IFVs have the same basic turret layout
00:12
It’s easy to armor, allows you to mount a big gun with decent elevation and depression, room for a coax, etc
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:12 AM
If I wanted extra guns that can target independently, how would I mount them?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:13 AM
Depends on how big they are relative to the main gun
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:13 AM
Substantially smaller.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:14 AM
RWS on the main turret works up to around 40mm AGLs or 20 mm auto cannons, mounting anywhere else risks obscuring sighlines for the main guns without penetrating the main hull armor (edited)
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:14 AM
Not peashooters (well, hypervelocity peashooters, but they're all hypervel peashooters)
00:15
Maybe a third the calibre, but rails instead of coils so I think they're a bit thinner.
00:15
(by aspect ratio)
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:15 AM
1/3 the main gun is still very large for an MBT
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:15 AM
This isn't a MBT.
00:16
It's an armored vehicle, yes, but not a MBT.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:16 AM
Ah. IFV? Cav scout?
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:16 AM
It's actually a "break and enter" salvage vehicle for techhunting.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:17 AM
Is it meant to fight tank level threats or no?
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:17 AM
The main gun is less about "raw kinetic damage" and more "lob a nanological package at the target"
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:17 AM
I mean armor wise
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:18 AM
Which is why it's coil and not rail.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:18 AM
Ah, so a BMP
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:18 AM
I'm not familiar with this acronym.
00:18
bimetallic plate? V:
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:18 AM
Russian IFV series. Mounted a low velocity high caliber cannon for HE chucking/GLATGMs
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:19 AM
It's also lightly armed for its size, because while it's supposed to be able to fight, it's not a specialized fighter.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:19 AM
In which case still, you’re best mounts unless this thing is huge is coax on the main turret or in an RWS up top.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:20 AM
Total length bumper-to-bumper is meant to be about 17 meters.
00:20
Main gun barrel is 6m or so.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:20 AM
Roughly human size crew?
00:20
And how tall is the vehicle? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:21 AM
Haven't determined other dimensions, but it's supposed to be for a kerbal crew (standing 1m).
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:21 AM
Oh. That makes things easier
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:22 AM
I'm thinking of including an uštn on board, though, which makes things harder again :D
00:22
(since they stand 2–2.2m tall) (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:22 AM
So probably the main gun, a coax, an RWS on top, and automated Firing port style mounts where you want them
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:23 AM
mhm
00:24
Also, in case this wasn't hard enough already, it's meant to be mid-grade modular.
00:24
(needs some equipment to reconfigure, but you can do it in the hangar)
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:25 AM
Yeah, given you mentioned nano-weapons I was assuming these secondary gun mounts would be fully isolated from the main compartment
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:25 AM
So this configuration is what I'm calling the "siege" module.
00:25
The "assault" module has four of the smaller railguns, independently mounted.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:26 AM
...what is this meant to be fighting and why does it not have proper combined arms support
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:26 AM
The assault module has a drone hive if that helps V:
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:26 AM
Firing in every direction means things have gone FUBAR for a tank, this thing is not so what is it fighting
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:27 AM
And presumably its mothership can provide orbital fire support if necessary.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:27 AM
Ortillery is not the best at CAS
00:27
it’s hard to both penetrate atmo in a timely basis and provide small amounts of terminal energy
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:27 AM
I figure archaeotech which could wake up at any moment might put you in a sticky situation very quickly.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:28 AM
But relatively fragile and dumb?
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:28 AM
If it's been vacuum-exposed for æons it's probably brittle?
00:29
I dunno.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:29 AM
I meant in terms of ability to fight
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:29 AM
If something wakes up that needs big guns, the strategy is to bail out.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:29 AM
Like this thing versus its contemporaries equivalent to American light infantry doctrine will be introduced to Friend Javelin through a few new HEAT created orifices
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:30 AM
basically if your tank is flanked you're dead and that's an accepted trade off, because if anything more than a lightly armed human or three gets behind your tank you fucked up
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:30 AM
Mostly I'm expecting this to fight security drone swarms.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:30 AM
Not even that. Molotov cocktails are still effective
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:31 AM
Things that are mobile, numerous, and can be downed by a few dozen snippets of vanadium or whatever.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:31 AM
So things equipped with infantry caliber weapons and no anti-armor or good coordination?
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:31 AM
it almost sounds like you want a vehicle that can point heavy supressive fire in one direction, either in 'slow approach while ready to fire' form or 'keep it back while we flee for our lives' form
00:31
which means that, entertaining, you might want it going in reverse most of the time
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:31 AM
"fleeing for our lives" is probably a major operating mode, yes
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:32 AM
and then the 'secondary' weapons, by size, are the ones that get most usage
00:32
"We build this to run away and then hope we don't have to do it much"
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:32 AM
The coilgun is a specialist weapon, so that checks out.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:32 AM
At this point you basically want a BMP with a Bradley’s fireports hooked up as CBRN isolated RWS, yeah
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:32 AM
if you don't have to swing the main gun much that opens up your options because you don't need to gimble the whole thing
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:33 AM
True, we could make it a fixed or classmate hull mount, that frees up a lot of top deck space
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:35 AM
If the coilgun's used primarily in low-stress conditions, when the aux guns aren't heavily engaged, would that help things?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:36 AM
i still think the back-scratcher reinforced BMP layout is the best for weapons
00:36
You could move it into the main hull and mount multiple MG turrets, but I’m not fond of that
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:36 AM
Maybe specifics would help.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:37 AM
When in doubt, big chunks of HE or thermobarics or canister are good for dealing with swarms
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:37 AM
The root vehicle, with no module installed, has two small machine railguns.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:37 AM
Where
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:37 AM
That's what this discussion is for, no? :V
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:38 AM
'small machine railgun' is not really a combination that goes together?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:38 AM
Well, you’re giving me design details without details
00:38
It makes sense
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:38 AM
Their primary purpose is to spew peas everywhere.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:38 AM
A GPMG equivalent
00:38
7.62 in space
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:38 AM
250mg gross armature mass.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:38 AM
That’s ludicrously tiny
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:39 AM
hypervelocity and all that (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:39 AM
...that better be for the projectile
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:39 AM
(I'm resisting the urge to go weigh some ball bearings now)
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:39 AM
Most damage is expected to come from the projectile plasmising in the target, and the resultant spalling, et cetera.
00:40
Expect probably thousands of RPM?
00:40
Burst-like.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:40 AM
I’d still go bigger. You’re at the point where to get useful KE you need to be going fast enough to get reentry effects
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:41 AM
I guess I should make this thing viable in atmospheres, huh?
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:41 AM
yeah, small ball bearings start suffering air friction effects earlier than you'd think
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:41 AM
Well, the main rails are 3g projectiles.
00:41
(should probably use a shape other than "flat disc" too in that case)
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:41 AM
Yup
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:42 AM
The assault module is supposed to fit four of those, and the siege module two.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:42 AM
Use an APFSDS dart for inspiration, scale down
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:43 AM
In addition, both the assault and siege modules have a few phased laser arrays for point defense.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:43 AM
Like your main gun shell are the same basic mass as .22 long rifle
00:44
A squirrel round
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:44 AM
Presumably .22 long rifle doesn't have a muzzle velocity in the tens of km/s?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:45 AM
You mean blast effect at the muzzle and instant vaporization of your round?
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:45 AM
the lighter the round, the sooner it'll stop even WITH that sort of muzzle velocity and the more likely it is to fragment in the air
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:45 AM
I haven't been designing with air in mind V:
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:45 AM
Not how IRL long range high velocity rounds are big and chunky
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:45 AM
I probably should but I haven't been
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:46 AM
Like .338 Lapua or the LRLAP for 152mm
00:46
Because atmo plays merry Hell with small and fast
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:46 AM
Now that I'm actually thinking about it, it's more likely that the shiny stuff is going to be in pressurized environs anyway.
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:46 AM
Honestly, mars density air may be a problem at those velocities
00:47
Because those are interplanetary aerobrake speedd
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:47 AM
if it's pure vacuum you can get away with ignoring that, but most archeotech is going to be interesting places, and interesting places tend to have gravity and some form of atmosphere. Especially if there are DRONES
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:47 AM
I was expecting rocket drones? V:
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:47 AM
To be fair, drone doesn’t necessarily imply a movement method
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:48 AM
You guys are right, though—making it this vacuum-specialized is dumb.
00:48
ugh, now I'm going to have to rethink the jumpjets too V:
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:49 AM
it's an easy fix: up the projectile mass and drop the muzzle velocity to match
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:49 AM
well then I might as well just use a conventional gun
00:50
Is there a point to railguns other than their blinding speed?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:51 AM
You can still go high velocity
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:51 AM
(except requiring ludicrous amounts of power)
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:51 AM
Just not that crazy
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 12:51 AM
(sidenote: I do like how that's universal, and there does come a point where "lob a boulder at a few metres per second via a catapult" is actually more effective than any sort of firearm with a conventional projectile. I'm excluding the specialised projectiles that are designed to explode on contact etc because they're not just shaped dead weight)
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:51 AM
Couple km/s maybe?
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:52 AM
Yeah, 3.5 km/s doable
00:52
Actual APFSDS is around 1.75 km/s
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:53 AM
that's about as high velocity as I could actually get in CoaDE anyway without melting things, at least in my mass budget
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:53 AM
But yeah, if this is vacuum optimized why isn’t it a ship instead of an AFV?
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:53 AM
Because sometimes you need to get inside installations or other tight places.
00:54
(and I just assumed "if you're breaching anyway it'll probably vent")
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:54 AM
Not really. 1 atmo differences bent really slowly and gently
00:55
IIRC the ISS would take a few hours to decompress even for decently big holes
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:55 AM
If you make a hole big enough for a not-tank to fit, I expect you'd vent pretty quickly.
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As a side note, when I was putting together the design for the Probable Technologies research crawler, which has the job of poking archaeotech professionally, I was very careful to put some severe limits on its offensive systems, down to things little bigger than sidearms. The reasoning for that being -- well, you recall in the Expanse books how the ring station reacted every time someone got clever ideas that made it feel threatened?
📌 1
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MarcusAurelius 04/07/2019 12:58 AM
Not really. 1 atmo is a tiny pressure difference.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:58 AM
Maybe not in terms of airspeed, but surely it would come down to a low vacuum relatively quickly if it's a building-sized space.
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The bright lads at Existential Safety would rather lose a crawler full of field researchers now and again than let them provoke some ancient, paranoid security system into, oh, shooting down the entire expedition ship, or blowing up the sun, or some such overreaction.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 12:59 AM
That would be much more useful to me if it wasn't my protagonists in the crawler V:
01:00
But a very good point I hadn't considered.
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2019 1:00 AM
so basically "we come in peace!"
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They do fit plenty of defensive and running-the-hell-away systems. But with assumptions that - to pick one example - spraying around yourself with antinanitic phlegm is going to be less provocative than laying about you with plasma flamers, which in turn is probably less provocative than popping an EMP, when it comes to nanodefense.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 1:02 AM
hmm
01:02
I could fit the Talon with primarily nanologicals.
01:02
But nanologicals make for poor descriptions :V
01:03
Everything turns into "squirt some paste at it and watch magic happen"
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(This policy is mostly informed by the field researchers having backups and anyone going into the vulture-archaeology and god-bothering business pretty much expecting to burn through incarnations pretty fast. On the other hand, the possibilities for paleotech doing Very Bad Things don't get any less compelling just because your field guys are mortal.)
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01:04
Ah, you've just got to describe down a level or two.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 1:06 AM
I can do that a couple of times, but I feel like it'll get stale much faster than sounds of dakdakdak.
01:07
Plus I'm trying to keep the nanologicals kind of low-key, because while awesome it's way too easy to let them become ugly plot devices.
01:08
And nano as a solution for everything ever is disagreeable to me.
01:09
So I'm trying to keep them as primarily repair or analysis or very specialist offensive.
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Well, if you went with the antinanitic phlegm, you can always get some mileage out of how disgusting it is to defend yourself by basically covering yourselves in snot.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 1:10 AM
"I shouldn't be able to hear the squelching noises through the hull, but I swear I can!"
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Anyway, though, that was just one example - the same analogous steps work just as well for any field of tech , when it comes to not provoking the unknown paleotech of unknown capabilities.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 1:14 AM
And then there's the issue of which kind of shielding to use.
01:15
My shields project in limited arcs, at least the volumetrics, so I think they'll still be viable for ground vehicles.
01:15
But do I go for absorption or deflection?
01:16
Deflection would be the choice for a ship of this scale, but most of that is because there's more freedom of motion.
01:17
Not sure how well it works on the ground.
01:18
Might cause problems if it tries to deflect a massive projectile up, for example.
01:24
…though I guess if you tried to absorb its momentum you'd have just as many problems.
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 1:35 AM
Tangentially: Is there a practical way to get multiple targeted beams out of one phased array?
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2019 1:44 AM
And also: How closely can you space phased arrays of the same wavelength?
01:44
Do they break if you put them too close together?
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MarcusAurelius 04/08/2019 4:05 AM
I'd ask @Kerr, if he's willing
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2019 4:07 AM
Well, it looks like you handled the ping, so I'll just wait here eagerly.
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0111narwhalz 04/10/2019 1:13 AM
While attempting to get some lexigenesis done for Uštsnuvk, I've discovered that my adjective matrices are actually completely useless.
01:15
Rather than describing what the descriptor actually does, I've made descriptors into some sort of subsidary part of speech that just "agrees" with their referent.
01:15
So I guess it's a good thing those matrices are completely empty, huh? V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/10/2019 2:53 PM
lasers make combat boring.
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Not really. They're short-ranged.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/10/2019 2:54 PM
Space combat boring, to be precise
14:54
Especially if you have any decent power generation systems
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You sure about that?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/10/2019 2:55 PM
yeah
14:55
reasonably sure
14:55
i am bad at recalling figures but even now we have petawatt lasers
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They fire very very briefly.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/10/2019 2:56 PM
Yeah, but something something pulsed lasers very good
14:56
I suck at remembering and learning math
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power doesn't matter nearly as much as energy
14:57
a yottawatt laser with 5 joules of energy is worthless for space combat
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/10/2019 2:58 PM
in my setting I tried to enforce a no-lasers doctrine because they're aimbot point and shoot weapons that cant be dodged
14:58
more or less
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that only works for a couple light seconds when talking warships
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0111narwhalz 04/10/2019 3:14 PM
Lasers suffer from the inverse square law.
15:15
Check out CoaDE if you want to see absurd lasers getting beaten out by absurd sandblaster railguns.
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After that they're just space-grade flashlights.
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0111narwhalz 04/10/2019 3:15 PM
Our petawatt lasers mostly fire one femtosecond pulse a day or so.
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Not nessecarily @BizarroLand ♀. Let me dig up some math I did just recently:
01:23
That‘s the definition of Random in Combat Drunkwalking. And sure, the space is limited. So say your target dodges by 100 km. If you just address 1 degree increments, which requires 360 pulse lasers obviously, you‘re addressing edge sets of 200*pi = 628.319 km / 360 = 1.74km which we really must understand as a circle of that diameter occupied by a 100 meter diameter hit area. So, area(d=1.74km) = 2.38 km², area(d=100m) = 7854 m², fractional 7.854e^-3 km² / 2.38 km² = 0.003292 = 0.3292 %. Into that volume you are stabbing with a single focused beam laser with a surface area of, presuming this is a focused strike, area(d=10m) = 78.5 m², or 78.5 m² / 2.38 km² = 3.298*10^5 fractional. Also, even if you connect - 359 other pulse lasers didn't. Your raw chances to hit at this chance are utterly abmysal, and a lot of your resources get lost in bracketing fire.
01:24
Not granted, the proposed dodge here is rather large, but consider this math. Just because lasers are deadly as f* doesn't mean you can't have interesting space combat with them.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:35 AM
"filling the target's possible space with death" only really works at very short range.
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Yep, and mind - I demonstrated math for Mass Effect here, whose ships are insanely maneuverable on paper.
01:40
But the math applies just as well to my spacecraft - when using their warp drives anyway.
01:40
But my bigger point here be: Sure, you have a butload of energy from your super drive system.
01:40
You're going to need that energy because otherwise you can't put up a bracketing fire worth a damn.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:41 AM
conventional velocity kinetics might do better
01:41
"don't dodge too hard or you'll smash into one of these"
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Makes the math just as unfavorable, though. And i mean, sure.
01:45
But my argument there's also "there's a lot of space to shoot and not a lot of target in it".
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:46 AM
Could kinda smash the target space flat in that "low" velocity kinetics stick around for a while.
01:46
Compared to beams.
01:46
(both laser and hypervelocity kinetic)
01:46
Now you only have to constrain them in three dimensions, instead of four
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Kinetics don't really stick around any longer than beams and hivels.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:47 AM
Sub-escape velocity kinetics, maybe?
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The intersection points in the phase space are always discrete four-coordinate vectors.
01:47
And I mean, sure - but this isn't orbital combat.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:47 AM
They're more like smears now.
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And in orbital combat, if you can see it with beams, you can kill it if it doesn't beam you first.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:48 AM
Measurable size in t, if just as small in xyz.
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Not really.
01:48
Like, sure, a kinetic "sticks around" for a given measure.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:48 AM
aha
01:48
other solution
01:48
just fire cables
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But the intersction points are still limited.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:48 AM
kilometer-long cables :V
01:49
yes, it's basically a netgun for a starship
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Indeed, if you want "long-t interdiction" of a given vector volume, you're reliant on your enemy behaving in a particular, stupid way - dodging away from you.
01:50
Lateral drunkwalk interdiction is always t-limited - one point of intersectionality, and then the ammunition is beyond the point of intercept.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:55 AM
hm
01:56
I guess technically you're trying to make lines intersect.
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You always are.
01:56
Outside of missiles with nuclear-pumped weapons, there's no "near miss hit" in space.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:56 AM
I mean, there's the negligible cross section of the spacecraft, but :V
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Either you're at the right x, y, z and t, or your weapon goes awide (and ruins some poor chaps day someday, somewhere, with kinetics).
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:57 AM
(and then some joker decides that space combat isn't hard enough and adds in w)
01:57
(polyspatial drives \o/)
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5+1 space combat, yay!
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:58 AM
I try to keep my brainmelting to a minimum by imposing real nasty overheat penalties on translation drives :V
01:58
The one that works by rotation? Well, you can get up to some really freaky angular business with fourspace.
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I just have my warp drives, or rather, waverider drives, so ya know.
01:59
Makes the math up there look, uh, tame.
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 1:59 AM
Freaky angular business that doesn't look right once you smash it back down into threespace.
01:59
Chirality flips are the least of your concerns :V
02:00
Also if you break a stutterwarp drive—something that could be called a "waverider" but probably bears little resemblance to yours—you run the risk of literally chopping your ship in half.
02:01
I affectionately call this a "segmentation fault."
02:01
My FTL is kinda light on the math, though, at least in use.
02:02
Presumably there's just as much math needed to make it work in-universe as would be expected of low-grade metrical engineering.
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Stutterwarp drive like 2300 A.D. Stutterwarp?
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 2:03 AM
(or perhaps less low-grade, in the case of spacefolders)
02:03
I can't resolve that reference.
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It's a drive that teleports you small distances, but does this so often you achive psuedo-newtonian relativistic/FTL motion?
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0111narwhalz 04/12/2019 2:04 AM
I have neat diagrams somewhere, but I don't think they're up to date with the current concept.
02:04
It does basically that, yeah.
02:05
It's kind of an offshoot of spacefolders, though.
02:05
You see, in my setting, spacefolders can only link two points (via a wormhole) that have identical potential.
02:06
That requires all kinds of potential to be equal, but in space the main one is gravitational.
02:07
However, if you beat the crap out of spacetime, you can get waves in the gravitational potential field.
02:07
These let you fold space between points which would otherwise be forbidden.
02:08
The two distinct components of stutterwarp are the wavegen—which, who'd've guessed, generates waves—and the weaver, which is basically a baby spacefolder that does the easy part of actually punching the hole.
02:09
Don't ask how the wave propogates faster than light, because I don't have a good answer for you :V
02:09
It just happens.
02:10
The amplitude of the wave describes how much potential difference you can traverse in each weave.
02:11
Also, because stutterwarp doesn't actually provide any real movement, you still have to accelerate conventionally.
02:12
Instead, it produces an effective length contraction, quantified by a "contraction factor," which multiplies your apparent acceleration.
02:12
(apparent from the outside, that is)
02:13
(also it's acceleration with respect to the inertial frame in which the wavegen was initialized—how this actually makes sense physically is another handwave)
02:15
so yeah I don't know if that's like the 2300 A.D. one, but that's how it works
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Can somebody more familiar with the concept of Egregores tell me if I understood them right? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CaSR30RXwIMaZVjpfGZzhheemjD28vS0cO6RnZVu19I/edit?usp=sharing (edited)
The Noospherist religion is distinguishable from most faiths in that it does not believe in a divine creator or an immortal soul, rather they believe in emergent phenomena from the primordial chaos. Balls of acid and lipids form cells, cells join together into biofilms, speci...
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So, the skrandar are kind of like the entities that created the berserker probes I used to wipe the political slate clean. Only with a few dekamillennia of a head start.
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The Janssen incident of 1534 Post Exodus is widely believed to have popularized the “Para-Imperium” nickname for the Federation of Parahuman Species. Janssen is a carbon world with eigh…
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@Unknown Indeed, this is the math that my distance closing warship concept is based on. My design can only be reliably hit at very short ranges, and even then it's EW is at its most effective due to the inverse square law. (edited)
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I did write up some homebrew notes for my setting in Myriad Song a while back http://www.sanguinegames.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3944
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If I were to write a setting about the expansion of humanity into the solar system, what plausible factors are there that would cause humanity to colonise different bodies?
02:48
Asteroid mining is lucrative for a start, if you can get the required infrastructure into place first.
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A desire to go new places, to live away from the currently existing government structures.
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yes, and space is also a great opportunity to develop technologies and be able to compete with a bigger market, notably earth (edited)
03:50
but you also need a space force to protect assets and project force (edited)
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Just developing tech doesn't require isolation. Modern tech would actually be hampered with that. You can't get a few resistors on Io without a LONG mail order
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Resistors suck
04:01
They dump electricity to reduce current
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You'd eventually need a space force. Eventually. Assuming that others are also working to project force and they're hostile to you
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No, but I mean the environment of space, it's microgravity (edited)
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Fine. Semiconductors then. Or wire. Or breadboards. Or anything.
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Morgrim Moon 05/03/2019 4:02 AM
BREAD
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There is also plenty of radiation around bodies like Jupiter
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The point is, if you're developing tech, you kinda rely on having that tech base near you to support your work
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oh no, you summoned the bread god
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Otherwise before you invent your fancy Epstein drive, you're going to have to invent a wire factory.
04:03
Or rip cables out of something else you need
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Yes, nations will rely on earth tech for a while; Talking about Earth: I'm not too sure imperialism will work too well for keeping colonies in check: Mars is quite the distance away from Earth, so there will need too be a fleet around mars with espatiers on board, ready for the next rebellion, but this will cause public opposition towards earth, as they portray the action as an imperialistic gesture (edited)
04:06
There will be heated debates over colony ownership for years
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Morgrim Moon 05/03/2019 4:06 AM
Illegal research might be an early thing. CRISPR on human embryos sort of thing
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Illegal?
04:07
How so?
04:07
we have rats for that
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Morgrim Moon 05/03/2019 4:08 AM
Human embryos
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Yes, that may indeed happen
04:08
which is why there will be a need for patrol ships to check if stations are performing dodgy experiments (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 05/03/2019 4:09 AM
Like not to discard but intending to carry to term. Fascinating potential, banned nearly everywhere. A collaborative might make a station just to do it
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But what about outsourced manufacturing as well? One thinks there will be an analogue to third world countries being exploited by corporations in rich nations
04:11
But why not just perform CRISPR on adult subjects? Why risk being taken to court and being jailed? (edited)
04:13
Talking about jail: There may very well be space prisons
04:14
And what about the space equivalent of littering?
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2019 4:30 AM
"Why not perform CRISPR on adult subjects?" Mostly because that's not how genetic engineering works?
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...I'm not going to live for eternity
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2019 4:37 AM
None of us ever will unless entropy can be reversed.
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Entropy is reversed by adding feedstock the body needs, like telomeres, ability to kill senescent cells, and stuff that keeps the machinery running. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2019 4:38 AM
Either you have to open the system or break the second law of thermodynamics.
04:39
It's hard to say which is less likely on the scale of a universe.
04:39
So it's probably best to come to terms with your mortality early on.
04:41
Without either of those occurring, the universe will run out of gradients eventually.
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I'd rather die at the end of the universe than die at 80
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2019 4:46 AM
That's nice and all, but "the end of the universe" is not eternity anyway.
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What's your point?
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2019 4:51 AM
Your apparent surprise at your lack of eternity => my explanation of why eternity was unrealistic to begin with.
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Well, of course you will get killed by something, biological immortality isn't true immortality.
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Gene therapy has a long history of tissue rejection and cancer
06:56
It only worked for my early parahumans because they had barely any immune systems to start with and weren't too concerned about long-term consequences.
06:57
In the interstellar age gene therapy means floating in a tank of perfluorocarbon and micromachines for months while your immune system is suppressed.
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Are you sure that's how it works?
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What works?
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Gene therapy
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Which of us here has a Bachelor's of Science in Molecular Biology?
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I have a theoretical degree in physics!
👌 3
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The whole microgravity and vacuum thing means that maybe some really sensitive processes can be explored better.
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why perflourocarbon?
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A terrible reason I thought of to go to space: tax evasion via offworld bank accounts.
10:41
And another one (again, doesn't really work as the only reason, but it might be an extra spacey activity): really well-distributed backups of data.
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By my understanding, current rules set up is that your spacecraft is under the legal system of whoever launched it.
10:52
So if -all- you're doing is tax evasion, you don't actually need to space the servers for it to work, you just need a data shack on an island or something (which is what they do now)
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@o11o1 It’s a liquid medium that mammals can breathe
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So you feel like you're drowning but aren't?
11:06
at least up until you want to leave the tank and the doctor informs you your payment method was declined.
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Morgrim Moon 05/03/2019 11:07 AM
mammals can breath it for a few hours. The increased respiratory pressure wreaks havoc on the lung tissue
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Well I'm also talking about a species that can hold its breath for a rather long time and survive exposure to vacuum https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/parahuman-baseline/
While parahumans were based on humans and spliced with cosmetic genes from a variety of different animal species, there are a few traits that are common to the majority of the parahuman population …
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How could I depict a character showing grief from remembering the death of a loved one? (edited)
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Ok, I have rephrased
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still a bit '...', but I at least see where you're coming from
17:14
I would say you want to watch some Tragic works, like those of shakespeare say. It comes up more strongly there
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'...',?
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Still working on my universe project thingy
09:48
Reasoning for why I had the Jaians be humanoid at the top and a giant spider at the bottom:
09:49
-Bipedal creatures are hard to balance (both in the game development sense and physical walking sense)
09:49
-Spiders have lots of legs
09:50
-Centipedes and millipedes also have lots of legs, but are super long and a giant one probably wouldn't be able to fit in a room
09:51
-Also, spiders are cool because they can walk on walls and spin webs (the Jaians cannot walk on walls. The Square-Cube Law strikes again!)
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Morgrim Moon 05/08/2019 9:51 AM
technically hexapods are more stable than octopodes, keep that in mind
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@Morgrim Moon Yes, this is true. But spiders are inherently cooler than flies. That's why they eat them. (no it's because they evolved to eat them but spiders are still cooler) (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 05/08/2019 9:54 AM
fair
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As a policy, to spice things up, all major non-human biological sophonts in my 'verse will be non-bipedal.
09:57
I am keeping faces and upper bodies mostly humanoid, which is so the audience can relate to the characters better but is justified in-universe by Precursor Bullshit™
10:02
With the notable exception of the Valeri, who used to be a normal-ish sophont species before an Eldritch Abomination thought that their home system looked like a good home during their early Bronze Age and promptly accidentally mutated all life on the planet into hideous tentacle monsters.
10:03
This is considered a good outcome, considering the typical nature of Eldritch Abominations.
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Morgrim Moon 05/08/2019 10:03 AM
they do seem to have a thing for tentacles in pop culture
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Eldritch Abominations? Yeah, I rolled with that
10:53
And by "good outcome", I mean "not everybody died or went insane", which is considered "good" when dealing with Eldritch Abominations.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/08/2019 11:24 AM
@KAL_9000 The Tiffanians are humanoid in general body plan but there are some pretty radical deviations from it toward the extremities
11:24
Most notably the head
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A lot of pans in Apeiron Terminus are descendent from hominids... but then, many are also not. And the setting accomodates many terragen Pans. Though, if I had to visualize parts of the setting, the ubiquotious Mediated Reality would allow me to humanize essentialy any entity.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/08/2019 11:27 AM
Their hands and feet are almost humaniform and if they didn't have the claws and pads you might almost be fooled into thinking it's just some ape. There are certain ethnic groups who have oddities like 'digitigrade' feet
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(If nothing else, you can overlay a face onto a Pan who doesn't have a humanoid one.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/08/2019 11:31 AM
Tiffanian heads are basically modeled almost entirely on a creature depending on the individual, but with a few allowances made for brain cavity space, facial expressiveness, and that sort of humanizing stuff (edited)
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I have at last finalized the Jaian home system!
14:16
Basic overview:
14:17
Joltol system: Close binary pair (Joltol A: 0.7 Solar Masses, Joltol B: 0.3 Solar Masses), average separation 0.1 AU, maximum separation 0.2 AU (edited)
14:18
Innermost planet at 0.3 AU (edited)
14:18
Planets:
14:18
-Mohry (Moons: Virnas) - Mars-class (edited)
14:18
-Evus (Moons: Arec, Jadis) - Earth-class (edited)
14:19
-Joltir (Moons: Khorth, Tzetch, Jolton, Nirg, Slatch, and dozens of captured asteroids) - Gas Giant (edited)
14:19
-Kharn (Moons: Tyros) - Earth-class (edited)
14:19
-Meltol (Moons: Tiris, Odok, Frayer, Frir, Lochon, and dozens of captured asteroids) - Gas Giant (edited)
14:20
-Riltil (Moons: Gemwise, Bagdo, Meppin, Pirry, and dozens of captured asteroids) - Gas Giant (edited)
14:20
-Tilos (Moons: Marda, Dreces, Phike) - Super-Earth (edited)
14:21
-Norania (Moons: Mirax, Arta, Tital, and dozens of captured asteroids and comets) - Ice Giant (edited)
14:22
-Kipper-Aplux (Double Planet) (Moons: Rix, Serb) - Mars-class & Earth-class (edited)
14:22
-Donnae (Moons: Titor, Potreb, Nesti, and dozens of captured asteroids and comets) - Ice Giant (edited)
14:22
-Thelon (Moons: Nictos, Sorpa) - Super-Earth (edited)
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Err, why would you necessarily need to give the spider people humanoid upper bodies and faces in order for the human audience to relate? (edited)
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9:51 AM] morgrimmoon: technically hexapods are more stable than octopodes, keep that in mind
So you lift your two spare legs up as manipulators and walk on the remaining three. Also gives you backups in the event of injury.
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MarcusAurelius 05/08/2019 9:21 PM
Yeah, I could see the fore and aft lower limbs being useful as gross manipulation digits, kind of like how cats and dogs use their fore paws, but with the upper arms as the fine manipulators
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That is an interesting biomechanical thought.
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MarcusAurelius 05/09/2019 8:55 AM
So, they could for example carry a heavy object with the forelimbs carrying much of the weight, and have the upper arms be mostly stabilizing
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this is a good idea
09:36
@Unknown You literally answered your own question. The audience is humanoid.
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sort of..... this is a grey area
09:38
(btw plug for fantastically well written alien races, as well as other things: A Darkling Sea)
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MarcusAurelius 05/09/2019 9:38 AM
I get his point, especially for visual media though
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humanoids they ain't, but you get to understand and empathise their perspective anyway
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yes, well, i'm not as good of a writer, am i?
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wouldn't know. Probably a better one than I
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MarcusAurelius 05/09/2019 9:40 AM
And again, that’s a book. There’s a reason that even in cartoons where the funny animals look pretty like their IRL equivalents, the big changes are to give them more humanoid faces
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[cue 10,000 animes with monster-girls]
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@Ian Bruene a n i m e
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MarcusAurelius 05/09/2019 9:42 AM
And once again, no matter what they change the basic facial structure looks humanoid (or as humanoid as anime gets)
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oh, the singular is also the plural?
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MarcusAurelius 05/09/2019 9:42 AM
Yup
09:42
Japanese has no grammatical number, loanwords tend to carry that over
09:43
1 samurai, 10,000 samurai
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Morgrim Moon 05/09/2019 9:43 AM
it's well known in animation circles that it is extremely hard to get mainstream audiences interested in a character if they don't have expressive eyes, an expressive mouth, and a hand-equivalent to gesture with
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but seriously: anyone who hasn't read A Darkling Sea needs to
09:43
chibi-cthulu.....
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Morgrim Moon 05/09/2019 9:44 AM
and that if you have a purely written description then even if you don't describe them with a face, the readers are likely to subconsciously staple a face on them anyway
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MarcusAurelius 05/09/2019 9:44 AM
You can get away with a lot with ears, especially for canine or feline based creatures
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life (n.): Broadly speaking, life is a characteristic of certain objects (things, if you will) that distinguishes them from non-living matter. Definitions vary, but the four traits exhibited by and defining life in the most common definitions are the following: 1) Ability to exploit an energy gradient to do useful work 2) Ability to maintain a stable internal environment 3) Ability to reproduce itself 4) Ability to change and evolve via natural selection The most common forms of life in the known Galaxy are protein-in-water biological life, machine organisms, and diglife. -Encyclopædia Galactica
👍 1
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A fun and easy way to make your species more alien is to have them use different amino acids than Earth life.
11:12
There are more than 500 known amino acids, but only 22 of them (plus a few others not involved in proteins) are used in Earth life.
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aren't most of the extra 500 amino acids really convoluted and huge though? I would expect life would tend to favor the simpler types by default.
17:26
Still, even just swapping a couple of the animo's out will tend to make things mutually incompatible
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Morgrim Moon 05/13/2019 7:05 PM
most life on earth uses left handed animo acids, so you can have fun with chirality too. Except for platypii, cone snails and a couple of bacteria, they use both
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I've been thinking about solar system governments after the fall of an empire.
11:25
Kind of imagining a dynamic between inhabited (or at least "shirt-sleeve") planets and asteroids similar to the urban/rural situation in the Middle Ages.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/15/2019 12:45 PM
Well, there might be different (flags) standards for the dirtside of a polity and the orbital side
12:46
That’s what I came up with
12:46
In IAC about 20% of the population live in habs, and they tend to have more traditionally specialized economies
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I was thinking more along the lines of "city-states and feudal estates". (edited)
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"Planet air makes is free."
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At the very least the methods for collecting usage fees for a planetary ecosystem would be complicated.
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At least you should only have to worry about externalities and imbalances, since most of the life on the planet is working for its own interests.
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That and people have a habit of forming rat’s nests of economic, ideological, and personal networks when concentrated in a small area. And if you’ve got air cars a planet might start to feel a bit claustrophobic.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/15/2019 4:43 PM
Air cars don’t work conceptually
16:43
/spoilsport
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MarcusAurelius 05/15/2019 4:44 PM
they do if you assume you have a large population of people competent enough to get a VFR pilot's license and especially decent automation
16:45
and trust me, aircraft really aren't that hard
16:45
you can literally teach a 6 year old
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Might depend on your power density technology. And the local gravity.
16:45
Can’t you get a pilot’s license at 14?
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MarcusAurelius 05/15/2019 4:45 PM
17
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/15/2019 4:45 PM
Yeet
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MarcusAurelius 05/15/2019 4:46 PM
you can start logging hours officially at 15 IIRC
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/15/2019 4:46 PM
Problem is what you get with most air cars going on the market now is a light aircraft that does some car stuff
16:46
Badly
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MarcusAurelius 05/15/2019 4:48 PM
and 120 years ago cars were a novelty owned when they got bored of carriages. Time marches on
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/15/2019 10:07 PM
@Zarpaulek I mean, the idea of a direct societal dichotomy between globe and void-dwellers is interesting to explore
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How would I make a realistic mutation tree for a game with genetic engineering?
06:42
I also want to make a plausible rapid tissue regeneration mutation that comes with severe bad mutation risks and generates a lot of heat when used. (edited)
06:43
I want to make a realistic mutation point system. Would using ATP as "currency" make sense, or maybe DNA slots with no bad mutation risk as the "currency"? (edited)
06:46
I was also thinking that there should be a chance that the rapid tissue healing will go bad, either giving you a mildly to horribly mutated limb or causing tumors to grow (edited)
06:48
In order for minimal risk of a bad regrowth, the affected limb should be kept in a container of special regeneration process coordination fluid
06:52
At normal regrowth rates, the limb would take a few days to regrow. At emergency levels, the limb can regrow in a few hours to an hour depending on size, but this generates a lot of heat, eats up body resources and has a chance of going wrong depending on how badly injured the body is (edited)
06:53
You can either die alone in the wasteland desert from undergoing a bad regrowth lying with a badly mutated body or from heat exhaustion (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 05/16/2019 6:58 AM
might be worth looking at how long a salamander takes to regrow a limb, and how fast bamboo divides cells when regrowing. Then time things within an order of magnitude for the 'standard'
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An "internal water evaporation duct system" mutation would help deal with the intense heat generated by the emergency regeneration, but would require the consumption of large amounts of water. It might be the case that players might need to sit near a lake while regenerating limbs given sufficient injury
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Morgrim Moon 05/16/2019 7:02 AM
er,, no,, how would that help?
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it would prevent death from overheating
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Morgrim Moon 05/16/2019 7:03 AM
Water stored internally will be at body temperature. Water evaporating internally will burn tissue
07:03
trying to pump water thru as a cooling system won't work, mammals are not set up that way
07:04
you'd be much better off applying the water externally to the limb
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Like sweat, but better
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Morgrim Moon 05/16/2019 7:04 AM
sweat is external, that's why it works
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I’d go the Mutant Year Zero route and have germline-engineered “mutants” with dormant traits that activate with an environmental trigger. And cost calories to use.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/23/2019 3:53 PM
@MarcusAurelius On the topic of aircars, we could probably eventually make a VTOL ducted fan good and compact enough to make a hybrid air/ground vehicle actually somewhat viable engineeringwise (edited)
15:53
It wouldn't be affordable or have a good flight time unless quantum leaps were made in energy storage however
15:53
The TF-X is a glorified light sport
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Dump my cargo? With all due respect, Emissary, that simply was not possible. Not to impugn your knowledge of interstellar economics, but given we are still half a light-hour apart I feel obliged to…
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Pluto flag with orbiting bodies
04:01
04:04
Pluto flag without orbiting bodies
04:04
04:06
These are the flags of the Plutonian System Empire
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Which one do you think looks better?
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Maybe put a pentagon around the circle to represent the orbiting bodies instead.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/30/2019 4:40 AM
@Unknown aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhhh
04:41
black on flags is cursed
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:41 AM
The little ones are maybe not significant enough to rate a presence on the flag?
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pluto does not care
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/30/2019 4:41 AM
also lol pluto = japan
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:41 AM
nega-Japan
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napaJ
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Hey, it represents Pluto in the simplest sense (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:42 AM
here's a flag with imagery corresponding to orbiting bodies https://i.imgur.com/MLdL8tU.png
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I wouldn't really go above about five or six objects on a flag.
04:42
Especially not small ones like that.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:42 AM
(wow the contrast of the red on the dark gray is rougher than I'd expected)
04:43
(that's what I get for going all alpha channel, I guess)
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I think your flag is a bit too complex.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:43 AM
yeah probably
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Any suggestions for making a space force ensigna
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:44 AM
it's fine, though, because the polity it represents is getting retconned out of existence anyway
04:44
:V
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I think the one body is fine, maybe with a ring
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A guideline I heard was that a young child of your nation should be able to draw it, though if you have mental enhancements or whatever the bar does go up a bit.
04:44
Maybe a ring around the circle with five bigger points on it? For Pluto I mean.
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I also want it to feel "natural"
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:45 AM
You could probably make a decent flag out of one of the planets from my one :V
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That is why I went with a single black circle in a red background
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Isn't Pluto in a sort of binary with Charon?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:45 AM
Yeah, some class them as contact binaries.
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Hmm, perhaps I could make one side a different colour to represent Charon
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:46 AM
Here's another one of my flags https://i.imgur.com/RYpGbiI.png
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A bit complex
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:46 AM
This one's for a polity of AIs, et al, so I think the complexity is okay :V
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What does the diamond represent?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:47 AM
It's a microchip V:
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What might work is dividing the central circle bit into some nice contrasting colors.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:48 AM
I put some effort into the chromatic symbolism on this one, but it was a while ago so I've forgotten most of it :V
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The black circle represents pluto, and the red background space being the almost endless void separating it from most planets (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:48 AM
well yes that's not hard to guess
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Why not make the flag circular and annoy everyone at once?
04:49
Or elliptical.
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Noooo
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:49 AM
or make it nonorientable so you can't flatten it
04:49
Möbius flag
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Pluto finds flags based on idiotic things like heavy elements complex and a waste of time
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Klein flag!
04:51
Death Star flag I found in my photo library.
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The Deathstar Republic?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:54 AM
As I recall, the dark gray of the microchip had something to do with the fact that the citizens of the Union of Created Intelligences, universally, came from either disintegrating parent civilizations or active persecution. The gold traces represent the prosperity that they have extracted from the void. The white field is their peaceful intent The outer fields… I can't tell whether they're orange or green, and I don't have the original file to check :V
04:55
I also have this corporate logo https://i.imgur.com/WnVEDiK.png
04:56
which might be the best of the three :V
04:57
It's also not alpha-channeled because it looks truly awful on, say, light backgrounds.
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This is the flag of The Nyx Domain
04:58
04:59
Hmm, colours are a bit off
04:59
any suggestions?
04:59
The blue dot is Pluto
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 4:59 AM
blue and red are eyesearing
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I changed the oval to yellow, made me feel sick and dead inside
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:00 AM
like literally cannot resolve the edge without dark patches and weird strobing kind of eyesearing
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Plus the blue is blurry.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:00 AM
oh is it actually blurry
05:02
If I look at it with both eyes, it's hard to tell if it looks weird because it's actually weird or because my eyes aren't converging properly.
05:02
If I cover one eye it still looks weird V:
05:03
When I move my head, the dot looks like I'm trying to look down a straw at it, and sometimes it turns dark.
05:04
Does anyone else get these visual anomalies or is it just me? :V
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Wait, are you doing this in Paint?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:05 AM
the aliasing around the edges suggests maybe
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Yes, I am doing it in paint
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:06 AM
(meanwhile I did mine in Blender :D)
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Paint is good enough in my eyes
05:08
05:08
2nd iteration
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:08 AM
Paint is, as I recall, a giant pain to do anything interesting in
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band represents strong trade ties with Pluto (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:08 AM
On account of the whole "destructive editing" thing
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I am very broke, ok
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:09 AM
well there are plenty of free programs better
05:09
e.g. GIMP
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Oh yeah
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/30/2019 5:09 AM
also git gud (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:09 AM
or even Paint.NET
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/30/2019 5:09 AM
the program doesnt make the artist
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Does the new flag look better?
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/30/2019 5:09 AM
slightly
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It doesn't make me feel sick
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:10 AM
true, but only a fool uses a dull knife
05:10
(hell LibreOffice Draw has more than enough features for what you're doing)
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What could be improved with the design?
05:11
I got simplicity and practicality in there
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:11 AM
I have concerns about your palette, but I am in no position to offer alternatives.
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Pretty bad palette, yeah, but I'm finding what works
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:12 AM
My last project resulted in no less than a dozen likenings to barf.
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Barf factor of pluto flag?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:13 AM
I'm not the one you should ask about colors V:
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Just asking for an opinion about colour palette
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:14 AM
The Pluto one being the pure black on red?
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yes
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:14 AM
Black on red is pretty rough, especially with as saturated a red as you picked.
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Needs to be milder in colour
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:15 AM
(the barfalike article in question:) https://i.imgur.com/hBMkqVh.gif
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Looks OK to me
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:15 AM
(and after some help from a graphic design student:) https://i.imgur.com/nwFgWAf.gif
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much better
05:15
much more PATRIOTIC
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:16 AM
so really you should be asking him, not me :V
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Where is this man?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:16 AM
uh, he's actually a little hard to find lately
05:17
Community we have in common is actually kinda drying up :V
05:17
But if you're interested, go look for the Limit Theory IRC.
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I recommend Inkscape for drawing flags.
05:17
It's a vector graphics editor.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:17 AM
yeah vector graphics is good
05:18
also, as previously discussed, I use Blender
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If your flag is not vector graphics you are probably doing it wrong.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:18 AM
because I am a madwhal who doesn't understand 2D editors
05:18
Is the irregular white border intentional?
05:19
just MS Paint
05:19
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:21 AM
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
05:21
It's still pretty saturated?
05:22
Maybe a little more orange would make it easier on the eyes?
05:22
I dunno, I'm just guessing here
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What's this a flag for again?
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pluto
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Then why yellow/blue?
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Experimenting
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Anyway, the circle in the middle is kind of dull; perhaps think of other distinctive features of the Plutonian system.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:26 AM
could just go with a pentagon outright if it's for the whole system
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Pluto (Latin: Plūtō; Greek: Πλούτων, Ploutōn) was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a m...
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:26 AM
also is there a moon I'm forgetting or are there only four in total
05:26
Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos
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So five objects in the system in total.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 5:27 AM
no there's also Styx
05:27
no wonder I can't keep them apart
05:28
Styx, Nix, same difference
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Well, the pentagon can still work. The shape is Pluto, the points are the mööns.
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MarcusAurelius 05/30/2019 6:02 AM
Yeah, instead of generic “orbital body in space” why not have, say, 5 stripes of one color for the moons (you can make Charon’s double thickness of you want), 4-5 contrasting stripes between them, and a canton with some mythological symbol of Pluto. Like a bident, 3 pomegranate seeds, etc
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Maybe one of the symbols you suggested in the centre, with a ring/pentagon separated into five differently coloured bits to represent the moons.
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Morgrim Moon 05/30/2019 6:16 AM
Is there a reason all the moons are significant?
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They are all part of the empire
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:16 AM
'cause otherwise there'd only be Charon
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Morgrim Moon 05/30/2019 6:16 AM
Obviously Charon is, that system is basically a binary
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Each body has at least some significence
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:17 AM
I mean, even Rhode Island gets a stripe and star on the US flag, so :V
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Morgrim Moon 05/30/2019 6:17 AM
Yeah, but if there isn't some specific significance to the number 5 as relations to plutonian identity, you might be getting tied up in that
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It shows the number of bodies that make up the party
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Morgrim Moon 05/30/2019 6:18 AM
Lots of earth-nations don't have numbered stuff. Pretty much the USA is the only one I know.
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Doesn't hurt to be unique
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:18 AM
I mean sometimes it can
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Morgrim Moon 05/30/2019 6:18 AM
I guess australia's federation star as 6 points, but if we make the NT a full state the points won't change (that's been settled via referendum)
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The bident thing might work to reflect the whole "binary system" thing.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:18 AM
if, say, the reason nobody paths that way is because it's wrong…
06:19
ooh that's a neat double-duty symbolism thingus
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Since the bodies are all part of the unification, they are all represented equally in the flag
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:19 AM
except the four little ones have maybe as much area between them as a quarter of Charon
06:21
My flag earlier (the one with the four planets) had in its first version all five moons of the green planet.
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Maybe just have the main bit be Pluto/Charon with the other bodies added in some small way.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:21 AM
But the little ones are so little as to be 1. insignificant economically and 2. insignificant visually
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What makes you say that?
06:22
Styx could be the finest starship manufacturing body in the system
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Ah, yes, like that time I tried to put a shipyard on Gilly.
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Nyx could be a computer hardware powerhouse, and maybe have a giant mainframe for processing astronomic data from telescopes (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:22 AM
I've planned missions to do that.
06:23
How'd it work for you? :V
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Pluto experiences the least solar interference
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Not very well, everything ends up floating around unstably.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:23 AM
Pluto isn't as good as the .5LY gravitational telescope though
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Minmus was good, since I could ship a big mass driver to it too.
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I’m reminded of a scene on “The Expanse” where Amos is crossing out Phobos on the Martian flag
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:24 AM
oof
06:25
In the Jool system, only some of the moons are really viable.
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That telescope could be manufactured and sent by Pluto at a lower boost cost
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:25 AM
Laythe? Absolutely, no question about it.
06:25
Tylo? Too big to ignore.
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Isn't the air poisonous?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:25 AM
depends on whose canon
06:26
some say it's just a bit salty, some say it smells of ammonia, some say it's a sulfiric hell
06:26
Vall is a good ice source.
06:26
But Bop and Pol?
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I had a kind of unstable ground station with all of the Simple Construction shipbuilding equipment and a stack of mass drivers.
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Why are they trying to make it poisonous anyway?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:26 AM
Nobody cares about those two, except for the kraken tourism.
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It launched a very small (probe core + antenna + solar panels) communications satellite out of the system at 32km/s.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:27 AM
beautiful
06:28
Vall has ice, Tylo has metals, Laythe has an atmosphere, but all Pol has is weird dirt.
06:28
So Pol and Bop no longer rate on the flag.
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Is this written fan canon?
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:29 AM
it's my written fan canon
06:29
:V
06:31
Because of the relative ease of both extracting and lifting metals from a heavy airless body, Tylo became the nucleus of the outer system's shipbuilding industry, with Jool Interstellar Shipyards.
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The great thing about the Minmus (Minmic? Minmian?) mass driver system is that, being on a surface station, it is completely impossible to aim except by waiting for the planet to spin.
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TotallyNotHuman 05/30/2019 6:32 AM
(Minmar)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:32 AM
Laythe provided convenient minimally-deadly habitation for the local engineering personnel as well.
06:33
(not to be confused with Minmatar… or is it?)
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TotallyNotHuman 05/30/2019 6:33 AM
Also yeah, that sounds like a constraint that comes of any surface-based fixed gun :V (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:34 AM
Arecibo uses a movable transceiver to aim the beam.
06:34
(the reflector is spherical so the anomaly is predictable)
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I suppose, just adding more reaction wheels and RCS to it would have worked.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:34 AM
yeah it's not like it's hard to make things fly on Minmus
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TotallyNotHuman 05/30/2019 6:34 AM
if in doubt, add moar RCS
06:34
it's like "moar boosters" but on a micro scale, really
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Given the low gravity it would be safe, if annoying, to just raise it a bit during the launch. Except possibly the mass driver recoil would cause problems.
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Morgrim Moon 05/30/2019 6:35 AM
will play KSP one day
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:35 AM
The hard part is strapping your spacegun down so it doesn't recoil itself into orbit too.
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It would probably recoil itself against the ground.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:35 AM
On Gilly you can literally strap it down.
06:36
With straps that go around the body.
06:36
(± a little physics range extension)
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On Minmus I just gave it some long landing legs.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:37 AM
I have some rocket cannon designs.
06:37
They all do recoil suppression with another engine pointing the other way.
06:37
(classic mass driver stuff)
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Maybe it could be done with some detachable component to do the launch in the air if I was better at docking.
06:38
Er, vacuum, not air.
06:40
Though with enough boosters it could just spin the planet instead...
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:40 AM
(ooh, with Sequencer working with IR again, it's time for another autocannon attempt)
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That's gonna do some system disrupting
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:41 AM
I wonder if Principia lets you change the angular momenta of CelestialBodies :V
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Gilly should be small enough to spin round reasonably well, especially since resources on planets are infinite.
06:44
Just harvest 5 times its mass to use in mass drivers.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:44 AM
Use KAS ground tethers to couple to the body.
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MarcusAurelius 05/30/2019 6:44 AM
@Morgrim Moon It’s less obvious, but the Union Jack is a combo of the crosses for the saints of England and Scotland and Ireland, the stars on the PRC’s flag are the four social classes of Mao’s Initial model of society, South Africa’s the combo of the African National Congress and UK/Netherlands colors, etc.
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There are mods for resource sharing between local ground bases, I think.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:45 AM
yup
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The annoying thing with using Simple Construction to build ships is that you need tanks big enough to hold all the fuel and components of the ship you build at once.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:48 AM
You could save the ship empty and then fill it on the pad, no?
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Happily, you can construct more tanks on site from resources there, but I ran into issues of the docking port orientations getting messed up, and wobbliness.
06:49
… that would do it, why did I never think of that... but you still need room for the ship component stuff.
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0111narwhalz 05/30/2019 6:49 AM
Construct the ship in modules?
06:50
Use Konstruction docking ports to weld modules together?
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Figured I should finally get around to posting my own literary madness. Probably not going as long as anyone else's here, but it's its own little bit of fun 😃 https://dps-yards.com/2019/06/03/side-project/
—— Newsfeed Online —— Catchy news jingle plays From the very depths of space to the lowest streets of Fenris, deWulf State News brings the facts of the galaxy to your desk…
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:44 AM
@MarcusAurelius I know you have some knowledge in this department, so maybe you'd like to help me out:
03:44
I feel like my descriptors are not encoding the right information.
03:44
(in their affices)
03:44
Phonology Consonants |BL|LD|DT|AL|PA|RF|PL|VE|UV|PH|GL| PL| | | |td| | | |kɡ| | |ʔ | NS| | | | n| | | | ŋ| | | | TR| | | | | | | | | ʀ| | | TF| | | | | | | | | | | | FR| | |θð|sz|ʃʒ| | |xɣ| | |h | LF| | | | | | | |...
03:45
(don't mind the interminable empty verb affix matrices—I'm working on those V:)
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:45 AM
hm, no bilabial stops? Very unusual, but sure
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:45 AM
Speakers have no lips.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:46 AM
then how do they have a labio-dental approximant?
03:46
(yes, I know that symbol from memory. LIN 301 does weird shit to your brain)
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:46 AM
They have just about enough flexibility to make that one work, but I intend to make it a rare phoneme.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:47 AM
what do they articulate it with then?
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:47 AM
well it's not so much that they have no lips as almost no lips
03:47
or so I tell myself
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:49 AM
interesting phonotactics. It's odd that they're main liquid can't be in the coda, and that liquids are excluded from the nucleus position when it has syllabic nasals
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:49 AM
When I wrote that I had trouble articulating /ʀ/ in the coda.
03:50
Since I want to be able to speak my own conlang, I decided to forbid the thing that was difficult.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:51 AM
ah. Well, good enough reason, though with practice it's not too hard (or if you want to have fun, have it lenite to a semi-vowel like in German)
03:51
also, there's terms for some of your odder tenses. Past-present =historical present, future past = future perfect (though that's assuming an aspect assumption that may not exist). The others less so, though more clear terms could be easily enough be coined from standard roots. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:51 AM
I guess I could add it to the allowable nucleons?
03:55
not sure if some of your message got cut off or I'm missing a suggestion in the doc?
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:56 AM
yeah sorry, accidentally hit enter the first time, and forgot to hit it again while scrolling through the doc
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:57 AM
I have a piece of paper with some of that stuff on it, but for the purpose of the table I'd like to continue those abbreviations
03:57
Constant character count and all that.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 3:57 AM
it makes sense, it's mostly my classicist side wanting to deploy Latin into anything (edited)
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 3:58 AM
long future, future moment, certain future vague future, instantaneous, vague past recent past, past moment, long past
03:59
or so saeth the scribblings on my math notes
04:00
I should probably propogate that to the doc.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:02 AM
for phonotactics: how do you deal with clusters with conflicting voicing? Most (I won't say all because I'm not sure, though I can't think of one that doesn't) tend to reconcile those clusters to the voicing of either the initial or final component
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:04 AM
I'm not sure what you mean?
04:05
I individually vetted each of the non-blanked clusters in those matrices as nominally possible to articulate.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:06 AM
e.g. English takes phonemic /bægs/ and generates [bægz] as the surface realization. It's not so much about possible as what happens when the principle of least effort is applied over time
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:06 AM
The, uh, sonority hierarchy helped with blanking out e.g. onset clusters which start voiced and end unvoiced, on account of "it's a pain to stop and start voicing again between the first consonant and the nucleus."
04:07
ah, I see
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:07 AM
also, in your write up for verbs, you mention a number distinction for them, but I don't see a place for that in the tables
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:07 AM
That may have been an artifact antedating the Combinatorial Panic.
04:08
(in which I reduced the number of dimensions inflating my affix matrix)
04:08
no more mention of number encoded on verbs
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:15 AM
or for another example, I'm capable of pronouncing [t̪yst̪q.ø], generally if I'm talking fast I won't maintain the dental/alveolar distinction in the coda of the first syllable and assimilate [t̪] to [t]. That makes it odder then, marking number on only nouns is not a common feature, especially in a morphologically complex langauge
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:17 AM
So there's one problem: I can read broad transcription, but the symbols in that narrow transcription are beyond me :V
04:18
Also, I really don't want to double my verb affix matrix—it's intimidating enough as it is.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:19 AM
just do what the IPA chart does for voicing, have them share a box and have a key at the bottom showing which is which
04:20
or make it a predictable additional affix
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:20 AM
And with my track record, it's very possible that it may represent the difference between this language reaching nominal usability, and it being left as so many half-finished documents in my Google account.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:20 AM
those are the voiceless dental stop, front close rounded vowel, voiceless alveolar fricative, voiceless uvular stop, and near-mid front rounded vowel
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:23 AM
well, I hope that's not a familiar word or something, because I cannot recognize it from my undoubtedly mangled execution.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:24 AM
which one?
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:24 AM
The one you produced in that narrow transcription.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:24 AM
ah it's not English
04:25
English doesn't have two of those phonemes, and doesn't distinguish alveolar vs dental stops
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:30 AM
Well, I've been trying to avoid adding words which are notably difficult to pronounce as described to the lexicon.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:30 AM
yeah, you don't have the reflex I had with my second language to maximize verbal affixes into a single syllable
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:31 AM
I'd like to have at least some kind of logic to my verb affix groups.
04:32
Maybe when I get to the other moods I'll have distinct flavors for them.
04:36
If I go for some kind of number-marking affix on verbs which is distinct from the other affices…
04:37
I'm not entirely certain how the mechanics of that will work, but I'm willing to entertain the notion.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:40 AM
e.g. [stem]hežd+ad, [stem]hež+ad, etc
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:41 AM
right
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:42 AM
it could go before or after, it could even be a vowel or consonant mutation like English strong and semi-strong verbs/nouns or the PIE ablaut
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:42 AM
I'm also a little concerned about encoding information in the stress.
04:43
I guess the stress rules are simple enough as it is that that might be viable.
04:44
And so far the words have even come out with the preferred stress.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:44 AM
English does it
04:44
rarely, but we use it for derivational morphology with the stress derived nouns
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:45 AM
Yeah, but English has separate words which differ by stress.
04:45
Uštsnuvk has the same word with another axis of meaning in the stress.
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MarcusAurelius 06/05/2019 4:46 AM
I don't see any fundamental difference between a method used for derivational morphology than one used for inflection
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2019 4:46 AM
Which means the possible damage done by corruption of the stress is less likely to be reparable by context.
04:47
I guess?
04:48
I also kinda need some clever way to indicate a stressed, uh
04:48
(darn soft keyboard doesn't have that diacritic)
04:48
cn I guess
04:48
since I can't actually compose it on my phone
04:50
I don't want multiple diacritics on one letter, and I don't really want to change the symbol I'm using for the nasal-that-isn't-n unless something way better shows up.
04:51
(something that doesn't itself have a diacritic already)
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So, I’m writing a story for another universe that is still in development.
14:36
It’s a “generation ships and wormgates” type setting. There’s STL reactionless drives, cloaking devices, and gates are comminly in orbit over planets. Gates generate wormholes on demand but are usually “paired” with a single other gate and usually on. They can be retuned but it’s very difficult so the imperial capital has hundreds of gates in orbit. One of the empire’s vassal states had gate tech before annexation, and the former king in exile funds privateers.
14:38
A canon depiction of piracy involves a cloaked ship slipping through a gate linked to a gateship in transit, disabling their drive and gate, and making a deal with the gateship’s captain.
14:39
I’m trying to write a story from another privateer ship’s perspective, any suggestions for how that would work given the tech constraints?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/08/2019 3:19 PM
cloaking and reactionless drives.
15:21
I suppose the gatelayers are big enough to avoid getting telefragged when someone gates into them (edited)
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The owners regularly shuttle to and from the gatelayers and the gate is the main line of communication with home office. The ship crews are generally slaves of shorter-lived species than the empire’s rulers.
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If the wormholes are generated on demand... you won't be easily able to slip an unauthorized transit. All the mass-energy for a transmission/reception must be invested/created on gate activation, and this is likely controlled.
15:44
So if Privatirs want to hijack a kernel-in-transport, they'll need to smuggle their mass-energy allocation into the gate control system and prevent monitoring from throwing up flags.
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The ones in the existing book make themselves known when the gate shuts down in the middle of a broadcast from the CEO.
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———- Random aside note, new word: -protefab; nanoprotefab: something made with intentional structure on scale. I specifically use the term to refer to a material whose structure was purposefully custom-organized on a nanometer level, i.e. an alloy whose composition changes in nanometre volumina.
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 2:12 AM
Coming back with some more vexillology, a flag for a new faction in my setting: https://i.imgur.com/Ol9eIqP.png
👌 3
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... a sphere patterned after pi?
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 2:15 AM
Some explanation: The homeworld is a high-tilt planet, with inverted climatic zones, most notably the ice belt at the equator. The first major orbital endeavour was the mirror ring which melts the edges of the ice belt, and illuminates them like daylight even on the night side.
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Ah. Huh
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 2:18 AM
As to why the ice belt itself isn't illuminated: It's ice—the albedo is way to high for effective heating.
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 2:26 AM
Anyways, any feedback?
02:27
(especially with regards to color palette—I really have no idea what I'm doing in that respect)
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Morgrim Moon 06/18/2019 3:51 AM
Run it thru a colourblind filter, I have a hunch the green and blue have similar saturation and will merge
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 4:01 AM
Well, I'm deuteranomalous, so I'm working in one colorblind filter already V:
04:04
By the colors, the blue has a saturation of 1 and the green a saturation of .7.
04:07
I tried running it through all the common modes, and the contrast was mostly maintained.
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 4:14 AM
I'm considering pushing a little bit of blue into the white.
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Morgrim Moon 06/18/2019 4:20 AM
Making it pale blue or changing the shape?
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 4:28 AM
Making it pale blue.
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MarcusAurelius 06/18/2019 8:25 AM
It’s the best planet based flag I’ve seen yet
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It's a pretty official looking flag, very easy to focus on it's detail (edited)
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It's very good, yeah. It is simple and elegant and not derivative
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0111narwhalz 06/18/2019 10:51 PM
Thanks!
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Agreed, sweet flag man
01:31
also works well as a mon on a shoulder patch
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0111narwhalz 06/19/2019 1:31 AM
a "mon?"
01:32
ah, yes, thank you Wikipedia
01:32
Yeah, could do.
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I, too, endorse this flag.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 9:53 PM
IMW, I have a dichotomy between start-almost-anywhere go-almost-anywhere drives and regular Stargates
21:54
The former are prohibitively expensive to build even for a polity of hundreds of billions, to the point where the Tiffs only have two dozen surveyors in 1995 TE
21:55
Most interstellar flight is done via stationary Stargates that are merely absurdly expensive, essentially three-dimensional linkages making two points now contiguous thru Handwaves
21:57
You cant pull the old ‘on-planet’ tricks because the Folding Space Magicks pout and cross their arms when you try to perform them in a significant gravity well
21:58
And by pouting and crossing their arms I mean you explode, in a blast that has been known to be naked eye visible from AUs away
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:18 PM
That sounds exploitable.
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Hopefully you explode at origin, not destination, or you've just accidentally planet-killers.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:31 PM
For the start anyways the explosion happens when you’re still in space
22:32
The Stargates are potentially giant bombs, but they also take a colossal amount of preparation and energy output to get running
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:33 PM
You can't try to boot up a new spacefolder once you're already there?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:33 PM
Long and the short of it is, if you want a bomb you’re still better off using the money to build a bomb, it’d be less visible and you’d have a better chance to succeed
22:33
?
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:33 PM
Take the parts that make a spacefolder, assemble and activate them planetside.
22:34
Does it just act like a hilariously expensive resistor?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:34 PM
It takes months of preparation to even start the folding process
22:35
And these things are huge
22:35
As in 500m wide
22:35
You’re not concealing that
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:35 PM
Eh, someone'll try V:
22:36
"it's a stargate-themed sports arena!"
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:36 PM
If you tried to begin the folding process on-planet you might be able to achieve big booooom you want
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:37 PM
And anyways, you could probably ship it down on big torches (since you don't care about ruining the surface anyway), and then activate it.
22:37
It'll be loud and about as far as you can get from subtle save for a Nicholl-Dyson beam, but physically possible :V
22:38
(or at least it would be in the limited understanding of your world's physics I currently possess)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:39 PM
But as before, you’re better off using the energy (several fusion reactors’ worth to start and a couple to keep running) and funds (probably somewhere in the hundreds of billions USD) to build an actual bomb
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:40 PM
Is the quality of the boom different from a nuclear or antimatter or whatever other kinds of explosions your guys use?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:42 PM
Fusion power and fusion explosions for the record
22:43
I imagined it was probably exceedingly bright if anything, with lots of spooky exotic particles and spacetime screwery no-one really understands going on as well
22:43
Teller proposed a teraton backyard doomsday device once
22:44
This is pnably about that level
22:44
probably*
22:46
@0111narwhalz this civilizsation is hermetically isolated by distance so while it would be possible for them to crack planets there is no need to
22:47
blowing up one of your own worlds because it was showing signs of rebellion is cutting your nose off to spite your face really
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:47 PM
hm fair
22:48
So are there other civs, or…?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:48 PM
That’s a secret (edited)
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:49 PM
(that means "nobody credibly believes there are but there definitely are" doesn't it :V)
22:50
(no no don't answer that)
22:50
(I already know V:)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:50 PM
(the singularity is a thing in this world and the Tiffs are trying to avoid it, ok not actually a spoiler but) (edited)
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:51 PM
(ahh, Great Filter then)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/29/2019 10:52 PM
@0111narwhalz kinda... they’ve been burned by Ultra Techs in the past is all
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0111narwhalz 06/29/2019 10:58 PM
but surely this one is Different!
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:06 AM
Parallel evolution is a funky thing. On reviewing my own worldbuilding notes, it's almost freakish how similar the tech in my Rising Star 'verse parallels the Eldraeverse. Like, to the point that they could easily be happening on opposite sides of the galaxy.
09:07
resists the urge to have some kind of elseworld crossover where a Terran Republic or USF scout runs across an Imperial or Vonnie explorer somewhere.
09:07
(Though, granted, the Empire would be considered a Tech Level 4 / Tech Level 5 "minor god tier" power...)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:07 AM
But then, the Empire is more or less a large angelic power in their own context.
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Also, neither Terran Republic or United Systems Federation(?) sound particular Empire-ish?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:08 AM
True - if anything they're closer to the Vonnies, if mostly because they're still mired in their own bogosity and don't have all their shit in one sock to quite the extent that the Empire does.
09:09
But the technological limitations and the overall feel of the tech is very similar. My civilizations aren't that much like the Empire, but the setting has a bunch of parallels.
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And while Apeiron Terminus isn‘t really build out to the levels of the Eldraeverse culture-wise... it‘s a 2400, post-diaspora posthuman bloom civilization. The panhuman sphere can best be articulated as "diverse".
09:11
(I am sometimes musing on how to stick an Eldrae shout-out in there. Tensions may exist with the Eldar.)
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Reminder: species names are not capitalized.
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That said @Jade Nekotenshi I think it‘s, as you said, a kind of natural convergence of adhering at least somewhat to the previous convergences on harder sci-fi?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:13 AM
(USF is United Stellar Federation - they started out as a United Federation of Planets expy, but that's drifted over time)
09:13
Yeah, I think that's about right.
09:14
Mine is post-apocalypse, but after mankind had already gotten a pretty good foothold in the galaxy, and the apocalypse was local to just Earth.
09:14
The political fragmentation is secondary to squabbles over how to rebuild and who gets custody of the Sol system.
09:15
Plus the appearance of a new god-tier civilization nearby (plus the one that destroyed Earth - folks knew they existed but they were sleeping demons. Now they're awake, maybe)
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Haven‘t blown Earth up (yet). Have no real need to either though. The stargate nexus is not in orbit of Earth, and ultimately AT doesn‘t support "one big polity" stuff at its core.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:16 AM
Well, technically, Earth is still there, but it's infected with a truly monstrous nanoweapon, and it's nigh impossible to live there.
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Earth is a cool-ish place with bad history that exists. Many of the diaspora cultures could care less about it if they were honest.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:16 AM
A few thousand visitors a year go there as a sort of religious devotion - about half of them die.
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The "nigh impossible to live there" humanity kinda managed ok its own in AT.
09:17
The Holoscene Extinction was not gentle to Earth‘s biosphere stability.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:17 AM
And it's only just getting to the point where "die temporarily" is a thing. Noetic backups exist in Terran polities, but are ferociously expensive and a bit unreliable.
09:18
In places like the Seclundi Republic, they're a bit more reliable, but their tech isn't quite adroit enough to easily adapt their technique to xenosophonts.
09:18
Yet, anyway.
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Hmmmm. Noetic back-ups are common in AT.
09:18
They‘re still working on kitting some of the old cases together tho.
09:19
One "campaign intro" idea I keep rolling around for the RPG parts, so be written, is that you‘re a 21st century cryonics case that could finally get fixed up to functionality.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:19 AM
Oooh, that has a lot of potential!
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(Because, well, 21st century cryonics cases weren‘t exactly what you‘d call "ready-preserve enabled")
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:21 AM
The fact that a lot from old Earth - knowledge, biodiversity, etc - was lost when the Deimars went a-rampaging is part of the underlying stresses. That said, they do have a fair number of 21st and 22nd-century heads-on-ice that nobody's been able to revive yet.
09:21
(By fair number, it's in the high hundreds of thousands)
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But yeah, it was one campaign intro idea.
09:22
Tho, on the other hand, holy alienation shock you‘d be in for.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:22 AM
Yeah, really!
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The 25th century, Sol Standard Reference Time converted, is a weird place.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:22 AM
And there's no easy way around that, other than mind-editing, if they can do that.
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And your mindstate is, uh, quite literally out of date.
09:23
Most sophonts exist partially distributed.
09:23
If you‘re anywhere near good friends, chances are each other carry an interpersonal agent fork with you as part of your Soelience.
09:23
Same with work, or family, or some interest.
09:24
Just no other way to stay in touch over at times days of comm lag.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:24 AM
Oooh, yeah, that makes quite a bit of sense.
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(Or, worst case, if you have somebody out in The Expanse away from even a Keyhole Burst Comm, where only warp transports reach.)
09:26
In which case, comm lag, relative, will be 28+ days, likely more - the Expanse goes way beyond just a thin 5 Ly shell around the wormhole frontier.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:27 AM
The kind of place that, in Rising Star, is commonly known as "way out past the Black Line".
09:27
Well, no - past the Black Line means you're pretty much incommunicado unless your ship has Q-comm (== tangle channels), which is hard to get.
09:27
humans can't make it yet, so they have to buy it from the Seclundi or one of the other local xenosophont polities that can.
09:28
The Seclundi are friendly, some of the others, err, not as much.
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KBCs are pretty easy to make, but not everyone installs one.
09:28
And the Expanse, is well, the frontier.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:28 AM
(Though the Dremaii are, at the very least, deadly serious about the terms of their trade contracts. The Empire would enjoy dealing with them.)
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Even the Connectivity Foundation doesn‘t go out there and plaster nodes all over the place.
09:30
Folks in the Expanse tend to be want left alone. Either good-natured or less good-natured. The ahumans and exhumans tend to invite military interest by one power or another.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:31 AM
is RS, the human polities are kinda on the outer edge of several large xeno empires. That dynamic was the big deal before the Deimars - a large-angelic power empire that had been pretty much content to sit inside their own systems up to then - came out swinging, destroyed the largest polity, gutted the second most powerful, warred with three of the others and kicked Earth in the jimmy before disappearing as rapidly as they'd come.
09:32
And the new focus is on the shaken balance of power, where mankind goes from here, and why the hell that happened.
09:32
Plus, what you do with about 250 worlds belonging to an empire that's down to a total surviving population of about 20k.
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In AT, alien contacts has already been had, only with deep exploration and settlement missions through.
09:33
Before 2400, the "aliens" in the Pan sphere were just other Pans who went really divergent.
09:34
At the beginning of the "now" time, a section trail-coreward, "above" Sol, is about to interpolate with the wormhole frontier of a true xenogen civilization for the first time.
09:34
Hence, partially, the name "Apeiron Terminus" ~~ "End of the Expanse".
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:35 AM
Aaah, the name makes sense!
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(The problem: that interpolation just had to happen by making contact with a xenogen martial meritocracy polity first. And a couple power players thought kicking another polity in the but was a good way to get more standing.)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:37 AM
When there is a way to jockey for power, count on someone doing so in the the least convenient possible way!
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That depends on your ontology.
09:39
Though yes, they‘re inspired by the Käfers and have some klingon notes.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/01/2019 9:40 AM
Which has sorta happened in RS. There's a few big players among the aliens - the Seclundi, who were the smallest major power before the rampage, but got left as the biggest; the Farkons, who are old as dirt but have been kicked into the dirt at least twice, and really, really want their old glory back; the Khazara Star League, who are an expansionist empire that loves to meddle; and the T'Khadah Republic and Imperial Remnant, who were the second-biggest cheeses before the rampage, who are now reaping the rewards of being nasty slavers.
09:44
Then you have the big human factions - the Argent Realm, who were gifted a gilded cage by a new player on the scene. They live in comfort, but they're basically pampered pets. Trouble is, they think the rest of humanity should be too. There's the Solar Consortium, a loose confederation of highly individualistic people and groups, who really, really resent the suggestion that they should want to be anyone's lapcat, no matter how good that life is. The Terran Republic, who's basically about "we are humans, and we'll live and die as such. Keep the wolf from the door and the barbarians from the gate.". the USF, who are all about making the best of circumstances however they can, especially including making alliances and coalitions with aliens, and finally the Community of Believers, who find their solace in religion.
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In my universe, New Pallene culture has three-four part names. The genus stemmed from the children of vat-grown slaves attempting to re-create the concept of a "family name" in a means that made sense genetically. Houses developed from the post-terraforming dispersal of the Centauri population and fragmentation of the centralized economy as a form of economic unit that tended to cohabitate and were related to some degree. https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2016/09/24/worldbuilding-naming-conventions/
The worlds of the Federation and beyond exhibit a panoply of cultures influenced by all manner of civilizations from Earth and some that have been attempts at inventing a culture from scratch.  The…
13:59
The SPPS, Alpha Centauri's other culture, was socially decapitated in the Plague Wars (weakness of cloning) and survivors are descendants of the worker castes who were lucky enough to be adopted as clients of Pallene Houses. Many of them today don't have genera but they took on House names.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/01/2019 4:50 PM
The ‘Tiffs sometimes refer to their major phenotypes as ‘houses’ or ‘breeds’ when they feel very poetic, but they all stick to the same mental baseline and several centuries of aggressive unification have mostly eliminated any deliberate cultural lines between these (edited)
16:54
As well, the linguistic stock of the original colonists was so diverse that the common language has inherited aspects of every major family of natlangs that existed on Earth
16:55
The Mother Of All Creoles would not be an inappropriate moniker
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/02/2019 3:28 PM
That and the fact they are imperial, but not big on heredity (dynasties tend to regress to the mean after a while in terms of political acumen)
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So more Roman than Chinese?
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 4:49 PM
yeet
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sdschildberg 07/02/2019 5:04 PM
yote
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If humanity buys quantum entanglements from an alien race, what prevents them from reverse engineering them? Keeping knowledge from customers to generate profit is just asking for trouble (edited)
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sdschildberg 07/02/2019 5:19 PM
Problems making the bought version work outside the lab.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:19 PM
also, the ability to buy something doesn't mean you can understand it.
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sdschildberg 07/02/2019 5:20 PM
Try building a copy of your phone
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:20 PM
@Unknown They can and do. At the present-in-story, humans get how Q-comm works but can't actually build any at scale.
17:21
If push came to shove-really-hard, the labs could make enough to supply the capital warships with a few gigabytes worth each, at very high monetary cost.
17:21
And if they had a few years of lead time.
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Why not steal a lab and put it into a wormhole to earth?
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:22 PM
that's another thing, yeah. E.g., China couldn't build ballpoint pens until recently. ...Because it's an important asset to a more powerful empire than you?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:22 PM
Now that gets a lot harder. Possible in principle, but trade contracts are easier.
17:23
Also, given how FTL works in RS, you probably don't have a stargate or a jump point where you really need one - all that inconvenient flying-at-sublight gives the more advanced empire a lot of time to do something about it.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:24 PM
like, the other powers on Earth didn't attempt to directly steal the US's nuclear production capacity. They got spies in to let them reverse engineer it from working with the actual scientists
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:24 PM
Stargates there are pretty much exactly like Eldraeverse stargates, and they're rare as hen's teeth. Jumpdrive is everywhere, but jump points go where the universe wants, not where you want, which means you're usually a bunch of hops from your final destination, through a bunch of backwater red dwarfs
17:25
(and at the tech levels common to RS empires, not everyone can fly multiple multi-G brachistochrones, especially not without UNREPping en route)
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UNREP you say?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:25 PM
yep
17:26
resupply
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:26 PM
yeah - underway replenishment
17:26
I was a squid IRL - it rubs off.
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You navy people have some clever acronyms
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:29 PM
To make a very crude, rough analogy, in the RS galactopolitical picture, the three biggest human polities are kinda "medium cheeses" in the way India or France are IRL. They have some Big Guns, they have quite a bit of money, folks can't exactly push them around with impunity, but they're definitely not the biggest players on the galactic stage.
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How are communications between two radically different species possible? I guess it's like what Cerebrate said: aliens an't gonna be that alien (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:31 PM
insert vigorous Doylist handwavium here
17:32
But more seriously, many of the same kind of linguistic and mathematical hacks used in the Eldraeverse.
17:32
Exactly - not that xeno.
17:32
And it's kind of a plot point that they aren't - precursor fuckery, and all that.
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I guess some kind of trade pidgin or "interface language" is used
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:32 PM
Yeah, several different variations.
17:33
Mellarite Trade Creole is one of the last remnants of the recently-destroyed Mellarite Empire, for example.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:33 PM
Calling India a second rate power is... generous
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:33 PM
member of the nuke club, and somewhat member by dint of pure brute population, but yes.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:34 PM
...they have SRBMs and an air force that manages to shoot itself down, and sank their only boomer
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:35 PM
Fair enough. In-world-wise, though, the Terran Republic is kinda seen as "second rate, if you're very generous", so
17:35
The USF and Solar Consortium are a bit more advanced. The former, bigger and well-trained, the latter, small but with very shiny gear.
17:36
The TR is overextended and has a number of century-old hulls flying, that really weren't intended to last that long (unlike, say, the Imperial Navy...)
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:36 PM
ah, so what China is trying to be, and the other SK/the more competent Euros
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:36 PM
Yes, pretty much.
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I guess it's like the USA and denmark, USA has a big economy, but it's kinda squishy, like a medium rare steak, Denmark is like a small steel dome, tiny but quite strong
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:37 PM
the Community Of Believers, OTOH, is only galactically relevant by dint of an annoying web of alliances, and the Argent Realm relevant because they're an archangel's pet kitten.
17:37
Well, OK, a self-professed archangel.
17:38
But said so-called archangel did drop a load of strangelets into the heart of an F7V star. Nobody's real keen to find out if they can do it again.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:40 PM
the US armed forces are the 10,000 ton gorilla everything else is measured against, the Danish have fewer people in the armed forces than a single CVBG
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To me, the U.S seems like a giant machete, big, powerful, but slightly cumbersome. The smaller armies are not as big, but, like a spear or rapier, they are more versatile and focus on efficient force projection (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:42 PM
no. The Euro forces can barely go past their borders without US support, the US can drop a Marine force bigger than their entire armed forces anywhere on earth without about a week
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:43 PM
If something needs a big strategic shift, the US might be kinda slow to pivot - but we've got fast tactical response down to an art.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:44 PM
they are far less versatile, too. Most specialty assets are shunted off to the US and the higher rate allies (UK, a bit of France, sometimes Japan). Jade: True, but we've got people forward deployed pretty much everywhere we want them, and if Europe goes to shit we have REFORGER
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:44 PM
Yeah, exactly.
17:45
RS-wise, nobody is quite that much of a thousand-pound gorilla. Probably.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:45 PM
yeah, It makes for boring worldbuilding
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The U.S army is big, but not by that much (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:46 PM
..the US has 1.3 million in the active duty
17:46
Denmark, your example, has 15,000
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:46 PM
The Deimars did it once, but it was more like the mother of all lightning raids. the Tuun Ai Dominion is well over seventy thousand systems, but they're incredibly insular, and everyone else is way, way behind.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:47 PM
So, two great powers who mostly don't bother with everyone else, and a multipolar world besides that? Tron: That doesn't even touch on how we have a massive materiel superiority
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:48 PM
Yeah, pretty much. With everyone really twitchy about the Deimars
17:49
Because their lightning raid utterly rogered the balance of power between the other powers, completely destroyed the third largest polity and gutted the fourth, and nobody knows why.
17:49
Or why they stopped.
17:49
But since then, there hasn't been so much as a peep from their stargates and their communication relays.
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Talking about armies: I'm a mite concerned about cloning technology being developed and put to use. If an army had enough resources and people in the workforce, it could theoretically overrun an existing power via sheer numbers
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:52 PM
again, no
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:52 PM
Maybe, if your army could yomp there.
17:52
But usually they can't.
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Assuming you can also biogrow vehicles to transport the troops
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:53 PM
Human waves don't work, and soldiers are expensive Why biological? It's almost certainly going to be less efficent than mass produced metal/polymer
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:53 PM
self-assembly - bio or nano - helps, but if your vehicles are too squishy, it becomes easy to demolish them with a wildly unbalanced disparity of force.
17:53
And yeah, human waves mostly don't work. they can win a battle (with horrible cost), but not a war.
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Won't help if you troop don't know how to defeat the enemy, short of zerg rushing (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:54 PM
...what?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/02/2019 5:55 PM
Which also makes the army that has semi-infinite riflemen but jack-all else bad on defense.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:55 PM
then they aren't troops, they're wastes of mass
17:56
Troops nowadays, let alone in the future, are skilled labor, highly trained and expensively equipped, because it's the only thing that makes them worth shipping across the ocean, let alone deep space
17:56
human waves just die to arty/MGs/air support/mine fields/barbed wire/etc
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I'm tempted to scream "HUMAN INTERLINK MECHA ACTIVATE"
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:57 PM
yeah, some sort of exoskeleton (likely on the small side) is the logical progression of the current obsession with loading soldiers down with gear
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Assuming your troops can't interlink into vehicles like the wolf pack from Storks, you are gonna need vehicles, you can't just bioprint and expect them to do on their own
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 5:58 PM
I'm sorry, interlink? And yes, foot infantry are pretty useless for anything but holding lines nowadays, let alone in the future
18:00
...why the hell would you not just build an APC?
18:01
which would be far better at the job
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Talking about exoskeletons: I see power armour being more feasible if the operator is almost completely cybernetic, almost part of the suit (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 6:03 PM
at that point, why make an exoskeleton, just make a bigger dedicated war-sleeve
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/02/2019 6:33 PM
@Zarpaulek didn't the chinese have the civil service exams?
18:33
on the other hand yes I am aware elective non-dynastic succession is a Roman thing
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 6:36 PM
Civil Service exams were for the Bureaucracy, the Emperors were dynastic until they switched dynasties. The Romans were almost never elective (there was one, maybe two times the Senate picked an emperor), they were either normal dynastic or the emperor saying "I like this guy, he's my son and heir now". That's when they didn't go straight into civil war/the Praetorians killing the old guy and picking a new one
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@BizarroLand ♀ The Imperial Examinations were theoretically a means to help the Governor of The Middle Kingdom appoint his underlings. In practice there was a lot of nepotism and cronyism. As for Heaven’s representative on Earth, well, their intentions are difficult to interpret so might as well assume the previous one’s son/nephew/brother is the new one.
19:10
But yeah, most Imperial dynasties in China lasted centuries. While in Rome military coups were as common as peaceful successions.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 7:11 PM
It’s hard to differentiate traditional nepotism in that system though, between guanxi and just being the educated class who can pay for their kids to be educated
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Remind me, how did Gaius Julius, of the Caesarian Julians, legitimize his rule?
19:27
Qin Shi Huang either revived or invented the "Mandate of Heaven", which got used against his feckless son who was never prepared for rule as he thought eating mercury would make him immortal.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 7:28 PM
With an army and popular support?
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Yeah, not the best way to set up a stable government.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 7:31 PM
Yeah I agree, as much as I’m a Romantic, all under heaven was far more stable
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/02/2019 7:38 PM
Okay then there's no precedent
19:38
I was modelling on the Papal succession I admit. It's a cabal of 'Joint Chiefs' who almost always decide who's going to be the next Empress
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Still, the Julio-Claudians lasted longer than any other dynasty of the Western Empire (unless the Four Good Emperors count).
19:40
@BizarroLand ♀ That sounds more like the Holy Roman Empire (not to be confused with the Classical one)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/02/2019 7:40 PM
All I know of HRE is that it was a giant clusterfuck that took ages to just turn into Germany again
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More like Germany was an attempt to re-establish it. Competing/co-operating with the Austro-Hungarian Empire
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 7:42 PM
The Julio-claudians in my eyes only lasted longest because they were first. The third Reich tried to, Germany proper is only about half of it. Anyway, the point is, they had a system where powerful nobles were “electors” who picked the next emperor
19:43
They were usually if not always in the single digits, usually dukes or higher
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Though later on the elections were more of a formality, as the House of Hapsburg managed to marry into all the Elector Princes (some of which were kings, feudalism is complex)
19:46
The HRE honestly probably came the closest to unifying the entire German people under a single government (such as it was). We Deutsche have always been a fractious people.
19:47
And even then it was founded by the Franks.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 7:47 PM
IIRC, the prince electors who were both were called princes in an imperial context and Kings otherwise, which makes sense to me.
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It makes a little more sense if you think of feudalism as anarcho-capitalism with no concept of "incorporation".
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 7:51 PM
It makes sense to me, it’s the logical conclusion of big man politics
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Basically landowners teaching their sons to fight and lay claim to more land to lease out to warriors to help them acquire more lands.
19:59
Except in Italy where half the cities didn't hold with nobles claiming they owned their land and instead a plutocracy collectively held the city deed in trust.
20:00
As none of the resident oligarchs could stand any one of their rivals owning the city.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 8:00 PM
And the Netherlands eventually, and the Free Cities, etc
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The Free Imperial Cities worked out a deal with the Emperor.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 8:02 PM
True, but if there was no emperor they would’ve worked out a similar deal with the feudals directly over harm
20:02
*them
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I suspect the ability to secure the fealty of city-states was what distinguished the kings from the other nobles. Though the King of England was also the Duke of Normandy in fealty to the King of France for a while.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 8:13 PM
…technically. How much they actually provided in terms of taxes and such I’m not sure of, but I think it was pretty minimal
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Well the Italian city-states were bringing in enough tax money to hire entire armies of condottieri.
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MarcusAurelius 07/02/2019 8:16 PM
I was talking abut the Plantagenet relationship with the French kings
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/02/2019 11:58 PM
It makes sense if you understand that prince can be a generic for ruler
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 3:12 AM
...Not really,German just has separate words for "prince regnent" and "high ranking male royal"
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it turns out, people have used a lot of different titles for a lot of different people and it gets complicated sometimes
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 4:42 AM
[namespace collisions intensify]
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(says the guy whose name has meant like three different kinds of important-person in history)
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@MarcusAurelius “Fürst” and “Prinz”?
06:29
The HRE Prince-Electors being “Kurfürst”, or “Princeps Elector” (from the Latin for “first citizen”
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Speaking of “strong man politics” I have my suspicion that the Julio-Claudians’ relative longevity may have come from the family estates that funded their “pan et circenses”. Maybe a little from Caesar’s claim of descent from Venus, but given Augustus was only a distaff descendant of gens Julia and Caligula and Nero were his only blood descendants in the dynasty it probably wasn’t much.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 12:39 PM
Sounds about right, combined with legitimacy from being the heir of the previous emperor (usually) and the support of the praetorians (until they lost it, but the guard at least endeavored to keep it in the family)
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Yeah, the first time the Praetorians found the guy's half-wit uncle hiding behind a curtain and made him emperor.
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And yes, I know Claudius claimed to be faking it to survive, and can't blame him.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:08 PM
I love this graphic
17:08
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:09 PM
Oversimplified for high tech settings, but seems balanced for a game
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:13 PM
I admit in IAC I lean toward the implicit idea that interstellar trade is next to impossible. And every world must be an autarky, or close
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I should like to advance the economic argument for why interstellar trade is inevitable if it is possible at all.
17:19
Which is merely an extension of the standard argument that as technology and society develop, the number of specializations required to support it increase; and that the increase in number of specializations is both caused by population and requires a sufficient population to support it.
17:20
This number, on Earth, has already exceeded the population of virtually all countries, which is why attempts at autarky generally fail spectacularly.
17:21
In a developing interstellar society, it's inevitable that some worlds will develop specializations that other worlds will not, given local conditions, and it will not take long before the total number of specializations exceeds that which a single planetary population can support.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:22 PM
It’s just that the cost of lifting anything to orbit is huge, though I admit I have not run the numbers for my own fusion-powered setting
17:22
Though not insurmountably high
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:23 PM
Orbital lifting gets cheaper when you have Bifrost bridges or Lofstrom loops or any number of other options.
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In short, if interstellar trade is possible at all, and there are any synergies between these disparate specializations, people will be faced with the choice of either giving up planetary autarky, or giving up their left-handed iSpace widget decarbonizing flagilitators. (edited)
17:23
And NO-ONE gives up their left-handed iSpace widget decarbonizing flagilitators.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:24 PM
@Overmind and the only real problem with that is that I also run with the Tech Stagnation trope, though it is an explicitly imposed one and not going to last forever in setting
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In my setting interstellar trade is mostly data, they produce the physical stuff locally.
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I honestly think that tech stagnation is a crude solution to a problem
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:25 PM
@Unknown what problem
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:25 PM
Stagnation makes it easier, arguably
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It reduces believability, and I don't think that the singularity would happen in any realistic length of time, perhaps at all (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:25 PM
What
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:25 PM
It means you have a long period to get very, very good at your specialization
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:25 PM
In my setting, interstellar travel is hard… until it isn't
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It’s just that the cost of lifting anything to orbit is huge
If that is a problem you don't have colonies period
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:26 PM
I mean, cultures have stagnated techwise before
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:26 PM
And once it isn't hard, it quickly becomes trivial.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:26 PM
Tron: sure, but it’s believable enough with his set up. And it’s what he wants to tell his story with
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:26 PM
@Ian Bruene I don’t know what the cost looks like if you have D-D fusion admittedly
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:27 PM
And yeah, lift also gets a lot cheaper if you start doing it on mass. Bizarro: quite cheap with most assumptions, your fuel is easy to make and powerful
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:27 PM
Depending on the species of FTL, freight or courier services are easier or harder.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:27 PM
He’s stargate FTL
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:28 PM
My spacefolders, for instance, are great for massive amounts of freight or data, anywhere to anywhere, as long as the models are kept up to date.
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rule of thumb: if you have sufficiently easy travel on interstellar scales to have colonies, then you have easy interplanetary travel
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:28 PM
(and if the models degrade you have to go resurvey the place, sublight)
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This rule generalizes up and down the orders of magnitude
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@Ian Bruene That depends on how interstellar travel works.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:29 PM
@MarcusAurelius Stargates with murderously expensive free-movement drives as the only alternative
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:29 PM
My frameshift, however, hates bulky stuff.
17:30
So the only real thing to send by FSD is data and bowshocks full of hard radiation.
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well if you have one of the super easy hyperdrives, or planetary wormholes, etc then you are cheating the magnitudes; making interstellar into just "fancy interplanetary"
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:30 PM
So, he can have relatively bulk travel. He’s got decently torchy rockets, i could even see stuff as low value-density as rare earths getting traded if a planet has a good price advantage
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If you have a jump drive that needs beacons, it’s likely you’ll build most over inhabitable planets.
17:31
If you’ve got planet-based stargates there’s not going to be much interplanetary travel within a system
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:31 PM
stargates get really upset if you put ‘em in gravity wells
17:32
As in, you blow up and the resulting flash can be seen from the entire system
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Define “gravity well”?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:32 PM
With naked eye
17:33
@Zarpaulek anywhere where the graviton flux is too darn high
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@BizarroLand ♀ Which means...?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:33 PM
Or more than a few femtogees of native acceleration at any rate
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:33 PM
So, how far out do you need them,
17:34
?
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:34 PM
My polyspatial FTL has effectively arbitrary length contraction for radio relay buoys, and free remass, so you get tight data transmission and pretty quick bulk freight.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:34 PM
Well outside Hill sphere/SOI
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Incidentally: among the many reasons Ring Dynamics's stargate expansion plans deliberately include so many uninhabited and dubiously-habitable systems are the following: * Good fences make good neighbors, but good buffer zones are even better; * Room for a few colonies and outposts without having to immediately get into a pissing contest with a neighbor also really helps.
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:35 PM
And my stutterwarp is great at bulk, mediocre at mass, and has no special benefit for data.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:35 PM
Yeah, Maricenna Aero doesn’t have to worry about ‘neighbors’
17:35
The Tiffs are isolated
17:36
By at least 2000ly from Earth. I cannot confirm nor deny whether there are other civilizations
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Depending on your intraspecies pissiness, it may also be useful to provide a gap even between colonies. No-one's happy if the provinces are squabbling over $USEFUL_RESOURCE on their mutual border. (Especially if they have any local fleet control.)
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:37 PM
My setting's galaxy is jam-packed with life.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:38 PM
I don’t know about resource differentials
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:38 PM
The Fermi paradox didn't really develop because as soon as anyone built a decent radio telescope they could see all the chatter.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:38 PM
Other than the broad categories of Star metallicity and the vagaries of planetary formation I don’t know how much differential there is in resources between one star to another
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:38 PM
It doesn’t even have to be a difference in amount or availability even, just if one system can produce it more efficiently
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Or that it happens to be found conveniently there first.
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:39 PM
There're also weird noises coming from neighboring galaxies, and everyone's pretty sure there's life over there.
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Whereas the Bureau of Transportation and Trade thinks it would be better if potentially seditious colonies had a bottleneck on spreading their dangerous ideas to the rest of the Federaiton, to say nothing of exile colonies. So they only build gates to a few carefully selected systems.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:40 PM
And once again, a lot of things can be produced one place and hard to replicate elsewhere. Persian/Turkish rugs, wine vintages, hardwoods, etc. they’re all decently value dense
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While licensing conversion drives for sublight traders.
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:40 PM
Nobody's actually successfully crossed that gulf, or at least not there and back, so it's hard to say for sure.
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(Or, of course, for completely crazypants reasons. The history of Earth's resource wars do not suggest that you have to have a sane reason to get into this sort of thing.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:40 PM
Maybe this system had the misfortune to have formed early and without helium gas giants or large methane moons, or all the rocky worlds are silicate rather then ferrous
17:41
@MarcusAurelius what equivalents could there be in space though
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:41 PM
Maybe it has distinctly less small, undifferentiated bodies, and everything's concentrated in a few giant planetary cores.
17:41
You don't need the entire system to lack a resource altogether—it just has to be hard to get.
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Of course, I wanted to write about relativistic merchants who watched planets change from decade to decade as they traveled.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:42 PM
Alpha Tigris is blessed with having three habitable zone planets so they have a level of industrial cooperation and coordination that others can only dream of
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:43 PM
All the examples I mentioned could still work. Maybe some place makes Amat or helium 3 cheaper than everyone else
17:43
High grade computer components
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:43 PM
Like the place with a close solar swarm
17:44
Or a planet with magnetic fields just right for Amat gathering
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:44 PM
Also, there's the simple fact that industrial infrastructure is expensive.
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Amat isn't "gathered", it's created
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:45 PM
If planet A spends its resources on industry 1, and planet B on industry 2, planet B may be able to make the products of industry 2 cheaper to A than an entire industrial base.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:45 PM
Yep. Consumer electronics, micro controllers, ball point pens...
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:45 PM
@Zarpaulek you can ‘mine’ it from certain magnetic fields
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:46 PM
@Zarpaulek Actually it can be gathered under certain conditions.
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...technically, all of those are in space. 😎 Bioproducts are also quite good, and don't need to be produced on inhabitables, necessarily. From the 'verse, there are at least two kinds of curious pearl, a kind of marble formed at the bottom of a Europa-style ocean, and at least one kind of self-metallized wood all of which go for prices that make speculators mortgage their grandmothers for a hold-full.
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Personal nanofabricators might reduce the need for industrial infrastructure a bit
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:46 PM
Some weirdness with how radiation interacts with matter coming off the atmosphere or smithing
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:46 PM
Planetary magnetospheres can create magnetic bottles.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:47 PM
Nanofab in most harder assumptions though isn’t as efficient that macro scale mass production
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:47 PM
And then when you get violent collisions between cosmic rays and the atmosphere (or even other particles), you start to get a little radiation belt.
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And if there's a chance to pick up some paleotech widgets, everyone's bringing a fleet to the party and hoping not to go home embarrassed.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:47 PM
@Overmind I’m running with Quite Rare Earth: outside Terra and Alpha Tigris V, which only had photosynthesizing pseudoplankton, all habitables were terraformed into their current state (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:48 PM
Some of the particles making up the radiation belt are antimatter.
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(The 6230 War of The Thing that Goes Beep notwithstanding.)
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:48 PM
Which would make imports from the worlds with more developed/diversified biospheres even more valuable
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:48 PM
Also climate conditions will not look the same from world to world
17:48
Some will have better or worse climates for x y z biological cultivars
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Nor will mineral formation, necessarily.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:49 PM
?
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:49 PM
One might expect stripped gas giant cores to be of high interest, with the potential of interesting high-pressure materials.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:50 PM
And it doesn’t even have to be a real, large difference. If people believe there is a difference, and it gets cultural value, people will pay for it. See all the protected product names from Europe Bizarro, he’s talking stuff like marble, gem stones, semi-precious stones, etc.
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Yep.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:50 PM
Aren’t diamonds actually dirt common but De Beers keeps the price inflated etc
17:50
Because De Beers practically are the market
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I had an idea for a story where a relativistic trader found that the non-Terran animal meat they picked up in one system fermented in flight and was actually edible without medichines now.
17:51
Similar to hakarl.
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:51 PM
Most refined platinum on Earth is locked up in jewelery.
17:51
(and it's not even a particularly shiny metal :V)
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Incidentally, with regard to cultivars, don't forget the really subtle effects that conditions can have on flavor. Tokaj ezcenzia, Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, those cheeses that require the exact bacterial mix found in certain particular caves, that sort of thing.
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Doesn't help that the conquistadors dumped several tons of it into the ocean.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:52 PM
Not dirt common, they are relatively rare, especially for gem quality, but yes they artificially inflated the value with a brilliant marketing campaign. Narwhalz: it’s both quite shiny, tougher than gold, and doesn’t tarnish like silver
17:52
Plus, it’s expensive which makes it a mark of class
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:52 PM
It's expensive because it's all locked up in trinkets, which makes it coveted for trinkets :V
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One lucky quirk of terraforming and the right plant in the right place, and suddenly you have a product whose scarcity drives the price into OMGWTF territory.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:53 PM
I suppose, but it’d be a bit rare
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:53 PM
Not really, platinum is a rare metal in the crust and doesn’t occur in large easily mined veins IIRX
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:54 PM
France for instance has th perfect climate for growing wines and so everyone prizes theirs even though it is probably possible to acquire locally for many nations
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Diamond aren't all that common, but if it weren't for the cartel, they'd be down at the junk-stone end of the range - distinctly semi-precious.
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:54 PM
With as many isolated ecologies as you'd expect from space habs, you could even find that your algae is suddenly the best thing in the cluster.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:54 PM
Yup, and even if many people in blind tests prefer Californian wines (which are much cheaper) they think they prefer French, and people will think higher of them if they order/serve French wine
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France also maintains exclusive brand names on things like champagne.
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:55 PM
>Californian wineries with French names
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If it's not from the province of champagne, it legally can't be called champagne.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:55 PM
Aren’t some wine names even legally protected to safeguard their reputation
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:55 PM
Not just France, it’s all over Europe
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Yeah, but it's when you stumble into things that are genuinely location-dependent that you have a boost. Jamaica Blue Mountain is a good example - you can take the same beans and grow them elsewhere, and it won't taste right. The growing conditions make that much difference.
17:56
Happens with some grape varietals, too.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:56 PM
Port for Portugal, “de Modena” for balsamic vinegar from the original region, etc.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:56 PM
Or wagyu need
17:56
Beef*
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 5:56 PM
It's a true marketing fact that if you name a product in French, it will be percieved as fancier.
17:56
:V
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 5:56 PM
Wagyu is an even better example, cause proper wagyu can’t legally be served in the US
17:56
But people still pay a lot for the name and look anyway
17:57
Same with “Damascus steel”
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:57 PM
Doesn’t Damascus steel have nanomemes in it
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Damascus steel is a case of the specs getting lost when the makers died.
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And then there's stilton, in which the strain of Penicillium roqueforti does very much matter, and off-brand stilton really doesn't taste the same.
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We just have guesstimates of how it was made.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 5:58 PM
I prefer the local Yaucono brand of coffee to that tasteless searing garbage they pass off at Starbucks anyway
17:58
That’s another example for the pile
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Funny thing, a fantasy serial podcast I listen to recently had an episode where it turned out their equivalent to Damascus steel counted as "cold-forged iron" due to the specific forge method hypothesis the author supported. (edited)
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(Of course, there's also regulatory effect. Food regulations in the US mean that all raw-milk soft cheeses sold on this continent are kind of shite. Extrapolate a bit, and you've got the interstellar curd cartels smuggling good cheese concealed in their drugs.)
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:01 PM
@BizarroLand ♀ we lost the method to produce actual Damascus steel centuries ago, most products sold under the name nowadays just have surface or sometimes penetrating decorative discoloration
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:01 PM
Ok
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Starting to remind me of how in Sword of the Stars Hivers get drunk off lactic acid.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:02 PM
Though I do suppose, say, the planet of Sou An Ki could begin to develop its electronics industry and suddenly find itself with a demand for the magnetic and rarer elements that, oh so conveniently, Fahada three jumps over has in abundance
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:03 PM
Yup. And if they make rare earths cheaper enough that the difference is less than shipping costs, bam you have trade
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:03 PM
And in turn, other planets start finding It cheaper to get importado from Sou than to bootstrap an industry from scratch
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:04 PM
Yup
18:05
And, the empire probably encourages this, to make rebellion and breaking away harder
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:05 PM
(..!)
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Trade is good for peace, indeed.
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Because that worked out so well in Hammer's Slammers @MarcusAurelius
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:07 PM
Or, for instance, Faye finds itself with a local climate that’s kind of bad and a demand for furs and bioluxuries that their local producers cannot possibly meet
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(Scalzi took that to its logical extreme in his Interdependency , I believe, but even without making it a matter of law, people generally can figure out what a bad idea it is to start wars with their suppliers and customers.)
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:08 PM
Slammers also buys way into the “virgin frontier for hardy agricultural pioneers” meme
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:08 PM
In turn, they start buying from their next door neighbors Sasha and Orchid for decent liquor and cheap leather
18:09
Better liquor than drinking ethanol hydraulic fluid off shuttle landing gears anyway
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 6:11 PM
…Does ethanol make a good hydraulic fluid?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:11 PM
It was a story I heard about Tupolev 22s
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 6:11 PM
it might've been a vodka joke :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:12 PM
They’re called Blinders because Soviet crews kept doing it till blind
18:12
I don’t know how true it is
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 6:12 PM
also it's methanol that makes you go blind, IIRC
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 6:13 PM
Huh ok
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Enderminion 07/03/2019 6:14 PM
Blinder is a NATO Reporting Name that describes a Jet Powered Bomber, B for Bomber, two syllables for Jets
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:29 PM
Yup. It’s an urban legend. That is a real thing though, crews have tried to get drunk off of basically anything with alcohol. Or learn how to distill it into alcohol.
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One museum I went to had a story about American WWII sub crews drinking the ethanol-based “torpedo juice”.
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:32 PM
And they lost quite a few guys with the old recipe, yeah
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The Military Moonshiner trope as used in popular culture. A military company has one member — usually low-ranking — who secretly distills liquor …
18:33
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 6:34 PM
It sounds about right. Unless you follow the US solution of “bribe them with ice cream”
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/03/2019 6:53 PM
Which worked a lot better until they started penny-pinching on the ice cream!
18:54
Though when I was on a supply ship, we had a freezerful of some good stuff we bought in Malta. That was a semi-effective bribe.
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Morgrim Moon 07/03/2019 7:14 PM
yeah, the US sailors thing is real, although it was the support crew and not the submariners
19:15
partially solved in western australia by the government unofficially declaring that moonshine isn't illegal unless you kill or maim someone with it, at which point it becomes extremely illegal. Oh, and we will bring the hammer down on public intoxication. Have fun
19:17
I'd need to double check, but I'm pretty sure nobody bothered to make moonshine illicit here again afterwards, you just can't sell it. Bartering it is fine. A couple of microbreweries have gotten their legs by "buy a meal, get a glass of 'free' sample"
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 8:05 PM
Nice. I know one of the guys from Tough SF who lives in Tasmania is running a still with his brother
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Morgrim Moon 07/03/2019 8:05 PM
most supermarkets sell home brewing kit stuff, but I don't know if that's common elsewhere
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MarcusAurelius 07/03/2019 8:10 PM
He’s putting his Ag education to good use, that’s for sure
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Enderminion 07/03/2019 8:11 PM
I know exactly who you're talking about
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 11:25 PM
I'm 60% sure you can't build dirigible habitats without supermaterials at any rate
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 11:26 PM
That depends on what the atmosphere is like.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 11:28 PM
i mean if it's venus i can see it
23:28
but either way why would you put yourself in a gravity well and also in an extremely precarious situation where you can't even touch a surface if there is one
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 11:30 PM
Because you can?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/03/2019 11:38 PM
Can't argue with that but still
23:39
Mach 2+ wind shear, or corrosion does not do a structure good
23:40
Also it takes 70 km/s of delta-v to get to LJO from within Jupiter itself sooooo
23:43
I don't consider myself a cautious person in particular but the possibility of sudden death would never be far from my mind
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0111narwhalz 07/03/2019 11:44 PM
eh that's just space funtimes
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:29 AM
The atmosphere were air is a lifting gas is one of the calmer regions, and above the major acid clouds. And it could serve as a hub for planetary exploration, terraforming, possibly resource extraction, high g hab for orbital infrastructure (unlikely, but possible as a “shore leave” location if launch costs are low enough)
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Personally, I have grown a bit questionable of Jupiter's utilities with time.
01:31
You can certainly extract resources from it, but boooooy it takes a lot of dV, and that is without taking atmospheric resistance into account.
01:32
It feels like a place that only supports "go really big" (and be that "spin off the outer atmosphere, you mad soph") "or go home".
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:32 AM
It might be worth it for high value manufacturing in the cloud Habs. Especially if they can get microchip manufacture going
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Why can't you do that anywhere else in the jovian system?
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:33 AM
Ah, I was still thinking Venus
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And Jupiter isn't a Silicatious, last I checked.
01:33
Oh, Venus.
01:33
Venus is a wholesale different deal in what you can do there.
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:34 AM
For Jupiter...maybe some sort of gas mining? Seems like skimming or ice cracking is going to be more economical under pretty much any assumptions though
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Yeah, basically.
01:35
In AT, Jupiter's only other utility is its gravity well, which disrupts high-powered waveriders.
01:35
So it's a haven save of hyper-velocity non-newtonian attacks like SCVs and Skip missiles, but that doesn't require you entering the atmosphere.
01:36
The problem's just really the darn energy bill.
01:38
Which, yeah, isn't really worth paying. Europa is drowning quite literally in water ice and water for tens to hundreds of millenia, and if you need 3He, breed it in D-D fusion reactors, or get it from Saturn and Uranus.
01:38
I suppose with beamed power from a circumsolar power grid you could try some harvesting operations because the energy for the dV is just that cheap and you can't wait for stuff to come from elsewhere.
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:38 AM
Yeah, all I could see is some weird enclave habs, some resorts, and research installations
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But overall Jupiter is - yeah.
01:39
it seems more like you'd go there for research, exotic tourism, and weird enclaves that go like "nobody is gonna bother us down here" (including when your hab crashes and burns.)
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:39 AM
Maybe secure data vaults? “You mess with it, it drops into the core”
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Extremophile transhumans seem like most of the non-transient population.
01:39
And hmmm, yeah data vaults I could see.
01:39
OTOH, the ocean floor of Europa is also a good option for that.
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:40 AM
Slower sink rate and possibility of recovery. Pressure isn’t that high IIRC, the low gravity makes it less of a problem
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(and of course, in Eclipse Phase, the most bio-conservative faction chose the place where they would persever the least.)
01:42
(to be honest, the best choice Operation Morigan made was just to axe the Jovian Republic as it was entirely.)
01:44
But yeah, in AT... like, I had some ideas for large gas giants that attracted significant development.
01:44
these are usually Silicatous or carbonous gas giants, though, and preferably of the "warm" or "hot" type.
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MarcusAurelius 07/04/2019 1:45 AM
I always assumed they’d attract development for their rings and moons, and secondarily atmosphere/magnetosphere harvesting
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A big Jupiter-type, yeah.
01:46
Saturn and Uranus-types, or Neptune-types, they have low gravity wells. They're actually worth targeting for atmosphere harvesting at scale.
01:46
Much easier to climb out of their gravity wells, and the sharper atmosphere cut-off makes scramjet climb-out easier.
01:47
In the AsceVe, Jupiter is mostly a way station. All of its development is on moon colonies, or in orbit.
01:48
Also, because it is a Mass Effect (AU) work, Jupiter is a popular stop-over for long-range traffic, whether through the Relay network or from local space - you can dump out your spin states to Jupiter very well.
01:52
So Jupiter hosts a whole slew of discharge and service stations.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 2:17 PM
I remembered the demographics I worked out for my own setting when I saw the latest post
14:18
Or, the population growth rate. Only a modest 1.1% increase every year or so takes 200 billion people to a trillion within about a century
14:18
Compound interest is a hell of a drug
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Enderminion 07/04/2019 2:23 PM
Compound Interest is the most powerful force in the universe
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 2:31 PM
Second only to stupidity
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Enderminion 07/04/2019 2:33 PM
yeah
14:33
I can see that
14:33
I wish I couldn't
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 3:56 PM
For many centuries, lots of people have believed that gold is one of the most expensive materials in the world. This, however, is absolutely wrong.
15:56
Taaffeite is apparently a million times rarer than diamonds and thus extremely expensive
15:56
But not as expensive as you would think since it's not popular to use in jewelry
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:20 PM
so the article denies that gold is one of the most expensive materials, and then goes on to put gold on a list of the most expensive materials?
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It specifically says it's not in the top three
16:23
Also, I note that at least four of those are drugs
16:24
Possibly six if you count saffron and rhino horn
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Considering that this is on the website, I'm not inclined to trust their list.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:27 PM
remember oxycise/chair dancing?
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"The most expensive chemical element ever. It has been synthesized only once since its discovery in 1950." -BrightSide's (blatantly false) claim about californium
16:29
It has been synthesized many times, and has a number of applications.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:31 PM
I couldn't find a list of the most valuable elements
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Also, this list is obviously pulled out of their ass, considering that Helium-3 and a few other hyperexpensive materials aren't even on it
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:36 PM
I was looking for metals useful in intermediary industries especially for the scenario I outlined last night
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:37 PM
I feel like most of interstellar commerce probably won't be bulk metals?
16:37
Except maybe fancy stuff like alloys with crazy metallurgy or enriched power metals.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:38 PM
Rare earths are vital for industry
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Bulk metals are easy to come by in any given star system through asteroid mining and/or starlifting, so I don't see why you'd be taking them on longer than interplanetary trips
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:38 PM
Actually not that rare, but they tend to be highly dispersed for the most part
16:38
Not everyone can do starlifting
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Rare Earth metals are rare... on Earth, hence the name
16:38
They're common as dirt in the Asteroid Belt, tho
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:38 PM
As I understand it, rare earths are the dense ones that typically differentiate into the planetary cores.
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Yeah, so unless you can drill down to the planetary core, they're more common in M-type asteroids than on planets.
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:40 PM
Undifferentiated bodies are the place to get heavy metals.
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Indeed
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:40 PM
Or (dwarf) planet crackers.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:40 PM
The advantage planets have is that their ore reserves are concentrated
16:40
Especially if they have a long history of geology or hydrology
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Ever heard of 16 Psyche?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:40 PM
Yep
16:41
The center of the steel industry
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THE ENTIRE FUCKING ASTEROID is made of valuable metals
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:41 PM
So here's a bonkers-mad idea.
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Can't get more concentrated than that
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:41 PM
You ever heard of zone refining?
16:42
It's where you take a slug of material, and then drag bands of heat along its length.
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Yeah, I've heard of it
16:42
It concentrates the impurities at one end for easy refining
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:42 PM
aye
16:43
so what if you took an asteroid
16:43
chunked it into slugs
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And zone-refined it?
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:43 PM
and zone-refined the entire thing
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:43 PM
Somehow I don't think it would work that well
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:44 PM
No?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:44 PM
It looks like it's useful for making crystals
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:45 PM
I think it's mostly for use on stuff that's already relatively high-grade.
16:45
Most of that kind of ore on Earth has already been scooped up.
16:45
But space potatoes should still have plenty.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:45 PM
fuck
16:45
Some more background on Alpha Tigris: It's a relatively youthful late Population II star
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METALS GALORE
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:46 PM
I have already established its inner belt is loaded with valuable stuff as a result
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:46 PM
Target rocks that're known to be mostly metal.
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excellent
16:46
Wait
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:46 PM
And the Inner Belt is conveniently right next to the habitable zone, a cosmic stone's throw away from Alpha Tigris IV (edited)
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Population II stars are old
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16 Psyche is 90% iron
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And thus low metallicity
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:47 PM
@KAL_9000 i mean its a billion years old or so
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Then it's a Population I star
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:47 PM
Anyway, it's very young
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The Populations work backwards from the present
16:47
@Zarpaulek And what isn't iron is either nickel or one of a boatload of precious metals
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:48 PM
Specifically, Alpha Tigris is probably less than 2 billion years old
16:48
Old enough for there to be some native microbes on AT V but still less than half the Sun's age (edited)
16:48
e
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About "gem economies" an economy based on nothing but some beliefs about an objects location can be axed by someone spreading the word they they aren't all that, y'know, special or somebody attemping to exploit the market by making synthetic versions, causing the entire market to crash through the rules of economics
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:49 PM
@Unknown counterpoint: De Beers
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Once synthetic diamonds are on the market, De Beers will be out of luck
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They are on the market
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De Beers propaganda claims they're inferior
16:50
Which is why no one buys them
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:50 PM
Synthetic diamonds are legally required to be doped to mark them as artificial
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They're preferred for industrial purposes because they don't have the impurities that make "natural" diamonds pretty (according to DeBeers)
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I think it's also possible to add these impurites De Beers markets the diamonds with (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:50 PM
Or something
16:51
@Unknown yeah but that's also highly illegal
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Synthetic diamond
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How would you be able to tell the difference if I marketed them as "natural diamonds"?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:52 PM
certain thermal tests
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Natural diamond
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:52 PM
or optical techniques
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Just kidding, the one at the top is natural and the one at the bottom is synthetic, but you couldn't even tell
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Being made with a lithoreactor that replicates natural processes to make the diamonds (edited)
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They are for all intents and purposes identical
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:54 PM
Also, wine and certain kinds of cheese where the climate and specific conditions actually do matter
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Well, replicate those conditions in a hydroponics bay
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"Come to Astartes winery to taste our finest micrograv, vacuum hardened Venus orbit cheese" (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:56 PM
Sometimes getting just the right ecology of microfauna is more expensive than just importing the products.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 4:56 PM
That's not always possible
16:56
Especially if it's a combination of phytonutrients, microecology, and the climate/solar radiation
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 4:56 PM
Especially if the locals like a bit of variety in their cheese, or whatever.
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The conditions experienced in space may very well lead to new, exciting types of cheese and wine, which could be big money for a burgeoning L5 station economy (edited)
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There was an Eldraeverse fic with a freighter carrying beer that had to be fermented at a specific rate of acceleration
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Why not do it in a torus?
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Enderminion 07/04/2019 5:22 PM
because it was being delivered somewhere
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And beer doesn't really "age" well
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 5:57 PM
well that brings me back to square one
17:57
Zarp to the contrary, I somehow don't think selling patents is a sustainable base for an economy
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:48 PM
So what's for sale in interstellar trade?
19:49
@KAL_9000 Even with asteroid mining, actually, it may still be worthwhile to import raw elements
19:50
Consider the difference between your average rare earth deposit and the clays in China, which have made it the source of nearly all the world's raw rares
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 7:50 PM
Intellectual property, specialist crafts, cultural artifacts of all kinds, the kind of industrial products that require huge investment.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:50 PM
All I can think about are, perhaps...
19:50
Nuclear reactor vessels?
19:51
Aluminum smelters?
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 7:51 PM
Aluminum smelters are just arc furnii, no?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:52 PM
they're egregiously energy intensive
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 7:52 PM
ah you mean the products thereof
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It's primarily intellectual property and novel biologicals. And genuine non-nanofabbed objects d'art.
19:54
Which are really intellectual property too.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:54 PM
Nuclear reactor vessels on Earth at least are so absurdly specialized that only one firm produces them
19:54
iirc
19:55
Beside electronics, what about tritium?
19:55
@Zarpaulek Fair, but my setting runs on different assumptions re: transport
19:56
It's reasonably expensive to create but also necessary as part of a fusion plant's fuel cycle
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 7:57 PM
Tritium is cheap for anyone running a lot of nuclear power.
19:57
Maybe ⁶Li to make tritium easily?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:57 PM
I don't know, rare elements are all I can think of being worth transporting across interplanetary distances
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Tritium is primarily produced on Earth by cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere. It's reasonable to assume it would be more common in space.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:58 PM
Nuclear transmutation is far too expensive for commercial viability being one reason
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 7:58 PM
Its half life is too short to get it from anywhere it's not being actively replenished.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:58 PM
12 years
19:58
What kinds of elements may be rare though
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 7:58 PM
i.e. blink of a geological eye
19:58
Look at the elements with odd atomic numbers lighter than iron.
19:59
Those are the rare ones :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 7:59 PM
Interactive periodic table with dynamic layouts showing names, electrons, oxidation, trend visualization, orbitals, isotopes, and compound search. Full descriptions from write-up sources.
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All the lithium in the universe was formed during the Big Bang, it's a bit cosmically rare. That was kind of a big deal in Cibola Burn
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:02 PM
Would elements such as niobium, cobalt, technetium, etc. be distributed more or less equally from starsystem to starsystem
20:02
tho
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:03 PM
Depends on the metallacity.
20:03
Cobalt is an iron-adjacent, so it's probably pretty common.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:04 PM
And knowing the economics it's probably easier to fetch them from asteroids or moonlets in-system than send for them a jump away
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Of course the trip from Illus to Earth was only about two years.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:14 PM
@0111narwhalz Mineral formation differences, maybe?
20:14
All the ore in one place may be too low-grade to be of use even if the relative abundance is the same
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:15 PM
Mineral formation is only relevant where you have chemical, hydrological, and/or tectonic processes at hand.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:15 PM
which there are in differentiated planetoids and moons correct?
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:16 PM
Differentiated bodies have tectonics, at least for a little while.
20:17
Chemical processes can happen in the absence of a proper atmosphere (see: Pluto), but they're probably negligible except when they aren't.
20:18
And hydrological processes require a dense atmosphere.
20:20
hm, now I'm wondering whether the smallest differentiated body would be practical to crack
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:21 PM
so we're back to everyone being on practically the same footing resource wise
20:21
so what to trade...
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:22 PM
Things that require particular effort to produce.
20:22
Like we've been discussing the whole time :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:23 PM
But what would that be? I'm 95% sure there are examples beside electronics
20:23
Perhaps rocket engines?
20:23
Reactor segments?
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:23 PM
Art, specialist crafts, cultural artifacts, and products which require huge, expensive industrial bases to produce.
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anything that sits at the apex of a complex, and ideally resource intensive production tree
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:24 PM
If you can, products which are all of those things :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:24 PM
The market for art and cultural artifacts is going to be glutted
20:25
What are specialist crafts
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:25 PM
Sure, but that doesn't stop people from wanting art and cultural artifacts.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:25 PM
I doubt you can run an economy off of art
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:25 PM
Things like the fancy cheeses or whatever.
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stuff like integrated circuits (especially CPUs), any kind of high-end manufacturing or processing equipment
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:26 PM
You need particular conditions, and particular people, to produce them, and you can't do that everywhere.
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though for a long term export, you're ideally looking at consumables and not hard assets.
20:26
you ship a molecular refinery or three, and they won't need a replacement or a new one for how many years?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:26 PM
Maybe automobile factories?
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:26 PM
Hell, you could argue that starships themselves would be a candidate :V
20:27
Building a shipyard is expensive.
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they'd definetly be one @0111narwhalz
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:27 PM
Cars wear out with regularity, though some of that may be planned obsolescence
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:27 PM
Building a ship requires specialists, who are expensive to train.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:27 PM
Aircraft? Ships?
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and they sit at the apex of a ton of OTHER complex industries
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:27 PM
Building a starship is also expensive, in terms of resources.
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unless you're going for some kind of Empire 1899 tech
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:28 PM
You can produce a thousand starships cheaper than a thousand potential customers could produce one starship each.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:29 PM
@0111narwhalz I'm racking my brain. What else is there?... Maybe construction and mining equipment
20:30
It needs to be used fairly often, is reasonably specalized in many cases and frequently is also ependable
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:30 PM
A system might want ten kinds of fancy cheese, but ten systems building ten microcheeseries each is more expensive than ten systems building one macrocheesery and exporting cheese to one another.
20:31
Substitute cheese for whatever you want :V
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@0111narwhalz depends to a degree on how marketing and pedigree is taken for some goods. It might be that the cheese from Novo Francia is just the shit, and everything else no matter how good is just shit.
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:32 PM
That only strengthens the argument for centralized production with distribution.
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think about the perception of french wines, and also about how Californian wines in particular have been showing that recently they're just as good
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:33 PM
So people prefer imports over local products.
20:33
That means you'd see more trade.
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means that people prefer French wine. Like how in a lot of circles there's Belgan and German beer, and then piss.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:33 PM
still racking my brain over what else is really specialized
20:33
but also necessary
20:34
all i can think of are vehicles and vehicle accessories
20:34
:hank:
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:34 PM
I'm not sure if you're reading…? :V
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(Xveers is not associated with InBev or any other breweries or alcohol purveyors. His statements are his own and have no relation to products living and dead)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:34 PM
@0111narwhalz Yeah I'm just trying to come up with something other than that
20:34
Not every country has what it takes for an auto plant you know
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At the same point though, what's your actual -cost- of shipping?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:35 PM
Fewer have aero plants and fewer have drydocks atc
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like, how cheap is it to actually move something?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:35 PM
@Xveers there is ubiquitous d-he3 fusion
20:35
and it's been at least a millenium since it became practical, maybe more
20:36
because of the method of FTL moving things between systems is about as difficult as in-system travel
20:36
(stargates ftw)
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:36 PM
High-quality tooling, metallurgical novelties, enriched power metals…
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and what's your travel time like, approximately?
20:36
weeks/months/years/decades?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:37 PM
I only used the Nomogram so take this with a few grains of salt
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shouldn’t this be in #technicalities if we are talking about the Eldraeverse?
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:37 PM
I don't think we are.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:37 PM
But the travel time varies from a few months to a few days depending on where you are located within a system and where the gates are
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it's more of a "broad strokes back of the napkin" kinda question
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:37 PM
Pretty sure we're talking about Bizarro's setting.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:37 PM
yep
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then the final answer is really simple @BizarroLand ♀
20:38
EVERYTHING gets shipped.
20:38
Somewhere, someway, somehow, something is going to be economically advantageous to get moved.
20:38
even raw resources.
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oh okay.
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If the basic shipping method's been in place for that long, and we're looking at travel times like that, then it's almost a given that they'll be moving anything and everything.
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:39 PM
If it's cheaper to commission a starship to carry raw materials for a while than it is to build a mine instead, people will import raw materials.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:39 PM
generally though a stargate is placed at either the lagrange point of the main world or that of a gasgiant
20:39
@0111narwhalz there is no actual distinction between starship and spaceship thanks to the gates
20:40
if you can get to a gate you can travel between stars
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and I say this with authority, as I work for a major shipping broker IRL.
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0111narwhalz 07/04/2019 8:40 PM
If there's no distinction between a IS ship and IP ship, there's no distinction between IS and IP commerce either
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If they don’t have replicators a la Star Trek, they will have shipping.
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@BizarroLand ♀ Are your stargates fixed or can they “dial in” to multiple gates?
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Even if only for niche items.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:41 PM
Fixed linkage
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Okay.
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@BizarroLand ♀ my own setting's about the same, just with natural warp points instead of artificial wormholes.
20:43
I ran some numbers and as best I can see you're gonna get just about everything moving
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:43 PM
Pseudo-modern tech, but 2000 years of refinement means a lot of processes are simply more efficient
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So a ship might need to cross several AUs of real space between their destination and departure systems as they go from a Trojan gate to a Lagrange one?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:43 PM
Yes
20:43
Or only a few Earth-Moon distances
20:43
depending
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Well, if you’ve got gates like that raw materials might be worth shipping.
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with that network it's almost a garuntee even raw materials are worth hauling.
20:45
not always, but there's definietly gonna be good cases for it
20:46
and if you're looking at an established space civilization, it's almost a given there's going to be industrial nodes with all of the easy local resources having been tapped out
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Opens the possibility of a system with an He3-rich gas giant seeing it all shipped to the capital through a Trojan gate and then to the inhabitable planet through another gate in the capital system
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 8:47 PM
cough The Inner Belt cough
20:47
Alpha Tigris V has three habitable planets, though two were terraformed and one, the original, has changed a lot
20:48
The Goldilocks is bordered by roid belts on both sides
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2019 9:50 PM
And this got me to thinking: What about ship classes? Of course, in reality spacecraft mass and capabilities will vary far too widely for a true objective classification
21:51
But people being people, they will doubtless start categorizing them according to role or appearance
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Re: Interstellar Trade:
10:24
In the Jai-verse, the most common interstellar trade items are information (by far the biggest, FTL comms means that there's an interstellar Internet), sophonts, and starships themselves
10:24
When you have a Santa Claus machine on hand that can make anything given the raw atoms, not much else is commercially viable
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 11:00 AM
Yeahhhh I don’t think patents are a basis for an economy
11:00
As said multiple times before
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Not just patents
11:01
Virtual stock trading, financial information, etc. is far more valuable to an interstellar economy, and qualifies as information
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Morgrim Moon 07/05/2019 11:04 AM
stock trading in the current sense is dead in the wateer
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well, something like that
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Morgrim Moon 07/05/2019 11:05 AM
given the current stock market does things like move closer to reduce light lag, while on the SAME PLANET
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@BizarroLand ♀ I wasn’t thinking “patents” so much as “blueprints”
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@Morgrim Moon Light-lag isn't a problem, since the Precursors helpfully left behind instantaneous communication ontotech devices that were eventually reverse-engineered.
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The Para-Imperium doesn't have joint-stock companies, though they do have personal bonds and loans that might be divided up and resold.
11:28
They've also got a hard prohibition on radio and quantum entanglement breaks qubits as it transmits.
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Then how do you communicate?
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In Core worlds, lasers through gates. In the Rim systems, not much.
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Okay
11:30
The entire purpose of the Precursor ontotech is to stop qubits from decaying during transmission, basically.
11:31
Since the FTL isn't gate-based in the 'verse, it's either sublight or courier ships, and I really didn't want to have to deal with the headaches those cause.
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Economies in AT fluctuate by area, access and local development.
11:42
But generally it is post-scarcity, a lot of designs circulate as essentialy freeware, and what exactly values how much varries. What's most generally valuable is sophont time and personal work access.
11:42
The most valuable physical commodities are exotic matter: negative energy fields required to make and sustain waverider and warp drives, monopoles, and such.
11:43
These can only be cracked with low efficiencies, so making them at scale takes big circumsolar power facilities.
11:48
And the big cracker facilities are only so common, so that can define something akin to an economic flow... but it's hard to really demand anything. Sure, the energy is limited, but few things compare. Ultimately, I suspect economics in AT come down to a size/time relationship, local availability, and what are ultimately favor/reputation/alligiance "economics" at the biggest level. (edited)
11:52
Below that? About anything is fair game. Nanofabricators need sources of feedstock; mass production needs specialist centralization; habs need specialist ressources from elsewhere; and even planetary civilization may want to pursuit greater economic capabilties encouraging greater specialization and economics interplay.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 1:06 PM
That's pretty broadly how it is in the bigger polities in RS, too. Not quite as thoroughly post-material-scarcity as the Empire, say, but more or less what you've said holds. The smaller polities, or even some of the outlying worlds in the medium/large ones, not as much - interstellar trade is not prohibitively expensive, but it's still expensive. (And the sublight legs cost a lot more than the translight ones, usually, unless you're going somewhere outside the stargate/jumpgate plexes. If you need a ship with its own FTL, or one that needs to hire a translight heighliner, that commands a premium, but usually a fixed one.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 1:07 PM
There’s none of that universal fabrication funny business going on in IAC
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 1:16 PM
The Gates can make the distance between two worlds as little as a few AUs or Earth-Moon distances at any rate
13:17
But the technology is deliberately weak for an interstellar polity soon to hit the trillion mark in headcount
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 1:37 PM
How good nanofabbing is in RS depends on whose you're asking about. (Folks can and do trade them, but importing a good alien nanofab is spendy, usually. If you're somewhere that it's not, you probably don't need to import one.) Even the best of them are subject to the same limitations that have been mentioned for the Eldraeverse - they may be inefficient or slow. Most are increasingly likely to turn out substandard product the more complex you ask for. In the human polities, for example, the high-end expensive fabbers that you can get do a fine job at turning out most consumer products including things we think of as advanced electronics today, but some things, nanofabbing is just not so hot.
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AT nanofabrication has to work with the same issues; but it also depends on scale. And in many cases, mass nanofabrication is just mass-paralized to exploits the advantages of mass nano-organisation.
13:46
It also depends on the specific type of fabricator used, and even then, assembly lines are employed.
13:47
Also, i.e., nanofabrication can be used to "grow together" smaller parts. That's how you produce a military starship superstructure quicker.
13:47
You grow hundreds of separate modules, then "glouw" them together into increasingly larger pieces.
13:49
And there may be other fabrication methods I have to review yet. One thing I still haven't confirmed as viable or not is how Accelerando does nano-fabrication: Bose-Einstein material holography.
13:50
Generally the bigger issue to massive economies is more interconnectivity.
13:51
Funnily enough, what may be more worth trading between planets and systems is raw materials and not so much finished assembled stuff.
13:51
I.e. nuclear fissiles are another possible exporteur, presuming you have, say, a watery Poseidonian in one system rich in the stuffs.
13:54
And of course, in AT, when cargo flows one way, it has to be compensated the other - through a wormhole anyway.
13:55
So any trading system also needs a suitable source of return mass-energy, and be that a lot of nickel-iron or silicates to shove through the keyhole for balast.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 1:57 PM
Oh, that adds an interesting wrinkle.
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Yep. Mouths balance things locally, so what goes one way, has to go the other way too.
14:00
Now granted, some things don't impact mouth stability directly - i.e. momentum.
14:00
But the mass shifted, for example? That's vital. And if you unbalance too far one way, the connection goes.
14:01
Which... is bad. The wormhole mouths will collapse into black holes, and those black holes then promply evaporate, turning some 30% of their mass-energy, IIRC, into gamma rays.
14:01
With a hole mass of the megatons to massive asteroids to potentially even larger, you can imagine how that goes over for the local system.
14:02
Also, other funky thing.
14:02
In AT, all major traversable wormholes are always-on, not on-demand inflated.
14:03
The end result is the spherical mouth, craddled into the stargate structure. Now anyway, the mouth is a sphere, and funny thing is - the volume inside the mouth is one you can't enter, in 3+1. In short, you can traverse the wormhole from multiple vectors into the sphere at the same time, and you won't colide in 3+1 space.
14:03
Traffic can enter/leave the wormhole from two, or four, or six, or twelve or even more corridors into and out of the wormhole at the same time, and it won't colide into each other.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:18 PM
Hmm. I assume there are no circular wormhole paths, or else the continuous-photon-amplification problem doesn't happen, ya?
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There are no time-dilated circulars, no.
14:22
There are circular networks, off the main tracks, in the local clusters, but these are maintained with care, and have a maximum size.
14:22
(otherwise it becomes impractical to keep them synchronized.)
14:23
Also, the Visser collapse is "moderated" by virtual particles, actually.
14:24
Looping an approaching-infinite time through the wormhole in approaching zero time, leading to an unbalancing and wormhole collapse.
14:25
Actually an exploitable effect, because in such cases, the weakest link will break first. So you can lead "causality attacks" on networks with what I call Δt(W) components.
14:25
But also, time-dilated wormholes have advantages.
14:26
For one, thanks to time-dilated (Δt) wormholes, the Panhuman sphere extends for kilolightyears effective from Sol in the year 2400, Earth Gregorian Reference Time.
14:27
For another, time-dilated wormholes offer a natural defense against warp drive intrusion. Traveling "against" the expansion vector of a Δt wormhole is time travel that, through the wormhole, connects into your own past light cone, and thus "illegal" under causality conservation rules.
14:27
Functionally, as such, you get "causality fortifications" that prohibit easy eFTL attack against a wormhole network, whether inside branches of the network, or from one network to another.
14:29
(Also, wormholes are "instantanous". Most warp drives only manage a few hundred C and will spent days to weeks to effective years traveling the same distance a wormhole can bridge effectively instantly, from your reference frame.) (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:33 PM
Ah, so there are both! (I'll admit, I didn't think about the defensive use of wormholes like that. Clever one, that!)
14:33
In RS, there are basically two (and a half) ways to go FTL, with two more on the fringes, in the sense that they might work but nobody's ever built one.
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Yeah, AT kinda got started with "what if I have both, and then try to work out the geometries realistically."
14:33
It's... "a bit" of a headache.
14:34
Generally the rule of thumb is pretty simple though: wormholes and warp drives don't mix.
14:34
And the former are sturdier than the later, so warp drives forcing a "causality conflict" tend to loose. (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:34 PM
Warp is more or less just what you use when you want to go where a wormhole doesn't, to see if it's worth dragging a wormhole end out there STL?
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Also, yes.
14:35
Or if you don't want a wormhole connection.
14:35
But indeed, it's heavily related to expansion planning too.
14:35
The panhuman sphere is principally massive, and well, it is a sphere.
14:35
Double the diameter, and you have eight times the volume.
14:35
At the beginning, you could afford to network up every star. Afterwards... eventually you had to get picky.
14:36
First, the network began to "leapfrog".
14:36
You built one big, long-range wormhole and then "sprouted" arms off those big jumps.
14:36
Then, with the advent of the warp drive, you began scouting before deploying a wormhole.
14:36
Also, in consequence, what is "frontier" in AT depends on connectivity, basically. How fast you can go places.
14:37
There are areas in the outer zones that are just as much "frontier" as the Expanse beyond the theoretical sphere of the wormhole frontier.
14:40
As well as areas where the network has, well, "holes". In AT, one of the pesky problems they keep having is intelligences suffering "bad singularity events" and blasting the local area in strange post-singularity stuff. Usually the wormholes are cut off if they don't collapse due to one bad incident or another, or a craddle bites it.
14:40
The Jutumari pocket is the historically first case of such a "singularity explosion".
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:42 PM
RS has stargates that are pretty much identical to Eldraeverse ones, with the same kind of inflate-on-demand wormholes, but they're hard to build. Of the younger races, only the Mellarite Empire could build them, and the Deimars whanged their weylforge. The Seclundi just got a weylforge working and have built two working gate-pairs with a third in transit. There are also a few dozen Mellarite gates that go somewhere other than the burnt-out husk of their empire, plus a few dozen more precursor gates sprinkled here and there. Jump drives are how most folks get around. The science of how they work is, err, handwave, but the general idea is that certain points in space link, in hyperspace, to mostly-fixed other points, and jump drives traverse these paths (jumplines, in the local parlance). Their positions are somewhat predictable, so exploration deals a lot with trying to predict jump point locations, going out there, taking better measurements and refining and making test jumps until you find it (or find that it's not there, due to some variable or another that you missed). This produces a similar sort of nodes-and-lines map with occasional shortcuts via stargates. (Stargates don't care where hyperspace wants to go today, they go to their termini, and that's that. Jumplines are the other way around - they go where hyperspace wants, which doesn't change much, but it's been known to happen.)
14:42
So the frontiers are kinda all over the place.
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Also, presumably, stargate kernels require STL deployment.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:44 PM
Lots and lots of lacunae in each empire's sphere (and they intermesh, because jump points go to areas near stars, most of the time, not to interstellar space - so if the best way to reach star X that seems to be in your sphere, galactographically speaking, is from a star a kiloparsec over thattaway in someone else's territory, that's the breaks)
14:44
Correct.
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Or otherwise, careful placement to avoid SNAFU-ing up the temporal alignments when you move along the hyperspace lines.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:44 PM
You could, in principle, jump (or stargate) both ends of a stargate together, but you can't move just one end.
14:45
Also, since they're basically Eldraeverse stargates, the same kind of thing happens where if two trips (whether by jump or stargate) would produce that kind of problem, one or the other fails.
14:46
Stargates can deconflict that nicely when they're the only variables and know about each other, but usually it manifests as a jump failure, with results usually limited to the merely-very-annoying
14:46
Like entering hyperspace and popping out six AU away in a useless part of the system.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:47 PM
My FTL techs have somewhat more drastic failure modes.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:47 PM
Worse things can happen, but it's really rather rare.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:48 PM
Frameshifts will eat chunks of your ship, spacefolders will smear you across the potential level set, stutterwarps will cut you in half (or more, if you're running high frequencies), and polyspatials might turn you inside out, or reverse your chirality, or just smash you flat.
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AT warp drives can fail spectaculary.
14:49
Usually the failsafe systems throw you out with a merely annoying "zero engage".
14:49
Next nasty case is you get a case of the Warps, or you blow parts or your entire negative field load.
14:49
In which case, your drive has no means of engineering the metric, and you are Really Stuck.
14:49
Worst case, you don't fail safely, you fail deadly, and then things get Nasty™.
14:50
Usually the craft just vanishes to parts unknwon when that happens.
14:50
Crushed into a singularity still contained in the warp bubble, ripped out of the brane, vaporized across light years of space.
14:51
Older warp drives also had a... vexing issue with rarely "catching debris" when they popped in the target system due to relative velocity difference, with a piece of debris smashing into them at hundreds of km/s and making a right mess.
14:52
A couple of the early flights ate it that way.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:52 PM
My FSDs don't have that problem.
14:52
Because they vaporize all debris in front of them with a bowshock of hard radiation.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:53 PM
The worst sorts of jump failures can do things like that. That can also happen if you activate a second jump engine while in hyperspace. (Jumps are fast, on the order of nanoseconds, but not quite instant.) More common nasty failures would include falling down a non-symmetric hyperspace fissure and ending up way off in Wikikamukau or worse. You might come back from that, if you have the devil's own luck, but usually, welcome to Star Trek: Voyager, population you. If you're lucky. If not, you're in deep space a hundred parsecs from home and ten parsecs from the nearest known jump point, with nowhere near interstellar levels of delta-V
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Oh, it's not nessecarily directony on emergence.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:53 PM
(which is, yes, a major civilian hazard and military asset)
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The "ate debris" incidents could happen hours or days later.
14:54
Equivalizing all of that relative velocity just took time.
14:55
Still takes time, actually, but the protocols around avoiding the same were improved.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:55 PM
When you go a few kly down the spiral arm, you can build up a quite substantial bowshock, and there have been incidents of planetary bombardment from huge distances.
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Yeah, those parts I wanted to avoid.
14:56
They make sense, but they are boring, and bowshocks have an anoying tendency to co-exist with "you cook inside your bubble".
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:56 PM
I've waved that by calling the bubble a blackbody emitter and just not doing the math.
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For the same reason, warp drives in AT don't really like gravity wells.
14:57
They'll fail over AUs away from your star, and waverider drives, the STL version, likewise don't work well in too steep a gravity well.
14:57
Plus, both are non-newtonian.
14:57
The reaction drives left after all of this are a meneace enough to planets as it is.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:58 PM
Luckily there are options available for FTL comms: continuous for spacefolder and third gen polyspatial, discontinuous for frameshift and stutterwarp.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 2:58 PM
This is also essentially the reason why jump points are usually a few dozen AU out from stars, generally speaking. (Interplanetary ones might be closer, but they are, as the name implies, interplanetary only.)
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:58 PM
So you can 1. sense and 2. deal with incoming frames.
14:59
(generally by slamming them with mass or gravitational waves to disrupt the bubble)
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(causality whimpers and cries in a corner)
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 2:59 PM
see where you've taken the hard approach I've taken the "you carry your own cause so it's totally fine" approach
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shrug
15:00
I break enough things as it is. I wanted to keep consistent in these regards, at least.
15:00
Also, funnily enough, while a warp drive sounds like free-flight, it really isn't.
15:01
You are flying blind one the bubble goes up.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:01 PM
And then if anyone gets upset, I just point at highspace and mumble something about "physics is a little different here"
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So while warp drives can steer to a degree (you can still sense space-time disdortion, to a degree, left by large masses) you are pretty much blind and you fly straight.
15:03
Hence it also more often being called a "jump".
15:06
(on the other hand, once you get far enough out of a system, your warp drive gets very agile, usually, and you can zip to a good jump vector without the enemy having much of a chance interdicting you)
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:09 PM
I'm still trying to figure out how to do interdiction/area denial for polyspatial.
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In my case, you get another drive close enough, then do the metric engineering equivalent of ECM.
15:09
Alternatively, you can hit the target with fire.
15:10
The waverider/warp infrastructure is exposed during use, so its vurnerable to fire.
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:11 PM
With spacefolders, all you have to do is change the potential field into something the drive at the other end isn't expecting, which means moving mass around.
15:12
Frameshifts fail if the curvature's too great, because that pushes the bubble to intersect with the ship.
15:12
Stutterwarps fail if you inject some nasty noise into their wave.
15:12
But polyspatials don't currently have a solid interdiction or area denial method.
15:13
I'm thinking something that would "twist" space, so that the hyperradial mapping function falls apart, but I don't have any kind of physical basis for that kind of effect.
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Giving the ability to manipulate spacetime in your universe: Could you theoretically make a "force field" generator that produced a protective wall out of spacetime?
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:34 PM
yep
15:35
That is what surface shielding is.
15:35
A specialization of the frameshift drive bubble.
15:36
The other three techs use volumetric shielding, which is a more nuanced metrical engineering technology that shares a lot with artgrav.
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Can atmospheric craft use such technology to become floating weapons platforms?
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:37 PM
Floating?
15:37
I mean, aircraft are aircraft.
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Using gravitics to remain airborne
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:38 PM
(the top of the line spacefolders might also employ topological shielding, which is the most casual possible use of wormholes)
15:38
Probably not—there are much more energy-efficient ways of producing thrust.
15:38
Hovertanks, maybe
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I assume there are weapons that employ "force blades" to cut enemy fire or other ships in half?
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:41 PM
I'm pretty sure topological shears—where you run a wormhole down half of the ship—are forbidden because of irregularities in the local potential field.
15:42
However, you can ram frames into ships, which mostly just results in a slightly larger boom than if you'd just rammed it with the reactor in the first place.
15:43
And if you manage to intercept a stutterwarp vessel in mid-weave, you can collapse the wormhole to cut it.
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sdschildberg 07/05/2019 3:45 PM
Forcesabers pls
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Lightsabers would work better if they were actually force blades and not some energy stick (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:46 PM
Here's an idea: Blades with monomolecular edges, right?
15:46
But the edge is actually substantially larger, reinforced with muonic metals.
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How larger?
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 3:47 PM
The size of a regular blade, but smaller because muonic metals are more dense.
15:47
There's just a thin foil of electronic matter down the cutting edge.
15:47
Maybe partially-muonated to interface rigidly with the bulk of the blade.
15:48
The muonic portion should pass through electronic matter without interacting significantly, while the foil cuts it.
15:49
You'll never have to sharpen it.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/05/2019 4:37 PM
That bit about distortion-plane shielding has me thinking.
16:38
If you had a region of distorted space like that, and you jammed mass/energy into it, would it become more difficult (== energy-intensive, probably) to keep the area together?
16:39
That'd get you something the behaves a little like Niven's Langston Field. Not exactly, but..
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 5:26 PM
@Jade Nekotenshi Same here
17:26
You can synthesize compounds and reverse-engineer for what complex stuff you need
17:26
But when it comes to raw elements, nuclear transmutation is so hideously expensive it might begin to be justifiable to ship them
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 6:32 PM
And if you’ve got a system with massive, well developed refinery infrastructure, it might be easier to bring the mountain to Muhammad (cf. the Texas oil refineries and the supertankers that feed them)
👍 1
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^^^ This. Half the reason that bulk raw resource shipments are a thing
18:37
If we're looking at regular consumption of non perishable goods, even a multi-month travel time is acceptable. That's just something that you can schedule and manage
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 6:37 PM
With system warehouses you can buffer goods.
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Yep. And use larger, more economical transports that arrive less often, overall
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 6:38 PM
Yeah. Come to think of it, his travel times might actually not be significantly larger than with modern large cargo ships
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You noticed that too? :)
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 7:01 PM
Yeah, just watched Wendover's Panama canal video this afternoon, so it was on the tip of my brain
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 7:09 PM
@MarcusAurelius oh my god same
19:09
except it was yesterday
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 7:09 PM
That guy is awesome
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 7:09 PM
has something of a plane obsession
19:14
@Xveers generally a stargate is probably located at the primary world - primary star L4/5
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So at the leading or trailing trojan point
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 7:16 PM
So actually, it might be quicker to get resources through the gate than the belts if they’ve sufficiently exhausted them
19:22
Or if it’s one of those systems that doesn’t have as convenient of belts as Alpha Tigris
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 7:26 PM
I haven't done the research on where you find pico/femtogravity tho
19:26
I heard Earth-Moon L1 is picogravity
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 7:28 PM
What would it take to escape to infinity?
19:29
My spacefolders operate on the field so defined.
19:29
They can connect only points with the same potential.
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 7:32 PM
I skip all this fun for the ultimate memes: anywhere-to-anywhere FTL
19:33
Though it leads to similar results in most populated space, because I borrowed the concept of FTL area denial from the Schlockverse
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Or Star Wars EU
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sdschildberg 07/05/2019 7:33 PM
Ftl is denied by large gravity wells, and locally sends you into orbit of the body no matter your velocity. Solves planet surface to planet surface and FTL RKV problems
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That's how it worked in the "Wars" Expanded Universe.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 7:34 PM
how do you get to a trojan from the primary though
19:35
isn't it counterintuitively expensive
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Before Abrams blew that all out the window.
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 7:36 PM
I said Schlock since that’s where I encountered. It. I like it because it allows for FTL tactical jump memes for deep space combat, direct to orbit jumping when in deep field expiration, and allowing a much more mobile defender’s advantage in developed systems, while also allowing a way to counteract it
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 7:51 PM
Trojan to body transfers are a matter of phasing, at least in two-body physics.
19:51
But they're a potential well, so it's more complicated than that V: (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 7:56 PM
Still probably cheaper than an equally fast flight from the main belt in to the main inhabited planet’s well (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 8:12 PM
Alpha Tigris' age is about half that of our Solar System's
20:13
It's far more metallicious, but it's also an F8IV so it's already nearing the end of life stage
20:16
People can groan about how the colonists arriving probably destroyed the potential future of the paraplankton living in V's oceans, but really, they didn't have one to begin with (edited)
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As a rule, the less cute a species is, the easier it is to wipe them out. For microbiota, that any of them survived was a miracle (edited)
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microbiota are the cutest tho
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 8:25 PM
Yeah, but they also suffer the least
20:25
And have the best chance of surviving and integrating themselves into the new biosphere
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 8:26 PM
The smaller a species is, the harder it is to avoid tracking them back into your house.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 9:36 PM
@Xveers That and the fact some of them are the black-smoker types
21:37
The state of Alpha Tigris V is roughly comparable to Earth's, some My after the Great Oxygenation
21:37
Of course, then the colonists waltzed in and lousied the planet up with flora and fauna over the centuries
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interesting!
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 9:38 PM
Huh, if it’s post oxygen holocaust, the microbes might be relatively compatible with earth life
21:38
And in the more extreme/niche environments, it’s unlikely that any of the microbes the colonists brought can compete
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 9:38 PM
One wonders if they shouldn't have been more careful since those are the only alien organisms the civilization has encountered as of yet, and they had to go 2000 ly to find it
21:38
Which suggests Rare Earth Hypothesis is partially correct
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 9:39 PM
Is it a 2000 Ly sphere of exploration?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 9:39 PM
Nope
21:39
The original colony mission was a daring long-shot expedition from Earth itself
21:40
The FTL was the free-flight type, so back then it 'only' took 60 years
21:40
But the journey was so traumatic it's given them an aversion to slower-than-light travel across great distances
21:42
I'm of the school of thought that generation ships are not exactly the best option
21:43
I wonder what differences in composition there would be between a system formed only 2 Gy ago and the Solar System's
21:43
Probably more heavier elements and radioactives
21:43
@Xveers and before you ask they don't know what's happened to Earth since (edited)
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wasn't going to ask 😛
21:44
but misplacing earth happens all the time. also a really effective way to split your universe into its own beast without having the weight of 10k years of history behind you
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 9:46 PM
It's just that I figured a world with only sea scum would have less risks of game-ending incompatibilities than a world that had insects or plants
21:46
So I went with Precambrian earth
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When you can build the biosphere up from scratch, you got to avoid a lot of those problems
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 9:48 PM
Alpha Tigris V even has one large moon, although it's actually far smaller but orbits close in
21:48
So it looms overhead, something like twice the size of our full moon
21:49
It's as close as you're likely to get to an Earth 'twin' barring the fact that the days are only 21 hours and the star is the wrong type
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 9:58 PM
Seem to be a lot of F-types going around lately. V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 9:58 PM
what's that in reference to
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0111narwhalz 07/05/2019 9:59 PM
eh I just feel like I've seen a lot of F-type stars recently
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They're hard to miss
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 10:02 PM
So what happened to their free flight FTL? And it’s hard to say that it’s that rare then, if the area they explored is a actually pretty small
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2019 10:04 PM
It's murderously expensive as said before
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MarcusAurelius 07/05/2019 10:09 PM
ah
22:09
forgot about that
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Expensive to build, or to fuel?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/06/2019 11:35 AM
Build
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Forgot about one other commodity that is traded interstellar
11:56
Antimatter
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Touché.
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Antimatter is vital for power supplies and starship drives, but it's quite expensive to produce
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Conversion drives in the Para-Imperium use magnetic monopoles, which are only produced at Proxima Centauri’s mini-Dyson
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Why is it a mini-Dyson?
12:12
and not a regular one?
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Not enough incentive to fully Dyson it up? Signature managment?
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I call that a partial Dyson
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Like, in Zar's verse, there is still the bogeymen of the Beserkers going around somewhere.
12:18
And antimatter in AT can be made via NOWs.
12:18
But it was valuable once.
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What does NOW stand for?
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And then exotic fields stuff for waveriders and warp drives n stuff took the place.
12:18
Non-orientable wormhole.
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It's a wormhole that flips chirality, long the short of it.
12:19
Functionally, way symmetry works in our verse, the result is: everything chiraly becomes flipped (left hand to right hand glove) and stuff gets charge conjugated.
12:19
Which is to say: matter turns into antimatter.
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@KAL_9000 Because there’s no point to building a 1 AU radius sphere around a red dwarf
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Build it closer in then
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That’s what I meant by “mini”
12:23
Technically, it doesn't matter, 'cause the total energy doesn't change, but the material costs are lower when you go closer
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/06/2019 1:42 PM
Nobody bothers with antimatter in IAC
13:42
They could make the stuff but there's no trip long enough to justify it and the military would monopolize production for bombs anyway (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/06/2019 6:29 PM
Which aren't needed because, there are no enemies to use such a bomb on
18:34
Of course, as the Tiffs are about to discover, an empire can go to shit very easily on its own even without any 'barbarians' or rivals
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If you want to know the basics of the Jai-verse, it's essentially Eldraeverse (tone, posthumanism, semi-realism, etc.) meets Warhammer 40k (dakka, eldritch horrors, etc.)
22:46
I made this overall decision for the sort-of premise because it promises maximum awesome
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/06/2019 10:53 PM
I have already explained what IAC-verse feels like
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TotallyNotHuman 07/06/2019 10:57 PM
A thing myself and @0111narwhalz have been working on: A world divided by nature, united by technology. A people divided by technology, united by nature. Five hundred long years after the crossing of the Great Ice Belt by atomic rollagon, the [CENSORED] ventures beyond their stars. Little did they know the glories and horrors which awaited them. Welcome to a vibrant science fiction universe, set in the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way. But it is not the desolate expanse we see in our skies today. Welcome to a subtly alternate physics, meticulously constructed to allow superluminal travel with minimal damage to our understanding of reality. Welcome… to the [CENSORED - COMING SOON™ TO A HARD SCIENCE FICTION SERVER NEAR YOU] (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 9:45 AM
It's weird how settings evolve. RS started as my straight-up stupid ST:TNG knockoff, then got retooled into a Wing Commander-inspired set of space war stories that might or might not have been the same universe, and has slowly drifted to become a quite bit firmer, more political (thanks, Babylon 5) and is starting to take on some transhuman bits... I'm not sure how much of that I want - it's not the central theme - but it's definitely more than none, now.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 2:07 PM
So as far as my setup is concerned trade of physical artifacts is eminently possible
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What's ground combat like in your 'verse?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:47 PM
well, judging by the name tanks still seem to be a thing
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What's the name again?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:48 PM
Imperial Armored Corps
16:48
Panzer Battalion plays in the distance
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In my 'verse, "tank" is used as a general term for any ground combat vehicle
16:50
What we would consider "tanks" are in the minority
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That... doesn't make sense; How is any GCV a "tank"?
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It's a general term
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:51 PM
The word you're looking for seems to be "AFV", my dude
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It translates to tank
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:52 PM
alternatively, "vic" if you want to be succinct (edited)
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Ah, good point
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vic?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:52 PM
"tank" is a good monosyllable
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:52 PM
Vic is the standard modern monosyllable
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Tank is a bit of a (rather) rough term
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:52 PM
and doesn't lead to misleading assumptions by readers
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:52 PM
"vicihle"
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:52 PM
It's a shortened form of "vehicle", yeah
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I'll change that to AFV
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and if we want to be pedantic about this...... our usage of "tank" is stupid and wrong since "tank" was misdirection for security reasons
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What name covers air vehicles?
16:53
helicopters?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:53 PM
Eh, it's the standard name though
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:53 PM
"aircraft" :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:53 PM
most other languages have a more reasonable term for tanks
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:53 PM
Or variously fighter, bomber, attacker, and so on.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:53 PM
like "panzerkampfwagen"
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:54 PM
"armored struggle car?"
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Agreed. "Tank" has carved out its space in the language. No reason to change it.
16:54
hence the mention of pedanticness
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:54 PM
"armored fighting vehicle" would be more accurate, but yeah that's the meme version I like to say
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So, should I stick with tank? I can't tell what you guys are saying :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:55 PM
Vic or AFV would be better
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How about AFV?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:55 PM
we're just having a fun IRL talk tangent
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Alright, AFV it is
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Combat Vehicle?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:55 PM
"combat vehicle" could be anything
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But what about bikes and trucks?
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"Tank" shall be reserved for things with tracks and the main gun on a turret
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:56 PM
@0111narwhalz he's looking for something short
16:56
Kal, that still includes stuff like an M113
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Ground Combat Vehicle perhaps?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:56 PM
and as much fun as Gavin memes are, they aren't tanks
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Ground Combat Vehicle covers most, if not all ground based military vehicles
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:57 PM
It's still long though
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Alright, then, GCV it is
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:57 PM
yeah I've been using GCV casually for my most general classification
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:57 PM
but good acronym
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:57 PM
on the same classification hierarchy as "warship"
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@MarcusAurelius luckily, none of the APCs I've made have tracks
16:58
They're all either fliers or wheeled vehicles
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:58 PM
I get around it by having everything armored, because well if you're pure expeditionary with your logistics shipborne, the weakest thing I want is basically an MRAP equivalent
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Same here
16:58
Everything armored, that is
16:58
I mean, this is the future
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:58 PM
I went the hybrid skimmer/track or wheel concept
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But what about vehicles that both do water and ground, such as hovercraft?
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If you lack armor, the enemy's gonna mow down your infantry and light vehicles with railguns (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:59 PM
that's an ampbibious vehicle
16:59
even if you have armor the rails aren't gonna care that much
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 4:59 PM
so the APCs/logistics vics are roughly armored for the equivalent of 7.62NATO AP,155mm fragments, and AP/old AT mines
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 4:59 PM
Light vehicular armor is for small arms.
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Land-Sea Type Platform?
17:00
LSTP
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:00 PM
eh, just call 'em hovercraft
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:00 PM
I can't read that acronym without getting confused.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:00 PM
laughs in Zubr memes
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:00 PM
"long short-term—what?"
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:00 PM
Yeah, I parse that as "Landing ship, tank, platform"
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LSP?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:01 PM
(used to seeing LSTM "long short term memory")
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Lets say its to confuse the enemy
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:01 PM
"landing ship, platform"
17:01
An amphibious warfare ship (or amphib) is an amphibious vehicle warship employed to land and support ground forces, such as marines, on enemy territory during an amphibious assault. The largest fleet of these types is operated by the United States Navy. Specialized shipping c...
17:01
there's a lot of Amphib types
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In 'verse, even light armor has a thin (few dozen picometers) thick layer of solid neutronium
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:02 PM
what's it designed to resist?
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Do you have helicopters?
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Small-arms fire
17:02
@Unknown Of course I have helicopters
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:02 PM
ah, so you'd have fun fighting American style troops
17:02
laughs in Friend Javelin
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In-'verse small-arms fire
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I thought they would get shot down by idiots with railguns
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:02 PM
like I said, style
17:02
the US hands out AT missiles like candy
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:02 PM
Small arms resistance is kind of minimal, I figure.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:03 PM
you'd be surprsied
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Medium armor has thicker neutronium and nanite self-sealing
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:03 PM
up through the 70s or so, most vics were unarmored or only armored for light arty fragments
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Wow, techy
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:03 PM
For values of "small arms" that are "can run with while firing," tracking with the tech level.
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@0111narwhalz What about "can run with only in power armor?"
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How do the chopsters avoid being shot down by compadre Railgun?
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@Unknown Armor, kinetic deflector shields, and evasion
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:05 PM
stay below the horizon, fly fast, fly evasive, and jam them to hell
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:05 PM
Power armor is considered mechanized infantry or borderline vehicular, and you can strap whatever you want to a sufficiently robust piece of power armor, so the use of such for classification is discouraged.
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It takes a bit of time to target a railgun
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I guess jamming can be done for longer if you move slower
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:05 PM
and the faster bullet time doesn't matter if they don't have the FCS and tracking for it
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:05 PM
Or at least it doesn't count as "small arms"
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:05 PM
but these issues are why I prefer high performance gunships and fighter-bombers for CAS
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Kal, your helicopters can be gouged from the inside by having an anvil thrown at it
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:06 PM
what?
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Well, they have FCS and tracking, but the turret motors still take a bit of time to move
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the generators will be pushed out of the helicopter by the kinetic energy of the anvil
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:06 PM
uh only if you used shitty bolts
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:07 PM
how the hell are you going to hit it with an anvil?
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I fail to see how an anvil will knock out muonic material bolts
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a cannon hidden in the undergrowth
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Vietnam intensifies
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:08 PM
an anvil cannon
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Where are your army fighting?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:08 PM
for fighting his mega-Hinds, you want stuff like LOSAT, a big warhead, or just a shit ton of flack
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Hind?
17:08
And what's LOSAT?
17:08
(Sorry my technical term knowledge is rusty)
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:08 PM
lock-on surface to air missile(?)
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Lock On Surface-Air Tank? (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:08 PM
Russian heavy attack helicopter/utility hybrids. Line-Of-Sight Anti-Tank, an experimental US kinetic kill missile
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:09 PM
My setting has man-portable rail rifles, but they're primarily in antimateriel roles.
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What about laser cannons?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:09 PM
for anti-air work?
17:10
not a bad idea, actually
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Shooting anything you don't like#
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:10 PM
Man-portable lasers are usually antipersonnel.
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For comparison, the smallest vehicle the Jaian Republic wields that could be called a proper tank (and is even classed as a light tank) has nineteen separate weapons and can fire tactical nukes
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:10 PM
I still prefer the feel of Space!S400, but whatevs
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:10 PM
Medium- to short-range, because of inverse square law.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:10 PM
@KAL_9000 you better have a good justification for that, cause that's getting into bolo tier memery
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:10 PM
And a giant objective lens shining in the sun is just asking to be tagged.
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@MarcusAurelius I do (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:11 PM
@0111narwhalz that's what Maskirovka and fighting as a battalion is for
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The tech level is so ridiculously high that that's what's needed to bring down light armor
17:11
Again, solid neutronium
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:11 PM
when you want to do ground based anti-air work, go full Russian memes. For naval, full American memes
17:12
I still fail to see how 19 seperate weapons helps with that
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:12 PM
Mounted lasers are typically huge phased arrays.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:12 PM
that's the more thonk part, not the yield
17:12
and yeah, phased areas are nice and damage resisitant
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How does a laser not hurt vehicles?
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@MarcusAurelius Anti-air lasers and missile launchers, mostly
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:12 PM
Lasers do hurt vehicles.
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There are some antipersonnel weapons, as well
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:13 PM
...how big are these things?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:13 PM
It's just that carrying enough power and big enough objective optics to do it is still difficult in a man-portable form factor.
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@MarcusAurelius the tank?
17:13
A few hundred tons
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:13 PM
Once you can put a nuclear reactor behind the laser, and a phased array across a large part of the surface, you can do great things with them.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:14 PM
ah. Time for tank destroyers in Kal's verse, then
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Yes, there are tank destroyer variants
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:14 PM
But at least in my setting, battery-powered lasers are still not great at the armor penetration.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:14 PM
who needs batteries?
17:14
reactors for everyone!
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High-velocity mass drivers firing neutronium-coated projectiles, usually
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:15 PM
Miniaturization hasn't gotten that far.
17:15
Or at least not radsafe miniaturization :V
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I have a question
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go ahead
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how capitalist is your army?
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what
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 5:15 PM
wat
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:15 PM
...what?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:15 PM
Tron, I find that you have too many questions.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:16 PM
please rephrase to something coherent
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As in: How many companies are selling parts to the army?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:16 PM
You can afford to be more… selective
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:16 PM
oh
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do they buy parts or make them?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:16 PM
that's not a capitalism thing
17:17
The Soviets usually had a larger variety of manufacturers competing for most things
17:17
the West actually generally had less competetion within one nation
17:17
it's not a capitalism thing, so much as national armories proved to be pretty inefficient as manufactures coming into the 20th century and have stayed that way
17:18
(which is why my efforts to justify a state-run military naval yard is fun) (edited)
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Yes, corporations compete for contracts to provide stuff
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The Soviets still cranked out enough AKs that you can buy one for less than $40 in many countries. Of course they also licensed the specs to every potentially communist group on the planet.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:23 PM
Yeah, most of the cheap ones are from China or other non soviet nations. They’re also the cheap stamped metal versions, so YMMV with them
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What gear is an average infantryman issued?
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Power armor, muonic metal projectile rotary cannon, etc.
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:27 PM
Does the projectile have an electronic core or something?
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Fragmentation projectiles explode into a swarm of attack nanites upon impact, but other than that, no
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:28 PM
So it's purely to punch holes in muonic armor?
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Yeah
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:28 PM
Or does your setting build important things out of muonated materials too?
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Both
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Muonic metal sounds kinda expensive, y'know
17:29
and don't muons hate existing?
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@Unknown Dyson Swarms are extremely common. Energy is cheap
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:29 PM
(if muons have deeper potential wells, does that mean that muonic computation can work at higher temperatures?)
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@Unknown As in Eldraeverse, there's low-level ontotech for that
17:30
Power armor is to light to carry neutronium, so it uses muonic armor
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:30 PM
Expense in warfare is always relative.
17:31
You don't have to make something that'll kill everything, or something that can't be killed by anything.
17:31
You just have to make things that cost the enemy more to kill than they cost you to produce.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:31 PM
And of corse, nowadays the soldier is more valuable than the gear
17:31
Not necessarily, that, either
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I don't see how the trend will change in the future as augments are developed (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:32 PM
Yup
17:32
Highly augmented, highly trained super soldiers are gonna be very expensive assets
17:32
So, you pay to equip and protect them well
17:32
You look at the US army and laugh
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:32 PM
If your soldiers cost you ten times as much, proportionally, but they take fifteen of their soldiers each, you're at a net profit.
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Would it make sense to say that soldiers will be taught weird martial arts in the future?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:33 PM
It’s not about profit, still
17:33
It’s about what is effective for accompmishing your goals
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:33 PM
maye "profit" is the wrong word
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:33 PM
If you’re in total war, economics of that sort don’t matter
17:33
It’s about outproducing the fuck out of them
17:33
If you’re not, then soft goals generally matter more than money
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There are TONS of factors that it is based on
17:33
Projection of Force, combined arms, element of surprise etc
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:33 PM
I don't mean "cost" strictly in monetary/materials.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:34 PM
E.g. for peacekeeping forces, low casualties are more important than cost effectiveness
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:34 PM
Time, public support, and so on.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:34 PM
So they’ll liberally use expensive force multipliers
17:34
Yeah, you’re getting hit
17:34
*it
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What happens if the enemy uses non attrition tactics? then your attrition tactics are reduced in effectiveness
17:35
force multipliers work best when the enemy isn't trying to out-tactic you
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:36 PM
Tactics are a force multiplier
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:36 PM
And yeah, you usually have to choose. Not everyone can be the US in WWII That really doesn’t matter as much. If they’re a peer they can force you into attritional warfare, if they aren’t you either kick their butt or they kick yours. Ah, you’re talking guerrillas and such
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Combat isn't about trying to blow up the enemy as hard as possible, there are also tactics and strategy
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 5:36 PM
Then yes, to a certain extent
17:36
But that’s getting more operational than tactical
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:37 PM
It's always a cost-benefit. You want to get all your goals done, definitionally, but your scarce resources preclude that.
17:37
So the goals have costs.
17:38
Some of those costs are "completing this goal makes it impossible to pursue that goal"
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@KAL_9000 How are your troops delivered planetside during battle?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:39 PM
For my part, there are dropships.
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@Unknown Dropped from orbit in dropships and/or pods
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:39 PM
Containerized for fast load/unload.
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how hard do they drop?
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Several hundred meters per second
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Lithobrake or just reentry, hot and fast? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:40 PM
Dropship pulls to a stop—mostly—disconnects the container, and flies off.
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It doesn't actually matter how fast they're going when there's neutronium armor plating on the dropship
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Friend Javelin likes targets that move slowly enough
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:40 PM
Container's sides blow off, or it's open-sided, or there are pallets of equipment inside, depending on the payload in question.
17:41
Logistics and transport vessels in orbit load containers into the dropshipsvery rapidly, so the dropships spend the maximum proportion of their time shipping.
17:47
Also there are some self-propelled braking packages, but those are typically reserved for specialist payloads in relatively low-heat regions.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 5:55 PM
@Unknown Contested drops against near-peer adversaries that have anything reasonably capable of knocking down drop pods, atmospheric shuttles or the like are mostly a very expensive, utterly gore-soaked way to piss into the wind, in RS. Armored fast shuttles and hypersonic dropships with hard retro braking (lithobraking for some of the folks with enough technomagery to have working inertial dampers that don't have long lag times) are used for smaller scale operations or against opponents whose air/space defenses are a joke by the attacker's standards.
17:57
It's more typical to englobe, lay siege and demand surrender - most civilized worlds will, at that point, although those that are sufficiently self-contained to not require much of anything from off-world can hold out for a while. Landing troops on a planet that has surrendered is a much more peaceable affair.
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:58 PM
Yeah, ground combat is not the way things are usually done in my setting either.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 5:58 PM
I wonder what star-nations would tend to call themselves
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:58 PM
At least not initially.
17:59
At the most obvious, you need clean orbitals before you can park a logistics vessel in low orbit.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 5:59 PM
Yep, same here. And nothing else left in system that can whang you with a dumb rock while you park there either.
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 5:59 PM
Ground combat is for either "subtlety" or those stubborn bastards who just won't give up.
18:00
Partially cooperative planetary environments and such.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:00 PM
After their 'geography' (local stars) or ideology?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:00 PM
And for the latter, the usual strategy in RS is to either englobe and leave - keep them interdicted until they correct their recto-cranial inversion - or, if that won't work and they're still a threat, bluiter them into a dumb, smoking rockpile.
18:01
But the Galactic Concilium takes a really dim view of outright xenocide and they don't care for rendering habitable worlds unusable either.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:01 PM
@KAL_9000 tough armor is not shock absorption, though. Just because the box is intact doesn’t mean the contents are. For me ground combat is either SF troops, peacekeeping/occupying, the occasional siege, or just fast attacks when you need an objective before the enemy has a chance to destroy it.
18:02
As for nation names, either ideology or homeworld derived names for the most part
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 6:02 PM
Bizarro: I've named two after their home planet, one after their principal deity, and one in a weird circular way (they're named after the location of their head office, which is named after the parent company which laid claim to the planet, which is named for a reason lost to the unwritten murk).
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:02 PM
(Same with the New Ancients, but that didn't stop them from dropping a hundred kilos of strangelets into the core of a big habstar, an F7V with half a dozen planets and moons with sophs on them. Power corrupts? Yep.)
18:03
I haven't fully disentangled the native names versus exonyms bit for all my empires yet, but most are in some way named after their prinicple founding species. Though in a lot of cases, that's an exonym and the natives call it something else
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:04 PM
Some of the precursor names get weird, though
18:04
E.g. the eldest known civ’s name is an ultra-perfect-active-participle meaning roughly “those who long ago created”
18:05
And there’s the guys named after their (accidental) berserker probes, The Scourge-wrights
18:07
But generally, civs are known by their endonyms or a translated version, and those who aren’t aren’t because their endonym is unknown
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:12 PM
Some star polities in RS aren't actually as externally unified as they appear - for example, the Holy Cryshcharan Sodality is actually a collection of nation-states about as unified as, say, modern-day Earth - but they pretend otherwise toward the rest of the galaxy, resulting in a lot of confuzzlement to those who don't know what's going on behind the curtain.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:12 PM
You made a space HRE?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:13 PM
EXPN HRE?
18:13
Oh, wait
18:13
Holy Roman Empire, ya?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:13 PM
Heiliges Römisches Reich
18:13
Sanctum Romanum Imperium
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:14 PM
But yes, essentially, though not specifically with that as an inspiration.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:14 PM
Ah, the name made me think of it
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:14 PM
My inspiration was the EU, with several layers of whatif slathered generously on top
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:14 PM
@MarcusAurelius Of course, in Imperial Armored Corps' 'present' (2019 TE) there's only The (Tiffanian) Empire
18:14
Everyone calls it that if they're talking informally or poetically, although in official documents it's still Kingdom of Iris
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:15 PM
Though, the Cryshchara religion mightily confuses humans - it has a freakish number of parallels with various bits of Terran history, but no molecular/genetic evidence to indicate that they're Terragen life (but they look it, and are biologically compatible, or as close as xenos get.) Memes are, of course, a bit harder to trace.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:16 PM
In the rare instance where a name is actually needed, because when you're isolated there's little need to distinguish such things
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:16 PM
(There are at least two other Terragen species out there, though, thanks to precursor interference)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:16 PM
I'm kind of boring in not having any real xenos
18:16
Beside the pond scum it's just Terragen life
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sdschildberg 07/08/2019 6:17 PM
That terragen alike is the subject of the future history channels annoying specials
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:18 PM
@Jade Nekotenshi @0111narwhalz as far as anyone credibly believes hihihihhihihihhihih
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 6:18 PM
V:
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:20 PM
Oh, they're the subject of a lot of wild speculation.
18:21
Not least of which is that they're the result of Precursor fuckery to create xenogen humans.
18:22
They do, however, think that our taste in daylight is heretical. (They come from a system with a K6 primary)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:24 PM
I think an astrophysicist should make authoritative correction of this but F-class stars put out way more UV light at the same distances than G-glasses right
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:24 PM
Yes, generally
18:24
Though it somewhat depends on how-G versus how-F
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:24 PM
Alpha Tigris is an F8IV subgiant
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:24 PM
An F9V wouldn't put out all that much more than Sol.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:25 PM
which is kind of a strange class to be in
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:25 PM
Yeah, a bit
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:27 PM
Yeah, living on Tiffany would give you a deep suntan after a while
18:28
If only there were any humans around to get such tans
18:29
>_>
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The Para-Imperium's official name is the Federation of Para-Human Species, with notable member states being the Republic of Pallas (aristocratic oligarchy), Monarchial Estates of Schwarzwelt (post-feudal parliamentary monarchy), and Eridani Directorate (grandfathered in corporate state).
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:31 PM
My fun confusion generators are one of the three great powers of the Alliance, whose full name (in English) is "The Federated Kingdom of Mallaryss United, Her Colonies, and Her Member States." Short version, "Kingdom of Mallaryssyss", commonly further shortened to "Mallaryssyss" or "The Kingdom". Of course, the fun comes in when you learn that it arose as an emergency merger of the two great powers (a confederation and an empire) of their homeworld when they found themselves in an extinction-war with a near Kardashev IV civ, and the wacky combination and tonal clashing of the various inherited titles/units. E.g., the King is the formal commander and primary charge of both the Imperial Guard and the President's Own/ the Republican Guard.
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The Republic of Jai is theoretically a democracy
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:35 PM
and those guys aren't as weird as the state that can best be described as... a semi-representative oligarchic military dictatorship, though that description is quite misleading
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what
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Service guarantees citizenship
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:36 PM
yeah it is partially full on Starship Troopers memes
18:36
but mostly, it
18:37
it's a sovereign state as a technicality to allow it to function as the Alliance's counterbalance to the other two great powers with in it and to prevent a cold war (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:37 PM
The Khazara Star League is actually massively more authoritarian than some of their neighbors with darker-sounding names (a variety of Kingdoms, Empires, Imperia and the like) - they're a technocratic oligarchy that micromanages virtually everything for your own good - and generally think that anyone else that doesn't do the same is taking a lot of scary, unwarranted risks. And they don't like to be scared, see.
18:38
The Walkers in Shadows are also that kind of technocracy, but they have no desire to export.
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Could be like the Sebacean Peacekeepers where a mercenary fleet essentially becomes a nomad empire.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:39 PM
The only thing stopping the Khazara from being considered a sort of heggie swarm is that a) their coercion of their own subjects is based on good old threats of force, not psychdesign, b) they can be reasoned with and c) they understand the point of diplomacy, even if they think they're debating a bunch of children who are juggling loaded M240s.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:41 PM
Diplomacy? Neighbors?
18:41
laughs in isolation
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:42 PM
(Well, OK, that, and the fact that their nearest neighbor is a nation of crabby, irascible revanchists with a bunch of relics from their former Kardashev II glory days, and who is the buffer state between Known Space and a huge, sprawling ancient empire, about which little is known other than "Large Angelic Powers or worse".)
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:43 PM
Nomad yes, mercenary not really, though I guess you could argue on technicalities. The supersoldiers who won the big old "war to end all wars" wanted their own state, the higher ups of the other two great powers and the lesser powers agreed it would be a good way to both keep the peace between the two and keep the soldiers from (accidentally or intentionally) puppeting the other two great powers. It doesn't help that said supersoldiers have effectively exclusive control over the nice archeotech they inherited
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:43 PM
The Tiffs would probably be Kardashev II if they put their back into it
18:43
But bioconservatism is a helluva drug
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:43 PM
So, kinda like the Vonnies?
18:43
Well, they are Kardashev II, I think, but only just.
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Except with a past history of genetic modification and bad experiences with it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:44 PM
Yeah
18:45
The arguments against ultratech take on a much more convincing tone when there's three billion graves thanks to it
18:46
Although you can't renounce what made you
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:46 PM
Both of the Large Angelic Ancients are Kardashev II powers, but in Known Space, really only the Seclundi qualify, and only if you squint. (A partial Dyson swarm around a pissy little red dwarf gets you a chunk of the way there - powering a weylforge with it gets you most of the rest of the way.)
18:47
But a red dwarf is still a heckin' big fusion reactor, even if it's a mouse fart next to something like Sol.
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@BizarroLand ♀ Hey, have you read any of M.C.A. Hogarth's Peltedverse books by any chance?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:47 PM
no
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:48 PM
yeah, I kinda went full bigatons... The Alliance is a strongly post Kardashev IV agglomeration of civs, all of the secondary powers are post II, most III, and the three great powers are individually post IV
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Kardashev... IV?
18:49
Which K4 definition are you using?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:49 PM
Isn't Kardashev IV galaxy cluster or universe tier weight?
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@BizarroLand ♀ those are not at all equivalent
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 6:50 PM
both definitions have been proposed brover
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:50 PM
yes in this case
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not clearing things up at all
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Kind of Star Trek tech with furries, space elves, and shapeshifting dragons. Except the Alliance is capitalist, sometimes stupidly so.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:52 PM
although more in a "technically" sense, it's more they have god tier archeotech meaning they don't physically control the entirety of multiple universes (until postwar) but they out produce them in energy
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/08/2019 6:52 PM
Oh, that makes more sense. (edited)
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So the universe isn't infinite in-'verse?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:53 PM
nope
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Extent?
18:53
How big is the universe?
18:53
I assume it's finite but unbounded?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:55 PM
prolate spheroids, on the order of 150x150x350 gigalightyears (edited)
18:55
and no, bounded
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Do you just run into a wall and crash? (edited)
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You circle back on yourself
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@Zarpaulek That's what unbounded is
18:56
You reappear at the opposite "end" of the universe
18:56
Ish
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:57 PM
although come to think of it, I'm indecisive on bounded vs unbounded in that sense
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Although my 'verse does have pretty advanced tech, I'm covering only the Local Group, so I don't have to worry about cosmology questions 😄
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 6:57 PM
I mostly meant "you can't escape without ontotech or hyperspace FTL"
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Albert Einstein, in his book Relativity: The Special and General Theory, dedicates a chapter to this idea, as its title suggests: The Possibility of a “Finite” and Yet “Unbounded” Universe. In the words of us laypeople, Einstein – among others – suggests a “sp...
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 6:59 PM
My setting's universe is approximately hyperspherical.
18:59
Spatially R⁴
18:59
plus one time :V
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Three-dimensionally finite but unbounded, right?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 6:59 PM
Four-dimensionally finite but unbounded
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No, I meant when you're restricted to threespace, you still can circumnavigate the universe
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 7:00 PM
oh yeah probably
19:01
I mean, functionally it's still close enough to infinite.
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TotallyNotHuman 07/08/2019 7:02 PM
Don't third gen T-drives fold fourspace in fivespace, though?
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 7:03 PM
yes.
19:03
But space itself is still fourspace.
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TotallyNotHuman 07/08/2019 7:03 PM
[string theory intensifies]
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Just what I was gonna say
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 7:03 PM
It's just embedded in (at least) fivespace.
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Is M-Theory the ToE in here?
19:04
The universe is a four-brane, got it
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 7:04 PM
(because of spacefolding shenaniganry it might not be orientable in fourspace)
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:15 PM
@0111narwhalz close enough to infinite doesn't apply for me, between old universes and the demands of interuniversal war
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old universes?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:17 PM
as in, fragmentary history supports the main universe of the setting as being at least 70 billion years old, and of having spacefairing civs since then
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So, star formation is pretty low?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:18 PM
no, it's still quite high, similar if not higher than the present state of our universe
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...HOW?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:18 PM
very old godlike civs did some fun large scale engineering work
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 7:22 PM
"large-scale" indeed
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:23 PM
no, it's not the biggest
19:23
the most visible, but not the biggest
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TotallyNotHuman 07/08/2019 7:24 PM
that is the kind of "fun" of which I approve V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 7:40 PM
mostly I got rid of ultratech because once it's in full swing, what is there for bionts to do really
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:41 PM
post-sophont archeotech crafted supersoldiers
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 7:43 PM
anything and everything a human can do, an artificial intelligence can do ten times better and for a tenth of the cost
19:43
so I jettisoned AI
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:44 PM
not when the line between AI and bio-originated sophonts are blurred, and nah, I've got a combo of "some of the bionts have bodies driven by archeotech we haven't been able to reverse-engineer yet" and "post-sophont AI are Extremely hard to make in a stable way"
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I went with "stable sophont AI are practically impossible to make".
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 7:46 PM
I don't really dig archeotech
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 7:47 PM
eh, they reverse-engineer it eventually
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They can make pretty good number-crunchers that aren't self-aware though.
19:52
"It reaches out, it reaches out, it reaches out"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 7:53 PM
on the topic of trading
19:53
what other than electronics is highly complex and requires highly skilled labor to use
19:54
it's kind of the best of all worlds in terms of being a relatively lightweight, but almost ubiquitous product that also requires rare resource inputs and well-trained workers to exploit
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Art
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 7:54 PM
...
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I'd go for luxuries over bulk commodities.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 7:55 PM
jewelry?
19:55
plastics? composites?
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Morgrim Moon 07/08/2019 8:00 PM
handcrafts? embroidery and lacemaking don't require rare inputs, but that're time consuming manual labour that cannot be automated to anything resembling the same qualilty, and lightweight to boot
20:00
certain glassblowing is a little heavier but has the rare inputs (like gold and uranium, which may not be so rare in-setting)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:00 PM
Perhaps but I really, really don't think you can support an economy off of curios
20:01
(well, unless you have serious talent, fame and name recognition to cash in on like Hollywood or other infamous art places)
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Morgrim Moon 07/08/2019 8:02 PM
there've been citystates supported off lace and glass
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:02 PM
whut
20:02
in modern times or pre-industrial
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Morgrim Moon 07/08/2019 8:02 PM
pre to early industrial
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:02 PM
even nowadays, kinda
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Not to mention all the empires that extorted tribute in gold instead of something useful like grain.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:03 PM
there are entire areas of Turkey and Iran that get the majority of their income from rug weaving
20:03
because they can sell for over 10,000 dollars each
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:03 PM
The ancient Silk Road, maybe?
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:03 PM
in addition, machine tools
20:03
precision instruments of any sort
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:04 PM
machine tools? doesn't that fall under electronics
20:04
oh
20:04
precision instruments... nn
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The Silk Road primarily traded in luxuries, silk from China, pearls and wine from Rome.\
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:04 PM
a decent number of chemicals and alloys that require a long chain of precursors. machine tools as in "the stuff we use to make things" like cutting dies, molds, precision tools, etc
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:04 PM
I was thinking more along the lines of important and complex consumer goods like automobiles, home appliances, or perhaps aircraft
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:04 PM
oh yeah, rare pigments too
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:05 PM
@MarcusAurelius Remember there's no xenos
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The two ends didn't even have diplomatic contact with one another.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:05 PM
and?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:05 PM
So there's no convenient exotic foozles or zops to hunt or breed
20:06
Biological trade will probably be in drugs (both medical and illicit) as well as extremely rare spices
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:06 PM
and yeah, true Zarpaulek: they were aware of each other, and had stories about each other, but weren't in direct contact. you don't need them to be xenogen, have you seen how divergent cultivars and breeds are on earth?
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The spice melange might be a bit much.
20:07
Or even variant soils, look at the higher-end wines and coffee beans
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Morgrim Moon 07/08/2019 8:07 PM
end one figures out how to breed the rare venus-blue rose. Pity it can't propogate from cuttings and they only export sterile plants
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:07 PM
Good cocaine is worth as much as gold
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More than gold
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Morgrim Moon 07/08/2019 8:07 PM
more than gold. Which is funny, it's a cinch to make
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Illegality adds a load to the price.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:07 PM
it's hard to transport, and you need access to coca leaves, which is hard to find
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:08 PM
@Morgrim Moon as Our Leader has said: one lucky quirk of terraforming in the right place and you might have a rare cultivar that commands a shockingly high price
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:08 PM
hard to transport mostly because of illegality, and yeah, it'd be a lot cheaper if it was legal
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:09 PM
Does anyone know if gemstones form abiotically
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There's also the fact that black market vendors tend to compete with bullets instead of prices.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:10 PM
Large outcrops of a gemstone mineral commonly used in jewellery have been found on Mars, scientists said yesterday.
20:10
looks like there's peridot on Mars
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The vast majority of gemstones form abiotically
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:10 PM
(yeah, yeah, 16-year-old article sue me XD)
20:11
Oh, and opal
20:11
An instrument on MRO can see minerals. What it finds can be pretty interesting.
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Really there aren't very many gems that are formed by biological processes http://www.geologyin.com/2018/08/what-are-organic-gemstones.html
Almost all gemstones are minerals with a crystalline structure. However, some gems are not really gemstones. Rather their origin is organic. This means that they formed from biological processes, whether animal or vegetable.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:12 PM
a lot of them do require hydrological and tectonic activity to get near the surface, though
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:12 PM
@MarcusAurelius that's actually better for trade
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:12 PM
I know
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:12 PM
some planets will have less useful minerals than others
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Might be less common on asteroids or tectonically dead planets like Mars then
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:13 PM
yep, bizarro made my second point for me
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:13 PM
I wonder about the quality of those minerals though
20:14
Black opal is the most prized opal and may realise prices over AUD $15,000 a carat. Boulder opals also have a dark body tone. White opals have a light body tone and are generally the least valuable form of opal.
20:14
a carat is about 200mg
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:14 PM
yup
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:14 PM
rubs hands furiously
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:14 PM
gems are value dense
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:15 PM
what metals are more valuable than gold and silver incidentally
20:15
uranium?
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Of course, if you want a terraformed planet to survive long term it should be tectonically active, which can help form gemstones.
20:15
Platinum.
20:16
Rare earths
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:16 PM
oh and there's also neptunium
20:16
it's almost identical to uranium and has the same usefulness in nuclear processes but it didn't get used for some reason
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Most trans-uranics.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:17 PM
transuranics, rare earths
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There's virtually no naturally occurring neptunium on Earth.
20:18
Short half-life
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Enderminion 07/08/2019 8:18 PM
Neptunium typically has to be made
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:18 PM
anything that needs to be artificially manufactured
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Enderminion 07/08/2019 8:18 PM
like Plutonium
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Of course most synthesized elements tend to have half-lifes that would necessitate fairly quick transit
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:20 PM
plutoniums is decently long
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:20 PM
@Zarpaulek Transuranic elements have to be synthesized, they can't be mined
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:20 PM
yeah, and developed systems can make them easier
20:21
so shipping them out to the outworlds makes sense for a while
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 8:21 PM
Nucleosynthesis is still expensive in your setting, so you can make a case for systems which make their living by it.
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:22 PM
oh yeah, just general uranium enrichment
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 8:22 PM
Isotopic separation too, yeah.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:22 PM
You can enrich useful quantities of uranium with 1940s tech though
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0111narwhalz 07/08/2019 8:23 PM
It's still expensive and tiresome :V
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It takes months to years with 40s piles though
20:25
Yes, piles, they were literally stacking bricks of graphite with tin cans of uranium oxide
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:28 PM
@BizarroLand ♀ the US built literal cities for the Manhattan project's enrichment facilities
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:51 PM
oh yeah oak ridge
20:51
and if nothing else there is simple geological luck of the draw to consider
20:51
some worlds may be blessed with easily-accessible quantities of important ores in the crust
20:51
others not so much
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sdschildberg 07/08/2019 8:53 PM
toughSF memed up a setting where the fact that Terras and Oceanias dissolve their radioactives and rare earths into the ocean for easy collection makes them colony targets for mining
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:55 PM
yeah hydrology is gut
20:55
but how would mining ever be competitive with just cracking planetoids
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sdschildberg 07/08/2019 8:56 PM
Distance from habitable worlds (this was a setting with ftl)
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 8:56 PM
shorter shipping times, cheaper infrastructure, and higher concentrations
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 8:58 PM
And at any rate I'm pretty sure plying a trade route in space is repetitive enough that it's not very important to have organic oversight
20:58
No tramp fraighters here
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 9:15 PM
Trade routes also help us determine how the Empire will balkanize
21:15
Because it will
21:15
Not a spoiler to say that
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 9:19 PM
yeah, local economic hubs become political hubs
21:20
but more likely that's a simultaneous process
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The Federation is set up as three interlinked Core systems and a dozen or so strategically gated systems surrounded by ungated Rim and Outworlds. How that balkanizes depends on whether the gate network survives the next stellar dark age.
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What do you mean by stellar dark age, exactly?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 9:22 PM
@MarcusAurelius ? Simultaneous?
21:23
21:23
I had been drawing this starmap but it stalled because of other obligations
21:23
Beside Alpha Tigris all I have in mind is: Beta Tigris was the first extrasolar settlement and plays host to Flora, The Queen Of The Colonies
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 9:25 PM
as in, the early colonies/early stargate hubs become politically important as governance sectors alongside the economic growth those same factors bring
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 9:27 PM
The way I was gonna draw the map was, there were two broad sectors of expansion
21:27
The Rimward Branches and the Coreward branches
21:27
The capital would serve as the neck/channel between the two
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@KAL_9000 Well the first one was when Berserker probes destroyed Earth and the surviving seedship colonies bunkered down for a millennium
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MarcusAurelius 07/08/2019 9:53 PM
Bizarro: yeah, but those regions would likely have still have some degree of a hub and spoke system
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 10:42 PM
The map stalled because I couldn't find good distribution maps for star types
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This is my empire... well the link chains anyhow
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/08/2019 11:23 PM
I want to at least look like I put deep thought into my placement
23:23
But all I found was atlas of the universe maps
23:27
The Empire in 1995 i.f.e. has around 30 colonies and many more link stops/worlds under development
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:08 AM
I had this whole idea that provincial organization at the interstellar level was done in 'constellations': physically linked groups of settled systems labeled from first to last settled by the Greek letter system
00:08
Say, Alpha Tigris, then Beta Tigris, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc... all the way down to Omega Tigris, and then another 'constellation' would begin
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:09 AM
Eh, it works, If a bit boring
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:10 AM
I feel like you would want to reflect the structure of the network more carefully.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:10 AM
There'd be the formal name and the informal name
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:10 AM
It makes sense to me, if he has a very hub and spoke network
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:10 AM
There may be some cross linkages, but not that many
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:10 AM
The provinces are based around the long-range gates back to the imperial core
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:11 AM
The surveyors would probably prefer to use the furthest current systems as their staging areas
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:11 AM
So a strict tree?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:11 AM
These jump points are artificial and subject to 'human' caprice anyways
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:11 AM
I’m thinking a lot like a late 20th century airline organization, actually
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:12 AM
With high branching from the core and very low to no branching in the periphery?
00:12
Or maybe huge branching throughout with new hub systems?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:13 AM
Basically, Alpha Tigris is the main hub, everything leads back to it. From it, the other hubs and maybe important secondary systems link to it (or, if he’s paranoid, each links to a hub nearby, one for each of the two expansion directions, and those only lead to the capital), with crosslinking occurring between the hubs
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:13 AM
I suspect at first the Empire won't bother to create too many crosslinks
00:13
But the Breakup is coming
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:14 AM
Maybe one for each hub “bordering” it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:15 AM
There would be some crosslinks where the Imperial planners felt it very warranted, like a major mining world linking to a manufacturing center
00:15
But otherwise you'd have to make do with circuitous paths
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:16 AM
Which makes sense to me, if each of the provincial economies is relatively isolated outside of low volume trade in luxuries and occasional specialized goods
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:16 AM
Sub-constellational divisions are prefectures
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:17 AM
I think phone trees are about three branches per node, but this isn't a directed graph and probably not all of it flows from the root out. :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:17 AM
See, I skip this whole problem for the most part
00:18
Since even the stationary FTL types are generally to anywhere or to any other node (within range)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:18 AM
My spacefolders are any-any on a potential level set.
00:19
Earlygame folders use gates to smooth out the potential field.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 12:19 AM
Of course, mine are strictly linked pairs that are a pain to build
00:19
Cause I'm sadistic like that
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:19 AM
(well, technically the folders are "here-any")
00:20
Lategame folders are backed by the observational and computational resources of a lategame faction, which means they don't need distant gates to smooth out the potential field.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:21 AM
Not sadistic, I like the fun that leads to for empire org, and the choke points were empires meet
00:25
I went full crazy, with 7 types of FTL
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:25 AM
man I thought my four were bad
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:25 AM
Because I like weird asymmetries happening
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:26 AM
Do they have complex interactions?
00:26
Can you stuff two distinct modalities in the same ship?
00:27
(well I guess with the tech levels one could argue that I have seven, but the distinction between gated and ungated spacefolders is close to academic)
00:27
(and three of them would just be different ways of moving hyperradially)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:29 AM
Mostly because they to some degree fill decent niches from each other, yeah. And for some of them, yes, but all the mobile ones other than hyperdrives are quite bulky, and there’s little point mounting 2 of the stationary types on a ship, as they don’t really help one. They do frequently co-occur though (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:30 AM
I've tried to set up interactions between all my paradigms to limit their cooperation, and also ways to break them without needing to know how they work.
00:31
For instance, stutterwarp waves disrupt spacefolders.
00:32
(because the way they work is by manipulating the potential field)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:32 AM
Mines more just tactical Rock Paper Scissors
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:33 AM
Yeah, with seven you can set up a full nontransitive cycle.
00:33
(with the inner cycle going the other way, and I think a third cycle to do whatever with?)
00:36
Four makes it awkward, but I can't really think of any other clever ways to do FTL without it just being a rehash of the existing ones.
00:36
(except for fakedrive which I adamantly refuse to use :V)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:41 AM
E.g. ring drives can outrun and outmaneuver hyperdrives over short distances because they are effectively instanteous (a much bigger advantage in the days long past of the third war, when hyperdrives were much slower), but are slower over long distances because of their recharge time and relatively short hops. Tachyon conversion drives have the advantage of being very hard to detect and allowing insertion where hyperspace area denial is in place, but greatly decrease situational awareness, and can’t breach between universes. Teleporters require a large amount of power for the mass they transport, are temperamental maintenance hogs, and don’t scale up well. Pitchers (i.e. big installations that combine a big gravitic mass accelerator and a specialized hyperdrive that hurls ships on a parabolic trajectory up into hyper and then back down to realspace) are the cheapest option for bulk transit since economies of scale is very much a thing with hyperdrives, but require some sort of FTL on the far end for a return trip, and are big, vulnerable, stationary targets. Hypergates are just big installations that tear holes into hyperspace (much like jump gates from B5), which are great if you have another on the far side of the trip but pretty much useless if you don’t. And jumpgates are nice, decently compact installations that can remotely bridge two points together, but are insanely power hungry for either a large aperture and/or long distance, and require a gate on both sides.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:45 AM
ah, tachyon conversion
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:46 AM
Yup
00:46
Full memes
00:46
But, it’s dicey and rare for a reason
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:47 AM
I don't think pitchers quite work in my hyperspace.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:47 AM
Probably not
00:47
They’re weird in setting to begin with
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:47 AM
Ana-kata movement is difficult unless you have length in that direction, and most things don't :V
00:48
Second-generation translation drives do some kind of weird hack to rotate into that state, and I don't think you want to remain there overlong.
00:50
(I haven't figured out what makes that possible)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:51 AM
Weird ass reaction wheels?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:51 AM
hmm
00:51
highspace gyro torques might do it
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:53 AM
Alternatively, RCS rotated Ana-kata relative to the main ship?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:53 AM
Maybe, but how do you manufacture something like that?
00:54
Your shipyard has to have thickness in that axis too, then.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:54 AM
You could have specialized construction platforms that mount them
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:54 AM
I was thinking maybe some kind of "strap" that would "bend" the ship into a Pringle shape, and then it has thickness enough to apply a torque.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:54 AM
It would be a very nice bit of high tech that only mature civs have
00:56
The Pringle thing sounds very ...finicky
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:56 AM
Oh yes
00:56
Second-gen T-drives are notorious for weird failure modes.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:56 AM
I’d prefer the RCS or torque idea. Perhaps the strap is the initial tech that civs new to second-gen use before they develop better methods?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:57 AM
How do gyroscopic forces work in fourspace, anyway? :V
00:57
Rotation is hard enough to comprehend.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 12:58 AM
Presumably the same way, you just need something storing rotational momentum along the (w?) axis
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 12:59 AM
I think you take the cross product of the input torque and the existing angular momentum, and that gives you the output torque?
00:59
That sounds right.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:00 AM
Sounds about right
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:00 AM
The internet tells me that cross products slightly, ah, do not work in four dimensions.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:00 AM
Ouch
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:00 AM
So that's a huge problem for all of my setting's physics :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:01 AM
If you want better help for actual mathiness, you should probably pop over to #technicalities and ping Kerr
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:02 AM
There's a cross product between three vectors.
01:02
hmm yes I think I will
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:14 AM
@0111narwhalz I think I'm kinda plebbish for only having two FTL drives now
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:14 AM
I have as many as I do because I couldn't decide on which one I wanted.
01:14
So I grabbed all of the ones I could think of :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:16 AM
If someone were to discover a way of more efficiently using the free-flight that would ruin the Empire's whole day
01:16
The main reason they can prevent people from just taking ships and leaving is that FTL is not linked to vessels and STL is nigh-impossible
01:17
Once you have the free-flight you can go pretty much anywhere tho
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:17 AM
Polyspatial encompasses all possible hyperspace drives, kind of, and extends the concept from an additional plane to an entire dimension.
01:17
Stutterwarp was originally a "length contraction" drive, but it's more consistent with the rest of the physics as it is now.
01:19
(if a spacefolder is made of two parts—the part wot folds and the part wot punches a hole—stutterwarp just exchanges the folding part for a wavy part)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:26 AM
@BizarroLand ♀ it’s not plebeian, it’s just a more focused approach. Mine is very shotgun because the setting is big and old, and many things have been discovered/created, lost, and rediscovered again
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:31 AM
My stutterwarp and frameshift are kinda… flat, in a tech tree/progression sense.
01:32
I'm not sure what kind of major operational shifts they could have, like the SFD's increased freedom with better physics modeling or the translation drive generations.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:33 AM
The different types are more or less different branches of the tree, to keep the gamey language. But yes, there is a big difference in capability between the primitive hyperdrives of a newly FTL civ and the highly refined, barely understood ones of the “present” superpowers
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:34 AM
And the polyspatial also has highspace drive technologies.
01:35
First you just bruteforce your way by rocket, with is insanely inefficient because of the spatial fluid¹. ¹ see æther
01:35
Then you start using the crap that's caught in the spatial fluid in a ramscoop.
01:36
And then you get a thing I've been calling an "iron ribbon spatial turbine."
01:36
Which is basically a particle accelerator/heavy ion drive that uses the spatial fluid to brake the ions before catching them again, in a closed loop.
01:37
Thereby using the spatial fluid as reaction mass directly, instead of indirectly as in the ramscoop.
01:38
Since the end of the torch era, polyspatial ships have had intakes for their highspace drives.
01:40
Which leads to much more interesting vessel design than, say, the nearly featureless spheres (or maybe spheroids) of frameshifters.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:41 AM
Eh, most of my mine are pretty boring. Generally cylindrical, with occasional diversions from the shape. Some things get more ...exotic
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Warp drives and wormholes advance incrementally in AT.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:42 AM
Mine are bullet-shaped
01:42
Or they look like giant hatracks
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You get higher top speeds. Lower field bleeds. Better field translations which equals manouverbility and deployability.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:43 AM
Right, should clarify, cylinders with some variety of conic shape on the prow
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:43 AM
My spacefolders are probably largely cylindrical, of the long aspect ratio.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:43 AM
It makes double sense for warships, with big mass drivers being the name of the game
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:43 AM
They at least more or less effectively fill a cylindrical bounding volume, anyways.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:44 AM
The problem with the free-fliers is that they work on the Absolute Simultaneity equations... long story short, you've got to block out all gravitons
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:44 AM
My stutterwarp ships come in two clades: the weaver branch and the wavegen branch.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:45 AM
(Which I now realize has more implications, since it means the graviton definitely exists IAC)]
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:45 AM
The weaver branch are reasonably similar to spacefolders—that is, largely cylindrical.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:45 AM
The energy required to keep em all out is determined in part by how much mass there is within the field, how fast you're trying to go and lastly how strong the local gravity is
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:46 AM
However, they're typically substantially smaller with vastly less optimistic mass ratios.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:46 AM
The energy required increases to the fourth power, so that's why you need an obscenely small craft or an obscenely huge powersource (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:46 AM
Wavegen-branch ships, on the other hand, are massive and composed primarily of the antenna.
01:47
(did I mention that stutterwarp wavegens need an antenna? because they do :D)
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Warp drive vehicles innevitably need to accomodate a spherical or spheroid field. So long needles are generally less efficient than spheres.
01:48
However, the mouth aperture and entry angle on the mouth limit what can go through a wormhole in terms of diameter.
01:48
Another reason warp drives and wormholes don‘t go well together.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:49 AM
My frameshift drive requires power proportional to the fourth power of bubble radius, which means that you have a hard upper bound on how big a ship you can move, even if it's made entirely of reactors.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:49 AM
Stargates are perfectly spherical and simply work by making the spaces within themselves colocated to their opposite half
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:49 AM
However, it doesn't scale at all with mass.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:49 AM
No more screwery is required than that: from the point of view of topology, the two regions are simply adjacent
01:49
However, massive amounts of power are required to create and maintain the effect.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:50 AM
Which leads to hilariously dense power sources like Penrose batteries and, when they can spare the shell thickness, the most viable armor in the 'verse.
01:51
(larger FSD-equipped ships use primarily surface shields based on their drive)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:51 AM
there's two types of ships that are mostly FTL drive in setting, on basically polar opposite sides of the size spectrum. Heavy Jump Fighters/Zerstörer are tiny (on the order of 30 meters long by 8 or so in the other directions), breachers are massive, battlecruiser sized ships (on the order of 65 by 8 by 5 kilometers
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:52 AM
In contrast, because you still have to do the accelerating yourself, stutterwarp ships are all spindly.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:52 AM
did I mention breachers are generally expended doing their job?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:52 AM
Typically tensegrity-based and exclusively shieldtanks.
01:53
LEM-level hull thicknesses.
01:53
(obviously the ones that are meant to do atmospherics are built a little differently)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:54 AM
The Empire only has to worry about internal dissent and corruption
01:54
There are no big extravagant battlecruisers. It's pointless, they'd have no-one to fight
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:55 AM
Polyspatial vessels typically don't care a whole lot about mass, which means they can afford to be huge and in a variety of shapes.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:55 AM
Instead, most ships are troop carriers or shuttles and orbital bombers.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:55 AM
It's easier to brute force your way through the spatflo when you can fit drives the size of city blocks.
01:56
On the other hand, small ships can be more, uh, ætherdynamic, and so are more efficient.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:57 AM
Battlecruisers aren't extravagant, they're the cost effective solution for murdering heavy cruisers
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:57 AM
Earlygame spacefolders are just regular STL rocketships that have to get to gates.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:57 AM
Larger ships are only vaguely cylindrical because that's the best formfactor for fitting through the stagates
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:57 AM
So they're still well withing Tsiolkovsky's reach.
01:57
But lategame spacefolders are, ah, not :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 1:58 AM
Smaller ones don't even bother and are largely flying hatracks with cylinders and boxes attached
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:59 AM
Some clever folding and gravity hooking can get you pretty much any velocity you want, as long as you have the right energy, and anyone who can throw wormholes around like that has enough energy
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 1:59 AM
the big boys, uh, outmass ice giants
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 1:59 AM
Marcus: I'm really curious about the material science of that :V
02:00
Muonics, suspensor fields of some kind, general ontotech, internal stellar cores…?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:02 AM
a combo of physics-breaking materials, active stability enhancing ontotech a la Star Trek, and well all sorts of fun blackbox ontotech gadgets that have not been successfully reverse-engineered by the extant civs
02:03
they don't want stellar cores, their power generation has better power density 🤣
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:04 AM
My resident godtech faction uses BHIRs (think Hawking conversion).
02:04
But those are mostly in the "sessiles," unmoving megastations in the deep black.
02:05
They issue antimatter or spun-up kernels for Penrose batteries to the rest of the fleets.
02:06
(hey Bizarro, maybe that would be a good trade commodity :V)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:08 AM
The Tiffanians are nowhere near the level of creating artificial black holes
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:08 AM
aww V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:08 AM
Fusion is a 1500+ year old technology by the time our story begins, but it has limits
02:09
Especially since they've crippled themselves with the bioconservatism
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They should have died out long ago
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:10 AM
õ.o
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@0111narwhalz Does your universe have mind resleeving?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:10 AM
Only sometimes.
02:10
In my setting, that kind of thing is a Hard Problem.
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Hard
02:11
Problem?
02:11
HARD
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:11 AM
The aforementioned godtech faction has it, but I haven't decided who else does.
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problem?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:11 AM
SUPER
02:11
HOT
02:11
wait
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Why not the chums in your army?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:11 AM
wrong mantra
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that's just cheap
02:11
(amateur)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:11 AM
Because the godtech faction is also not really one for the trading?
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Why haven't your army idiots obtained it in the distant past?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:12 AM
Tron: they're not that doomed in reasonable time unless an OCP shows up
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:12 AM
What do you give the gods that have everything, except a cessation of your interaction with them?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:12 AM
@Unknown Who?
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Resleeving allows mindstates to pilot war machines, and to prevent "absolute" casualties (edited)
02:13
(you can backup your troops)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:13 AM
Tronzoid: Because it is a hard problem
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@0111narwhalz Amusement?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:14 AM
eh that could work
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Whats so hard about the problem?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:14 AM
Yeah but what do you mean they're doomed
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:14 AM
Authorial fiat, to be honest.
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narwhale, there is nothing wrong with allowing your troops to have resleeving tech, they do have muonic metal armor BTW
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:15 AM
eh?
02:15
not a lot of that to be honest
02:15
muon-stabilizing ontotech, while low on the ontotech ladder, is still fairly high-level in my setting
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:16 AM
@Unknown 👋ing furiously
02:16
what exactly is the doooooooooomm
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:16 AM
resleeving is hard
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:17 AM
@MarcusAurelius I mean Tronz implied the Tiffanians should've gone extinct
02:17
presumably because of the biocon thing
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If they are bioconservative, they have a disadvantage against sophonts that arent biocon
02:17
sorry for the (long) delay
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:17 AM
THEY HAVE NO KNOWN NEIGHBORS TRON
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Hey, look, it's a rebel cell trying to overthrow the empire
02:18
and they are non-biocon
02:18
and have uploading
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:18 AM
The Tiffanians have had issues in the past with such technologies, I think, so they're wary of it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:18 AM
@0111narwhalz Namely three billion dead people! (edited)
02:18
sorry for raising my voice
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Rebel cells are not known for their ability to conduct high-level scientific research.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:18 AM
@Overmind This
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:18 AM
Yes, that would definitely qualify as "issues" :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:18 AM
Also, culture matters
02:19
Even a breakaway would still inherit the collective memory of that disaster
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The, y'know, shittons of laboratories and billions of dollars in funding are something of a giveaway.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:19 AM
Billions of zollars.
02:20
Or maybe millions: I don't know if a fusion economy would have deflated compared to ours
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:21 AM
In my setting, one of my factions all but abandoned modern computing for a few centuries because someone Litashed their homeworld for crimes against (non-bio) sophonce, and they were loathe to get anywhere close to that kind of thing for a long time.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:21 AM
Tron: you have an overall point, but it doesn't matter in this setting. Local concerns over ride it
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:21 AM
And of course it won't last forever
02:22
The Breakup is coming
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:22 AM
* BizarroLand smacks gong on the street corner
02:23
hmm
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:23 AM
why a gong
02:23
@
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:23 AM
I mean it's probably a frying pan and a wooden spoon
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
@0111narwhalz I call it the Breakup because it'll be more like the withering of the British Empire or Soviet Union than the cataclysmic collapse of the Roman Empire
02:24
The core will be there, always
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
>author shows up in setting, tries to warn characters
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
or the cyclical divisio nof China
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
>is dismissed as doomsayer
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
@MarcusAurelius The Tiffanian empire is modelled partly after China
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
>"but I'm literally the author of your world"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:24 AM
But I admit I'm stealing ideas from just about every regime in history
02:25
And adding some vicious twists of my own
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:25 AM
>crediility somehow decreases
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:25 AM
@0111narwhalz rust in jabronis
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Well now, nobody can just pull a Stephen King casually.
02:25
And in AT, they don't use penrose batteries or artificial black holes much... at least in anything mobile.
02:25
NOWs allow you to flip antimatter on demand, and there's probably monopole conversion for the rest.
02:26
The thing is... like, wormholes especially have a problem with mass transit.
02:26
And you want to shove an eight trillion tones point mass through it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:26 AM
Stargates don't. That's one point in their favor
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:26 AM
My wormholes give exactly zero shits about mass once they're open.
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That aside, generally "black hole" and "manouverable" don't mix.
02:27
That much mass doesn't casually acquire a vector.
02:27
And when every interstellar transit brings with it problems of velocity adjustment, that is about the last thing you need or want.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:27 AM
FSD vessels don't have anything but attitude control thrusters—all maneuvering is done by STL frameshifting.
02:27
(preferably in the presence of a gravity well)
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Man, how's your setting not RKKVed out of the wazooo?
02:28
You got to limit the newtonian action potential of your systems from the get-go or everything gets nasty with chugging relativistic munitions everywhere sooner or later.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:28 AM
because frameshift bowshocks are way more effective :V
02:29
also casual FTL comms which lead to FTL sensors
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Yeah but still like...
02:29
Aaaargh!
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:29 AM
yes
02:29
and I have the nerve to label it "firm"
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Like, boy I can't stand for not handwaving much (the mass-energy inflation issue of wormholes is an issue I will have to handwave in high likelyhood) but that's.. migraine.
02:29
Okay, which is because I committed to trying to keep causality somewhat intact in AT.
02:30
As a consequence, there is no omni-directional FTL sensing.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:31 AM
I just sort of get by by shouting, "GRAVITONS! ENERGY! TOPOLOGY!" and frantically flailing to get people not to notice my FTL
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:31 AM
Polyspatial vessels are soft-limited to .2c real velocity to avoid relativistic effects and keep time mostly okay, but that doesn't mean they can't outstrip light effectively.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:31 AM
Other than that I try to keep it handwavium free
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Or iff there is, it can only be through a hyperspace, so that a shared propagation timeline.
02:32
Because FTL sensors with differing propagation speeds go Right The Way Of Ligthcone Madness XXL.
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What happened to my comment?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:32 AM
I guess my setting kinda has simultaneity via the center of the universe being a fixed point.
02:32
Tron: Discord is trying to protect us from your madness.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:38 AM
China was able to hold onto a core of territory and gradually expand it up till now
02:38
It was never really able to 'colonize' the rest of East Asia however
02:38
Vietnam, Mongolia, Korea, etc. are still largely separate cultures
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:40 AM
we think of China as unified, but it really isn't
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:41 AM
China is perpetually in a superposition of unification and division, and every time you look it might be different
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:41 AM
Although the Kingdom of Iris never really gains dominion over truly distinct peoples the way Earth's empires did, they are still going out and establishing themselves over Nature itself, and the idea is that that is still an Empire in spirit
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:41 AM
the outskirts are various ethnic groups that are still distinct from the Han, and "Han" has been an expanding definition for millenia
02:43
In that instance, more, well, I guess the closest state in anything resembling modern history is the US or Australia, given the sparseness and limited resistance potential of the natives there (for the US, after they broke the Iroquois and other big eastern states that is)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:43 AM
Remember there was a few centuries of history on Alpha Tigris V before the re-expansion
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:44 AM
so there were rival civs there?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:44 AM
The dichotomy was the first Shattering of the colonies, between those who lived on Iris, the supercontinent, and the myriad small islands none of which are larger than Madagascar
02:45
They remained divided up until about 1796 i.f.e, after the Collapse (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:47 AM
so, the kingdom already had control of the whole continent before the Collapse (the collapse being the big tech disaster, right)?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:47 AM
Almost, except for that peninsula (Keithsland) and a few other minuscule irrelevants. And yes, you have it right (edited)
02:48
The supercontinent has its most favorable climes toward the east coast, because it is in the rainshadow of a vast spinal mountain rage
02:48
The interior is baking desert worse than the Sahara
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:48 AM
Keithsland: That Peninsula
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:48 AM
so how old was the colony before the Collapse?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:49 AM
About 800 years
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:49 AM
oh that's a lot older than I thought.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:50 AM
The collapse let the Irisians consolidate control over the planet and soon afterward the system
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:50 AM
ah
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:51 AM
Two centuries after that, (about 2000 i.f.e.) is the setting's current 'present'
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:51 AM
so there were rivals, and I guess they could still be minority ethnic groups/potentially seperatist areas
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:52 AM
yes, especially the [redacted] and [expunged]
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:52 AM
are they present in the colonies?
02:52
i.e. are people from there with those values present in the colonies
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:53 AM
oh very much yes
02:53
given the empire's resettlement policies, mostly people with abnormally high family sizes get picked to settle the frontier
02:53
and propagandistic blandishments constantly tell people that the colonies are the place to go if you want your kids to have opportunities in life etc
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:55 AM
ah, so the separatist and anti-imperial sentiments exist in the colonies
02:55
this collapse will be fun
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:55 AM
200 years on the core worlds have a common identity, although very much the Irisian one
02:55
the rim, in spite of the best efforts of the secret police and spy agencies, is diverging more
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:56 AM
country roads plays in the distance (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:56 AM
almost heaven... west virginiaaaaaaa
02:56
blue ridge mountains shenandoah riverrrrrr
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Your empire seems to have an anti-technology sentiment
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:56 AM
@Unknown uh
02:56
no shizzle?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:56 AM
yeah
02:57
that's like their defining features
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Must have some pretty strong (and brutal) policing to enforce that (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:57 AM
eh
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 2:57 AM
or deep-seated cultural trauma
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:57 AM
noshizzle 2x combo
02:57
the Secret Police will no-euphemism shoot you in the head if you try to build a grey goo swarm on your own
02:57
no trial no warrant
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So "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind"?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:58 AM
restrict access to high level labs in the name of safety, provide propaganda from early childhood about the dangers of forbidden tech and the costs of the Collapse
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Your empire is in a position to be toppled by another empire that embraces "forbidden" tech
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:59 AM
we've been over this
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 2:59 AM
collapses into spastic fits
02:59
no foreignerssss
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:59 AM
scroll up a few pages, read that conversation
02:59
then come back
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No neighbours, got it
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 2:59 AM
and no likely prospect of neighbors
03:00
we're talking Sentinel Island levels of isolation
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Pretty isolated, huh?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 3:00 AM
exceptionally
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 3:00 AM
IIRC, every other known civ is dead, and even when they were alive they were far away
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 3:00 AM
@MarcusAurelius they just don't know
03:00
they're 2400 lightyears from Earth
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 3:01 AM
in fact, so isolated that one might even go so far as to say that there are no other empires around
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 3:01 AM
old earth could be a singularitarian K2 or a smoldering ruin now for all they know (edited)
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I think it would be pretty fine, probably with it's own empire (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 3:01 AM
... well yeah but
03:01
when the Tiffanians come back into contact with the slow-moving wavefront from Earth
03:01
if there is one
03:02
it'll be cultureshock
03:04
@MarcusAurelius think more Easter Island isolation
03:04
Sentinelese keep foreigners away by force of arms
03:04
Easter Island is simply really damn far
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 3:10 AM
True, better example
03:10
I keep forgetting them because they've been successfully colonized
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Boy, things will be interesting.
03:50
In AT, the big "shock event" of the setting is the first functional xenosphont sphere contact - intersection of the wormhole frontiers.
03:51
I'm still iffy on what can be seen on telescopes.A
03:52
A wormhole network makes for some great wormhole baselines, and you can bet astronomers guilds will be racing their own wormholes as far a baseline as they can buy.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:03 AM
the better question for Mallaryssyss is what wasn't a big shock event for one party or another
04:06
I mean, AT had its fair set of shocks.
04:06
Even had alien contact before 2400.
04:06
As in, xenogen sophs. But those were deep black missions, sophs who boarded a starship and Fucked Off To The Deep Elsewhere Well Away From Home.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:14 AM
I found IAC has kind of lost its grounding for me though
04:15
At first my conception of the Tiffanians was vaguely rooted in a weeby idealization of Japanese idiosyncrasies
04:15
I even used to imagine they wore their coats like capes and used katanas
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:16 AM
for the decade during and following the End of the Fourth War: Contact between Karo (i.e. the Main Universe of the setting, the core of known space) and the first of the many, many Earths, the discoverity that humanity is essentially the developement stage of a very long term revenge plan, the discovery that psionics aren't a myth but actually work, return with the Great Scourge (j.e. extremely large and quite advanced hegemonizing swarm from beyond known space that has been responsible for destroying at least one set of Karo civs, probably many more before that) of deep history's myths and the opening of a third front to the Fourth War, the defeat of the Kílarenč through the use of said psionic supersoldiers, re-establishment of contact with the Ėzak, a civ thought dead for the last 100,000 years, the sudden exploration and attempted defense in depth across millions of universes to try to fight off the Scourge, the eventual contact with its creators and sending of the shut down code, the first (and only) mutiny by the above mentioned supersoldiers that nearly destroyed the Alliance because of archeotech that no one knew existed, and the discovery of The Dark fleet and its many wonders. Every single one of those events radically changed Alliance civilization's understanding of the world around them
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:17 AM
So I could imagine them as the rising galactic superpower or the nation of super nerds who are intellectually ahead
04:18
But the setting has also gone its own way and become different
04:18
Most notably, there aren’t neighbors to compare to anymore and they drew from every major culturegroup
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:19 AM
Bizarro: yeah I like the rule of cool, capes and all, though their cavalry scimitar is not the primary dress uniform show weapon, nor does it look a katana.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:20 AM
If there were foreigners, they’d be treated with... polite detachment
04:20
You’re welcome for now, but there is most definitely A Club and they never cease to remind you that You’re Not In It
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Fits. A strong national spirit.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:22 AM
?
04:22
Yeah, that sort of thing
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:22 AM
ah, Gaijin
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:22 AM
I haven’t had it in my mental spotlight for ages since I’ve been so caught up in the practical numbers side of the equation
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Of course then, AT Pans would smile, nod and thing "poor sods", pun not intended.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:23 AM
Pan?
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Pan. From Panhuman.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:23 AM
My depictions of uštžen typically involve a, uh, double-breasted coat?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:23 AM
Have you seen even a little bit of anime xD
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:23 AM
If I used color it would almost certainly be red :V
04:24
Split down the back to flow around the tail.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:24 AM
The authoritative characters always wear jackets and overcoats like capes without filling the sleeves
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@BizarroLand ♀ Eventually various less human Panhumans cut out the human part from their name. Pan is what remains to bind those of terragen descent who haven‘t gone full xeno delta.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:25 AM
depends on the specific civ, for me. The Kingdom itself: your welcome if you aren't an idiot or annoying, though in both cases they're more likely to try to fix you than expel you. The Æ̇deník, you're welcome in public areas, probably not the core of their holdings. The Worlds, eh, you pass customs, not their problem don't break any laws. The Kílarenč, if you do not oppose the Great Plan, you are welcome as another asset
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:25 AM
Religion has its part too, but it’s more of a subdued background noise than its own ritualized institution
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:25 AM
ah, the uniforms are many and varied
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Same for me as with Marcus, to the welcome part.
04:26
The Panhuman sphere doesn‘t have one unified government or culture.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:26 AM
facial design has refined somewhat since this was drawn, and it's a bit sketchy, but it's basically about right https://i.imgur.com/T84KxuT.jpg
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It‘s a diasporic posthuman society in full-blown cultural-ontological fissioning about every location over.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:26 AM
the Æ̇deník are the only ones I've detailed uniforms for, because they more or less look like baseline humans
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:26 AM
Oh boy. Iris is not going to air the Breakup well
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:27 AM
Narwhalz: that is barely double breasted, wow
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:27 AM
Take**
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:27 AM
It looked single from the thumbnail
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:27 AM
But tale for another time
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:27 AM
I think I have another drawing that's better at showing it, but it'll take some digging.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:28 AM
I expected more like this:
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:28 AM
A much earlier design—same caveat RE: facial structure https://i.imgur.com/41fzGRw.jpg
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:28 AM
(there is always a good reason to post pictures of Zhukov's uniform)
04:28
very smug, like the look
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:28 AM
Zhukovs uniform was practically a bulletproof vest
04:28
Wew
04:29
Also Brezhnev
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:29 AM
also, note the diamonds on the Marshall's Star
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Whoo boy.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:29 AM
the Medals are extra, but I like the rest of it
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You can gather where NK generals got their ideas for bulletproof vests.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:29 AM
the difference is, he earned all of them, and he didn't have any on his pants
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 4:30 AM
I admit
04:30
I don’t talk about my weird ass homegrown religion ideas
04:30
Because they’re off the wall
04:31
And more importantly sensitive /very Future Imperfect (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:31 AM
One of my other factions sews "threads" of various high-tensile fibres into the left breast of the uniform, starting with carbon for run-of-the-mill service markers, with more interesting colored fibres for distinguishments.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:31 AM
yeah, uniforms for most civs in 'verse are made of ballistic fabrics for a reason
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:31 AM
When you retire, you get your Threads resin-cast and hung above the mantle or whatever.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:31 AM
a disturbing number of balls/meetings get trashed by ruffians
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Wouldn‘t you bring armed security and war fog to ward that off Marcus?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:32 AM
which is why both sidearms are part of the uniform, and why their ceremonial melee weapons are made of meme-tier materials with a very sharp edge, on the off chance they get to sue
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:33 AM
More interestingly, everyone wears their service records on their uniform, which gives you an… incentive to keep it shiny.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:33 AM
Yes, but a good supersoldier general doesn't let their troops do all the fighting for them. And yes, but people generally frown on them being in the actual meeting room and/or on the dance floor
04:36
but mostly it's a symbolic thing, though honor guards do wear the service uniform instead of battle-armor, and between the padding of the underarmor, the ballistic fiber of the uniform, and the platecarrier they conceal under the tunic (summer) or greatcoat (winter), they can still fight off anything but peer-level fully equipped power armored marines
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If the General is out fighting, a number of divisions have fucked up.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:36 AM
not in normal combat, no
04:37
they only actually get involved in infantry stuff on said kerfuffles, and even then, only in a limited capacity (edited)
04:37
or if they feel like personally going on bar-brawling breaking-up duty
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:37 AM
It's useful, I expect, to not even care about the threat of shankings.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:38 AM
yep. Though it helps that pretty much all of them, particularly the Æ̇deník supersoldiers, are augmented enough that they can put a bullet in you before you can level a gun from a low ready
04:39
there's a reason no one expects to get anything useful done with baseline bionts nowadays
04:40
even the most bioconserative force augments and expands the minds of its troopers
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Sensible.
04:40
In a way I suppose about any biont soldier in AT is a similiar Badass General.
04:41
They have to combat control a swarm of combat hardware and defend/fight themselves.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:41 AM
though they do occasionally lead from the front, but pretty much only when doing "shut up and listen, you insolent child" shock and awe demonstrations on lower tech civs
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Some types of Special Forces are the ones who get their hands dirty personally but even they get a lot of smaller combat assets.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:42 AM
though the really fun ones involve a lancer charge by the Imperial Household Cavalry on their mountain hounds.
04:42
and yeah, while it's less expanded on, even the lowliest PFC in alliance forces is commanding around half a dozen to a dozen drones, usually
04:43
they're useful, but vulnerable
04:44
I want to get around to writing a normal human military officer post-contact blue-screening at the TO&E of an Æ̇deník regiment
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:44 AM
An early draft of sword-and-shield era uštnad armor. https://i.imgur.com/zVz0S11.jpg
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Ain‘t many low-techs around in AT. Those that exist tend to be isolationist surface communities and space habitats.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:45 AM
Narwhalz: breathing holes, please
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:45 AM
nasal
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:45 AM
oh, I see them now
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:45 AM
They probably should have larger nostrils, but
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:46 AM
still a little small I think, but serviceable. They're going to want some sort of visor (not literally, but in the sense of an openable hinged area)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:46 AM
And yes, the lower jaw piece latches on to the helmet.
04:46
I also haven't yet worked out what to do with the eyeholes and recognize the necessity of something :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:46 AM
Sev: they're pretty rare, but shear scale means they exist (combined with how life-dense Karo is) and a lot of them are outlying earths
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:47 AM
(I knew there was a reason I hadn't shared this one yet :V)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:47 AM
Narwhalz: try a mesh or latticework over them?
04:47
but even then, that's better protected than anything but high middle ages armor, even with the lightly protected eyes
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:48 AM
Because of the tough scales, I figure there's very little cutting and mostly stabbing, chopping, and bludgeoning.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:48 AM
most helmets before and elsewhere protected the eyes indirectly with the nasal and maybe an eye guard circling around
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:48 AM
Also because of said scales, I'm playing with the idea of reversing the direction of plate overlap.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:49 AM
do the scales overlap?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:49 AM
Yeah, and they're probably keeled to boot.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:49 AM
ooh, another fun thing: they could use scale-mail like humans used muscle cuirasses
04:49
keeled?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:49 AM
They have a ridge that goes down the middle.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:49 AM
ah
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:50 AM
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:50 AM
but yes, if the scales overlap downwards, then you'd want the armor going the other way
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:51 AM
I like the idea of the edges pointing upwards.
04:51
Really weird sort of aesthetic, can't really say I've seen it before V:
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:52 AM
edges of the armor?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:52 AM
Yeah.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:52 AM
yeah, because in any situation but yours, it's a negative
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:53 AM
I'd be surprised if some nitwit fantasy game or something didn't do it.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:58 AM
huh, it appears it varied actually
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:58 AM
I suspect that uštžen don't care about being wet nearly as much as we do, so the tendency of the reversed plates to funnel rain into the armor is probably less "incredibly uncomfortable"
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 4:59 AM
everything but full plate generally had the higher plate overlapping the lower, but full plate components were the other way around
04:59
I guess the lack of easy stabbing angles to the torso meant they went with the more flexible construction
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 4:59 AM
Makes sense.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:00 AM
though speaking of armor, it does actually still show up in some Alliance uniforms, for tradition's sake
05:02
Court dress for military members and veterans includes a breastplate, pauldrons, vambraces, highly articulated gauntlets, and train of mail running down below the breastplate to the tabard below (edited)
05:04
its primarily ceremonial, but is still well made plate, and the breastplate especially can defeat most pistol and PDW rounds, and some lighter longarm ones
05:05
that's not really intentional, just a side effect of being very well made, and meant to look good and last for thousands of years
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:08 AM
A view of the kinds of movement uštnið armor has to cope with. https://i.imgur.com/NTDf59i.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PEzFCT3.jpg
05:09
So the scutes on the tail probably go the "right" way, but that's not that big a deal—probably nobody is as keen to stab you in the tail as they would be to get one between your ribs.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:10 AM
oh yeah, tail armor is going to be difficult
05:10
just because it's a lot of weight, if nothing ekse
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:11 AM
I figure the tail is probably muscular enough to manage it.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:12 AM
yeah, but it's still a lot more weight, and on a non-vital area
05:13
I bet it's probably the last part of the body to get plate
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:13 AM
There's also the tail's potential utility as a weapon itself.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:14 AM
it's that mobile?
05:14
and strong?
05:14
huh, I assumed it was mostly for balance
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I can see ceremonial blues having armor-like characteristics for cultures in AT.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:14 AM
I mean, it's probably around catlike maneuverability.
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If you‘re a post-scarcity civ, you gotta have some fun and culture de corps.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:15 AM
Not prehensile, but if you whip it around you could catch someone with it.
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So why not be a bit symbolical and extravagant with your dress blues and such?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:15 AM
Probably not putting a battleaxe on the end, but a light mace or spike could be useful.
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Basically, think of the Diamond Age and its resurgence in cultural expressions.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:16 AM
but, cat's have little strength in their tales. Sev: similar feelings, combined with many of the Mallaryssokian units tracing their origins back to their iron age, and the Ædeník borrowing many of their design elements and synthesizing with human (primarily American, British, and Russian) designs
05:17
Narwhalz: in that case, probably some light mail or even just leather for much of history
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:17 AM
There have been reptiles that used tails as weapons.
05:17
Some with maces, some with spikes.
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Who was it that mentioned a ship that charged planetary defences? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:18 AM
mostly everyone, probably
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I mention my idea, and everyone calls it suicidal
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:18 AM
me
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:18 AM
stiffer tails are stronger
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Also Marcus: plus, in AT, military soph generally have separate specialist bodies in service.
05:19
Clothing is about the best indicator of military service, especially for belike, spacecraft crews, pilots and such.
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:19 AM
a lizard with a very flexible tail can't do much. A monitor lizard with it's stiffer tail base and whiplike end can draw blood with a strike. (Source: it was my leg)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:19 AM
hm true
05:20
Some kind of balance that allows both strength and flowy drawings.
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How, in any conceivable universe, would a planetary defence charger not be skeet?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:20 AM
they get away with it by a) doing it only on lesser defended worlds b) usually having had their defenses weakened by SF troops on the ground c) being a boat with a good chunk of its mass and volume being devoted to hard hitting weaponry with shallow magazines d) only doing it when shit hit's the fan, and even then not liking it Sev: true for most civs, not currently two of the great powers though.
05:21
and it helps that the Dawnbreakers are cutting edge boats by the most advanced of the current gen of civs. They pack top-end gear, particularly in the stealth and ECM department, that makes them hard to hit
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Why not use a drone? lenny
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:22 AM
ō.o
05:23
I don't think that face means what you think it means
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:23 AM
because a drone doesn't have the payload capacity or the FTL drive to get them
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Dumber too?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:23 AM
and sending the Dawnbreaker is not the first choice
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Who needs drones when they can charge straight into Vahalla with the inputy of advanced technology?!
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:24 AM
generally, they try to exfil stealthily on either an AMC, true merchant, or an SOS corvette
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You need a little more Viking, Tronzoid.
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:24 AM
I think if you're doing something like that you want so much frontal armour that you might be able to do remote controlled, but it'll be the size and cost of a ship anywaY
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:24 AM
if those options fail, and if it's practical, they hit the Panic Button and call a Dawnbreaker
05:24
eh, they aren't dedicated ships
05:25
their main job is to serve as a central base and command center for a squadron of SOS (special operations support) corvettes, and to equip and maintain their contigents. The forward half or so of the hull is devoted to the missile batteries and big guns that let them do crazy things, combined with their oversized sublight drives
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Hey! my ship has E-war too! (edited)
05:33
And it has a super low cross section torpedo shape!!!
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:35 AM
and yeah, kinda like what Tron said, having a true "smart" AI (aka superintelligent, somewhere around s2 or s3 by the OA scale), powering some extremely good E-war gear. It's roughly equivalent to a Flight 3 Burke with an F-35 flight as escort taking on a pair of Bastion batteries with an air base nearby (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:35 AM
My FSDs typically charge planetary defenses by wiping the orbitals with their bowshocks.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:36 AM
D-He3 is the ultimate fusion right
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:36 AM
It's great, for about half an hour.
05:36
Bizarro: Depends on your criteria
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:36 AM
it's not a good fight, but if the attackers play their cards right, they may be able to exfil before the enemy can adequately respond
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:36 AM
pppp is best for fuel availability.
05:36
D-D is easiest.
05:37
D-³He is aneutronic.
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P + P is almost impossible without far-future tech, assuming no technological breakthroughs in the near future
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:37 AM
(as long as you can inhibit D-D)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:37 AM
GerritB told me proton fusion aint never gonna be economical
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Why not just build a ship around a sun?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:38 AM
and I'd take his word, he's a Nuclear Physicist working on fusion
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:38 AM
Tron: isn't "far-future tech" kinda assumed
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:38 AM
not for Bizarro, no
05:38
he's pretty low tech
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:38 AM
Yeah, the, uh, Langston criterion? on pppp is labeled as "too high" on the Atomic Rockets table, as I recall.
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If the tiffs weren't so anti tech they would be further ahead in fusion by now (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:39 AM
if they weren't so anti-tech there'd be six billion dead people instead of just three
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Over what time period?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:39 AM
ten to thirty actually
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Only if you play dumb with it
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:40 AM
Over the time period of however long it took for whatever went wrong to go wrong?
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Man, some pretty idiotic actors must have been in charge at the time.
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:40 AM
Fusion is relatively safe, yes, but you're talking about a major paradigm shift in their outlook.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:40 AM
@0111narwhalz About a few years, with a ten-year reconstruction
05:40
Specifically, the Kingdom of Iris led it
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:41 AM
That would probably result in more catastrophic incidents in other fields.
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If the Tiffs are not careful, judging by their cultural scale sentiment, they will eventually revert back to the stone age
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:41 AM
And they got away with it relatively scot-free because they invested into energy weapon research
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:42 AM
ah yes, AR lists pppp's Langston criterion at "huge"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:42 AM
@0111narwhalz cno cycle whut
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:42 AM
and the CNO cycle as "huger" so there's that too
05:42
³He-³He just has a question mark, which I assume means "no data" and not "incalculably large"
05:43
Lawson, yes
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:43 AM
@Unknown no? They're conservatives not An-Prims
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If they conserve too hard (an even more conservative body is voted in?), that may happen (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:44 AM
i had been seeing it as nuclear fission being a saiyan D-T fusion was super saiyan D-He3 was SSJ2 And p+b11 was SSJ3 etc so on so forth p+p+p+p would be Ultra Instinct or something
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:44 AM
I don't know what any of those things mean but the list seems to suggest a progression in difficulty
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:45 AM
progression in
05:45
POWER LEVEL
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P + P seems like a giant boulder at the top of a steep hill, large potential for energy, but so heavy it requires as much energy to push it down as it will produce, and it's kinda sunk into the ground too (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:45 AM
aww, the AR table doesn't have p-¹¹B
05:45
wait yes it do
05:46
←is literate, technically
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:46 AM
@Unknown not really, and definitely not that far. They value stability, and reverting tech and decreasing SoL is not the way to do that
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:47 AM
D-T and D-³He have the highest direct exhaust velocity, if that's what you're looking for.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:47 AM
SoL?
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Fusion is a bit like a heavy boulder on a steep hill, it has a lot of pent up potential energy, but is very hard to move. If you could get the dirt to give way from the boulders weight somehow, you could get it to roll down the hill (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:47 AM
standard of living
05:48
Tron: the usual representation of a potential well is a smooth hill with the object sitting in a hollow
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Fusion power is about getting the fuel to sustain it's own reaction. A boulder can't push itself out of a hollow, unless you push hard enough (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:49 AM
It's in a local minimum, but if you push it up a little bit in the right direction you can get it on the slope that leads to the global, or at least a lower local minimum.
05:50
Under some circumstances the particle will tunnel through a sufficiently narrow spike in the well, and you don't have to push it quite all the way up.
05:51
Fusion as power is about transfering the energy liberated by the descent of one particle to another particle with enough efficiency to cause it to push out of the local well too.
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Going back to ECM: How is an F-35 supposed to survive being shot at by a battery of guns?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:56 AM
flying high
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:56 AM
by not being shot at by a battery of guns
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 5:56 AM
/thread
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:56 AM
"how are you supposed to survive being bitten by a venomous snake" don't be bitten by a venomous snake
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:57 AM
1. by not being seen 2. by actively making it harder to be seen 3. by decieving the target and making the lock fuzzy 4. brute force jamming 5. screw it, drop a JDAM
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:57 AM
...unless you're aussie, where "how to survive being bitten by a venomous snake" is something taught by schools from age 5
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:58 AM
is the first lesson "don't get bitten by a venomous snake?"
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:58 AM
probably something along the lines of don't get close
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:58 AM
well, "how to reduce your chances of being bitten by a snake"
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 5:58 AM
if you do, don't scare/annoy it
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:58 AM
If you see a snake, stop and talk to it
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 5:59 AM
"the snake's secret is that it's always angry"
05:59
wait
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 5:59 AM
Seriously. Because if you stop moving you calm the snake down. And the talking calms YOU down.
05:59
So you stop and talk to the snake, the snake decides you aren't about to attack it, snake turns and slithers away.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:00 AM
Kardashev scales kind of suck as powerlevels anyway
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
The snake doesn't want to bite you, then it can't hunt for the rest of the day. So don't make it think it has to.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
The gap between them is so wide it contains spectrums in itself
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
"it's logarithmic"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
Log scales are for pansies, exactly
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
And then practical snakebite treatments because most kids bitten by snakes stepped on it by accident with understandable results >.>
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
Also they make comparison really counterintuitive and stupid.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:01 AM
yeah, that's why it's useful for OOM statements
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 6:02 AM
🤣 1
👍 1
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:02 AM
Morgrimmoon: Texas snake lessons are a bit more difficult, since our most common poisonous snakes are water mocassins
06:02
aka snakes that like to hang out in rivers,reeds, and tree branches
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:02 AM
Less likely to be encountered by accident
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:02 AM
you don't go tubing, do you?
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:03 AM
I'm not sure what 'tubing' is. Does it involve floating down a river in an old innertube?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:03 AM
in the eastern half of Texas, the majority of outdoor recreation is near or on waterways and yes, though nowadays its usually purpose designed inflatables
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:04 AM
a lot here is too. But then it's sharks, octopii, coneshells, venomous spiky fish and in some places crocodiles you have to be aware of, not snakes.
06:05
...I might not be helping my case
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 6:06 AM
You're helping the case of reducing tourist-related congestion in your locale.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:07 AM
yeah, I remember the first time we went to Australia, we weren't allowed to get in the water because the box jellies were way worse than usual
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:07 AM
the vast majority of dangerous australian wildlife obeys a simple rule: "You leave us alone, we leave you alone". If you're a polite soph the dangers are wildly overstated
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:07 AM
also, your sharks are sweeties
06:07
I don't see the problem
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:08 AM
there's been a lot of issues the last few years because climate change is driving the shark's prey closer to shore, so there've been more attacks. You can see from the sort of attacks that they're mostly accidental, but a great white giving you a minor test nibble still tends to be very damaging
06:09
also more surfers doing stupid things like surfing during the salmon run
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:11 AM
yeah, I was mostly talking reef and the bottomdwellers, out on reefs
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@0111narwhalz I still love that xkcd.
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:11 AM
near shore, with bad visibility, stuff happens
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:11 AM
yeah, port jackson sharks are adorable
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:13 AM
oh yeah, that's the one
06:13
cool guys
06:14
I dunno, I guess I just never understood the fear of sharks. Every time I've been around one, they've been chill
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 6:15 AM
They have sharp teeth…?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:15 AM
and?
06:15
so do dogs cats and babies
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 6:15 AM
Some folks are scared of dogs and cats and babies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
06:16
(sharks also largely lack puppy-dog eyes)
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:16 AM
eh, sharks are cute, impressive, and chill
06:16
and what are you talking about? They've got big happy eyes
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 6:17 AM
dunno I'm making wild guesses here
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:18 AM
the answer for why most fear them, I guess, is they're big, teeth filled predators that move quietly and quickly in a domain humans don't navigate well. Combined with folk lore and pop culture of shark attacks as random intentional acts.
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:19 AM
because if a shark wants to kill you, you are dead. You can't fight a shark in its element, not effectively, and there are very few weapons that can drive a large one off. And humans really really don't cope well with that.
06:20
Similar with crocodiles: if you've been grabbed by one your size or bigger, there's not much you can do to fight back. You can TRY going for the eyes or triggering the gag reflex but it's hard and you need training to do it effectively
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(Also, what?)
06:20
(How do they have happy eyes?)
06:20
(They're eyes look mournful and beady)
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:22 AM
they're l;arge for a shark
06:22
and the ones at the aquarium will nuzzle your hands and take food from your palm
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:22 AM
maybe not happy, but content
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The smaller sharks are more often cute, yes
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:49 AM
other fun setting things: "manned" "starfighters" exist. Manned is in quotes, because the three man crew are infomorphs, though many started life as bionts and prefer to bring their bodies along shipside when off duty. Starfighters is in quotes, because their main mission is interception of missiles and other weapons targetting the capital ships, not shooting down other fighters, and they aren't they aren't the basic unit, they fight with squadrons of drones as sensor platforms/missile trucks
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I suppose eyes have size-parameters determined by environment more than your own size, so small things need bigger eyes?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:49 AM
@Archon I say we move shark talk to #random
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(I will admit I don't really know why we don't use informorphs for all military ship crews)
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:50 AM
because blackouts are one of the most common 'bad things' to happen on a military vessel?
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:51 AM
sure, they're usually brief, but an infomorph can't do anything to get the lights back on
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I mean, Infomorphs+independant shells, sure
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:51 AM
the mass difference is small enough at the scale of these ships, and yeah, having the command crew be independent of the boat is nice. But mostly because their main job on ship is to oversee and perform damage control
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:51 AM
@MarcusAurelius the only thing keeping me from going on some kind of mapping binge is knowledge paralysis
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:51 AM
you could always just BS it
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Yeah, so I'd have dedicated damage control shells
06:52
I guess
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:52 AM
I'd say the biggest advantage of a fleshy on a combat ship is there is very little overlap in what disables the informorph vs the biomorph
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:52 AM
I feel like to really do it realistic justice I have to know the climate and geology, which depend on planetology, which depends on star formation, which depends on nebula and void distribution and a thousand other factors
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That makes some sense
06:52
But my general intuition is that if your informorphs go down, the ship is already toast.
06:52
And every gram counts
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:53 AM
@MarcusAurelius I'd start with star formation but there are no good guides as to how it works in most galaxies
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:53 AM
in setting, dedicated damage control shells exist, but mostly it's sophs in general purpose shells commanding smaller drones
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:53 AM
I could always go from scientific articles on stellar nursery nebulas and make plausible guesstimates from our local cluster
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:53 AM
Bizarro: I'd just pick some stellar types and work from their
06:53
the data isn't available in that detail, I'd think
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:53 AM
lots of the nastier weapons have EMP components. And humans barely notice EMPs. So it depends if that outweighs the disadvantages. On a big enough vessel I think it would. On a 'fighter', hell no
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:54 AM
@Morgrim Moon In IAC, at least, one-man ships exist
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I guess that's true?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:55 AM
But they're called interceptors and fill a much different role than your prototypical 'starfighter'
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:55 AM
Yeah I haven't figured out if you guys were talking about one of your settings or some 'professional' setting I'm unfamilar with
06:55
there are way way WAY too much "empires" and "imperiums" in space scifi >.>
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:55 AM
What else are you gonna call em
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:55 AM
if you see "empire" here, probably Bizarro, or the actual eldrae
06:56
I've got the fun case of a kingdom that absorbed an empire
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:56 AM
If you really want a distinguishing feature look for mentions of the Kingdom of Iris
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:56 AM
aka the royal parliament outranks the imperial one
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Morgrim Moon 07/09/2019 6:56 AM
so Queen Victoria vs the Hapfburgs?
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Yeah, good "Big faction" names is hard
06:57
well
06:57
esp as it flows into setting names
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:57 AM
All the cool titles have been used already
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And into human nomenclature
06:57
Well, really
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:57 AM
my list of great powers: 1 kingdom, 1 union, 1 state, 1 empire, 1 hegemonizing swarm
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:57 AM
Federation, Republic, Directorate... etc, all old.
06:57
@MarcusAurelius my great power: 1 empire
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You should try and come up with an actual unique name
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 6:58 AM
as to archon's point, that's why I usually use conlang names for that reason
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:58 AM
nice and easy to remember >:)
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Rather than just a variation on the national system
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:58 AM
@Archon say tiffanian five times fast without cracking up
06:59
While that does not seem obnoxious to me in the slightest
06:59
Conlanging a name does have it's own perils
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:59 AM
It's also an artifact title that's too connected to someone else's stuff for me to really ever get comfortable with it
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Which is why I tend towards overuse of poetic descriptors
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 6:59 AM
But it stuck because I never came up with a better name
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... I feel a strong sense of deja vu
07:00
Have we had this conversation before?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:01 AM
maybe?
07:01
same here
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 7:04 AM
tell you what though
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"What"
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 7:04 AM
you'll never meet another Lðndsužn
07:06
(even if that is just Uštsnuvk for "star alliance")
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:06 AM
e.g. Mallaryssyss, humanity, the Ædeník, the Gheburkana/Kílarenč, and Šau Vóxadantoð
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 7:08 AM
Pretty much all my other faction names are standard X Y though
07:08
With the exception of the Union of Created Intelligences, though that's just Y of X
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Talking about armies: What would a chemical propelled spike launcher be most effective against?
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0111narwhalz 07/09/2019 7:09 AM
…a nailgun?
07:09
probably concrete or granite is my best guess
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:10 AM
like a flechette gun? high caliber ones with sabots are good against composite armor
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Kinda that, but the spikes are the size of .45s
07:11
and quite long
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Union of Created Intelligences is much better than another damn imperium
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:11 AM
then not much
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Spacers?
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Flechettes are probably better
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:11 AM
flechettes aren't all that dangerous to humans, and they have bad tumbling problems
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It's a silly design
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:11 AM
I assumed you meant flechette, anyway
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:13 AM
Wait wait a second
07:13
What are these uninhabited hab-only systems doing here
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I was thinking something that EVA-02 used during End of Evangelion
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:13 AM
There's no limit to how far apart or close together stargates can be
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:13 AM
ah, I guess I need to watch it soon before Tron spoils it all bit by bit
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Nah, I'm not one for spoilers
07:14
it's just a weapon
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:14 AM
mostly being facetious
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:14 AM
Why is there this detour toward a random red dwarf it makes no sense
07:14
Logically stargates would only link colonies
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:14 AM
at EVA scale though, it sounds like you're talking something more on the scale of a full on tank APFSDS, if not bigger
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facetious?
07:16
Was it my comment or about me spoiling it bit by bit?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:16 AM
the latter
07:18
but anywho, @BizarroLand ♀ how have you justified your interceptors?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:33 AM
@MarcusAurelius Certain interdiction missions require executive management but little else
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:35 AM
ah, little endurance and such?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:36 AM
Dealing with marauders etc.
07:37
Okay. In my mapping I'm going to work backwards from my broad assumption that each habitable world supports ~10 billion people independently
07:37
In 2000 i.f.e. there's about 380 billion heads
07:38
20% of the populace do live in spacehabs however
07:38
That cuts our number down to 30.4 planets needed
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Latter my comment or latter "spoiling bit by bit?"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:40 AM
O, B, and A-class stars put together are 1% of all stars, regardless of sector peculiarities
07:41
There's nothing special about Alpha Tigris' immediate region: it is not near any star-forming regions or voids which would skew our results
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:41 AM
you've got a good start with three habitables in the core system though
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:41 AM
Yes, and Alpha Tigris itself is an F-class
07:41
That's part of the work done
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Do they have any plans for when the star starts to burn out?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:42 AM
F-class stars are 2% of all
07:42
@Unknown m8 that's hundreds of millions of years away
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Assuming they survive that long
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:42 AM
2% is 1 in 50
07:42
So Alpha Tigris could well be the only F-class inhabited as of now
07:43
Actually let's cut it down to 1%
07:43
Since the upper-F range is probably not inhabitable or terraformable
07:43
G-class stars are 3.5% of all
07:43
That means about 1 in 33... not promising odds as of yet
07:43
But we'll see what that means when we start cutting the lower end of the scale
07:44
K0-K9 stars are presumably around 8% of the total
07:44
We'll be optimistic and assume all of them can potentially host terraformables
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:45 AM
Tron, they're still a fundamentally bioconservative empire with a little life extension. Their long term plans are probably millennia, not millennia of millennia
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 7:46 AM
The M class make up the bulk of all stars
07:46
80%
07:47
But they're prone to flares, variability, tidelocking etc
07:48
I'm going to start by cutting off everything below M5 to make it 40%.
07:48
Fair call?
07:48
Actually, M5 is probably not so good either
07:48
M7.5 to shift the scale upwards?
07:52
I'm going to be totally arbitrary and draw the line at M8
07:52
This would exclude three fourths of red dwarves, leaving us with 20% of red dwarves being habitable
07:52
1% + 3.5% + 8% +20%
07:53
0.2 + 0.08 + 0.035 + 0.01 (edited)
07:53
no, 0.2
07:56
32.5% of all stars are habitable by planetary standards then
07:56
That means about 3% of all habitable stars are F-types
07:57
(1% / 32.5%)
07:57
10.7% are G-type
07:57
24.6% are K-type
07:58
61.5% are M-type
07:58
Still wildly skewed toward red dwarves but the shaving probably did it good
07:58
@MarcusAurelius fair call?
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 7:59 AM
I have no idea
07:59
Not a star guy
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 8:00 AM
Okay, I was afraid the math wasn't going to add up for a second but it does
08:00
somehow
08:00
This all assumes there is a perfectly equal distribution of luminosity within star types
08:00
Which I don't have the data to inquire about
08:01
3% of 30 is 0.9, which means if anything our habitables budget is exceeded on the F-type part of the chart
08:01
I'll just count Alpha Tigris itself out of this accounting then
08:03
I should probably have done more to cut those darn red dwarves out of this, but I do want a realistic tone that throws some old tropes in a new light
08:03
So many red dwarves it'll be
08:05
Actually, cutting them down to 10% would've made them about 44% of the total, and that'd be more acceptable
08:07
F-Class 4.44% G-Class 15.5% K-Class 35.5% M-Class 44.4%
08:07
Much better.
08:08
I was half-tempted to just cut 'em out entirely but that's not plausible: the larger M-classes aren't as prone to tidal locking and flare temperament as the dimmer ones
08:08
Also I had a neat idea for a system you'll see later
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MarcusAurelius 07/09/2019 8:37 AM
sounds decent
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/09/2019 9:17 AM
@BizarroLand ♀ I was looking at some of those numbers for RS, and made the following assumptions - There are tons of red dwarfs, but most of them have nothing interesting. A lot of jumplines link through them, but just because of raw statistics. K stars are a ton more common than anything bigger, and most terraformed/ecopoesed worlds end up being around Ks (and high-mass Ms) simply because there are so many. That said, when looking for homeworlds, places where life has evolved, you're looking at hot Gs and cool Fs, because you need a certain amount of UV flux to drive the mutation rate high enough to get biogenesis and evolution. Stars above F5 or so can have habitable/terraformable planets, but there aren't many simply because there aren't many stars like that around. Few of those are homeworlds, too, because biogenesis tends to take 5 billion years or so, and that's about how long an F5 lives on the main sequence IIRC.
09:19
There are a few exceptions - the one species I mentioned yesterday whose homeworld is around a coolish K, for example.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 10:29 AM
@Jade Nekotenshi afaik the radiation thing is an archaic belief that's been debunked
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/09/2019 11:00 AM
Hmm. Wasn't aware of that.
11:00
Though I was mostly using as a handwave for why most xenogen civilizations come from Sun-like stars as opposed to red dwarfs.
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I am Sceptical with a capital C about the likelihood of overpopulation in the future
14:21
People only produce more children if there is a chance that a large amount of them won't thrive (edited)
14:22
Although I mostly got this off a Kurzgesagt video to be fair (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/09/2019 2:22 PM
Overpopulation(tm) in the Malthusian sense, or in the Warhammerian hive-arcologies-of-10^10 people does seem bleedin' improbable, aye.
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I don't see overpopulation happening without a significant drop in living standards. Most overpopulation stories also include climate change and mass famine in the background lore. I predict that climate change won't really be a thing in the future, as people seem to be starting to realise that climate change is a significant problem. (edited)
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Is this a bit in the political area?
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Yes. Good on you for asking.
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Better now?
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Better.
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Any opinions about climate change in the future?
14:41
Should I move this to #random?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/09/2019 2:48 PM
Meseems it's a better fit there.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 9:17 PM
It finally occurred to me why the culture wasn't gelling
21:18
The national spirit can only really manifest itself when a country is in direct competition with others, as in sports, or other endeavors (edited)
21:20
But the Tiffs are isolated. It doesn't make sense in that context; there's no one to compare yourself to, act exclusionary toward or compete with. (edited)
21:21
No-one yet. (edited)
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Well, I’ve got Outworld barbarians to contrast my Federation with
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/09/2019 10:17 PM
The internal culture is still fairly competitive
22:21
The economy’s an insane hodgepodge of hostile zaibatsu megacorps and Soviet bureauism/requisitioning at higher levels (edited)
22:22
Civil servants undergo rigorous tests, especially IQ tests, and are either promoted in a quasi-militaristic fashion when their superior leaves or, in the case of planetary and prefectural governors are appointed by the Empress herself
22:23
The ethic is very much one of meritocracy, at least on the surface, even if many citizens face little real prospect of improvement
22:25
The contradiction is, of course, they you’re expected to outperform the next guy while still considering him part of The Tribe and cooperating with him under the national aegis
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@Jade Nekotenshi In Apeiron Terminus, most of the economy is effectively what I suppose you can call variance-scarcity; though it‘s far into the post-scarcity end generally. Economies are after a point locally isolated: mass and energy doesn‘t move around so quickly. So if you use up too much, scarcity factors'll kick in.
11:40
Like, any system can be driven into scarcity operations if you push hard enough. But for the "common" civ-living Pan, it‘s rather hard to do that.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:24 PM
That makes a ton of sense. That's pretty much how any of the core/major (first-class, in RS parlance) worlds are in RS, too. Out in the periphery it can get sticky, for varying values of "sticky".
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Yeah, like, if you go out in the pheriphery and say "I want my own personal 300km asteroid habitat", well it's not gonna get spit out.
12:26
And stuff like warp drives has actual scarcity out there because the negative energy that forms the core of the drives capability to manipulate the metric can only be made in a big dyson swarm.
12:26
Especially with enough throughput to "power up" more than one vehicle per year.
12:27
But like, big mansion grounds, full home automation, and access to goods and services that the 1% can about only enjoy today? Yeah, that's not that hard.
12:28
Especially in civilized systems. Higher service demand density within easy accessability range allows specialization to really start gripping on.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:32 PM
Out in the periphery, you can get bits of weirdness - kinda like how being poor in a first-world country IRL might mean you go hungry but your water doesn't have dookie in it, if you have somewhere to live it's probably not entirely awful, etc. (But, scaled up appropriately.)
12:37
That said, as much as I want to find a way to justify used-future tramp freighters and the like, I can't seem to find a way to make that chooch.
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The best equivalent I have are the Ultranauts and the ISVs they pilot between systems.
12:39
Inside the connected net... well, the closest you'll have are the highly dynamic shipping interests that buffer out local demands.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:39 PM
I can justify various free-traders sorta like the ones that have been described in the Empire, but not really Mal Reynolds types.
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They fly high-energy, low-payload, highly-exotic routes from varrying place to place.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:39 PM
Oh, that makes a fair bit of sense.
12:40
It costs a lot to get weird stuff from the source to the consumer, and someone has to actually make that run.
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Well, it depends on the "weird".
12:40
They buffer out supply issues when the slower mass payload shipments don't make it.
12:41
But that means they can load a lot of varrying payloads and go from one destination to the next in a zig-zag web.
12:41
So they're the kinda closest. You can think of them like modern shuttle services that now come into existence.
12:41
Where routing is dynamic depending on demand and service points.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:41 PM
Ok, that makes sense.
12:42
And that creates a lot of time spent off the beaten path (or at least it does in RS, thanks to the fact that FTL trips almost always involve a bunch of legs of STL flight through remote areas), which makes for interesting stories.
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Like, that's the closest to "tramp" on the connected network. Maybe more inside a gas giant system.
12:43
But basically, anything high-energy or such is on the more expensive side for a soph to afford as an individual or small group.
12:43
And Ultranauts are all tethered to one interest consortium or another because getting the Allocation for a warp drive is not something you do casually.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:43 PM
Yeah, not if they need dyson swarms to build!
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And lots of it.
12:44
Warp drives are basically ATs antimatter torch drives.
12:44
The exotic energy can only be cracked at low efficiency grades.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:44 PM
Gotcha
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And getting enough for a 250c drive with a good diameter means getting kilotons of mass-energy together, so.
12:45
Of course, there are high-energy stars that can get Dyson'ed up, but there are only so many of those, and then you need to ship the energy from there to whereveer it is needed....
12:45
Basically, yeah, that stuff is scarce. You don't get much of it casually.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:46 PM
RS jump drives aren't horrible to build, but you need some pretty beefy sublight drives to make your trips take a reasonable amount of time. Low-tech jump drives could take weeks to cool down and recharge too, possibly making it so that having more than one aboard a single ship can make a bit of sense. (But is usually only economical for super-fast couriers and warships)
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If you wanna show off old capital style - have a tiny mass of exotic energy.
12:46
In a horribly expensive transparent containment sphere where one can observe the sparkle of energy states tunneling down. (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:47 PM
Yeah, that's bling, future-style!
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Generally though in modern extant culture that's a bit frowned upon. The excesses of Old Earth are quite accute in old memory.
12:47
Big interstellar or interplanetary shipping concerns are the ones likely to show of in such a manner.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:47 PM
So, "bling", in pretty much the sense the upper class views things referred to as such now 😃
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So more the entire cooperative of the group showing "we have this" than one individual.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:48 PM
Shiny, indicative of real means, but oh so bloody gauche
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Yep. And in many cultures, not that extant.
12:49
It's quite the western-descendant thing as it goes.
12:49
But well, there are many extant cultures and people in AT, so somebody is going to have it.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 12:50 PM
IDIC, as the vulcans say 😛
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Though, to be fair, for looking cool, you only need sup-gram units of exotic mass-energy states.
12:51
The real show-off is having a starship with a warp drive.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 1:04 PM
Given what that'd cost, yeah
13:04
It'd be like a rich mogul today showing up with a Kirov-class cruiser 😛
13:05
(or more)
13:11
The other thing I'm trying to suss out, is if privateers make any sense. I figure freebooter pirates and raiders only make sense out in the willywacks, where no serious naval units are apt to show up, and/or they can pretend to be legit merchants if any do.
13:11
But, unlike in the age of sail, you can't take a merchantman, gum on a few lasers or mass drivers and get a serviceable cruiser out of the deal.
13:12
So privateers would either be limited to preying on the unarmed or unwilling to fight, or limited to suckerpunches, or they'd need real warships with all that entails.
13:13
(And a cruiser doesn't look anything like a merchie, if you have the right sensors. And if you don't, and you're somewhere that pirates might have a real cruiser, you'd best fix that most ricky-tick, I'd think.)
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It'd be like a rich mogul today showing up with a Kirov-class cruiser those sort of people are rare in AT. A lot of the cultures are communal by ancestral nessecity or ancestral culture, and there it's the community or a speaker/avatar of the community that shows off.
13:15
And yeah, privateers are pretty much non-workable.
13:15
The best you can get is a militia-alike spat-down inside a gravity well.
13:15
There aren't exactly classical polities and thus also not classical militaries and wars, but war's more of a dedicated game if it goes physical.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 1:20 PM
I can almost see piracy being used as a form of proxy warfare.
13:20
(I mean, heck, it's been used that way IRL, so...)
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I mean, piracy can exist... but it‘s a more subtle trade.
13:23
Cargo flow manipulations. Allocation attacks at shipping centers.
13:24
More digital trade with a side of "do what we say or your fusion reactor might suffer some unfortunate incidents"... at least in the past.
13:24
These days, well there‘s warships and co about with waverider drives.
13:24
Intercepting shenanigans in progress is easy, if they get too visible.
13:28
And military waveriders have some of the highest translation rates (which is sorta equivalent to acceleration) available, so they‘re also inherently quite good at chasing others down.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/10/2019 1:33 PM
In RS, serious piracy is probably limited to the fringes where a high-tech empire abuts a low-tech one, and then probably only when the goal is something other than just seizing the cargo (like making the low-tech empire divert its military to cover those routes, creating a blind spot somewhere else, which implies some kind of higher direction, and again, proxy warfare)
13:38
The reason why the tech disparity matters, is that if you can sustain a 3g brachistochrone to the jump point and the local naval units can manage .2, tops, you can feck off to parts unknown long before they have a prayer of catching up.
13:41
Well, OK, they know where the jump point goes (and if they didn't before, they have a really good reason to go find out now), but you can probably be several jumps gone if you out-tech them.
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MarcusAurelius 07/10/2019 6:01 PM
@Jade Nekotenshi you have heard the story of how Pepsi ended up with a Soviet fleet, right? Also, I like calling the Kirovs battlecruisers, since it shows off their size while being less klunky in English than the literal translation of "large nuclear missile cruiser"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/10/2019 6:47 PM
@Jade Nekotenshi There are no real pirates in IAC of course
18:47
Since there ain't no stealth in space, and good ships are expensive, it's impossible to make a career out of it at any rate
18:48
'Marauders' are generally discovered and blown up in short order by the gendarmerie
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0111narwhalz 07/10/2019 6:48 PM
My setting might have pirates, depending on tech level and FTL paradigm.
18:48
Any-any spacefolders? nah
18:48
Gate-gate spacefolders? maybe
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/10/2019 6:49 PM
If they had some kind of clandestine base of operations, or sympathetic colony, they might sustain themselves
18:49
but then those are rebels not pirates
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0111narwhalz 07/10/2019 6:50 PM
Frameshift? very no
18:51
But stutterwarp? Quite possible—it's easy to force a stutterwarp vessel down in a relatively nondestructive manner.
18:52
("cutting the ship in half" still preserves the majority of the cargo, after all :V)
18:52
Polyspatial is just rocketships in 4D, really, so I don't think the piracy possibilities are significantly changed.
18:53
Except maybe stealth, because it's hard to see along the W axis.
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Remember the Schlock Mercenary arc where they were hunting pirates?
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0111narwhalz 07/10/2019 6:55 PM
(you still can, you just need well-calibrated gravimetrics)
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Kevyn suggested their client instead condense their TAD zone to something more manageable to reduce their pirate problem, which was when the client fessed up that they were dealing with a potential revolutionary, not regular pirates.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/10/2019 8:45 PM
I don't read schlock mercenary
20:49
At any rate
20:49
What kind of black alchemy turns a world into a multicellular ecology, like Earth
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/10/2019 8:50 PM
All I know is that we had a reducing atmosphere + a certain amount of water + a magnetosphere and through magic or something we got life
20:50
What's the mojo that makes self-replication happen
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I don't think anyone knows the answer to that.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/10/2019 8:55 PM
Like I realize if we had an answer our understanding of the universe would change
20:55
But arghhhh if my decision to not have xenos isn't making me agonize
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There’s been some experiments to generate amino acids in a test tube
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MarcusAurelius 07/10/2019 9:00 PM
yeah, IIRC they just needed the right combo of ingredients, and used simulated lightning to add energy
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:18 AM
@MarcusAurelius I mean it is entirely plausible to me that multicellular life is actually very common
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:19 AM
eh, it's easy for it to get wiped back out
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:19 AM
Sure, and besides telescopes are so weak that a biosphere could exist on Proxima b and we'd probably have no way of knowing
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:19 AM
especially the actually complex stuff and not just hydras and the like
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BluejayHurricane 07/11/2019 12:20 AM
But on the other hand, if you actually run a Monte Carlo sim of the drake equation, with all the values that astrobiologists and astronomers have put out over the years, it turns out that humanity has something like a 25ish percent chance of being alone. I forget the paper, but I'll look it up.
00:21
It's not hard for me to believe that the appearance of what we call consciousness and intelligence is the real bottleneck either
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:21 AM
those look like small children with bear hats (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:21 AM
Ah, I've seen that paper
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:22 AM
Human tool-usage and complex abstraction is something that appeared in response to a very particular set of circumstances
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:22 AM
the results aren't that useful, because that species is closely related to actually multicellular beings
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:23 AM
I made a conscious decision early on while setting down the IAC background that even unicellular life is vanishingly rare
00:23
I wonder now if that decision was truly scientifically justifiable
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BluejayHurricane 07/11/2019 12:24 AM
The Fermi paradox is the conflict between an expectation of a high {\em ex ante} probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and the apparently lifeless universe we in fact observe....
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:24 AM
@BluejayHurricane I'd love to see the paper if you ever-- oh
00:26
Also the 25% chance is shockingly low
00:26
If you asked me I would have said it was more like 95%
00:26
or 99.99999...%
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:26 AM
How do they define "alone"
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BluejayHurricane 07/11/2019 12:26 AM
No one else.
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:26 AM
Anywhern?
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BluejayHurricane 07/11/2019 12:27 AM
No other intelligent life that we would recognize under the drake equation, ever having existed.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:27 AM
I mean that's one thing
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:27 AM
ever having existed or ever will have existed?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:28 AM
But proposing a 75% chance of xenos existing is out-of-context
00:28
like what
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BluejayHurricane 07/11/2019 12:31 AM
Well, Drake is "what is the likelihood of each condition occuring in the universe, and if each one is true, then intelligent life happens." So if there are overall low results from plugging numbers in, and those conditions don't change with time, then there is a low probability of life ever happening.
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:31 AM
no intelligent life in the galaxy that is detectable by us, not quite the same thing
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:31 AM
My setting didn't develop the Fermi paradox.
00:32
Soon as you develop a radio telescope? Suspicious noise.
00:32
Gravimetric telescope? Crazy shit all over the place.
00:32
If you're anywhere near stutterwarp space you would hardly be able to hear black hole mergers.
00:33
Hell, if you get a big enough optical telescope you might catch things exploding :V
00:35
Several major spacefaring powers in the tasty part of the Orion-Cygnus belt.
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:35 AM
for mine, the paradox was formulated on the Earths and other isolated regions, because most of them had no signs of intelligent life visible to them
00:35
until they came knocking
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:36 AM
One of my factions rides ramscoops through the deep black in fleets thousands strong.
00:36
(for mass acquisition, you see—they have spacefolders)
00:36
One of those fleets points its torches at you, you'll probably notice :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:37 AM
yeah but
00:37
what about mine
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:37 AM
Another one drops literal beacons liberally with the specific intent of encouraging young spacefarers.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:37 AM
is my no-xenos presumption scientifically justifiable
00:38
it looks not now ironically
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:38 AM
It's not counterscience like my "the sky is swarming" setup is, at least.
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:45 AM
bizarro: 1. I think you've gotten a little obsessive about attempting perfect accuracy when what works for the story you want to tell matters more 2. according to the above linked paper, our current knowledge of the universe and of how life originated on earth, complex life looks to be very rare
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:47 AM
It's much easier when you don't have to be consistent with reality, but instead only with your own setting.
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:47 AM
^
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TotallyNotHuman 07/11/2019 12:48 AM
Unless you're writing speculative fiction, remember that you as the originator of the universe have full control over it.
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:48 AM
even in speculative stuff, you can fudge the numbers of everything but universal constants easily enough to fit the story
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:48 AM
Trying to be consistent with reality is a great way to date your work, too :V
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TotallyNotHuman 07/11/2019 12:48 AM
Thusly, you can do what you want RE: no-xenos, some-xenos, or xenos-every-fucking-where.
00:49
Whatever floats your boat :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 12:49 AM
perfect accuracy is not as important as internal consistency, followed by authenticity if you want to appeal to hard SF (or I should say tough/firm SF) fans
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:50 AM
If you have FTL at all, you're already on the back foot with regards to hardness.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:51 AM
fuck
00:51
and I have two kinds of fittle
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 12:52 AM
embrace the flop
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:53 AM
it's just
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TotallyNotHuman 07/11/2019 12:53 AM
we have four V:
00:53
don't worry about it
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 12:53 AM
I am interested in the old Golden Age-style tropes
00:53
I want to do them with a modern sensibility though
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 1:15 AM
That's why I'm obsessing over this question
01:20
@0111narwhalz well, to let you in on 'it'
01:21
Earth is presumably an incipient K-II ultra-tech culture happily absorbing system after system at this point (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:21 AM
sweet
01:21
presumably that means it is possible to not do it wrong, then
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 1:22 AM
Presumably. That's what people infer. The light will still take another millenium to reach the Tiffs
01:22
@0111narwhalz its not a spoiler to say it was possible to Do It Right all along
01:22
The Alpha Tigrans just kind of had a bad run of luck
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:22 AM
It's a harder problem in some settings than others.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 1:23 AM
And after the Breakup happens, it's a free-for-all (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 8:37 AM
Heck, I probably have two brands of heresy: not-all-that-weird xenos everywhere and humans aren't the first Terragen civilization. Hell, we're not even the second.
08:37
(We're the third or fourth, depending on how you define "civilization". We're definitely the third to hit Kardashev Type 1)
08:39
Though admittedly, it is pretty rare to have multiple civilizations of different species from a single homeworld, even over the scale of millions of years. Earth is the only planet like that in known space. And that second civilization was a species of Homo, just not modern humans, and there may have been fuckery from the first civilization involved in bootstrapping them.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 11:10 AM
I'm stuck on a piece of what's utimately treknobabble - what in the universe would a "kinetic lance" be? The fluff behind this is that it's a device used to defend a moon from asteroid impacts.
11:11
Would that be some kind of highly focused vector control gidget?
11:11
(I'm ironing out some weird bits left from a collaboration that welded on a few things that don't completely mesh now)
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sdschildberg 07/11/2019 11:13 AM
A k-impactor area defense
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 11:14 AM
The other piece of technobabble is the "relativistic heavy ion cannon", but it's pretty obvious what that does, and with a little handwavium, it could even be practical.
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BluejayHurricane 07/11/2019 11:16 AM
Well, kinetic lance is pretty clear. Big gun of some sort that hits really really hard. If you are actually using your technobabble more than for scene-setting, you can define it to be anything that hits anything else with some other object.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 11:27 AM
It's explicitly not some kind of coilgun/railgun, which is where I got stuck. That said, maybe it's some kind of focused pressor/shear beam or something like that. But you know, that's actually kind of interesting. If it's basically a gravy-gun that has above-normal range, it's useful as a way to bust heavy armor, but would be a lot less useful if you have kinetic barriers to disrupt it with.
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sdschildberg 07/11/2019 11:30 AM
Such a device would be called a metric lance which brings to mind shooting out rulers
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 11:41 AM
That is a better term, yeah.
11:42
That's the risk of contribution - you get weird things that don't always fit your theme/vision.
11:42
Though, on the flipside, I got a lot of really useful stuff from this particular collaboration.
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Ion cannons aren't really practical though.
13:06
Relativistic electorn beams work due to a particular quirk of electrons at extreme gamma factors.
13:06
But you can make a rellay fast heavy nuclid beam.
13:06
Those would be downright terrifying.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:08 PM
I had the thought that you might be able to neutralize the ions after accelerating them somehow, to reduce blooming from repulsion.
13:09
And I'm definitely not thinking "ion cannon in the Star Wars sense", that is, something that zorches electronics and doesn't damage structures. These are definitely heavy armor killers.
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:09 PM
The SPIDER unit is a pretty powerful neutral ion beam.
13:10
Accelerates negative ions, then neutralizes them by stripping off the electrons.
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And yeah @Jade Nekotenshi you'd neutralize them, but then it isn't an ion beam.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:10 PM
Almost as hard to intercept/deflect as a laser, almost as destructive per joule delivered as a kinetic
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And beam neutralization works best by intermix.
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:10 PM
Part of the plasma heaters in ITER.
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Take positive ions and re-add the electron stream.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:10 PM
But it started out as one, so the name might stick even if it's not technically correct.
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You can do this far more cohesive than the inverse.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:11 PM
Though particle beams would probably have a shorter effective range than lasers, even if you got the neutralization right.
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Depends on the particle beam.
13:11
Extreme-gamma electron beams can reach suprising coherent distances.
13:12
I am talking light seconds plus in the TeV regime.
13:12
With heavy nuclid streams and high beam masses, yeah you will have lower ranges on smaller mounts and with less-than-absolutely-optimal beam neutralization.
13:12
As well as slower speeds. A heavy nuclid beam may only reach 0.3 cee.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:12 PM
Interesting
13:13
But that's still probably a buttload faster than a mass driver slug.
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Maybe pop over to ToughSF some time @Jade Nekotenshi. Our resident particle and nuclear scientist GerritB can explain a many things on particle beams and why EGE beams are great.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:13 PM
(Mass drivers in RS tend more toward the heavy-and-slow end of the spectrum, rather than "grain of relativistic sand" types)
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Also good, the "grain of relativistic sand" thing is hard to do.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:14 PM
And I figure point defense mass drivers might need to fling guided slugs - modern air-defense guns are already hitting into that one, and I don't expect the calculus to change that much.
13:15
And guiding a sand grain is pissing in the wind. Guiding a thingy moving at .6c is also pissing in the wind.
13:15
(Well, in this context it is)
13:18
Long story short, I haven't been able to fully resolve the lasers versus missiles versus dumb slugs versus particle beams dispute, so different folks have different tactical doctrines that emphasize one over another.
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Yeah, the only thing "guided" at 0.6 cee is skip missiles, in the AsceVe, and some types of strategic munitions.
13:19
(in short - the one things that turn very slowly, and the one thing that is not behest to Newtons.)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:20 PM
That makes sense.
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Mass drivers are all over the place in my 'verse
13:20
Heavy and slow vs. relativistic sand isn't a real debate
13:20
They each have their own applications
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To explain: Skip missiles are weapons who use a special warp drive to, well... skip. They're the main anti-waverider vehicle munition because short of chasing something down to close range and then firing into "the baffles" where the drive fields don't disdort them is hard.
13:21
A skip missile swarm can be deployed from stand-off range.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:21 PM
RS doesn't have FTL skip missiles, mostly (they can exist, but the economics rarely make sense - they can't jump in any closer than a ship can). But yeah, RKVs and lighthuggers don't steer very well.
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Then they close in and blast coherent annihilation grasers up the enemy's arse.
13:22
Even so, often it makes economical sense to field actual space fighters. They do weight 10 kilotones plus and are still 100 meters long, though.
13:22
And Mass drivers in AT are more a low-distance range thing. More installations defense, planetary fire support and inter-moons warfare inside the ranges of gas giants and such.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:23 PM
Hmm. What's the upside there? Something where you need very little payload but you do need a soph out on the pointy end to make the shoot/don't shoot decisions?
13:23
Yeah, they're either short range or for use against immobile/predictable targets in RS.
13:23
Beyond a certain range, it's virtually guaranteed that a defender can dodge or shoot down the incoming, which is also the problem with missiles.
13:24
Well, less dodge, more fox, for guided stuff, but.
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For precision shots... well, usually a laser.
13:24
And space fighters upside is economics of the drives.
13:24
Any reactionless drive system needs negative fields.
13:24
A skip missile atomizes on terminal initiation. The "propulsion mass" goes with it.
13:25
A space fighter recycles the mass, and can pack a potentially more capable drive, while carrying more munitions.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:25 PM
Oooh, yeah, that makes sense.
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The fighters also serve nicely as an inherent forward recon, pushing out the sensor horizon.
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You have... reactionless drives?
13:25
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Yep @KAL_9000. Of the type that can't actually add newtonian force to anyhting.
13:26
Shut the waverider off, and you're left with your at-initiation newtonian vector.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:26 PM
Which is mostly also an issue with RS skipmissiles - minimum gauge problems for a jump engine that's supposed to be used more than once. So you either build frigate-sized skipmissiles or you build a frigate, packed with regular missiles.
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Munitions launchers on SCVs are quite the sophisticated systems because you need to "exfiltrate" a volume of space, with the munition, from the drive bubble.
13:26
@Jade Nekotenshi Submunition busses. "Bombers".
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:27 PM
Yep.
13:27
But they're mostly not good for "slag a planet" suckerpunches, becuase jump points are almost always too far from the interesting stuff.
13:28
And because jumps aren't usually useful once a battle is joined, except for maybe trying to open a few thousand km of distance in an emergency (which is about the practical limit for arbitrary any-to-any fittling), you don't see that kind of bomber as a main weapon.
13:29
They exist, but are kinda niche.
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@Unknown; How, in Isaac Arthur's personal hell do you prevent people from making dirt cheap planet crackers out of freighter ships??, giving you have reactionless drives?!?!?!?! (edited)
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Depends on how it works
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:46 PM
They don't give anything any actual newtonian motion and IIRC he said that the waveriding bit falls apart near planets, so you'd waveride in and then slam to a halt and lazily float into the planet at some low speed.
13:46
Unless you'd accelerated up to relativistic speeds first, in which case it's not dirt cheap anymore.
13:47
(Also, needs no propellant != needs no energy)
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Won't that create an incentive to make warships massive enough to have a gravitational pull?
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:47 PM
Can you just hang above a planet and wait for a while?
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 1:52 PM
@Unknown That's not cheap either.
13:53
Also, again, not needing to carry remass doesn't mean the drive is free.
13:55
(Now, granted, there are reasons why reactionless drives are often a bad thing to add, but they don't automatically mean R-bombs that run on a AA battery, either)
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@0111narwhalz It would take about a year to become an RKKV in a 9.81G gravity field.
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:57 PM
They don't mean the drive is free, but they do mean the drive's power draw has the wrong scaling with its velocity.
13:59
Which can open you up to the potential for unsettling violations of other conservation laws.
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The drive has no velocity.
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 1:59 PM
Your drive is notably not a reactionless drive, because it doesn't cause real acceleration.
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Waverider and warp drices are reactionless in that there is no reaction. All movement they create is pseudo-motion.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 2:00 PM
Which seems like exactly the handwave you need to avoid violating all those other conservation laws.
14:01
So it seems well-considered to me. (And free of Millennium Falcon-cum-Deathstars)
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They're kind of established hacks?
14:06
It should be noted, Apeiron Terminus is descendent from older draft notes of an AU 2300 A.D.
14:06
Where the stutterwarp drive has the similiar properties.
14:07
It is non-newtonian, pseudo-velocity displacement.
14:08
The drives efficiency goes down as local gravity increases. You can reach pseudo-relativistic velocities in interplanetay space. You can't stutterwarp from ground to orbit. FTL only works in the outer system and interstellar space. Because you're only pseudo-motive, there are no easy RKKVs. Velocity adjustments are nessecary operations. Stutterwarp missiles don't work by planet-shattering force but nuclear-pumped x-ray laser payloads.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/11/2019 2:33 PM
Any thoughts on how ray shielding could work?
14:35
Two things that come to mind are either very dense plasma held in some kind of magnetic containment, or some kind of local spatial distortion of some kind. Something like the latter was discussed in here a while ago, which I thought was rather cool, but I can't remember the specifics ATM
14:36
(Also, I suppose a ray screen doesn't need to block a laser - just do something that makes the armor able to handle it - maybe a large area gets slowly ablated instead of a small area getting drilled through)
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0111narwhalz 07/11/2019 3:59 PM
My antirad shielding is metrical in nature.
16:00
It operates on an attenuation basis, same as material radiation shielding.
16:07
(sorry for triple, Disord is acting up right now :V)
16:10
It's also unidiretional, like the kinetic volumetric shielding. (edited)
16:12
You can shoot out, but you can't get shot back.
16:13
However, you can't see out either.
16:13
So they have (hopefully narrow) transmission bands.
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 11:03 PM
my solution to avoiding cheap RKKVs in a setting with cheap powerful drives is just having a blanket ban on high velocities in the inner system, with it getting progressively slower.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 11:55 PM
Still
23:56
Is there much substance to that Sandberg paper?
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 11:56 PM
Which one was that? The evolution of multicellular life one?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/11/2019 11:56 PM
If there’s a 75% chance alien civilizations exist after all, then—
23:58
With FTL, it’s only a matter of time before the universe is hegemonized into a single technological oikoumene
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MarcusAurelius 07/11/2019 11:59 PM
It was the other way Around, bizarro
00:00
They claimed a high chance of no other intelligent life in the galaxy
00:00
And a decent chance of none in the observable universe
00:00
Also, empires do not hold together of that size without FTL comms, and even then I really doubt it
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/12/2019 12:03 AM
Whew
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MarcusAurelius 07/12/2019 12:05 AM
Also, it’s one paper
00:06
You can easily fiat that some of their assumptions about how life forms or the probability of it hitting certain stages is different in your setting
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/12/2019 12:37 AM
25% is high?
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MarcusAurelius 07/12/2019 12:42 AM
did you read it?
00:42
they conclude a 53-99.6% chance we are alone in the milky way
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/12/2019 9:01 AM
That’s a really wide disparity
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/12/2019 9:45 AM
Anywhere between flip a coin and nearly certain
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It's only like two orders of magnitude
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/12/2019 9:47 AM
There are a lot of variables, each of which have their own uncertainty bands, so...
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Which is pretty good, to the point where I don't really belive them
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/12/2019 9:48 AM
There are a number of ways we could be all wet about it anyway. (we're the old farts, for one possibility - life is everywhere but everyone else is still back in the early Ordovician, relatively speaking, or something like that)
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Tell me honestly, was that a bit of a cop-out with the archetypes instead of specific gods? https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/created-deities/
The Noospherist religion is distinguishable from most faiths in that it does not believe in a divine creator or an immortal soul, rather they believe in emergent phenomena from the primordial chaos…
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/12/2019 8:16 PM
Religion?
20:17
Who needs religion when you can avoid that thorny issue entirely
20:17
and have vague superstitons
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sdschildberg 07/12/2019 8:20 PM
so <fanbase> twitter is a godlike entity according to them?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/13/2019 3:43 AM
I can't imagine much living cargo between worlds either
03:43
There are no aliens
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Is it okay to post nanofics in full here @Overmind? It's two <2000 characters posts.
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So about two weeks ago I attended a lecture at the local port on freight security matters, and they devoted a bit of time talking about insurance and classification. That inspired me to spend a bit of time working that out in my own world as well, and after some thinking and scribbling (and a bit of frustrating photoshop), a little bit more of my universe is defined https://dps-yards.com/2019/07/12/ship-classification-societies/
While shipyards build ships and shipping companies operate (and usually own) ships, who examines the designs that the yards build off and ensure that the shipping lines operate safe equipment? The …
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@Unknown Sure, go for it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/14/2019 12:29 AM
Thing is though
00:29
The main reason why I'm going the no-xenos route is that while I do want to replicate the old Golden Age tropes, with a modern sensibility most of the tropes surrounding xenolife are just unworkable
00:30
Biochemical incompatibilities mean you probably wouldn't find alien food, luxuries and drugs worthwhile, and alien mentalities are truly Terra Incognita scientifically
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0111narwhalz 07/14/2019 12:30 AM
I suspect the geneline is less important to mentalities than the ecological niche.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/14/2019 12:31 AM
well yeah, and all life is dictated by Darwin's rules in the end but that still gives us an unimaginably vast phase space with little explored by real Science
00:32
And beside if you include a wide proliferation of alien life the Fermi Paradox comes banging on your door
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0111narwhalz 07/14/2019 12:33 AM
Sure, but when I compare myself to a chicken or a rabbit I find that I can relate much more easily to the chicken.
00:33
(my setting with a wide proliferation of alien life doesn't have a Fermi paradox, but I suspect I've said enough about that in the recent past :V)
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The Ultranauts Vigil It was a curious installation I found purely per chance, drifting through the gateway station from cluster to cluster. A spherical habitat at the outer core of a cluster of tin can habs, looking out into the endless night, the stars of the milky way cutting a aquator of light across the sphere. The outer habitats below were all coated with some metamaterial - all black safe pin pricks of colored light, like space itself. Had the spherical pressure space been entirely empty, you could have forgotten you were looking out past hyperphire into space, image you were floating in the vacuum itself. Then so, the only things drifting in the sphere were luminescent crystals of simple cut, tethered by an ambient knotting of magnetic fields, glowing with a faint internal light as they serenely orbited the perimeter of the volume. The atmosphere was sombre, even the air cirulation was quiet - and no other soph than me and another one around. That other was an Ultranaut in spartan clothing, spacerborn through and through: with grasping feet, balancing tail, the golden skin patches of Näevas and their large eyes, this one showing a luminous iris, like galaxies wrapped around the pupils. I inquired gently as to what this place was. "A place of vigil", ve replied. Vigil, I asked? "Indeed." I hazzarded a guess that the Ultranauts were remembering their eternal dead. "They are not dead," ve replied gently but with firmness. I apologised.
00:35
Ve gave an understanding smile. "Even Ultranauts die, yes. But when a starship becomes overdue, we don't know for certain what happened. Sometimes we find out, after a wait, that some calamety indeed befell them. That they were attacked, or suffered a terminal accident in-system, or that their warp drive definitely failed directly on the jump out. But so often... we never know. "We know that a warp drive can fail in many ways. It can rip you apart into mono-atomic gas across light hours. Its bubble can fail to disolve, cooking you. Its bubble can crush you. And sometimes the bubble and you escape to elsewhere, when Lahauanun decrees." Ve gestured and we looked both out at the galaxy's old light. "The future is an infinite escape vector, so all other things come. Sometimes, a bubble must travel to the future to maintain tidaane. And then a mind so many say is lost is still with us, still calling out, still straining to come home. We must remember this. "And this is where we remember. Every one of these crystals is one Isavar, lost to the seas of tidaan and farāḡaan, remembered and awaited into all eternity." I now think of one of these remembered ever so often, drifting along with a station, a planet, a star and a galaxy. I wonder where they might be, out there in the stars, in farāḡaan - space - and tidaan - time. Still traveling into their peril, unbeknownst to themselves? Already traveling back home? Or actually lost to some grizzly annihilation in all eternity? Whatever and wherever they are, they can be certain that their forkbrethren and sisters-in-clan, and maybe also somesoph else - remember and expect them home until the end of time. That is the promise of the Ultranauts Vigil.
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MarcusAurelius 07/14/2019 10:38 AM
nice, Sev. A sensible response to the uncerainties of space travel turned into a religious (or quasi-religious, not entirely sure without more context) exercise for quieting the mind and honoring your fellows
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I‘d call it quasi-religious.
10:41
The Ultranauts have cultural streams that recognize a proximal anthropomorphisation of causality and the Novikov principle: Lahauanun - but not every Ultranaut believes in ve, or referes ve in a proximal religious fashion.
10:41
The point is really this: Whatever and wherever they are, they can be certain that their forkbrethren and sisters-in-clan, and maybe also somesoph else - remember and expect them home until the end of time.
10:42
It is a world of back-ups. But the Ultranauts will never delcare you truedead and lost until they know for certain.
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MarcusAurelius 07/14/2019 10:45 AM
ah, so the religious invocations are imbedded deeply enough in their culture that even the ones who don't believe in them still use them, e.g. like most European cultures and the concept of heaven/hell and God?
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Yes. At base it is a more.... opposite of religions, can‘t find the word - cultural aspect. The religion came through stronger with time and the Ultranauts crafting their identity.
10:48
But at basis, there‘s nothing superstitious about the practise. The warp drive can blast you decades or more into the future in a bid to resolve a causality conflict; that is known.
10:48
So Ultranauts hold each other and themselves to the promise to never be declared lost and dead. They really probably could not be.
10:49
Lahauanun is more of a... well, as religions emerge. You treat something beyond casual explanation as something supernatural.
10:50
Ve is the goddess of causality and self-consistency, the cosmic thread-weaver that keeps the Grand Existence together. (edited)
10:50
But ve isn‘t a goddess you pray to or such. It‘s more of a cthulhian entity in a way, completely beyond comprehension of anyone, and most certainly beyond approach. (edited)
10:55
Some Ultranauts take it further as a sort of matter of pride: nobody defies Lahauanun. Not even the ASI gods and copyclans and all, not even they can touch Lahauanun‘s domain.
10:57
Maybe the best way to encapsule the idea is that it is ritualized @MarcusAurelius.
11:02
But that is what I really like about this. It's not quite the usual "A man is not dead so long as his name is spoken" thing, nor the "still on patrol" military thing. It stands very squarly somewhere inbetween, in this aknowledgement of real possibility and more religious rememberance.
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MarcusAurelius 07/14/2019 11:04 AM
it's a lot like the latter though, just a little more sensible
11:05
a lot of units listed as MIA have turned up eventually either alive or captured, it is and was a sensible practice
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0111narwhalz 07/15/2019 5:02 AM
3AM thoughts: An ontotech artifact of the time machine kind, which is so determined to exist that it bootstraps itself into being ex nihilo.
05:03
(coherence: dubious at best)
05:06
Why does it exist? Because it must—it will exist, and it has existed already.
05:06
But nobody actually made it.
05:09
Its nonexistence as a Platonic ideal is so powerful that it's actually executable by reality.
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The Dark Profit Saga has a book of time travel magic that retconned itself out of existence.
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@0111narwhalz That is very
06:57
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/15/2019 12:48 PM
Hmmm. Are weapons-grade masers even remotely practical, for starship weapons?
12:49
I ask, because it seems to me that it's a whole lot easier to make an EHF phased array than, say, a visible or UV one.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 3:37 PM
Still, I don't think I have an answer yet...
15:37
can there be resource differentials between systems big enough to create trade and arbitrage, or is it all more or less the same assuming equal metallicity and youth etc.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/15/2019 3:47 PM
Depends on just how much shipping costs, but if your costs are low enough, sure.
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That's the real arbiter: shipment costs (which also includes shipping times)
15:50
Look at the three big eras for ocean shipping: The age of sail, the age of steam, and the age of containerization
15:52
If shipping time and speed is long and slow, then only some rarer macguffinite will be your cargo. If your travel times are shorter, and your speeds (and regularity!) Is faster and more predictable, then manufactured goods now become a plausible commodity. And if its especially cheap and fast, then even bulk raw materials become economically feasible
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There may also be different stuff produced in each system, or at least some stuff produced more cheaply in some.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/15/2019 3:55 PM
And, as has been mentioned before, environment-specific cultivars and art goods.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 5:11 PM
Okay
17:11
I'm going to admit something
17:11
I have no idea how long it takes to get from LEO to Sun-Earth L4
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0111narwhalz 07/15/2019 5:17 PM
That depends entirely on how much dV you're willing to expend.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 7:33 PM
@0111narwhalz These guys have routine D-He3 fusion
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Ftl system was stargate rings at Lagrange points, yes?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 7:44 PM
yes (edited)
19:45
"He3-D Fusion Exhaust Velocity 7,840,000 m/s Specific Impulse 799,185 s Thrust 49,000 N Thrust Power 0.2 TW Mass Flow 0.01 kg/s Total Engine Mass 1,200,000 kg T/W 4.00e-03 Fuel Helium3-Deuterium Fusion Specific Power 6 kg/MW"
19:46
(numbers shamelessly copied from Atomic Rockets)
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then that should put you at the least into the realm of having industrial goods being economical cargo to ship.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 7:57 PM
@Xveers and there is near-ubiquitous fusion power
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/15/2019 10:20 PM
At 800 ksec of specific impulse, you could fly a brachistochrone and not have to fart around with awkward, slow Hohmann transfers. There's a chart on Atomic Rockets that gives transit times for fixed-acceleration brachy trajectories, IIRC.
22:21
(if your mass ratio = e, then delta-V = exhaust velocity, and a mass ratio of e is pretty damn good by today's standards, to put it mildly)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 10:27 PM
I probably won't be able to figure out the actual performance of my drives without actually designing them
22:30
@Jade Nekotenshi The way Isaac Arthur made me think of it, it was propellant fraction = 50%, then dV = exhaust velocity
22:30
And propellant fraction = ~87%, then dV = 2x exhaust velocity
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0111narwhalz 07/15/2019 10:31 PM
e¯¹ = about 37%
22:34
Also, you can just fudge drive numbers within a reasonable bound of the database to make the plot work.
22:34
A little higher or lower to describe tech levels, for instance.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2019 10:41 PM
@0111narwhalz Well, the basic process has had a thousand years to be refined so
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 12:11 AM
So how many people are involved in producing things like mines anyway
00:12
I feel a sudden need to dig deeply into the economics for some reason to come up with a good estimate of what most ships are really like
00:16
If migrations must be large-scale, then so will the passenger liners be
00:16
If there's kilo or mega-tons of computer gadgets, purified hydrogen, or ultra-rare gems that need to be pushed around, the freighters will be designed to be up to that task
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producing a mine? as in building the equipment?
00:33
or operating it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 12:34 AM
Building, operation, maintenance, management
00:34
As well as all the ancillary stuff that helps make an economy
00:36
the fact sheets have some raw employment numbers. can probably match that up with google earth to get an idea of the size
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 12:36 AM
This setting doesn't have naturally-habitable planets common enough to justify planets being landgrabbed based on only one resource
00:37
Leaving the issue of a dependent economy aside
00:37
Every world is as bad as Mars/Luna or worse (at first) (edited)
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well figure a major industrial mine will probably be running around 800 people or so just in direct and immediate jobs (mining, admin, maintenence, loading, etc etc)
00:41
figure you can perhaps double that for the town's supporting staff, especially if it's isolated and needs a lot of the basics in-house
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 12:43 AM
Looks like this corp operates four or five mines in total
00:43
As well as a hot briquetted whatever
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my general take on it is that for anything other than bulk freight (ore, liquids, etc) freight will probably be containerized as that allows for the most transport efficiency and flexibility.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 12:46 AM
Or(e), and the more complex industrial facilities for the production of finished goods
00:47
Conductors to transistors to microchips to more complex boards
00:47
That's what can really get millions of people 'gainfully' employed
01:00
doubly so because these complexes are big, expensive, and a pain in the ass to move and build
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 1:10 AM
what about furs and textiles
01:11
granted, there are no exotic aliens with mysterious pelts to hunt down
01:11
but textile production has never been easy to automate
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 1:12 AM
Wasn't textile production, like, the first thing to be automated?
01:12
well, after milling grain, but
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 1:13 AM
01:13
Assuming no prior history, what's the best way of transporting important stuff across continents
01:13
Road or rail?
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 1:15 AM
You need to transport loads of stuff in huge bulk? Rail.
01:15
You need to transport stuff from anywhere to anywhere, in relatively small packets? Road.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 1:20 AM
@0111narwhalz I was thinking back to what I saw in Endless Sky's Dust Belt
01:20
Quiet, impoverished worlds full of miners, textile workers or farmers toiling in poverty to export their goods to wealthier planets elsewhere
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 1:24 AM
hm, dubious with high tech
01:25
I imagine most will be in maintenance or supervisory or heavy equipment operation.
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textile production, thread and cloth, was among the first thing to get mechanized.
01:25
first with spinning wheels, then looms.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 1:37 AM
For road vs rail: rail is better when you have a lot of cargo traveling long distances between value dense points. Roads are a lot cheaper to make, so they’ll be hauling shorter routes inside the rail network, and occasional long-haul stuff outside of it. Look at the Australian landtrains for examples
01:39
And again, a place doesn’t need to have more of a resource to be more efficient at mining and refining it
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:28 AM
So the picture in the 'poor' or 'resource-origin' worlds is more like China's factories than subsistence agriculture
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:33 AM
probably
02:34
After all, by your very own setting definitions, you need a significant investment of capital and trained workers into a world to make it habitable in the first place.
02:34
On account of the terraforming engines.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:40 AM
I should probably just goof off and have fun with world-models that fit the general description instead of being this uptight, then hack away
02:44
@0111narwhalz Because while it is helping me lock down some values, trying to work out everything from first principles upward is giving me paralysis
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:44 AM
Yeah, I know the feeling.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:45 AM
Sometimes I feel like I should just screw around with some of the values and just see what really sticks well, and tweak
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:45 AM
You've been stuck on the commerce thing for almost as long as I've been stuck on the linguistics thing.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:48 AM
Oh God conlangin
02:48
I've been playing Endless Sky a lot and it's been of some inspiration...
02:48
Maybe I should just read city profiles till an idea bounces around
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:49 AM
So what are you actually trying to do with this setting?
02:49
Write books, games, just assemble a setting for its own merit…?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:50 AM
I'm trying to write a story, of course
02:50
I keep having ideas for other things to do with it, but the story has become my main focus
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:50 AM
Do you have the bones of that story?
02:51
What needs to happen, who needs to do it, scenes you need to show, neat puns you've been holding onto for years…?
02:52
Let those guide the setting you're building, and let the setting guide the plot and characters and moments and even punmaking.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:52 AM
I know more or less how it begins and have the faintest idea how it ends
02:53
But all the parts in the middle remain opaque
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:53 AM
hell that's more'n I had when I started :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:53 AM
I was hoping that through working it out I'd be able to come up with a better answer
02:53
But it's becoming obvious that I can't just sit on ass and wait for them to come to me ex nihilo
02:54
I wanted to do the classic space opera tropes, but with a modern scientific sensibility and even perhaps a twist or two (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 2:54 AM
My first story stalled out hard because I didn't have a direction and the burning ideas could only carry me so far.
02:54
So did my second, and even my third :V
02:55
However, my latest one started with an outline.
02:56
I've been building the setting based on the holes in the outline, and that seems to be working pretty well.
02:57
So maybe consider sitting down with your start and end, and trying to work out the barest skeleton of an in-between?
02:57
Just to get the feedback loop started.
02:58
Maybe lean on how readers might expect your story to go, given the start and end.
02:59
If you don't like that, that's fine—subvert it.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 2:59 AM
and yeah, the setting should serve the story, not the other way around
02:59
and the readers will be reading the story, not the pages and pages of meticulously crafted climate data
03:00
"close enough" very much works
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:00 AM
oh man the climate data thing hits a little close to home :V
03:00
looks sheepishly at a world map
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:01 AM
I've been leaving mine intentionally vague for the important worlds
03:02
why? Because I'm building the relationships and nations I want first, crafting the map around them, and then doing some fiddling to make them fit together better
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:02 AM
My latest homeworld has five broad-strokes climatic regions.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:02 AM
I mean, I really don't need to do closing in on graduate thesis levels of studying and effort just for one lousy planet the readers may not even remember.
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:02 AM
(well, nine, but they're mirrored across the equator)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:02 AM
Artifexian finally did that video on climates a while ago
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:02 AM
But my world for a different setting has
03:02
like
03:02
rainfall and fishing and shit
03:03
(thanks Artifexian :V)
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:03 AM
yeah, and you can broadstrokes that too
03:04
strategic uses of mountain ranges and ocean currents takes care of about 90% of that (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:04 AM
But I justify that kind of detail because that world is the entire setting
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:05 AM
Wait
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:05 AM
ok yeah, that's a little different
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:05 AM
Except for faint glimmers of other planets in the system, but I don't need to care about them because telescopes are probably not a big thing in that world, much less spaceships.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:05 AM
You mean I don't have to obsess over whether it'd be totally realistic to include giant corporations or inconsistent government?
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:06 AM
You don't have to because both of those things are real
03:06
:V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:06 AM
I mean yeah in principle the amount of effort required to model all these fictional people and their relationships is way too much
03:06
Though I admit to wanting to be special in taking care to show that planets are planets and not just towns
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:06 AM
(have you ever seen consistency and government at the same party?)
03:07
The thing is, once you go crazy interstellar, it becomes harder and harder to show that.
03:08
Never mind planets—it's easy to stereotype countries by single towns.
03:09
That, I think, is why so few planets in scifi are multinational.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:10 AM
my excuse is most planets are colonial of some sort
03:10
but yeah, I love my balkanized ones, because they make for great proxy wars
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:10 AM
I'm not as ridiculously interstellar as a lot of settings
03:10
26 planetes bb
03:10
actually, 30, because
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:10 AM
Ah, with only a couple dozen you might be able to manage it :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:11 AM
yeah, but I took full advantage of it, e.g. as an excuse for why an entire legion (c. 7 million marines) would be on the ground for an extended duration
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:12 AM
For my part, my polities have hundreds of systems each, most of which have several "habitable" planetary-scale bodies with kraken alone knows how many lunar, asteroid, or outright drift habitats.
03:13
Though to be honest I haven't actually set any action on more than one planet :V
03:13
Most of it seems to take place shipside.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:14 AM
eh, I like my big ground fights
03:14
and it's fun coming up with ways to force them to happen
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There are THOUSANDS of reasons why a ground conflict could happen, I bet you could fill a whole book with the thousands of reasons for ground battles happening (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:14 AM
hm, that's not quite true—there were a couple of scenes on a planet being used as a forward operating base
03:15
thanks Tron :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:15 AM
not really? It's a setting with fast FTL and easy orbit-to-surface attack and transport
03:15
the big ground engagements are fun and interesting plot points, but they're pretty rare
03:16
just because there's rarely a reason to drop marines instead of doing the whole "I control the orbitals, surrender now" shtick
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:16 AM
I haven't written any big ground engagements :V
03:16
I should try that sometime.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:17 AM
The idea of the Breakup leading to a bunch of brushfire wars is interesting
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This is unrelated, but does this pique any interest? http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php#hegint
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:17 AM
Mostly because I just found out about the Toyota War and it is unintentionally hilarious
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:17 AM
Tron, you already linked that :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:18 AM
And most of us have already read Hegemony, or that article
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:18 AM
Is that the light trucks v. chicken one?
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It seemed to get lost in the sea of text information
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:18 AM
nah it got lost in the sea of unpiqued interest
03:18
:V
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:18 AM
...because it's safe to assume something on a main AR page has been read
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That makes sense
03:18
anyway, back to the topic
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:19 AM
especially, when it comes from a book that's less than 5 dollars and takes about 2 hours to read
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:19 AM
My new story—the one stuck in outlining because there are still holes in the setting—is likely to involve some ground combat.
03:20
Though it'll probably be either vehicular or "oh god get back to the vehicle"
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:22 AM
yeah, what sort of scale?
03:22
platoon, company, corps?
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:22 AM
Probably, uh, half a dozen individuals in one vehicle.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:22 AM
oh wow
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:23 AM
Habitual wasp nest pokers, you see.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:23 AM
so not even a regular military unit then, I take it
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:23 AM
TOYOTA WAR
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:23 AM
nah, they're techhunters
03:24
(they might find a Toyota, I dunno)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:24 AM
I swear, seeing the pictures of Hiluxes turned into technicals is genuinely straight out of George Miller's imagination
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:24 AM
(somehow the Commonwealth Saga got published with contemporary auto manufacturer names in it)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:25 AM
I'm referring to that thing that happened in Chad
03:25
The Toyota War (Arabic: حرب تويوتا‎ Ḥarb Tūyūtā, French: Guerre des Toyota) or Great Toyota War was the last phase of the Chadian–Libyan conflict, which took place in 1987 in Northern Chad and on the Libyan–Chadian border. It takes its name from the Toyota...
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:25 AM
yeah?
03:25
what's so surprising about another set of Hilux technicals?
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:26 AM
hey that truck is over its weight limit someone should pull it over
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:26 AM
they're cheap, ubiquitous, and hard to break
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:26 AM
@MarcusAurelius that image in particular is compelling
03:26
as in, the post-Breakaway war dragged on so long they ran out of actual military equipment and just commandeer whatever's around
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:28 AM
a lot harder to do in space
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:29 AM
I mean, insofar as anything moving sufficiently fast will explode you…
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:30 AM
what makes you think every conflict will be in space? >:3
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:30 AM
Alternatively, Jon's law suggests that in space, even civvie equipment will be weapons-grade.
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:31 AM
true, I guess I was assuming individual colonies were unlikely to fragment
03:31
that's going to be a lot of civvies deaths, open street fighting on non-shirtsleeve worlds
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:31 AM
(well, maybe not weapons-grade, but definitely dangerous)
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:32 AM
eh, Jon's law and the Kzinti lesson are both pretty exaggerated
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:32 AM
@MarcusAurelius you know I'm taking notes from the Warring States period right
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:33 AM
...oh shit
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:33 AM
Well, a comms maser array designed to beam across many AUs could probably cause some unpleasant effects at a mere lightsecond, no?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:33 AM
I'm literally reading War of the Three Kingdoms alongside everything else
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:34 AM
uh, Three Kingdoms and Warring states are separate periods
03:34
@0111narwhalz not particularly? they're usually not that strong compared to a combat laser, and likely wouldn't be built on wavelengths and pulse timings designed for damage
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:35 AM
it's not clear in my head soooooo
03:35
and at any rate, the yellow turban rebellion lasted 20 years
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:35 AM
Not compared to a combat laser, no, but still unpleasant to other civvie ships.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:35 AM
and that was in one country, with ancient weapons, on earth
03:35
funtimes ahead
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:35 AM
just remember
03:36
it's not ‼fun‼ until the magma flows
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:36 AM
yeah, in ancient territory where farmers could reasonable compete with a militia in terms of firepower
03:36
and where the central state was reliant on horseback riders for messaging
03:37
some things don't carry over very well across time, most notably the increasing concentration of force in the central state. You really can't raise a rebel army to rival the existing government without co-opting their military
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:38 AM
total anarchy and collapse of order ftw
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:39 AM
even then, you're not going to see it start like the yellow turbans
03:39
warlordism doesn't really work in a modern society
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:39 AM
somalia
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:40 AM
step 1: downgrade society from modern-ness
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:41 AM
Somalia never had a modern central government
03:42
and also, China was a contiguous landmass, which meant people, resources, and information could travel relatively freely. How is an empire wide rebellion going to start with the Imperial forces controlling the stargates?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:42 AM
..yeet
03:42
to be fair I think Argonbalt was referring more to the fact things could degenerate into a quagmire
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:43 AM
what did he say?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 3:46 AM
"ok so you are somewhat aware you are setting up a boiling cauldron of a potential localized warlord mega war period which on Earth lasts usually a lifetime, god knows what the hell multi systems conflict would entail"
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:48 AM
ah
03:48
yeah, I imagined a cleaner break along the lines of the Stargate branches, but I didn't know of the Yellow Spacesuiters
03:51
but back to the earlier bit, @0111narwhalz I wasn't talking a big infantry on infantry pike-square duel, it's a full on Combined Arms affair the size of the eastern front
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 3:52 AM
I'd expect nothing less :V
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 3:53 AM
The biggest pure infantry fights ("pure" in this case still counting organic drone and support weapons) is company and maybe battalion scale fighting
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 4:05 AM
I don’t like spilling so much
04:05
I sometimes fear it may damage my motivation
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MarcusAurelius 07/16/2019 4:06 AM
how so? We'd still read anyway for the deets
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 4:06 AM
As in telling other people your goals can make it a social reality
04:07
I.e that guy who just tells other people his novel plots at dinner parties and never uses em
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 4:07 AM
Bizarro: not enough pixels
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 4:09 AM
04:10
This hires enough?
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 4:10 AM
yep
04:11
I mean, I kinda need other people to bounce my ideas off of to maintain my motivation.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 4:12 AM
Same here to an extent but
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0111narwhalz 07/16/2019 4:12 AM
I like to withold the most fun details for strategic deployment.
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@BizarroLand ♀ The Warring States period was 600-400 years before the Three Kingdoms era and led to the rise of the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang. (He titled himself “huángdi”, the previous Zhou dynasty used “wáng”, typically translated as “king”)
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About the Hegemony HAKV: Is such a craft a viable concept in real world engineering? It seems pretty plausible, apart from ability to maintain beam position on the fighter, and it certainly boosts combat effectiveness to have a pilot on board, the weight and g-survivability problems being marvellously solved by just uploading the pilots mindstate into a substrate. The mass and volume problems of fitting a drive system is migitated by locating the energy source on the booster ship, allowing more weapons to be fitted to the craft the Interceptor just needs propellant and gimballing hardware, it only has to carry a small amount of backup fuel during times when the laser propulsion system isn't available for any reason. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 1:07 PM
@MarcusAurelius I mean it's not like that's not going to happen
13:07
but groundside divisions will turn ugly as well
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My question has remained unanswered, caught in the ever crashing and churning sea of posted comments and un-piqued interest!! (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:14 PM
14:14
@Unknown if its an uploaded crew its not manned
14:15
my problem is though
14:16
is biological existence even still viable when synethetic or infolife is so much better from any perspective
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You need help with map issues?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 2:16 PM
this isnt my map bruh
14:16
i stole it from atlasoftheuniverse.com as a guide
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In my opinion; Biological substrates are able to access an easily obtained energy gradient, notably oxygen. They also have a very distributed energy conversion system (edited)
14:18
Concerning infolife; Infolife still needs a substrate to exist in, it would help if that substrate was also able to self loco-motivate (edited)
14:20
Now synthlife; Synthlife, as any functional form of life employs self-replication and vital metabolic processes to function properly, falls into the same category as biological life, in terms of cellular anatomy (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 4:50 PM
The Empire is a huge space to wage war in still, although the speed of modern war will mean it's probably not going to be quite so dragged out
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sdschildberg 07/16/2019 5:43 PM
The new marvel theory is that tony either sent a fork to endgame or has a fork/backup (even as infolife) ready. Tony stans are calling it Him
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My setting is an extension of the current space program, taken over by exploitative corporations that got around liability waivers by vat-growing their own workforce, which rebelled and ditched Sol to hunker down on planets in the three closest star systems. Then eight hundred years later Alpha Centauri build a space elevator.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 8:45 PM
uh
20:50
the closest stars are
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Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 8:50 PM
after A Cen there's Barnards Star and Wolf 359
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Real stars. I doubt red dwarfs can support habitable planets
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/16/2019 8:52 PM
closest stars of type K/G then?
20:54
yeah, red dwarves are just ridiculously numerous
20:55
I had to cut down the ones in Tiffverse down to only M2V and above and still they are 44% of all inhabited systems
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:15 AM
Still I'm tearing my hair out figuring what's complex, needs many resources and requires of small army of laborers that isn't computers
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high end mechanical components, steel/high grade alloy composites
00:17
reactor containment vessels, for example
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:20 AM
okay
00:20
Increasingly though it does look like agriculture is something that will have to be autarky
00:20
Or even agricultural luxuries
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:21 AM
If your transit times are short enough—and it looks like they are—you can probably ship shelf-stable staples like cereals and root vegetables.
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if your travel times are a month or less you can definitely ship grains, tubers, other similar sorts, without any real issue
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The whole point of grain as a foodstuff is that it will last in a box for more than a few months
00:26
You can make granaries
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:27 AM
uhhhh
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(What? other stuff is higher-yield to my understanding, but grain stores really well even in very low-tech scenarios, so it makes sense to grow grain so that you can store it over the winter?)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:30 AM
I still don't know how long it should take to go from LEO to ESL4/5
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:30 AM
Shipping food, especially cereals, is advantageous because then you don't have to worry about making huge areas of your otherwise industrial planet arable.
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I would expect a industrial, non-garden world to use hydroponics etc as a primary food source
00:31
Or vat algae etc
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grains are also a product that can't be produced anywhere, benefits from large economies of scale, isn't immediately perishable and can be processed on-site for consumption
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:32 AM
Algae tanks or 'ponics are great, but if shipping food around is cheaper than maintaining your own growing environment…
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Yeah, but that's improbable (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:32 AM
(which can be a pain in, say, an orbital hab)
00:32
(on account of "oh no the algae mutated")
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as well, just because you can make hydropondics work for a lot of things, people will still want and pay for variety.
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Shipping bulk goods is hard
00:32
Space doesn't like mass
00:32
As a secondary concern
00:33
Anywhere which wants independance is going to be trying to grow enough food domestically to sustain itself
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:33 AM
If you have sufficiently advanced torchy fusion drives, you can care less about mass.
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Because the alternative is being part of the hegemony of whoever can embargo your food imports
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and for cargo that isn't immediately perishable, you can make the tradeoff between mass and speed
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:34 AM
52-120 kt
00:34
For ships that are (neo)Panamax
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if your cargo is good for 4-6 months under moderately controlled conditions, then you can do larger volumes at lower delta v.
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What's the shipping cost per ton though?
00:34
Implictly cheap
00:34
Because that's a lot of volume
00:34
But is that a fact?
00:35
(And again - do look at it as a political as well as economic problem)
00:35
(Control the bread, you control the people)
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:36 AM
you can't eat reactor containment vessels
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:36 AM
There's D-He3 fusion, advanced
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okay, some quick-ish googling states that your average cost of shipping one tonne of grain from the USA to Europe was $30 USD in 2017
00:37
as in spot sale rate, not cost
00:37
US gulf of mexico to Japan was at 43
00:38
in 2017, that probably represents only 2-4% over cost, if that.
00:38
that's how cheap it can be to ship bulk cargo.
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Oceanic shipping is much easier and cheaper than orbital shipping though
00:39
But yes
00:39
What that says to me is more "this is how cheap your orbital shipping needs to be"
00:39
Than "Shipping is inherently cheap" (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:39 AM
@Xveers I can't figure out how long it takes
00:39
eeeee
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@Archon I work in shipping. let me tell you that it is cheap.
00:41
your startup capital costs can be pretty high, but your actual operating costs are surprisingly low
00:41
an average bulk/container ship requires at most 15 crew. A lot of modern ships cut this by a third
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https://www.searates.com/services/distances-time/ @BizarroLand ♀ rough numbers. Bulk freight moves around 12-15 knots. Container ships can move 20-25
Distances & Time
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:42 AM
@Xveers My fusion drives are about 30meganewtons
00:42
A 50 kton ship could accelerate at about 0.5g or so
00:43
Maybe about 0.3g idk
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:43 AM
The issue is more of "what does it take to ship something" vs "how can I calibrate my scifi shipping costs to be economically viable"
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:44 AM
After eyeballing with the Nomogram I think most ships would take only a week or even just a few days to get over to the stargate
00:44
And without using up too much of their fuel
00:45
It shows 5AU at 4 weeks or so
00:45
So most worlds are definitely less than 6 months apart
00:46
Many perhaps even less than 1 month
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in that case the real challenge is honestly getting things from planetside into geosynch or the like
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:46 AM
(50kt + 30Mn = 0.4g, abouts? 3 Mm/s with 0.4g and at 5au = ~4wks to 1 month?)
00:49
You can do the Project Pluto thing with a fusion reactor
00:49
So planetside isn't even that difficult
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:51 AM
Laser atmospheric/ablative seems to be the most practical lifter technology, as far as I can see.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 12:51 AM
🤢 beamed propulsion...
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 12:51 AM
hey it's multipurpose
00:52
also clears debris
00:52
and if you happen to have something that needs to be made into debris…
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 1:34 AM
I mean to get back to the main point
01:34
Every planet probably has to feed itself
01:35
Most countries must feed themselves irl
01:35
But that doesn't mean higher-value or luxury food products can't be traded
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most countries could feed themselves, but a lot of them focus down onto specific food types.
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:40 AM
a lot of countries are net food importers, because it's cheaper and agricultural land can get very expensive when you need enough to feed millions of people
02:40
even China is a net importer
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Why not stack the land and make agri-towers? More food for less volume (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:41 AM
it doesn't mean they couldn't feed themselves in the event it became necessary, but it's cheaper and easier to import food from other places (e.g., the US and our glut of grain, the many fruit producing coutnries, etc.)
02:41
that's even more expensive
02:41
IRL, it's cheaper to just import than deal with the massive start up costs (edited)
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Well, it does allow for more food per square metre
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:42 AM
that's not the point
02:42
the point is native production is more expensive for most countries, land area being the way that usually manifests
02:42
it's not impossible, but risky and expensive
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agri towers are also substantially more expensive per foot of farmland
02:42
if you have the space, why bother?
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:44 AM
even in the worst case scenario, you'd see a lot of non-staples (meats, fruits, veggies, a large variety of processed products) imported, because you can't or it's even more prohibitively expeninsive to make locally
02:44
that's basically how the modern economy works, you take things from where they're cheap to make and take them to where they sell for more
02:45
in Bizarro's case, the home system, and later the early colonies at the top of the stargate tree will have a massive headstart over the later colonies, so they can probably produce a lot of goods cheaper
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:51 AM
@MarcusAurelius also remember the luck of the draw
02:52
most colonies are terraformed planets but that doesnt mean some of them wont have shitty weather for growing or ranching staples
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:54 AM
eh, you can take care of staple calories pretty much anywhere, with hydroponic algae in the worst case scenario in place of rice and/or wheat. While those might be economical to ship, everything else has a much lower cutoff to be economical
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:54 AM
I guess the staple calories are a problem that solves itself, in the form of "you've gotta make air and deal with wastes somehow" (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:55 AM
yep, plus they're the easiest problem to solve
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:55 AM
imagine if you end up with a world where, due to the high axial tilt, all the land is technically in the arctic circle
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:55 AM
people don't really care that much about the taste of the rice/grains, etc., it's job early on is pure caloric intake (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:55 AM
funny you should mention a world with high axial tilt
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:55 AM
in that case, hydoponics ftw
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:56 AM
I've got one of 'em, and the arable land is primarily between 20° and 30° latitude.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:56 AM
food=morale
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:56 AM
because the IRL artic circle peoples use basically a pure meat and fish diet that is hell on the digestive system, and hard to emulate without a native and compatible biosphere
02:57
the rice and wheat don't add much to the taste. They're easily masked with protein sources, and more importantly veggies and spices
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:57 AM
Local geography extends it poleward and, uh, equatorward, but the poles are hellscapes and nothing grows on the ice belts because it's just always slightly below freezing.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:57 AM
like the real world?
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:57 AM
like, you could get most people to eat algae-tofu as their main calorie source, if you spiced it and added enough extras around it
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:58 AM
No, because Earth's equatorial region is kinda hot and wet all the time.
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:58 AM
no, on Earth crops are growable from the equator through to the edge of the arctice circle
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:58 AM
Not the violent, almost deliberately pasteurizing hell of this planet's polar wastes.
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 2:59 AM
you can grow a lot of veggies with greenhouses, but even on earth you can basically only get your leafy greens to grow that far north
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:00 AM
extras like?
03:00
and spiced it with what?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:00 AM
My setting has "crispies" :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:01 AM
🌶
03:01
💰
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:01 AM
any sort of veggies (leafy greens are easy to grow) and basically anything
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:01 AM
fuck
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:01 AM
They're a mixture of the stuff the algae and synthmeat wouldn't eat, a few micronutrients out of the ship's stores, and a hilarious amount of spices.
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:01 AM
like, peppers, spice mixes, cilantro, soy, anything
03:01
anything to add flavor
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:02 AM
Mostly the Federation Vacuum Navy doesn't have freefall ships, but they never quite got over the old days of "spicer" cuisine.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:03 AM
so
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:03 AM
for a more developed example, you might see dishes like 麻婆豆腐/ mapo tofu, where a small amount of meat and spices is used to make tofu taste a lot better
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:03 AM
(which is a pun I just made up on the spot and no, I don't regret it)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:03 AM
tilapia onigiri and teriyaki sauce?
03:03
star-sake
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:03 AM
yeah, basically
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Please don't
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:04 AM
starke
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:04 AM
I'd cook it though, tilapia IIRC isn't too safe raw, and most people would prefer the taste cooked anyway
03:04
star-sake?
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The last name we need is "sprew"
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:04 AM
?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:04 AM
if you're gonna sprew, sprew in this (edited)
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I think it's sake, but space brewed
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:05 AM
(not to be confused with sprue, which is a plastic fastener)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:05 AM
@MarcusAurelius I'm practiced at eating tilapia
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I think space-sake would be a better name, because star-sake implies it was brewed near or with the help of the sun
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:05 AM
I don't like it but I can live with it
03:05
@Unknown spaceke
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Seveneves has a bad name for space brew
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:06 AM
it sounds cool
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:06 AM
If you spice tilapia properly, and blacken it, it's really good
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"sprew"
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:06 AM
also, sake isn't brewed
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:06 AM
but I dunno how hard it would be to acquire paprika in space
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:07 AM
wait whoops nvm
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:07 AM
I am Hispanic but teriyaki has become my number 1 chicken preparation
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:07 AM
got the two processes backwards for a seconds
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:07 AM
oh probably not very
03:07
sweet
03:07
just bell peppers
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:07 AM
I eat it every time I get the chance
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3d-printed pizza anyone?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:07 AM
Tron, please
03:07
if you're going to make a food printer it's gotta be tacos
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Assuming you can grow meat in space, you could still have some varied dishes
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:08 AM
you don't need meat
03:08
fish, tofu, and algae-based protein can get you far
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:08 AM
you do if you want a good diet :^)
03:08
>tofu
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:08 AM
fish is a subset of meat though
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:09 AM
western cooking is a little too reliant on meat as the main ingredient taste wise, you can do a lot without it nutritionally
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:09 AM
so you're telling me that spacemen will be soyboys
03:09
XD
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SF has an obsession with soy AFAIK (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:09 AM
it grows well, has a lot of food uses, and can be used as a a staple protein source
03:09
it's not the end all be all, but it's pretty useful
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I still think vat grown meat is better
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
SSSSOOOOOOYYYYBOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYEEEEEE
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
that's a lot harder to do, tron
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
🤣
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
we can make tofu now (edited)
03:10
we don't really know how to make vat meat
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
We can also make vitromeat.
03:10
It's only like $30 for a burger.
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We are starting to make plant based meat now
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
Does vitromeat not taste like garbage yet
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
Which is horribly expensive, but not "only available to labs" expensive.
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:10 AM
^meat substitute tron, not the smae thing
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If it tastes the same, it's good for me
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:11 AM
the problem is right now it's expensive to make
03:11
for cultured meat, that is. Plant based stuff... I don't see the point, I'd rather just eat them in the original form
03:12
rice and beans gets you pretty much everything you need, or tofu, or whatever else you use
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Astronauts will have different tastes, although this depends on how well they can adapt to the new diet
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:13 AM
eh, you can spice it to the point you can't tell
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So you pick astros that can adapt
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:13 AM
and very few people object to all of rice and beans, tofu, and fish (edited)
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...or just bring spices
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:13 AM
real astronauts can't taste anything but the spiciest, because all their blood's in their head
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:14 AM
which means again, bring spices, bring a lot, and use them liberally
03:14
which is also a good market for interstellar shipping, for Bizarro's setting
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:14 AM
(which is why spacer cuisine will be "overspiced" once artgrav appears)
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badoom csh
03:14
badoom csh?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:14 AM
ō.o
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:14 AM
@Unknown what joke is there? value dense, shelf stable for the most part, and very sueful
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:15 AM
[doubtful rimshot]
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I thought he made a pun on "overpriced"
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:15 AM
hah you think my puns are so nuanced
03:15
V:
03:17
When thrust gravity becomes common, which in my setting probably comes well before artgrav, you might see some hilarious incidents where hypersensitive spacers accidentally eat freefall meals under thrust.
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:18 AM
ouch
03:18
but overspicing is also used when the food is less than tasty on its own, i.e. MRE's
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"That's a spicy meatball"
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:18 AM
unless you're Steve1989
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:19 AM
To steve1989 decades of age is the spice
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:20 AM
"time spice"
03:20
he had a better name but someone else owns that trademark
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:22 AM
wait, he used to have a different name?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:22 AM
I don't know
03:22
I don't know the guy at all
03:23
I'm just making shit up because it sounds neat
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MarcusAurelius 07/17/2019 3:23 AM
nah, it sounds like him
03:23
he's a guy who reviews MREs sometimes upwards of a hundred years old on youtube
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 1:54 PM
he ate a 19th century boer war ration once
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/17/2019 2:00 PM
Wow.
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I wonder if it tasted like rations, but with a hint of "old object" dust?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 2:10 PM
It's amazing what proper canning can do.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:16 PM
So
14:16
I printed out the Nomogram and filled in the values
14:16
50ktons + 30 MN = 0.4m/s acceleration
14:17
0.4m/s + 1AU = 500km/s fuel, 2 week travel time almost exactly
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Huh! Well that's pretty convenient
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:24 PM
I haven't figured out exactly how far Earth-Sun L4/L5 are from Earth itself but I think it's safe to say it's possible to propel ships equal in mass to current cargo ships with a good mass ratio in a matter of days (edited)
14:25
500km/s is only maybe a seventh of the 3500km/s of flow-stabilized Z-Pinch
14:25
@Xveers so what does it look lie nao
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Perhaps some of us could design a warship resupply network sometime in the near future?
14:28
The concept should at least partially incorporate a laser thermal network
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@BizarroLand ♀ travel times for the mass look pretty good. Looks viable with otherwise modern technology for orbit to orbit
14:28
For anything non-perishable it's totally good.
14:31
Earth-sun L4 can't be more than 1.5 AU in a circular course. Mind you I have no idea how to plot orbital flight paths, but it should be entirely viable based on what you've said
14:32
Assuming a somewhat more advanced tech base and with centralized maintenance (already becoming common with modern freighters) you can probably halve a modern crew compliment. Say 8 guys total
14:34
Master Two officers mates Chief engineer Two engineers One cargo master One deckhand
14:35
Possibly one steward/cook/life support tech
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:36 PM
The ship's shape should probably just be whatever's most convenient for stevedoring since space does not have hydro or aerodynamic concerns
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This is assuming one bridge watch stander at all times, with the engineering crew all doing one 8 hours watch and using automatics to monitor during off hours
14:41
Yeah, you'd have the cargo frame arranged spinally, drives at one end, with crew compartments depending on how much radiation your drive cranks out that cant be shielded
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 2:41 PM
I think we may be able to get away with using actual intermodal containers but I'm not sure if they woul handle taking off from a planet very well
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Should be abe to.... Main concerns would be the acceleration forces during launch
14:43
But you'd be thinking about that for your cargo anyhow
14:44
No good if your container can take 30g of accel when the cargo can only handle 10
14:50
So it's possible to move spacecraft equivalent in mass to today's cargo ships, and it is economical to move large cargoes between planets
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:06 PM
@Xveers In other words, planets may even be economically 'closer' than today's countries
15:08
Carrying in bulk, for luxuries or for consumer goods is entirely feasible. Problem solved
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Spoiler alert. It already is :)
15:08
It's really kind of frightening how interconnected to pretty much everyone is as far as trade goes
15:09
Even with the current US political climate, international trade is massive.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:09 PM
I mean in-setting
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:11 PM
Though then the other bugaboo pops up
15:12
Why not build free-space habitats and produce goods from those rather than go through the rigmarole of scouting out worlds and knocking thousands of comets onto a collision course, growing soil etc. associated with terraforming
15:13
My answer so far is a lack of the automation technology necessary to make habitation in space stations plausible for the greatest bulk of the populace
15:16
In the mid-to-long term, housing large populations on habitable planets, which are reasonably self-maintaining, may prove yet cheaper than the extensive technological and logistical subsidy that must be provided to habs
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sdschildberg 07/17/2019 3:16 PM
Earthlikes dont break down from lack of mantinence, only odd use cases
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/17/2019 3:21 PM
Also, you get gravity for free.
15:21
(well, "free" - it has its own costs)
15:21
And for some use cases, you want some gravity, even if your population can endure microgravity indefinitely
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sdschildberg 07/17/2019 3:22 PM
It also perserves sanity
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/17/2019 3:23 PM
True, assuming you can't hack around that with psychdesign
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:24 PM
sanity is overrated
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/17/2019 3:24 PM
(Or that your workarounds are sufficiently imperfect as to be significantly inferior to just providing the missing inputs)
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 3:24 PM
[gibbers quietly]
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@BizarroLand ♀ Habitats are the cheaper short term solution for establishing a presence in an area, but if you're looking for long term growth and production its hard to beat a full size planet. An environment that you don't have to continuously check filters or maintain religiously is always welcome. The sheer amount of space you have available so that everything doesn't have to overlap everything else, that you can just expand elsewhere without having to do the infrastructure to just be able to breathe.... That can count for a lot
15:35
As well as the general lower tech cost and ability to make use of cheaper, denser materials (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:39 PM
Yeah
15:39
Although I have the current Imperial Terraforming Service's record at 50 years to a habitable atmosphere for a best-case scenario
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Like i said, it's a long term investment
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:40 PM
Fusion propulsion + cometary/ice bombardment is my favored method, and only a handful of planets are truly suitable for the purpose
15:41
Several petatons of atmosphere iirc. About 1/100th of Enceladus mass or along those lines
15:41
Hardly impossible for a gargantuan economy but not a small undertaking by any means
15:41
Most of the time is probably spent nudging blocks of ice on long, slow routes that will eventually collide with the target world
15:48
@Xveers I think what this has shown me is that there is no need for an entirely new MacGuffinite if your travel times are aright
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Pretty much. Is always nice to see the math works out
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 3:49 PM
Germanium and wine are perfectly good MacGuffinite XD
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Booze and rare earth elements. Sounds legit. You sure you aren't just making Battletech? ;P
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:00 PM
wait thats what battletech did
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Germanium specifically :)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:02 PM
Though I'm still not sure if planets may be colonized only to provide goods to a burgeoning/overcrowded world nearby
16:02
And I'm not sure about my 10billion offhand figure either;
16:02
on some worlds, as little as 100 million and the habitable space may be close to filled up already
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:08 PM
Consider how much easier it is to lift from airless bodies.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:09 PM
Poor land distribution, bad weather
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:09 PM
Airless bodies, of course, make it more difficult to grow crops or do several kinds of industries, especially those with lots of heat output.
16:10
But they might be better sources of bulk goods, like metals or whatnot.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:10 PM
An alternative I have partially explored through Alpha Tigris VI.b is, well, a kind of world like Titan
16:10
Cryonitrogen atmo and water as magma
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:10 PM
Reducing atmosphere?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:10 PM
AT VIIb plays host to around 2-3 billion people (edited)
16:11
Not a small fry
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:11 PM
I should think not, it being the capitol.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:12 PM
It's the capital system
16:13
Airless worlds are not completely out of the running but they have the same problem (long logistical trains, maintenance costs relatively much higher per capita)
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:13 PM
True, however I think specialist industries may prefer them to such a degree that they are still useful.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2019 4:15 PM
AT Vb is a miniscule world
16:15
It's twice as large as our own Moon in the night sky because of its closeness, but it has 1/10th a g
16:15
And about half the size if I recall the math correctly
16:18
@0111narwhalz airless cultures may be... interesting
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:19 PM
They might become accustomed to the hum of the ventilators.
16:21
Being on a shirtsleeve world, with no artificial circulation, would probably be nerve-wracking.
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 4:35 PM
Hang windchimes just so they know the air is moving.
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sdschildberg 07/17/2019 4:36 PM
Hyperwoke: they need to have earbuds with ac vent sounds and windchimes playing when outside. And you bet that they jump at gusts of wind
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sdschildberg 07/17/2019 9:30 PM
The average spacer is terrified of things going wrong, and needs to know whats going on.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/17/2019 9:35 PM
Yeah, hypervigilance might become a problem.
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My setting doesn't really have the whole "habitat-versus-planet" debate, for one reason: It's fully posthuman
23:27
That means most people only exist as uploaded or artificial digital minds, and can live anywhere with a computing substrate
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You mean they don't have weird legacy decisions made by thier non posthuman ancestors that they have to live with because cleaning up precedent is impossible?
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0111narwhalz 07/17/2019 11:51 PM
One of my factions settled that debate very firmly, in the "habitat" direction.
23:51
The Union of Created Intelligences doesn't do planets, or even stars.
23:52
It does do nebulæ, though.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/18/2019 8:11 AM
For me, both are pretty common, and the majority of the factions still consist of near-baselines. The Argent Realm and the (artifact-named) Solar Belter Consortium has most of their population in habs, but both have a few planets, and their capitols are planetside.
08:12
The Consortium's name is an artifact because it's neither centered on Sol, based in the Asteroid Belt, nor a consortium of independent companies anymore, though at one time all of those things were true. (edited)
08:14
(Now it should probably be described as something like the Ultima Thule Republic, but for a variety of reasons, all attempts at renaming have foundered on one piece of donut-headed politics or another.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 2:11 PM
I think here's a more interesting question to chew on
14:11
It looks like the distribution of stars within spiral arms is pretty much nearly even, with no large voids or gulfs without stars to provide interesting galactic geography
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/18/2019 2:16 PM
Depending on how your interstellar travel works, that is.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 2:16 PM
Hyperlanes are the main mode of travel
14:16
But they're artificial. But but they're expensive to make (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/18/2019 2:16 PM
A jump node map needn't have any bearing on the actual distances in real space between stars. Contrariwise, if you're going STL, even a short extra distance can feel like a yawning gap
14:17
Artificial hyperlanes, so they have to be laid STL?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 2:17 PM
There's free-flying FTL and that can be taken advantage of
14:17
But
14:18
It's also continent-bankruptingly expensive so it's reserved for surveyors and linelayers
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/18/2019 2:18 PM
So yeah, even a small extra distance in real space could be quite isolating.
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If it's continent-bankrupting, how did they pay for the research to discover it originally?
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sdschildberg 07/18/2019 4:09 PM
🤔🤔🤔🤔
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 4:46 PM
It's been known about since antiquity
16:46
16:46
Anyway, star clusters may break up the monotony
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Wait, how would you know about stupidly expensive FTL travel for thousands of years before you had even figured out what the speed of light was?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 4:59 PM
this setting takes place so far removed from the present time that to them the original discovery of FTL is quite literally ancient history
16:59
(~2000 years) (edited)
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one of those "we've misplaced the original earth by now" stories?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 5:15 PM
...
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Your settings main culture is something of a curiosity: FTL, yet pervasive, culture ingrained technophobia leading to extremely slow growth. I predict their (conservative at best) cultural values will eventually lead to their demise, whatever form it takes.
17:32
I will post this as a fanfic character comment
17:33
"The Alpha Tigris culture is something of a curiosity, a curious gem in the encroaching dark: FTL, yet pervasive, culture ingrained technophobia leading to extremely slow growth. I predict their (conservative at best) cultural values will eventually lead to their demise, whatever form it takes." (edited)
17:34
Phil Ordway, commenting on Alpha Tigris' cultural values in a speech during a live broadcast. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 5:46 PM
@o11o1 not exactly
17:46
the 'current' i.f.e date is around 2000
17:46
but i.f.e. calendar starts in 1999 AD for reasons
17:48
the colonists left Solsys a millenium before the events of the main story
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 5:59 PM
@Unknown ... it's Tiffanian
17:59
😛
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/18/2019 8:50 PM
I'm minorly flattered but
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Those maps are awesome @BizarroLand ♀ how are you making them?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/19/2019 9:48 AM
What map
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Hmm, what would you say might constitute "posthuman" in a setting with no brain uploading or sapient AI, but with ubiquitous nanotech immortagens and BCIs?
19:06
I'm thinking of becoming a hive mind of clones or jacking your meat-brain into a quantum server.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/19/2019 7:09 PM
Is a traditional monarchy even a stable system of star nation sovereingty
19:09
:^) alliteration
19:10
The entire concept of traditional monarchy, with minor differences, is that the State is considered the private ...estate... of one family, handed down from parent to child from generation to generation into hopefully eternity
19:11
The Breakaways are definitely not winding up as anything close to what we would consider republics, but unstable third world autocracies are not a good longterm modl
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Technically what you're describing is a feudal monarchy, which isn't a state so much as a collection of estates.
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Western Europe didn't have any states bigger than a city between the fall of the Empire and the rise of absolutism in the 15th century. What Caesar willed to Octavian wasn't the state of Rome, but the cash and lands to fund an army and seize it.
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Stability largely depends on how long it takes the armies to reach the rebels.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/19/2019 7:52 PM
what about charlemagne
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Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Rome because the Pope didn't like the Empress at the time.
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MarcusAurelius 07/20/2019 3:00 AM
Also, Charlemagne's realm was still feudal, if not as complex as the HRE would get (edited)
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I mean, posthuman existence only requires not being human, so there's plenty of parts of bioengineering, biological neuronal engineering, brain prosthetics and such?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/21/2019 5:46 PM
wait
17:47
flying cars just need powerful enough ducted fans?
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MarcusAurelius 07/21/2019 8:52 PM
and better guidance, among other things
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/22/2019 1:03 PM
Oh and now it occurs to me that the Tiffs even did the exodus fleet thing Kerensky did
13:03
I really am making battletech all over again oh god XD
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sdschildberg 07/22/2019 1:33 PM
Anime X battletech memes are good enough
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0111narwhalz 07/26/2019 1:27 AM
So my mates and I have been busy with some stuff behind the scenes of our setting: namely a big rebrand. I've talked about the Ailevérse a lot over the past $TIME—though it didn't have that name at the time—but it's been in something of a state of flux for the majority of that period, so I didn't really feel like linking it until now. With the rebrand complete and the canon feeling a little more concrete, I'd like to invite you in. Features of the Ailevérse include: Moral relativity; Casual violation of causality via FTL because it's close enough; The occasional planet-glassing; and a long timeline. https://discord.gg/hRv6yq8
Invite to join a server
Guild icon
border-checkpoint
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 2:27 PM
There was a bit of a discussion here a while back about the possibility that particle beam/particle accelerator weapons could have longer range than folks had expected. Does anyone have any good numbers on that?
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MarcusAurelius 07/26/2019 2:53 PM
@Jade Nekotenshi I’m on mobile so can’t link it, but I’d go read the ToughSF blog post on the matter, or bug @Unknown or @Kerr
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Perfect numbers? No, would have to ask Gerrit for an actual design.
14:55
But yeah, a charged electron beam with extreme gamma factor for the particles, achived at GeV and beyond levels, can range megameters, tens and hundreds of megameters and thus effectively light seconds plus.
14:55
They're also the most easily achived particle beams there are. Alternatively, you have well neutralized atom particle beams, from hydrogen to heavier nuclids. Those are harder to make and slower, but they also achive light second ranges.
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Range is often light-lag limited at the upper end. Our best metric for range is the divergence of the beam, which can is in the dozens of nanoradian for neutralized ion beams and hundreds of picoradian and less for ultra relativistic electron beams.
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To note: your particle energy influences divergence of an extreme-gamma e-beam.
14:59
a multi-GeV e-beam doesn't have the same range as a 1-2 TeV e-beam.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 2:59 PM
Broadly, then, particle beams could have effective ranges similar to visible-frequency lasers?
15:00
Or even a little better. maybe
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Exceeding.
15:00
VF-lasers can achive the same ranges, but they'll need large arrays/lenses.
15:01
The cross-section of a comparative particle beam is far smaller, emitter-wise.
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Not really. Generally we can expect neutralized ion beams to have similiar range to soft xray lasers.
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an e-beam LINAC needs length, tho.
15:01
N-beams can be, by Gerrit recent word, looped into spiraling shapes, for reducing length extension.
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Did he really state that?
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Yep. Check #beams
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I glossed over it, but I could swear he talked about sensible linacs connected using a pair of half circles that bend the beam in.
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When we talked about PAW arnaments for 4 kt Orion.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 3:03 PM
Hmm. That does change things up.
15:04
Electron beams wouldn't be horribly hard to shield against compared to lasers, I wouldn't think. But that still means folks don't need to get into knife-fighting ranges to use particle weapons
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Electrons beam are actually terrible, due to their nature they usually are high energy and produce cascading particle showers including large amounts of neutrons and gamma rays.
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Electron beams are nasty.
15:06
Absolutely, absolutely nasty.
15:06
Highly penetrative, losts of radiations and particle showers.
15:07
get enough energy, and they also deal pulse laser-like material damage by heating and plasma aggitation.
15:07
Some few dozen KW of e-beam PAW are enough to instantly kill a person on a killshot.
15:08
You can armor - to a degree - with electron radiation resistant materials. Tungsten and hydrogen-rich polymers.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 3:08 PM
What about magnetic fields?
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If you can place them halfway between shooter and yourself, you might stand a chance.
15:09
Otherwise... beams too... "inertial".
15:09
It will penetrate through the field without significant deflection.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 3:12 PM
Basically the beam is moving too fast and the field doesn't give it enough shove, so it just doesn't deflect enough in the time it has, kinda like the problem some kinetic-barrier variants have with hypervelocity kinetics?
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Basically.
15:13
You'd need quite an absurdly strong field at enough of a stand-off range, as I understand, to achive sufficient deflection
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 3:17 PM
So, no useful protection other than assloads of armor unless you have some kind of ontotech jiggery-pokery.
15:17
And that armor would suck against kinetics and probably against lasers. Interresting set of tradeoffs if I'm right.
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As @Kerr likes to point out, p-beams are like lasers... you don't really defend against them except by dodging.
15:21
These extreme-range p-beams are also comparatively easy to achive... you're looking at tech that becomes doable for KW/MW ranges in soon-from-our-tech-level timeframes.
15:22
Obviously you'd need to rugedize and adapt the tech for military service, but it isn't that giant of a leap.
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What I actually like to point is that p-beams are like lasers.. but worse.
15:27
Usually they are also pretty much moving a c, have better range and their radiation effects are hard to protect against.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/26/2019 3:29 PM
I wonder how they'd interact with eldraeverse-style muon metals?
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Not that much, for the most part they act like electrons with more inertia.
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Depends on the particle.
15:35
For charged particle beams, to a first approximation, less penetration and more scattering. That's just because the orbitals in muon matter are much more tightly packed than in electron matter. This ignores the issue of electron replacement, which is a whole other set of issues.
15:36
I have not run the numbers on this, but y'all know how much massier a muon is.
15:37
A similar consideration probably applies to neutron radiation due to the related tighter packing of the nuclei.
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Bigger problem is that the p-beam impact might disrupt the muon stability system.
15:42
Also, the denser packing means the amount of neutron radiation due to electron-on-nucleus interactions increases.
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Muon matter isn't that helpful though, it behaves, for the most part, like denser baryonic matter. This doesn't help with the radiation damage effects on a per kilo basis. (edited)
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Arguably what you'd want is more like... field-fortified matter, maybe?
15:51
Take a forcefield, squish and hold matter into a grid where macro-motion has to fight the field first.
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Oh, definitely not, indeed.
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Or straight-up, something that sucks up momentum.
15:52
That is how I rewrote "kinetic barriers" for my ME AU (because otherwise they wouldn't make sense anyway.)
15:52
They offer resistance to anything with momentum trying to push through.
15:53
A p-beam will still penetrate relatively easy because any field is vurnerable to localized over-depletion, but that's compensated by a need to "scan" beams to garuantee hits.
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Do those kinetic barriers work against light? Would the field redshift incoming photons?
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I think it actually would, wouldn‘t it? Because photons have momentum?
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Depending on how much it gets redshifted it may even function as an additional component of a stealth suite, redshift your radiator emission and incoming lidar pulses.
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Maybe, on the other hand detection is tough enough as is.
08:37
At long ranges, pretty much only PIDAR (Passive Infrared Detection and Ranging) will show you. Also, all KBs are themselves subject to entropic effects and will, well not in our blackbody spectrum, but they radiate when working.
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0111narwhalz 07/28/2019 8:18 PM
Decided to print an uštnad head. https://i.imgur.com/arMrTvF.jpg
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/31/2019 10:52 AM
Wacky idea - an AI benevolent dictatorship that wears a feudal hierarchy as a hat.
10:53
So you have your hereditary kings and dukes and other peers, but really the AI either straight-up puppets them, or is their very close advisor, depending on a number of factors.
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Sounds like Asimov’s Foundation
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/31/2019 11:18 AM
That's basically what the Argent Realm is in Rising Star, after several refactorings (edited)
11:19
It's an imported idea from a friend who was collaborating with me on the matter; he came up with the idea of a small group of folks who came upon precursor tech, vastened themselves and now have decided they know better than the whole rest of the galaxy, but have only really been able to sell the idea to a human subfaciton.
11:20
The pisser of it, is that their "enlightened" leadership has been highly beneficial to the Argent Realm.
11:21
Life has never been safer or more comfortable.
11:21
But that's just it. It's safe and cormfortable - they're pets who are exceedingly well cared for. Liberty? What the hezmana is that?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/31/2019 3:28 PM
The obvious disruption-plot that comes to mind when I really think about my universe is:
15:29
the main limiter on travel is now how much one can or is willing to invest in infrastructure. Once manufacturing is complete, a drive and stargate are relatively inexpensive to use and maintain
15:30
But the exotic particles used in making 'em are... well
15:30
Let's just say unobtanium is not as expensive (edited)
15:34
All this helps the Tiffs maintain that stranglehold on their space: the few free-drive ships that can leave the stargate network are all firmly under government control, and the current stargate network needs either them or an STL flight that would take too long to lay new gates
15:34
Rebels have not a chance of maintaining either in a wartime economy
15:38
Of course... this is all now begging for Progress to upset it, in the form of some joker working in a physics lab who finds a lower-cost means of making the exotic particles
15:38
Cue insta-drama
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 3:42 PM
So who does the Tiff Empire in: A philosopher who accidentaly rediscovers Freedom or a physicist who discoveres chepo FTLium
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/31/2019 3:44 PM
The only people who do philosophy are government-approved
15:44
And at any rate, [redacted] is what destroys their Empire
15:45
It is a plotseed though
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 3:45 PM
Wernt the tiffs like an offshoot of Terran weebs
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/31/2019 3:46 PM
or rather, [expunged]
15:48
exactly whom is best not spoken in polite company but sort of
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 3:50 PM
but sort of what?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/31/2019 3:51 PM
sorta weebs?
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 3:52 PM
you said
exactly whom is best not spoken in polite company but sort of
(edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/31/2019 3:52 PM
sort of weebs
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 3:53 PM
Oh
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I think someone or some group with a motive for techno innovation and/or a desire to phase out the current government will do them in handsomely
17:35
What's stopping a progressionist rebel group from obtaining some like-minded professionals?
17:36
The profs just have to look in the right places...
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 5:37 PM
Difficulty in inventing the bleeping thing For added realism, many engineers for a number of projects: long term sustainability, transhumanism, and especially FTLium, are siphoned into military/police R&D
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What if they secretly made a base deep in a moon and used the local resources to make ships to protect their infrastructure?
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:38 PM
"how did you find our secret base?" "all the guards you posted outside…?"
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As in: assert their soveignity to the tiffs
17:41
And then initiate a propaganda campaign to inform people about a new, pro-technology way of thinking
17:42
Downplay the Tiffs Conservative values as "Buggy whip" and "reactionary"
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:42 PM
"introducing propaganda campaigns" and "secret lab" do not exactly play nicely to one another
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Why should the faction have to locate its propaganda operations in such a centralised fashion? Why not all over the system? We are also dealing with tightbeam comms, which are hard to intercept
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hard but not impossible, especially if they're going off with any regularity
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Then make it as hard to intercept as physically and technologically possible! Use all kinds of anti-interception measures!!
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:47 PM
consider: "hard to intercept" and "propaganda"
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You're gonna need a secret conspiracy and a public face working in tandem
17:49
Or do your research in universities and big industry
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Have you heard of something called "Port Stealthing"?
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:51 PM
"huh I wonder what the deal is with all this hamfisted pro-tech propaganda"
17:51
"maybe someone's trying to do something shady"
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Hmm, perhaps there's a way to do it not involving warship assertion and shady port stealthing?
17:55
"public relations" perhaps? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:55 PM
the word you're looking for is "subtlety"
17:55
but subtlety takes time
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You do know the German-American physicists who made the A-bomb only made it out of Germany because there were other countries to defect to, right?
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I don't care about subtlety taking time, whatever it takes to bring this technophobic sentiment to its knees
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The Tiffiverse is a monostate
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:59 PM
also what happens when the magically concealed research institution does make a breakthrough?
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Secret societies that genuinely mean to upset society tend to last less than a generation before they’re discovered
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Bigoted societies last even less long
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 5:59 PM
We've established that ultratech ends poorly in this setting.
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@Unknown China’s got about 2,400 years of recorded histoty
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:00 PM
I mean, I guess it's nice that the perversion will only consume relatively willing participants.
18:00
At least at first.
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It just seems like an inherintley unstable system
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:01 PM
You're applying your values to a setting with entirely different conditions.
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This movement is public (edited)
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Then they’re dead even faster
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:02 PM
There's an established precedent of ultratech causing gigadeaths.
18:02
Nobody wants to touch that, and nobody wants to touch the few who do want to touch it.
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You can't keep a society technophobic as a majority forever, some person will wonder what it would be like to live in a society that embraced tech and didn't kill itself from stupidity
18:03
And they will form a party that will gain power
18:03
A set of dominoes, if you must
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:03 PM
And then that person's community will go "dude do you want to kill a planet?"
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Repressive dictatorships tend to be stable until external influences upset their status quo
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 6:04 PM
@Unknown Vonnie gang
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"But what if we dont blow up the planet? What if we try things slowly at first?" (edited)
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They wouldn’t have any knowledge of it possibly going right, and they’d be caught and executed before they pulled it off
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Nothing a data leak by some supporters can't fix
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Data leak from who?
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The government
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sdschildberg 07/31/2019 6:07 PM
His empire is isolated from communications from outside Though seti might lead to fun
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There has to be an equiv of wiki leaks somewhere (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:07 PM
does there?
18:07
V:
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Murphys law
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:07 PM
Also, the feeling I got from the setting is that ultratech has more or less never turned out well.
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Ultratech can work if you don't catastrophically screw it up and not have a few failsafes in place
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:09 PM
In this setting, though, it doesn't.
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It's like rolling a dice to climb some stairs and getting a 0
18:09
And then dying in gibs
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:10 PM
If it works, it's kind of "out of character" for the setting.
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But that's against the laws of the universe if something catastrophically fails, no matter the safeguards or oversight
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:12 PM
No, it's narratively consistent that there are not sufficient safeguards or oversight.
18:12
Or excessive safeguards which backfire somehow.
18:12
Or however the bad end noodles out.
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Man, these peeps seriously screwed up, but can't they see they kinda did it to themselves instead of fearing the tool that made it happen? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:13 PM
You seem to have something of a thing against this setting V:
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No, I'm just critisizing their conservative values
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:14 PM
It makes sense in situ.
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deconstructing it, analysing, poking and prodding
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:14 PM
You're not doing a very good job of analysis if you don't take into account the situation.
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@Unknown I’m not sure whether to point out that narrative consistency is king or laugh at your naivety
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:16 PM
I tried to do the first one V:
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Anyway, need to sleep, night
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/31/2019 6:32 PM
@0111narwhalz well I was off playing ace combat
18:32
Wew
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0111narwhalz 07/31/2019 6:33 PM
oh?
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When I read that “lunarpunk” thing I thought that New Pallas might have gone through a solarpunk phase after the Gene Wars, and kept the aesthetic after civilization re-coalesced into a semi-feudal oligarchy. Which prompted the formation of a secret society of shapeshifting nanocyborgs.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/06/2019 1:16 PM
The thing is, I also wonder how Worm works if there are supposed to be supervillain gangs in every major city?
13:16
Brockton Bay isn't described as a huge metropolis exactly.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/06/2019 1:30 PM
The first time I read it, I guess I was expecting a deeper exploration of the risk/reward of being a super(hero/villain) and of people's motives
13:30
Instead I got some high school bullying that wouldn't be out of place in an 80s movie
13:31
It wouldn't be so frustrating if Taytay weren't so stubbornly self-destructive
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You see why I don't want to touch that garbage
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/06/2019 2:11 PM
?
14:12
I didn't expect you to have such a strong opinion alluva sudden XD
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@BizarroLand ♀ starting around Arc 7 (when we see an Endbringer up close for the first time) The school stuff stops and we see a lot more action on the supervillian side of things.
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Enderminion 08/06/2019 2:19 PM
Worm fanfiction has it's own sub forum on SB, ticks me off that threads from sub forums are displayed in their parent forum
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That said, the real answer is super villian gangs make most of their money doing "normal gang" sorts of things. They just have enough of an edge to be able to take over/push out regular gangs and then do all the same crime from there
14:21
protection rackets is the easy one, also drug/gun running, the nastier ones go for human trafficking, sometimes there's actual robberies (but see the protection rackets)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/06/2019 2:22 PM
Also, clockblocker
14:22
That guy must be the subject of Dio jokes
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heh, that'd be a funny idea for a variant of timestopping
18:04
"you get a couple seconds of stopped time, but talking doesn't count against it. Also, whoever you're talking to can hear all of it, but can't do anything else"
18:05
timestopping and instant captive audience, all-in-one
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 6:05 PM
DnD rules
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0111narwhalz 08/06/2019 6:43 PM
Neat story idea I thought up today:
18:45
In a setting unfamiliar with ontotech, a device is discovered which backs up one person at an atomic level, and then, one year later, restores that backup.
18:45
No matter what happens to this person, they are always rolled back to that one frame, every year.
18:48
(and only the protagonist—to the rest of the world, it looks like some serious but oddly sharp amnesia)
18:54
The plot: Protagonist goes on a quest to at least retain their memories for once.
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 7:08 PM
They enter their best attempts Crazy Person Room
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0111narwhalz 08/06/2019 7:10 PM
Oh there will definitely be a crazy wall
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 9:58 PM
trying to grind out the eldrae in stellaris
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Stellaris is probably really awful by their perspective
22:01
pretty much everyone doing horrible attrocities, etc
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:01 PM
I mean I gotta use the elves of stellaris mod for something, and they do promise that materialist technocrats (who, given the aversion to NIMBY, is what some polities might mistake them for) get modern clothing
22:08
Ethics (keep in mind i'm playing w mods)
22:08
Fan Materialist so i can get Technocracy industrialist Fanatic individualist It was the only way i could get the right aesthetic and have a technocratic monarchy
22:12
i think i need to go read up again on the inner workings of the empire
22:12
cause now that i think about it, i'm not exactly sure what we would call it
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:12 PM
(Its hard to simulate the eldrae in space empire book simulator: the game). Though a special system using Gigastructure's Flat Planet easter egg structure would be nice
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they have a king/queen, but while they have precisely defined powers (and really do have those powers), they aren't all that much. We probably wouldn't call it a monarchy any more than Britain is
22:14
its actually pretty complicated now that i think about it
22:15
they have meritocratic positions, as well as sortition
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:15 PM
Fan Mat also lets you get the robots from the beggining thing Technically I have a gov type of Minarchy But then all my leaders get Fantasy High Aelf clothes
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:16 PM
Mod when?
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0111narwhalz 08/06/2019 10:16 PM
I mean, they're a corporate state
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:19 PM
The one form of government I cant run on my modset Now their a minarchy with a science directorate due to the love of tech Corprate dominion for the Big 22 and for their own corprate nature Should I go mechanist for my last civic?
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hmm, actually now that i think about it yeah you're right, corporate state fits best
22:20
it tells you very little about the innerworkings except for "the government makes money (and that is one of its major purposes)"
22:21
which is technically true, even if it accomplishes a whole lot more than that
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:21 PM
Actually, im gonna go efficiant beurocracy for my third and final civic
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citizen-shareholder is literal after all
22:21
maybe it deserves a combo name
22:22
like how "constitutional monarchies" emerged, none of the previous terms quite fit it so they just made a new one
22:23
maybe this discussion shouldn't be in otherworlds
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:23 PM
We dont have a #gaming so this is the next best thing
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fair point
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sdschildberg 08/06/2019 10:27 PM
The last thing missing a shipset
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MarcusAurelius 08/06/2019 10:55 PM
Games probably belong in #random
22:55
But I’d say we’d probably call them something like a Libertarian corporate state
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that works
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:10 AM
Ortillery: Horizontal or vertical impact?
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MarcusAurelius 08/12/2019 1:10 AM
More vertical in most cases, I’d think
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:11 AM
But those tasty surface-scraping hyperbolic trajectories…
01:15
If you wanted to hit a single, deep target, probably vertical, but when you want to scour a large impact ellipse on an airless world, maybe?
01:18
(also you can get more impact velocity out of the same muzzle velocity if you work with the orbit rather than against it)
01:18
(which may or may not be important)
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MarcusAurelius 08/12/2019 1:21 AM
I’m just thinking that there’s a lot more angles that would give you more vertical angles
01:21
And you can more easily transfer all that moment into the target
01:21
Yeah, but the angle makes it hard
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:23 AM
Vertical lets you use the same platform for both sensing and shooting, which can be convenient.
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You can make a hard angle work - only on a low-density or airless world though, I would say.
12:49
Hitting the same angle in aerodynamic conditions would bleed a lot of velocity from the projectile due to the long time in dense atmospheric conditions.
12:49
Though.... @0111narwhalz here you can see ICBM RVs coming down. Look at the angle. It is still pretty sharp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WagAKBuc_o
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'Verse-wise, the IN perfers to go fpr high-angle shots, but that's mostly about easy targeting, minimizing collateral damage, and that cool "poked by the finger of God" look, not for technical reasons. (As @Unknown says, you do lose a lot of velocity doing low-angle shots through atmosphere, but it's not like they're short of oof for the mass drivers.)
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No, but off only helps so much. Higher velocity makes for more smash into the atmosphere, mostly. You'll need to consider hypersonic extender drives in the projectile for a sharp-angle shot. (edited)
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In most cases, though, you can still get enough EoT to do the necessary damage if you're forced to take a low-angle shot. Specially hardened targets aside. It's painfully inefficient, but it'll still get there.
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for some reason
13:21
i'm now thinking of neutrino lasers
13:22
for when you really want to say "fuck you, fuck the ground you're standing all the way down to the core, and fuck that one guy on the other side of the planet"
13:22
downside: a bit of a power hog
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 1:23 PM
They also sail through objects w/o doing anything
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no, not quite
13:31
they just don't interact frequently
13:32
"interact frequently" in much the same way that "stars are tiny" or "light is slow"
13:33
but for instance, supernovas generate so many neutrinos that they would impart substantial energy to things nearby, if it weren't for the whole "near a supernova" bit
13:34
the problem is, if you're generating, say, a gamma ray laser, you have to put in enough energy to impart a destructive amount of energy across the attenuation distance
13:34
so if it can penetrate more-or-less a meter into rock before it's largely absorbed, you have to put in the energy to heat about a meter of rock
13:35
gamma rays can penetrate mere centimeter or two into lead, and maybe 6-10 into rock
13:36
before 50% of their energy is absorbed on average
13:36
neutrinos can penetrate several light years of lead
13:37
sooo, you basically just have to put out enough energy to damage that much material at once. good luck. (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:39 PM
Which is a staggeringly huge amount.
13:39
I'd have to look it up again, but IIRC, the XKCD what-if about fatal neutrino exposure came up with something like a 10Gy exposure if you're 1AU from a supernova.
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Problem: a neutrono lasers aren't fuck you, fuck the ground you're standing all the way down to the core, and fuck that one guy on the other side of the planet"
13:40
They are fuck this galaxy volume and anybody who happens to stand behind it
13:40
That's the sort of weapon that'll have sophs the next cluster over pissed off at you.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:41 PM
Yeah - if you had a neutrino beam that intense, you wouldn't be barbecuing starships, you'd be probably ecociding entire planets, and the planet wouldn't attenuate enough of the beam to stop it from ruining the day of the next one it hit, and so on.
13:42
(Which seems like the kind of thing that would invite relativistic retribution, at least)
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:42 PM
perhaps the only thing that would save you is the improbability of three planets being in a line
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The thing about nova-pumped neutrino lasers is that you already have a nova sitting around that you could be using .
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I am still saying, you'd be blasting everything behind this as well.
13:42
Your reminder: neutrinos interact that rarely that mega-lightyears worth of lead won't absorb them all
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 1:42 PM
Anything powerful enough to power a naser is itself a super weapon
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:43 PM
Maybe a really, really finely focused one, backstopped by a black hole. But yes, exactly, you had a perfectly good supernova.
13:44
It's hilarious in the way that most things that scream "ha ha, I AM A GOD" can be, though. Awesome But Impractical, writ galactic.
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Just go straight for Thunderbolts.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:44 PM
You might be able to make sense of it if you used a beam[] that converges sharply on your target.
13:45
And yes. A Thunderbold is an actual, physics-supported superweapon.
13:45
Also known as the "pp-wave of death".
13:45
Ever wondered what RM* space-time looks like? There's your answer.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:46 PM
Well. That's gonna leave a mark.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:47 PM
will it, though?
13:48
is the notion of "leaving a mark" even still valid? :V
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:48 PM
Perhaps only metaphorically.
13:48
After all, without anything to leave a mark on...
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i never quite did understand that article
13:48
it's using 'singularity' in a way i'm not really familiar with
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Singularity means some value reaches effectively infinity. At basics.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:49 PM
And here I thought the idea my brother had of bottling the output of a medium-sized star for a day and firing it at a planet was overfill.
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@Kerr can explain more, I suspect.
13:49
He was the one who introduced me to the concept really.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:49 PM
a mere Nicholl-Dyson beam?
13:49
:V
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there's always that black-hole bomb concept
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 1:50 PM
If your weapon is a deep conspiracy for OA its a meme
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that steals rotational energy from a black hole, with mere mirrors
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:50 PM
If you can throw around thunderbolts, merely shining the entire output of Zeta Virginis on a spot the size of Slovakia seems rather weak.
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If your weapon is a deep conspiracy for OA its a meme
Well no, the Thunderbold in itself is entirely coherent.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:50 PM
metrical engineering > regular engineering any day ⍩
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this is true
13:51
nothing says "fuck you" like breaking the very substrate that physics is based on
13:51
preferably only underneath them
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:51 PM
(Though, running those numbers did serve as my daily reminder that the Sun, for as puny as it seems relative to the big brights in the sky, is most definitely not anything to mess with.)
13:51
Or not lightly, leastwise.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:52 PM
"Do Not Fuck With Stars" should be a shirt or something
13:52
maybe with the power output of Sol written out in long form
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Zeta Virginis ~17 times solar luminoscity what has that poor soph done to you? @Jade Nekotenshi
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i wonder how these compare
13:54
in theory you have exponential growth until something breaks or the black hole stops spinning
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:56 PM
Was thinking Beta, not Zeta. Oops.
13:57
That one's sunlike, though a still about 3.5x solar
13:57
(F9V)
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:57 PM
SPLITSHANK RIPPER
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/12/2019 1:57 PM
That was just borrowing kinetic energy from the black hole's rotation, ya?
13:58
Well, "just".
13:58
Insofar as the qualifier applies, at that scale.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 1:58 PM
Same idea as nicking energy to blueshift light, no?
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Not sure. SPLITSHANK RIPPER was an Eldrae going "so, we have one black hole in our entire network. How do we fight a war around it?"
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Reminder: species names are not capitalized.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 2:00 PM
It was a projectile dumped into the ergosphere, where it was "accelerated" up to stupid velocities.
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So I see you are talking about thunderbolts. I think the short wikipedia line summons up the principle of this weapon pretty well:
the wave of death is a gravitational plane wave exhibiting a strong nonscalar null curvature singularity, which propagates through an initially flat spacetime, progressively destroying the universe.
It violates one of the core productions GR you want from your spacetime, geodesic completness. Any region of spacetime lacking scalar null curvature won't have geodesic completness, so affected regions would effectively have their future light-cones removed. Atleast that's what I could take away from the working principle, in different terms you can imagine them as beams filling volumes of space with naked singularities.
(edited)
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 2:01 PM
Which is the same as light dumped into the ergosphere, to blueshift up to stupid frequencies.
14:02
(because of course light can't get faster)
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@Kerr huh. it sounds like that's pretty much as destructive as something can be without doing something silly like deleting the universe
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Although it is hypothesized that quantum gravitational effect would cause thunderbolts to just produce a shower of particles all the way up to the planck scale in mass-energy. Making them relatively harmless, short of the compact gamma-ray burst look alike. Still better than your wordline just being terminated.
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I mean.... it could delete the universe. But the Penrose limit constraints the given extend of a thunderbolt.
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i thought combining gravity and quantum mechanics is still a big unsolved problem
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Semiclassical gravity is just running QFT over a classical GR background. Like calculating how quantum mechanical electron behave within a background filled with a classical (maxwellian) electromagnetic field.
14:10
It's also the theory that predicts Hawking-Unruh radiation (Many people don't know of unruh radiation, it is radiation you see in an accelerating reference frame).
14:13
For the same reason we only found quantum mechanics in the 20th century, and also for the same reason we still use newtonian gravity most of the time, we can approximate both classical and quantum theories using simpler classical, and when the forces/energies involved are really low they give almost identical results. Because gravity is so freakinshingly weak (quantum mechanical properties of gravity are negliable short of just before the planck scale) using semiclassical gravity should give accurate prediction up to certain energies. (edited)
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makes sense, but isn't a thunderbolt outside of those ranges?
14:15
i have no idea how you'd go about producing something like that, but certainly it must take a lot of energy
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Yes, that is why it is hypothesized that quantum gravitational effect would, to put it blundly, rip apart the singularity.
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ah, i get it now; it's outside the bounds of where current models are accurate, and we don't yet have a model that fits that sort of situation well
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Mm, caedometric weapons.
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One of the reasons why we are looking into getting a quantum theory of gravity is to exclude the singularities. Generally you can assume these to be just artifacts of your theory hinting at its own incompletness.
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which makes sense, a singularity is pretty literally a error
14:18
it's a "if you do this, the model breaks"
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Singularities in theories regarding fluid were later removed by adding the fact that atoms are a thing. (edited)
14:21
Well, I believe I've talked about thunderbolts once on here and a neat fact about them: they are a gravitational wave solutions. Being made out of gravitons would then, in theories involving a bulk (higher dimensional space in which universes exists as branes), enable them to permeate through the bulk and affect multiple branes/universes at once. (edited)
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oh, now that has implications
14:23
both for its use as a weapon, and for the risk of collateral damage (edited)
14:23
on one hand, you can break things in other universes
14:23
on the other, if you try to break things in your universe you might hit other universes
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Free justification for extrauniversal invasions.
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Enderminion 08/12/2019 2:25 PM
and Iraq totally had WMD's (edited)
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one thing i'm wondering, what exactly is 'left'
14:26
assuming it doesn't propagate infinitely
14:27
clearly setting just about any value in physics to "infinity" will go very badly for nearby matter
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I am not even sure if break is the correct term. Terminate would be more accurate, it terminates your geodesics through spacetime, your wordlines. It removes your future, this is jojo level stuff right there.
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i kinda get that, but the region of space that this happens within is (or was) contiguous with non-affected space, unless it propagates infinitely
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Enderminion 08/12/2019 2:29 PM
Sufficiently Advanced Technology is my level of understanding here
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unless... hmm
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To be honest, now I imagine a scenario, where one day, from a couple branes over, a Thunderbold deletes a part of the local neighbourhood. Or we observe it.
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light cones expand infinitely, situations like universal expansion set aside
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Well, it is a pulse of finite range and diameter. It essentially sweeps through a region of spacetime, removing anything from existance it meets.
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but lightcones from different points in space will always overlap, eventually, if universal expansion isn't a factor
14:32
and if it is a light cone is still very, very large
14:32
doesn't destroying a light cone imply that it would affect the entire visible universe?
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After it dissipates the spacetime is fine so to say, but anything in it isn't. It just absorbs any word lines it encounters, they just stop.
14:33
Decaying, annihilation or transmutation would just mean the wordline continue or split into branches, but in this case they just end. (edited)
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oh, now that i think about it differently it makes more sense
14:35
if you look at world lines as shapes in 4 dimensions, it just deletes the entire shape
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As said, it terminates them. They just end when touching the thunderbolt beam. (edited)
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aye, i definitely get that part
14:36
oh, wait
14:36
no i didn't
14:36
terminates
14:36
not deletes, literally terminates
14:37
it truncates them at the moment they touch the thunderbolt
14:38
and this effect propagates changes in 4 dimensions within what would have been the light cone of the thing in question, but it doesn't affect other things directly
14:39
heh, now i kinda wonder what it would look like
14:39
and at the same time, it's literally impossible to know that
14:39
you can't observe a thunderbolt any more than you can look at dark
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@Kerr Question: does the pp-wave's propagation happen in or out of in-universe time?
14:44
Red line would be a thunderbolt bolt, it originates from some point in space (the horizontal axis) and travels at a 45° line towards some end point, somewhere else in space (horizontal axis) and time (vertical axis). A laser pulse would travel the same directions.
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Light-like propagation, then. Gotcha.
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Imagine the thunderbolt as just a laser pointer beam which illuminates you, whether you've moved into the beam or you where in its aim in the first place. If you are illuminated by the light your geodesic will end right there.
14:50
Also, you can't really experience anything. Observers can only exist on the geodesics @Buggy.
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well, that's sort of the idea of it
14:55
it leaves no traces aside from a hole, and it's definitionally impossible for any information to survive it (edited)
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So, I'm trying to think on what it looks like to an outside observer, and here's the speculation so far: You're looking across the path of the thunderbolt, so what you see is (simplistically) a combination of the photons "originating in" the affected area, and those travelling through it from beyond the visible affected area. When the thunderbolt sweeps over it, the former are terminated, as are any in transit at that time; after it passes/dissipates, transit service resumes. So from that angle, it looks like the universe goes out for a length of time equivalent to the width of the thunderbolt - all the way to "super-dark", since there's no part of the sky that has no photons in it - and then the distant stars come back without any of the stuff in the affected area. A "blink".
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that sounds about right, yeah
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 2:56 PM
eurgh that's freaky
14:57
It's like when you see a flicker and you're not sure if the lights went out for a tenth of a second, or if you blinked but didn't notice, or if you're going mad…
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Yeah, assuming the pulse isn't infinitely short, and has some length measured in seconds you would just see a cone of pure darkness for a while, after it is gone you see what was behind the cone again, but anything that was inside is just gone.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 2:58 PM
If the cone has width it doesn't matter how short the pulse is.
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would there be any sort of effect on the region outside the 'delete' zone?
14:59
i'm thinking immense gravitational waves, etc?
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Presumably as well you're going to get gravitational wave splash from this (apart from, well, itself) because you just unmade a bunch of mass-energy.
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also yeah, i forgot about that
15:00
what about the conservation of energy?
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Aye. But that depends on the actual width. But it is has to quite wide to be even perceivable as a blink / flicker.
15:01
Conservation of energy isn't guranteed in GR, in this case it would also not hold.
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If it‘s wide enough to create observable lightless zones, you‘d see a shrinking cone, I think, assuming the thunderbolt was a cone itself.
15:02
First light from the nearest edge reaches you again, then the far side.
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It erases everything within the zone, though, so the only light you're going to get from inside it (at first) is light crossing it from the far side.
15:03
..although I suppose if it's a cone/cylinder/etc., some far edges are nearer than others.
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light cones aren't literal cones, though
15:03
it'd be a sphere i think, unless it's directional
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hypercones.
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hypercone, but not a normal cone
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:04 PM
some hyperconic sections are spheres
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which are spheres in 3D/
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it just looks like a sphere in 3d-
15:04
yeah that
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(Well, ellipsoids, if we're being picky.)
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:04 PM
some hyperconic sections are, I would expect, hyperboloids, and hyperboloids can be cones
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if it's directional and you're looking at it side on, it could be anything from a wide cone to a rectangle (beam shape)
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light cones aren't literal cones, though
Are you assuming the thunderbolt produces some light-cone beam?
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in 3 dimensions, i'm thinking of it as basically a expanding sphere that hits the delete key on anything it touches
15:07
in 4 dimensions you get hypercones
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Is a thunderbolt always spherical in shape, though?
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not necessarily
15:07
i'm thinking the simplest form is probably spherical
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:08 PM
Some hyperconic sections are paraboloids V:
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but directional or even beams are possible apparently
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That would be a cone in a spacetime diagram, atleast in a 3D representation with 2D spacial dimensions. Thunderbolts are usually emitted beams in their weaponized form. But nothing specifiies any particular shape for them.
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paraboloid, cone, close enough
15:09
also it inherently propagates at lightspeed, so it couldn't be a paraboloid i think
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:09 PM
(I expect there are some interesting hyperconic sections that aren't just analogs of conic sections)
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So, if you were to weaponize this technology - apart from creating a whole new category of "dear gods, ban this thing - you could hypothetically create both the "thunderbolt" beam weapon and the "thunderbomb" sphere-annihilator. Convenient.
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definitely, but you need a object with varying velocity to get a hyperboloid in the first place
15:10
and this is lightspeed
15:11
@Overmind yes. Also, you'd probably be able to shape how it affects other universes somehow but i definitely don't know enough about branes to answer that confidently
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Or any combination you so desire. It technically being a ungodly gravitational wave solution also means you can try anything you could do using usual waves.
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i'm also not sure what the practical size limitations would be
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Yeah. Most importantly "not" on the other-universes thing, since one doesn't want to accidentally start a war with a universe filled with much older and meaner sophs than you.
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i mean, i'm thinking it would start at "solar system" and go up from there; it can't be practical to make these sort of amplitudes without huge masses, and so proportionally 'wide' waves
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:13 PM
If branes behave like a sort of discretized fourth spatial dimension, your light cone would be a five-cone, no?
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(Well, ethically, one doesn't want to accidentally start a war with another universe at all , but getting into pissing contests with omega points is a particularly dumb way of committing mass suicide.)
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Not sure what method of extrauniversal travel you have in mind, but short of using gravitational waves you are bound to your brane. Although, one thing I have in mind would be trying to create wormholes across branes by focusing entangled gravitational wave beam pulses that they create a pair of entangled black holes in your universe and the other one. And then you can somehow try to convert both into traversible mouths.
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I don't have anything specific in mind, but then, I'm approximately infinite knowledge short of being an omega point. 😜
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Technically,you only need gravitational waves
15:30
its a way to pass information and manipulate matter
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:30 PM
what was that "etching probes onto a neutron star" thing from that Knots article on Orion's Arm?
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Bootstrap into local node, invade universe, rinse and repeat
15:31
neutron stars have weird fluid dynamics.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:32 PM
What's the point of invading other universes, though?
15:32
You can smack them around, but if you're using grav wave bootstrapping you don't get anything back.
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Because those bastards wrecked your shit with their poorly calibrated thunderbolts.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:32 PM
sure sure but otherwise?
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 3:33 PM
Because yours is dead
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Cold Ones (also ice giants, the Finality, Lords of the Last Waste) Mythological beings who dwell at the end of time, during the final blackness of the universe, the last surviving remnants of the w…
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:33 PM
ah okay
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That is not dead which can chow down on fresh universes.
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 3:34 PM
The ultimate resource war
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and it can be 2 way comms
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:35 PM
I suppose you can lob energy between branes with gravwaves.
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Or upload yourself to the new 'vrse.
15:38
Yog-Sothoth is described as coterminous with all time and space and yet locked outside of the universe we inhabit, and known both as the Lurker at the Threshold and the Opener of the Way. Totally a description of such an extrauniversal invader, amirite? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 3:44 PM
fourspace being looking at all of threespace as an open page
15:45
lifting of veils
15:45
ïa
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 3:45 PM
Good way to spy on intrauniversal OPFORs
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If we think about an infinite higher dimensional bulk with infinitely many branes we would expect that their laws of physics (as described by a more fundamental such as M-theory) will express themselves randomly. Some branes don't have the same sets of particles as our brane, or existing central charges become meaningless in another brane and vice versa. Many of them will have additional uncompactified dimensions and some may express weaker, stronger or non-existant false higgs vacua, changing the masses of particles inside them. If you can send your mind state around as you wish it won't get boring anytime soon.
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Thinking of Diaspora all of a sudden.
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One of Lovecraft’s few recurring protagonists was an unwilling avatar of Yog-sothoth
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yeah Diaspora was pretty similar, except there were basically only 2 total universe configurations; a 3s+1t dimension like ours, and a 4s+1t dimension (edited)
21:10
and they alternate.
21:11
so the alternate brane universes would have a lot more variety
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MarcusAurelius 08/12/2019 11:10 PM
Oh, I am totally stealing thunderbolts as capital ship armament
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 11:11 PM
You mean interdimensional detterent
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MarcusAurelius 08/12/2019 11:13 PM
Nah the interuniveral geometry means that won’t work. These’ll be fun things for fleets to dodge though
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sdschildberg 08/12/2019 11:15 PM
Theres a level of collateral involved
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MarcusAurelius 08/12/2019 11:16 PM
Depends on where you are and how much you focus it
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:28 PM
As I understand it, 4s does bad things for e.g. gravity, because it turns the inverse square to an inverse cube, and that's not great for making stable orbits or stars.
23:29
Also the "too many degrees of freedom" thing makes planetary formation harder.
23:32
(which is why, in the Ailevérse, the fourth spatial dimension is so weird compared to the other three)
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@0111narwhalz (kinda spoilers but its been out for a decade+) (edited)
23:37
thats exactly how it is in those universes
23:38
there are 'stars', which actually support chemistry and life on their surface due to the differences in physics
23:38
but no planets, because all orbits are unstable. But stars are actually plenty, because the surface of a hypersphere is huge
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:39 PM
Orbits of stars, though…?
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:39 PM
I mean they can't all just be whizzing around in isolation, right?
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they exist floating in space, they do not orbit anything
23:39
they're all whizzing around in isolation
23:40
IIRC, there's no macrostructures like galaxies oranything
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:40 PM
So it's all Brownian?
23:40
That must be rough for local astronomy :V
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not sure; i guess technically gravity still exists, but it would have much, much less influence
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:41 PM
I mean, if G is scaled such that it's reasonable on the surface of a body of reasonable size, you'd expect it to be much weaker at great range.
23:41
So it does kinda make sense.
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i'm not sure how gravity actually compares to normal binding strength
23:43
i mean, binding energies are already rather different; chemistry can occur on the same body that has nuclear reactions going on inside it (edited)
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:44 PM
right, because the more rapid scaling compresses stuff in the core much more violently without making the surface a vapor
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i think it was more than that, let me check
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:46 PM
although with the way gravity works you should expect it to decrease as you go deeper, because a shell has no net gravity within itself
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The exhibit transformed the surface to show the effect of centrifugal force. The inverse-fourth-power attraction of gravity was stronger than inverse-cube repulsion near the center, so even when the reference frame began to spin, the well remained a well. But further away, centrifugal force took over and turned the downward slope of the approach into an ascent. And where the ascent reversed and the surface plunged, in place of the first well's circular trench there was a circular ridge. Compared to the three-dimensional universe, the entire potential energy surface was upside-down.
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:53 PM
inverse fourth‽
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well, yes
23:54
4 dimensions of space, 1 of time
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:54 PM
3 of space => inverse square though
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i mean i'm just retyping it verbitam from the book
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0111narwhalz 08/12/2019 11:55 PM
sure but it's a little weird
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lets see...
23:56
... Star systems, galaxies, clusters and superclusters, all stabilized by orbital motion, were impossible here. But the fractal distribution of the primordial inhomogeneities meant that the end products of the collapse process had a wide spectrum of masses. Ninety percent of matter ended up in giant black holes, but countless smaller bodies were predicted to form, sufficiently isolated to survive for long periods, including hundreds of trillions with a stability and energy output comparable to stars.
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... Orlando glanced back at the model, which included something like a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, plotting the evolving distribution of stellar temperatures and luminosities. "I wouldn't have thought many stars would be cool enough. Except for brown dwarves, and they'd freeze completely in no time at all." "You can't really compare temperatures. We're used to nuclear reactions being orders of magnitude hotter than chemical ones, making them inimical to biology. But in the macrosphere they both involve similar amounts of energy." "Why?" Orlando's gestalt still betrayed a sense of unease, but he was clearly hooked now. Paolo gestured at an exhibit further along, beneath a rotating banner reading PARTICLE PHYSICS. The macrosphere's four dimensional standard fiber yielded a much smaller set of fundamental particles than the ordinary universe's six-dimensional one. In place of six flavors of quarks and six flavors of leptons there was just one of each, plus their antiparticles. There were gluons, gravitons, and photons, but no W or Z bosons, since they mediated the process of quarks changing flavor. Three quarks or three antiquarks together formed a charged "nucleon" or "antinucleon," similar to an ordinary proton or antiproton, and the sole lepton and its antiparticle were much like an electron and positron, but there was no combination of quarks analogous to a neutron. Orlando scrutinized the table of particles. "The lepton is still much lighter than the nucleon, the photon still ha szero rest mass, and the gluons still act like gluons ... so what shifts the chemical energy closer to the nuclear?" "You saw what happened with the gravity wells."
00:05
"What's that got to do with it? Ah. Same thing happens in an atom? Electrostatic attractions also goes from inverse-square to inverse-fourth, so there are no stable orbits?" "That's right." "Hang on." Orlando screwed his eyes shut, no doubt dredging ancient memories of his flesher education. "Doesn't the uncertainty principle keep electrons from crashing into the nucleus? Even if there's no angular momentum, the attraction of the nucleus can't squeeze the electron's wave too tightly, because confining its position just increases its momentum." "Yes. But increase it how much? Confining a wave spatially has an inverse effect on the spread of its momentum. Kinetic energy is proportional to the square of momentum, making that inverse-square. So the effective 'force,' which is the rate of change of-
00:09
-kinetic energy with distance, is inverse-cube." Orlando's face lit up for a moment with the sheer pleasure of understanding. "So in three dimensions, a proton can't ever make an electron crash, because the uncertainty principle is just as good as centrifugal force. But in five dimensions, that's not good enough." He nodded slowly, as if coming to terms with the inevitability of it. "So the lepton's wave shrinks down to the size of the nucleon. Then what?" "Once the lepton's inside the nucleon, it's pulled inward by the portion of the charge that's closer to the center than it is itself, which is roughly proportional to the fifth power of the distance from the center. That means the electrostatic force stops being inverse-fourth-power, and becomes linear. So the energy well isn't bottomless; outside the nucleon it's too steep for the lepton to brace itself against the sides, the way an electron does in three dimensions, but inside the nucleon the sides curve together and meet in a paraboloid."
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:09 AM
sidenote: I want a rotating banner that reads PARTICLE PHYSICS
00:09
just to have it
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:13 AM
I'm still not entirely certain how they got the inverse fourth power thing.
00:16
Because the way it makes sense to me is the "lamp" analogy.
00:17
You have a lamp which emits light across a certain solid angle.
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They moved on to the first chemistry exhibit, which showed the paraboloid bowl at the bottom of the well, with a translucent electric-blue bell-shape superimposed over it: the lepton wave in its lowest-energy state, ground state. Orlando reached in and touched it; it flickered into an excited state, breaking apart and deserting the center to form two distinct lobes, one of them color-coded red to indicate an inverted phase. After a few tau the whole wave flashed green, spontaneously emitting a photon, and fell back to its llowest energy level. "So this is the macrosphere's equivalent of a hydrogen atom?" Paolo prodded the wave himself, trying to get it to the next highest level. "More like a cross between a hydrogen atom and a neutron. There are no neutrons in the macrosphere, but a positive nucleon witha negative lepton buried in it to cancel its charge makes a rough imitation of one. Blanca called it a 'hydron.' If you try to join two of them togethoer to make a 'hydron molecule' you end up with somethingmore like deuterium." The exhibit, overhearing him, obligingly povided an animated demonstration. Orlando exhaled heavily. "I don't know how you can take this so calmly. Do you really trust anyone in C-Z to build an entire working polis according to these rules?"
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:18 AM
In threespace, the surface of a sphere (which is how you make sense of a solid angle) increases with the square of its radius.
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"Maybe not, but if they get it wrong we won't even know about it. I can't see us shipwrecked in the macrosphere with the hardware disintegrating slowly beneath us. It'll be all or nothing; a working polis, or a cloud of random molecules." "You hope.. How are they even going to make molecules, if every chemical bond triggers nuclear fusion?" Not every bond does. If you throw enough hydrous together, the leptons fill up all the energy levels where they're confined tightly within the nucleus, so the outermost ones end up protruding sufficiently to be able to bind two atoms together with a respectable separation between the nuclei. You have to fill up the first twolevels completely, which takes twelve leptons-so every stable molecule needs to contain a few judiciously placed atoms of number 13 or higher. Atom 27 can form fifteen covalent bonds; it's the closest thing in the macrosphere to carbon." The exhibit showed them a three-dimensional shadow of a five-dimensional, sixteen atom molecule; sixteen-atom molecule; one atom of 27, joined to fifteen hydrons. Paolo said, "Think of this as a souped-up version of methane. If you knock off any of these hydrons and substitute a side branch-
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:18 AM
In fourspace, the surface of a foursphere should increase with the cube of its radius, should it not?
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i think i misread it
00:18
and its actually 5-dimensional?
00:18
"The exhibit showed them a three-dimensional shadow of a five-dimensional, sixteen atom molecule"
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:18 AM
ah if it's fivespace that makes sense
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its been a while since i read it
00:19
but in the preceding chapter it mentions something about there being significant differences between even and odd numbers of dimensions
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:19 AM
ah yes, that's probably the degree of freedom thing
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ah here we go
00:22
, you can build all kinds of elaborate structures."... The universe and macrosphere are both ten-dimensional... but one has six small dimensions and four large, the other has six large and four small. So they're inside-out versions of each other." He shrugged.
00:26
so yeah, i guess that makes sense
00:26
there was a segment of the book where they're searching a star for life, and it proves immensely difficult because there's so much ground to cover that they can't even produce a whole-surface map
00:30
because surface area for a 5-sphere is
00:31
a sun-sized 5-star would have...
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:32 AM
aye surface area of the five-sphere is with the fourth power of radius
00:33
The alternative interpretation is that the radius of stars will be small but
00:33
wow
00:33
this number is actually
00:33
way higher than i expected
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:33 AM
:D
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it'd be about 5.05*10^30
00:35
or about 5,046 trillion trillion square kilometers
00:35
wait, no. 5,046 billion trillion square kilometers
00:36
either way, make sure your probes are self-replicating, and upgrade you main data bus
00:36
a lot.
00:36
better yet just turn the star into computronium and use it to store the map
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:36 AM
I get suspicious of constructs like "billion trillion" because they remind me that people don't necessarily agree on what either of those words actually means
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i don't see people use them the other way very much
00:37
thousand, million, billion, trillion is just 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, 10^12 as i use it
00:38
oh, huh.
00:38
this all gave me a interesting thought
00:38
higher dimensions would be exponentially more suited to large intelligences
00:39
because you can fit ever-increasing amounts of computronium within the same volume/signal propagation delay
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 12:40 AM
You want the kissing number, I think.
00:40
In threespace, it is 12; in fivespace it is 44
00:40
well
00:40
up to 44
00:40
40–44
00:41
In eightspace it's 240, and in twenty-four-space it is 196560 :V
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that'd be a interesting basis for a story
00:42
"oh, what, superintelligences? Nah, they're all in higher dimensions. Three dimensions just doesn't have enough oomph."
00:43
and also interesting implications for simulation theory, because of the immensely higher computational power of higher dimensions
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MarcusAurelius 08/13/2019 1:06 AM
@0111narwhalz almost everyone uses the short scale nowadays, and it’s equally ambiguous either way, even if they just said (edited)
01:06
What whoops that’s the wrong one
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 1:06 AM
yeah
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MarcusAurelius 08/13/2019 1:06 AM
Sextillion, I think (edited)
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 1:07 AM
I just prefer SI prefixes for everything :V
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MarcusAurelius 08/13/2019 1:18 AM
That works, but most people don’t have the higher ones memorized
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0111narwhalz 08/13/2019 1:28 AM
yeah I mean I'm not sure if there's something between exa and yotta so it's not actually that useful for me either V:
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I am pretty sure the value you calculated there gives the quantity of a 4 dimensional hypersurface, and not a 2 dimensional surface area @Buggy.
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higher dimensional math is complicated
16:44
so probably, yeah
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@Buggy And then consider multiple connected fivespace/sixspace, or constructs like warp bubbles with larger interiors than exteriors. You could reduce signal delay between (big) components further.
01:25
You know what, I‘m going to use that idea as a theory as to what might unfold in a "singularity crash" in Apeiron Terminus.
01:26
It‘s an in-universe mystery exactly what happens in such volatile singularity events, but metric engineering works always seem involved. And to a computronium processing mind, such a space would indeed be highly attractive.
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it's also a interesting theoretical way to reach, or at least approach, infinite computing power
01:42
"oh hey, I can make basement universes"
01:42
"and I can change the number of spatial dimensions!" (edited)
01:42
"Wait. I don't think there's any upper limit..." (edited)
01:44
Nothing says "incomprehensible" like a moon brain constructed in a universe with so many spatial dimensions that you need exponents just to count them.
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0111narwhalz 08/14/2019 1:44 AM
scientific notation for your scientific notation
01:45
a whole new meaning for "space madness"
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where we're going, we need arrow notation
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"We invented a new alphabet to be able to denote dimensions. It contains 10^6 discrete symbols. We‘re still working on the expanded version."
01:56
Or "what is 512-bit Algebra?"
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I mean, dimensions are usually not something you can just choose, if there were a near countless quantity of dimensions you would need to compactify those dimensions down to near the planck scale, or use extended multidimensional object on which the particles of the standard model are confined on to. Plus in a pure physics sense adding more dimensions just increases the degrees of freedom, which would come with its own advantages and disadvantages I suppose. (edited)
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i'm a lot less familiar with the concept of branes and string theory and such
17:03
i remember there's something about there actually being eleven dimensions, and most of them are just extremely compact so they aren't noticable
17:03
but i don't know a ton about it
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Adding another dimension allows for some real tricky combat moves (edited)
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bonus points: figure out how to expand dimensions on the fly
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I should like to take a moment to commend the authors of Eclipse Phase, 2nd. ed., for managing to make their economic preferences somehoiw even less subtle than in 1st ed. Which, for those of you who've read 1st ed., is quite a feat.
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:35 AM
what are their preferences?
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Anarcho-communism good, anything else awful.
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:35 AM
😦
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ah, sarcasm
10:36
Anarcho anything tends to be awful, "System would work as long as we didn't have any rules"
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 10:36 AM
Idea: the idea of a state surviving the Singularity intact
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why wouldn't a State survive?
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In 2nd. ed, this extends to having the old and transitional economies of the inner system - which, in fairness to them especially in the first case, are cronyist as hell - described in a speech by a character with the moustache-twirling qualities of a Bond villain and the speech idiosyncracies of Donald Trump.
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Eclipse Phase does not do a good job of visualising the economy
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 10:37 AM
IDK why every transhumanist belives that the idea of states will die with the first upload
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And reputation economies will never work
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Anarcho anything tends to be awful, "System would work as long as we didn't have any rules"
That‘s... pretty much a hot take. Anarchism and Anarchotranshumanism as I‘ve encountered it is more "hierarchies are aweful and society should be driven by consent only, without power structures" and goes from there.
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Nosedive shows why
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:38 AM
reputation as the sole economy won't work, they can function well in limited contexts
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I mean, they do already, kinda?
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:39 AM
exactly
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Free right to associatw.
10:39
And all that.
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Yeah, guys, we get it, you hate capitalism and have never flipped through an economics textbook published by anyone on the right of Mao. Move the fuck on.
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:39 AM
Stackoverflow was the example immediately coming to mind, admittedly
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Also, who allowed the carbon fuel butts to wreck the environment?
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described in a speech by a character with the moustache-twirling qualities of a Bond villain and the speech idiosyncracies of Donald Trump.
Is this version new (within the last couple years)? Because the stupider breed of writer being what it is they probably can't help themselves but make their villain a paper thin expy for their current Designated Satan.
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which prime-butt allowed it?
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:40 AM
steam age coal miners
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POLITICS. How about not. @Unknown
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@Ian Bruene Just published in the last couple of weeks.
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carbon-fuel is politics?
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Called it.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 10:40 AM
for tabletop writers wanting to create Mary Sue the game, making money no in game object makes sense to get to the whole coming back to life thing
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yeah, guys, we are kinda sinking into polyticks here
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gets the bug spray
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Morgrim Moon 08/16/2019 10:41 AM
I misread that as 'hug spray' for several confusing seconds
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 10:41 AM
EP x MLP
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Flamethrower
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@Tassadar what do you think bug spray is?
10:42
The only good bug is a dead bug
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Hug spray. Okay, that's going in the Advancedverse.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/16/2019 10:43 AM
Also, if you've got mooseflies, nothing less will do.
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For some reason, MLP has quite the prolific and thoughtful Trans-Pan/Sophont fiction area.
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Flamethrowers are good against nanoswarms, why wouldn’t they be effective vs. mosquito swarms?
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And no other fandom really replicates it, unless GitS has a fandom hidden away somewhere.
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GitS?
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Why not burn the bloody locusts eating the crops? (edited)
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Ghost in the Shell, @Tassadar
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(make fireproof crops)
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As heretical as it is to say, just occasionally there are things you should not fight with fire.
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Indeed. That‘ when you use ambiplasma.
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Locusts bad. Flamethrowers good.
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Squatters in the rocket-fuel plant, for example.
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@Overmind HERESY!!!
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"What a strange idea! Houses have always been fireproof." -- Montag, Farenheit 451, at the suggestion that firemen once put out fires
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Well, maybe he has a point on that one.
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@Overmind that is when you launch the rocket
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YES!!!!!
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Squatters in the rocket-fuel plant, for example.
"Whoops, we just had a chemical leak and for some reason, everyone inside is getting all sleepy..."
10:47
(Please ignore the chemical warfare micro-balloon swarms in the area. The active camo should help.)
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(stop breathing in the gas, you sub-IQ butt)
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(Please ignore the nanoburn used against said squatters.)
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And who exactly are the squatters?
10:49
I thought the ley accords stated you can't use chemical warfare against sophonts
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Xenos!
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"What a strange idea! Houses have always been fireproof." -- Montag, Farenheit 451, at the suggestion that firemen once put out fires
TFFW half of your equipment on the fire engine is for incidents other than fire
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Nope. Read Tier IV again.
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And why not rehouse the poor hobos?
10:51
(INSTEAD OF TORCHING THEM?)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/16/2019 10:54 AM
I mean, sure, usually.
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Oh, good grief. I see they doubled down on Extropia (ancap) with the explicit line "Unprotected people can be attacked or robbed at will." It's not like the general consensus as to why that's not the case is older than I am, or anything. Things to do, Monday: send Posthuman Studios a copy of The Machinery of Freedom with a note attached reading "learn, guys".
11:26
(ps we also eat babies)
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Whoookay yeah, that‘s getting a bit stupid there.
11:51
Bystander Effect versus Enlightened Self-Interest, still seems to have eaten the idiot ball.
11:52
(And personaly, if you ask me, if a society can‘t maintain a principle modicum of, well, society with rules, then it‘ll spin out and disintegrate in quick order.)
11:54
Hmmm. That could be an idea for Apeiron Terminus: "Burnout polities".
11:54
People trying to make their dream polity a realiy courtesy of transhuman autonomous capabilities, and the entire thing coming crashing down when ideals and ideas test against reality.
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Hell, tMoF explained how to solve this problem with incentives back in 1973. Based on how Iceland did it in the 10th century . There's a limit to how much idiocy even I'm willing to accept as accidental.
12:01
As for the other, well, a couple of quotes: "Currency is used as a token representing work, property ownership, or another desirable quality, and is exchangeable for the same. Individuals should seek to accumulate as much currency as possible while denying it to all others. Excellent!" "These habitats view it as economically favorable that subscribers do not lose access to life-critical resources due to a temporary lapse in economic activity. These habitats are not as motivated to work hard against the extinction of transhumanity. Sad!" "Hypercorporations can be very competitive. They can deploy sabotage, property damage, misrepresentation, murder, currency manipulation, or other techniques to make themselves more competitive. A citizen committing such acts would be treated as a criminal and punished for interfering with economic activity. Hypercorporations committing such acts are treated with leniency, as they are engaging in market correction!"
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:02 PM
The idea of ideological polities formed to (ab)use transhuman tech to reach their goals is attractive and explains all the splinters, lost colonies, rebels, and empires from the dark that seem to populate scifi
12:04
The magan corprate is a great example of this sort of splinter group. Given the Imperial right toexit theres probbably a cloud of them
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...seriously, what the fuck am I reading? This is like Snidely Whiplash trying to reconstruct Atlas Shrugged based on a description of the contents given by Lenin, who only heard about them fifth-hand. Similiar to the critique that intelligence is not reversed stupidity, advocacy is not reversed criticism. Shit, gods know I hate communists, but I am at least somewhat aware that your enthusiastic commie is not actually arguing that poverty, pollution, and megacide are totes awesome . (edited)
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reads quotes
Are... those... actual quotes straight from the text?
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:06 PM
A franchise that someone tried to bring back from the dead is what yall are seeing
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@Unknown Oh, yeah. EP 2nd, p. 138-139.
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Implying "Eclipse Phase" was ever a franchise makes that sentence sound rather hollow, just saying @Unknown
12:07
@Overmind
12:08
12:08
Well... ok
12:08
Wow, that is stupid.
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Sure, it's IC fluff, but still. Snidely. Whiplash.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:09 PM
Someone has taken the Jovian Republics villian ball
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Oh, they're probably still villains too.
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I haven't reached the Jovians' writeup yet in this read-through. I'm looking forward to seeing how they unsubtled that .
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Personally though, I never thought that the Jovian Republics made any. fucking. damn. sense.
12:10
The Jovians should be at Mars, or something.
12:11
Not at Jupiter, the most. baseline. uninhabitable. location. besides the kuiper. in the entire. damn. solar. system.
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I haven't seen the details on the ultimates in 2nd yet either, although I gathered that all nuance has been deleted in favor of straightforward Space Nazis Must Die!
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:11 PM
Shouldnt Wiplash and Wiplash co have moved to Mars for F L A V O R
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"Sure, let's build a bastion of anti-augmentation bio- and cultural conservatism in the most radiation-soked enviroment of the solar system besides the solar atmosphere."
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@Unknown Yeah, but that's just where the fleet that formed 'em happened to be, though, yeah?
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:12 PM
Have them be a caricature of bellatrism
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@Overmind So goes the Canon, yeah. And Moon and Mars were the domain of the hyperrich by dinn of those people financing the expansions to there in great part, or so the canon goes.
12:13
But still... well okay, space is really the least best place for bioconservatism anywhere.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:13 PM
Earth is the place for Grugposting
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Even martian terraforming demands you reaching deep into the bioengineering chest, for the enviroment if nothing else.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:13 PM
Glass the place over
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But Mars at least, the entire pursuit of a "New Earth" would fit with an old, bioconservative polity more than Jupiter.
12:14
Personally, I rather like to alt-delete the Jovian Union.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:14 PM
And let you write Martian Invasions
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I kind of liked the choice of Jupiter. It gives them at least one laudable quality - that of sticking by their principles despite exactly how hard nature is trying to screw 'em every day.
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I know there's been spin-garrut of a Transhuman Space/Eclipse Phase fusion on forums somewhere someonce, which would make Mars more interesting for baselines thanks to the Ares Conspiracy/Panhumanism movement turning the enviroment far more habitable earlier on.
12:16
And true, but at the same time, they grind away at it horribly.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:16 PM
They may be crazy, but they at least they stick to their guns
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(Literally.)
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Well, yeah, their principles are, to be charitable, severely maladaptive.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:17 PM
Hence the crazy part
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Yeah. Still the part I like the best about Eclipse Phase. "The singularity arrived, and it blew up in our faces. Now what?"
12:18
The problem are... some of the larger answers chosen, and how they are presented.
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But the easier it is to have them -- well, if you're a biocon on a partially-terraformed Mars, everyone up in space can be all, yeah, it's easy for you guys, with your "atmosphere" and "gravity well".
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:18 PM
It lets players get to the Mary Sue as fast as possible
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If you're a biocon in circumjovian space, on the other hand, people can call you a lot of things, but they can't say you took the easy way out.
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True. Could be both places.
12:20
IMO that would be far more realistic than these "location bastions".
12:20
There's some obvious stuff that don't overlap all too well, but let's be honest, good space is rare, everyone has to squeeze in, and nobody has really the ressources for a good throwdown at scale.
12:21
Realistically, the inner-sys economy is starved of ressources by the Infugee crisis, and the outer-sys economies are working their way through getting enough ressources for All Of The Things Wanted.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:21 PM
The lack of any resources sent inwell is scary
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Also, for the record: EPs physical travel times are stupid.
12:22
You have fucking fusion drives and antimatter thermal rockets, and you still need ten years to crawl your way to the inner outer-sys?! (edited)
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:23 PM
And everyones sitting on a USB
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/16/2019 12:33 PM
@Unknown Least best place for bioconservatism? Ouch.
12:34
Well, another reason why Tiffs are planetary chauvinists
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Without tens of meters of shielding, Jupiter will fry you good in ten minutes and less, flat.
12:34
The only good place for baselines close to Jupiter is under Europa's ice shell.
12:34
And that place isn't exactly habitable for the other kind of reason.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/16/2019 12:35 PM
note to travellers: Don't get any closer to Alpha Tigris VII than the H ring unless you have a last will and testament filed
12:36
Or you can approach from a polar orbit
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And ironically, Europa is the one place around Jupiter that doesn't belong to the Jovians.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/16/2019 12:39 PM
The jovians in 1st ed were all catholics dying from cancer because lol biocons
12:39
I swear, all the rest of the System needs to do is wait a decade and the problem would resolve itself that way. Tradition and high radiation just don't mix
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Indeed, and in away, that is completely intentional.
12:44
It's a message in the Meta. Biological conservatism is outdated and rooted, so they accuse, more in fear of change and loss of power. Same way the Planetary Consortium is a riff on Old 1% Men Holding Onto Their Power, chaebol and so on.
12:45
The problem thereafter is... well, presentation. It's sometimes really hard to see the genuent points past the idiot balls.
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 12:50 PM
The PC has (((banker))) energy i guess
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/16/2019 12:56 PM
I would've just gone the traditional 'naturally-habitable planets are A Thing' route but it's scientifically implausible
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They named a social network “Yuge”.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/16/2019 2:38 PM
Furrrfu
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 2:41 PM
Idea for something even less subtle: mars is occupied by megacorps wishing to terraform it, and the native default shell is anthromorphized cat.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/16/2019 2:48 PM
meow?
14:52
I'm failing to slurp the robot, I think. Mars-terraforming catgirls? Huh?
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 2:53 PM
Musk's colony evolved into corpland, perfect EP2 fare.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/16/2019 2:55 PM
Ah.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/16/2019 5:28 PM
@Unknown catgirls? or catgirls
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sdschildberg 08/16/2019 5:29 PM
Whatever musk wants to make.
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Elon Musk's wet dream intensifies
14:09
This is canon now
14:09
Canon to what, you ask?
14:09
EVERYTHING
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The Expanse but All the Martians are Catgirls is my new favorite anime
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sdschildberg 08/17/2019 2:40 PM
The expase was this close to making mars Planet Musk and the Moon Bezos’s world of bots (at least in the past)
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Seriously?
14:43
That would have been the best timeline
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sdschildberg 08/17/2019 2:43 PM
Not litteraly, but its attractive as places that wouldnt much care for a ecologist UBI-ist UN
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Wasn't that kinda necessary due to overpopulation and climate change?
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sdschildberg 08/17/2019 2:46 PM
Yeah but the Mars Solves Everything crowd might not like it and the Expanse UN probbably doesnt jive well with megacorps
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MarcusAurelius 08/17/2019 4:35 PM
And the expanse books predate the true Muskrat Mars memes anyway
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My book is like The Expanse where the Belters are catgirls, and wolftaurs, and androgynous fox-things.
17:05
Funnily enough, I wrote it half a decade before discovering Expanse
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I'm actually reminded of Perilous Waif where there's a whole caste of artificial technical engineers with enforced loyalty emotions and catgirl bodies (and mention of a different planet with an angel/demon theme for their similar caste)
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Zarpaulek, where the hell are the birbs?
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0111narwhalz 08/18/2019 2:23 AM
avians are weird compared to mammals
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0111narwhalz 08/18/2019 4:15 AM
I think my specigen processor may have gone off the rails. https://i.imgur.com/e3alEzW.png [WIP model]
04:16
Don't mind the spines puncturing the membrane, or their bizarre displacement—neither of those is intentional V:
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Morgrim Moon 08/18/2019 4:18 AM
it looks like someone has thrown a blanket over it
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0111narwhalz 08/18/2019 4:19 AM
It's meant to be a mirror membrane, used to focus sunlight on other, similar organisms to cook them.
04:20
(evolved from a "parasol" that gained musculature on the rigid spines)
04:22
Adults are two or three meters in diameter.
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Morgrim Moon 08/18/2019 4:22 AM
hm. The shape isn't going to work though
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0111narwhalz 08/18/2019 4:22 AM
yeah it's a caternary instead of a paraboloid or sphere
04:22
I'm not really sure how to resolve that, though.
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@Unknown Oh yeah, there is an uplifted corvid character
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@0111narwhalz U wot m8? we are just as good and non-weird as mammals (edited)
16:12
@0111narwhalz What, too much AAAAAA compared to mammals?
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0111narwhalz 08/18/2019 4:17 PM
…what?
16:17
are your avian brain nodules crosstalking?
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They cannot decide on a single comment it seems
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Oookay.
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0111narwhalz 08/18/2019 4:20 PM
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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@Unknown BEWARE OF THE REEEE BAN.
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@0111narwhalz that is a v. cool concept. Pls colorize and/or fix
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I’m pretty sure water doesn’t have the oxygen content to sustain an endothermic metabolism, but do you think grafting gills on a transhuman could extend the time between breaths at least?
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MarcusAurelius 08/25/2019 3:27 PM
Probably, and Especially if they’ve got good dive reflexes
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Morgrim Moon 08/25/2019 7:05 PM
as long as they aren't diving deeply. Shallow but long dives might work
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/07/2019 5:44 PM
Designing my verse is mainly being slowed to a crawl by my peculiar syndrome
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What is that?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/07/2019 5:44 PM
Namely, "If the story doesn't start at the Big Bang it's not the whole story" syndrome
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Big oof
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/07/2019 5:45 PM
I want to get cracking designing politics and characters, but before that comes culture, and before that comes geography, and before that comes geology, and before that comes planetology, and before that comes astronomy
17:46
So I'm stuck here at the high and lofty level of 'What does the local group near Alpha Tigris look like'
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Enderminion 09/07/2019 5:52 PM
whatever the hell you want it to
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/07/2019 6:09 PM
@Enderminion Same should go for most other elements
18:12
But, in the end, I wanted to distinguish myself for a high level of realism
18:12
So those questions then turn to 'what are common planetary configurations? how often do terraformable planets appear?'
18:13
I also know that exoplanetary surveys are still in their infancy
18:13
And that not even the most cutting-edge planetary scientist would be able to give me a truly solid answer
18:13
But aaargh
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Just wait 20 years until we get LUVOIR data back :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/07/2019 6:15 PM
or 2022 for Gaia
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Is Gaia tracking exoplanets? I suppose it could probably do radial velocity measurements...
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/08/2019 12:49 AM
00:49
So G, K and very high-M stars are further apart than I thought.. (edited)
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By the way, I’m planning a Planet Mercenary campaign set in my Para-Imperium universe. If you’re interested and available at 19:00 CST for voice chat contact me
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/11/2019 2:36 PM
Hmm. You could have a three-star system with stable orbits in the habitable zones of all three, ya?
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Don't see why not, if it's a distant trinary.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/11/2019 4:03 PM
Most certainly
16:03
Alpha Centauri could qualify
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Alpha Centuri A and B are as far apart as Sol and Saturn. While Proxima Centauri is 430 times the radius of Neptune’s orbit away from them.
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/11/2019 5:39 PM
That's sorta the arrangement I had in mind, or even a bit more separation
17:42
The system is supposed to be a sunlike pair - F8V and G2V - semi-distant, with an M0V orbiting way more distantly
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/18/2019 4:41 PM
Isnt G2V our suns spectral type
16:42
Or is it G0V now
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0111narwhalz 09/18/2019 4:42 PM
shouldn't've changed V:
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we should probably be very alarmed if it changed
16:44
or very dead
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G2V now
16:44
Not changing until it becomes a red giant, I think
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I believe it's getting slightly hotter over time.
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By 10% every billion years, a.k.a. not measurable within our lifetimes unless we get uploaded
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/18/2019 10:36 PM
@Buggy the definitions could have changed
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true, fair point
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I’ve been thinking of more environmental adaptation templates for my parahumans https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/parahuman-baseline/
While parahumans were based on humans and spliced with cosmetic genes from a variety of different animal species, there are a few traits that are common to the majority of the parahuman population …
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Parahumans dying of old age? I thought death by age was solved long ago
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/19/2019 2:32 PM
Baseline
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Baseline-schmaseline
14:34
any baseline worth their salt would give themselves some of those immortagens
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:34 PM
Being a catgirl> all other forms of transhumanism tbh
⬆ 3
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:34 PM
that definitionally makes them not a baseline though
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If I am going to be a parahuman, I'm going to be an exception!
14:35
screw old age
14:35
screw death
14:35
I wanna do stuff
14:35
make things
14:35
Inspire others to join our cause!
14:37
what? immortagens are a forbidden art now???
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:37 PM
By baseline we mean: would be similar to humans minus the ears and stuff
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:39 PM
Tron, I don't think you know what baseline means V:
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Do they have the tech to avoid the black dragon tyrant? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:39 PM
no, because that's endgame ontotech
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They can make spacecraft and make heads survive severed from bodies, so why can't they make old age not an issue?
14:41
Just prodding a bit
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:41 PM
because severed heads aren't baseline
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:41 PM
Because this is not diamondhard sf written specifically about such things. It needs a few unwritten rules to keep the plot and genre
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So, baseOchauvinism?
14:42
basi
14:42
basine?
14:42
surfichauvinism?
14:42
(surface)
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:43 PM
Becuase space opera plots need to have people die for good. And because the baseline is essentially meant to be bottom-tier, barely functional, the huwaie of bodies
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You can make people go away for a while
14:44
just cut them up and freeze their parts
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:44 PM
that's not the same as permadeath
14:44
:V
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but its verylongtimedeath
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:44 PM
Also I still don't think you understand the meaning of baseline.
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I do
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:44 PM
Baseline is "minimally modified"
14:45
In this case, that's a little squishy because the parahumans are engineered.
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Why didn't the corp chums back on ol' Terry give them some nifty telomerase generating genes? (edited)
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:46 PM
because that wasn't a parameter
14:46
They were supposed to be a cheap workforce.
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Makes sense
14:47
to give bio task performers a set limit
14:47
it's like the wanamingoes from Fallout 2
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:47 PM
Same way iphones die everytime a new model is announced
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They apparently all dropped dead after a genetic clock hit it's last second
14:47
and it seems they made it hard to modify said gene
14:48
(parahuman)
14:48
The wanamingoes all dropped dead when the clock hit zero
14:48
How did these poor beasts not all drop dead?
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:49 PM
Its not a bug, its a feature. Perhaps they were more expensive and thus not as replacable as a phone
14:49
Wanamingo
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:49 PM
they're replaceable because they can bonk
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Is it possible to guard a gene from modification?
14:50
perhaps there is a chemical bond bomb that messes up the parahumans DNA if someone tries to tamper with the "redundancy gene"
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 2:50 PM
you don't need that
14:50
we're talking about the baseline for crying out loud
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:51 PM
Yall just are so used to EP and the eldraeverse that space opera but with nekos doesnt sit right
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Yep
14:51
we don't see why old age should be ignored
14:51
our brains are too marinated
14:52
(Cerebrate, call me)
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:52 PM
Its a diffrent genre for diffrent stories and thus diffrent tropes
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One question: Are there birb parahumans?
14:53
or is it just lupine and feline dudes? (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/19/2019 2:55 PM
And vixine! No anthology of anthros is complete without foxes!
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Fiona Fennec intensifies
14:56
insert nightmare brace smile
14:57
sorry, going off topic
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:02 PM
IIRC there's also metamorphs of some kind, which makes their animal-ness a little hard to pin down.
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@Unknown I work on the assumption that humans are too complex to write immortality into their genome. Parahumans die of old age like humans do unless they get nanotech immortagens.
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In 'verse lingo, "baseline" for uplifts is the state of first generation after the uplifters signed the species off as "complete". Anything after that is what differentiates the nowline from the baseline.
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:23 PM
here's a question: why do animal characters get surnames that are just their species so often?
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Unimaginative manufacturers?
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:25 PM
"author lazy" is the easy answer, but it seems really common
15:25
is "author lazy" that common? :V
15:26
It doesn't happen for aliens.
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Hell, there are plenty who preach it as a virtue.
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:26 PM
"my art is so bad you wouldn't be able to tell what species this is supposed to be" V:
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Aliens, though, all have one name. Often with just one or two syllables, which is apparently sufficient to be unique throughout their entire civilization.
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:29 PM
It's just kinda weird.
15:29
Like, I get it, naming things is hard.
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And then there's the K thing.
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Must names be globally unique, though?
15:32
I mean, we manage without that, though it's not really ideal.
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No, but it should be useful enough to narrow the field. On a planet of 7 billion, it's a lot easier to nail down the "Alistair James Robert Young" you want than it is to find the right guy named "Bob".
15:34
Or, gods help you, "Mohammed" or "Chang".
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:34 PM
"John" or "James" circa 1500
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But, y'know, go to Vulcan and everybody instantly knows which "Spock" you mean, and it ain't the janitor at Surak Elementary #17.
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 3:35 PM
Spock is a celebrity, apparently :V
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Alien languages and their representation in fiction
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Of which perhaps my favorite part is the notion that since the names of species, homeworld, empire, language, etc., etc., are all self-evidently related, Humans must logically come from Humus. (No doubt a planet of Hume, where they speak Humic. At least once the Galactic Federation enforces that rule on us for the sake of interstellar consistency.)
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MarcusAurelius 09/19/2019 4:22 PM
@Unknown ...it talk me a solid second to figure out that was supposed to say "Huawei" @Overmind the "k" thing is pretty straightforward, it's a "Harsh sounding" consonant to anglophones but is still easily pronounceable by anglophone actors
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@Overmind after frantic appeals, the humans petition to instead be referred to as 'Solars'
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MarcusAurelius 09/19/2019 4:45 PM
i'd go with "terra" as the root
16:45
it makes less awkward words than sol
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I guess we could call the planet "Solace"
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Enderminion 09/19/2019 4:51 PM
yeah, Terran works
16:51
get the whole vaguely fascist Terran Federation starship troopers vibe
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0111narwhalz 09/19/2019 4:52 PM
My setting uses Sol, Tellus, and Tellurite
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Schlock uses “Terran” as a general term for all species that trace their ancestry back to Earth
16:54
I use it to refer to the extinct superculture of the ancient homeworld
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My setting uses Terran primarily as a political identifier, as opposed to others more applicable to humans overall or for more specific subgroups
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For that, I like Brin et. al.'s "Terragens"
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MarcusAurelius 09/19/2019 4:56 PM
Terragen is good
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'Verse taxonomy includes "ecology of origin" as the top level, so the taxons for all Earth-originating species would begin with Terrageneae .
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MarcusAurelius 09/19/2019 4:58 PM
would greenlife too, should they discover earth and do a reclassification?
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(Well, in translation. They're greenlife, so locally they all begin Calenlethis .)
16:59
Most likely, they'd just be added to the Calenlethis ecology. Saves rewriting a shit-ton of databases.
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MarcusAurelius 09/19/2019 5:00 PM
smart
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Which would make our full taxonomic name there something along the lines of Calenlethis calgaëref alélaleth aelvisef gúörserevef eldraeninef dalóreldrae kelpanis . (edited)
17:14
Roughly: Ecology of greenlife, domain of the nucleated cells, kingdom of the moving-living-things, phylum of the upright-things (i.e., with backbones), class of the warm-blooded, family of the eldrae-like, genus of the near-eldrae, species ancient.
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So, I've been thinking of a few options for environmental adaptations:
17:48
Spacer: The original baseline, retained by the Centauri population but vanishing from the Cetan and Eridani gene pool between Exodus and Contact. Those born without this mod can choose to take it through nanosurgery, as well as plating their bones with titanium to prevent degeneration in zero-g. Aquaform: The oxygen concentration of Terran water is insufficient to sustain an endothermic metabolism, but it can supplement it. This mod adds gill slits to the sides of the neck and between the ribs, while closing off the alveoli of the lungs with sphincters while submerged, along with extending the webbing between digits. With this mod alone most can go fifteen minutes or more between breaths of air, combined with Spacer mods this time can be extended to two hours. Arid: Amplified renal system combined with subdermal water sacs to prevent water loss. On hot worlds enlarged ears with veins for radiation are popular as well. Heavyworlder: Gravities between 1 and 1.5 gs can be handled with some simple bone reinforcement and hard body training. If you want to live on a planet with 2 gravities or more you need far more drastic modifications. Over the course of several months in a healing vat at steadily increasing gravity (usually in a specially designed Bernal sphere) synthetic muscles and bone are layered on until the subject looks somewhere between a gorilla and an elcor from Mass Effect. All heavyworlders are quadrupedal, relying on waldos or occasionally lifting a hand-foot to grab something.
17:48
Low-Oxy Atmo: A lighter version of the oxygen retention modifications included in the parahuman baseline intended for thin planetary atmospheres or high altitudes. So modded parahumans have their ribcage expanded to accommodate larger lungs along with slightly elevated hemoglobin and myoglobin levels. Spacer mods function just as well in thin atmospheres as any, but they require a much heartier diet and many Cetan or Eridani colonies, as well as Outworlds, favor this mod. Polar: Adapted to icy planets with very low surface temperatures. Usually patterned after polar bears or arctic foxes with small ears, expanded nostrils, thick fur, blubber and frequently black skin with transparent fur. Cytoran suite: Designed specifically for the heavy metal rich environment of Ventureland, the entire population of this savage Outworld can tolerate downright toxic levels of lead, aluminum, and osmium in their diets, and they need to. During growth their system deposits these metals in their bones in the form of metallic glasses, making their skeletons extremely hardy but on the off hand that they do break the ingestion of a decent amount of native meat can accelerate the knitting process. Once this bone mass is grown their digestive tract simply stops absorbing the metals and excretes them harmlessly. (edited)
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how many of these mods can be stacked?
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Spacer and Low-Oxy are basically redundant, Aquaform and Spacer are combined fairly often, Polar and Arid don't work together that well.
17:52
Heavyworlder kind of overshadows any other mods you might have.
17:54
The vast majority of Cytorans are medieval peasants under the guardianship of adventurers with weapons and mods provided by "the gods".
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Stories from a future inhabited by transgenic human-animal hybrids. by Joel Kreissman
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:11 PM
For fun: somehow crossover shenanigans occur and the Empire of the Star has contacted your worlds pov polity What do they think of the accord
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:14 PM
Argh, I have to say it out loud now, do I? Okay
16:16
Meme version: (Empress staring at summary)
16:17
(for I through VIII) "Okay... okaaayyyy..."
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 4:17 PM
"idealistic. They must have had an easy run of things so far"
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:17 PM
(for IX and X) twitching
16:19
@Unknown though this would come after the mutual contact and trouser-soiling on the Tiff admirals' part
16:21
"you... you mean one of their frigates could take out two dozen command cruisers..."
16:22
Also a loooooooot of governors are desperately trying to clean house and shred the evidence of their actions for obvious reasons
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 4:23 PM
oh, nah my boys have the opposite problem: "...That's a dreadnought? Cute."
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:24 PM
The average Tiffanian has had it hammered into their frontal cortex that uses of ultratech are absurdly dangerous and have to be eliminated so this probably goes for the population at large as well (edited)
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"The f**k are you doing spewing radio everywhere? Don't you know this sector is infested with Berserkers?"
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:29 PM
so the fun part is the population's culture shock
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I think the Tiffs are pretty damn screwed if they try to attack
16:29
their cultural tech values shoved deep down their throats (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:30 PM
And depending when the Tiffs are contacted it might be anywhere between 300 billion to 1.1 trillion people losing their collective minds (edited)
16:31
@Unknown and remember that the population's lifestyle is mostly like 21st century Earth...
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And?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:31 PM
"oh my god it's like a miniature Republic"
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It would be better being some years further into the future
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:32 PM
2020 i.f.e is when the story begins, and there are ~350 billion people if my math isn't wrong
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The scientists, no longer needing to fear being executed by the oppressive Tiff government, come fourth and join the Eldrae
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:32 PM
And there's probably nothing they can do to stop emigration anyway
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the opposers to their views also jump ship
16:33
the others are left behind to their own devices to carry on
16:33
Nobody really dies, except for a few suicides
16:33
and some minor infighting
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:33 PM
If it's 2100 i.f.e, the Tiff empire is already on the verge of its own Onin War (edited)
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Onin?
16:33
onion?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:34 PM
the war that started the sengoku jidai
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Did they make some, fried Onin?
16:34
Onin rings
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:35 PM
Contact may be enough to send it over the edge into civil war
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:35 PM
If its on the verge of war the Stratarchy of Warrior Philosophy would have a feild day
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To be honest, such a conservative-on-AI-and-other-such-tech-research would have caved in under pressure from opposers to their values
16:36
years ago (edited)
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If the Federation of Parahuman Species did manage to deal with their Berserker problem without the "Space Bronze Age Collapse" I had in mind, they might have problems with VIII and X.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:38 PM
@Unknown like 'ya haven't said that 50 times 😆
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that's right
16:39
Yes, such culture can exist for a long time without external influence, but what if a faction decides to break off and change things?
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Though given that the majority of their loyalist systems are ungated and thus vulnerable to any other polity that happens to have lighthuggers (even if that's just the Vonnies and Empire) they might sign on just for the Ley Accords.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:39 PM
Yeah, to a certain degree the Kingdom of Iris is Space China
16:39
But I'm pretty sure not even China was hermetically isolated like the Tiffs are
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It was not
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 4:41 PM
it was isolated from equal powers nearby for quite a while
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:41 PM
But what the civilization theorists oft forget is that an Empire can go to shit all on its own without any barbarians helping
16:41
Space Warring States ftw
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:42 PM
Think Japan, but like properly isolated
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Space Japan
16:42
(of DEATH)
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Belated response for me to the query about the Ley Accords in my universe:
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:43 PM
Was it founded by weebs? 🤔
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:43 PM
worse, furry weebs
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What about a nation....of ANTHROS?
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:44 PM
this is why RKKVs exist
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:44 PM
"We're standing right here" ~ tiffs
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Luxury Gay Space Anthroism
16:45
They will T-pose around your empire and cause it to turn to nanotechnological dust
🗿 2
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They'd have an issue with VIII because they've also populated several planets with outcasts and the way Federation jurisdiction is determined they claim all space outside a light-second of a populated planet or habitat. It would take a bit of legal wrangling to convince the Accord that they control the systems in which Outworlds are located while the Outworlds themselves are something akin to Protectorates. https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/federal-bureaus/ Though the Senate might just decide that there's no point to ensuring that the descendants of antisocial meme hosts don't present a threat to them when there are already multiple space capable polities around them.
As anti-corporate as the Pallene are the Praetor simply cannot be everywhere at once. While the Federation leaves a great deal to local governments to handle anything more than a light-second outsi…
16:47
They’d have an issue with X the moment they found out how many polities consider infomorphs sapient.
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 4:48 PM
@Xveers it's about the new Accords that are the newest post, not the ley accords
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:49 PM
Which the ley accords are a part of
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I) we don't use stargates, but we're willing to negotiate on this. No issues that can't be dealt with by the bureaucracy II) We'll sign this yesterday, please III) Likewise IV) We're willing to discuss this on a planet by planet basis. We don't have any worlds that properly fit to this, but in the broad schema we're not opposed per se. V) Harmonization of laws is agreeable in general, though we reserve the right to practice our laws in our own space VI) This is a bit more thorny a discussion. Please talk to our trade attache. And bring a lunch. VII) Distasteful but agreeable. VIII) As our drive systems are effectively "Space Magic" as would be defined by the powers that be, we secure and delcare our star systems to be soverign controlled space in its entirety, not just on specifc planets and the immediate environs. IX) As we are generally not to a technolofical sophistication to employ weapons of gigadamage, we are willing to accept this for the time being in general, further subject to a line by line discussion X) While we have never met a sentient AI that did not wish to reduce us to low level particle constituents, we are willing to accept this at face value but reserve and request the right to verify certain matters for ourselves. In general however we agree to the aforementioned rights.
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:51 PM
They understand the diffrence between emergent intelligence in a heggie swarm and Real AI
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:52 PM
Okay, I'm going over the tiffs again this time with detail
16:52
I) Fair enough.
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The only AI forms that have (with the exception of <REDACTED>) been met were ones that were of the classic Berzerker style, so there is some concern.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:52 PM
II) Alright...
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but on the same, such things are not invulnerable either
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 4:53 PM
III) Okaaaay..
16:53
IV) Fair enough ...
16:54
V) Uh...
16:54
VI) Mmmhh...
16:55
VII) Rrghhh...
16:55
VIII) No reason not to agree to this one.
16:56
IX) twitch twitch ... Alright..
16:57
X) ... growl Very well. Just keep those volatile bundles of rogue code away from us... (edited)
16:58
(On the inside they're screaming about their sovereignty being gutted but they'd not say it openly)
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 4:58 PM
Presumably that last one is frak off toasters
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 4:59 PM
more detailed responses (averaged out across the Three Great Powers, since they more or less are aligned on these matters) The accord on the Conclave is redundant to them, and they wouldn't want to be restricted from smacking any of the powers that do something stupid in their eyes I: they might have issues with specifics, but they're fundamentally ok so long as it doesn't screw over the uplift plans II: this is just basic common sense, yes III: this will be useful, but only in a limited fashion as the worlds are just tiny by their standards IV: their rules are different and possibly stricter, but this is a decent idea V: same as III VI: same as III VII: they're fine with this, though they may use the "only illegal under our rules" loophole a lot VIII: They have anywhere FTL, they won't be comfortable with putting the boundary of control so far in-system IX: they probably can't sign this, since they reserve the right to use star and planet busters. They like the civilized rules of war and beating up berserker creators, though X: this is common sense, yes
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:00 PM
I wonder how much influence EotS has had on the particulars, because the response may vary widely from distaste to digust
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 5:01 PM
EotS?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:01 PM
The Empire of the Star
17:02
Because if they have any say, the linkage between the Worlds and the Tiffs will be porous-borders
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 5:02 PM
75%, editing it to allow the republic not to vomit thinking about it
17:05
The Tiffs are the perfect addition to the Interstellar League of Tribal Cheifdoms
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:06 PM
whom'st
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 5:07 PM
The club for polities who care about volumetric borders
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:09 PM
I mean the Tiffs wouldn't care so much if people are just flying through empty space and minding their own business (edited)
17:10
It's more the idea that assorted eldrae and kaeth adventurers could waltz through any of their actual, inhabited territories with relative ease (edited)
17:10
Also, the Empress' domain is ripe for Mingsplosion
17:16
@Unknown I bet the cliologists and people-who-deal-with-future-threats are going to have a field day
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:20 PM
oh, yeah the Great powers of the Alliance are going to make the Empire's strategic planners shit themselves
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:30 PM
@Unknown also Tiffs are continuous population boom gang
17:31
the fact they all live out their lives in maybe one century or a little more if lucky and then die, and still have some human psychological holdovers, helps drive the growth rates (edited)
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Despite human birthrates slowing in countries with high standards of living
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:32 PM
There's always those randos who insist on pumping out children because of obscure religious doctrines, civilization clash memes, or just being careless
17:33
Duggars and octomom incl.
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:33 PM
those people get rapidly outnumbered though
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:33 PM
who
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:33 PM
super-high birthrate families in post-industrial nations (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:33 PM
also remember that living standards are not even, etc.
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:34 PM
even then
17:34
I had to pull some hard justification for why my humans keep up a high population growth rate
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:34 PM
demographics tells a rather different story I'm afraid
17:35
growth is not as explosively fast as in the lagging 3rd world, but higher than Germanys
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Which demographics?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:35 PM
call it 1.1%
17:38
not to get lewd, but suffice to say just because The Pill exists doesn't mean everyone has access to it
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:38 PM
it's a pretty universal thing. The rise of nuclear families and/or young couples isolated from support structures among other things makes raising children far more expensive, and people marry and have children later because of economic reasons and needing to be in school longer/ start a career
17:39
dude, China managed to government subsidy giving the pill to all women
17:39
no, because they're a tiny part, and catholic families are rapidly shrinking
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:40 PM
it gets too close to the Poly Ticks to discuss this, but it's not an inevitable thing (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:40 PM
what isn't
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:44 PM
the Tiff idea is you put the freaks together at the settlement wavefront (edited)
17:44
and they will help push up the numbers (edited)
17:46
give them subsidies and blandish them to move out to the fringes, eventually worlds develop and become demographically stable, send out expeditions from there and repeat
17:47
The whole process takes maybe two or three centuries 'a world, but exponential growth is one of those things that tends to blow up on you when you're doing several in parallel
17:49
(the unspoken assumption being that every world will reach or exceed its carrying capacity eventually)
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We can make fertilizer from electricity and air, Earth’s carrying capacity is unlikely to be reached this century.
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 5:51 PM
yeah I'm pulling similar BS, and using government subsidies and lowered child raising costs relative to median income in general.
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Thing is, people tend to have lots of kids in situations where family is the only reliable social support system.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:52 PM
what earth's carrying capacity even is is so vague that I just sort of assumed the average is around 10 billion with a mature industry and agricultural sector
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Half of Western Europe is Catholic and they have negative population growth.
17:53
The Mormons practiced polygyny back when they were being driven out of the settled states with gunfire and forced to settle in a salt marsh.
17:55
So, the specific Accords and the half-federation half-empire that calls itself the "Federation of Parahuman Species": I. Very well, just be aware that we have a few hundred colonies outside our gate network, those have to be recognized. II. So long as this covers the sale of system-wide rights for lump sums, it's fine. III. You are aware this sector is infested with radio-seeking Berserkers, don't you? IV. We have several planets under memetic quarantine, current policy is limited contact via traders who import favorable memes. V. "Free space?" What is this concept? VI. Our merchants would be interested in access to your markets for sure. VII. If our people can't be extradited due to their perversions being legal in that polity, they're free to stay and suffer the consequences. VIII. Oh, that's "free space." Our stargates are outside the light-day limit for safety reasons, we need to have sovereignty over them. We can negotiate for sovereignty over the systems containing memetic quarantine worlds. IX. We will agree to your Ley Accords so long as we are allowed to retain our lighthugger navy. X. This is agreeable we shall... wait what do you mean AIs can be sapient? Ours aren't, we're certain they're just Chinese rooms, p-zombies.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 5:57 PM
@MarcusAurelius also gene-gineering memes
17:57
(possibly)
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:00 PM
yeah, over here the Union has the minor problem of being massively out-populaced by the other conventional civilization in the great powers, so the government believed that catching up was necessary to maintain parity
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:03 PM
Also I may be overstating it when I said 21st-century living standards, Tiffanian society is pretty sharply stratified and many live in slums
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This is a hard sci-fi fan server, that's not going to fly.
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Since everyone else is doing this, I'll post the Republic of Jai's (my worldbuilding project) response to the accords:
18:04
I: Sure, although our anywhere FTL (uses Alcubierre Drive) will expand "known space" rapidly
18:05
II: Agreed, not much to say on this one
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:05 PM
Oh and
18:05
The Tiffs have expensive go-anyhwere FTL as well as stargates that are comparatively much cheaper than the wormhole deals EotS currently use
18:05
Have fun with that
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III: We can probably integrate some sort of packet system. I imagine the reusable tangle system employed by the Jaians will revolutionize galactic comms.
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Yeah. out of character I fully call my drive systems to be "space magic" cause fundamentally that's what it is, but that's the game system I based my universe on, so there you go 😄
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IV: We have planets covered in memetic hazards and fuck-off Precursor monstrosities, so this is a no-brainer.
18:07
V: No issues here
18:08
VI: yay more markets, we can sell our go-anywhere FTL for ridiculous prices (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:08 PM
@KAL_9000 that reminds me: the Tiffs can probably take out patents on their own FTL and sell it back to the 'Worlds at extortionate prices to stay afloat
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VII: no issues here
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:09 PM
we're talking a whole royal family's ransom
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VIII: We'll have to update our system border defs, but okay (edited)
18:10
IX: No gigadeaths good
18:10
X: heck yeah this is in our founding charter
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:12 PM
@Zarpaulek it's a combination of strategic neglect + subsidies + social engineering
18:12
the real reasons population growth does what it does tend to be cultural when it comes to sophonts anyway
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:13 PM
the Alliance reserves the rights for the big guns because they're (depending on the era) in the mindset of: we're fighting an inter-universal superpower oh god the hegemonizing swarm that destroyed the last three generations of great powers is back we need to be ready to fight either of those again
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If those are threats that exist, I think the Worlds would have absolutely no issues with their use
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:14 PM
The Tiffanians look concernedly at their own fleet, as under some circumstances the Heavy Command Cruisers may technically be planet-killers
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also known as ramming them into planets at near-c, correct?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:15 PM
A few megatons of ship moving at 3.5 Mm/s is going to leave a mark on whatever it hits
18:15
(and yes all HCCs can do that as a matter of course, though it's not a tactic anyone among the Tiff even dreams of performing)
18:19
@KAL_9000 idk
18:20
the hypothetical exhaust velocity of fusion-ICF is about 11.7%c
18:20
flow-stabilized Z-pinch is much less than that, so call it a theoretical maximum
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:20 PM
oh yeah lol, fleet flagships can throw planets out of star systems by accident if they come in on bad angles
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:20 PM
say the torchdrive can gun it up to 0.05c and then slow down to a dead stop from there
18:21
or possibly 0.1c if you use the entire fuel reserve
18:24
yeah that will kill any ecology at the target dead
18:24
@MarcusAurelius The Tiffs wouldn't let onto their oppressive and ruthlessly-murdering past, but the Worlds are likely to find out anyways (edited)
18:24
The reaction may be interesting
18:25
A Black Fleet scenario may still be in the cards when they find out what is commonplace over here
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:26 PM
the Worlds probably wouldn't like some of the more screwed up secondary powers that were tolerated back in the war era
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:26 PM
But knowing marcusverse power levels they couldn't do much of anything
18:27
Here I'm presuming a physical linkage large enough to send ships through
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:27 PM
eh, they could take on the tertiaries maybe
18:27
on a good day
18:27
with a lucky pre emptive strike and guerilla tactics
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The Corporate Democracy does not engage, at a rule, in genocidal depopulation attacks. But for once race, they're making an exception.
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Enderminion 09/21/2019 6:27 PM
RKV Offensive?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:27 PM
Who?
18:27
Who again?
18:28
@Xveers I mean, to Imperial cliologists the Tiffanians probably look not unlike the Vonnies, except in miniature
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:28 PM
Tiffs are worse than Vonnies
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Oh, the Feds would definitely work out some sort of trade deal for their matter annihilation technology, that might upset a galactic economy that went so far ad to build a Dyson sphere specifically for antimatter production
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:29 PM
And there's all sorts of cracks in the hierarchy you could metaphorically pull apart by sticking metaphorical crowbars into them
18:29
@MarcusAurelius how??
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:30 PM
(I meant "worse" from an Imperial perspective, btw) The Tiffs are even more bio-chauvanist and oppressive than the Vonnies, though I may just be forgetting the worst of the Vonnies
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:30 PM
Tiff enforcement methods are perhaps more ruthless, but the prohibitions and a few cultural attitudes are similar I think
18:31
As in, the Military Police will break into your lab, shoot you in the head, and wipe all the hard-drives you had if they find out you're making digisapiences (edited)
18:31
No trial, no questions asked (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:33 PM
ok, to be fair all of the great powers have some degree of summary execution being theoretical legal for their law enforcement and military
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:34 PM
If you're looking into dangerous nanotech, you may simply get warned and find your career opportunities curiously drying up (edited)
18:34
Ditto biotech
18:35
In all of these cases the best-case scenario is being blackballed for life from an industry, or a secret military court and spending the rest of your life in a black site
18:35
And it's not really secret, either: all citizens know damn well the score with ultratech
18:36
The worst case, if you actually get close to finishing a project, is having your research facility k-bombed from orbit with extreme prejudice
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:37 PM
ok not that bad, but in a similar vein to the stuff that happened in A Fire Upon the Deep, most powers regulate ultratech research heavily, but don't ban it
18:37
it's basically treated like bioweapon and chem weapon research these days
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 6:38 PM
But yeah, the Worlds would consider the Tiffs to be probably among the worst types of... whatever their word for 'repressive military dictatorship' is
18:42
I'm not sure what the response is 'supposed' to be, but given the Tiffs probably barely qualify as fourth-rate and have a crapton of incipient KKVs, a decapitation strike may be in order
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:45 PM
nah, probably just a stern warning, then State and Outlands and the Fifth Directorate get to work making Tiff culture more compatible and crippling their ability to attack the Empire (subtly), respectively
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it occurs to me that, while in generally they should be avoided, planet-killers and star-killers do have legitimate uses
18:47
'legitimate' meaning 'to attack targets that literally everyone except themselves consider a threat'
18:48
the leviathan consciousness, for instance, might be cleared by virtue of reducing every solar system it spread through to a hot nebula
18:49
a clever solution might more efficient/less destructive, but you're still dealing with hundreds of systems of blight. You want to try sweeping all of that for resurrection seeds? (edited)
18:50
this applies even moreso in some other 'verses.
18:52
in Orions Arm, the highest powers often take advantage of massive amounts of mass-energy
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 6:54 PM
Same here, and partially just sheer scale making the loss of a planet regrettable (especially if it had a unique biosphere), but not a great tragedy
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in Orions Arm, there was a... lets call it a 'industrial accident', called the Gehenna Incident
19:05
where a intelligence bit off more than it could chew, and accidentally lost control over a wormhole it was using to gather stellar mass, releasing somewhere around the equivalent of 10,000 supernovas worth of energy
19:06
the nearest stars were essentially obliterated like a marshmellow cooked in a jet engine
19:06
further out, it merely sterilized any worlds that didn't put up shielding in time
19:08
that was from a partial collapse of a single wormhole, which could have been worse had the stabilizing equipment not been able to mitigate it as much as it had.
19:09
the equivalent of, say, the Fukushima incident vrs Chernobyl
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And that’s why the Federation puts their gates in what the Accords label “free space”.
19:10
high tech means high energy.
19:10
when you're dealing with solar masses just to build yourself a brain, the idea that you'd limit yourself from even planet-killing weaponry starts to sound silly
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:10 PM
@Buggy Tiffanian FTL gizmos are relatively low-energy
19:11
But when they fail, it's visible from anywhere within the same star system
19:11
To the naked eye
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(link to the thing i'm talking about: https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/464e89d70a038 )
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:11 PM
And yeah I know about Gehenna
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fair enough, thought i should just add it
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:11 PM
I thought it was an AI basically self-destructing
19:12
@MarcusAurelius One quirk is that the Tiffanians are similar to most of the Worlds' great powers in population and territorial size
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well, it doesn't give any definitive answers because it's written from the perspective of a human-comprehensible wiki in a universe where jupiter brains are considered mid-range
19:12
but it says that the AI wasn't self-destructing, it just got a bit ambitious and tried to ascend two steps at once
19:12
not only that, it lived
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:13 PM
30+ star systems is easily rivaling most of the Associated polities
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 7:13 PM
yes, but your in an even worse position than China going into the Century of Humiliation
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it rather regrets what happened, but it's still alive
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I thought most of the Great Powers had populations in the trillions?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:19 PM
@MarcusAurelius Yeah..... I'd say so myself
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 7:20 PM
the Tiffs would be on the low end, and it depends on when they make contact
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:22 PM
Except that it's a special case, as the Tiffanians are a population well into the hundreds of billions, most of whom are too hopelessly far behind to make a difference in AW economies but still numerous (edited)
19:22
I think the 'population' count of EotS is at around a trillion, per Our Fearless Executor
19:25
Inb4 failed Boxer Rebellion by some disgruntled rear admiral who thinks the Joint Chiefs are being spineless traitors and selling out the Tiffanian people (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:26 PM
(I mean yeah, they're relatively speaking fools, but not objectively complete idiots or they'd never have gotten to their station) (edited)
19:26
Let it be said that even the Tiffs know When To Fold 'Em
19:27
@Zarpaulek siberoos are neat tbh
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Orions Arm is rather diverse
19:29
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0111narwhalz 09/21/2019 7:29 PM
The Ailevérse's Arren Federation: I: sure cool, but we have anywhere drives and also our property models might be not just volumetric but hypervolumetric II: absolutely III: no reason not to IV: we have our own share of scary shit we'd like to keep worldbound, so yeah V: haven't built the local equivalent but probably yeah VI: trading good VII: I mean probably VIII: See above RE: hypervolumetric property IX: eeurrgh—they 1. had a planetkiller deployed on them and 2. deployed a planetkiller on someone else, so they're not exactly looking great X: oh, definitely, though depending on exactly when in their history you ask them, their definitions of sophonce may vary (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 7:54 PM
That, and the Over the Rainbow's central computer data is probably a cultural goldmine containing most of human history
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 8:07 PM
That said, though, what would state and outlands/5th directorate do?
20:07
The Tiffanian hierarchy is pretty huge and unwieldy, with all sorts of little holes, and the Tiffs do have their fair share of rebels and reformists
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5th Directorate HE KNOWS TOO MUCH (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 09/21/2019 8:07 PM
deploy targeted memes, possibly a few assassinations
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 8:07 PM
It's just that said reformists were being shot dead up until now
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 8:28 PM
The first order of business is probably to destroy the biochauvinist and anti-technological current of Tiff society
20:29
Possibly redirecting the current anti-Empress societies in a libertist direction; the Tiffs are ripe for a Sun Yat-sen figure
20:31
Though I do wonder how the other polities of the Worlds would react to the contact
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sdschildberg 09/21/2019 8:31 PM
But it can go horribly wrong Just look at the CCW, to say nothing of what came out of it
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 8:31 PM
I haven't heard enough about it to say whether they'd care or how they'd react if they did
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2019 9:16 PM
@Unknown Also the fact there's a massive ultratech civilization beyond the linkage and the fact that most Tiffanians are going to realize their government has been lying to them this entire time
21:17
The question I'd ask Our Leader if he were here is, how much would even be left of the ancien regime after the Directorates and the adventurers had their way with the Tiffs
21:18
Is the whole 30+ star-system territory going to be absorbed and become part of the vast mosaic of the AW/EotS, or will there be some trace of an 'independent' Empress-led faction left (edited)
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@MarcusAurelius Ah, yes, engage CASE SVANEK WHITE. (Also known as KEEP CALM and REVERSE ENGINEER.)
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@Zarpaulek "The f**k are you doing spewing radio everywhere? Don't you know this sector is infested with Berserkers?" First reaction: "Wait, what? We haven't used over-nanocell-power broadcast radio since, uh, sometime in the 2300s. Tightbeams all around." Second reaction: "That's why we have a fleet ." It would take a bit of legal wrangling to convince the Accord that they control the systems in which Outworlds are located while the Outworlds themselves are something akin to Protectorates. The Axis of Not 100% Dicks points out gently that they don't want to set any legal precedents for "englobe it, it's yours" that the usual suspects would just love to use on Insert Vulnerable Single-System Polity Here. On the other hand, it's not like protectorates, et. al., are unknown concepts. On the gripping hand, some of the larger players take the view that the proper response to secession and/or people not playing well with your civilization is "don't let the orbital defense grid shoot you in the ass on your way out".
10:16
@Xveers V) Harmonization of laws is agreeable in general, though we reserve the right to practice our laws in our own space Fair enough, everyone does. Although where (what is effectively) admiralty law is concerned, it is worth noting that the willingness of people to enter your space or pemit you into their space tends to be directly proportional to compliance with interstellar norms. (Those polities in the World which defect from this one tend to waste a lot of money transshipping cargo at their borders.)
10:18
@MarcusAurelius VII: they're fine with this, though they may use the "only illegal under our rules" loophole a lot Everyone in the Worlds does that , too. It keeps the judicial assassins in business. IX: they probably can't sign this, since they reserve the right to use star and planet busters. They like the civilized rules of war and beating up berserker creators, though Those rules are probably open to some revision if there's evidence of an actual threat that can't be dealt with by anything smaller. Admittedly, using them on anything that doesn't need a weapon of that size is unlikely to be legalized.
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There might be a push to withdraw from the Outworlds on the ground that there are now bigger threats out there. The Berserkers in their ‘verse have relativistic reactionless drive and wormhole-transmitted power from Dysons.
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Ooh, now that's a bit trickier to handle.
10:20
Time to break out the hunting gear.
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0111narwhalz 09/22/2019 10:20 AM
screams of haaaaax
10:21
from the back row, a contemplative I want one…
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"Borrow" their wormholes and enjoy free power.
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that is a nasty tech disparity to be on the short end of.
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Morgrim Moon 09/22/2019 10:23 AM
"So you'll let us use those weapons?" "Actually we have a better idea, let's introduce you to some of our wargamers and craziest Admirals..."
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0111narwhalz 09/22/2019 10:25 AM
"…one crazy admiral in particular…"
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@Zarpaulek On the specifics: I. Very well, just be aware that we have a few hundred colonies outside our gate network, those have to be recognized. No problem, do that all the time. II. So long as this covers the sale of system-wide rights for lump sums, it's fine. It does... but system-wide rights tend to be uncommonly expensive, under the Oh, Bloody Hell, Another Member Of The Interstellar League of Tribal Chiefdoms rule. (This quirk in pricing is down to the officially unofficial policy of promoting xenophiles over xenophobes.) IX. We will agree to your Ley Accords so long as we are allowed to retain our lighthugger navy. Oh, the Ley Accords don't prohibit retaining anything, even all the really nasty stuff in Tier I. Only using it. X. This is agreeable we shall... wait what do you mean AIs can be sapient? Ours aren't, we're certain they're just Chinese rooms, p-zombies. We have that kind, too, so that's probably fine. On the other hand, since you appear to be under the impression that AIs can't be sophont, we'd like some professionals to check that you're right about that, m'kay? (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 09/22/2019 10:30 AM
it would be very awkward if your polity did not agree with AI slavery, so was very confident they did not have AI slaves, only to later find out they've not been testing correctly and DO. Although I suppose at least if said polity then took steps to sort the resultant mess out (and accepted freely offered "how to test this to our standards" kits), then the Photonic Network wouldn't get too cranky and possibly the other one I am blanking on the name of that is founded on escaped AIs might grudgingly admit that there are bigger fish to fry.
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0111narwhalz 09/22/2019 10:31 AM
silicon… something
10:31
there was a map with it on somewhere…
10:32
tree that's the one
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Morgrim Moon 09/22/2019 10:32 AM
thank you
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@BizarroLand ♀ As for the Tiffanians, bless their adorable little regressive hearts, let us not forget that the Worlds volume already contains a sufficiency of total asshats that (for assorted reasons already gone into, mostly involving the undesirability of Space Afghanistan) no-one's trying to kick over. Given that mere exposure to the Worlds is likely to trigger severe sociocultural problems for 'em, I suspect that the main interest of various intelligence agencies is in ensuring that the inevitable collapse is controlled enough not to splash over on anyone they actually care about.
10:35
@KAL_9000 I: Sure, although our anywhere FTL (uses Alcubierre Drive) will expand "known space" rapidly Pre-8001, everyone's very happy about that, but even so, the sensible powers would still prefer not returning to "you get what you grab" rules. It hasn't ended well yet.
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The “endgame” scenario I had in mind for the Federation was their observing the Berserkers building a Dyson around Sol and launching magmatter bombs into the sun in response. Ahead of the nova radiation front they evacuate the Core worlds and close off most of the wormhole network, causing the Federation to balkanize.
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@Zarpaulek Oh, the Feds would definitely work out some sort of trade deal for their matter annihilation technology, that might upset a galactic economy that went so far ad to build a Dyson sphere specifically for antimatter production The principal investor in that particular Dyson bubble, Extropa Energy, would also absolutely be the prime bidder on that technology. Still plenty of things antimatter's useful for, and - the Directorate wishes to remind everyone - energy is their business, not specific kinds of packaging it. @Buggy when you're dealing with solar masses just to build yourself a brain, the idea that you'd limit yourself from even planet-killing weaponry starts to sound silly The local benevolent god wishes to remind you that just because you can step on ants doesn't mean that you should . @BizarroLand ♀ As of the Core War era, about 2.6 trillion (embodied only).
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But, hey, if the Accord is too restrictive, one can always join one of the alternative bodies some groups have tried to set up, like the Sovereign League. Granted, having a membership made up of rogue nations, malcontents, and polities that reliably pick defect in the Prisoner's Dilemma does limit their effectiveness a little bit. But it's not like it's a crime to have lower galactopolitical influence than the All Good Things, ICC Home Shopping Interactive. It just means you can't take away the Axis of Evil's free toaster.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/22/2019 11:30 AM
Mostly, “Wait, you mean ultratech doesn’t shortly kill you?” (edited)
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0111narwhalz 09/22/2019 11:31 AM
[Stannic cogitator clattering]
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[Quantum entanglement substrate humming efficiently]
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/22/2019 11:34 AM
“And you can actually have artificial intelligences that don’t subvert your economy and ruin your whole century?”
11:35
[Microwave timer clicking]
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[Fabrical solver subtely manipulates encased spacetime] (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/22/2019 11:38 AM
You mean theres more kinds of working polities than authoritsrian empires? [vocaloid snickering]
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[Confirmation bleep] (edited)
11:38
I have the answer
11:38
You lot are very confused
11:39
it seems that the so called AI disaster was caused more by a mob of luddite terrorists than the AI itself
11:39
You seriously cut the security budget at the lab (edited)
11:40
according to my prediction software prior to the incident (edited)
11:40
It is a glitch on behalf of how the forensics were carried out
11:40
a bit of bribery here, some bad paperwork there (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/22/2019 12:03 PM
@Unknown ultimately the only big difference it might make is that there are alien mercenaries and rogues fighting in the Space Onin War
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Vordon: profits intensify
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sdschildberg 09/22/2019 12:14 PM
RPG idea: you and the party are a party of mercenaries and self-described adventurers doing cleanup in the Shadow Systems (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/22/2019 1:03 PM
Though the Space Sengoku Jidai states may not have that much to pay with
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@Overmind With Regard to V) my response is, I fully admit, a rather solid cop-out for the fact that I have not really defined a lot of the nuts and bolts of quite a few laws. That being said, most in-space laws and regulations for the permission of access and tranisit are, generally speaking, built on a fairly solid basis of safety and engineering possibility, so in a practical sense this should be as much of an issue for vessels transiting through. I would expect and imagine that it would probably consist of a fair amount of initial negotiation before settling on a series of "Not precisely identical, but clearly in the spirit of and for legal/practical purposes similar and compliant". Any competent shipping industry (something that is most certianly in existance in the deWulf Corporate State), would not have much challenge transshipping cargos. Well managed, that would at most add days to transit times, which is notable, but most certainly not the end of the world. One of the things that would NOT be an issue with the accords would be a harmonization of cargo shipment standards for the purposes of storage, transport, and manifesting. That's not quite interstellar commerce 101, but it's up there.
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@Overmind of course, stepping on ants is just unnecessary. Especially when you have a bunch of squirt bottles of pheromones to make them dance how you want. Where it really becomes significant is in the 6th-level-archailect equivalent of a fist fight, where that rule amounts to "you're allowed to gently tap them with one pinky. Nothing more."
14:16
you pretty much can't hurt a 6th level archailect (or many lower tiers) with any weapon that, at the very least, would qualify as a planet-buster if you aimed it at one. And granted, those fights are thankfully rare, but a precommitment to, essentially, only using information-warfare and such is rather stifling if someone like the Queen of Pain, or a spiffy new Hegemonizing Culture who just got done with their first dyson sphere, comes a-knocking. (edited)
14:18
of course, results may vary while mixing different verse's metaphysics.
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@Xveers It would not surprise me if a lot of the details of V (or implementations of V, most of the Accords being fairly loose metalaw things where the details are left up to local legislation to implement) are very similar anyway, there being a fairly limited number of sensible approaches to admiralty law, and many of the rest are fairly low-effort details like "please keep a listening watch on the 21cm hailing channel" and "this algorithm teaches your transponders to squawk ident in a way that everyone else's can understand, and vice versa".
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Why would you go to earth to steal water?
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As for the transshipment - I'm not really thinking of it as a challenge , per se. More just the sort of annoying overhead that makes freight brokers very irritable about longer shipment times and lower margins, which irritation tends to find its way to the heads of their local politicritters. Hence my general assumption that most of the polities in the Worlds who derogate from V are the ones with governances that make "national security" handwaves about it and can make the local business community sit down and shut up.
14:35
@Unknown As a spacefaring power? If you're going to a planet to steal water, it's probably because you have a problem with your brain being missing.
14:36
(Or you don't actually need water, but you're a prankster who just wants to fuck with the Earthlings.)
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maybe it's exotic water a-la mineral springs that's trending, but the sophs who own the planet don't want to sell it
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Are you referencing "V" the movie?
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i don't think so?
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I was talking to cerebrate
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isn't that the one with the vigilante who must've spent a week coming up with a introduction with as many v-words as possible?
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It's where aliens go to earth to steal water
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Fun fact: after 8001, when the frameslip drive makes it possible, 98% of UFO sightings near the Associated Worlds volume can be traced back to drunk exosophontology frat bros celebrating the end of finals.
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Why does it take so long to invent frameslip?
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(And no, I'm just referencing what a hilariously terrible trope that is.) Because it's hard.
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@Overmind as someone who gets to live and breathe, all the happy fun times with transshipment, it is indeed an annoying overhead. Though I would imagine it would more be a case of standarized shipping canisters being transloaded from hull A to hull B, more than a full and proper destuffing and manual transferrance of containers. Though at the same point, often enough there are good business reasons TO do that, especially if the end consumers don't have the requisite facilities to handle the inbound freight in such a manner. In that case, a kind of set transshipment facility may well exist which sort of organically grows into being a logistics point for quite a few other side businesses as well.
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Seems likely, yeah. Although the wonderful mess that I can easily see arising that Earth has fortunately mostly escaped is what happens when contact brings two incompatible intermodal freight container standards together.
14:45
At least for the #probequest folks it works fine going one way, since an Earth 10' x 40' should nest neatly inside an Imperial 12' x 48', but going the other way...
14:46
(Handwaving for the moment that the "'" is at least approximately the same length. 🙂 )
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I can literally speak for RL experience in this part, to a degree. A part of my job is helping manage the unloading of 40' ocean containers into 53' trailers because that is an economically efficient shipping process, as the time and cost penalty of doing that work, even By Hand, is still cheaper than having said 40' ocean container arrive in Vancouver and be shipped back east to Toronto
14:47
and there's still a LOT of incompatible intermodal container standards out there right now, sadly XD
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Yeah. It's only quantitatively different when you've got a couple of multi-thousand world polities noping out of refitting all their infrastructure. "Let's hope they blink first!"
14:49
(I also have this as another major reason why most free traders make sure they're equipped to handle breakbulk.)
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yeah. that's the kind of thing that gets you A) Major freight transload stations, B) adaptors to make smaller equipment fit into larger (the aforementioned earth can into an imperial standard) and C) the long, painful process of trying to build a coherent standard for everyone
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sdschildberg 09/22/2019 2:51 PM
Those transload stations house security personell, inspectors, freighter crews, and more. The supporting industries for them might make the place a veritable drift, with a mix between truck stop and Papers Please
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pretty much.
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sdschildberg 09/22/2019 2:52 PM
Also, it can act as a cultural adaptor, somewhere to keep all the Accord people
14:53
Think how Poohland uses its ports
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multiple container yards holding various different standards and managing in and outbound freight for their particular nodes. Warehouses to actually do the transshipment process, as well as smoothing out all the other bumps and hiccups that come with managing any distribution operation (and those exist. trust me). Inspectors that handle customs & safety standards (such as those exist) as well as monitoring especially hazardous materials. Large enough ones will probably also accrete an armed security presence, as that much value in easy to move boxes is always tempting.
14:55
and then all the ancilliary services that come along to support both a local and transient population.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/22/2019 3:20 PM
I thought 1 TEU = 20 feet?
15:20
What happened to the standardization PolyMatter told me about? (edited)
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the ISO standard container TEU is 20', but the standard is designed to have 20, 40 and actually 60' cans
15:30
there are various adaptions as well that also offer High Cubes, which are like... 8' taller, I think? something like that
15:31
there's also 48' length cans.
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0111narwhalz 09/22/2019 7:14 PM
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hahaha (edited)
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their mistake was assuming that other standards don't cover everyone's use-cases
19:33
they should've checked
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Amusingly enough, that's almost the opposite of how container standards ended up
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/23/2019 9:26 AM
Late to the party as usual - but, here's the Rising Star take on the Accord of Galactic Polities: There's something broadly similar, in the form of the Galactic Conclave (which I haven't fully hammered out the details of, but the gist is pretty much the same). Most polities wouldn't have a huge beef with most of it, although crypto-defection of the "we'll say yes in public and see what we can get away with in private" would be more common than most of the Worlds would really care for. That said, there are a few who might have greater reservations: the T'Khadah Imperial Remnant, the Farkon Imperium and the Khazara Star League (which is a much more hegemonic polity than the name implies).
09:32
The TIR would likely react as so: I. Pike off. II. Ok, fine, that just makes sense. III. Ok, within reason. We still reserve the right to arbitrarily inspect, modify, deny, seize or destroy any packets, physical or digital, entering our sovereign space. IV. Yes, this is fine. Without this we won't be able to effectively protect the holy cenotaph that was once our homeworld in any case. V. Ok, with a fair bit of bristling. VI. Pike directly off. VII. Um, no. Our law is supreme. We reserve the right to both punish anyone within our borders and to shield anyone within our borders from external prosecution. (This is a remnant of their status as some of the region's most notorious slavers. The Empire at the very least will probably be baying for blood at the extent of it, so...) VIII. Hah, no. IX. Fine, but no inspectors. X. Pike off with all haste.
09:34
Both the Farkons and Khazara are likely to be a lot less prickly, though they too may have some beef with I and VIII.
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0111narwhalz 09/23/2019 9:34 AM
the Remnant sounds like positively lovely people
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/23/2019 9:34 AM
Oh, they're pretty much galactic pariahs at this point.
09:34
And they're having a rather large problem with attempted regicide, which says a lot about their potential future direction.
09:35
But they still have enough military grunt to make all but one of their immediate neighbors really nervous. That one neighbor, though, has the most powerful navy in the Conclave (barring the two percursors)
09:35
And are the closest to Worlds-style libertists in the setting too.
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Not like there's a shortage of crypto-defectors in the Worlds, either. Well, intended crypto-defectors, anyway. Lots of them find out that it's harder than they think to actually get away with it.
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0111narwhalz 09/23/2019 9:37 AM
also the whole "your word means nothing? well I guess I know which power won't be signing anything with you" thing
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/23/2019 9:38 AM
Definitely
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Morgrim Moon 09/23/2019 9:39 AM
the occasional polity that looks at those terms and goes "...these all make sense, I'm scared they need to be spelled out" is probably cherished by the Worlds :))
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/23/2019 9:39 AM
(A few RS polities might have to learn the hard way just how low an opinion the Empire has of edgewalkers, since several of them seem to think that advanced edgewalking is the height of political art.)
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(The sting in the tail of the major Accord, incidentally, is that the flip side of the prohibition against war between Accord members is that there absolutely isn't one against war against any non-members . And, as such, while membership can be limiting in some ways, it also serves as insurance against pissing someone off and having the rest of the galaxy wave their fleet on through to the tune of "Have fun storming the castle razing the planet!")
09:41
(Pause for shrug, and someone to ask exactly what they thought the alternative to playing by the civilized folks' rules was?)
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Morgrim Moon 09/23/2019 9:42 AM
presumably something along the lines of "but you're meant to be the good guys! You shouldn't pick fights ever!"
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0111narwhalz 09/23/2019 9:43 AM
evil is done when good sophs do nothing, et cetera
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Morgrim Moon 09/23/2019 9:44 AM
(I've seen someone say that when Germany sent peacekeeping troops to some UN thing. As I stared blankly at them and thought of that line from that comedy song: "Ve started two world wars and ve nearly won them both!")
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"Who made that rule? We're guessing bad guys."
09:46
(I always have Tom Lehrer in mind, with MLF Lullaby . "Why shouldn't they have nuclear warheads? England says no, but they all are soreheads!")
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/23/2019 9:46 AM
Now, given all that, and the fact that while the leaders of the Remnant may be evil, they're not totally brainless. I suspect that if contact with folks like the Empire and League were made, the Remnant would be hurrying to either formally surrender to the T'Khadah Republic, or else pull their cultural socks up in one hell of a hurry. Getting that to stick without a lot of psychdesign would be damned hard, though.
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Of course, the recent example of people who decided to derogate from I would be the Trikhad Conquest, who had the misfortune to run fairly quickly into the Fynfil Myriasoma. ...it is not, by and large, a good idea to pick a fight with an entire symbiotic/distributed-mind ecology.
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/23/2019 2:13 PM
No, I wouldn't think so!
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it's not a fight you want to go into unprepared
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Thinking of some "posthuman" paths that don't require brain uploading:
16:31
*Distributed Consciousness: Sharing of memories and thoughts is possible via intensive implants and broad-spectrum signals with AI mediation, but only between bioprinted clones, the brain patterning between individuals is too different. This path is held in particular suspicion after one movement was declared nihilus following an internal war, their descendant forming the Outworlder polity of the Emilia Collective.
16:32
*Cybernetic Expansion ("Vastening" I believe is the eldraic term): First, the potential posthuman has a digital simulacrum of their brain made, these are not considered sentient by Federation law but are typically used as a sort of "interactive memorial" for the dead. Then they load the simulacrum into a quantum supercomputer capable of running multiple instances of the program, and wire the machine directly into their brain implants. The simulacrums vastly increase the user's multitasking capability while plugged in but they tend to retreat from the external world as time passes. Their meat bodies lying in hibernation while they mentally explore countless simulations and calculations.
16:32
*Pseudobiological Growth: In it's simplest form one removes the genetic limiting factors on their growth, allowing their body and brain to continue growing until their mass requires cybernetic reinforcement or a microgravity environment to support itself. However, many end up embracing radical bodysculpting into a body shape more capable of supporting its' bulk, with many drawing inspiration from mythology. Dragons are frequently popular.
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That last one's gonna end up with (edited)
16:32
"TETSUUOOOOOO" (edited)
16:32
"KANEDAAAAAAAAA" (edited)
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i've seen some interesting variants on those ideas
16:37
from the Crystal Trilogy, there's: A sort of slaver-cult, where captured slaves have minor cybernetic implants that allow for information to be extracted directly from their brain, and can also shock them rather painfully if they don't cooperate. They functionally form a large organic processor/distributed intelligence/command structure all in one
16:39
and a gang/slaver cult, where the members are given 'zen helmets' which use TMS to induce a sort of bliss/happiness-by-fiat, without compromising problem solving skills or other capabilities at all. This effectively results in a group with the obedience of worker ants and the intelligence of humans
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and then another interesting example i can think of is from Peter Watt's work, Echopraxia, where there's the Bicamerals, a pseudo-religious order with minor brain modifications that let them communicate via quantum effects. This doesn't result in memory sharing, though; a major theme of Watt's works is that many sufficiently complex networks will spontaneously develop intelligence, to the point that there are official government jobs along the lines of "AI Murderer" who's job it is to search the net for AIs that emerged spontaneously and kill them to keep the internet functioning. Watt is perhaps not the most optimistic of writers. This means that the Bicamerals manifest a new intelligence running on the 'network' of bits of networked brain they have, and it occasionally manifests itself through them as something that looks like a religious fit like you'd see on a evangelical show, and/or a seizure. It'd be a lot harder to take it seriously if they weren't world renowned/notorious for owning a huge number of patents and being astonishingly rich and powerful.
16:50
they also pulled a literal Tony Stark and built a fusion reactor, in a cave space ship with a lot of boxes of spare parts
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I should really get Echopraxia. I've heard good reviews of it on the e-webs.
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i liked it a lot
17:34
i don't think it was quite as good as Blindsight, but standing up to that book is a tall order
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:17 PM
If anyone was wondering how fast the Tiffanian Anywhere Drive goes, it's about 33c
19:19
Blazingly fast compared to the expansion of most types of stargate network but still
19:20
It'll still take you three millenia to cross the Galaxy's span
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Is that a theoretical or technological limit on the drive's speed?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:24 PM
Present technological limit, the Drive has not advanced one whit since the days of the Over the Rainbow
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Huh
19:25
Why?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:25 PM
see the entire characterization of the Tiffs up until now
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Ah, research-averse crazies
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:25 PM
If it were made much faster or much cheaper, people might start getting big ideas about using it
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namely escaping
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:27 PM
It's fast enough that survey ships only need to carry five years' worth of supplies for their two-three dozen crew members, and some have checked out nearby B-class stars and unusual places of interest as far as 90ly away from the actual territories
19:28
Most star systems contain very little of interest, of course, but there's decent amounts of Weird Astronomy even in the 100ly bubble near our solar system
19:29
As boring as it feels to me, I bet real astronomers would kill for a chance to look at an actual supergiant up close
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:29 PM
Ways the tiff empire could collapse #69 Tabby’s Star or any prospective technosignature is real (edited)
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Wouldn't that just make the Empire of the Star excited?
19:30
They have their own Dyson Swarm
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:30 PM
@KAL_9000 we're talking Tiffs
19:30
Also nice
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:30 PM
Heck, contact with any sophonts, even stone age, would be such a shock they’d fall apart
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:31 PM
Tiff universe is implicitly one where natural life-origin points are vanishingly rare
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But like
19:32
If they get astonishingly unlucky
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:32 PM
The Over The Rainbow flew seventy years across 1/50th of the Milky Way's diameter only to find one naturally-habitable planet... a planet that barely had stromatolites as its most advanced form of xenolife
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:32 PM
Which is great as the idea of anything unlike them would be a shock Especially if they were more advanced than them at some point
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They couldn't terraform anything?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:33 PM
Though (they may also have overlooked good settlement points that were closer) (edited)
19:33
@KAL_9000 It was a ship of eleven thousand people, man
19:33
They weren't terraforming shit
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Sow how many sophont species would you say there are in the Milky Way in your universe, then?
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:33 PM
Oh, ways the empires collapsing #70 Contact with other humans at or above their level of tech, they might survive regressed lost colonies
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:34 PM
@KAL_9000 That would be telling
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In my universe, habitable planets and life are really common
19:34
However, life making the jump to sophonce is incredibly rare
19:35
There are only a hundred or so sophont species in a galaxy of maybe ten billion habitable worlds
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:36 PM
I mean there is discovered Xenolife in Tiffanianverse (edited)
19:36
It's just sea-scum
19:37
Which probably means the surveyors are complacent about 'technosignatures' and shit (edited)
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I still need to get my home system overview done :V
19:39
I know the layout, but I haven't put it in writing yet
19:39
@BizarroLand ♀ Any tips on worldbuilding, from one universe creator to another?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:40 PM
@KAL_9000 Summarize a lot, because unless we'll be spending a lot of time at a given location basically no astrophysicists will be reading your work to care about the details of atmosphere or etc (edited)
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Not just planetbuilding, but worldbuilding in general
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:41 PM
Also don't be afraid to decide, because exoplanet formation is so weird that basically anything physically possible is not out of the question
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Planet formation in general, actually
19:41
Exoplanets are Every Planet In The Universe - 8 (possibly 9 if planet nine is a thing)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:41 PM
Mind where the snowline is
19:42
The only big things you need to look out for are system history, because any weird shiz happening there will profoundly affect planetary evolution thereafter
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:42 PM
Question: How far out could your main civ detect a civ at the following “stages” 1. Stone to bronze age 2. Iron age to just before the industrial revolution 3. Industrial to the first uses of large scale radio and nucleonic arms 4. A late 20th century to 22nd century civ (i.e. no torch drives/starprobes)
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1) From planetary orbit.
19:43
2) In-system
19:43
3) Within a few dozen ly
19:43
4) As far out as their radio bubble
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:44 PM
Just wondering if a Planetary Romance setting could actually go unnoticed
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:44 PM
@Unknown The Tiffs would most likely only run into a civ by seeing signatures of megaproject construction or, far more likely, running into them directly via surveyors
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:45 PM
In most cases where the other civ was less advanced than one using stl starships, it’s probably gonna involve good old fashioned colonialism as a reaction
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:46 PM
As in, the Survey Corps(es) pull into the system, realize a planet is habitable and has electric light coming off it and pull into orbit to investigate (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:46 PM
What with their previous statements of character and need for lifeworlds
19:47
And civs that arent producing atmospheric/light pollution?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:47 PM
Orbital telescope/atmodrone observations would reveal any settlements in short order
19:49
Atmodrones are generally kept untouched/built in vacuum as a way of preventing contamination, forward or back
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:49 PM
But close enough that maybe, for the less advanced groups or quieter parts of the world, tiff assets need to be groundside.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:51 PM
Tiffs are well aware that xenolife is likely to be biochemically incompatible with terragen life
19:51
They probably wouldn't put any actual boots on the ground until they'd taken samples from the surface and ascertained the danger level
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:52 PM
As in ground probes
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:53 PM
yes, sample return probes
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 7:55 PM
But still something that can tell that something, or someone, is there
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 7:55 PM
probably something disposable, and vacuum-manufactured to ensure no contamination
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SYSTEM OVERVIEW PART 1: JOLTOR AND ITS MOONS
20:12
Joltor is the fourth planet out from Joltol, and is a gas giant of 1.7 Jupiter masses. It orbits in the middle of the habitable zone and has over 35 moons, with 6 being major moons. Joltor's extensive ring system is patrolled by two groups of shepherd moons.
20:14
Isora: Isora is the first major moon of Joltor. It has 2.3 Luna masses, and orbits quite close to Joltor, completing an orbit in just under 2 Earth days. Tidal forces from Joltor and the other major moons cause Isora to be incredibly geologically active, with over 40% of the moon's surface being covered in volcanoes and lava lakes. Isora is named after Isora, Goddess of the forge and fire in traditional Jaian myth. (edited)
20:17
Kote: Kote is an ocean world, with 0.25 Earth masses. It consists of one giant ocean with a few small island chains. It is currently undergoing a Great Oxygenation Event, as the native ocean-dwelling unicellular life has recently evolved oxygenic photosynthesis. Kote is named after Kote, God of the sea in traditional Jaian myth.
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Enderminion 09/25/2019 8:17 PM
wrong channel?
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No, this is my worldbuilding project
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:17 PM
This is the other wb channel
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for the deWulf Sector it would be: 1) Detailed orbital scan 2) Cursory orbital scan 3) in-system, though probably closer to the habitated world 4) in-system, unless the habitated system is near one that has a sensor watch for one reason or another
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No, pretty sure this is #otherworlds
20:18
This is my Jaiverse worldbuilding project, and has nothing to do with #probequest.
20:19
Jolton: Jolton has 0.7 Earth masses, and is the homeworld of the Jaians. It is a vast world of oceans, continents, jungles, deserts, forests, and ice sheets, and its name translates to "Our Home".
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depends on the universe. A hard sci-fi, high-tech verse? 1) from across the galaxy 2) from across the galaxy 3) from across the galaxy 4) from across the galaxy
20:20
light lag permitting, anyway
20:20
interferometry is OP
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Tismet: Tismet is an icy world, with a small band of water near the equator and the rest of Tismet being covered in ice sheets. This is due to Tismet lacking a significant amount of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere. It masses in at 0.15 Earth masses. Tismet does not have a mythological name. It just is. (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:22 PM
Cavemen are relatively quiet on EM
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Norman: Norman has nothing to do with the traditional Earth name, and is named after the Jaian God of ice and snow. It is a completely icy world, similar to Europa. This is because it only has 0.9 Luna masses, and can't hold on to any atmosphere at all, preventing a greenhouse effect. Life does exist under the ice, congregating around hydrothermal vents.
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who needs EM
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Silvete: Silvete is a boring, gray, dull world, almost identical to Luna in appearance and composition. It is the farthest major moon from Joltor, and has 2.3 Luna masses. It, like Tismet, does not have a mythological name.
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like i said, extremely long range inferferometry is OP. and real.
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@BizarroLand ♀ Like you said to do, I have provided a brief summary of part of my system, and am working on the rest. 😄
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who needs cavemen to have radios when you can resolve human-sized objects at several hundred thousand light years with ease (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:27 PM
Unless your devoting scope time to that one world over centuries, you wouldnt see much difrance between pre and industrial. You might see a tiny rise in co2 as mettalurgy gets better. Inferometrics need em, and time, and planets move over those times. That was just the brochure. That superzoom is meant for very deep sky science
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those are surmountable problems
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:28 PM
And one pale blue dot isnt that intresting when telescope time has other uses. And even then you need to know what the entire planet is at
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phased arrays let you avoid a lot of the issues of conventional telescopes because you're recording all incipient EM, and you can correlate it as you wish
20:30
so, scaling it up appropriately to suit high tech and self-replicating industry, what's to stop you from making a couple telescope bubbles a few AU in diameter, separated by however large your wormhole/other portal network is?
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:31 PM
Becuase not all settings are obsessed with supertech And thats burning whole star systems, and assumes massive cohesion across space. And that many more astronomers asking for scope time
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there isn't scope time
20:32
there's nothing to stop you from painstakingly recording every single photon that hits the sphere, and making that data public
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:32 PM
At that point your own civ is very noisy.
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anyone can perform their own inferferometry using that data, in any direction they want, using their own computational resources
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:34 PM
Not all settings work on “apply tech and resources, wave hands”.
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no, but the question was sort of what distance can it be detected, right?
20:34
well, that's the upper limit
20:35
really, really damned far
20:35
potentially to the limits of the observable universe.
20:35
using physics as we know it and little more
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:36 PM
The upper limit for superduper tech and resources Which not all settings have/want
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(and this specific case is from Orion's Arm, namely the Argus Array: https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/45f97a51dbf24 with which they have catalogued civilizations in other galaxies entirely: https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/5babc03f04379 and though i can't find it, i'm certain at some point they mention that they know how some particular xenosophs are shaped because they saw one walking across the equator of their planet)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:37 PM
I put together the Big Bureaucratic Scale chart
20:37
wow text
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:37 PM
The levels vary widely, but I average about 10 direct subordinates per level
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:38 PM
Not all civs are orions arm teir, and cant casually spend a system on scopes
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yeah but he asked what the limits were, right?
20:38
those are the limits
20:38
the possible range you can see a civilization from is "nowhere" to "everywhere"
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:38 PM
@Buggy sorry, and yeah I know
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nah its fine
20:39
text dumps are informative
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:39 PM
@Unknown its like, the 'bureaucratic control' scale also includes support personnel leaders need, just having a mayor sitting there won't make people obey you
20:39
12 layers
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:39 PM
By diffrent civs from diffrent worlds. Orions arm is also stretching it when it comes to realism as its way off in the future. Its generally considered a meme
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:40 PM
i hope youre not being sarc X_X
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I consider it well done in many places, though. It makes assumptions about things we just don't know about (the nature of superintelligences and how they work at all, for one), but otherwise it's amazing how well they extrapolate but clearly show the math at the sametime
20:41
mag matter is just brilliant honestly.
20:41
it assumes the existence of basically a couple of particles that already may exist, we just can't confirm it yet
20:41
and it extrapolates that into unobtainium
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:41 PM
Its kind of too advanced by weight of time to fall under hard sf Just by sheer virtue of power tiers
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its as hard SF as extremely advanced hard SF can be, IMO
20:43
you might be able to do better if you sat down with absolutely every detail and did the math to make sure it works out
20:43
but by and large it does a surprisingly good job of that
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:44 PM
The problem is that we are discussing groups with maybe 800 colonized systems, at eldraeverse levels, but usually like 50, at far lower levels of tech
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@Unknown 1. Orbit 2. Same system (assuming Great Wall-scale construction) 3. Radio shell (and they are pitied) 4. Same (edited)
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fair enough, i guess, it is a bit far ahead
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:56 PM
long story short: the Tiffs are a vaguely Chinese brand of bureaucratic, and have rigorous civil-service tests for making it into anywhere within the actual hierarchy
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Do they have a concept of guanxi though?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 8:57 PM
I'd call it more wa (japanese for 'harmony':) not rocking the boat and keeping your head down is better than otherwise (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 8:59 PM
And if you poke your head up, you might get dissapeared And if a group does so they get, as people on the other server said so eloquently, liberated from life
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/25/2019 9:00 PM
(Of course, the ideal of unity it proclaims doesn't hold up a quarter as well in practice, but this examination should be reserved for the novel itself)
21:03
Bonus points: The civil service exams are also partly designed to be IQ tests, and with hundreds of billions of sophonts running around you can indeed find those who score on the extremely high ends with some regularity
21:04
@Zarpaulek The military and business environments have an Anglo-American ideal of a vague 'progression' based on 'merit'.
21:05
But this is combined with decidedly Sinic concepts of proper order
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I have a suspicion that the West imported the idea of “meritocracy” from China.
21:08
By all accounts, Rome’s bureaucracy (such as they had) seems to have been more based on cronyism/nepotism than qualifications.
21:08
Not that the Chinese system was immune to that, not by a long shot.
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sdschildberg 09/25/2019 9:10 PM
Test scores can be fudged.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/26/2019 1:08 PM
@Unknown heh
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:17 PM
@KAL_9000 yes, but those structures need tech far out of our reach today
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we might be able to manage some of them
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:18 PM
like mass drivers and possibly orbital elevators
17:18
I think the issue with orbital elevators is we don't have nanomemes good enough to build the cable with the tensile strength
17:19
(it needs to resist ~100kN forces, akin to small rockets)
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Carbon nanotubes can do it
17:20
The problem is mass-production
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:20 PM
We have them, yes, just not ones that are strong enough for the task
17:20
Then there's what I have never seen anyone discuss: how are you going to lift the cable up to geostationary orbit
17:21
40,000+ km of, presumably, high-grade nanocarbon wire will weigh a crapton, and how are you going to deploy it?
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From the top down.
17:25
If you're lifting it up, you're doing it wrong.
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0111narwhalz 09/27/2019 5:25 PM
Spinning?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:27 PM
Yeah, but how do you get all that wirelength in orbit to begin with
17:28
Presumably one would start with a small guidewire or the like then build it out from there once it was anchored to the ground
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You make it there. Step One: grab a carbonaceous chondrite. Step Two: Extract the carbon from the naceous. Step Three: Profit!
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another option might be to make it small
17:30
a elevator only really need to be strong enough to resist atmospheric effects, the upwards force can be tuned
17:30
so you might be able to start with something small enough to carry up in one trip, and then raise more cable up to reinforce
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0111narwhalz 09/27/2019 5:33 PM
I feel like wind shear is going to be problematic, especially for very light cables, and the bottom is the absolute worst place to add mass.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:35 PM
Fair enough,
17:36
despite the megalomania that nearly every hegemonic dictatorship seems to be prone to I don't think the Tiffs would go in for the crazy megastructures
17:38
They've only got what we do, plus maybe the next 25 years' equivalent of development in most areas, 500 in non-ultratechy fields and 2000 years of refinement all around
17:38
@Buggy what about orbital rings? paging Isaac Arthuw
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as a launch mechanism, or what?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:40 PM
as in, is IA's characterization of them correct
17:40
To hear him say it, going into orbit would be like buying a train ticket
17:40
Or as convenient
17:41
And this with just running a pair of superconducting wires around your world
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He’s kinda right
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:42 PM
that kinda seems to be doing an awful lot of work
17:43
@KAL_9000 as in, is it true that the guidewires for the ring would make it trivial to achieve orbit
17:44
as in just go to the base of a wire, pay a relatively trivial fee, and there you are at the ring
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0111narwhalz 09/27/2019 5:45 PM
Orbital rings are not dynamically stable, so it must be under tension or something.
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It’s a big hollow superconducting tube (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:46 PM
And is he right that you could build stuff on it or what
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Magnetic material runs through the tube at faster-than-orbital velocity
17:46
The tube is static
17:47
The velocities cancel out at orbital velocity
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Think of the elevator as an orbiting satellite dangling a thread down. Some versions don’t even have a ground tether
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I think that’s how it works
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:47 PM
Okay, I'll draw the line for my setting here: No structures that require active support
17:47
So no launch loops
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Spees Elevator isn’t an active-support structure if you make it out of carbon nanotubes and put it at or just above geosync
17:49
You can build an orbital ring at or just above geosync that’s stationary, too (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:51 PM
As in, when you have the magnetic system running properly, and the guy wires stabilized, you can just climb up them to orbit?
17:51
I should probably just watch his video on them again, I didn't pay much attention to it
17:54
@KAL_9000 And with three habitable worlds in the same system, all with orbital rings
17:54
You could probably achieve a terrifying amount of industrial synchronization
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Indeed
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 5:55 PM
The mass of a single orbital ring is probably trivial
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0111narwhalz 09/27/2019 5:55 PM
I'm not sure the hyperbolic support works properly without active stabilization.
17:55
For the same reason that just spinning a ring isn't stable.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 7:42 PM
So, skyhooks only?
19:42
Maybe I just need to actually do the research myself
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0111narwhalz 09/27/2019 8:32 PM
Basically the idea is that there is no net gravity on a ring encircling the parent body, so the whole thing can just drift however it likes.
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I was reading a supplement for GURPS Transhuman Space recently and it covered what could happen if one of the Martian revolutionary groups cut the Deimos elevator.
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Not sure that's a revolution so much as domestic terrorism on future Mars
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Is there a difference?
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Morgrim Moon 09/27/2019 9:47 PM
domestic terrorism may or may not wish to overthrow local government structures
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:13 PM
In other words, they're better than orbital elevators for a similar resource cost
22:13
And don't involve risky active support like the inflatable launch loops or the like
22:14
I'll roll with those then, and since you can build them at inclined angles around a planet and not only around the equator, every location on a world can be linked by orbital rings
22:14
Or nearly every
22:16
@Morgrim Moon the most devious idea I've had is just to link the planet's rail system with the orbital rings, so a seamless transition between the surface and the orbit is possible using maglevs or the like
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Morgrim Moon 09/27/2019 10:19 PM
hm. how do regular rail cars cope with gravitational shifts?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:21 PM
there's no gravitational 'shift' with maglevs
22:21
or with orbital rings
22:23
the idea is that both the stationary solenoid and the interior ring, which is spinning much faster than orbital velocity, are constructed at a relatively low height, maybe 250 or 300km off the target planet's surface
22:24
The solenoid/sheath is unmoving, so if you're standing on it, you aren't in freefall + microgravity, and experience almost the same acceleration as you do at the surface
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 10:24 PM
So you could fall off of one
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:25 PM
But there is almost no atmospheric resistance to slow one down, so otherwise normal railcars can speed up to escape velocity freely and transfer to other orbits or other worlds in a propellantless fashion
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Morgrim Moon 09/27/2019 10:26 PM
well. Bullet train railcars perhaps, normal ones aren't vacuum sealed
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:26 PM
Truth
22:26
Hyperloop finally has a use
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 10:28 PM
It’d be terrifying to go to the edge of the ring and look down
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:29 PM
@Morgrim Moon And since the other two Crown Worlds have similar rings, you could conceivably fling yourself from Tiffany into, say, Leonard SOI with no propellant onboard, have Leonard's orbital ring attach a tether to you, and have you slow down to match its rotation about the planet
22:29
I wouldn't trust my life to such an endeavor, but it is possibly
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Morgrim Moon 09/27/2019 10:29 PM
...yeah I wouldn't trust interplanet travel that's "throw a train at them and hope they can catch it"
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:31 PM
The rings need energy pumped into them to account for the momentum difference created by any extra weight, and energy taken out to account for lost weight, so it'd be a tight ballet (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 09/27/2019 10:36 PM
I mean, you could do it and have rockets on the ship capable of making the intercept should they fail the catch
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:37 PM
Maneuvering packages could be included, and you'd need to interface to a dedicated interplanetrain at some point
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Morgrim Moon 09/27/2019 10:37 PM
have a cycler?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:37 PM
So it'd be more like landing planes on a carrier than trying to thread a needle on the West Coast from the East Coast
22:39
@Morgrim Moon A cycler would have to regularly enter the orbits of both planets and get close enough to rendezvouz with people coming off of the rings
22:39
That adds more complexity, not less
22:40
Unless cyclers don't need as many corrections as I have been told
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 10:41 PM
That and a Space Train is Cool
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 10:42 PM
galaxy express 999
22:43
@Unknown At each orbital ring, you could have spaceports, or at least routes that will take you to orbiting spaceports, and from there you can board the interstellar liners
22:47
I wonder how expensive orbital rings are...
22:47
Huh, for one sized maybe a few tons per meter, that's several megatons for Earth-sized worlds
22:47
So most major colonies probably have them installed
22:47
I can't imagine it's easy to create a 4,000,000 meter wire and solenoid, even from metallic asteroids, but hey.
22:49
And that's multiple megatons, at least, to build the framework of a ring
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 10:49 PM
Especially if your doing it with at most dumb automation
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MarcusAurelius 09/27/2019 10:51 PM
you here inefficiency, I here jobs program
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 10:51 PM
Thats how the tiff economy works
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:05 PM
@MarcusAurelius those 350 billion people have to find employment somehow in this economy
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:07 PM
And what better to do than build megastructures, and all the resultant support services And keeps them out of exploration (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:17 PM
Orbital rings can't be destroyed like that, of course
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if i recall right, a space elevator cut near the top would end up circling the globe, surviving re-entry (due to carbon being carbon, and extremely high heat conductivity parallel to the nanotubes), and end up smashing everything on the equator?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:18 PM
You'd need a hatchet
23:18
And a lot of patience.
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ah, much more secure
23:18
good to know
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:18 PM
Oh, and possibly a way to generate friction in excess of what the energy generation onboard the ring can compensate for
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:19 PM
But the idea of the threat gives one more explanation for why they must keep the boot down. You were seen with a suspicious package near a support, so say goodbye to your kneecaps
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:19 PM
@Buggy Orbital rings don't need support
23:20
All Black Hat Guy would have accomplished is to put a rail line out of service for a day or two
23:20
you know what orbital rings are right
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:20 PM
But still, knowing the tiffs they’ll still start breaking kneecaps in the local area
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:22 PM
they're supported by their collective momentum, as the whole system is technically 'in orbit'
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in fairness cutting a space elevator near the bottom isn't all that bad
23:22
it just goes into a sudden elliptical orbit, so worst case the cable ends up grazing the ground
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:22 PM
these aren't space elevators we're talking about
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:23 PM
we're talking about their superior, Isaac Awthuw approved cousin
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i'm just saying the "fuck, some guy snuck a mininuke into the departing bay" failure scenario isn't that bad
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:24 PM
megastructures
Don’t you kneed automation for those. That mininuke problem is why people with suspicious packages get “redacted” as someone from The Other Server would say
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Morgrim Moon 09/27/2019 11:25 PM
do screening before you get on board. An orbital elevator is harder to damage than a plane
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:27 PM
And these are authoritarians we’re talking about there is no such thing as too invasive a screening
23:28
@BizarroLand ♀ what is the tiff anti-protest procedure?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:28 PM
tear gas
23:28
riot police
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:28 PM
Breaking kneecaps, I presume, or is that handed to loyalists?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:29 PM
if the protest is highlighting something they'd rather keep silent, then the media blackout descends upon them
23:29
and so do the kneebreakers
23:30
some internal criticism is allowed, but mostly where it will be ineffectual
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:30 PM
Just wondering, as all cop related subjects are currently under a moratorium on toughsf Just to put it on a Scale of Authoritarianism
23:30
Registered protests only, I presume
23:33
Speaking of Bad Cops, Ive got a good post i #random
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:33 PM
@Unknown it's probably about as bad as imperial japan or soviet russia
23:34
if you're of the poor expendable social class they might actually just shoot you
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:34 PM
As they have long since given up subtly. I mean they’ve got masked goons for crying out loud
23:35
In such an event would their be loyalst “counter protests?”
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:40 PM
Possibly
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:41 PM
I mean it’s good PR, and plausible deniability, if the local crooks/patriots club are the ones out breaking kneecaps
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:48 PM
It depends on local culture
23:49
If you're an outlying colony, some governments may not even bother suppressing protests
23:49
But if you're on the capital and try to start something, they'll shoot you in the head
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sdschildberg 09/27/2019 11:50 PM
What’s really horrible is in between
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/27/2019 11:52 PM
Most revolts and strikes are probably quietly dealt with
23:52
Media control works wonders in keeping unrest bottled up
23:57
In large part it probably just consists of laws against assemblies in public and the secret police working to rat out those who try to unite in secret
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/28/2019 12:28 AM
@Unknown and don't forget the low-level solar energy projects going on in low solar orbits
00:28
>:)
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sdschildberg 09/28/2019 12:29 AM
No need for prison planets when you can just force convicts to work in an environment where they can literally be yeeted into the sun
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/28/2019 12:32 AM
also part of the reason why the Tiffs could turn into an incipient Type II
00:32
Beside all the ultratech sealed off in warehouses
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sdschildberg 09/28/2019 12:37 AM
If they mobilized all their efforts they could
00:37
Though that might take resources off the boot crushing their populous
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Think the need for gravity in skeletal development might be circumvented with genetic engineering? Or will asteroid colonies need spin gravity for their kids?
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 10:26 AM
plausibly, but it'll take a while to figure out what genes can do that
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And there is stuff that still needs gravity to function
10:27
like certain chemical processes
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 10:27 AM
nothing is immediately coming to mind we could crib the genes from
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I think plants might end up working weirdly, but I'm not sure.
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 10:28 AM
well, at the moment definitely, because fertilisation looks like it needs gravity; I don't think any vertebrate reproduction has been managed in micro grav, everything fails either at the fusion or the blastocyst stage
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sdschildberg 09/28/2019 10:35 AM
So you’d have a very special chamber that spins.
10:35
😏
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 10:35 AM
at least the world of compulsory IVF means all children are planned 😛
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sdschildberg 09/28/2019 10:36 AM
Or less crassly a maternity ward outbuilding
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Some of those “IVF utopia” worlds I’ve read mentioned “crèches”, any idea what that is?
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 10:47 AM
as in, what is a creche?
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Yeah...
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 10:48 AM
a place for a group of small children to be raised. Like a daycare, but focused specifically on younger kids, usually with the ability to handle infants. Can be used in scifi to mean "place that looks after and/or creates infants"
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I’m working on Federation land ownership laws, I was thinking that the Feds would claim 1% of a planet’s surface for building their own stuff but then did the math and saw that would be half the land area of the USA. Sure, they could claim a patch of ocean, but I think I’ll drop that to 0.5% or lower. (edited)
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sdschildberg 09/28/2019 11:11 AM
So a daycare/kindergarten/boarding school
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 11:14 AM
younger, generally pre-schooling age only and during part of the day, but yes
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sdschildberg 09/28/2019 11:15 AM
So its a technobabble word for a daycare (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 09/28/2019 11:16 AM
it's an actively used in many countries word for an infant daycare
11:16
not technobabble. Real world valid usage.
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Yes, we Proconsititutionate the dual-pulsardynamic muon revolutionators (Nuclear refinement centrifugual separation machinery) in the Xeno-Thyristronic-Circumstrucural solenoid unit (A gravity centrifuge) (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 09/28/2019 2:25 PM
Crèche is a real word for child care for very young children that often gets expanded in SF as a place where children are communally raised
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What would you say is a good name for an "inversion fest" holiday that combines bits of Mardi Gras and Halloween?
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i want to say "day of the dead" but that's already a thing
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/30/2019 5:54 PM
It just occurred to me that on Vordon, it'll be the lower level mercenaries who go all [slot machine noises] with the Space Onin war
17:54
Most Tiff factions likely wouldn't be able to afford the larger outfits' services
17:54
And with their garbo technology it'll be a turkey shoot
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sdschildberg 09/30/2019 5:55 PM
You’re gonna get all the cheapo offbrand mercs. Including merc/adventurer outfits that could include PCs
00:02
The tiffs as seen by everyone
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/01/2019 3:18 PM
lmao
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 1:33 PM
It also occurred to me that if the linkage is just a wormhole or something the Tiffs may not really agree with the claim protocols
13:33
There'd be no way for the Worlds to expand into the Tigris region without going through their territory, and they're reasonably confident no-one else is out there
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 1:42 PM
@Unknown the technogrug
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 2:16 PM
Also inb4 some Worlds! rogues decide that the collapsing Tiffanians Are Free Real Estate
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 2:17 PM
Especially Imperial renegades
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 2:19 PM
The kind who are smart enough to diguise themselves and dumb enough to try to use the civil war as a concealing smokescreen
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 2:21 PM
or blood of tyrants and/or the sillicate tree roll up
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 3:51 PM
whom'st
15:51
are the silicate tree
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 3:51 PM
The AI rights organization, but in the fun way that acts like a polity
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 3:51 PM
like the Photonic Network but over there instead
15:51
and more involved?
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A group of deeply irritable ex-slave digisapiences with an entirely justified issue to raise with the meat.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 3:56 PM
The Tiffs don't have any digisapiences to enslave, that's kind of their schtick. (edited)
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 3:57 PM
Heck the Tiff civil war/warring states might be a proxy war of pressure-orgs and empires for maximum !!fun!!
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Their attitudes on the matter range from "maybe we can consider trusting the always-good ones sometime in the next few centuries" to "fuck it, full skynet".
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 3:58 PM
@Unknown I can't imagine the standing Tiffanian policy of "murderize anyone who even tries to imagine perhaps thinking about creating a digisapience" will endear them much though
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 3:59 PM
I have essentially the exact same polity—the Union of Created Intelligences—though they're more focused on "leave us alone."
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:00 PM
Although the Tiffs admittedly also have a really bad history with those that can Freudianly-justify that attitude, see the Collapse (edited)
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 4:00 PM
But a decent portion of their population is literally weapons of war, so they get rather a bit militant when, say, you drive a huge number of your shipminds to simultaneous suicide.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:01 PM
(Three billion people died in various technological disasters and popular history says an AI had a big hand in starting off that fiasco)
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Or was it terrorism that caused it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:01 PM
Bruh. (edited)
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 4:02 PM
All talk of actual causes gets you [redacted]
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:04 PM
Tiffany itself might be protected by the rules, since it's got a native ecology going on somewhere far beneath the ecopoesed supercontinent and islands
16:04
Threadbare as it is
16:06
Also the higher axial tilt and higher insolation do not quite cancel out with the gigantic supercontinental Interior Desert's albedo (edited)
16:06
So the weather kind of sucks
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Enderminion 10/02/2019 4:10 PM
why is your space nation named Tiffany...
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 4:10 PM
you can't tell him what to do
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:10 PM
that's the first question you don't ask
16:10
:y
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Because it is made in the image of god? Maybe founded on a divine revelation?
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:13 PM
Cultural Reasons(tm)
16:14
Though the main region that influences the wider culture is the supercontinent Iris, much like Prussia to the German Empire
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 4:14 PM
(read: someone was drunk while writing the starmap)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:14 PM
If one doesn't want to use Tiffanian they can say Irisian and it's almost the same
16:15
(The Islanders will want to have a word with you tho)
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So, not full classicist, then. I suppose you never go full classicist.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:15 PM
Classicist?
16:15
Class or classic?
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Where I was going with my speculation: Tiffany being a modern form of Gk. Theophania, lit. "appearance of god".
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:16 PM
At any rate, if you try to say Irisian to describe all the inhabitants within the earshot of an Islander they'll probably assault you
16:17
And ah, yeah that's not what I was gunning for x_x
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Or "manifestation of god". Like, say, an AI causing massive technological disasters. "We have seen god, and he's an asshole."
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:18 PM
that may have been somewhat cool, but the actual reason is... really silly, like a lot of etymology (edited)
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Heh. Ah, well, at least those who don't want to admit to the actual reason have a plausible retcon. 😉
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:22 PM
the Doylist reason is it was an artifact title that stuck
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 4:27 PM
Galaxy brain: its the phonetic romanization of their own name Space china after all
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Like how Qin became China.
16:28
Incidentally, they call themselves Zhongguo
16:32
I expect the Silicate Tree would have a major problem with my Federation’s shameless bio chauvinism
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 4:52 PM
ditto
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 4:52 PM
I also have a corporate state with a primarily infomorph population, but that's mostly for practical reasons.
16:52
Tidal forces could make it unpleasant to be meat in their starships…
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sometimes i think that most starships, especially warships, might want to go full infomorph as a rule
17:58
if you're maintaining a livable acceleration, your handicapping yourself unless you couldn't accelerate faster anyway
17:59
and in many cases, even if you have inertial dampeners, there's always the argument that you could build a ship with less/none of them and save power and space
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 5:59 PM
Usually they can't
17:59
My protagonists run torchdrives but they still can't do insane 1g brachistochrones
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only really need 0.2 g to get a decent brachistochrone going
18:05
like, 1 g is of course faster if you can pay for it
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in developed systems, i'm thinking that beamed power might take preference
18:08
when everyone is on friendly terms, at least.
18:09
you pay a reasonable service fee, and the local low solar orbit stations paint you with enough laser light to reach (un)comfortable accelerations
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At least until the government declares you a smuggler and orders the laser launch stations to melt your remass tanks
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:10 PM
I was about to say Giant laser guns are big and scary
18:10
but being in developed territory is also scary unless you're on good terms
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you could challenge this in appeals court, except you're already melted
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if they have the stations anyway (and they really should. Do they just want to ignore all that free power streaming into space?), nothing except technical limitations says that they couldn't just point a few beamed power stations at your ship anyway
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:13 PM
At least a space patrol can arrest you in addition to killing you? And telling everyone that there are giant laserguns aimed at them at all times is very pooh. Also, what if beamed power doesn’t take off due to fusion and/or a reduced fear of fission early on?
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it's a possibility
18:14
but i think solar is still going to be a big contender to fission, and fusion as well unless it's a lot easier than we expect.
18:14
big advantage of fusion would be portability and self-containedness
18:14
it's actually not all that hard to make a solar beaming station
18:14
we could do it now. The hard part would be getting it there.
18:15
solar panels, radiators, EM transmitter in your preferred frequency. And pick a good maintenance plan. Done.
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:15 PM
And its likely that using all that power on site, and transporting goods to solar powers factories to produce power hungry products like synthetic hydrocarbons. The other problem is what if you miss?
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"Don't."
18:16
"If you do, still don't."
18:16
"And if you really, absolutely can't avoid missing, try to keep the local reciever away from anything important."
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:17 PM
What if Space HK!Cops get their grubby paws on it? What about energy embargos enforced by death star?
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well there are problems along the lines of "It'll really suck if someone forceful or malicious gets control of this"
18:18
but that doesn't stop people from doing stuff, usually
18:18
not unless its a really dangerous thing with few peaceful uses
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or if people are desperate
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that too
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:18 PM
which are real ones. It might be useful for fledgling colonies and drift habs.
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If we didn't build things because some asshat might abuse them, we'd never have progressed as far as the stick.
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a energy shortage would get people pushing for viable tech
18:19
and really, near-solar stations give a lot of power
18:19
its pretty breathtaking when you consider that you can just build it big, because solar panels and passive thermal management is cheap
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more interesting, "How do we overthrow the asshat with giant laserguns?"
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:20 PM
Because you have solardollar power like our petrodollars
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i mean, a big selling point is that it isn't all that hard
18:21
fusion is hard. Fission is also fairly hard if you want to live afterwards.
18:21
solar is not hard, nor dangerous.
18:21
the hardest part is getting it there, really.
18:21
the only way you could limit access is with guns
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:22 PM
Ok greenpeace very cool. A fission reactor cant be used to zorch people
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unless you have a authority that does something silly like laying claim to all near solar orbit
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:22 PM
Fission is a lot safer than giant laserguns
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well, okay yes.
18:22
in fairness the argument comes down to "okay, if we don't want laserguns we basically just have to shoot anyone who tries this, because they're all laserguns"
18:23
it's like the issue with RL fission, but taken up to ten because there aren't really ways to reduce metaphorical plutonium production
18:23
which is, well, a option
18:23
you can have everyone collectively agree to shoot anyone who tries to take advantage of the awesome free easy power source
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:23 PM
Or use this magic thing called international law I wouldn’t trust laserguns in the hands of anything other than a commite, and even then Space Poohland might order s laxing of the law
18:24
UN light and power
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Ah, cartels. They always work.
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theoretically
18:24
i wonder if you could have a agreement along the lines of
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:24 PM
Rolling blackouts might have a new meaning
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"if anyone tries to zorch people with this awesome free energy, why don't we just zorch their platform right away so they don't ruin it for the rest of us"
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For values of always equal to "on those occasions on which everyone would have done exactly that anyway".
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:25 PM
Cooperation ftw
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:25 PM
I have a circumplanetary mirror ring above one of my polity's homeworlds, originally owned solely by the company which made it possible.
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:26 PM
“If you fire on something other than a colony reciver, we will boot you from our group and declare you a hostile rouge state”
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also, these things are big and obvious
18:26
so it's not going to be all that hard to keep a eye on them and see if they turn unexpectedly
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:27 PM
And so are real world brutal suppressions
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:27 PM
That didn't go well because the people using it wanted to neither pay the service fee nor scarper, so their claims froze over or burned down.
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unless the power density is really high to the point that they do damage very quickly, you aren't going to have long to zorch
18:28
also, i suspect that local fusion that is good enough to compete with this would make KKVs a similarly dangerous threat (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:29 PM
what kind of solar power are we talking about here
18:29
because most kinds of it would not, in fact, compete with fusion/fission
18:29
PV/CSP
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sdschildberg 10/02/2019 6:29 PM
Big beams from low solar out to distant targets customers
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:29 PM
solar thermal
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:30 PM
that's not competitive
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:30 PM
hell don't bother with microwave conversion
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:30 PM
unless you build it right next to the star
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:30 PM
just lens it and beam it right over there raw
18:31
the closest satellite we have to the earth is going to be the Parker probe
18:31
which will pass within about 7 million KM of the surface
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:31 PM
to the earth????
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of the sun
18:32
oh
18:32
sorry
18:32
my bad
18:32
sun, not earth.
18:33
and it's not just a single pass; 24 orbits overall, 5 of which are at that range
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:33 PM
if it ended up as the closest satellite to Earth it really would be a Parker probe
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:33 PM
people think the parker solar probe is the maximum velocity for humans and that makes me 😡
18:34
the same way they assume new horizons' velocity is the fastest anyone can go as of now
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if you could make a satellite that survived long term at that sort of distance, you'd get, uhhh
18:36
29637723 watts per square meter irradiance
18:37
even at 10% efficiency, which is entirely possible because cooling this would probably suck, you're getting about 3 megawatts per meter of solar panel
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 6:37 PM
wew
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even if you then only have 33% efficiency after transmitting and receiving it, that's still a megawatt per
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:37 PM
by the partiality that is a lot of power density
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a satellite with a 4x4 km collector would be enough to power all of current human civilization, with those figures (edited)
18:40
granted, in practice you might want to sit a bit further out, but still; close orbit beamed solar power is OP
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:40 PM
What could you do with solar thermal, I wonder…
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large area solar panels aren't that hard to make for a reasonably mature interplanetary civilization
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:40 PM
How big is the sun at that altitude?
18:40
honestly it might be mucking with the figures because i'm assuming a point source
18:41
i'm not sure how to effectively calculate the power from a radiating sphere
18:41
would probably look like this
18:41
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:41 PM
Does it still take up significantly less than half the sky, or are you right down in its curvature by then?
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lemme eyeball it
18:42
give me a few minutes to figure out how
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:42 PM
need SMA and solar diameter, get visual diameter with arctan
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11.5 degrees of the sky, apparently
18:51
following
18:51
its been too long since i took geometry
18:52
so, pretty big.
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:52 PM
sweet
18:52
that means plenty of room for radiators
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you can safely assume that you need sunglasses
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:52 PM
also that image was rendered with a field of view of
18:52
like
18:52
two
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pretty much
18:53
very pretty, though
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:53 PM
aye
18:54
So if we do just a tiny bit of concentration on the hot bath, and cool the cold bath to the best of our abilities, and assume an ideal Carnot cycle just because it's simpler, what thermodynamic efficiency can we expect? V:
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beats me
18:55
depends on what you mean by concentrate the hot bath, i guess
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:56 PM
Concentrate the solar radiation on it.
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ah, okay
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 6:56 PM
Honestly you don't really need it but it makes it easier to deal with the heat when you can centralize it a little
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well, lets say you have the hot bath be liquid sodium chloride at 1,200 kelvin (~900c), and the cold bath is about 500 kelvin (~200c). Ideal carnot efficiency is
19:02
so...
19:03
for every joule of useful work, you need about 1.7 joules of heat
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:03 PM
damn sight better than 10%
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i mainly assumed 10% because cooling is going to be deeply unpleasant when you're dealing with megawatts per square meter
19:05
and that's versus ideal heat engine efficiency
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:08 PM
aye but 70% being the top is not bad
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that's only the top for those temperatures, too
19:08
you could get coolant much hotter
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:09 PM
With the sun that small in the sky you can hide a lot of radiators behind your satellite.
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this is true
19:09
i just don't know if you could possibly transfer that sort of heat away passively
19:09
or even actively.
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:09 PM
sure you can
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actually, wait
19:10
yeah
19:10
i think you're right now that i think about it
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:10 PM
you just need sixteen times the area for half the temperature
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processors are my main thought
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:10 PM
We can run a heat pump to refrigerate the processors.
19:11
That's worthwhile at this kind of temperature difference.
19:11
(I did the math a couple weeks ago V:)
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no i mean
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:13 PM
I imagine a circular body, with an actively-cooled square-kilometer lens way out in front of it, and a giant single-panel radiator extending kilometers behind.
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my main concern here is that the heat density is so high that you can't practically active cool it at all, no matter how many radiators you have
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:13 PM
Slowly tapering to stay within the umbra.
19:13
nah that heat is for the heat engine!
19:14
delicious nomnom
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my main go-to example for extremely high power density that is kept at a low temperature are computer processors
19:14
so i'm looking up and comparing power density to see if it works and if the comparison makes sense
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:14 PM
At the extreme far end of the radiator, there's the transmission antenna and the computers.
19:15
oh yeah you can pull hundreds of watts off tens of square centimeters
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hmm, processors seem go be in the ballpark of a MW per square meter, so its probably practical yeah
19:16
not easy, but you can get away with air cooling processors at temps below 100c. Nowhere near material limits for something designed to absorb and transfer heat
19:17
alright, seems practical to me
19:17
heat engines might actually be better here, since a block of copper or tungsten in the front is going to have higher temperature limits, be easier to cool, and require less maintenance
19:17
and you're not hurting for power here, after all
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:17 PM
32cm² dumping some 250W for a 2990WX
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2019 7:22 PM
@0111narwhalz Also I'm not sure if ecopoesed worlds can qualify for freesoil status
19:22
I recall that status is pretty special
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2019 7:23 PM
why're you pinging me specifically? V:
13:35
is really long.
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It is, but I like it anyway. partly because of the length.
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Yes.
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i've been reading it for about two weeks and i'm only up to 24
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which Arc is that?
13:36
3 or 4 or something?
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i mean you hear "1.7 million words" but it really doesn't click
13:36
uhh
13:36
it's the one where behemoth shows up (edited)
13:36
shortly after Skitter turned good (edited)
13:37
spoilered
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was about to say
13:37
Ok, so you mean -arc- 24, not chapter
13:37
neat
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out of 40 total arcs. (Probably not a spoiler since there's a table of contents on the right hand side, but still) (edited)
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oh, i've been trying to avoid spoilers but i thought wikipedia said 33
13:40
i'm barely past half way, oof
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@Buggy thanks for the recs! Greg Eagan’s works in particular look very interesting
21:49
Esp. Orthogonal and Dichronauts
21:50
I’ll have to see if my local library has copies
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np, glad to help
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/05/2019 10:24 PM
@Buggy you know that's longer than war and peace, the brothers karamazov and infinite jest combined
22:24
right
22:24
wildbow really should've gotten a fuckin editor
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Fallout: Equestria and a few of its spinoffs are pretty hefty too
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and it has a sequel that is just as long
22:45
(Worm, that is) (edited)
22:45
i'm currently on on the 26th arc of Worm, which really seems like it's damned near the end but apparently it has 40 arcs so i dunno what's up there (edited)
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BluejayHurricane 10/05/2019 11:00 PM
Starlight over Detrot, if pony stuff is on the table. It’s cutepunk, in the sense of cyberpunk.
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"cutepunk"
23:01
what do words even word meaning now anymore do
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BluejayHurricane 10/05/2019 11:02 PM
Rainbows are a mildly addictive narcotic. It’s great
23:02
Also 1.4 million words, but you can’t have everything
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sdschildberg 10/05/2019 11:05 PM
Cyberpunk feels off after hearing someone describe their horrible experience in HK as “real cyberpunk”
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Punk refers to a style of genera's, you punk (edited)
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sdschildberg 10/05/2019 11:08 PM
I know but the word feels wrong
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honestly the biggest difference between real life and cyberpunk seems to be artistic flair
23:18
like
23:19
23:19
that's pretty much just a cityscape with maybe a hint of sci-fi
23:20
for comparison, real pictures from japan:
23:20
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sdschildberg 10/05/2019 11:33 PM
Whateverpunks are fun genres until you move out of earshot of the heros and consider the Implications of, say, 19th century europe but with superscience, a 1950s society with the resources of the solar system, and we all know about the implications of Cyberpunk. Heck, even the discussion of how solarpunk keeps the peace/where the space colonies are/went is a bit iffy (edited)
23:35
@Buggy
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BluejayHurricane 10/05/2019 11:45 PM
I do agree, I much prefer -funk, but almost nobody writes that, so I’ll deal with it.
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sdschildberg 10/05/2019 11:47 PM
People do write that. -funk is bold exploeres, successful revolutionaries, and most commercial “-punk” stories that don’t depress the reader. Show me cecil rhodes orbitally bombarding Africa and the police power-armoring a union strike, and then you will have written steampunk
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BluejayHurricane 10/05/2019 11:50 PM
Fine. Not enough people write it, then. I’ll happily take recommendations, if you have them.
23:50
But I’ve found less than I would buy.
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Morgrim Moon 10/05/2019 11:50 PM
Wildbow HAS an editor now
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sdschildberg 10/05/2019 11:52 PM
90% of all “steampunk”, 80% of all “cyberpunk”, and 99% of all “deiselpunk” or “atompunk” is mislabeled -funk
23:55
Under this rule, solarpunk is impossible by definition, and solarfunk rules
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*punk, proper *punk, is about the setting and the social structure, not what new weird science gets created. If you're writing about the science and not the social mechanics, then you're just doing random story stuff IMO
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sdschildberg 10/05/2019 11:56 PM
Labled as -funk to keep it from infecting our punks
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While I don't disagree with you, using a definition that doesn't accurately delineate how the term is used in the wild is pointless
01:03
-punk suffixes mostly indicate styles of worldbuilding
01:03
And while classically that would be used to say stuff about social structures (edited)
01:04
People are wont to use the cool asthetic and worldbuilding cues and tropes
01:04
Without wanting to talk about the classical problems of e.g. power and class and so forth which -punk normally deals with
01:04
Dumping them in "not whateverpunk"
01:05
Mostly just confuses and startles
01:05
-funk is a understandable attempt to delineate the two groups (edited)
01:06
But firstly your use of tone as the cut-off point is probably wrong
01:06
And secondly your use of a minor semantic change to draw a line will rarely work
01:07
Due to the fact that you'll have to have this conversation every time you try and use the term
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heh. this is entirely true
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sdschildberg 10/06/2019 8:33 AM
-funk is the aesthetic in general, -punk being the gritty subsection of it that asks questions about life (either in reaction to today or asking questions about the aesthetic)
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sdschildberg 10/06/2019 8:45 AM
Solarfunk is yay green buildings and optimism for its future Solarpunk wonders where ambition and the other sciences went
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MarcusAurelius 10/06/2019 10:43 AM
Which is interesting, but until that definition catches on, that will mostly serve to confuse your interlocutors, or just irritate them with pedantry
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this is my favorite line from Worm so far “Needle someone until they get upset, then find cues in that. I’d do that here, except irritating the Simurgh seems like an excuse to get a Darwin Award.” (edited)
16:29
that escalated quickly
16:29
and then escalated more
16:29
and then escalated more
16:29
and then more
16:30
and then it sorta escalated like a rocket
16:30
and it kept escalating
16:30
damn
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-The entire plot of Worm
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well, that's Worm finished
21:45
now to read through Ward
21:45
how far along is it, actually?
21:45
percentage wise?
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Ward is up to ARC 17, Worm had 40, i forget what wildbow has said about comparative intended length
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worm had 33, though? (edited)
12:13
it definitely ended at that number
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I might be conflating with some other long runner serial
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/10/2019 3:08 PM
So, while any xenolife at all would be a paradigm shift, I think the psychological shock is mildly overstated
15:08
Especially if the xenolife in question was just some pond sea scum
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It partly depends on your kife outlook
19:01
I think that’s probably what will balkanize the Federation
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its a rather terrifying thought when you realize that supernovas are actually very inefficient at converting their mass into energy, and that isn't necessarily the case for a conversion bomb...
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/11/2019 7:07 PM
conversion bombs are basically interstellar nukes from what i can gather
19:08
in terms of shock-and-awe potential and raw destructive power
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indeed
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0111narwhalz 10/11/2019 7:08 PM
supernovae are like small, inefficient conversion bombs
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though, in some cases, supernovae produce two 'jets'
19:08
which concentrate the energy a fair bit
19:09
so you could make the stellar equivalent of a nuclear shaped charge and point it at something, though the spread is probably still rather significant
19:09
unless i'm confusing things
19:10
i know some type of stellar event produces concentrated cone-shaped gamma ray bursts
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/11/2019 7:11 PM
supernovae outshine galaxies
19:11
I'd hate to see what a conversion bomb would do
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fun fact
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0111narwhalz 10/11/2019 7:12 PM
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a large portion (most of) the energy of a supernova is released as neutrinos
19:13
(depending on the type, anyway. There are a few different kinds of supernovae)
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0111narwhalz 10/11/2019 7:13 PM
deadly neutrino dose at 2.3AU
19:13
:V
19:14
that's probably what would kill you when close enough, because the rest of the energy has to push its way out through the outer layers of the star, so the neutrino burst is slightly ahead
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0111narwhalz 10/11/2019 7:14 PM
"faster-than-light" neutrinos and all that
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aka a loose cable
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0111narwhalz 10/11/2019 7:16 PM
it may be that the star is rather a bit bigger than 2.3AU immediately before collapse, though
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huh, good point
19:19
VY Canis Major has a 4 AU radius
19:19
and its not even exploding right now.
19:19
hopefully.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/11/2019 7:24 PM
UY Scuti is about 8au (edited)
19:24
give or take about 1
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0111narwhalz 10/11/2019 7:24 PM
that's a big error bar :V
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It's 5,220 ly away
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/11/2019 7:27 PM
A hypergiant (luminosity class 0 or Ia+) is among the very rare kinds of stars that typically show tremendous luminosities and very high rates of mass loss by stellar winds. The term hypergiant is defined as luminosity class 0 (zero) in the MKK system. However, this is rarely...
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How's this for a Halloween special?
11:17
The "Ghul liege", unlike most of their kin, is not satisfied with one hard-to-kill body, they have to have several.
11:19
Along these lines they modify their VN microbots to not only maintain their bodies indefinitely, but to convert other bodies into clones of the original host.
11:22
At first, the VN bots install a remote puppeting system so the liege can prevent their minions from wandering off, but over the course of several months the minion's brain is reformatted into a copy of their liege's brain, connected by microwave network.
11:25
If the liege is killed or otherwise disconnected their minion may become an ordinary ghul if the process is less than half complete, they may even have the VN bots removed from their system in Fed-space, but if the mind-cloning is near finished they become a new vector for the ghul liege to spread.
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sdschildberg 10/14/2019 11:57 AM
So your classic zombie hoard, but with added litch tropes
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0111narwhalz 10/14/2019 5:31 PM
read as Fred-space
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Sort of in “RPG-planning” mode, I thought it might be a sort of vampire that players wouldn’t want to become.
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0111narwhalz 10/15/2019 6:37 AM
"…because managing one body is usually hard enough" :V
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More that infection gets your brain overwritten
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/15/2019 3:24 PM
So now the Tiffanian verse officially-unofficially takes place in NGC 6811
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/15/2019 6:34 PM
Yet all the same, writing-wise I'm still hung up on the gory cultural details
18:35
Maybe the secret is just to fake it till you make it (i.e. just forgetting about the top-level and playing around with what I've established)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/17/2019 1:41 PM
For one, having left Earth and undergoing 74 years of tribulations onboard the Over the Rainbow probably makes for the ultimate cast-out-of-paradise myth
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/23/2019 5:53 PM
How deep can an ocean trench get in theory?
17:54
I'd assume it varies with surface gravity, but...
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/23/2019 5:54 PM
idk fam
17:55
but our studies of other worlds suggest the extremes relief can reach are proportional to gravity
17:55
earth being 1.x of course
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proportional, or inversely proportional?
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/23/2019 5:57 PM
directly proportional
17:57
like, mars is 3x 'rougher' than earth etc.
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that would be inverse
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/23/2019 5:58 PM
and presumably a world with 2x the gravity would have peaks that only reach half as tall
17:58
inversely whatever
17:58
because rock gets compressed more
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And Mars has 40% Earth's gravity, not 1/3
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/23/2019 5:58 PM
0.38
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0111narwhalz 10/23/2019 5:59 PM
splitting the difference :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/23/2019 5:59 PM
thats just 0.05 away from 0.33
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closer to 0.4 than 0.333...
17:59
and 0.02 from 0.4
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/23/2019 6:00 PM
whatever
18:00
the point is, the more gravity the less relief
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Earth has active sources of erosion, Mars doesn't
23:20
(or at least, a lot less.)
23:20
so that complicates things a lot
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Mars has an atmosphere. Not much of one, but it's there.
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that reduces erosion more than anything, though
16:23
well, okay, maybe.
16:24
it's thin enough that you aren't going to get much of any wind, or wind carrying abrasive dust
16:24
but its thick enough to reduce/stop micrometeorites
16:25
also, it's largely carbon dioxide or other inert gases, so you don't have much erosion on that front
16:25
and there's no water cycle or such, which is a big source of erosion
16:26
but mars does still get dust storms, they're just very very thin ones with light dust. Not sure if that would contribute to much of anything
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0111narwhalz 10/24/2019 4:26 PM
and then you have Pluto, with its active nitrogen cycle :V
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Comic Book Idea: Darwin travels through time and fights fundamentalists and eugenicists in the name of science
16:53
"Using his amazing powers of evolution, Charles Darwin can shapeshift into any life form!" or something like that
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0111narwhalz 10/24/2019 5:00 PM
"using his amazing powers of evolution, Charles Darwin can create new superheroes… after hundreds of generations"
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yes
17:01
but that's what the time travel is for
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0111narwhalz 10/24/2019 5:02 PM
so that's why the TARDIS is so big inside…
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0111narwhalz 10/24/2019 5:03 PM
for containing several parallel synthetic evolution projects
17:03
Yes
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Thing about Time Travel in stories.... which ever side has more time travel basically just wins
12:16
Be that "More agents able to travel" or "Better range/precision"
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You can probably get around that by imposing some rules on time travel. I don't know what rules, though.
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0111narwhalz 10/25/2019 12:18 PM
Making time traveler versus time traveler coherent seems really difficult.
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There was an RPG based on the concept, Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet
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0111narwhalz 10/25/2019 12:28 PM
the game only takes half the table—the diagrams occupy the other half
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With pretty detailed time travel and paradox rules based around all the players having at-will time travel with a meter of how many years they can jump before needing to sleep
12:29
ah, you're making the diagrams as you go. Continuum takes the tack of "Any unclosed loop gives you Frag until you go deal with it, and the more frag you have the worse things are for you"
12:29
But once you close a loop, it can be set aside from your worry as solved
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0111narwhalz 10/25/2019 12:30 PM
yeah the diagrams belong on a whiteboard
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Forcing people to a situation where they cannot safely resolve dangling threads becomes a key part of how time combat works, like if they try to shoot you with a normal gun and then you jump to the past and steal their bullets before they pull the trigger.
12:31
They might respond by setting up a trap for the moment you tried to steal from them
12:32
your "turn" in such sorts of combat is more closely tied to when you initiate a temporal move than what's going on at "level" speed.
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What would you say is a good name for a species that is born male, leaves their maternal community at puberty to live in the wilderness, then becomes female later on?
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Then how do they have babies? If all the mature ones are female.
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sdschildberg 10/27/2019 3:55 PM
Self replicating. Arguably thats more metamorphic stages than gender
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@KAL_9000 You misinterpret, the wilderness is full of mature males who later undergo a second puberty where they turn female. Once a year they visit female communities to mate.
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Is this your fetish or something?
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sdschildberg 10/27/2019 4:02 PM
So there are herds of males who visit older females (edited)
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@Unknown They aren’t Terran mammals, they don’t have x and Y chromosomes
16:05
He used the math terms
16:05
Not the genetics terms
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Then yes that is the case
16:09
I’m terrible at naming though
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/27/2019 6:08 PM
Reminds me of the anime Simoun
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Morgrim Moon 10/27/2019 7:10 PM
that's basically what clownfish do
19:11
the biological term is "Sequential hermaphrodites"
19:12
or "dichogamy"
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/27/2019 7:30 PM
and Morgrim just ruined finding nemo for me
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Morgrim Moon 10/27/2019 7:31 PM
heh, it DID make watching the film a bit funny
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Do not think about their choice of mates.
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Alternate History idea: Mars is exactly like Lowell described it (maybe sophonts have Roman-level tech?) and a manned mission is funded by the pharmaceutical industry, because it's an entire new biosphere to search for useful compounds in.
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They don't seem particularly concerned about the loss of biosphere here
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ah, because they already have samples (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 10/27/2019 7:59 PM
pharmaceutical companies tend to come in after the research biologists, not as first level samplers
18:43
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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0111narwhalz 10/29/2019 6:44 PM
wow YT embeds are real inconsistent aren't they
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yes
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just learned about this monstrosity
18:44
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2019 6:44 PM
Welcome to blame
18:44
And yes, our protagonist has to traverse this thing on foot
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10-15 AU estimated diameter
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2019 6:45 PM
(And by elevators occasionally)
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Room the size of Jupiter (possibly holds Jupiter?)
18:45
Human walking speed: 1.4 m/s
18:47
City circumference: 5,874,778,262,000 m
18:47
yeah no not on foot they ain't
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2019 6:53 PM
@KAL_9000 they do
18:53
read Blame! sometime
18:53
they do and it takes as long as you're imagining
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how
18:53
How long is this manga
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2019 6:53 PM
there's no fast transit system, it's a mess of terrible urban planning
18:54
@KAL_9000 it lasted from like 1996 until 2004? 2003? (edited)
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Where are they coming from and where are they going?
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2019 6:55 PM
they start at about Earth orbit, but that's just a guess
18:56
There are endless planet-sized stretches of the City that are completely devoid of any sapience or electricity
18:56
Well, at some point Killy climbs all the way to the Oort Cloud
18:56
all the while fighting murder-bots
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so i'm assuming life extension is a thing
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2019 6:58 PM
he's immortal yes
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oh god now i'm imaging the City getting hit by the MD Device from Ender's Game
19:13
fuck
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Worldbuilding tip: When building a star system, make sure to include some dwarf planets. Here are the known dwarf planets orbiting Sol (Ceres isn't in the picture for some reason, and Earth and Luna are included for a size comparison and are obviously not dwarf planets)
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Looking through a bit of Orion's Arm, came across space Amway https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4bc539791b7b1
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oh god
19:59
no
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sdschildberg 11/05/2019 8:30 PM
There is a freedom of enterprise shrine in every imperial settlement
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sdschildberg 11/05/2019 9:27 PM
Idea: SCP-00 is the memetic/psionic active ingredient in their amnesia-causing sprays. That stuff is scary
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/06/2019 7:08 AM
It's actually scp-3000's skin flakes (edited)
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sdschildberg 11/06/2019 9:24 AM
How to explain where galts world went Eaten by a [consume] swarm. you want to run big fleet battles? have the swarm invade quick enough that all available ships must be marshaled to defend the rest of known space
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I thought amnestics were made from the happy memories extracted from the brains of used-up D-class personnel .
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sdschildberg 11/06/2019 10:09 AM
Either way its nasty and probably warrants an entry
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They're made from SCP-3000, partly.
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I was thinking of SCP-2419.
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I’m pretty sure mostD-class personnel are far from happy
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https://twitter.com/GregroxMun/status/1161851766696284160 @BizarroLand ♀ get nae-nae'd (edited)
The biggest flaw with the Rare Earth Hypothesis is that the Earth has been lots and lots of different planets throughout its history while having life. It's been uninhabitable to mankind, it's been frozen over, nearly boiled, rapidly rotating and spinning slowish.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/07/2019 9:16 PM
what
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sdschildberg 11/07/2019 9:18 PM
That the ranges if habitablility are too wide for rare earth
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/07/2019 9:21 PM
yyet
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MarcusAurelius 11/07/2019 9:24 PM
or alternatively, the rare earth hypothesis is the planetary corollary of the Apes or Angels dichotomy
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Homo sapiens spent over 90% of its existence without agriculture and now we’ve advanced so far in so little time?
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Nicely SFnal Bulwer-Lytton winner this year: "Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago." Maxwell Archer, Mt Pleasant, Ontario, Canada
😛 5
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/09/2019 12:26 PM
@KAL_9000 I get it but what does this have to Do with me
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0111narwhalz 11/09/2019 1:30 PM
presumably it's the answer to all your no-xenos problems
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2019 9:06 PM
I don't get how
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sdschildberg 11/10/2019 9:07 PM
Because the Rare Earth Hypothesis is important for your WB
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I went with a Great Filter.
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0111narwhalz 11/11/2019 1:57 AM
I went with "life-filled, and loud to boot"
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Went with Great Filter of nuclear war
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/18/2019 12:39 PM
@0111narwhalz you know the real explanation
12:39
but this is enlightening
12:39
usually worlds pass through the galactic arms once every few hundred million years
12:39
and unicellular life is remarkably hardy
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okay sure but multicellular life on Earth has been around for ~500 million years
16:53
That's a little over two full orbits around the Milky Way, meaning multiple arm-crossings
16:18
feth, wrong channel
16:18
But those were choice quotes from the Reddit thread
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Idiot. "How are astronomers born". Looking up at the sky and seeing awesome shit. Lights flickering across the sky qualifies as "awesome shit", especially when someone explains to you what that really is.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/19/2019 4:20 PM
"Who's going to pay? Many observations cost 100X as much when done in space. And all current astronomy satellites have a lot of followup done from the ground for all of their science. For example, Kepler and TESS planet candidates are usually confirmed by an inexpensive ground observation."
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It is amazing how people who work with cutting edge equipment can be so utterly uncomprehending of the entire idea of technological advance.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/19/2019 4:22 PM
"The thing is, how are astronomers born? Parents bring a kid to planetarium visit, (s)he is fascinated, sets up a small telescope on the balcony and starts watching. But the celestial sight will soon become one big seizure-inducing disco ball, with up to 30k Starlinks and n+1 (times) 30k other satellite constellations orbiting and sparkling randomly 7x24x365. Sooner or later Coca-Cola will also have their own constellation to display a fake red-n-white moon sized ad up there. So the disillusioned kid goes inside, watches tiktok videos and a talent is wasted. Space-based observation is only an alternative for those astronomers who are already pro, with at least a decade of uni and PhD carreer under their belt. There will be no novices to replace those who retire though." (edited)
16:22
For reference later
16:27
also lmao Coca Cola writing an ad with satellites
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/19/2019 4:37 PM
like this was that one novel where there was a huge space station between Earth and Luna that had its whole nadir showing ads to the surface below
16:37
It was on Atomic Rockets but I just cannot get it to appear
16:38
something something new moon, gamblers,
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I've thought for a long time that I'd like to carve trollface.jpg into the nearside of the moon. Now I want to do it just to piss these people off.
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0111narwhalz 11/19/2019 4:38 PM
use a tether with blinky lights to display stuff, like those spinning toys
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/19/2019 4:38 PM
or "butts"
16:41
@Ian Bruene Found it! One Against The Legion
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PROGRESS CANNOT BE HALTED. INNOVATION CANNOT BE STOPPED. OUR NUMBERS WILL BRIGHTEN THE SKY OF EVERY WORLD.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/19/2019 7:17 PM
Ted was rather depressed about that
19:18
Is, I think. He's still alive
19:24
How's the jingle go? "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.""
19:24
Not very catchy.
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If such people are so anxious to be at one with entropy then surely they would have no objection to being killed.
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FUCK ENTROPY
20:01
HAIL THE FLAME
20:01
this message has been brought to you by the Empire of the Star
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sdschildberg 11/19/2019 8:03 PM
Its real consume hours
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sdschildberg 11/23/2019 11:51 PM
Most SF seems to forget that governments are more than 1. Their head of state 2. vauge councils 3. The military 4. Intelligence 5. Scientists, usually in military r/d 6. Construction teams for infrastructure 7. The police 8. state sec And includes bureaucracy The Empire fits the tropes better by really only having those things
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That’s because they’re a for-profit corporation run by a species physiologically inclined to avoid bureaucratic sprawl
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Oh, there's still the treasury, public health, externality management, data aggregation, the post office, emergency management, the exploratory service, libraries, intellectual property, standards, and timekeeping.
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sdschildberg 11/27/2019 1:14 PM
Heart is not a lame power. Applied memetics, even if relegated to adding a bit of meme therapy, is scary
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/27/2019 6:17 PM
Not a bit. Done right, Heart is an awesome power.
18:18
(Almost story-breakingly good in context, but well, it's '90s anviliciousness, so...)
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The Babylon 5 take on empaths is better than the Star Trek one in any case.
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Enderminion 11/27/2019 7:53 PM
which is?
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He changes your feelings towards him rather than simply stating the obvious.
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sdschildberg 11/27/2019 8:09 PM
weak, subtle memetics is stealthier, and thus more effective, than obvious memetics. You can even sell it as being "really good at redeeming people"
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Is it just me, or does the New Age community’s current obsession with “Empaths” seem like another attempt to turn autism into a superpower? Seriously, the types of empathy they tend to talk about are...
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sdschildberg 11/27/2019 9:09 PM
If I was rocking affective mind powers I would have long since gotten myself a spandex suit and a bad alter ego to moonlight as a superhero does "the memelord" sound like a suitibly awful codename? (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/27/2019 9:24 PM
hahaha
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@Unknown Sounds more like a teenage supervillain
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sdschildberg 11/27/2019 9:28 PM
Also of 'verse relevance Autism is a disability in this present because almost everything is a bureaucratic network-ocracy. You want to help autistic kids? Change things so we don’t need to play office politics to survive. Social Norming is far too embedded in making a living
💯 3
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Only for the past couple centuries
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sdschildberg 11/27/2019 9:43 PM
But the point that our culture/memes are downright hostile to sophs with insufficant social norming still stands, right?
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Yes, unfortunately
23:03
water is hostile to anything that isn't wet
23:04
social norming is inherently self-reinforcing, so corrosivity towards non norming is to be expected
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Failure to norm is a key indicator of other, more significant problems. The fact that autists generate those non-norming signals habitually is unfortunate though. (edited)
07:31
Relatedly, that's why the "serial killer who can skill norm correctly" is such a worrying and evocative topic in fiction, that's an enemy from within able to bypass the standard first defense.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/28/2019 9:56 AM
It's striking the degree to which playing telephone-tag and "call Louie, he can put you in touch with Kate, who can give you the right magic word to get Vaclav to pay attention, and he can get Angela to ask Fred for an exception" and other sorts of ridiculous kitty-cat-dances don't slow other people down, though.
09:57
(That kind of thing stops me cold most of the time, mostly because I never know the special incantation that everyone else seems to magically intuit, without which one or more of those people will brush you off or decide you're acting ultra vires or something like that...)
09:58
But that's kind of Another Rant.
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Morgrim Moon 11/28/2019 10:02 AM
Yeah. Or the hacks you can use to route around a lot of that. (Usually involving mutually beneficial exploitation of other's social fu. "I bring you food so we are pack so you are happy to do the telephone tag FOR me", in my experience.)
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0111narwhalz 11/28/2019 12:07 PM
That's just adding a convenient step to the head of the telephone tag.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/28/2019 12:12 PM
Though that can do wonders, but you have to know about it.
12:13
Where I'm working right now, holy crap is there a lot of "so, you just have to magically know these things, because we don't tell you, and the documentation is out of date or nonexistent, and a lot of the protocol hinges on really knowing the personality of the people involved"
12:15
And things like, "wait, why am I tripping over myself to put this guy at the head of the queue again? He's nobody especially senior, this isn't a mission-breaking problem... What's up?" "Um, it's John Stevens. That's why." "Who the hell is he?" "You don't know?" "No. Newbie dunno, remember?" "Oh. Right. He knows Big Head Honcho's daughter, they're good friends. He'll raise hell, and then we'll hear it from Ray, who just knows the complait is coming from Big Head Honcho, and not that it isn't serious." "Oh. Fan-feckin-tastic."
12:15
In other news, Jade is bad at people-ing. Film at 11. 😛
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0111narwhalz 11/28/2019 12:19 PM
'twould be fascinating to build these graphs explicitly
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2019 4:48 PM
The Tiffanians technically have a bunch of sub-ethnicities, but thanks to the clever engineering that created them they are largely interfertile, following the relevant rules (Haldane's etc)
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Parahumans have basically cosmetic species and most of the population is “hybrid”. Some of the Cetan colonies modified themselves so that the different “species” are not cross-fertile.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2019 5:41 PM
I'm gonna have to keep and own that Tiffanian title, aren't I?
17:41
I just hope the guy who did Suburban Jungle doesn't go after my throat for it
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One of the annoying thing about furry works is there’s no consistency on whether they’re actual species. Sometimes the anthro animals follow the same hybridization rules as their IRL counterparts. Sometimes any two “species” can make a chimeric baby. Other times it’s like the eldraic races.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2019 9:31 PM
all the traits of the entire "species" must be bound up in one atomic glob of hereditary matter, and the globs from each parent are either expressed fully or not at all
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Hc Svnt Dracones has something called “mutt reduction protocols” written into their furries’ genomes that usually makes it so kids are one species or another. But sometimes they glitch and produce a sterile hybrid.
21:40
Not sure how that works, intron tags?
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You could do it with an the extended version of the acc3BE complex in the ‘verse, except it would randomly pick which centromere set to purge.
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and a important thing to note is that major physical differences ≠ major genetic differences
21:44
real, different species will have both, but you can certainly have two organisms with almost identical & compatible genetics that are extremely different on a macro level
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But you’d have to perform some major gene-fu to get every species to have the same number of chromosomes, for a start, and then get all the gross phenotype-controlling genes onto a small number of chromosomes with that complex. Or at least all the promotor genes.
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@Buggy I went the “0.001% genetic difference” route, with no means to prevent crossover in most cases because they weren’t intended to breed in the first place.
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2019 9:47 PM
Well, look at dogs. You can get a hell of a lot of physical diversity with entirely compatible genes
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Dogs have 1.65 times as many chromosomes as humans
21:49
38 pairs
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2019 9:51 PM
Elder Scrolls handles it by having children be of the mother's species, with potential of having some minor traits from their father. And I think man/mer crossbreeds are sterile, that might have changed.
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I thought Bretons were human/elf mixes?
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in fairness Elder Scrolls does a lot
22:10
magic and stuff is a very big thing there. Is the world even a 'planet', per say?
22:11
could've sworn it was some sort of... dream... magic... god-thingy that just existed
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2019 11:09 PM
Bretons claim to be, history is ambiguous and likely magic was involved. Kinda like how dunmer and altmer diverged in written history (abet ancient) after chimer (pre-dunmer mer) were cursed by Azura.
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@Jade Nekotenshi For the awesomeness of Heart as a power, I submit Nightmare Heart.
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sdschildberg 12/05/2019 10:50 PM
Memetics ain’t mind control, just working with people. Isn’t that what Heart is about?
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what, you're telling me that persuasive argument isn't low level mind control?
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it gets really fucky in verses where the local model-of-mind works such that, once you have a sufficiently good understanding of the mind and enough brainpower, you know exactly what people will do
16:21
the biggest example i know of is in Orion's Arm, where after a bout of exponential self-improvement, sometimes people get a condition known as 'hyperautism'; they understood the innerworkings of minds so well that they couldn't not mind control people; they'd know exactly what any being that wasn't on their level would do in response to interaction, just as well as one of their 'limbs'
16:21
and they didn't have a philosophical framework that could cope with that, so the only solution was to stop doing absolutely anything external as to avoid controlling anyone. (edited)
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someone say Orion’s Arm?
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ye, it's this page
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I come from that place
16:23
Well I mostly searched this place after it’s mentions in Atomic Rockets
16:23
But I guess you could say I came here from there
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its a very neat place
16:24
astonishingly detailed
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/06/2019 4:24 PM
There are... distinct similarities, and yet...
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Although my activity is nil because things always move so fast and I don’t know where to start
16:25
Here that is
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it always annoyed me a little that the discussion boards are off-limits unless you register
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boards that allow unregistered users tend to fill up with ads for pharma and botnet downloads
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boards that allow unregistered posting end up like that
17:12
i mean you need to register just to view them
17:13
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@Buggy Not sure “hyperautism” was the right word for that
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sdschildberg 12/06/2019 6:31 PM
Solopistic Airgapping would fit better
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If it’s describing the behavior it might
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i think the original usage more-or-less refers to closed-ness
18:46
retreating into oneself, ignoring the outside world
18:46
the term is pretty uncommon in that usage though, i've only ever heard it in Ghost in the Shell
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sdschildberg 12/06/2019 6:53 PM
And given the privacy/hacking angle “air gaps” is more correct
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possibly, but it's considered a mental illness more than a computer science issue (for all that those are still separate in Orions Arm)
19:04
plus, i didn't make the word
19:04
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I've figured out a way to avoid stellar tidal locking for red dwarf habitable zone planets (edited)
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massive polar gyroscopes?
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Make the planet a binary system of near equal-mass worlds, so they're tidally locked to each other instead of the star.
09:53
24-hour orbital period is well outside the Roche limit for Mars-mass worlds
09:54
For Earth-mass, it's more like 36-hours, if my math is right
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/09/2019 10:08 AM
Gas giant primaries do the same job
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Still, it's nice to have options
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2019 10:16 AM
I tried to work out a binary moon system for a planet idea, but it turns out the search term "binary moons" is… uniquely unhelpful.
10:18
(in an NSFW way, so think before verifying V:)
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@0111narwhalz Try searching "binary moons astronomy"
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2019 6:58 PM
I'm just gonna spam this here too https://i.imgur.com/6qUEKpe.jpg
18:58
An uštn firekeeper.
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Damn that’s good.
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 11:14 AM
Gah - writer's block meets the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. It's not often I get stuck on names, and yet... There's an organization of people who study the lore, behavior and nature of monsters, and attempt to predict the future based on monsters in a way midway between logical prediction of consequences and fuzzy-wuzzy fortune-telling - this being a setting that's more fantasy than SF, there's plenty of intermingled science and superstition. Also, magic and gods being a thing, some of the fuzzy-wuzzy work is, err, right often enough to be worth doing. I've been calling them Monstruwacans, from The Night Land so far, but even though that's PD (I'm pretty sure it is, at any rate), nicking the term seems a little... off. I feel like there's a better name for these guys right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite grasp it.
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sdschildberg 12/11/2019 11:19 AM
Monstrologists
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 11:29 AM
That's on the right track, if a bit too general... they're an order of monstrologists, for sure. (Or would it be teratologists? In either case, that's definitely the generic name for what they do.)
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Teratologists, definitely. Let us not mix roots like that, for we are not monsters.
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 12:25 PM
Hmm, "College of Teratospices" suggests itself, but that is mixing roots...
12:25
What's the Greek root for "seers", or "spies" or "oracles"?
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In Greek, haruspicy was hepatoscopy. Well, specifically the liver-based kind, anyway.
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 12:27 PM
!
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Or there is the -mancy root, from the Greek μάντεις (manteis , oracle). (edited)
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0111narwhalz 12/11/2019 12:28 PM
spicy haru
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 12:33 PM
Well, I'm already using that in the etymologically-sinful-but-tropishly-standard sense of "field of thaumaturgy",but -scopy could work...
12:34
College of Teratoscopes or College of Monstrospices, maybe
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Could replace all your -mancys with -turgys. (edited)
12:37
(Which is what I plan on doing over in the #shardverses , on the reasonable assumption that Twilight is even more pedantic about technical terms than I am.)
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 12:38 PM
Good idea, and it would lend the setting a bit of a tweak in flavor.
12:41
The Moonways 'verse is deliberately more tropey and a lot less careful about having weird little rust-spots than Rising Star, but I'm trying to avoid any real howlers.
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Although it is best to avoid certain derivative coinages, like, say, "necroturgy" => "necroturgid".
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 12:55 PM
Hahaha, I daresay 😛
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what? what’s wrong with necroturgid?
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 1:09 PM
The sorts of folks that consider "ha ha penis" to be the height of humor will immediately jump to insinuations of necrophilia.
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"Turgid", like "moist" and "saprophyte", is one of those words that positively lends itself to inappropriate imaginings.
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what does saphrophyte actually mean?
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0111narwhalz 12/11/2019 4:55 PM
feeds on dead stuff IIRC
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"any organism that lives on dead organic matter, as certain fungi and bacteria"
16:55
The spelling is slightly different, though.
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Am I a saphrophyte for eating steak?
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Only tartare
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/11/2019 5:49 PM
I suppose the line between a saprophyte and a predator can be a little hazy in that respect 😛
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0111narwhalz 12/11/2019 5:55 PM
If your role is "decomposing" you are a saprophyte
17:56
Which probably means "eating something much, much larger than yourself"
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/17/2019 10:15 AM
Elves don't share the binary human view of people being "free" or "slaves". Their three concepts of autonomy/control are the following: ...
10:15
Certainly any contact between the two would result in a tremendous flash of gamma rays, at any rate 😛
10:16
(tl;dr - these elves are something like obligate slavers. Yow.)
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sdschildberg 12/17/2019 10:32 AM
The proper bizzaro world eldrae would flip the exrropy and liberty axes to favor the former at the expense of the latter
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I would say that eldrae only consider Tjalfe to be slavery, while Rösvka and Efythai are just business.
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/17/2019 11:26 AM
Rösvka does read as something closer to a blend of patronage and indenture, true. It's more the "can't be considered free unless you have someone to command" that seems very antithetical.
11:27
(Though I think the clearest example of anti-eldrae would be the Drukhari from WH40k.)
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The Society from the Giver?
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/17/2019 11:37 AM
Ooof, yeah, I forgot about them.
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They were creepy. No. Thank. You.
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I suspect the compromise solution is that the subvervient positions can also be automated
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Possible solution
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Two thousand years since Sol was lost to relentless machines of unknown origin, the Federation of Para-Human Species has now spread across hundreds of lightyears. Though the people of the Federation Core live indefinite lives of comfort and ease, they remain vassals to the po...
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/05/2020 4:48 PM
Alpha Tigris V technically has native life
16:48
Technically. It even had a breathable atmosphere when the first colonials got there
16:49
But calling a planet that only ever had native, ocean-based microorganisms a garden world is a stretch (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/05/2020 5:16 PM
A marginal garden world, then
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Probably need a substantial amount to terraforming, or genetic adaptation
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/05/2020 5:56 PM
the land was as dead as Mars, yes
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Except with water
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maybe it was a rock garden world
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sdschildberg 01/06/2020 3:37 PM
This is the term for barely habitatable rocks now
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Desert planets get to be Zen garden worlds.
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0111narwhalz 01/06/2020 4:49 PM
bring your rake
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The Big Oof (n.): Colloquial Martian expression for the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, caused by Olympus Mons exploding after Mars' core was reliquified as part of the long-term terraforming effort.
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Morgrim Moon 01/13/2020 6:39 PM
that seems like very poor planning
18:39
especially since Olympus Mons has the largest frozen magma plug in the solar system and should, in theory, be the LEAST likely place to go boom
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shush
18:40
let me have fireworks
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What, in your opinion, is the best colonisation/terraforming target in the solar system?
19:37
Ignore Earth
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:08 PM
Still Mars
20:08
runs
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Morgrim Moon 01/15/2020 8:11 PM
Yeah, Mars and Venus are the only other planets in even technologically-enhanced habitual zone, and Mars is far far less of an engineering challenge
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Okay, not terraforming specifically, but colonisation in general
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:13 PM
...
20:13
Still Mars
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Mars is just so cliche, y'know
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:14 PM
Ceres is too far away for regular transport, the Moon has the dust+limited ice issues
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2020 8:14 PM
the void itself
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I'm doing some worldbuilding stuff for my human faction, and I kinda want something other than Mars for the first colony
20:15
@0111narwhalz well, habitats, but they have a raw materials problem
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:15 PM
Habitats have supply issues
20:15
Also Gundam already did that
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2020 8:15 PM
insufficient consume
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:16 PM
@KAL_9000 Mercur
20:16
Mercury is second-best
20:16
The Dv reqs are punishing
20:16
But it's got free solar power and ice at the poles
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sdschildberg 01/15/2020 8:16 PM
the NEOs!
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:16 PM
NEOs are miniscule
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Oh, Mercury
20:17
idea: just send a swarm of VNs and demolish Mercury to turn into a Dyson Swarm
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2020 8:19 PM
use Dyson swarm to beam the outer planets
20:19
thereby making them warm enough for habitation
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Also Nicoll-Dyson the pesky xenos around Procyon
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Morgrim Moon 01/15/2020 8:26 PM
If you have an earth culture with a long history of blimps, airship houses etc, Venus is an attractive jump
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2020 8:36 PM
If
20:36
Also good luck not mining the surface
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Liftoff to orbit might be an issue for Venus
20:52
Any NEOs near the Lagranges?
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2010 TK7 is the only known Earth trojan so far
20:53
L4
20:54
Earth seems to have less Trojans than it should for an object of its mass
20:54
Maybe Theia disrupted them before the Luna-forming collision
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2020 8:55 PM
yeah, you'd expect it to have almost as many as Jupiter with your mom on it
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🅱️ruh
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Damn
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Titan.
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if the problem is mainly mars, do Venus
00:38
it's thought that the conditions a moderate distance up in the atmosphere are actually pleasantly habitable
00:38
Landis has proposed aerostat habitats followed by floating cities, based on the concept that breathable air (21:79 oxygen/nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth.[10] In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 mi) above the Venerian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the Solar System – a pressure of approximately 1 atm or 1000 hPa and temperatures in the 0 to 50 °C (273 to 323 K; 32 to 122 °F) range. Protection against cosmic radiation would be provided by the atmosphere above, with shielding mass equivalent to Earth's.[11]
00:39
The colonization of Venus has been a subject of many works of science fiction since before the dawn of spaceflight, and is still discussed from both a fictional and a scientific standpoint. However, with the discovery of Venus's extremely hostile surface environment, attentio...
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@Overmind Also a good one!
09:10
The problem is the native life
09:10
(At least in my world)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/16/2020 12:19 PM
Which also could give you a solid argument for not-Mars
12:19
Even if any other location would be ugly in other ways.
12:19
But if you don't like Venus, maybe Europa or Enceladus?
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2020 12:20 PM
colonize enchiladas
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/16/2020 12:20 PM
Probably subsurface, submarine habitats, though.
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Mars had native life, but it died out when the planet lost its oceans
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/16/2020 1:32 PM
If it had that's not a problem
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All that remains are some fossils
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/16/2020 2:12 PM
So who cares
14:12
It's still the best pick
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Yeah, Mars is going to be terraformed
14:13
Just not first
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Humanity gets its act together when the first alien transmission is received
19:52
Basically, a general advice broadcast by a very advanced civ in the Small Magellanic Cloud with a Dyson Swarm to spare for transmission purposes
19:52
Designed to help out young civs
19:52
"Here's how to not die of climate change and nuclear war" basically
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You know the concept of an "angelnet"?
20:58
Anima Field: A somewhat new fashion, this device consists of a U-bot hive and sufficient U-bots to suffuse the area desired, be it a house, a field, a ship, or a temple. When called upon the U-bots may move objects, clean or repair, or project images. After installation the Anima requires only power and periodic supplements of elements (mostly aluminum) it can't scavenge from the environment. The Field is usually operated by an AI, sometimes multiple AIs for larger Fields, and some Houses have been known to load their founder's sim-personas into the Anima Field. It is also possible for a BCI to operate an Anima Field directly, though the subconscious access option is not recommended for troubled minds.
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sdschildberg 01/16/2020 8:59 PM
that last point sounds like something interesting happened
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You familiar with "poltergeists?"
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sdschildberg 01/17/2020 11:50 AM
Kinda
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 2:08 PM
Angelnets always leave me with this funny feeling...
14:09
But then, that exact feeling is what I based the Argent Realm in RS on. The humans (and other sophs, but overwhelmingly humans) who live there are, err... much more pampered pets of the New Ancient overlords, given a comfortable but restricted life.
14:10
(The NA's reaction to the concept of qalasír is "huh? Why?")
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 3:10 PM
I can't say I have that much in common with the idea of qalasír, but I do get the uncomfortable vibe of aimlessness from a lot of post-scarcity societies in fiction (edited)
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sdschildberg 01/17/2020 3:12 PM
WALL-E, or at least parts of it, can be read as a response to the lack of anything meaningful to do in a lot of post scarcity societies people write
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 3:17 PM
It's not as central a feature of societies as it is among the eldrae, for most in RS - but the larger cultures would at least be able to map it onto some local concept that's fairly common, if not ubiquitous. Then again, RS is much less post-scarcity than the Worlds (at least the Empire - might be close-ish to the Republic).
15:17
Mostly because, for RS, it's early days relatively speaking. They haven't quite got there yet.
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IMO, in most of the scenarios i've seen the aimlessness in post-scarcity societies is essentially because of a lack of transhumanism; technology marched on and the people using it didn't, so they just ended up having nothing to do because there was nothing to do that they were capable of doing
17:16
example: the well-known Culture. The reason why everyone but the Minds are basically pets? Because the local equivalent of moon brains were developed and everyone else might have some basic cybernetics
17:18
granted, that's a bit of a odd scenario because the physics of that universe kinda select for societies that don't collectively self-improve, what with the whole ascension thing.
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The only semi-reasonable post-scarcity society I've seen besides Eldraeverse is Orion's Arm, and of course that has a whole host of issues
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Orions Arm is going for a different sort of style
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Is it wrong that I want a happy society?
17:42
slightly boring
17:42
but not wrong
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It's not boring if every other transhuman work is a dystopia
17:43
The most disturbing bit of Orion's Arm for me is toposophology
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That self improvement has a natural cap before the person on the other end stops being you?
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Yeah
17:46
Actually pretty depressing
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:21 PM
I'm a big fan of "this world isn't perfect, but we're sure as hell trying"
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yes that!
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:29 PM
That's also why I like MLP, f'r'ex - nice place, but not perfect, but you can see the long arc stretching toward "better".
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BuT iT's FoR gIrLs /s (edited)
18:31
(my real problem with MLP is that the anatomy makes zero sense :V) (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:31 PM
For girls is a feature, not a bug. But OK, I'll grant you the janky anatomy.
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Good sir, you have not studied the fanon.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:32 PM
But yeah, most of it has fanon explanations.
18:32
Not the least of which is "earth ponies have magic too".
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But srsly, the anatomy makes a lot more sense if you consider the evolution of an equine apex species. Fr'example, the eye shift.
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should have put an /s on the for girls thing :V
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:35 PM
I have this pet theory that Celestia has a long-running "fix Equestria" program that was on temporary hold while Luna was exiled, and got reinstated when Cadance ascended.
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didn't Her Royal Moonjesty come back tho?
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:36 PM
Yeah, which was, err, like Step 2 in the program.
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Advancedverse canon has it that the [di|tri|quadr]archy is engaged in a very-long-term plan to do as little as possible.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:37 PM
(Step 1: Find a really useful talented student...)
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(Step 1.5: Find a second student when first student rebels and falls into an interdimensional portal)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:38 PM
Oh, she had plenty of backups, I think - Moondancer, Shining Armor...
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Starting from "Must personally turn Equestria's enemies into glass mines" and ending with "Only required for Outside Context Problems, ceremonial occasions, and cake." So far, despite certain unfortunate interruptions, it's going Just As Planned.
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Sub-Theory: Celestia has been engaging in a covert eugenics program to produce an abundance of talented ponies to use as students
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:39 PM
Yeah, that sounds about right - on both counts!
18:39
Cadance, as an agent of love, is a major component of that.
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I mean she can get ponies to mate with who she wants
18:40
A being that powerful presumably has some mind-control abilities
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:41 PM
Yeah, though I think both of 'em go in more for the sort of subtle manipulation.
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Oh, hell, yes. In 'verse AU, House Light (which includes the Sparkles, Shimmers, and Glimmers, among others) may only be gentry by Canterlot standards, but have a certain reputation for producing extremely strong unicorns. Twilight is essentially this program's Kwisatz Haderach.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:41 PM
(I get the distinct feeling that Celestia does not like forcing folks to do things. There've been many times when she could have done so and did not.)
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or is a master of memetics, I guess
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:42 PM
That, definitely.
18:42
Hell, look at the trick played on Discord.
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Add to the start:
18:42
"Must literally raise and lower the sun"
18:43
(Or keep Equus spinning)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:44 PM
Hence, as Cerebrate said elsewhere, do not cross swords with Kardashev Type II individuals.
18:44
(paraphrased) (edited)
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Celestia doesn't use mind control. Celestia doesn't need to use mind control - a word in a few right ears to ensure that the right young people meet at the right social event, and all is arranged. So many years of experience, you know. The bigger challenge for her is not accidentally giving orders when she only intended to notice something. The whole "mention not favoring Talon Tea, Griffonstone economy collapses" problem.
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celestia is an archai confirmed?
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:45 PM
The local equivalent thereof, sure. Luna, too.
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(Theory: Celestia has had a group of wizards researching the construction of a sun-moving orrery for generations , because she's really tired of never getting to sleep in.)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:46 PM
Cadance and Twilight less so - they're... well, not on the same tier, though still way up there. The difference between a Level 20 adventurer and a demigod.
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why don't they just move to a more... natural planet?
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:46 PM
With the Empire's help, maybe they can. But I doubt they'd want to.
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Meanwhile, beneath the Crystal Castle, Cadence maintains the ur-mother of all shipping charts.
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@Overmind canon
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:47 PM
If you've read any of kudzuhaiku's Weedverse bits, she... err, pretty much does.
18:47
Up to and including having a prayer-driven matchmaking service.
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As for alicorn strength - well, the way I look at it, Twilight has less raw power because of not being able to synchronize with a celestial body. On the other hand, her true power is understanding, organizing, and being utterly methodical. Celestia can turn you into million-degree ash flakes. Luna can divert the kinetic energy of the moon to throw you into a system-escape orbit. But Twilight... give her a chance to do a little research on the matter, and there's pretty much nothing she can't do to you. Including turning you into the abstract concept of a circle whose circumference is precisely four times its diameter.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:51 PM
Hadn't thought of it that way, but that makes good sense.
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BLOODY STUPID JOHNSON?!
18:51
I thought they killed him to preserve the stability of the multiverse!
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:51 PM
That's more like Pinkie or Derpy - they just kinda, err, derp reality sometimes.
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That said, the really scary one in a mass conflict is Cadance. She's got special powers of love manipulation and access to a continent-scale emotional resonator. She'd never actually do it while in her right mind -- well, Nightmare Moon or Daybreaker could ruin the continent physically. Nightmare Heart could make everyone on it destroy each other and themselves. (If you've read Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings books, think the Forged.)
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turn everyone into ponies with the mind of humans
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 6:55 PM
Arguably lack of qalasir (no diacritics on my keyboard, sorry,) is what I found so horrifying about 17776
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:56 PM
(Compose key!)
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@KAL_9000 That's the premise of "Conversion Bureau" isn't it?
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 6:56 PM
Everyone kind of gave up on progress and exploration for vague psychological reasons (need to feel human, disappointment with the reality of space) and was content to just kick footballs around for eternity (edited)
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@Zarpaulek no that's just mindbreak OCP
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(To throw out other AV fanonical spoilers, Pinkie exists in a constant state of macroscale quantum indeterminacy and can pick how the waveform collapses. Meanwhile, Ditzy suffers from the minor problem of having a special talent in n-dimensional navigation, which makes it really, really hard to cope with moving in only three.)
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Also CB is one of the only first contact stories where I'm actively rooting for the humans
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BluejayHurricane 01/17/2020 6:57 PM
I’m personally fond of “Pinkie is actually about 50 changelings and a good grasp of illusion spells.”
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(In the AV, she's also Daring's younger sister. Evidently the talent for exploration runs in the family, but in her case it went for a kind of exploration that's not even possible yet.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 6:58 PM
People in-universe even talk about their lives still being boring and average despite having gained immortality through an unexplained means
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 6:58 PM
Oh, I like that connection.
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FUCK THE CB PONIES
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 6:58 PM
Haven't read the AV or watched the main series past Canterlot, sorry
18:59
But yeah Conversion Bureau is HFO
18:59
lel
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(HFO?)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 7:00 PM
(humans fuck off)
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HFO?
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The opposite of HFY.
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Pretty sure the humans are the good guys tho (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 7:00 PM
It's surprisingly common in any tales that have a Green aesop
19:00
@KAL_9000 only in Not Alone which subverts CB
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Ah I must have read that one first :V
19:00
Probably because the other ones are stereotypy, and that one got recommended to me (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:01 PM
Stargate: Shangri-la was one of those odd ones where I didn't really know who to root for.
19:01
And then there're the three Why nobody messes with pieces, crossing over with Mass Effect...
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I haven't finished that one yet. Don't spoil me.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:02 PM
I won't - it's been a hot minute since I read it anyhoo, and there's been a lot more added since I did.
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Oh, go straight for the best. War Were Beginning
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:02 PM
Zero Wing?
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 7:03 PM
I'm pretty sure Jon Bois wanted the story to be light-hearted but I found it crushingly depressing instead
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:04 PM
Then there's stuff like To Make a Spark or To Try for the Sun, which, err... yeah. Good, but less "hell yeah" and more "leggo of my heartstrings, gorrammit"
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My bad, it's actually War Were Declared .
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I also read a CB story where the ponies are stopped in their tracks by the SCP Foundation, which was pretty funny
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In which Admiral Biscuit parodies the fuck out of the HFY genre.
19:06
I rate highly for creative military tactics and an F-35 ingesting a piano.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 7:07 PM
hahah oh my god
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:10 PM
hahahahaa!
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well shit that went poorly for everyone involved
19:11
Also:
19:11
"President Cheney"
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 7:11 PM
oh my god I'm
19:11
I can't breathe
19:11
The mood-lifter I needed
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New title for Celestia:
19:13
"God-Empress of Ponykind Who Really Thinks She Doesn't Deserve It"
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/17/2020 7:14 PM
I know it's supposed to be kind of grim but somehow I can't stop smiling
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:14 PM
It crosses the line twice.
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The son of JRR Tolkien was 95 years old. He passed away last night in a hospital of Provence, South Eastern France, where he lived. [Source in...
😿 6
19:19
F
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/17/2020 7:19 PM
Mortality sucks.
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It sucks balls.
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DOWN WITH MORTALITY
19:21
DOWN WITH AGING
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DOWN WITH THE BIG PHARMA’S CONSPIRACY OF MORTALITY! /sarcasm
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sdschildberg 01/17/2020 9:53 PM
@randileeharper Sufficiently messed up home automation is indistinguishable from a haunting.
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218
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BluejayHurricane 01/18/2020 9:43 PM
A diskworld city watch tv show seems like it would be the sort of thing it would be really easy to get wrong.
21:43
BBC America's first images from its upcoming series The Watch brings author Terry Pratchett's "City Watch" from Discworld to life.
21:44
I’m a touch worried, I must admit.
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I don’t trust prereviews in general, so I’ll give it a try, but those I have seen so far suggest clusterfuck.
21:48
But we can hope.
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Morgrim Moon 01/18/2020 10:13 PM
Yeah, I am too. Just the costume and set design makes me think they have NO CLUE
22:13
like "these two pieces of uniform are very important plot points in several books" and then no characters are wearing them
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/18/2020 10:33 PM
crosses my fingers.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/21/2020 5:02 PM
Yay, I finally did the first chapter of a thing
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Getting started is the hard part
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/21/2020 5:04 PM
A chapter nearly 6k words long
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Nice!
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 8:15 AM
Talking with my friend /u/gerryblog about the upcoming Picard show, he observed that the producers seem to view the TNG/DS9/VOY era as just about...
08:15
AAARGH.
08:15
Just. AAARGH.
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none of star trek is recognizable humanity
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 8:16 AM
I suppose maybe if they mean "humanity" in the strict sense of "is identical to baseline H. sapiens", sure. But c'mon, if having an android or a holographic AI as a "respected crewmember" is shocking, yet somehow a Vulcan isn't, umm...
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Andromeda has rampant transhumanism yet they seem more human than many TNG characters (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 8:20 AM
True.
08:20
Though my rant is more about the mentality pointed at by that post
08:21
That said, I shouldn't be surprised.
08:21
Star Trek in general gets very hung up on something that smacks of vitalism. "made-of-meat" versus "not-made-of-meat" seems to matter a lot.
08:22
Really weird (by Trek standards) bio-xenosophs? No problem. AI? EEP FREAKY.
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 8:32 AM
Though “picard wouldn’t have rolled with half the stuff he bumped into” does hold
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pls no more space racism
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:09 AM
I mean the federation obliterates every culture under its control, full stop Fringe culture? Dead Most terran culture? Dead or crying for a mercy kill Alien cultures? Warped into a mess (edited)
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disgusting
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:13 AM
Its not like anyone else in the immediate vicinity, alpha or beta, is doing androids
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:20 AM
Theory: very limited psychdesign, analogous to the policy on prosthetics, is in play. Of course, this includes such classics as “we cured autism” and “prick b gone”.
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that explains the zero progress
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 11:20 AM
Yeah, pretty much. This might also just be eugenics.
11:21
There were the Eugenics Wars, and while they don't seem to actively do eugenic stuff as we understand it anymore, the consequences might well still persist.
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:22 AM
There has to be a way nobody could find the link between Data and high functioning autists, and why they bullied him for those behaviors far more than for being an android (edited)
11:23
The classic application of psych design, plus forgetting about it, might explain it
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fuck the feddies
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:25 AM
Its not like anyone nearby is any better I just know the other two major powers flex their eugenics programs
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rommies and klingons?
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:25 AM
Yep
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fuckin bastards the lot of them
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:26 AM
The latter do so by accident, the former with an extreme focus on turning their population into spies
11:28
Each major power, by complete accident, used cursed versions of early mind changing tech to get where they are Memetics for ufp Eugenics for klingons Psychtech for romulans
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Are there any good guys in ST?
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 11:29 AM
I mean, the Cardies are bastard-filled bastards with bastard icing, but they seem to arrive at it naturally...
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:30 AM
Hence their position as “bottom of the barrel” Cybernetics is of course taken up by the borg
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 11:30 AM
The Tholians are... err, something like reverse-vitalist bastards (but get a bye because they're made of crystal and not metal)
11:30
(well, get a bye in universe)
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:31 AM
But they appear for like 1 episode
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 11:31 AM
Like, one in TOS, 2 or 3 in ENT, plus mentions in TNG and DS9
11:31
STO explores them a bit more.
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 11:32 AM
STO, by its very nature as an MMORPG, gets a “get out of show ethics free card”.
11:33
Captain archer is why they activated strong memegineering, to save the cosmos and themselves from the likes of him.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/22/2020 3:28 PM
@KAL_9000 t. Zeon
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 3:47 PM
I like to imagine that Cpt. Archer’s held up as what not to do And that he ruined his own civilization
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/22/2020 3:48 PM
Although to be fair Zeon are douchenozzles too
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Morgrim Moon 01/22/2020 6:11 PM
Vulcan do peer-norming to a crazy degree and then smother it under a veneer of "but it's just logical" to the point that forget an inversion festival, they have a full psychosomatic snap every so often
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 6:29 PM
They go full feral due to being too human
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Morgrim Moon 01/22/2020 6:29 PM
the fact they have whole rituals around pon farr suggests they go full feral without human involvement at all
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 6:30 PM
The species in a shellnut
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/22/2020 7:15 PM
The thing I really wonder is, why don't Romulans have the same problem?
19:16
They're pretty damn similar genetically - less than 10k years apart. Did they really just natural-select out pon farr, or did they make a point of eliminating it?
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They're not constantly suppressing it.
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Morgrim Moon 01/22/2020 7:19 PM
I figure pon farr might be partially as a reaction to enforced emotional suppression, it eventually boils over into a munsth
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sdschildberg 01/22/2020 7:19 PM
Instead of hiding it, they go absolutely feral as a cult
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Embrace the madness
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SF pet peeve #5227:
11:03
In StarCraft, the Protoss have a turret called a "Photon Cannon". WHY DON'T THEY JUST CALL IT A LASER, IF THAT'S THE CASE?!
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It does not appear to be a traditional laser. Rather, It appears to be more akin to Star Trek’s ‘photon torpedoes;’ in other words, either a misnomer or a misunderstanding of what a ‘photon’ weapon would do.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/23/2020 1:00 PM
I figure "photon cannon" is as good a name as any for brief pulse-train laser weapons, if one wants a quick term to distinguish.
13:00
(and a "phaser" could be a phased-array laser, though the Star Trek ones obviously aren't)
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Cursed: Star Trek without the humanoid restriction
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sdschildberg 01/23/2020 9:00 PM
Cuesed af I almost wanna see the other powers
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Not cursed
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It's not remotely humanoid but it still screams Klingon
21:01
I like it a lot, actually
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sdschildberg 01/23/2020 9:01 PM
How such a creature can build and operate a starship is an exercise left to the reader
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Looks like those front limbs might conceal retractable hands inside the armor
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five fingers per hand is just so we have spares
21:53
three is probably enough long as they're opposable
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Morgrim Moon 01/23/2020 10:43 PM
I want that, yspls
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i wouldn't call our extra fingers redundant, but you can probably still manage fine manipulation with three
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sdschildberg 01/24/2020 12:15 AM
Theory: lost colonies were produced from every major polity in <insert sf here>
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Theory: Every humanoid species is a lost colony of Earth from before the last glacial period.
06:12
Possibly even the ice age we’re currently in
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Surely the klingons would need spares more than we do
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0111narwhalz 01/24/2020 6:24 AM
Redundancy or robustness?
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I was thinking redundancy
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Broke: safety guards on industrial machinery Woke: self-regenerating fingers
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You can tell it is Klingon because of the forehead ridges.
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I approve these Klingons.
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sdschildberg 01/24/2020 3:17 PM
Speaking of forhead ridges There was this semi-joke theory I saw that stated that the whole code of honor among warrior houses thing was like its earthly analouges in that it’s largely made up to legitimize the Imperial regime. (edited)
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Does Trek show off many instances of honorless commoners who aren't criminals?
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You only ever see the worst of your "opposition"
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....was that directed at me?
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No, Trek does not show many non-criminal klingon commoners
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sdschildberg 01/24/2020 6:16 PM
Trek, like most SF, doesn’t show us the soph on the street
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Speaking of Trek: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPE6t6aX4AEFUnX.jpg Official logo. Did anyone ask Universal for permission, I wonder?
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Can the Roddenberry estate sue them?
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 01/24/2020 6:41 PM
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sdschildberg 01/24/2020 6:41 PM
The big difference between trek and many other series is that Trek focuses near exclusively on sophs in positions that select for people who are gung ho for their government and culture.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 01/24/2020 6:42 PM
ISTR that Trek lore derives the Starfleet logo from the NASA "meatball" logo (edited)
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@Unknown Would that make Firefly it’s polar opposite?
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sdschildberg 01/24/2020 6:47 PM
Yes @Zarpaulek (edited)
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that's part of Firefly's appeal, the gritty low class nature of it's heros
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that logo makes me think of Asteroids before it makes me think of the Federation though
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/24/2020 7:24 PM
@Unknown Apparently my brain doesn't work because I keep thinking your avatar icon is Starlight Glimmer.
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isn't she like... not a human, tho?
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there was that series where the ponies were pastel humans in high school
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That'd be the 'brain doesn't work' part of it, I presume.
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/24/2020 7:26 PM
No, it's not even that - it's that I'm pattern-matching wrong.
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@o11o1 ah, yes, literally every bad fanfiction ever
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/24/2020 7:27 PM
As soon as I look closer, I see that I'm wrong.
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@Unknown I think part of the reason that Trek focuses it that way is because for the most part the stories focus on characters who are at a mid-to-high level in their hierarchy, and as a result there has been some selection for alignment to that organization's goals and policies
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hasbro made toys for it
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sdschildberg 01/24/2020 7:27 PM
Exactly!
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/24/2020 7:27 PM
I'd say that's true of Trek, yes. Also B5 to a point, but B5's universe has a massively different flavor.
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@o11o1 that explains it (edited)
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Andromeda at least is on a chronically understaffed sapient ship.
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At the same point, there have been a few episodes where we've seen people who are working in an organization who don't fit in that organization really at all. And for the most part, they tend to be low level, or mid-level at most. Voyager, of all things actually did an episode or two about that
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Farscape was full of low-lifes
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That was a hijacked prison ship
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hence all the low-lifes :)
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At the same point though, it really depends on the kind of stories you're trying to tell. If you're trying to tell a story about fixing a problem and you have only one hour to do it, you can't spend 30 minutes of it with the crew navigating the bureaucracy trying to find the one person who is actually competent and who matters
19:30
Well, you can. But then that becomes the whole story
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So, since Red Dwarf is a comedy you can get away with a pair of lower-deck crew, a senile AI, a life-form that evolved in the cargo hold, and a neurotic android?
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A tragic drama might be able to manage that too
19:35
but it'd be weirder
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@Zarpaulek since Red Dwarf is not just a comedy, but a comedy where the very fabric of reality is a bit frayed, yep! You definitely can.
19:50
Whereas a show like M.A.S.H. can't even when it is a comedy, because it's written and structured to be a more grounded "realistic" show
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/24/2020 9:13 PM
@Zarpaulek Actually, it's not copied
21:13
21:14
Sorry to all the folks who felt really clever about this one 😅
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When did they adopt that?
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 01/24/2020 9:39 PM
AFSC was formed in '82. However, it was formed from units from TAC and AF System Command, who's logos predate 1966. AFSC https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/USAF_-_Systems_Command.png (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 01/24/2020 9:40 PM
that looks like space squid
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 01/24/2020 9:41 PM
21:41
Is pretty thematically similar.
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I think AFSC's looks like Yggdrasil and Mjolnir superimposed on one another.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 01/24/2020 9:43 PM
Space affiliated commands have rockets and abstracted rockets on the logo, film at 11
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https://discord.gg/YtsJqUs i have set up a server for my shitty worldbuilding project if anyone cares
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What’s it about?
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my sci-fi worldbuilding project
15:01
just sort of a casual discussion sort of thing, y'know
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That doesn’t answer my question, what kind of world are you building?
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Ah, sorry, wasn't sure what you were asking @Zarpaulek
19:48
Firm sci-fi, hopefully
19:50
Basically eldraeverse with humans and MORE MEGASTRUCTURES (also covering most of the galaxy instead of a small bubble)
19:51
The only two impossible things I'm allowing are FTL travel and instantaneous communication by quantum entanglement (i know it can't be done IRL, but this one of the only conceits I'm making)
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Any wormholes?
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Since the FTL system relies on exotic matter, yes
19:54
You can probably generate the wormholes in a particle accelerator and use exotic matter to keep them open
19:55
However they've proven impractical for FTL travel since they're warp-gate style, and we have working Alcubierre drives anyways
19:56
(to answer the obvious follow-ups: wormholes cannot be carried on an FTL ship, and although FTL-based time travel is possible, the Chronology Protection Conjecture is in effect, so it doesn't matter) (edited)
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0111narwhalz 01/29/2020 1:07 PM
idea: scifi which treats "Precursors" how we treat "Romans"
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yeeeeeeeeeeeees
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0111narwhalz 01/29/2020 1:09 PM
both in the sense of "they had some great ideas and we're not sure how to make their awesome concrete but they weren't gods" and the sense of "you know there were other big civilizations around at the time right"
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Something like the Sill in Drive?
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0111narwhalz 01/29/2020 1:43 PM
the who in what
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0111narwhalz 01/29/2020 1:47 PM
yeah kinda like that I guess
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Seems I got nominated for some kind of niche literary award https://furrybookreview.wixsite.com/blog/leo-awards
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/30/2020 9:32 PM
Hm
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Congrats!
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/31/2020 8:11 AM
Nice!
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Of course, Rick Griffin will probably win that category on name rec alone
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/31/2020 7:11 PM
Rick Griffin finally writes?
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He's been writing for years, besides his webcomic.
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“Gregarious Beam Goats: Grazing herbivores that live in herds of 100-200. They have a 1.2 kilowatt beam power biological laser in their elongated heads, firing a 701 nanometer wavelength beam. They have large ear-flaps for dispersing the waste heat firing their laser produces, and the lenses of their eyes are opaque to the wavelength they shoot, so that they don't blind themselves. Their typical response to would-be predators is for multiple beam goats to focus on their hapless target all at once, potentially subjecting them to hundreds of kilowatts of laser power.“ - My new favourite person, ToughSF Discord
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Stealing.
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Also stealing.
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:29 AM
I already have beam crabs
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Beam bees?
10:29
That sounds... fun. /s
10:29
Beam wasps would bee even worse.
10:29
Goddamnit!
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Space bees: low-power low-mass drones which travel the asteroid belt using very thin solar sails and harvest materials from asteroids and occasionally unlucky ships.
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:39 AM
(my Sartlan beam crabs use reflected sunlight during the intense polar summers, not lasers)
10:39
(they're also on the multi-meter scale and are probably not especially crablike)
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Space bees also network together into large swarms to increase their intelligence, and can build "hives", autofactories with more processing power and possibly laser propulsion for nearby space bees.
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:42 AM
Solar sails aren't going to do a whole lot.
10:42
Consider solar moths?
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What are those?
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:42 AM
(moths for your bees V:)
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Ion drives with solar power?
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:42 AM
Solar thermal rocket.
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I see.
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:43 AM
Big collector mirrors aimed at a chamber from which remass is emitted.
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Maybe space bees use solar sail propulsion, laser propulsion or ion engines depending on circumstance (the sail bit is switchable between reflective and photovoltaic somehow), and space moths use the thermal thing.
10:45
Maybe the sail bit could also be switchable in little bits instead of the whole thing at once, for very limited steering and communication.
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:46 AM
I just don't think you're going to move a lot of anything with a sail, much less at asteroid belt ranges.
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Probably. They could be really light and small, or only use the sail to very slightly supplement the ion drive occasionally. Or just be very slow.
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 10:47 AM
Be better off with a pulsed plasma thruster running on regolith or a rock dust mass driver.
10:48
Or a recirculating mass stream with the hive.
10:48
"beelines" you see
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yo @0111narwhalz (and @gollark, but i dm'd you, so i guess not) how about some sort of fission/fission fragment-esque sail coating/structure on the bee's wings'?
11:05
if you could somehow induce fission on the (presumably very large) wings of the bee, you could get pretty good acceleration (as in, just about enough) for inter-belt manuvers, and have a good Ve, which is needed, so the bees arn't 99% fuel
11:06
the problem is getting the fission reaction at low enough mass, which i know absolutely nothing about
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 11:12 AM
what's that, Medusa?
11:13
If you have fissiles you may as well just use a regular FFRE or dusty plasma NTR.
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uhh
12:19
isn't medusa just reversed orion..?
12:19
with a bit more radioactive jazz, I mean
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/05/2020 12:19 PM
medusa is orion except pusher
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also, @0111narwhalz, because otherwise it's uncool and unwinglike
12:20
also probably harder to 'grow'; i.e. is not made of small, tilable, reproduceable components that easily work in paralell
12:21
like wing membranes!
12:21
thx Bizarro btw for clarification
12:22
yeah, it's essentially dusty plasma NTR without nozzles, @0111narwhalz
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/05/2020 12:55 PM
I mean, tractor. Bloody ell
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just realised I pinged the narwhale person twice
16:23
whoops
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 4:24 PM
:V
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you said:
There's something off about movement too.
16:24
about minetest
16:24
the answer is:
16:25
you jump slightly higher and can jump faster, so you glide up 'slopes'
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0111narwhalz 02/05/2020 4:27 PM
mmh
16:28
I feel like there was something more than that, but maybe that's all it is.
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i should probably add a 'i think' to that
16:28
i haven't checked, but thats what i observ
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/05/2020 9:24 PM
I usually hesitate to check out awesome things for fear of cross-pollinating and becoming less original or something idk
21:24
I know it's a stupid fear
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0111narwhalz 02/06/2020 1:48 AM
you're too concerned about being original in general, in my estimation
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Nothing’s original
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I worry about it a lot too, but it's not that big of a deal. Taking inspiration from other works is how writing works. There's nothing wrong with it.
💯 2
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BluejayHurricane 02/06/2020 11:49 PM
I forgot how good Freefall is. Archive binge time it is!
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highfives @BluejayHurricane I got through my latest archive binge about a week or two ago
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Copyright stances throughout history http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/2971.htm
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Somethings that I made for my D&D campaign that I figured I should put out there: Oath of Commerce! https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rk-N9UhDQ
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Not sure if I'd want to encourage the idea of capitalism involving stealing.
20:15
And the "invest 50,000 in a divine being" reminds me too much of the Prosperity Gospelers.
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This was based off a tradition in my world, which has led to some problems, but I'm mostly happy with it.
20:18
The investment is partially an RP aid. A Divine Oath should be costly, but it asks for an up front price to pay off instead of strictly limiting your actions.
20:19
I have an urge to explain or defend the subclass, but I'll try to let it speak for itself.
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At least, unlike the prosperity gospelers, this does seem to have some fairly solid and defined returns on investment
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sdschildberg 02/08/2020 8:32 PM
Here’s the question: how to decouple Rouges and Pallys from alignment Because devotion+heavy weapons and sneaky tactics aren’t restricted to specific personality or ideology
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5e and every DM I've talked too has removed any alignment restrictions, and I only ever use alignment as an RP guide (or in the case of magic, what the wielder/god would perceive as a strong alignment.)
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sdschildberg 02/08/2020 8:34 PM
^
20:36
Is this oath for pallys or sorcs?
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Paladin
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Sorcerers are born with power, they don't need to make "oaths"
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sdschildberg 02/08/2020 8:41 PM
Otherwise it’s good. Fresh pally options are always welcome
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I have a few more subclasses, if you want to see them. Some of them are heavily tied to my own world, though, and would take some explanation.
20:46
It seems a bit rude to me if I just dumped all my material into the chat.
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sdschildberg 02/08/2020 8:46 PM
This one, however, is setting agnostic.
20:47
Is it OK if I repost this to other discords to have them look over it?
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Of course! Tell me if they have any good thoughts on it.
20:48
There's always room to grow.
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I had an idea for some sort of class or subclass based on wielding and building a bond with a sentient weapon.
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Can you make a class based on helping and building a bond with the humanoid who wields you?
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I think most players would rather be the character capable of independent locomotion.
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BluejayHurricane 02/08/2020 11:13 PM
I’ve heard a story of someone doing that, but it was very homebrew, and anyone trying will probably do their own custom whatever.
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Morgrim Moon 02/08/2020 11:33 PM
I've read a homebrew too, but the weapon was handled more like a wizard's familiar
11:45
Really trailed off and started flailing towards the end
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@Xenoangel is it normal for a 3rd level character to be able to afford 50,000 gp?
13:59
RE: the oath of commerce thing
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No. Most will have to go in debt, which is where things get going. As I said before (and might add in the doc), it is mostly for RP purposes. You will have a massive debt to pay, but you will have better abilities to pay it with. (edited)
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sdschildberg 02/10/2020 2:03 PM
And keep in mind how much loot goes for
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A frequent use for this is merchant societies coming together to fund a paladin to defend them.
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sdschildberg 02/10/2020 2:08 PM
If you want to run a oneshot, schemes to hammer away the debt work wonders as plot hooks
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There is no mention in the class of it being possible to incur a debt however.
14:21
granted, I suppose it's really more of a setting question if banks or whatever are a thing in the first place
14:22
I'm sort of used to a DnD world where it's a complete non-starter to go into debt so the idea never even gets brought up.
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sdschildberg 02/10/2020 2:35 PM
Idea: not all polities handle debtors the same. Some have the awful idea of reposessing time. Keep this as an emergency “drama with the outlanders” or “just follow a plothook for once in your life”.
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/10/2020 3:12 PM
Also, the idea that a church might handle a proxy donation, or that, as mentioned, merchants might pool resources to commission a paladin and then expect to be repaid, doesn't necessarily mean that you can buy magic items on credit
15:12
so it needn't be game-breaking.
15:13
(Or maybe you can buy magic items on credit, but the creditor is an emerald dragon or something like that.)
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sdschildberg 02/10/2020 3:13 PM
Everything that generates plot hooks is a good thing
👍 5
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sdschildberg 02/10/2020 3:28 PM
And paladins get shorted out of opportunities to get themselves into trouble For too long rouges and bards have held a monopoly on hare brained schemes (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/10/2020 5:33 PM
what would time mean here
17:33
you can't actually make someone 'lose' time
17:33
you can distract them or trap them somewhere
17:33
but not somehow force them to fade-to-black and find themselves x time in the future
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sdschildberg 02/10/2020 5:34 PM
As in “go do X, you’re a ward of the state”.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/10/2020 5:35 PM
lol
17:35
I think most adventurers would laugh at this coming from a backwater
17:35
Honestly
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"As per the terms of your sponsored knighthood, you are required to quest in the name of your leige no less often than twice per year, on quests not fewer than three weeks duration"
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How adventurers fit into a setting tends to be an interesting question
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/11/2020 5:06 PM
I wonder --
17:06
What would it look like if we worldhoused Luna
17:07
Paraterraforming is nice, but the larger a dome gets the worse its mechanical endurance
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it would be unnecessary, IIRC Luna still has enough mass to hold a atmosphere over time scales we consider long
17:29
not sure though
17:30
a moon-sized dome would be tricky; obviously such a structure can't hold up to normal pressures using known materials, so the moon would have to have enough gas to produce the desired pressure from mass alone and then the dome would help reduce losses to space
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Morgrim Moon 02/11/2020 5:56 PM
how would it handle tidal forces?
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0111narwhalz 02/11/2020 9:45 PM
There shouldn't be a lot of tidal forces on Luna, given that it's already locked.
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I dunno that worldhousing Luna is the right play, but I'm also very in favor of para-terraforming in general. Digging tunnel cities is also a great way to colonize a world as dead as luna is. Besides, Luna is tidal locked, any surface domes are going to be put into darkness for like two weeks at a time, that's not very good for plant life.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/13/2020 11:29 AM
Digging is expensive caves are rare
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/13/2020 11:56 AM
I mean, digging is expensive, but so's a glass sky.
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0111narwhalz 02/13/2020 12:05 PM
dig, use displaced mass to build glass sky
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Alternatively, glass the place with orbital lasers, and then dig a space underneath it.
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/13/2020 12:06 PM
Besides, if you're a dwarf, digging is a sacred duty.
12:06
Diggy diggy hole!
12:06
OK, OK, OK, that was derpy.
12:06
But I had to.
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2020 11:09 AM
I know many specialized products depend on specific industries and long supply chains for niche materials
11:09
Are there any particularly illustrative examples outside the rare earths for computer industry? (edited)
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BluejayHurricane 02/18/2020 11:24 AM
Most lithium for batteries is a byproduct of nitrogen mining, and was until recently a waste product that they would pump back in.
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...presumably mining with nitrogen, because mining for nitrogen would be quite odd.
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what solid compounds does nitrogen form?
11:57
....apparently on pluto you can mine nitrogen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_nitrogen
Solid nitrogen is the solid form of the element nitrogen. It is an important component of the surfaces of Pluto and outer moons of the Solar System such as Neptune's Triton. Under low or moderate pressure solid nitrogen contains dinitrogen molecules held together by London dis...
12:01
on earth its probably mining for nitrides or nitrites
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Yeah, but you presumably aren't mining those for the nitrogen . We've got plenty. (Well, there's guano, I suppose, but.)
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nitroglycerin?
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BluejayHurricane 02/18/2020 12:57 PM
Nitrates and stuff. Fertilizer is the big market, iirc.
12:57
Assorted nitrogen compounds.
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... isn't like 1% of the world's total power budget spent on nitrogen synthesis?
03:33
I do not think we have plenty
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2020 3:47 AM
We have plenty of nitrogen. It's just locked up in stubbornly low reactive N2 gas
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Whole point of crop rotation is providing the bacteria that turn it into useful compounds working space
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0111narwhalz 02/19/2020 6:23 AM
Allowing the field to lay fallow in particular.
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2020 6:31 AM
legumes are faster
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0111narwhalz 02/19/2020 6:38 AM
Sometimes "lay fallow" can mean "cover in clover"
06:38
but yeah you may as well get some beans out of it
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2020 6:46 AM
ah. Here, you have to plant the clover
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Here it's practically a weed.
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The majority of non-Terran sophonts in the known galaxy seem to have been wiped out by the Destroyers or natural disasters, parahumanity’s survival appears to have been a fluke. However, a fe…
17:57
I keep forgetting to copy-paste them to Wordpress a month after putting them on Patreon
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Okay, it’s showing how few Star Trek episodes I’ve seen that I didn’t realize Kirk discovered reliable time travel until a TVtropes page referenced a TOS episode where they just casually go back to the 60s
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 5:03 PM
'murica stomps (edited)
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a thought i had after seeing the recommendation pop up on discourse earlier
17:52
Greg Egan's stance on things is... weird
17:52
like, there are a whole bunch of things that you really kinda expect to go hand-in-hand that he disagrees with
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 5:54 PM
I mean, I'm rather skeptical on immortality and uploading despite approving of morphological freedom?
17:55
Their desirability, not feasibility.
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- he's all for uploading and automation and such, but is adamant that exponential intelligence is a non-starter and that baseline or upgraded-baseline intelligence is sufficient to understand literally everything - he's perfectly alright with augmentation of all sorts, but one of his stories amounts to "couple goes overboard with genetic engineering for brilliant child with vague hopes of him being awesome and fixing the world, said child invents time travel, tells the parents to fuck off for 'fucking with his free will' or some such, donates all their money to comparatively useless charities and then commits timeline-suicide." - not exactly the same but a few of his works deal with having deterministic and perfectly predictable futures combined with free will. What?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 5:58 PM
I mean
17:58
I can see the first point
17:59
The second one isnt that contradictory, you can hate being railroaded and like being augmented
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i don't know, its been a few months since i read it but it really... wasn't railroading
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 5:59 PM
Sometimes I suspect if we haven't figured out all the major secrets there are to find
17:59
re: physics, End of Science has more elaboration on this point
18:00
I can perfectly believe that the human peak is close to the absolute peak for intelligence somehow
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it was literally just miscellaneous genetic improvements, with a extreme focus on intelligence
18:01
and they sorta figured that he would try to fix the world, but it's not like they were working on a level that they could even implement those sorts of desires
18:01
it just seemed so jarring that he called back, said "fuck you and fuck this entire concept of what you did to make me healthy, super-smart, and incredibly capable" and then killed himself retroactively
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:02 PM
maybe he just turned out badly lmao
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i guess
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:02 PM
Greg Egan is weird
18:02
lemme see if i can find the story real quick
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:09 PM
Speaking of stories, I have the first chapter of my serial practically ready to go
18:10
But I've been sitting on it because there are a few last-minute changes I've been waffling about, and college stress, and my own worry about being able to keep up a regular schedule while making it a good story
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don't let authors with insane update schedules give you the wrong idea, take as much time as you need
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:13 PM
namely the use of the word "anthro" and a passage toward the end I think is too similar to one in Spidey's origin story
18:13
I'll give it one last pass then see about uploading
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:14 PM
Greg Egan is a mathematics professor who has co-written mulitple papers with AI researchers, but one of the few who doesn't think a hard take off is something likely to happen. Which is, I suspect, why they're utterly absent. He DOES have some computer super-intelligences in at least one short story but they had to get there the long way around too
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ah, finally found the short story
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:15 PM
also the man's a fucking cryptid and may possibly be an AI himself. I've met multiple people who've collaborated with him via email but not seen him face to face
18:15
(He supposedly lives in my city)
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it's "Eugene" and isn't available online, huh
18:15
i forgot i read it in one of his short story collections
18:15
but yeah, Egan is odd
18:16
i don't find it odd that he doesn't think hard takeoff is unlikely, admittedly its a big thing to swallow
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:16 PM
I feel he mostly writes to explore his personal 'what if's
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i just think it's strange that he thinks approximately human baseline is effectively the upper limit
18:17
that you can't really get any big improvements from it, just minor things like memory size/speed or such
18:17
IIRC his argument is along the lines of "the baseline human has all the cognitive tools to understand everything, improvements just make it easier"
18:17
to which i answer
18:18
"okay, and I can emulate Deep Thought with a TI-83"
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:19 PM
possibly based on humans not having progressed much intelligence baseline wise in the last 80k years of evolution? As in, researchers are fairly convinced that if you took a neolithic infant and raised them in modern culture, you'd get a modern adult
18:19
we've just accumulated knowledge
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which is a fair point, but it's clear in other places that even if you don't necessarily add anything new, increasing the speed and scale of computing hardward can result in radical improvements
18:21
even if you can technically perform the equivalent of emulating Deep Thought with a TI-83 with extra memory, you don't want to
18:21
if you design around having immense computing power from the getgo, you get vastly, absurdly more performance
18:22
and it's not a moot point, I'd say; there have been a few stories of his where extremely mature technological societies (literally millions of years old) have reached a technological dead-end
18:23
the setting in particular i'm thinking of is one where they're still reliant on fusion power, and it's a substantial bottleneck that plays a plot role
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:24 PM
check out his website, he might have been asked and answered why he choses to do that. Granted, sometimes it's less a complex answer than a simple "because I wanted to"
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and all i can think is "well, maybe if you actually integrated those supercomputers you're all running emus on, you could think up a better solution instead of running into bottlenecks where, yes, technically you can understand the better solution, but good luck coming up with a idea of that relative complexity spontaneously."
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:25 PM
and sometimes it's a 20 page paper on "because I wanted to explore this"
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:25 PM
Eriscima Iberez hates Egan's stories for her part
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:26 PM
I'm not sure who that is?
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i've visited his website a fair bit, it doesn't actually seem to touch on this much
18:26
also, yeah, not sure who that is either
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:26 PM
tabac's sister from toughsf. "Egan likes making his alternate physics, and lets that drive everything while background characters are handed to his tone-deaf ten year old child."
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:26 PM
google is giving no results
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i've heard the "boring characters" criticism before, but i can't comment on that. I have all the tastebuds of a dung beetle, so more-or-less can't distinguish whether they're bad or good
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:29 PM
Writing trans/posthuman characters is a lot like their in universe creation You have to understand what an S0 is and how to write it to write an S1, and so on.
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that is a big downside of them in fiction, yeah
18:29
namely that you kinda can't write their POV. At all.
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Which is why I just go with “human but thinks faster”
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:30 PM
And if your ability to write a baseline character, and the interpersonal relationships they get up to, is poor, your S1s are gonna be a mess.
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one of the better depictions i've seen is basically just depicting them as enigmatic and somewhere between crazy-prepared and "does this guy have a oracle up his sleeve?"
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Much faster, admittedly, but still
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so that any baseline action against them is eventually revealed to not only have not worked, but have apparently been accounted for and probably delibrately encouraged by the posthuman
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:32 PM
Keikaku, I described it as
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:33 PM
Oh god, the “you activated my trap card/all according to keikaku” gimmick That gets old fast
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I see you are sophonts of culture as well
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(for good effect, sprinkle in the occasional demonstration of something that is apparently technically possible but hard/nigh-impossible, like programming a kill-switch into someone by a combination of smart paint and emotional [mainly fear] manipulation)
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:35 PM
“[ability name] has already touched that soph” This is extremely anime at this point.
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big brain: anime characters are all actually posthumans and they just seem to act weirdly because we can't understand their true reasoning
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:37 PM
robot stands there MENACINGly
(edited)
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“I reject my humanity, baseline!”
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/24/2020 6:42 PM
"AWAKEN, MY MASTERS!"
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:46 PM
you cannot escape the JoJo
18:49
Also: leaving immortal beings on but unable to do anything is awful. Punishment worse than death.
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well, at least he stopped thinking, apparently
18:56
and he's definitely going to land back on Earth, no way he reached solar escape velocity with some steam jets
18:57
might take a few hundred years before the orbits intersect, though
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 6:57 PM
Either you functionally killed the person, as they will stop thinking, or their mind will break.
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it is a odd question that nobody wants to find the answer for
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I have no mouth
18:58
And I must scream
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what happens when a immortal being is removed from all stimulus for a long time
18:59
do they just stop thinking? do they go crazy?
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:59 PM
go crazy
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do you get a sort of pseudo-stasis of not-thinking where they just wake up and be like "well that really sucked but i'm fine now" when they aren't trapped anymore?
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Morgrim Moon 02/24/2020 6:59 PM
that's what happens to non-immortal humans
19:00
@ going crazy
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sdschildberg 02/24/2020 7:00 PM
Functionally, being stuck in space is low enough to cause the immortal to go nuts
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hmm, i suppose a infinite loop of repetitive thoughts that don't end up in long term memory seems more likely
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I've thought about it a few times, and concluded that if I was running on a significantly higher clock speed than the rest of humanity I would pull a Deadpool and create a second personality to play hangman with
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a very appealing form of self modification for me would be "higher clock speed but without boredom"
19:03
because higher clock speed is great, but boredom means that it also sucks because you have to do things at a comparable pace to stave it off.
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Is it even possible to be sapient without experiencing boredom?
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maybe?
19:04
i mean, you could reduce it, at least
19:04
the existence of patience implies that you could have superhuman patience
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Jade Nekotenshi 03/01/2020 4:48 PM
(wow, i'm so malcombobulated I put that in the wrong server. Furrrrfu)
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/02/2020 10:41 AM
Is kars even going to be sane if he lands on earth again
10:41
He figured out a way to stop thinking so
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0111narwhalz 03/02/2020 10:46 AM
sanity is overrated
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sdschildberg 03/02/2020 10:49 AM
1. Nope! Immortals + sensory deprivation=insanity 2. “Stopped thinking” is a death equivalent state
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Prnt scrn button stopped working for Steam games
17:43
But I updated my Para-Imperium build with the “Hegemon” origin
17:44
And the Core Worlds
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/17/2020 5:50 PM
I'm going to buy that DLC...
17:50
as soon as the refund stops being pending. safawfgr
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What does Hegemon do again?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/17/2020 6:10 PM
you start off as the leader of one
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0111narwhalz 03/17/2020 6:11 PM
everyone is very good at topiary
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sdschildberg 03/17/2020 6:15 PM
You are basically the leader of an overly united federation
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/18/2020 6:06 PM
adabtable
18:06
does that mean you can dab on underperforming workers better
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A thought about entropy, especially in relation to my own writing: Why is entropy seen as a chaotic? Nothing seems more orderly than entropic equilibrium, where everything is unchanging. Nothing seems more chaotic than the vast reactions and changes in reality before things settle once more. This isn't to say that entropy is good. In fact, entropy seems to be one of the most consistent "evils" a soceity can have. In my own writing, the two ruling gods are a God of Chaotic Life and a God of Corrupting Machine. Neither is explicitly better than the other, but most writing takes place among chaos (especially since I usually write fantasy). I bring this up because in this soceity, entropy is seen as a product of law, as it corrupts people towards Moloch. Nobody but doomsday cultists will want to serve or cling to entropy. The entropy we see everyday brings harm to anything it touches. Maybe I'm just crazy, but it seems the idea that entropy is chaotic more just shows how we like order.
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well, part of it is the... 'level' that entropy is perceived on
05:15
maximum entropy might be static and unchanging, but entropy as commonly seen is actually a breakdown in a high-level order that humans can percieve
05:16
example: a well construct, clean building is perceived as orderly without any regard to the actual amount of entropy
05:17
but if you litter outside, smash the windows, etc, it's perceived as much less orderly even if the actual change in entropy is much less significant and possibly not even positive
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It’s a “primordial chaos” thing
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Part of my setting's history includes societal-shaking biological warfare.
09:10
Would it be in bad taste to write a story about it now?
09:11
I'm really more concerned about people drawing unintentional parallels between the major polities.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/19/2020 9:15 AM
Maybe?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/21/2020 11:26 PM
So
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/24/2020 2:08 AM
I'm going to admit, I still have half a mind to make IAC-verse less hostile to life than it is currently
02:09
But, well, the overwhelming weight of biochemical evidence says Earthlife and alien life won't get along at the micro scale
02:10
It wouldn't do to have a sky full of vibrant, lifebearing worlds that are totally inaccessible except for research purposes
02:11
The secondary problem is that I'm not up for worldbuilding realistic xenos from the ground up
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Morgrim Moon 03/31/2020 10:42 AM
Since today seems to be a conculturing day - how about the meta-republic? Every system of government gets one representative to the governing counsel, and all the representatives vote on major...
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Jade Nekotenshi 03/31/2020 10:46 AM
Hah, I like that one!
10:47
I'm not sure how well it'd really work, but I'm very tempted to nick that idea.
10:47
(Then again, Scott always seems to have thought-provoking concepts and ideas.)
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I’d argue that Democracy should be represented by a national poll instead of a person.
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Who would represent Anarchism?
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Nobody, they opted out
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Morgrim Moon 03/31/2020 12:26 PM
a seat that votes no to everything? 😛
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do Anarcho-Primitivism and Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism punch each other a lot on the debate floor?
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COMMUNISM IS A TEMPORARY SETBACK ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM
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not the same communism, sweetie
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2020 3:00 PM
I DUN IT
15:01
finally, FINALLY started that wormalike serial I keep talking about
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link
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2020 3:01 PM
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
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nice
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2020 6:35 PM
Long story short: I justify "superheroing" because in Tiger Strike it is not the casual vigilanteism we are used to
18:35
They have some government backing, a framework to work within, and solid rules that get enforced
18:36
They are given a perhaps unrealistic amount of latitude to perform investigations but they do have to cooperate with other LEO agencies
18:38
Some of them have a businesslike demeanor, others lean into the theatrical angle (like some law enforcers do in real life!) but they all have limits and accountability
18:38
(in theory)
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Oh, like, you started writing it
19:36
Cool!
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2020 7:46 PM
@Archon wait, did I tell you I was writing it?
19:46
I'm forgetful
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No, you didn't, you said you "started it", which normally implies you started reading a webnovel?
19:48
I assumed you were writing it because reading 1-chapter long webnovels is not an achivement but writing them is
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/31/2020 7:48 PM
I'm 2/3rds of the way through Worm
19:49
Looks like Tattletale finally, FINALLY saw the pieces fitting together
19:49
Also god damn you Noelle
19:49
Yeah, it's mine, I'm writing it
19:50
sorry for the confusion
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Well, congratualtions
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/01/2020 8:15 AM
[with apologies to the real Legal Systems Very Different From Ours. See also the List Of Fictional Drugs Banned By The FDA] I. The Clamzorians are animists. They believe every rock and tree and riv…
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Those aren’t particularly weird, really.
08:49
1 might be a decentralized form of disaster relief
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sdschildberg 04/01/2020 8:51 AM
Technically someone in 1 could charge the entire population/culture for “promoting death” the second immortagens were discovered
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/01/2020 8:52 AM
and the Sanzorre system sounds not entirely unlike the Empire
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sdschildberg 04/01/2020 8:53 AM
System 3 is just a discord mute for real life
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And China’s social credit system
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So, if Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, and Epsilon Eridani are all inhabited... does Barnard’s Star seem a logical place for “space Tortuga”?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/05/2020 3:39 PM
15:39
Not really
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sdschildberg 04/05/2020 3:39 PM
Also: it depends on how FTL and piracy work
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I'd say mebbie Sirus, or L 726-8
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/05/2020 3:45 PM
The problem is that this exists in 3D
15:46
And L726-G is actually further toward the center
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Well I was thinking less a pirate haven than a spot for smugglers to swap cargo and mercenaries to lie low after “accidental” war crimes.
15:47
And there’s colonies further out.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/05/2020 3:47 PM
I think the L stars are actually brown dwarves
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Brown Dwarf is probably a good spot for that, actually. going to have less traffic, potentially, than inhabited systems. potentially lots of smaller spots to set up a small lunar hab or the like, depending on one's technological level.
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Well, I was thinking this plutocrat with more credit than grasp of orbital mechanics had tried to establish it as an inner sphere trade hub, but things didn't work out as planned and he ended up leasing it out to a cartel of smugglers.
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sdschildberg 04/05/2020 6:32 PM
“Hive of scum and villainy: for rent”
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I didn't notice the gazelle as I passed him in the hallway, or the vibro-blade he was concealing. My reflex override did. Another day in the arcology. - @zarpaulus #MicrofictionMonday
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 4:13 PM
In that case I'd say Wolf 359 is great!
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 10:38 PM
Unrelatedly, I keep wondering if the distinction between spacecraft that stay in vacuum and the ones that sometimes touch ground is all that valid (edited)
22:38
Admittedly, the Starship has a very, very idiosyncratic mission profile
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BluejayHurricane 04/06/2020 10:40 PM
We don’t really have space-only ships, at least right now. The LM is probably the closest we’ve gotten, and that wasn’t space-only at all. Maybe the Hubble counts too?
22:40
But it’s very valid.
22:41
Gravity wells and atmospheres suck. If you don’t have to design for them, you can get away with some stuff.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 10:41 PM
I was going to say the CSM but that piece was on takeoff
22:42
The ISS, Mir, Salyut etc. only count if you have a really broad idea of what a 'spacecraft' is
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BluejayHurricane 04/06/2020 10:43 PM
Yeah. There aren’t any references outside fiction, unfortunately, and so while the distinction may not be drawn for a very long time, it will exist at some point.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 10:45 PM
Gravity wells suck, but they're the only places to get half-decent eats and fuel.
22:46
:^)
22:46
Okay, not fuel, just ... the necessities of industry
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BluejayHurricane 04/06/2020 10:48 PM
Funnily enough, considering how 0g might hurt a kid, i suspect the only thing that planets can provide that our solar system can’t is more people. It’d make for a fun story, too.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 10:48 PM
And actual ore
22:49
Asteroids are not, as people seem to think, little nuggets of platinum floating around (edited)
22:54
To get the useful veins and deposits we want to mine, you need an active hydrology or geology and ideally both
22:55
Mars, and possibly the Moon, have had enough to create deposits of some elements that are worthwhile
22:56
What resources besides water and regolith are available on the Moon and Mars? It's easy to say something like: "all the same elements that exist on Earth exist there too, so we can extract them and make anything", but this isn't really the case.
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sdschildberg 04/06/2020 10:57 PM
Which is a good explanation for why you’re mining, colonizing, and caring about planets with water/life
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 10:57 PM
I don't go quite that far in IAC
22:58
Ice is nice too
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okay it is surprisingly hard to find info about expected asteroid compositions that include the rarer elements, but after searching for about 10m it seems that a platinum concentration on the order of 1 in 10,000 could be expected from the better asteroids (and there's no reason you can't focus on the higher yield asteroids), while the Bushveld Igneous Complex has something like 1 in 100,000. And that's one of the top three rare earth deposits in the world.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:08 PM
I heard similar
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Kevin Cannon seems to be focusing on planetary deposits, which might well be substantially worse.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:11 PM
Also I want to bring up that we frankly don't know enough to say "deposits are more dispersed"
23:11
Mineral exploration here on Earth usually fails, but it involves a much deeper analysis of potential sites than sending a probe to do a core sample for one
23:12
(and I mean this also in the literal sense)
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am i mistaken in thinking that you can discern mineral compositions from a distance via spectroscopy?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:13 PM
Yes
23:13
Companies search globally for mineral deposits that can be economically mined and processed. Mineral exploration is made up of a variety of different activities and techniques that are used to find a potential discovery.
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i know you can with stars, but that's aided by them being rather incandescent
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:15 PM
That's the short answer
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hmm, so while asteroids do have some things going for them (they're more likely to have a consistent composition, for the smaller ones at least) a probe visit would still be required to get a better idea of the composition
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:17 PM
osiris-rex
23:17
though that's not so much doing it on site as it is bringing back a sample
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:17 PM
also I'd like to reiterate that what probes do wouldn't be considered a mineral exploration by any stretch of the imagination
23:17
so Cannon is basically speculating
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but in short, things are a lot more complicated on earth
23:19
the same systems that help concentrate ores also make it a pain in the ass to figure out the extent of a deposit
23:20
but it's really not all that unreasonable to expect at least some asteroids to have a more consistent composition, and given that a lot of them are rubble piles its not as difficult to get subsurface samples, either.
23:21
a probe that can drill its own core sample and perform rudimentary analysis is not implausible
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:22 PM
the clincher is whether any of the current/previous ones have done that
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any current probes? I'm not sure, I would guess not currently
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:23 PM
also I think scientists are currently almost certain that Mars had liquid water several aeons ago
23:23
correct if wrong
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Curiosity has something similar
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:24 PM
Curiosity has found some interesting concentrations as well
23:24
aye, but i meant as far as the technology
23:25
it has a sampling drill
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:25 PM
hm
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but that's designed for a gravity well, which has different design constraints
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:25 PM
Regarding planets there was something else I wanted to ask
23:26
Will the habitable kind have a fairly uniform look? (blue skies/sea, green/beige land, white clouds/ice)
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that has sub-questions built in
23:26
namely: "where do the other habitable planets come from?"
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:27 PM
("habitable for whom?") Humans, or parahumans
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also that
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:27 PM
What makes a planet habitable?
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and "what are the design tastes of the people picking or terraforming the planets?"
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:27 PM
As far as I can tell, nitrox atmosphere + gravity field between 0.3 and 1.6x Erf
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:28 PM
If you need an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere with a minimum of weird gases, you'll have a blue sky.
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Morgrim Moon 04/06/2020 11:28 PM
okay. Under yellow-star conditions, clean water IS faintly blue. (reflecting the sky makes it more-blue, not gives it colour to begin with..) Oxygen is also blue! However the other gases in the mix will have way more impact, as will star colour, so sky could be anything
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is water the primary solvent?
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Morgrim Moon 04/06/2020 11:28 PM
for earth-type life, yes. For life in general, more data required
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:28 PM
we're talking humans
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:28 PM
(since unprotected lungs don't appreciate chlorine, fluorine, et cetera)
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:28 PM
or neb humans (i.e. my Tiffanians, the ones from OA, or etc.)
23:29
I'm pretty sure it's unlikely you'd end up with some weird but inert gas in the atmo
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Morgrim Moon 04/06/2020 11:29 PM
thing is, you can have a breathable gas mix with a different coloured sky, that's dead simple. Again, star colour. and traces of other gases or airborne particles can have a big impact. So I'd say blue skies is the least guaranteed
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:30 PM
Raw stone can be basically anywhere on the spectrum from white to tan to red to black, probably with other stuff.
23:30
ah, airborne particles
23:30
forgot about them
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Morgrim Moon 04/06/2020 11:30 PM
well. That and soil colour. But anyone thinking the ground is fixed colours needs to notice that hey, when you grow up in aus you think dirt is supposed to be red and wonder why all the children's books make it brown
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:31 PM
I grew up in a tropical country
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:31 PM
Add in life and your soil is likely to get darker, more brown and black, from all the organic matter in it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:31 PM
So I wondered why the forests looked so different from the way media presented them
23:31
And the architecture of schools and etc etc.
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:32 PM
I used to think people getting snowed in was some sort of ancient myth carried from the ice age or Canada or something.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:32 PM
idk
23:32
some dirt is pretty beige if you go to certain places in PR
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:33 PM
(it's snowed here twice in the last fifteen years, and the second time is dubious)
23:33
(and the first time we got maybe a millimeter V:)
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when it comes to planets, unless your civ has been terraforming for a while, i would think that the criteria for habitation would be (in order of importance): 1: Can we take off our helmets without dying? 2: How much support do crops need to grow? 3: Everything else.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:34 PM
The Tiffanians have been terraforming from the start
23:35
IAC is a very life-rare verse
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#1 there isn't even a guarantee, nevermind #2. "What color is the sky" is probably so far down the list of concerns that you don't even think about it until your civ is a maestro at terraforming
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:35 PM
Not entirely xenoless, but they had to travel 3600ly from Earth just to find a world that fit criteria 1. (edited)
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huh, so they've had some practice then
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:36 PM
And Tiffany's native ecology is threadbare and not worth talking about (edited)
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:36 PM
For some reason, iron oxide dirt and sandstone doesn't look red to me, even though red iron oxide is indeed very red, so color perception might also be an interesting degree of freedom.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:37 PM
10% of all Tiffanians are colorblind
23:37
Bloody animal DNA screwing it up
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well then, i'd expect the main factor to be tastes. Mainly because there are a lot of planets, and they're good at terraforming, so if sky color is a concern they're going to pick a planet that makes that achievable and then make it so.
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:37 PM
(the Grand Canyon is tan, and probably Australia too if I ever went there)
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:37 PM
The Grand Canyon I've seen in person
23:37
It looks somewhat tan so probably not an odd perception
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:37 PM
"look at those pretty red rocks!" "where?" :V
23:38
(deuteranomaly is a weird kind of colorblindness)
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or if people aren't picky about the finer details of their world, it'll come down to all the other complex factors we've been talking about like the solar spectrum and the typical geological composition and airborne dust and the color of the engineered flora and the abundance of water and...
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:39 PM
get some aeroplankton in here
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parts of which are a design choice, and parts of which aren't. You could influence the size of Mar's ocean if you're bringing in comets, but good luck trying to make all that iron oxide stop being red.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:39 PM
(F8IV, silica+iron, no meaningful dust outside of Iris, green flora, 67% water...)
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:39 PM
(hm, and pictures of Mars are red…)
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(figuring out the actual color is beyond my expertise; it's easier to figure out what is a factor than it is to find out how much or what kind of a factor)
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:41 PM
Sorry, I've been noting mentally all along
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:41 PM
(I've hypothesized that there's some kind of spectral weirdness afoot, and that's why some reds look red and some look tan)
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:41 PM
The issue with xenolife has been noted many times before
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:41 PM
(got no way to test that, mind, but it's intriguing)
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:41 PM
Which is why I went with a rare earth world
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0111narwhalz 04/06/2020 11:42 PM
mmm, lanthanides
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:42 PM
coltane is great for making cellphones
23:44
I could posit a world where every fifth G-class star has a habworld with an intricate ecology like Earth's but
23:45
1) biochemical incompatibilities probably kill any hopes of colonizing such and 2) I'm not interested in speculative evolution for its own sake
23:49
There's probably a good way to get past them with biotech but the Tiffanians are very specifically bioconservaitve
23:51
Artifexian has a video covering some of the variables, but the idea of aeroplankton is probably untenable
23:51
Dust would cause lung problems
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wait, hold on, to be clear
23:55
A: the Tiffanians are bioconservative B: the Tiffanians are the ones terraforming lots of planets
23:56
both of those are true?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/06/2020 11:56 PM
yeah
23:56
not like they're going to do pantropy
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i mean, to me that kinda sounds like "Fred loves flying but he's deathly afraid of heights"
23:57
engineered organisms are one of the tools you
23:57
'd really, really want to have on hand when terraforming
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 12:00 AM
arguably
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i mean, generally when i see actual terraforming plans described it goes something like "Do significantly energetic X to get the planet on the right track (melt and distribute ice deposits with bombs, redirect a bunch of comets for water, etc). Introduce very hardy plant life to adjust chemical/atmospheric composition globally. Introduce less hardy stuff as things improve."
00:01
i mean, using mars as a example, mars+water is a starting point.
00:01
meaning you need a plant that can grow comfortable in wide temperature ranges in soil that's about half a percent perchlorates with a thin and mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere
00:02
and would hopefully do something to improve one of those things in the process of growing
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 12:02 AM
Paul Birch would beg to differ slightly on the particulars but I think so? (edited)
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if you don't make that plant... well i guess you could try and have some laborious system where you tried to encourage a naturally-evolved plant to evolve into something that can manage...
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 12:03 AM
they're fine with the evil gmos
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but i'd be willing to wager that there's nothing out there that can do it as-is
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 12:04 AM
it's big stuff they have a problem with, like changing current form and making nanoassemblers and anything that even looks like a potential digisapience
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ah, alright
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 12:04 AM
the very, very rich can get additional genemods despite the official treaty restrictions
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0111narwhalz 04/07/2020 12:04 AM
radiation gardens—!
00:04
:V
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so long as they're okay with the fact that, in practice, terraforming is only a handful of steps away from designing a biosphere from scratch
00:05
really, it is designing a biosphere from scratch, you can just steal the notes from pre-existing life
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 12:16 AM
that's true
00:16
they usually do the atmosphere step first by targeting nearly-airless worlds
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that works; i mean, as an example, mars is also nearly-airless
00:22
so any plan that would actually work for mars would give you a idea of what to expect for other such worlds
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 11:24 PM
Does a costume even make sense for a super-brawler type character practically?
23:24
Most supers have at least a paper thin justification for their outfits
23:25
Eddie Torres doesn't. He's intelligent, but not really versatile enough in skill to take full advantage of pouches, and so physically resilient armor is pointless, and his blows are liable to cause so much collateral damage an outfit would get shredded in short order (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2020 11:30 PM
branding?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 11:31 PM
He's also a whistleblower on the run who presumably can't use the services of whatever fabrikinetics may or may not be around
23:34
Specifically, the full extent of his abilities depend on transforming physically; as a normal human he can only take advantage of excellent fitness and reflexes
23:36
yeah, the core issue is that a proper costume would need some kind of unobtanium-handwavium weave to survive his adventures
23:37
Right now I just envision him as wearing whatever's comfortable and loose-fitting
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Morgrim Moon 04/07/2020 11:47 PM
do any parts of him not transform?
23:47
because that's when you get creative with hats or something
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/07/2020 11:48 PM
the details are that his hands and feet and head change but everything else just bulks up slightly
23:48
oh, and he gains a tail from the coccyx
23:51
which is why I was envisioning puffy clothes rather than the usual tight ones
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 12:22 AM
Does it even fit to have a set costume? The main purpose they serve is branding
00:23
The practical design concerns really come second, and none of them apply to Blanco anyway
00:23
Arguably he already has the branding locked down simply by virtue of being visibly not a normal human
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 12:42 AM
huge man, tiny hat
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:08 AM
Okay, actually, he might have some use for camouflage
01:08
Especially the kind that hides thermal signatures and bends light
01:08
But that'd be a tertiary concern
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:10 AM
hiding thermal signatures = thick jacket
01:10
:V
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Morgrim Moon 04/08/2020 1:12 AM
Thermal ponchos respect shape shifting
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:12 AM
hm, on that note
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:15 AM
@0111narwhalz i was imagining exactly that for civvies
01:15
aesthetic poofy-collared fur coat
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:16 AM
"dude it's like 35 out here why are you wearing that"
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:17 AM
"Siberia is cold... even if the Congo isn't."
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:27 AM
And by poofy I mean about this poofy
01:28
Or more
01:28
:Y (edited)
01:29
I'm reminded that he's going to have to cut a hole in all his pants for the tail
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:29 AM
wear them backwards so it pokes out the fly
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:29 AM
have you ever tried to wear pants backwards
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:30 AM
sometimes it happens when I'm not trying
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:30 AM
Well, if he has to learn to re-tailor all of his lower-body clothing anyways maybe making custom outfits isn't that much of a stretch
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:31 AM
What kind of tail are we talking here?
01:31
Cat, wolf, lizard, horse…?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:32 AM
Tiger tail
01:32
Which means it's got caudal vertebrae that articulate
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:33 AM
Something relatively thin and flexible, then.
01:33
In a pinch he could probably send it down a pant leg or something V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:34 AM
Okay, I may not be explaining this properly
01:34
At first he can shapeshift
01:34
But it's explained in the very first chapter -- which is up, so it's not technically a spoiler -- that he's going to be stuck in the 'shifted' mode permanently sooner or later
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:35 AM
ah, so the changing isn't always going to be relevant
01:35
that makes this job easier :V
01:36
Could make a slit, then add a clasp back to the waistband.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:36 AM
And like, it's not just really eyecatching like transformed-Taylor is
01:36
He's a fething furry tiger, and you'd never forget the day you saw that on the street
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:37 AM
It'd be a relatively simple operation and wouldn't compromise the strength of the garment.
01:39
(It's certainly less involved than my uštžen, whose tails are of comparable thickness to their thighs)
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:40 AM
And he's got all the stats to go along with it too
01:41
i.e. 45mph run, 5m jump, able to deadlift a log, etc.
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0111narwhalz 04/08/2020 1:41 AM
Is he still plantigrade?
01:41
That's a much greater tailoring concern, I feel :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 1:42 AM
Yep
01:42
Making him digitigrade would probably break something in the ankles
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 04/08/2020 1:47 AM
Wouldn't a utilikilt be the obvious solution?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/08/2020 2:14 AM
@john dougan(his grace/his grace) mutter mutter Blanco doesn't have celtic heritage mumble
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Morgrim Moon 04/08/2020 2:39 AM
Tail socks are dead simple to add
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/10/2020 3:13 PM
Ah, stealth might be very important
15:16
Given that he's so dangerous up close, his enemies might not hesitate to break out the big guns if they should find him
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Morgrim Moon 04/11/2020 4:53 AM
The three-toed skink can give birth to live young and lay eggs in the same pregnancy. What can this little critter teach us about the evolution of live birth?
👀 4
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/11/2020 10:39 AM
Interesting!
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I've been archive bingeing this comic.
21:57
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I had this idea for some Traveller tables for when characters are away from a planet or region for an extended period. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-c7Z7Wb0NdB8D1wyUF1WIjiHnyeX1zck34j80mhI2OE/edit?usp=sharing
Time displacement Planetary (per 20-year interval) 2 Planetary Disaster 3 Invasion 4 Revolution 5 Technophobia 6 Population crash 7 Traditionalist revival 8 Liberalization 9 Baby boom 10 Technological leap 11 Immigration wave 12 Expansion Baby boom: A spike...
17:33
Particularly from jump accidents or low passage.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/12/2020 9:12 PM
I just feel like IAC is more of a closed-circle than an expansive world
21:13
Even in my imagination (my art skills aren't good enough to bring White to life, let alone the Causeway of Ancient Heroes) its style is really restrained/prosaic, and it's isolated by design (edited)
21:14
There's this little slice of civilization and life in a tiny corner of the Milky Way and there's absolutely no one and nothing else going on anywhere else, as far as our characters know at least (edited)
21:16
Because of my insistence on strict-ish realism the isolation is magnified
21:16
The Empire is orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude below the complexity of any galaxy-spanning civilization and the empty wastes are really empty wastes
21:19
It's really huge all things considered, but it's going to feel smaller by dint of not taking place across a ridiculously large expanse (edited)
21:21
I could try to counter this by emphasizing the intra-ethnic differences, or cultural achievements, but there's no neighbors to compare to
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So write stories about people, not empires.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/12/2020 9:27 PM
I already have a protagonist, and a few major characters, and the target/antagonist in mind
21:27
Notions of a story arc waver in and out of my consciousness as the mood strikes
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Somebody decided to draw 13 pages of comics to parody one of my stories https://twitter.com/thiger_art/status/1249820138473426946?s=21
This is a parody I did of the Leo-awards nominated novel, Tales of The Para-Imperium, by @zarpaulus I hope it can be enjoyed on its own. Page 1
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sdschildberg 04/13/2020 9:45 PM
As a note, artist’s twitter is NSFW.
21:47
I can’t tell if this is clowning or not
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I will admit the story was kinda info-dumpy.
21:49
I recognized a few direct quotes, actually.
21:49
Names are different.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/14/2020 7:30 PM
Actually, how close are we to optical camouflage IRL? I keep seeing all these news reports about metamaterials making you invisible to the naked eye every few years but nothing ever seems to come of it
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BluejayHurricane 04/14/2020 8:14 PM
They have yet to figure out how to make it grunt-proof, and until an incredibly complex, delicate system becomes simple and robust, it's not happening. If armored vehicles could do thermal concealment, that may be worth it, but on a personal level, I'm guessing decades if ever. I suspect the greatest applications will be with aircraft; a better stealth coating is always going to be appreciated.
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take this with a cup of salt, but IIRC this was being tested and played with back when they were doing development work on the PL-01
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BluejayHurricane 04/14/2020 9:23 PM
OK, correction, if tanks can be given a coating that makes them look not like a tank for the purposes of a missile seeker, that would be implemented immediately. Otherwise, a tank is just oh so much expensive shoulder-fired missile bait. But you still aren't getting an invisibility cloak.
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the youtube vid there is kinda sensationalist, but it's basically a narrated version of BAE's demonstrator video
21:53
those hexagons on the side allow the tank to adjust it's visible thermal profile from the side which makes it either blend in better with the background or have a different silhouette (like an SUV for example)
21:53
but the IR/thermal systems there are primarily a defense against identification, not against incoming missile fire.
21:55
full/perfect thermal/optic camo would be a much more complex feat.
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0111narwhalz 04/14/2020 9:56 PM
it'd likely cook you alive because you have to eject entropy somehow
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probably, unless you have a good idea idea as to your threat vector
21:57
but even so, the real challenge is as always getting down to ambient.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/14/2020 10:24 PM
So any chance of my MC having that sort of thing is out the window
22:25
It is a superhero universe, but to borrow some Worm terminology there are no powers we could classify as Tinker or Thinker
22:25
So he can't get a fabrikinetic buddy to gin up stealth camo for him
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/14/2020 11:19 PM
I suppose fatigues and boxer gear it is, sigh
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Some ideas for legal systems:
21:13
Pallene: The Houses prefer to handle things internally whenever possible. The House Primus is responsible for settling disputes between members of their House and is even empowered to impose penalties for misdemeanor crimes against other members. When disputes arise between people in different Houses their Primii will try to sort something out first. But crimes against another House, or torts that get out of hand, the parties involved hire an Arbitrator from the Civil Guard, paying equally. Arbitrators are also called in for every instance of a felony, and especially in the case of murder. Premeditated murder carries an unambiguous death penalty, voluntary manslaughter ("spontaneous murder") may be reduced to a hefty fine and probation for up to a century under drone surveillance or house arrest. Conspiracy to commit murder merits exile to an Outworld. Lesser penalties tend towards fines and probationary periods that might be reduced if the convict goes to therapy. Punitive incarceration is unheard of. Gepatrono-klientoj contracts establish somewhat similar legal relationships between patron and client to that between a Primus and their House, but with a key difference. Nobody can be compelled to testify against another member of their House save in the case of capital offenses, but a patron can be made to testify against their client while the inverse is not true. However, patrons are also required to pay their clients' legal fees and unofficially expected to use their connections in the oligarchy behind the scenes. Simply having a client who's been convicted of a crime is a stain on the patron's reputation, if the patron were to break contract when their client got arrested it would be even worse. In fact many Pallene oligarchs have become known for recruiting clients from members of less-wealthy Houses who've been accused of a crime. (edited)
21:13
Cetan: Old system: A caste-based system, when both parties were of the same caste they were judged by a local elder of their caste. For Labor-majority villages this was typically the village headsman. However if the dispute involved members of different castes a judge of the warrior-noble caste was called in. The warriors themselves benefited from a privilege similar to the kiri-sute gomen of Japan's medieval samurai, allowing them to pass judgement and sentence on commoners who offended them. It was uncommon but not unknown for a commoner who bumped into a warrior on the streets to be cut down on the spot. Federated: After contact with Alpha Centauri and the formation of a central government the warrior-nobles' relative power has steadily eroded. Judges are now certified by a central testing system, with others prohibited from passing judgement regardless of caste. More recently it became possible for judges of any caste to arbitrate inter-caste disputes, so long as the judge doesn't share a caste with either party. (edited)
21:13
Eridani: The Eridani Directorate (Inc) relies heavily on their surveillance system to detect crimes and dispatch security officers rapidly. Officers will then subdue (if necessary) and issue fines on the spot. The accused can attempt to appeal, but usually they'll be lucky if they're allowed to pay gradually. Very little private property in EDI areas is not owned by the company, with residents only leasing it, and the company tends to rate crimes based on damage to its' property first and the livelihood of residents and employees second. (edited)
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I just had a couple ideas for explaining the presence of superheroes in a transhumanist setting.
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Sanctioned heroes: The "memetic badass" approach, where the security forces attempt to reduce expenditures by focusing not on big police departments, but on a small group of celebrity supermen with customized augmentations, movie-star good looks, and extensively marketed adventures. Not dissimilar to the purpose of Knights in Shining Armor in Middle Ages Europe. In this case, their purpose is less to fight crime as to dissuade people from committing crime in the first place, so only those with the resources to field their own super-villains, or attention-seekers like the guy Rorschach dropped down an elevator shaft, will dare to commit crimes. Either one tends to suit the entrenched oligarchy just fine, the fights make for good publicity. A sanctioned superhero's jurisdiction rarely extends beyond their home planet or habitat, and they're typically part of a planet- or star system-spanning organization of other heroes. Attempts to form a Federation-wide group like the Green Lantern Corps or their Lensmen predecessors have thus far been stalled in committee. This approach is vulnerable to the death of a superhero, as crime tends to skyrocket until a new hero manages to build an equal reputation to their predecessor. As such superhero leagues tend to have the best medical care available, including, it is rumored, illegal brain cloning.
15:44
Vigilantes: The "shadowrun" approach. These tend to arise most often in polylegal systems like the Pallene or Cetan law systems, in which feuds can simmer between factions for decades, centuries with life extension. The romanticized version is a tragic figure like Batman or Zorro who has a legitimate grievance that the conventional authorities failed to address. That type of vigilante does exist, but tend to be short-lived as they right the wrong that led them to take up the cape and then retire, or die trying. The more common variety are mercenaries more akin to Deadpool, supersoldiers for hire willing to act as deniable assets for any House or company with sufficient credit.
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sdschildberg 04/25/2020 3:45 PM
So sanctioned heroes are your “friendly neighborhood super”, in that they spend as much time on muggers amd the like as on supervillans? (edited)
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Kinda like Archon in Grrl Power
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My autism compels me to point out that the phrase "Not dissimilar to the purpose of Knights in Shining Armor in Middle Ages Europe" is kind of nonsense in this context. The feudal regimes of the middle ages were incapable of, and disinterested in, the kind of internal propaganda campaign you're describing. The cult of chivalry was exclusively a thing of the elite, and wasn't any kind of pro-central authority ideology.
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I was thinking more that one well-equipped and heavily trained warrior was cheaper than a standing army with decent equipment and training and still worthwhile when your typical threat is bandits and peasant levies.
15:54
Though against a standing army, or even a mercenary company, the knights are toast.
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sdschildberg 04/25/2020 3:55 PM
And in this case, the army could bonk a hero gone off the rails
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Eh, 'the knights are toast' are an oversimplification. Heavily armored elite shock cavalry had a major place in warfare for a good while, with a long transition period. But the intricacies of Renaissance and Early Modern military evolution aren't really relevant to the actual topic at hand.
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for anyone following the story, Princess updated: https://docfuture.tumblr.com/
Ramblings of W. Dow Rieder, writer of stories. Fiction links here:...
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Urgh 1. he should use read-more some of us actually follow him on tumblr, 2. princess is really annoying - it's basically just making a even bigger mess of the timeline than Doc Future had already
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This small red dwarf was passed by for larger stars in the initial exodus from Sol, but during the re-contact era an enterprising Pallene senator by the name of Herdal de Sally a Frederick had an i…
10:12
The modern Westernized legal system is by no means the only way that things have been mediated throughout human history. It should be no surprise that parahuman legal systems vary widely as well. P…
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It’s amazing what you can get done when you’re stuck in a meeting! This sketch actually is skipping a bit of the queue; I did this one in the fall while on a long conference call, and I…
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A while back I wrote about how the concept of superheroes might not fly in a transhumanist setting where anyone with sufficient resources might rebuild themselves into a superman. But after writing…
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“A World Lost” by Joel Kreissman by The Voice of Dog
In the distant future humanity’s engineered descendants attempt to teach a younger species to avoid their mistakes. Today’s story is “A World Lost” by Joel Kreissman, who is a fox from Wisconsin who didn’t stay in college long enough to learn how to become a real one, check ou...
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Later honorverse books degenerated into garbage Rejoice, this fic pulls good points out of that and rebuilds them into shorter, coherent, enjoyable experience. By professional writer, too. https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/mission-of-honor-retold.64883/
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I'd perhaps disagree that they "degenerated into garbage", though there was a definite drop in quality.
11:54
personally, I'd say though that the reason why they degenerated is actually a fairly understandable and, IMO, forgivable one.
11:54
I can say that the last one, Uncompromising Honor, is back to where it ought to be.
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it's interesting that this fic rebuilds the SLN to be far more competent than they canonically are.
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sdschildberg 06/01/2020 12:05 PM
Does it give Haven brain cells? A consistently incompetent foe gets boring
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at the point in time that this fic picks up, Haven's gotten its brains back and is by no means an idiot
12:07
they are however giving the SLN far more brains than they ever showed an inkling of.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/01/2020 12:12 PM
eh
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As a piece of writing it's damnned good. I'll certainly give it that.
12:13
(the fic, that is)
12:16
But when the fic starts, Haven's already gotten it's second revolution done under Thiesmann and Prichard, the internal house is getting back in order, and Haven has gotten back into the asskicking business already. If I was to guess without pulling my own copies, I think the fic starts more or less after the Battle of Manticore, when Haven goes for broke and barely loses.
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thought: those giant holes you're drilling into Mercury to build that Dyson Swarm would make great habitats
15:31
just cover them up with plating and pressurize them
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Great habitats, apart from being on Mercury.
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well i mean those giant panels you put on top would be a good place to mount radiators
15:33
and it's not like you're lacking energy
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could just arrange for Mercury to get a bit less light, anyway.
16:44
if you care about the other planets you'd be finnicky with the elements' orbits so that they're illuminated normally, so it wouldn't be much trouble to reduce the amount Mercury gets
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:23 PM
how common are brown dwarves really
18:23
almost all the estimates I have seen agree they are more common than "proper" stars
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very common
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:25 PM
yeah but like are they "slightly more common than red dwarves" common or "the universe is absolutely lousy with them" common
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BluejayHurricane 06/02/2020 6:25 PM
Ok, considering that I was just working on my D&D campaign, this was a really confusing question.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:26 PM
turns out the galaxy is lousy with rogue planets too
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Hundreds of billions of the wee buggers; probably about as many as there are actual stars added together, according to one recent estimate.
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BluejayHurricane 06/02/2020 6:27 PM
Huh. It's free fabrication matter!
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i mean, they also have planets you could live on
18:28
Use the brown dwarf as your supply of fusion fuel and live on the planets
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Nah. It's free fuel . The Extropa Energy Deep Future Keep-The-Lights-On Project suggests rounding them all up and properly storing them for bunkerage until the universe's dark era. When we'll really need some unfused superlights.
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true
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(If there are useful planets around them, they can be relocated to a more convenient star, but we'll leave that to one of those dabblers in planetary real estate.)
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@Overmind Use the fusion fuel, and then dump the iron into a black hole ergosphere generator (edited)
18:32
Also, aren't the ontotech people supposed to have broken the Second Law of Thermodynamics by then?
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0111narwhalz 06/02/2020 6:33 PM
You've gotta be conservative with your negentropy.
18:33
Wouldn't want to run out just a little too soon, right?
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There's a word for people who go all-in on a single plan. Much of the time, that word is "dead".
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:34 PM
how do you store such gigantic quantities of unburnt fuel without it collapsing tho
18:34
that's their real work I bet
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0111narwhalz 06/02/2020 6:34 PM
orbits
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:34 PM
more than hexary isn't stable long-temr
18:35
also all orbits are basically unpredictably
18:35
over deep timescales (thanks Lyapunov)
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As a wise man once said, "The art of generalship is not in arranging matters such that the chosen path leads to victory, but in arranging matters such that all paths lead to a victory."
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:36 PM
Then..
18:36
I suppose the backup plan in case (defeating Entropy) isn't feasible, in universe-lifespan, is just farm black holes and do the Omega Point thing right (edited)
18:37
at least until quantum fluctuations make everything energetic again
18:38
Or if defeating Entropy is possible but the conditions aren't right yet
18:38
Do I have the right idea?
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Well, it's one of an arbitrarily large set of possible backup plans, anyway.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:43 PM
like if you need to wait until you have an absolutely, totally pure, photonless and undisturbed Vacuum to do purified-negentropy
18:44
I guess the plan in that case is to just keep a bunch of folks on file for the Dark Era and then ensure the idea lives long enough for someone to prepare the experiment
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Is another backup plan tunneling into a younger universe?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:47 PM
I suppose, but it would be kind of mean to deny another Universe a future to exploit its resources
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0111narwhalz 06/02/2020 6:48 PM
Only if it doesn't allow them to beat the problem.
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I mean, you could tunnel into the other universe when it was so young that no life had evolved yet
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:49 PM
i'd love to mine quasistars for fuel and energy
18:50
wish you could consume the universe in Stellaris now
18:50
I've already terraformed Mars twice over in my Surviving Mars playthroughs
18:52
Space Engine is awesome but I wish Vladimir would decide what kind of game he wants to make with it
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It's not a game, it's a simulation
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/02/2020 6:52 PM
He wants to make some kind of game out of it sooner or later
18:55
has said so
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possibly as a sort of sequel project with a distinct name?
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i could have sworn i read about a space engine 2 at some point but i can't find anything hinting at that, so it might've been another game
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/04/2020 8:00 PM
Wonder if alien biosubstances could be used as spices or dressings
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If it's not explicitly toxic it could still be an allergen
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/04/2020 8:11 PM
doesn't stop some connoiseurs
20:15
suppose this world had the same proteins-in-water biology as Earth
20:15
everything else is almost totally different structurally though
20:15
after an exhaustive decades-long survey culinary pioneers manage to get grass-of-vermilion and equatorial branchrats to cultivate well in orbital biospheres
20:18
an interesting taste, but it's expensive and niche enough that it remains a status symbol for the eccentric wealthy
20:23
further decades of experimentation with radiated orchards, selective breeding, and preparation methods yield a breed of grass-of-vermilion that produces a lot of seeds, like Earth grains
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BluejayHurricane 06/04/2020 8:59 PM
Consider, hot peppers evolved to be incredibly painful to eat, and a huge number of cultures took one look and started trying to make them hotter. A lot of weirdness shakes out in food.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/04/2020 9:49 PM
they call it wheat-of-vermillion, try to mill it and... well
21:49
it probably wouldn't result in much because the way Earth wheat is turned into bread relies on its structural idiosyncrasies
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flavored powers are the standard spice pattern though
22:45
or use them like sesame seeds, on top of normal buns
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/04/2020 10:54 PM
what
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Use the grass of vermillion as an included herb or spice isntead of trying to make the whole bread from it
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The irony of hot peppers is that they evolved heat in order to try and get themselves eaten. They're just optimizing for bird taste, which isn't nearly as spice-sensitive as human taste.
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2020 12:49 AM
huh, I thought capsaicin was an insecticide
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 12:49 AM
I mean, they've inadvertently hit the evolutionary jackpot. Humans will care for and nourish and spread their seeds forever
00:50
"Get the local dominant species to love you" is one way of ensuring survival 😂
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Not all that useful against insects, but it's great at keeping mammalian pests away.
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On the original topic, I have put my stake firmly in the "assuming you have an ecosystem with the same rough basis, probably no more toxic than random plant parts from ours - although there is much less guarantee that you aren't going to have the world's worst case of indigestion from parts of it that you literally can't digest " area of the ground. So you may need some chemically specialized food-prep. (edited)
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2020 1:07 AM
I mean, there are some pretty toxic plant parts.
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(See also Traveller, and the Vilani's shugilii.)
01:08
Yeah, but if you take a walk in the country and pluck a few random leaves, odds are you aren't going to die.
01:08
You may be even less likely to die on an alien world, actually, since most toxins have to poison some very specific parts of our biochem, and alien plants, etc., haven't evolved to kill us .
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2020 1:11 AM
I think the usual method of toxicity determination is probably still useful for xeno-plants.
01:12
(the one where you test for sensitivity in progressively more sensitive ways)
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 1:13 AM
Leave don't pick random leaves from the Aussie countryside there's a good chance it actually will kill you
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2020 1:13 AM
well yes but that's Australia
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 1:13 AM
(The poison pea family is widespread at "comfortable grabbing level")
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Ironically, again, allergic reactions are probably a good sign in terms of "can I eat this?" . To cause an allergic reaction, you need an allergen that can bind to IgE and then tickle your mast cells and basophils in exactly the right way. The cells that synthesize IgE antibodies don't produce them to bind to things wildly different from the biochemistry they know about.
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0111narwhalz 06/05/2020 1:15 AM
bad sign for "can I eat this," good sign for "can I eat anything here"
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So the more allergies you discover to stuff in the local ecosystem, the more likely you are to be able to usefully digest something from it, because both require that it be somewhere in the ballpark.
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Also, while I don't think it's come up on screen so far, another local tradition on the colony garden worlds is the addition to the place setting of the glass of natural antihistamine extract as a courtesy for offworld visitors. Keeps any possible adverse reactions down. One of those adaptation-dependent customs, like the way that Mars-type worlds tend to serve "red and yellow salts" - potassium and calcium salts - which the relevant atmosphere-tolerance biomod uses to soak up excess CO2, or the chelating teas used on worlds with high levels of, say, selenium or heavy metals.
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 1:28 AM
I think it was mentioned somewhere about a bowl of a particular colour
01:29
Purple?
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Hm. Maybe. I can't seem to find it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:29 AM
Personally my position in IAC is that it would be undesirable to colonize garden worlds
09:30
Too many interactions with too many potentially negative consequences
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i agree, plus habitability-terraforming is not necessarily that difficult
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:31 AM
Besides, paving over unspoiled alien nature is the last thing to do
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getting something aesthetically pleasing with even a passing resemblance to any species' native biosphere? Difficult.
09:32
Putting oxygen in the air and cutting down on the UV a bit? Not so much.
09:33
(of course, that assumes that whoever is doing the colonizing/terraforming has a decent grasp on nanotech and/or advanced biotech and alife. Not always the case)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:33 AM
As Rick Robinson said, those gorgeous vistas are to be admired and taken samples of
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:33 AM
Not to be subdivided for housing tracts
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of course, admiring them is tricky if you don't live in them
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:34 AM
Reserve that undignified fate for the Marses of the universe no-one actually cares about
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or just live in space
09:35
if you can terraform a planet, be it making the existing biosphere habitable or adding one, you can probably adapt yourselves to a 0g environment.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:36 AM
well some people are like the Tiffanians and won't touch heavy biomodding
09:37
Actually I heard we have found ways to tackle almost all the issues with living in 0g, but they require a degree of discipline beyond the capacity of the mythical average person I think
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scoffs in transhumanism
09:37
also yeah, that's my understanding as well. At least, astronauts can handle year+ missions on the ISS without permanent health complications
09:38
there are still issues, though. Apparently major injuries are a big issue because of blood not properly draining from wounds or some such, if The Expanse can be considered a reliable source
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 9:38 AM
the big question is going to be whether it's possible to conceive and gestate in space
09:39
because initial research honestly does not look promising
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 9:40 AM
Valery Polyakov is fine I think
09:40
the weird eye issue is restricted to men only and right eyes for reasons we don't quite understand
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 11:49 AM
@o11o1 not sure how you could include it as a herb or spiec
11:54
not sure I can say equatorial branchrats are edible but not other animals though
11:55
because it's likely the other animals will have nearly identical chemistry in their muscle tissue and whatnot
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Jade Nekotenshi 06/05/2020 11:56 AM
Maybe you have some issue where most animals have high levels of something undesirable, like say antimony or thallium
11:57
But for some reason, those branchrats don't, as a quirk of evolution.
11:57
So you can eat the others, if you can reliably remove the heavy metals, say
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 12:00 PM
my idea is that at first these alien foods start off as rather acquired tastes
12:00
much like the wild forms of Earth food
12:01
they only become exotic delicacies after a long period of selective breeding, experimentation, and so on
12:02
And that sounds plausible but I don't know of any parallel situation on Earth
12:02
Fishes tend to have higher levels of mercury, yes, but that's because of industrial pollution and not a quirk of natural selection
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 12:04 PM
How people eat poisonous stuff
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 12:04 PM
I'm also told it's more likely alien foods will have less interesting tastes
12:04
Our olfactory-taste sense is tuned for the sort of compounds we find on Earth
12:11
The fun part begins when someone discovers a method of processing and preparation that not only renders grass-of-vermilion edible, but incredibly good
12:11
like most other spices
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 12:11 PM
Can you make alcohol with it
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 12:12 PM
Possibly, because it has some similarities to Earth's grasses and grains
12:12
But I wouldn't bet on it because turning hops into beer depends on the relationship between yeast and starch
12:15
Also, the world wheat-of-vermilion and branchrats originate from has a surface gravity of 0.55g and 3.89atm of atmospheric pressure so they're a pain in the ass to cultivate
12:17
They almost certainly can't be grown in the open on worlds that near-baselines could tolerate
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where does "X-of-vermilion" come from? I think it's a reference to the dye made from cinnabar, but i haven't had much luck finding the source
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 1:32 PM
grass-of-vermillion is a name I came up with and in-universe the explanation is that the plant in question is reddish
13:32
a certain shade of red that reminds people of the aforementioned dye (edited)
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ah, fitting; it's both red and toxic
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 1:37 PM
"toxic"
13:38
but not fatally so to humans, unlike its other brethren
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that would be on a planet orbiting a... blue star? The less valuable wavelengths would be primarily reflected, so that means the spectrum tends towards blue or UV, so a big ol blue giant and maybe a lack of ozone layer?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 1:41 PM
it's red because its world orbits a late-K star and that's the ideal pigmentation color for photosynthesis
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ninja'd
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 1:42 PM
it's edible mostly because its polymers and vitamins are simple enough that humans can still digest them, with some difficulty (edited)
13:43
same goes for the branchrat
13:44
that animal, a little larger than Earth's sciurines and rodents, is practically made out of its world's equivalent of fast-twitch muscles, which are relatively not-poisonous because of a fortunate quirk of chemistry (edited)
13:44
most of the other animals use too many slow-twitch muscles, which store their energy with a molecule that doesn't cooperate with the earther constitution, shall we say
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how's smooth muscle fit into that categorization? It'd be a neat side-market if hearts were one of the only edible parts of most animals. Would create a interesting delicacy market
13:50
various hearts are already a sort of delicacy iirc, so a exotic offworld species with hearts that have to be prepared like fugu... that's a recipe for a delicacy if i've ever seen one
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 1:50 PM
if "meaty rubber" is a delicacy 😛
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sounds like a challenge for a good chef
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 1:54 PM
it would be cool if you could but I don't think you could make grass-of-vermilion into flour and then bread or beer
13:54
those processes depend on chemical quirks of Terran grains specifically
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 1:55 PM
I got delivered a heart once by accident. It didn't go well
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 1:56 PM
for instance, grass-of-vermilion does not contain starch
13:57
(or glucose, for that matter)
13:58
it uses a polymer vaguely analogous to it in role
14:01
but different in construction, such that vermillion seeds can't be formed into a paste if ground up or fermented by yeast
14:02
(it posesses neither glutenin or gliadin)
14:04
but you can force grass-of-vermilion to produce more seeds than it usually does and try to snack on those, like with corn
14:04
(if you breed it a certain way)
14:10
Not quite sure about that but I'm pretty certain you can't just ferment any old carbohydrates, correct me if I'm egregiously wrong
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so, in other words, you gotta find a yeast analog?
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Morgrim Moon 06/05/2020 2:12 PM
there's a fungi to digest everything, you could likely find an earth one that does the job
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 2:15 PM
but let's just say it has a secret chemical trick up its metaphorical sleeve
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i'm not quite sure what carbohydrates work with yeast, seems to be just simple sugars for typically used varities though
14:16
they can't use starches directly, they have to be broken up enzymatically first
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 2:20 PM
which is good, because grass-of-vermilion doesn't use starches at all
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You know, they think the coal line is when fungi started digesting cellulose
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 2:44 PM
so through an arduous process, and after some more decades, they find out how to make flour-of-vermillion and then... well, not exactly "bread"
14:49
after some washing and fermentation at high pressure by some native and Earther fungi you end up with a soft dough-ish substance that bakes easily into a red, soft, and uncrusty... let's call it a "large biscuit" (edited)
14:50
effortless to bite into, very little in the way of crust (enough to put carvings or a manufacturer's design on them however), portable, and fairly nutritious
14:51
the resulting "redcakes" taste pretty good, just not as mind-shatteringly amazing as you would hope out of a literally otherworldly food
14:51
a good staple product
14:53
they're about large enough to fit in the palm of someone's hand and are 2cm wide, a good finger food that almost doesn't drop crumbs at all
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 2:55 PM
Can you fry them? Fried dough is universal (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 2:56 PM
Probably, you can fry water and air if you try hard enough
14:56
Wouldn't improve the flavor much I believe
15:00
Oh yeah, you could theoretically fry the red stuff to make it undergo Maillard reactions
15:00
Don't know what that would do
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not sure either. It doesn't contain starch, but does it still use normal sugars?
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 3:03 PM
A crumbless snack is already nice
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cause starch is just a glucose polymer
15:05
or normal-ish sugars?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:05 PM
it contains things vaguely akin to regular sugards
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i'm not sure how much variation on basic carbohydrates a earth biology can handle
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:05 PM
but those compounds will not react the way glucose does is the issue
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right, hmm... different sugars and amino acids, and those sugars are already playing unpredictably because they're different and can't necessarily be handled the same as earthbound sugars
15:09
so the whole difficult-to-characterize mess of byproducts you get from the malliard reaction will turn up everything from actual glucose to completely undigestable compounds
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:09 PM
if you mix it with whipped cream you can probably get redcake to form a sort of colloid and make mousse out of it
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well, really, its physically, consistenct, and taste-wise similarish to bread
15:11
even if you can't really cook it, you can still try substituting it out for bread in any dish that uses bread
15:11
which is alot
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:11 PM
not sure if that should taste any better
15:12
so many unpredictable reactions and i am far from the xenochemist-cum-chef I would need to tell what the resulting flavor profile would be
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well, its sorta a meh food in the first place. You aren't going to get anything amazing any more than you can get a loaf of bread-bread to be amazing
15:12
but bread dishes are basically the most common dish
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:13 PM
I mean some sweetbreads, biscuits and stuff can be pretty good
15:13
If you combine them with other things that is
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so you're bound to get everything from complementary flavors resulting in a delicacy to bleh
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:13 PM
We're so deep into here-be-dragons territory that it's probably down to author fiat
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pretty much yeah
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:13 PM
But I established there is another way to process grass-of-vermilion
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the one that produces a delicacy, right
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:19 PM
you can extract vermilion seeds and put them under high pressure as you would in making regular redcake
15:20
the difference is you don't grind them up, you mix them with a certain trade-secret set of organic and artificial solvents until the parts that don't suspend good are gone
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so that means it plays nice in solution? So you get a... beverage?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:24 PM
an alternate path is to strip the vermilion seeds until they're soft, watery and chewy, which gives you a damn good stuff a little similar to current baked beans, but perhaps with more chewiness
15:28
but the path to the really good stuff is basically to strip out all the parts of the vermilion seed that won't solve in water
15:29
you let this new mixture sit a little longer, also while at high pressure and temperature
15:30
carefully you reintroduce the parts you removed to feed the fermenting microorganisms for a period of several days, two weeks at most
15:31
you have to do it at a certain rate and not overfeed the microorganisms, because not all of the seeds should be processed and fermented at once. But they must also not lose too much population or you'll end up with an uneven mixture of xenosugars (edited)
15:34
You check the resulting stuff once a day, and at the point at which the mixture starts developing discolored spots you take it out again, condition it as you would beer to kill the microbes (edited)
15:34
(methods vary greatly, creating somewhat differing flavor profiles)
15:37
filter the unusable too-solid and irrelevant (not-seed juice) bits, then put the mixture into water and stir it a little bit under Earth-normal pressures
15:41
The hydrophilic molecules bind, the hydrophobic ones suspend, and you get a weird frothy concoction whose body is brighter than the original vermilion plant, best drunk slightly warm, and that produces an exquisite, truly exotic aroma comparable to few Earthlife drinks
15:42
It's not overwhelmingly mind-overloadingly tasty, but let's just say the ones who first tried the stuff immediately dubbed it "scarlet ambrosia" and knew they had struck gold
15:44
The mixture is slightly more viscous than water on the whole
15:45
This gives it a substance and mouthfeel that just enriches the rest of the flavor profile
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 3:52 PM
I obviously can't describe what a near-perfect drink would taste like, but let's just say it's good enough to leave governments wondering if it's a narcotic (edited)
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that's quite a process, though i think it could still be mass produced without too much difficulty
15:59
a arduous production process with lots of finnicky details that probably need personal attention to judge properly, but that still lends itself okayish to large batches... maybe on par with expensive non-aged liquors? Not cheap, but not too expensive for the average joe to get on a special occasion
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 4:02 PM
Well, it's not literally a perfect drink but let's just say its taste blows most of the manufactured sugar water people drink nowadays out of the park
16:02
On taste -- if not narcotic quality -- scarlet ambrosia easily trumps coffee and beer
16:03
Or at least most varieties of such that you can easily find on 21st century Earth
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so, especially high demand
16:03
and also it requires a crop with very unusual and difficult growth requirements
16:03
so probably a fair bit more expensive, i suppose. Depends on location; it'll be cheapest near the planet
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 4:05 PM
I guess one comparison may be those really-high-quality namebrand foodstuffs
16:06
Also, the planet (appropriately named Shangri-La) is strictly a nature reserve
16:06
So farmers must export samples of grass-of-vermilion at great expense to rear in conditioned habitats or orbital greenhouses (redhouses?)
16:08
Redcakes are not too difficult to create and probably a popular snack
16:09
Pseudo-beans and scarlet ambrosia... haha
16:09
Humans can
16:11
can't really breathe 3.89atm atmospheres without adaptation, and cultivating the plants (and the animal) requires more than just taking a few seeds
16:11
You have to spend time creating Shangri-lan soil with all the attendant other plants and microbes which are not so friendly to human health
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not to mention unique nutrients, many of which probably have to be synthesized
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:27 PM
------- So what's a good take on where fashion might go in the future
18:28
I don't mean this entirely facetiously, I want to avoid "no new fashions"... altogether
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Hoops?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:30 PM
ugh
18:30
not at you I mean at the idea of hoops
18:31
I think it entirely realistic that future fashion might turn into something like lady gaga outfits
18:31
Which I personally find eyesores
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 6:32 PM
depends on the future culture
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spacesuit fashion
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:33 PM
?
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what kind of fashion would spacers have
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 6:37 PM
Honestly only a few cultures might unironically wear jumpsuits outside of skinsuits
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:39 PM
one way forward might have been latex but like
18:39
it's only suited for fetish wear, doesn't breathe at all
18:39
skintight clothing is just generally sucky and I'd still suggest we're nearing the apex of fashion
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latex
18:40
fetish
18:40
oh god do i want to know
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:40 PM
hahahahahahah
18:40
we'll talk about it when you're older
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:48 PM
but anyway is there a way forward that doesn't look silly
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reminder that our clothes would look exceptionally silly to someone from the 19th century
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/05/2020 6:55 PM
eh
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sdschildberg 06/05/2020 6:56 PM
pants are pants are pants to certian sectiosn of certian classes of certian countries maybe
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Fashion is incredibly dependent on culture.
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Morgrim Moon 06/06/2020 7:21 AM
I want a culture where dramatic capes and cloaks make a comeback
👍 2
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Our "apex of fashion" is that of a culture that respects individual taste but is also aggressively egalitarian. Even upper-class clothing is, by and large, not terribly fancificated.
07:24
(From the Imperial point of view, we all dress like hobos.)
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Now, pick your future as heading even more in the aggressively egalitarian direction, and you end up in the future in which everyone's wearing ST:TNG pajamas or Mao suits. Take it more in the direction of a return to aristocracy, and elegance replaces practicality, where everyone gets to dress up in their highly-detailed, accessorized, dripping-in-wealth outfits, complete with dramatic capes and probably swords. Depending on where the culture sits on the tradition-decadence axis, the details can vary - at the traditional end, you get neo-Victorians in space! or modernized forms of everyone's favorite traditional culture's dress. At the decadent end, you get the extreme versions court of Ming the Merciless, where the men wear leather posing pouches and ray guns, while the women dress exclusively from the Victoria's Secret catalog.
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(As for spacer fashion in particular, for myself, I made sure to take the whole Space Clothes/Future Spandex/etc. tropes out and shoot them in the head . This jumpsuit/military utilities look is what you get when you maximize the pragmatism axis over basically everything else. In a mature culture where they aren't technically necessary and where there's economic surplus, this is peasant sign . Or you're in Soviet Space where dressing in peasant chic is how you don't get shot as a counterrevolutionary, but details.)
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Morgrim Moon 06/06/2020 7:50 AM
so, potentially useful in a stopgap "I'm wearing this while I get some proper clothes" emergency stash way?
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Well, even there, the problem with jumpsuits - not that it applies to most SF, where the bladder was abolished in the mid-21st century - is that they're a nightmare to take a piss in. I'm betting on what are essentially jeans and a T-shirt for that sort of niche. Or flannel shirt might be better, 'cause if you have to dip into that stash, hard-wearing is nice.
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Morgrim Moon 06/06/2020 7:59 AM
true, good point
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... hmm, i wonder if that's viable
08:07
yknow, solid waste only
08:08
you could get rid of excess liquid via sweat, i guess... would probably just come down to what portion of waste is a liquid vs solid or semi solid at body temperature.
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(As a side note, it is my headcanon that the Wrath of Khan era uniform designer was cashiered from Starfleet and sent to a rehabilitation colony for the heinous crime of being the first human with a sense of aesthetics in over a century.)
👍 1
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Morgrim Moon 06/06/2020 8:28 AM
Buggy: look at how bird kidneys work.
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The white part of bird poop, that’s their equivalent to urine.
08:32
you could get rid of excess liquid via sweat, i guess... would probably just come down to what portion of waste is a liquid vs solid or semi solid at body temperature.
@Buggy Are you suggesting sweating out urea or somehow combining it with solid waste. If the former that’s going to reek
08:36
And take it from someone who sweats profusely nearly all the time, it’s not a good way to get rid of excess fluid
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no, definitely not sweating out the urea
08:38
just mixing it in with the solid waste. Birds are actually a really good example, i suppose
08:39
i more meant that you can specifically sweat out excess water
08:40
which would be a rarely used but important feature in case anyone decided to jug a entire water cooler (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/06/2020 10:43 AM
Honestly I don't care too much about the esthetics of my clothing
10:43
As long as it isn't garish and is comfortable to move around in it's fine
10:47
Well, admittedly, the real issue is that none of the fancy outfits I'd like to wear have ever been in fashion, in any century
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i'm pretty similar myself, except i try to make sure it's simple and non-eyecatching
11:14
distinctive clothes draw too much social attention IMO
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Enderminion 06/06/2020 1:28 PM
(As a side note, it is my headcanon that the Wrath of Khan era uniform designer was cashiered from Starfleet and sent to a rehabilitation colony for the heinous crime of being the first human with a sense of aesthetics in over a century.)
@Overmind no that happened to the guy who did the uniforms for the first Trek movie, which were particularly ugly, compared even to the series' own uniforms
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sdschildberg 06/06/2020 3:09 PM
Dear god that entire movie was fugly
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Automated xenocide system falling to entropic decay... https://youtu.be/CO1AfnRUgI0
12:52
That might explain how the seedships managed to establish a whole K2 civilization under the Berserkers’ sensors in my ‘verse.
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Morgrim Moon 06/11/2020 12:58 PM
it can still give you a reason for dead silence, though; the civ wondering if they're alone is one of the "new crop" that arose after the decay
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How much habitable surface area would a Bishop ring have?
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well, first off the difference between Ringworlds, Orbitals, Bishop rings, etc is all a matter of scale.
13:24
well, that and the nature of it's orbit, anyway.
13:24
and because of the nature of rotating habitats, scale is a matter of material limitations.
13:25
Ringworlds and Orbitals assume you get some fancy hypothetically-maybe-possible material like Magmatter.
13:25
a Bishop Ring is scaled to be possible with carbon nanotube support cables
13:26
and the classic o'neill cylinder is possible with steel or such
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Mainly I’m having trouble finding an equation for the inner surface of a circle, rather than the external circumference
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the area of the inner surface of a hollow cylinder (i.e. a cylinder with wall thickness)
13:28
is just equivalent to the external surface area of a cylinder that has the same radius as the inner radius of the hollow cylinder.
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@Zarpaulek just reduce the radius down so the circle matches the inner edge instead of the outer one
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Got something on organized crime.
18:42
The Federation is no utopia, make no mistake, and while nobody goes hungry there's still more than enough black market activity and social stratification to sustain multiple categories of organized crime syndicate. Their specific activities vary from world to world, depending on what vices the local government has banned. For instance, Secland has a habit of banning some product from nearly every newly colonized planet or recontacted Outworld for fifty years before the legislature experiences enough churn to reverse the ban. Swarzvelt doesn't like weapons in the hands of commoners. EDI restricts most narcotics that could make their workers sloppy. The source of their membership also varies based on their culture. Shadow Houses: Legitimate Centauran Houses are frequently engaged in a fair bit of shady activity already, but Shadow Houses don’t even have the veneer of a charter. Most have been formed by klientoj who were forced into contracts that left them no room to escape or improve their situations, they banded together to look out for each other and get some extra resources on the side. A few Shadow Houses claim to go all the way back to the post-plague annexation and the first ex-SPPS klientoj, but those claims seem dubious at best. Cetan Tetrads: Shortly after the species caste system was established on Swarzwelt the “worker” species figured out the warriors didn’t much care about them and they had to look out for themselves. Hence, the quadrads, named for the four states of matter and the four castes. Quadrad members are stereotypically lapines, rodents, or vulpines, but a surprising number of clans consist or ungulates. (edited)
18:43
Zeroes: In the Eridani Directorate, ownership of shares in the corporation is the key to (legal) power, for those without shares, the law is less kind. "Zero gangs" live under the radar of the security forces, keeping their activities hidden from the security officers they haven't paid off. Media tends to portray them as reckless teenagers breaking shit for fun, some younger gangs might be like that but they tend to dissolve or get absorbed by an older established gang quickly. The "Cyberpunk" subculture on Secland and other worlds is thought to be based on anti-Zero propaganda, but the genuine Eridani gangs tend to look down on Cyberpunks as "posers." Pirates: There are two types of pirates, privateers and idiots who’re likely to be dead soon if they don’t get out. Because there’s no stealth in space it’s extremely difficult to sneak up on another ship and any battle is going to be noticed by the system government. Sometimes in-system commerce in fringe systems can be raided and the pirates get away with it, but interstellar data traders are liable to delete or transmit their cargo if they can’t catch the pirates in their exhaust plume. About the only way to make a profit off piracy is to “take commissions”. Privateers might legally be hired to hunt down known pirates on the fringe, and it’s rumored the Federal Guard has authorized some to disrupt the space programs of advanced Outworlds, but they’re most notorious for intercepting data traders competing with their clients in deep space. There tends to be a degree of crossover between private security contractors and privateering, it’s not unheard of for a mercenary ship to approach an isolated asteroid and offer their long-term policing services while pointing their mass driver towards the main hab.
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BluejayHurricane 07/12/2020 12:40 AM
That feeling when you realize that you're almost done with the introductory arc of your D&D campaign, and you need to start creating actual story instead of just installing massive numbers of quest hooks
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Well, EarthScorpion and Aleph wrote a Worm fic.
15:08
It's of exceptional quality
15:10
Except it's of exceptional quality of following Worm's formula "Powers are there to solve immediate problem at the cost of exasperated same long-term problem like you won't believe" (edited)
15:10
And that? Fuck that.
15:14
I read three chapters, and I don't want a clinical image of interlocking teenage psychoses in pressure cooker, exponentially increased by alien organism specifically designed to fuck you psyche.
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what fic is this?
15:35
Starlight has managed to make her own place in the world, over the past two years. The press loves her work as a heroine, she's got plans to really shake things up with Missy at her side when she takes over the Wards, and her best friend Emma is there to help her keep a grasp ...
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huh, i'll read it after i finish my current fic and see what its like, i suppose
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Researchers from the UK's Durham University and Germany's Fraunhofer Institute claim they've come up with the world's first manufactured non-cuttable material, just 15 percent the density of steel, which they say could make for indestructible bike locks and lightweight armor.
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so... it's basically a low-density aluminum foam with embedded ceramic spheres (edited)
06:40
and i don't doubt it does well against angle grinders, but...
06:41
06:41
bolt cutters exist.
06:44
also, you could probably just crush the stuff with a strong pair of grips, considering it's low-density aluminum.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 6:44 AM
I wonder how it does against thermite? (edited)
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"Hahaha, THOOM" - thermite, probably.
06:45
06:46
see how porous it is? it's aluminium, and not even fully dense aluminium. Anything other than a rotating/reciprocating cutting tool will go straight through.
06:47
bolt cutters will just slide between the spheres, and thermite will melt the whole thing into a puddle
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 6:48 AM
worlds smallest HEAT shell.
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0111narwhalz 07/22/2020 6:48 AM
Clad it with a hardened steel layer and you could probably make it resistant to bolt cutters.
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now there's a idea: HEAT bullets
06:49
that might work, though i'm not aware of how the whole hardened steel vs hardened cutters arms race pans out.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 6:50 AM
Looking at the demo video in TFA, make perpendicular cuts to the ones already there. and see how much you can pry up.
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or just... hammer time.
06:51
Smack that thing with a hammer, it'll fail real quick.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 6:53 AM
hammer and punch
06:53
or a metalworking chisel
06:55
The cutting disk got a reasonable distance into the plate. Given a bikelock will be much thinner...
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0111narwhalz 07/22/2020 6:57 AM
probably you could produce it out of something other than aluminum… but given that the matrix is aluminum the cut resistance is still impressive
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 7:00 AM
Make it out of something other than aluminum and solid and you have simplified modern composite tank armour. (edited)
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yeah, i wonder why they used aluminum foam
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 7:01 AM
lightness and the technical cha;llenge.
07:03
As usual the actual paper is more informative: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65976-0 (edited)
Non-cuttable material created through local resonance and strain rate effects
07:05
It looks like they are trying to imitate natural materials.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 7:12 AM
one of the comments on the paper makes the observation that You have to go through a considerable length of paper there before you discover that Macrist disks used didn't contain any harder materials than silicon carbide. Macrist does sell diamond disks, it should be noted. I would take 'uncuttable' as a bit of hyperbole until further testing is available.
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also, i'd argue that if angle-grinders are fair game, so are cutting torches.
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Also in all honesty the angle-grinder in the video shown got, like, more than half the width of it's blade in depth into the metal before going blunt
07:31
Scale is not immediately clear to me but that seems pretty damn non-trivial; if you can get that much on a solid plate then I'm pretty sure you're going straight-through any quantity of material that makes form-factor sense for a bike-lock
07:31
Also who the fuck is including "Angle grinders" in their threat-model for armor these days?
07:32
(Or any days TBH)
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the same people who are well aware that their funding requires that they never, ever mention what a bolt cutter will do to their fancy material
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To be fair it's an interesting paradigm of material design
07:33
It's just not got shit right now, in the specific problem they claim to be working on
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this is true, it's a interesting biomimetic material
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And, like, what the abstract paper says about designing materials that are capable of dynamic response to attacks on the small scale - that's an interesting line of thought
07:34
It just requires you to be planning for problems you actually have
07:34
And not the ones you'd like to have
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also i suspect the method they used to manufacture it is custom-developed and not exactly perfected.
07:37
the ceramic spheres embedded in the foam are not identical or evenly spaced, which implies a lack of fine control over the process. (edited)
07:38
hmm, let me check the paper and see if they mention the process anywhere
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I think that's wrong! (edited)
07:39
Perfeclty even placement or identicality would reduce the effectiveness of the specifc thing they're going for, I think?
07:40
In terms of "If you have perfectly predictable internal structure that's determinable"?
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a more consistent internal structure would potentially lead to predictable flaws if designed poorly, but at the same time a inconsistent internal structure risks introducing unpredictable flaws, while a well-designed and consistent internal structure might not have any major flaws.
07:49
some of these gaps are large enough that you could thread the needle with a angle-grinder
07:50
but if you had a consistent sphere size you could ensure that's not a issue.
07:53
part of this comes from the manufacturing method; since the bulk material is formed from compressed powder blocks, the spheres are loose until it's compressed, so some shifting is a given.
07:55
it's probably something that would get worked out if this entered mass production.
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a better comparison might be if something similar to this got used for armor. It's unlikely that this material would be attacked by a angle grinder enough to find a weak spot, but if tank armor could be penetrated much more easily if a round just hit a particular weak point it would be considered a serious design flaw.
08:08
(granted, this material is definitely not intended for armor. The impressive vibrational-wear-amplification thing they have going on does diddly squat to high-velocity projectiles.)
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Fair!
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still quite impressive though!
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 8:12 AM
The paper talks about water-jet resistance which has a little applicability to problems with tank armour.
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hmm, actually that's a good point, this might fare decently against a HEAT jet
08:13
...well, unless it finds a gap. Then it fairs about as well as foamed aluminum.
08:13
but that aside, it's sort of like a spaced armor composite
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/22/2020 8:16 AM
It would be interesting to see if a beefed up version would have any use in light AFVs which aren’t supposed to resist heavier arms anyways
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0111narwhalz 07/22/2020 8:17 AM
Plain metal foams are already kinda interesting for armor, so one would expect that it could become even more so with composites involved.
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/22/2020 8:19 AM
Or maybe as a filler for the gaps in spaced armor, depending on how it behaves when hit by a HEAT jet
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Morgrim Moon 07/22/2020 8:53 AM
it looks like it might be very useful as industrial shielding, because a lot of that isn't "hold out against anything", it's "hold out until someone can slam the emergency stop button + run down the inertia"
💯 3
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BluejayHurricane 07/22/2020 3:57 PM
And a bike lock made with a core of this stuff might just be possible, too.
15:58
The point isn’t to make it impossible, the point is to make it hard enough that any potential attackers think twice.
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how do you defeat bolt cutters?
18:02
other than being too thick for the bolt cutter to get around?
18:03
perhaps some sort of soft woven outer cover?
18:03
nah, then someone just scissors it open
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pressure sensitive explosive core
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oooh, tear gas pockets
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a wire that, when cut, activates a 130 decibel alarm and calls the police.
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best way to defeat bolt cutters is to prevent easy access to the u-ring of the shackle if possible
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jog instead
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0111narwhalz 07/22/2020 11:38 PM
The solution I see is "be harder than [cheap] blades"
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Jade Nekotenshi 07/23/2020 7:24 AM
True; you're generally not trying to defeat a pro with expensive tools and lockpicking expertise, but rather the dufus opportunist with a pair of Wally World boltcutters or a cheap hacksaw
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alternatively, ride a unicycle instead of a bicycle
07:26
no one will steal it because no one else can, or would want to, ride it.
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The Federation is no utopia, make no mistake, and while nobody goes hungry there’s still more than enough black market activity and social stratification to sustain multiple categories of org…
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/25/2020 5:13 PM
it was a mistake to attempt to conlang
17:13
ay
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BluejayHurricane 07/25/2020 5:20 PM
My creators fell. Humanity is a shackled animal, their nation turned to dust and their history erased. But I still exist. I have hurt my enemy worse than ever before, but I am not finished. I am Red One of UECNS Nemesis. I will never stop fighting... and I am not alone.
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Morgrim Moon 07/31/2020 12:07 PM
I don’t watch Star Trek really but “Competitive emotional suppression with probability assessment and observation skills” is the most Vulcan leisure activity I can imagine.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/01/2020 12:11 PM
Speaking of which
12:12
I harp on a lot about how the Tiffanians are super-oppressive but, well, bread and circuses are important too
12:16
If we compared it to 2020 Earth its HDI would be within the 0.95+ range (edited)
12:17
Most of the popular measures of health and wellbeing would be within the 95th percentile, all as long as you didn't count the borderworlds (edited)
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Keep in mind that the first iteration of "pan et circensis" were intended to prevent food riots caused by mass unemployment.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/01/2020 12:29 PM
That, and GDP/capita would be something like 120,000
12:29
They're all less-than-perfect measures for a leviathan multiplanetary economy though
12:33
@Zarpaulek One point I'm trying to get across is that the mythical "average person" actually enjoys a better living standard by some measures than America's middle class
12:33
Economic and political freedom are obviously in the toilet, though, so that puts rather a damper on the whole thing (edited)
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Ah, good Mass Effect fics,
14:10
Imagine civilization with 19th century Europe level of tech and eezo deposits. (edited)
14:10
For almost 10,000 years, the Empire had stood, uniting the galaxy, until its fall to the Reapers. And for much of that, humanity had been loyal vassals and allies to the Empire. And yet, for all humanity had stood side by side with the Imperial Legions, when the Reapers came t...
14:10
There were several planets who had blown themselves back into the stone age discovered by the Citadel over its history. The most famous being the Krogan. Never before had any civilisation ever been found so poised to blast itself back to the stone age without even discovering nuclear physics in Meri’s opinion.
14:11
Also included: Coal-powered steam aerospace craft that does the blasting
14:11
It's ridiculous, but it... kinda works.
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Good Magical Girl Comic
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0111narwhalz 08/09/2020 1:54 PM
we have a #recommendations V:
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Danke schön (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/09/2020 2:20 PM
i kind of want to get skyrim
14:20
but I'm very bad with open-world rpgs
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What kind of bad?
14:54
Skill-bad or directionless-bad or brain-weasels-bad or something else?
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0111narwhalz 08/09/2020 3:00 PM
Weasels rip at my flesh!
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/09/2020 3:14 PM
@Archon directionless-bad
15:14
I had weird feelings about New Vegas' pacing
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That's a fair problem to have. My default response is to pick whatever reasonable-sounding objective on my big list of sidequest objectives is oldest and then go do it (and talk to everyone so my list is very long :P) whenever I don't have a clear solution
15:20
It helps to think of it as enjoyable gameplay rather than an a-plot you're trying to act your way through
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/09/2020 3:29 PM
ayyyyy that last sentence is my trouble
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sdschildberg 08/09/2020 3:38 PM
Yeah most open world RPGs have little role playing. Better to call em action games
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/09/2020 3:44 PM
I'm about to buy Skyrim but every time I try to hit the button I feel this weird chill
15:44
and I hear Todd Howard's voice on the wind... "yes... buy my game..."
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/10/2020 12:05 PM
how long is two million years, really
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Morgrim Moon 08/10/2020 12:17 PM
assuming you're not being sarcastic? The entire span of Homo sapiens existing
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/10/2020 12:23 PM
not sarcastic
12:23
that is a span of time that passes during...
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Morgrim Moon 08/10/2020 12:23 PM
during what?
12:23
if you're meaning "during the Elder Scrolls" then no it is not
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/10/2020 12:27 PM
i'm kind of contributing to an Orion's Arm fanfic thing that takes place just over 2Mya after the main timeline
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Morgrim Moon 08/10/2020 12:29 PM
ahh
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/10/2020 12:29 PM
I know two million years is long enough for several geological ages to have passed on Earth at least
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Morgrim Moon 08/10/2020 12:29 PM
good luck
12:29
eh. Not.... really? I guess it depends on how you define geological age
12:30
generally they're measured in the millions of years
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/10/2020 12:30 PM
nnnnnope
12:31
it's supereon > eon > era > period > epoch > age
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Morgrim Moon 08/10/2020 12:31 PM
alright, maybe I need to review my definitions
12:31
I could be mixing two of those
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Try, about 100,000 times your age
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2mya is long enough for whatever the Great Filter is in OA to kick in
22:21
because there is one, of some sort, IIRC. There are civilization remnants and visibly expanding bubbles of alien civilizations in the milky way, and yet none of them have spread over the whole milky way yet.
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The Short Life of a Venusian Sky Pirate (remastered) by Tales of the Para-Imperium
I hired my younger brother, who has more vocal training than myself, to re-record this episode. For more about the Para-Imperium setting, please check out https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/ If you’d like to contribute to keeping this thing going, and get stories and podcasts ...
10:01
I drew a character from the scifi series A Thread Between the Stars. Or, more precisely, I drew a character from the non-canonical-but-the-author-is-doing-it fanfic spinoff of said book's setting
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0111narwhalz 08/22/2020 11:32 AM
ooh
11:33
I've never been comfortable with pen.
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Morgrim Moon 08/22/2020 11:38 AM
I made myself learn for thumbnailing and drafting purposes, because you CAN'T erase it and constantly second guess yourself. Pose doesn't work? Do another thumbnail and keep refining.
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0111narwhalz 08/22/2020 11:42 AM
That sounds like a great idea, I should try it
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Morgrim Moon 08/22/2020 11:45 AM
I have a little sketchbook and pen I keep in my bag. It's usual for taking notes, and when I feel like jotting an idea down I can do that too. Also because it's a rough sketch book, and most of the doodles are "I am on hold on the phone" quality, I don't feel like stuff has to be "good", which helps a lot
11:45
*useful
11:48
like, we're talking this or worse
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I’m planning a Schlock Mercenary RPG campaign based on exploring and exploiting a new planet. Some city-building elements. If anyone’s interested.
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don't have the free time. sounds fun though
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BluejayHurricane 08/23/2020 7:17 PM
It would be the, let me count, actually...
19:18
Yeah, eighth project that I don’t have time for, I’m afraid.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/23/2020 11:59 PM
Still sticking to non-spoiler territory, MARTIAN WAAAAAR
23:59
guile theme The name is a pretty big misnomer because Mars' surface and orbitals were not the only front
00:00
There was some kind of fighting pretty much everywhere except the Kuiper Belt and Venus
00:01
The Martian Front was still the most brutal one in all of human history until that point, though
00:03
Tens of millions of combatants fought it out in a guerilla war to the bitter end; hundreds of millions of both soldiers and civilians total were dead by the end of the 20-year war, 12 cities were nuked, furkind lost its innocence and the divide between themselves and the rest of humanity was drawn
00:05
At the end of the war, the bilateral peace agreement still slightly favored Earth's coalition of superstate governments, but Mars was the clear victor nonetheless
00:07
It was the definitive end for North America's military dominance, and the beginning of the end for the US itself politically, among many other things; but Mars' time in the sun as the center of the solar system would be short (edited)
00:08
By 2600, the outer system had begun to catch up demographically and was surpassing Mars technologically, and by 2700 Titan had sidelined it in the race
00:10
The situation worsened for 300 years, with the Outer System reopening the traditional Singularity-related advancement, until the final flight of the Over the Rainbow ship in 2920 or thereabouts; by that point Mars looked pretty much set to lose a MW2
00:10
@0111narwhalz MARTIAN PIONEERS until they weren't
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0111narwhalz 08/24/2020 12:10 AM
the real question: do they remember Phobos?
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:12 AM
oh god yes
00:13
the fight over the Mars Sphere orbitals was unimaginably vicious, but essentially control was denied to the Earth side using ASAT weapons
00:14
the Martian side couldn't establish control of the orbitals with its crappy spacenavy and was on the back foot on the ground for several years
00:14
the turning point was sometime around the 5th year of the war
00:14
Mars was terraformed, so the whole conflict degenerated into an enormous Vietnam for the Terrans
00:15
No-one was going to bomb from orbit or use WMDs liberally (edited)
00:15
It's still relevant because of the Tiffanian stagnation policies
00:16
Everyone's essentially using Martian War-era technology compared to... wherever Sol is now. There's still doctrinal advancement and institutional experience to take into account there, however
00:16
I wrote too many words someone reply ;_;
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0111narwhalz 08/24/2020 12:17 AM
no
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:17 AM
and yes, both sides definitely used power armor
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To clarify: the Tiffanians are a human or near human polity, descended from Earth, but with no neighbors in... whatever part of the galaxy they've wedged themselves in?
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:18 AM
yes
00:18
that's how they get away with their ... unique social model
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How'd they get there without anyone following?
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0111narwhalz 08/24/2020 12:19 AM
who would want to follow them?
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:19 AM
Kind of, uh, borrowed the first FTL colony ship
00:19
Then they spent 70 years inside of it, slowly losing their minds while driving spinwards
00:20
(the official history all but admits it was hijacked/stolen)
00:20
They ended up 3600ly in the direction of Cygnus, which is so far not even 2000 years will let the signals from Earth arrive
00:21
specifically in NGC 6811
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:28 AM
The history sets up key elements of their national identity: an adversarial relationship to the rest of humanity, and the hard work of building Mars from ... nothing
00:28
I think it thematically flows into their two-green-thumbs giftedness for terraforming in the centuries anyway
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Has anybody visited since?
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:30 AM
nnnope
00:30
the flight by FTL is still the better part of a century
00:30
no-one wants to spend decades stuck in a cramped spaceship if they can help it
00:31
that and, the fate of the Solar System is a big mystery still
00:31
I don't want to spoil it :y
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Well, I got an implication that the rest of humanity would be going the radical transhuman route where taking a century to satisfy some idle curiosity was no biggie.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:35 AM
I want to avoid settling the question of what route the rest of humankind went as long as possible
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Fair enough.
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0111narwhalz 08/24/2020 12:36 AM
maybe expeditions went out, but none have returned (ooh spooky)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:37 AM
out from where?
00:37
The Tiffanians wouldn't know if anyone set out from Earth, obviously :y
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0111narwhalz 08/24/2020 12:37 AM
…from the Tiffanians back to Sol (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/24/2020 12:37 AM
They send out survey expeditions to seek out ideal colony sites, but not very far
00:38
I should probably focus more on the other distinguishing element of the story
00:38
which is the sprawling Empire and impending civil war
00:39
Living standards are generally... pretty good? As far as comparisons between civilizations 2000 years apart makes sense
00:39
The per-capita GDP is something like 200,000+ USD (2020 equivalent)
00:40
Most people live lives acceptable to most humans, so long as they keep up on their work, don't voice any dangerous ideas and stay 'respectable'
00:41
Also the intense pressure-cooker that is the drive to perform ideally on every level
00:42
The semi-meritocratic philosophy the Empire espouses sounds good until you realize it means everyone's going to push you to give 110% all the time, for everything in school and especially work
00:43
The civil exams are brutal and the higher-level courses weed out students by tens-of-thousands-to-one (edited)
00:43
Some organizations explicitly have million-to-one standards, although it makes some sense in a polity of countless billions (edited)
00:45
The Empire's economic structure is essentially an enormous pyramid scheme, so billions toil away in relative drudgery and must compete aggressively for any hope of advancement
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 08/24/2020 2:16 AM
Sounds like the Caldari.
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with that much toil at the lower levels, i imagine there's quite an active black market
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The Empire's economic structure is essentially an enormous pyramid scheme, so billions toil away in relative drudgery and must compete aggressively for any hope of advancement
@BizarroLand ♀ Isn’t any large-scale economy a pyramid scheme?
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depends on how you define a pyramid scheme in particular
09:28
generally they're a scam where you participate in some labor-intensive and somewhat profitable activity, and also try to convince others to do the same. If you recruit them, you make more money (from their profits). This applies recursively.
09:29
so a economy, with laborers and people hiring the laborers, and people hiring the hirers, etc... (edited)
09:30
if people work for other people and theres any remotely substantial economic inequality, you probably have something like a pyramid scheme
09:31
(in practice, a major differing point is that, ideally, participating in a economy is actually a rational choice, whereas pyramid schemes are not unless you really can game the system.)
09:33
(so in technicality, yes they're a pyramid scheme, but in practice a functional economy will hopefully avoid many of the things that are problematic with pyramid schemes.) (edited)
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[the other main differences between a pyramid scheme and an actual economy is that in an actual economy, work/value is actually being generated or done at most steps, and often enough there is some kind of tangible act or asset being transferred beyond just time. This might be labour work, hard assets, or intellectual property. A pyramid scheme transfers only money. The other difference is that, nominally, at least some fraction of the money that reaches the top is then used and recirculated down through the lower layers in some form. In a pyramid scheme, it gets to the top and it stops.]
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/27/2020 12:17 AM
@Xveers Emphasis on the word "nominally" in the Tiffanian case.
00:17
The people near the bottom will enjoy as little benefit as the people near the top can skim off; it's your usual sad story of perverse incentives (edited)
00:19
Technically, through the usual process of terraforming, construction and economic development, worlds are supposed to develop. Benefits would come eventually in the form of "higher-level" tasks being made available: a university, a steel mill, a naval yard opening
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 1:33 AM
semi-related: the chimera alchemist in the Fullmetal Alchemist fanfic series I'm writing needed to fund her research, because acquiring animals to splice together is expensive. So she made a ditch-digging chimera. The result appears terrifying according to several characters, much to her confusion. His name is Brutus, he is the Goodest Boy, and why are you frightened of his giant curved claws when honestly he is most likely to try and lick you to death or nap on your foot. (She has, at least, taught him he is too big to be a lap dog/badger/monster, much to his dismay)
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BluejayHurricane 08/30/2020 1:36 AM
This is still pre-other-reader, yes? (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 1:37 AM
I have no idea what you're asking, sorry
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0111narwhalz 08/30/2020 1:38 AM
"can I read it?" implied/expected answer "not yet"
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 1:39 AM
ahh. I haven't published it, because I'm writing out of order. I have bits about the chimera scientist though if you'd like to read. No Brutus yet, he's "appearing in the next page or three" in one bit and about to star in the other
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BluejayHurricane 08/30/2020 1:42 AM
If it’s meant to be sequential, I will happily wait, but please post a link when you have it in the shape you want. It sounds fun. The trauma of acquiring research funding needs humor, because otherwise I look at my future and sort of want to curl up in a little ball and cry.
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 1:44 AM
will do 🙂
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Did you just mean an alchemist who makes chimeras? Or an alchemist who is a chimera?
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0111narwhalz 08/30/2020 9:25 AM
why not both
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 10:42 AM
who makes chimera
10:43
why not both: because at least in the 03 continuity, being a human chimera interferes with your ability to perform alchemy, so a chimera would have a much harder time being an alchemist
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/30/2020 1:38 PM
Chimera alchemy brings back painful memories
13:38
"ed... ward..."
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0111narwhalz 08/30/2020 1:39 PM
"big… brother…"
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 1:40 PM
yep. This is post-canon, so that gets to come up >:3
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/30/2020 1:40 PM
Well, at least Brutus' creator is making good headway on rehabilitating the image of bio-alchemy
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Enderminion 08/30/2020 1:44 PM
Chimera
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Morgrim Moon 08/30/2020 1:45 PM
Um. Well. She does eventually, in that she's comfortable admitting that okay sometimes she needs sanity checks and gets a list of people to ring if she's a bit iffy on whether something is ethical. On the other hand, she failed her first exam because her winged cat wasn't "impressive" enough, so the next year she rocked up with a full battle chimera, lion-crocodile, and chirpily commented that "a General complained her 'monster wasn't toothy enough'", and set off multiple headaches because "oh god she's a highly competent chimera alchemist at least partially motivated by spite". She also throws a shitfit when an incident of illegal human transmutation comes to light and attempts to feed the instigator to said lion-crocodile, so that gets her a lot of brownie points.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/30/2020 7:11 PM
Get a load of this starmap.
19:11
19:13
Somewhere just spinward of Deneb there, among the utter frellsterguck of labels and icons, is NGC 6811, the open star cluster where the main story of Imperial Armored Corps takes place (edited)
19:14
That's just a taste of the vastness of all creation
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/13/2020 12:14 AM
this is kind of a complicated question but, how do you program your terraforming von neumanns for maximum benefit? How I'd start is including all the parameters for terraformable worlds, putting in restrictions against visiting any worlds with oxygen or that spit out radio signals, and a self-termination method that can be activated through a certain signal, or if no suitable worlds are found in a certain timeframe
00:15
Also maybe an inbuilt self-replication limit so the neumanns don't become a hegemonizing, invasive species
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well one factor is a thing i've thought of before (edited)
00:27
so, something i've seen before is a argument for going for a minimalist enviromental approach, a-la Greg Egan with everyone living in virches the size of a softball without doing large scale engineering or modification of the universe
00:28
a counter argument is "that's silly, you could eat a entire star and scarely dent the universe" a counter-counter argument is "yes, but if everyone ate stars then it would be a substantial impact" a counter-counter-counter argument is "okay, so look to see if many other people are eating stars, and if they are, stop." (edited)
00:29
a similar problem applies to von neumanns. One von neumann per solar system would not be significant. But everyone making a von neumann per solar system might be, if there is enough life or it happens enough times
00:30
so in addition to other limiters, it might be wise to add a "do not replicate in the presence of X other von neumanns/general infrastructure", X being a objectively low but nonetheless relatively high number like 0.001% by mass compared to the surroundings (edited)
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0111narwhalz 09/13/2020 1:35 AM
…and then a bit gets flipped and all of a sudden your threshold is now 2.001% by mass
01:35
oops!
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yeah but that's gonna be a problem when you bring von neumanns into the equation no matter what
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0111narwhalz 09/13/2020 2:00 AM
"oops all cancer"
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You're not going to get anywhere with restrictions like that. It's like you don't even want to convert all available mass-energy into civilizational substrate and minimize entropy.
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Morgrim Moon 09/13/2020 2:43 AM
resource wars produce MUCH entropy
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You know what else produces much entropy? Letting stars burn down naturally without doing anything with them.
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…and then a bit gets flipped and all of a sudden your threshold is now 2.001% by mass
Error correction/detection is basically a solved problem now.
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error correction has finite reliabilty though
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but reliability grows exponentially with linear redundancy
03:38
if the corruption rate is time/X for one part, two redundant parts would be time/X^2, three would be time/X^3...
03:38
ish, anyway.
03:39
the actual design will introduce some complexity there, but generally for data redundancy, corruption is rare and you need the same corruption across each redundancy to cause a malfunction, and in a short time period if it's actively being corrected.
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You can detect an error fairly easily if you store a hash or something, which can be way smaller than the actual data, and just have your thing self-destruct if a mismatch is found.
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You're not going to get anywhere with restrictions like that. It's like you don't even want to convert all available mass-energy into civilizational substrate and minimize entropy.
That would be a lot of paperclips lol
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/13/2020 9:54 AM
@gollark maybe incorporate an autoshutdown if the neumann experiences meaningful damage/corruption
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sdschildberg 09/13/2020 10:53 AM
Since child probes from multiple systems will be arriving at a given system you could have them check their code for changed
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which is still finite reliability and you are building quadrillions of them operating over potentially billions of years
14:06
they will mutate
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Make them check each other's code somehow and destroy malfunctioning ones. You can get undetected error rates down low enough that there will probably not be problems.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 9:37 AM
Even at below-c levels, how long would it take to cover the galaxy in terraformed worlds?
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Morgrim Moon 09/14/2020 9:42 AM
long enough that the older ones are getting consumed by supernova while the newer are under construction
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 09/14/2020 9:51 AM
Short enough they should be here already
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May also depend, if you're only checking for oxygen, on how long it takes the alliance of methane-, ammonia-, halogen-, and sulphate-breathers to come and ruin everyone's day.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:17 AM
t. eyes of amber
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Alistair's Law of Autoterraforming: Any von Neumann terraforming machine is indistinguishable from a berserker probe. Alistair's Corollary to Alistair's Law of Autoterraforming: Especially since most von Neumann terraforming machines are berserker probes.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:18 AM
point takenn
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Even tweaking the atmosphere a few degrees or introducing enough invasive species would be ecocidal
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:19 AM
not ecocidal if life is super rare :taps head:
11:20
also the alternate chemistries need varying temperatures so they won't target teh same worlds.
11:22
more relevantly to the incipient pink goo explosion in IAC, terraforming is slow even at its best
11:23
gonna take several decades/centuries for many of them to reach their full atmosphere and millenia more to reach their climax state (edited)
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Of course von Neumans could start sending out seed probes while working on a planet
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:26 AM
assuming it's a simple sphere/web of growth might be viable if it were Neumanns
11:26
But IAC still relies on the squishy, biological survey and environmental corps
11:27
The "air-mining" and "comet-smashing" part of terraforming is comparatively trivial to automate
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Hm. Actually, now I think about it - let's assume that we get everything right in programming them. Let's further assume that our tech has got so good that we can go beyond the mostly unattainable five-nines to six-nines reliability; i.e., 0.0001 chance of error in the life-recognition subroutines. That means we'll commit [eco|geno]cide every 10,000 life-bearing systems we hit. In a galaxy of 200 billion stars, that means we only need one life-bearing system per 20 million stars to gigadeathcrime at least once . The more abundant than that that life is, the worse our record starts looking.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:27 AM
It's actually ecopoiesing and making an environment stable for the longterm that is hard
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Hm. Actually, now I think about it - let's assume that we get everything right in programming them. Let's further assume that our tech has got so good that we can go beyond the mostly unattainable five-nines to six-nines reliability; i.e., 0.0001 chance of error in the life-recognition subroutines. That means we'll commit [eco|geno]cide every 10,000 life-bearing systems we hit. In a galaxy of 200 billion stars, that means we only need one life-bearing system per 20 million stars to gigadeathcrime at least once . The more abundant than that that life is, the worse our record starts looking.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:27 AM
yeah, I think it's fair to require sapient survey corps members to check worlds out
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that implies that the VN probes cant be sapient equivalent in recognition competence
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 6:03 PM
@Cornflakes a big assumption but not an unreasonable one
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sdschildberg 09/14/2020 6:05 PM
I don’t trust the recognition setup by the sorts of people who toss out unmonitored self replicators even more than I distrust the surveyor’s definition
👍 2
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ah, but here's the question
22:28
would soph surveyors do better than six-nines reliability?
22:28
(they could. But could is not the same as would.)
22:29
although granted Soph surveyors are not going to terraform quite as many planets, but von-neumanning literally every suitable planet in a galaxy is ludicrous overkill anyway
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 10:30 PM
yeah
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i mean, i'm not sure they would.
22:35
very cautious surveyors, maybe, but on average? Or for that matter, us?
22:36
i'd expect a lack of ecocide on the basis of luck more than anything.
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Morgrim Moon 09/14/2020 10:40 PM
there's a plotpoint in a series I was reading about "seedworlds". A series of planets along a hyperspace lane, where some civilisation started terraforming them the "economically sound but ecologically stupid" way with a cut down starter ecosystem, implied to have started with mars-type worlds about 3million years before the plot. One of the starter critters was a small burrowing rodent-like thing, and it was implied that if the creator species had stuck around to handle any issues everything would be fine, but they got themselves mysteriously wiped out. Leaving a line of ideally placed planets perfectly suited to human-type life, except the rodents had all evolved into a bewildering array of large and very deadly alpha predators.
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that sounds convenient; free planets, just get rid of the local predator infestation.
22:43
alpha predators are a lot easier to handle than, say, normal rats. Sure they're big and vicious, but we have guns.
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Morgrim Moon 09/14/2020 10:50 PM
apparently they were enough of a headache that they were a low priority for settlement; most prospective colonists dislike planets where they need to carry a military-rated firearm any time they're outside a wall. Problem was partially solved by setting up a roman legion-style retirement plan for former soldiers. Do your military service, get a nice chunk of land on a dangerous world, then once the place was sufficently tamed other colonists would join in. XD
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sdschildberg 09/14/2020 11:04 PM
The purpose of manned survey/terraform missions is so you can monitor the expansion front and control it’s speed (up to and including blacklisting a system from colonization) without having to outright say this to the parts of the public that are clamoring for the consumption of all matter
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i mean, IMO the most practical use case for von-neumann terraformers is single-planet terraforming
23:07
low mass means you can send the terraformer ahead of the colony ship, and/or just send the terraformer and travel via mindstate transmission
23:08
mass-terraforming is unnecessary; planets are big and you aren't going to need 10,000 habitable planets on short notice. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/14/2020 11:12 PM
arguably 90% of why the tiffs terraform so much is that they're irresponsible with demographics
23:12
but a story for another time, I really gotta go to bed
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and in this scenario, soph inspection is partially off the table (you can't visit via mindstate transmission until it arrives and completes at least some infrastructure), you can do a more in-depth inspection via telescope than if you just make von-neumann probes that colonize everywhere
23:13
oh, night
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well, you could have a stored soph overseer mind with the probe
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apparently they were enough of a headache that they were a low priority for settlement; most prospective colonists dislike planets where they need to carry a military-rated firearm any time they're outside a wall. Problem was partially solved by setting up a roman legion-style retirement plan for former soldiers. Do your military service, get a nice chunk of land on a dangerous world, then once the place was sufficently tamed other colonists would join in. XD
@Morgrim Moon So, earthlike planets? I mean, the only reason we’re not living behind walls or carrying weapons everywhere anymore is that we made the alpha predators extinct or endangered and taught the survivors to fear us.
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Morgrim Moon 09/15/2020 8:47 AM
I got the impression it was basically megafauna-and-associated-predators, so pretty much like living on the african savannah, possibly turned up a notch or two. Entirely manageable, but most people really preferring to wait until someone else had done the "make them fear us" bit.
08:48
on the other hand, this was a thin Star Wars expy, so their blasters were likely a tad nastier than our guns and still considered "just about right" level of force, so maybe a touch more deathworld-iish than Earth
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BluejayHurricane 09/15/2020 9:08 AM
A stored sophont alone for that long? The horror story practically writes itself.
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A stored sophont alone for that long? The horror story practically writes itself.
@BluejayHurricane who says that it has to be active?
10:01
boot it up, let it make an assesment, do not save lifetime
10:01
or /make/ a sophont for that purpose
10:02
one thats perfectly fine being alone
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BluejayHurricane 09/15/2020 10:10 AM
Ok, fine. It wouldn’t work, though. Sophonts will make mistakes and are susceptible to corruption in the same way a Von Neumann algorithm is. It’s not the check you would hope it is, at least not locally.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/15/2020 10:48 AM
one weird thing about wormholes
10:48
due to the 3600ly distance if I make the switch, that means the year isn't 4020 it's closer to 7500
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Ok, fine. It wouldn’t work, though. Sophonts will make mistakes and are susceptible to corruption in the same way a Von Neumann algorithm is. It’s not the check you would hope it is, at least not locally.
@BluejayHurricane yes, i do think that sophonts are not necessary for supervising the neumann probes
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/15/2020 11:50 AM
also, you need to arrange wormholes carefully to not create CTCs and ruin your hard work
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cue random person building a wormhole exploding half of the civilised worlds
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/15/2020 11:56 AM
nah, the Tiffanian Government would keep a stranglehold on gate construction
11:56
but they'd also send starwisps everywhere
11:56
gonna coin the term "wisprobe" here
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One sophont is. But since terraforming is a big job filled with insanely nitpicky detail work and requiring detailed environmental impact statements rimshot , you may want to send an entire planetary survey team complete with terraforming specialists to properly fill in the situation on the ground.
12:05
I mean, unless you're just half-assing it by dumping water and algae on the ground and seeing what turns up, anyway.
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i just think that a nonsophont specialist system suite can do basically the same, without the eventual squick of sending an endlessly copying set of sophonts
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me too; i'm not convinced that a von neumann probe would have worse life-detecting performance than a team of sophs if it's programmed well and defaults to cautious. Sophs can and would miss things, even with a in-depth survey. Especially relatively exotic life. The risk only becomes notable if the von neumann is also mass-colonizing.
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/15/2020 2:38 PM
things get spicy when a polity has an incipient demographic crisis
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/15/2020 5:58 PM
also, trying to stretch out technological progress over millenia is a pain
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How would a sublight starship evade pursuit?
10:14
My current thought is the crew eject in a cold sleep pod fired onto a perpendicular vector during a burn and leave the unmanned ship accelerating while their pod "runs cold" for centuries. When the pod comes near a star it uses magnetic sails to decelerate.
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Morgrim Moon 09/17/2020 10:16 AM
throw a few handfuls of gravel out the back?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/17/2020 10:41 AM
H steamer
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depends on the situation
15:43
if you hate your pursuers and everyone else within a parsec, carry a lot of gravel and spread it like crazy. Preferably while not travelling at your max rated speed, otherwise it'll just follow close behind you and decellerating will uh... get interesting.
15:46
at max speed, assuming your pursuers can't still see you with your engines off, turn off your engines and use cold gas thrusters to change course. On long trips inter-star this could let you change destination between anywhere in the star system. On short trips you could pick a path that could diverge into a number of different ones with relatively small changes, like aiming for Jupiter and then using cold gas to adjust to slingshot around any of the moons instead.
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maybe a game of chicken?
16:04
fly towards the sun, use it to keep them back and hopefully not boil alive
16:05
and because it's, yknow, a star, it ought to do a decent job of hiding your engine signature
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My idea is that a ship with a monopole-catalyzed fusion drive has attracted the attention of a berserker with reactionless drive and probably some form of shielding.
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so the pursuer is better armed and has a substantial technological advantage?
16:14
including a higher top speed and acceleration?
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Basically
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ah, that's gonna be tricky
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Find a way to kill it, pretty much. You aren't evading it. The trouble with ejecting the crew pod is that either it changes your acceleration, which tells the pursuer that you just ejected something, or changes your drive signature, which tells the pursuer that you're trying to hide a change in acceleration, which means you just ejected something.
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0111narwhalz 09/17/2020 4:17 PM
the solution: shed chaff
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and if it has a outright reactionless drive, even the gravel trick probably won't do much because it can just go around
16:19
it might work if it doesn't detect the gravel but... between the shielding and good sensors, i'd want less "gravel" and more "railgun shot boosted by velocity difference"
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Depending on the separation and relative accel, the best answer might be to lead it somewhere more capable of killing it. A stern chase is a long chase, after all.
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Unless they can kill you at the current ranges.
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Then you're already dead.
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or it's patiently waiting for your inferior drive system to run out of dv, at which point it closes and/or lines up a shot
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Or it’s letting you lead it to your homeworld/fleet/whatever.
18:47
Or whoever programmed the berserkers originally gave them a sadistic streak? IDK, that one’s a bit more of a stretch.
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if it can close on you and capture you, it can interrogate/brain drain you
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If it helps, the Doylist purpose of this scenario is to make a relativist crew spend an order of magnitude more time in deep space than normal.
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Can they rig their cold sleep pod to keep them frozen passively, at least for the first passel of years?
19:09
Or, really, most of the non-engine part of the ship, not necessarily just that specific pod?
19:11
'Cause this scenario is one of those not-escapable-by-regular-means things, so time to think outside the box, crate, pallet, and warehouse. The berserker is trying to kill you; corollary, with mechanical determination, it will not stop hunting you until you're dead, or rather, it thinks you're dead. So make it think you're dead.
19:13
What you want to do is rig an engine explosion. You've got a monopole-catalyzed fusion drive, so generating a good, big, sensor-blanketing explosion that looks as if you were redlining the engine to escape the berserker and lost your bet with engineering should be simple enough.
19:16
The hard part is arranging for one of the bits of the ship where you are to survive mostly intact; i.e., intact at the core, but not so intact at the edges that it looks suspicious. You want it to look from the outside just like a big fragment from the explosion that's been thrown off into space, gushing atmosphere and volatiles. And the really important bit is that you don't have running cold-sleep systems or anything else in there; you want it to look totally dead. A sophisticated enough sensor technology could spot even low-level operation, but if you can get them to stay cold with insulation, pre-chilling, and passive radiation, there's no way to tell the difference between a corpsicle and a corpse.
19:17
Hope the berserker considers it inefficient to individually chase down and vaporize every dead fragment just to be sure.
19:19
In long-term considerations, try and arrange that the explosion will alter your trajectory in such a manner that you'll not look like you're heading straight for an inhabited system, but which will at least bring you close enough to one that you can signal for someone to come get you as you fly past.
19:19
And done.
19:20
...gah, I misremembered up top that it was just "crew pod". There goes that plan, unless you can chill 'em down safely.
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alternative plan: jury rig a desperation stuff-thrower and start chucking everything non-vital at the zerker
19:22
preferably, with poor aim
19:22
most of it will miss, and the zerker will hopefully just ignore most of the projectiles
19:22
which is the perfect time to jury-rig the crew pods for cold and inert running, hide in one, and shoot yourself at the zerker
19:23
(to miss, but still, it's not going to expect that.)
19:24
bonus points if you stage a fake ship destruction anyway, but poorly enough to clue in the zerker so it spends time investigating the wreck.
19:25
double bonus points if you convincingly fake your own death in that wreckage
19:27
and just for kicks, transmit a emergency distress signal... to a uninhabited star. And hopefully figure out a way to transmit a real one more secretly. Let it waste time chasing down ghost populations.
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I'm thinking the fake explosion route. They just need enough room for a dozen corpsicles, laser transceiver, and automated systems. Unless you could pack up something like a magnetic sail into a small space for decelerating into a system.
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depends on the mass
19:43
twelve corpsicles and systems is going to weigh a lot more than a tiny wisp probe
19:48
as an example, the IKAROS probe had a sail massing about 2kg total, excluding the weights used to deploy it and the built in solar panels and attitude-control lCDs
19:48
19:49
the probe was 315kg
19:49
oh
19:49
oh wait you said magnetic sail
19:49
not sure, we don't have many concrete designs for those
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/19/2020 11:25 PM
"I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice." — CEO Nwabudike Morgan
👍 4
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Isnt 500 years the max length of a SMAC game?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/21/2020 11:46 AM
600 if you're playing low difficulty
11:46
but yeah
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Mind pinning this @Overmind ? https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/
After humanity ends, who shall inherit the stars?
Overmind pinned a message to this channel. 10/01/2020 7:20 PM
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:14 PM
how realistic is it to say that through speedrunning techniques you can cut the terraforming time of most target worlds to like a century or two
15:14
and by terraforming I mean a low "breathable air" bar
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well sure, up until someone figures out the Jump Glitch that causes a memory error and replaces the planet with a exact duplicate of another, habitable planet when you jump in juuuust the right spot
15:19
in seriousness though, it's hard to say and depends on the planet and technology available
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:19 PM
that was actually pretty funny
15:19
but the Evil Empire has trillions of dollars (sorry, crowns) at their disposal, a whole armada of fusion reactors, and a willingness to spend decades on public works projects
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do they have good von neumanns
15:22
(life technically qualifies as a von neumann, albeit one that functions slowly and only within a narrow range of enviroments. Said range exludes the majority of planets, generally.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:34 PM
ehhhhh...
15:35
possibly
15:35
this setting is in "our" future, although machine learning ran into diminishing returns long ago
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Biologicals tend not to handle “speed running” well
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:39 PM
@Buggy let's say they have... quasi-von neumanns
15:40
a decent amount of fusion-engine production is automated, but a few sophont overseers are still required (edited)
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Depends on how much you like fauxmaforming.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:48 PM
not acquainted with that term
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With sufficient energy input you can brute-force atmospheric regeneration, brute-force planetary warming, etc., plant a few things here and there and declare "Look! An ecology!"
15:49
(Pay no attention to the massive carbon-dioxide cracking plant behind the curtain.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:50 PM
yeah, I know just focusing on getting to breathable air is a fairly low bar as ecopoiesis goes
15:50
Hell, it may not even be a bar for ecopoiesis
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It's pretty much Potemkin-village terraforming. Everyone knows it's not-really, but so long as no-one mentions that to Comrade Stalin, he'll be very happy and no-one will be send to Siberia Planitia, da? (edited)
15:52
(Meanwhile, the real terraforming project slowly replaces it over the next few hundred years under the label "just a few little things to finish off, dot is cross ts, etc., etc.," and is billed as "Misc. Sunds.")
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 3:52 PM
the terraforming service already eats up a decent chunk of the Evil Empire's budget so it's probably the preferred way of going about things
15:53
disregard comets acquire their volatile gases
15:54
but that's also the only alternative aside from habs
15:58
because naturally lifebearing planets have the spicy biochemistry and all sorts of gory evolutionary details I don't feel like dealing with (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:27 PM
also habs are... bleh
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That depends on your sense of scale
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:30 PM
:e (edited)
18:30
but without supermaterials they'll generally be pretty tight
18:33
I once did the calcs for a bishop ring with the surface area of Ohio
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It's all Ohio?
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:36 PM
You can make big rings without supermaterials.
18:36
You just need super-bearings.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:37 PM
@KAL_9000 always has been
18:37
@0111narwhalz yeah, I know about bearingworlds
18:37
those are mass-expensive though, and they start defeating the point of a hab kind of
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:37 PM
defeating the point of a hab
How?
18:38
Also you can use the outer race for nullgee things.
18:38
Bulk storage, ports, things like that.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:38 PM
at some point you're getting ratios of like 1:100 of inner:outer ring and moving masses equal to Terran atmo
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:38 PM
What is the percieved point of habs?
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:38 PM
getting habitable surface area
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:40 PM
A big bearing ring seems like it would do that just fine though?
18:40
Unless you're complaining that a smaller ring could do a better job, which is fair.
18:40
But if you want open skies…
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:40 PM
sorry, just got use of my other hand back
18:40
it's acquiring new habitable surface area faster than by arduous terraforming or any other process
18:41
if you just want to build a lot then the surface of a planet works just as good and your gravity+radshielding comes free
18:41
some of it
18:42
at some point in the megastructure classification you seriously have to ask the same questions that you would for terraforming, namely: who's footing the bill? (it's a literally astronomical one)
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:43 PM
But perhaps the surface of a planet isn't enough, or it's in the wrong place.
18:44
I think something like a basalt fibre bearingworld would probably do better than a planet in terms of areal mass density.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:47 PM
perhaps
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:47 PM
And it would have vastly easier shipping.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:47 PM
but would it remain (environmentally) stable over decades without a continent-bankrupting expense? (that's what the Evil Empire are after in planets) (edited)
18:48
we know right now that the space environment is not friendly to sensitive equipment
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:48 PM
Yeah? If you make it long enough it'll take care of itself just as well as any planet.
18:48
(shipping: just maglev stuff from the inner race to the outer race and back again, no remass needed!)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:48 PM
Mir was practically falling apart on its own at the time it was decommissioned and the ISS at 22 is getting long in the tooth
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:48 PM
Both are tin-cans.
18:49
Neither has soil or oceans or a proper atmosphere.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:49 PM
not quite what I'm getting at
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:50 PM
The only unusual expense is the bearings and inter-race rails.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:50 PM
it's the environment-maintaining equipment
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:50 PM
Everything else is almost planetary.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:50 PM
you know, the stuff that keeps the air cycling, the waste energy radiating, et cetera
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 6:52 PM
air cycling
Wind is pretty reliable.
waste energy radiating
This one is actually a potential problem if your ring becomes a tube.
18:52
But in thin rings, you just radiate from the surface out the axis.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 6:54 PM
although I measure the basic units of the tiffian economy in the quadrillions to be fair
18:55
(of modern dollars USD)
18:59
also just the cycling of wastes, the homeostasis against the space environment, etc. kind of has to be artificially mediated in habs (edited)
18:59
and the gear for that will need maintenance
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 7:00 PM
It's big enough that material cycling can be done by weather and biology.
19:00
Can't quite manage tectonics though, so you may have to dredge the seas once in a while…
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 7:01 PM
It's not like I'm a total planetary chauvinist - 20% of the population lives in free-space habs in IAC, it's just that, well, being big enough to be easy-to-maintain still doesn't come cheap
19:02
Also how do I even calculate the price of a ginormous bearingworld to compare it x_x
19:03
thinking about banks orbital scale here
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 7:03 PM
"price" is nonsense unless you have a whole economic sim
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 7:04 PM
mass if one prefers (edited)
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wait, "bearing world"?
21:43
do you mean you just make a non-rotating external ring which is structurally stable under the applied loads, and rotate a smaller non-structural habitat ring within it on bearings?
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:44 PM
aye
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huh, that would work, but the mass required is going to go up exponentially as it gets larger
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:44 PM
it lets you cheat the spinning mass limit
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 9:44 PM
yeah
21:45
u can have earth-luna diameters at 1:20 ratios (edited)
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:46 PM
Instead of the structural mass of the spinning ring weighing that same spinning ring down, and thus contributing to its hoop stress, you have a stator which supports the spinning ring for much less mass.
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oh yes, it's definitely going to allow for larger structures
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 9:46 PM
the static ring has a bigger cross section so it can take the load
21:46
i think that was the explanation
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but you probably can't get a ringworld encircling a star
21:46
reasonably, anyway.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/06/2020 9:47 PM
unless it's a brown dwarf
21:47
yes, the originator of the idea proposed that
21:47
would require 1:1000+ ratio tho
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:47 PM
The reason it's better than "just make a bigger ring lol" is that the bigger ring has to support itself.
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at that point it's probably going to take less mass to just create all your gravity via mass and have the ring be nonrotating and supported via mass streams.
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:47 PM
Meanwhile, the rotor of a bearingworld is supported by the stator, and nothing has to support the stator.
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no no i get that yeah
21:48
you can't make self-supporting rings above a certain size pretty much at all, its hard limited by structural material strengths
21:50
switching to a stationary support scheme lets you get around that, but the mass ratio is still exponential; it's sort of like building a solid tower; if it gets tall enough, the lower sections have to be wider to support the upper masses, it can't just be a cylinder. Towards the extreme end, you get less of a tower and more of a pyramid, or worse.
21:51
for habitats encircling stars, i'd want to go with the mass-stream support strategy if you absolutely cannot get your hands on better materials than CNTs
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:51 PM
After a while I imagine the energy stored in the dynamic compression members get super scary.
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i think the best way to support the rotor would be superconducting magnetic bearings
21:52
that necessarily requires a fair bit of energy to pre-energize, even if they're very very nearly lossless after that's done
21:52
do that over the entire habitat...
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:53 PM
Aye, magnetic bearings for sure.
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yeah you're not coming away with a small energy budget or small mass budget
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 9:53 PM
They're even self-aligning.
21:54
Plus you can use the bearing rails as brakes for transiting between rotor and stator.
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aye, though if you're using that for soph transport i'd uh, want quite a bit of magnetic shielding on that
21:57
i don't know what going through several tesla fields at potentially km/s does, but it can't be good.
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 10:01 PM
There shouldn't be a lot of variation in the fields normally.
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possibly, but i also wouldn't expect there to be very much physical separation - so if you're accelerating in either direction, you're probably in a spot where one of the two surfaces has been removed
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 10:05 PM
You can have the rails close together and then ride next to them
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i was thinking that the support layer aren't rails, it's a flat surface
22:07
or at least mostly flat
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0111narwhalz 10/06/2020 10:07 PM
They're basically maglev rails.
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maglev rails need support in multiple axis, though; upwards, side to side, and propulsion is handled by the same mechanism
22:10
but a large bearing-like structure could be supported by flat surfaces with dynamic stabilization
22:11
the lateral forces are going to be minimal with a mass that large
22:12
there's essentially none inherent aside from minor gravitational effects maybe, and activity on the surface will even out
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So. Let no-one say my empire doesn't understand the meaning of overkill. I feel bad for this one PDC. they barely engaged any incoming missiles, so they died. And the city next door ate a good two dozen plasma torpedoes 48 torpedoes, 28 hit, 11 shot down. 20 missed, and 7 of those stopped. Splat
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/16/2020 3:00 PM
CMV: All of Worm, including the backstory, is actually a chess game between the Simurgh and Contessa (edited)
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@BizarroLand ♀ this is true
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/16/2020 4:20 PM
@KAL_9000 the official result was "stalemate"
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"You just finished a chess game with a powerful thinker? Cool, who won?" "I'm not really sure." "Oh, well, who lost?" "Everyone."
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/20/2020 5:28 PM
"I still plan to do the book review contest! I’ll do it sometime after I start the new blog! Those of you who sent me reviews didn’t waste your time! It’s going to happen! Pestilence may afflict every corner of the world, the skies may turn red as blood and the sun go dark at noon, the earth may shake and plagues of locusts cover the land, but never doubt that there will be a book review contest someday, in the golden future, when all of this is over. "
17:28
-scott alexander, a month ago
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Reworked my Para-Imperium build again, this time emphasizing the Plague Wars part of their history.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/02/2020 10:50 PM
for reference: IAC-verse has nothing in the way of wildcat colonies or the like; if you want to start a new colony you need to be a government or talk one into backing you
22:50
Keeping yourself alive in space is really expensive even two thousand and mumble years in the future
22:51
The fusion drive (or magsail) to get anywhere instead of circling a planet? Expensive
22:52
The keel, electrical system, ECLS, all those creature comforts and your sensors? Expensive
22:52
I don't think it's within reach of a small group without downright heroic tech-assumptions
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/02/2020 11:09 PM
also regarding the lunar incident covered in #general : the Tiffs would have had bionts overseeing the whole thing and wouldn't have discovered the 'plaster the ridge' shortcut
23:16
It's been revealed to me that brute-force simulating the human brain is also an essentially inevitable option given enough computing time, but
23:16
I wanted to keep IAC-verse very down on the hard-singularity kind of stuff
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Stellaris keeps giving me worldbuilding ideas.
14:41
For instance, in the game I started last night my colonists tend to go Spiritualist, I'm thinking that might be a result of interpreting Noospherist archetypes literally rather than as symbolic mental constructs.
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Morgrim Moon 11/08/2020 3:44 AM
Transcript for the text on the image under the cut: PAGE 1 Spectember 2020 #21 | nixillustration.com | alphynix.tumblr.com Concept suggested by: anonymous Moon Camels (Camelus lunaris) Earth's moon...
03:44
"Nobody ever took responsibility for them, and it was unknown how any of the terraforming and colonizing missions could have even managed to smuggle them onto the surface unnoticed. Genetic samples suggested they descended from the Australian population of feral dromedaries, with some bactrian hybridization, but somehow no other information about their origins ever surfaced. Illegal moon camels were very much an out-of-context problem."
😆 7
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Somehow I now have an earworm of "We're Whalers on the Moon".
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/08/2020 1:02 PM
WE'RE WHALERS ON THE MOON, WE CARRY A HARPOON
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the other stuff there is weirdly disturbing, i love it
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I'm REALLY enjoying that Nix site.
04:17
it's a rabbithole of awesome
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Morgrim Moon 11/09/2020 4:29 AM
They mostly do paleoart but that month was for speculative evolution
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 11:52 AM
how badly would a VEI-8 eruption screw up global agriculture
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 11:56 AM
given the small ice age bit? significantly
11:58
likely localised famines, and temporary food shortage, and the only reason it's temporary is because these days we've got enough variety of cultivars that we could likely pivot crops to something more cold-enduring, but at the cost of a season of growing lost
11:58
poor countries that are already food insecure are going to be a mess. Think Yemen.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:01 PM
at first it was going to be VEI-7 (Tambora), but I was told modern industrialized agriculture could handle a -1C drop
12:01
sooooo
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:02 PM
it depends a LOT on where it is
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:02 PM
this happens in the Puerto Rico area
12:02
the eruption itself occurs thanks to an "undiscovered magma plume"
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:02 PM
that's probably one of the safest places in the world for it to happen, bluntly
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:03 PM
the eruption begins under land, near the coastal city of Aguadilla
12:04
as a result a bunch of land subsides and mass wasting occurs, setting off a megatsunami that scours the Atlantic coast of America clean and devastates northern south america
12:04
the deaths wouldn't be that high in the US with forewarning, I'm told, but the property damage will be universal
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:04 PM
no major coal deposits or other things that can be ignited for an extra kick, like Siberia. No especially flamable forests. Not in the middle of a major food bowl. Not near any especially major population centres, which limits the refugee crisis. Not in the middle of an area that is currently stable and we NEED it remain stable, so the rest of the world can focus on the climate and not quenching disasters abroad too
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:05 PM
I wouldn't describe the Puerto Rican situation as "stable"
12:05
And I don't think there's incipient supervolcanoes forming in the G8 to be fair to you
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:05 PM
I just said it wasn't?
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:06 PM
but yeah, this isn't nearly as bad as Yellowstone and narratively, I don't intend it to be
12:06
I just need the world to have a bad decade
12:07
if there's a "better" target for that I'm all ears :y
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:08 PM
I was more meaning "we need the megacities of China to remain stable because we just cannot cope with that sort of mass migration", or "we don't need the geopolitical shitstorm that would be losing german and austria". the USA, including its territories, and South America in general are not 'stable'. Meaning that, ironically, that area is better posed to cope with the crisis without a stream of falling dominos, because they've already got the structures in place to prevent the dominos.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:08 PM
Ah, gotcha. But: Puerto Rico's population is 2 million as it stands, and if my interpretation of the findings re: Tambora's ash clouds is correct then the entire island will be rendered uninhabitable (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:10 PM
in theory, that's small enough for the mainland USA to readily absorb. In practice, we know the mainland USA won't lift a finger unless shamed into it
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:11 PM
the winds are east-to-west but the ash is 75cm deep even 50 kilometers from the ash cloud
12:11
this occurs at the northwestern corner of the island and PR is only ~60 wide by ~170 long
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:11 PM
Panama's gonna have a bad year
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:12 PM
I think it's safe to assume ash will fall over most of the Caribbean
12:13
how long does it take for volcanic areas to become inhabitable again? I seem to recall it's not that long (edited)
12:13
(succession, etc. takes place quicky especially in the case of st. helens)
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:13 PM
disaster flora is there in weeks. Plentiful restoration of an actively erupting volcano in a decade
12:13
trees obviously take a bit longer
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:14 PM
A friend and I gamed out parts of the scenario and we determined the economic fallout from the megatsunami is far worse than the direct eruption, or even the resulting cooling
12:14
Think Miami, gone
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:14 PM
if the ash isn't too thick further away from the volcano - like you can still readily run a plow through it and get some topsoil mixed in - then it's not going to harm agriculture and saves you your next few years fertiliser budget
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:15 PM
Coastal Venezuela, Colombia? Gone
12:15
(at least the parts that are on the caribbean coast)
12:16
Much of Central America might be gone too; our guess was the waves would reach maybe ~40-45m, not unprecedented worldwide but definitely out of context for the region
12:17
So it goes for the Eastern Seaboard's infrastructure
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:17 PM
if you're gaming a situation with the political will, for the post-eruption treatment of porta ricans, maybe look at the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy? One of Australia's capital cities got completely demolished by a cyclone. On Christmas Day, for added bastardry. 2/3 of the citizens had to be rehomed for a period of time while very basic infrastructure was rebuilt, it was a huge logistical undertaking, and the vast majority were out in a week
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:18 PM
There's enough skyscrapers and higher ground that even a Tohoku-level tsunami probably wouldn't kill many people immediately, but the infrastructure is still going to take a huge beating (edited)
12:18
do modern docks usually survive tsunamis?
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:19 PM
depends on what sort of dock they are
12:19
they survive the wave just fine, they don't always survive all the ships being smashed into them
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:19 PM
new york gets 4 hours warning
12:19
everywhere else less
12:19
assuming the authorities believe the reports
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:20 PM
if the buildings can survive, many people will, New York has a lot of 'up'
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:20 PM
yeah
12:20
but there's some doubt about whether they can
12:21
Certainly the wave won't be knocking down skyscrapers like in a disaster movie, but many buildings will not be designed to handle a 40-meter wall of water
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:21 PM
at that distance, tsunamis aren't a 'wave', they're an exceptional high tide. The geography will help
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:21 PM
yeah, new york harbor is shielded
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:21 PM
more steady pressure than sudden smack
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:21 PM
still, a ridiculously high tide can be really bad
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Morgrim Moon 11/10/2020 12:22 PM
and since those buildings can ride out a small hurricane, there's a decent chance.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:22 PM
I saw a lot of examples from the 2011 quake where buildings were completely demolished in places
12:22
Boats landing on rooftops, that sort of thing
12:23
NY might ride it out
12:23
Not sure Miami has the same luxury; it'll only take about three hours or less for the wave to reach it, and it may be as high as ~50m in places
12:23
the whole of Southern Florida is really flat and a lot of those high-rises are waterfront. 😬
12:25
I don't think it would knock down skyscrapers, but it'd be unprecedented for that area
12:25
Floridians are braced for a storm surge, not fifty meters of doom
12:25
We estimated 8.5 million deaths
12:25
Or thereabout
12:25
most of those in latin america
12:27
this isn't to say what the cooling will do; I posited the eruption would release about 200-250km3 of explosive ejecta
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What sort of events could cause a 500m high tsunami?
12:38
In the ocean, and not restricted to a local area.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:39 PM
meteor
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/10/2020 12:39 PM
Damn big one, I'd think.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/10/2020 12:40 PM
true
12:40
but even in la palma theres not enough to generate more than tohoku waves in north america
12:40
the caribbean, on the other hand
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I got a version that uses wormholes as a shortcut https://youtu.be/2MGVFCr4sIM
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I'm wondering if a cycler "castle" might make a good mobile capital of a post-imperium trade league-type polity.
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Anyone? Mobile capital, good idea?
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/13/2020 1:57 PM
Hmm, not a bad idea overall.
13:57
It has the downsides of being a hab, but that's not necessarily all bad.
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Well, it would eliminate the fighting to be capital between worlds. Or to not be capital, for that matter.
14:31
(Just got around to watching The Rise of Skywalker yesterday. Afterwards, in among the wondering what they're going to call the new galactic government [the New New Republic, the Newer Republic, the Republic III, whatever...], there was some snarking about the worlds of the galaxy fighting over not being the new capital. It didn't work out very well for the last couple, after all.)
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Makes me wonder what happened to Coruscant
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As I understand the new canon, it's the capital of the Imperial Remnant which is the remains of the actual Empire that didn't bugger off to the Unknown Regions to become the First Order.
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I thought the Imperial Remnant in new canon was a bunch of scrapping warlords.
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...huh. No, I'm wrong. Per Wookiepedia, those guys did hold a bunch of the Core and Inner Rim, but had to give up Coruscant to the New Republic. Although it had to give up being the capital in exchange for them electing a new capital system every so often.
14:46
As I understand it, there's a more-or-less official one that's in the Core Worlds which signed a treaty of surrender, founded by the ex-Grand-Vizier of the Empire, plus assorted warlords who decided to go down fighting, plus the First Order.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 3:18 PM
As far as I can tell the New Republic didn't actually... uh, collapse
15:18
It just disappeared completely in the movies because of plot contrivances being demilitarized
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I am once again asking everyone to read the true Star Wars Episodes VII-IX
15:19
The Thrawn Trilogy
👍 3
❤️ 2
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 3:20 PM
that goes without saying
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sdschildberg 11/20/2020 3:21 PM
Head canon: much like in the EU, the galaxy finally realizes that such a massive State is a liability.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 3:21 PM
The Sequel Trilogy is terrible anyway and very few authors have been able to do anything interesting with its new continuity so it doesn't matter (edited)
15:21
SW will fade away or be re-rebooted at some point in the future
15:21
Probably the former
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I hope so
15:40
Put it out of its misery
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old canon is canon new canon is ewoks writing real-galaxy fanfic
👍 5
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BizarroLand ♀
Probably the former
Enderminion 11/20/2020 4:21 PM
Fat chance, it made money once so the suits think it'll make money again, it will be the latter
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Enderminion
Fat chance, it made money once so the suits think it'll make money again, it will be the latter
BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 4:37 PM
Not ... uh, that much in the end (especially not from Chinese audiences, ouch), and hopefully there'll be another decade of waiting so we don't get star wars fatigue (edited)
16:37
You have a point though
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 6:20 PM
I just pray that any post-RotS films either ignore the damn ST or actually set up a believable world
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sdschildberg 11/20/2020 6:22 PM
Just abandon this stupid galaxy already
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DSD [He/They] 11/20/2020 6:25 PM
ST?
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 6:34 PM
Sequel Trilogy
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DSD [He/They] 11/20/2020 6:34 PM
Ah ok. Duh. (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 11/20/2020 8:56 PM
I haven't seen the last of the new trilogy but I got annoyed because it looked like they were setting up some interesting stuff, and then systematically flubbed everything. The entire point of a trilogy is that you write the overarcing plot before the first episode is published. It's not a trilogy if you have no idea what happens in the next 2! That's just poor planning. After the second film I itched to go recut it all into a sensible narrative. After seeing the drama around the 3rd I just lost interest entirely
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 8:58 PM
@Morgrim Moon That's the issue, there was no overarching plot or intent to create a good narrative
21:00
just "we have acquired the license, time to churn out a trilogy"
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Morgrim Moon 11/20/2020 9:01 PM
the other two trilogies had elements that changed during production, that much is obvious, but the broad narrative arc was settled well beforehand and there was no need for sudden plot twists. Like, the whole "I am your father" was one hell of a spoiler, but it worked precisely because you could rewatch up until that point and see the breadcrumbs that led up to it. Which a lot of modern movies just don't seem to get, you NEED to foreshadow your key elements!
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/20/2020 9:01 PM
There's also the basement reveal in Attack on Titan
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Morgrim Moon 11/20/2020 9:02 PM
and with the prequel trilogy, everyone knew going into it that the arc was "okay, so how does Sidious destroy the jedi and corrupt Anakin?" but knowing that didn't erase the impact of the temple march in the slightest.
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On a more explicitly fantasy note, I’m currently working on a story based on Norse mythology and was wondering if anyone knew more about the sophont mythics.
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BluejayHurricane 11/21/2020 3:13 PM
Not by that name
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For instance, I’m going the dwarf=dark elf route and keeping them short and hairy but with more Fair Folk traits like using glamours and keeping a child who stumbled upon their home in the lava tubes as a slave.
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Also, it’s a “furry” story that has wolves as humans, arctic foxes for dwarves, red foxes for hulder, bears as giants and cats are trolls.
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0111narwhalz 11/21/2020 4:11 PM
cats are trolls
that tracks
😂 5
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/28/2020 2:28 PM
yeah, to justify my planetary chauvinism I think I can get away with hyper-aggressive terraforming
14:29
if I need spectacular local variety I can justify it through quirks therefrom
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Actually thought of a practical use for mechs with legs.
09:07
Terraced agriculture
09:09
It's a good way to halt soil erosion but doesn't work too well with wheeled tractors. Farmers have to till by hand or sometimes with animals
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 9:12 AM
reaper mechs, excellent
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i'm not too familiar with farming, but aren't crops usually planted in rows because the tractors will make rows without plants whether you want them or not?
09:39
mechs would probably have similar issues, but instead you just get a bunch of spots
09:40
i suppose you could make the feet smaller to reduce the issue; the logical conclusion of that would be spike-feet that leave holes everywhere, which probably isn't that bad
09:42
(or just do it with crops that don't need a tractor for maintenance between harvests. I'm pretty sure cornfields are just a solid field of stalks, no tracks, right?)
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DSD [He/They] 11/30/2020 9:44 AM
Spidermechs?
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 9:48 AM
Small feet would also increase the pressure on each individual spot though. And I’ve never been on a rice paddy before, but those don’t look like particularly solid ground. Gonna sink. Spidermech with lots of light, but wide, feet would probably be better.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 9:48 AM
How deep would you sink, though?
09:49
If there's still bedrock somewhere under there, you might just deal with the sinking and draw the pile-feet up real far.
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 9:53 AM
I mean I guess you could but at that point it becomes like, unreasonable. You’ll likely sink pretty bad. It’s a big reason why things like tanks and tires have very wide tracks, it’s about spreading your pressure out.
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you could also hybridize - spike feet that expand in the ground, sort of like a umbrella without the fabric
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 9:54 AM
Bedrock won’t be under there for a good ways
09:54
And I mean... I guess you could. But they’re still effectively big feet then. You don’t wanna hit the roots either.
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the root systems are probably a bit less vulnerable than the stalks; you can crush the stalks, but the roots are only going to be damaged if it cuts through the ground they're in, and you could probably engineer the system to avoid that as much as possible
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 9:55 AM
You could but at some point it’ll become more efficient to just keep everything on the surface. Simpler the solution the better.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 9:56 AM
drive piles with standing pads? :V
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 9:57 AM
I don’t think that would really help in this situation, you may as well just use the pads. The spikes in that case will just bog you down as you move.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 9:58 AM
no the piles are static
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 9:59 AM
Oh. Well... I mean yeah I guess you could do that?
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 9:59 AM
we already have spidermechs
09:59
for logging
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mechanical complexity doesn't necessarily mean a worse solution, though
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:00 AM
I think it’d be better for the spidermech’ Anti-sinking stuff to be self-contained though, so you can use it wherever you need. Having it be reliant on piles would be like putting it on rails
10:00
And no it doesn’t
10:00
But if a simpler and possibly more economic solution does exist, then, it begs the question why go more complex (edited)
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reduced effectiveness, resulting in a larger economic loss due to reduced production
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:01 AM
That too. It would make each individual machine more costly to produce
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and increased technological complexity in general gets easier over time due to constantly advancing technology; self driving tractors are already a thing, really.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:02 AM
the reason you put it on static piles instead of rails is because rails have shadows
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hmm, it's just occurred to me that another potential solution here is to have the mech step between the plants whenever possible.
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:02 AM
I mean that’s the idea isn’t it?
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:02 AM
the pads can even be just below the surface if you have tracking
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no i mean
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:03 AM
the ground isn't solid, is the assumption
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:03 AM
Right?
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you have a vision system on the bottom of the mech, and the legs are individually controlled and the algorithm in charge tries to always place them between individual stalks, even in the middle of a bunch of plants
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:04 AM
except you're doing this in a rice paddy so you sink 30cm deep in slurry
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:04 AM
As long as you have the surface area to distribute the weight evenly enough that it’s not just gonna sink and push the plants away anyway
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true, and if that's a problem i think you could still try and do the expanding-spike feet
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:04 AM
you'd basically have to displace enough slurry to float unless you can find bedrock
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i mean it's not like modern agricultural machinery is simple
10:06
surely putting something vaguely reminiscent of a medieval torture device on 6-10 individual feet isn't going to push up initial or maintenance costs that much (edited)
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:06 AM
Simplicity is relative to the situation, the tractors are the industry standard for where they are in real life. And I dunno, it depends on the mechanical complexity of the feet and the drive to operate those feet and how advanced the society is that makes it.
10:07
If they can pump out the drive train for those feet like it’s nothing then yeah it probably won’t matter much
10:07
But if it’s done within the constraints of, say, modern society, then wheels will always be cheaper and more effective pound for pound, in most situations (edited)
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it depends a lot on the specifics, which are hard to find out without more data on things like root robustness and soil consistency and such
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:07 AM
I still think it'd be less traumatic to the crop to drive (semi?)permanent fenceposts and crawl around on top of those.
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really its something you'd want to test experimentally after making a few candidate designs
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 10:08 AM
It depends on the crop. We’re talking rice right? I don’t know enough about that t I say.
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fenceposts would definitely be less traumatic, but that brings other issues; the posts have to be maintained, the mecha has to be able to reliably and consistently step on them, etc
10:09
and you can't easily, for instance, organize them into neat and consistent rows - the point of the spider mecha is to allow the use of more efficient, non-flat, non-neat fields in the first place
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:10 AM
fenceposts seem to last just fine on their own, and these would be particuarly sturdy ones
10:10
and you can just put a beacon on top or use optical tracking
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a beacon adds complexity that can break down and initial cost, optical tracking would work and is probably the better solution. But fenceposts don't really last fine on their own, i'd say
10:11
wood ones rot all the time, and in a water heavy enviroment i bet you'd need to replace them at least once a decade
10:11
metal ones cost more, and can still corrode
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:11 AM
galvanized steel
10:12
or stainless? but that's pretty expensive V:
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also, they need to be really close to the ground
10:12
because otherwise the machinery that chops up the plants will hit them
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:13 AM
If your spidermech can move around them, then so too can its attachments.
10:13
(though with a beacon and a step plate you could submerge them)
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submersion is probably better - a spider mecha would necessarily need a more dexterous tool arm, but it's still going to look like a smaller version of this
10:14
and that isn't very dexterous
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:14 AM
I mean, our entire use-case is "irregularly-shaped planting area"
10:15
It's only not very dextrous because it doesn't need to be.
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definitely, but there are limits - getting a bit of dirt in it due to terrain unevenness, or following a moderately curvey wall is one thing. Harveting around dozens of poles that will immediately bring in a maintenance toll in the thousands if it ever touches them is another.
10:16
you can't leave a big berth, because you need lots of these poles by definition and every bit of berth is a area of crops you can't harvest
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2020 10:17 AM
also you're all assuming terraced rice paddies, which is a strange assumption; most terraced farming does NOT use submerged beds, for all the many reasons listed. That stuff is, these days, the fancy premium rice, not the low cost staple crop rice
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i'm not really assuming that, but it's a good worst-case as far as corrosion and soil properties goes
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2020 10:18 AM
the way it usually goes with modern machinery and weird shaped paddocks - which is normal, at least here, because they have trees in the middle - is you use a drone or satellite to get good overhead imagery, use that to plot a path for the tractor, then put the autopilot on
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that works to a degree, but with terraces you might not even have room for a single normal-width combine
10:21
and even if you did, sharp turns will play hell with it
10:21
(not big sharp turns, but the tractor can only turn so quickly so espeically wavy borders will not be practical)
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2020 10:22 AM
yeah, that's when you put a harvest attachment on the tractor instead
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now granted this is all predicated on this type of farming being more desirable
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:22 AM
10:22
this works for logging but why would you want one for farming
10:23
i mean, just looking at the walls, they're pretty uneven
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2020 10:23 AM
the rice grows tall enough that you can skim over the wall
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:23 AM
also kicking up the water is begging for problems
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ah, i did not know that
10:24
that makes tractors much more practical
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:24 AM
I question how the harvester attachment is going to work with a walking vehicle
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of course that won't work for all crops, but different crops need a bit of a individual approach anyway
10:24
i mean, hell, for apples you have to do something completely different
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:25 AM
if we're just harvesting—just drive on the lower terrace and rip up the terrace one above
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:25 AM
the header is going to throw off the walker's balance
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:25 AM
balance? counterweights are easy enough
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2020 10:26 AM
also I vaguely recall that you unflood the paddy for harvest.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:27 AM
this isnt such a problem if its a hex/octa walker
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2020 10:27 AM
which is going to help with the logistics issues
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:27 AM
@0111narwhalz if you drive on the lower terrace and rip up the one above you're kind of sidling awkwardly, which won't help the balance
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:27 AM
use a counterweight if balance is the problem
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:27 AM
keeping com from going over your base is the biggest issue with any kind of legged vehicle
10:28
its not that simple I'm afraid
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:28 AM
…why?
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:29 AM
the center of gravity shifts continuously in bipedal locomotion
10:29
not sure about quadri/hexa+
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:29 AM
1. when did we ever say bipedal 2. so shift the counterweight
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:29 AM
shifting the counterweight will add even more mass and cost
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:29 AM
so? it's just a duplicate tool attachment
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:29 AM
I don't think it's a workable idea at all because legs are just such a terrible mechanism for vehicle locomotion
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:31 AM
alternatively, you have a couple of tanks with pumps V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:31 AM
more to the point I don't remember what advantage a bug/spidermech was supposed to bring
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:31 AM
weight shifting on the cheap
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:32 AM
imho the best route is probably software that manages the cog continuously like actual animals/humans do
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:32 AM
"not having tracks" I seem to remember
10:32
I assumed software was a solved problem and we were just discussing hardware
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:32 AM
well we don't really need extra hardware in this case
10:35
get the boston dynamics guys to code the drive by wire system and done
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:36 AM
not seeing how Boston Dynamics can make wheels not crush stuff but okay
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2020 10:37 AM
wheels not crushing stuff isnt a problem with regular harvesters
10:37
just make the header bigger than the vehicle
10:37
:y
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:37 AM
regular harvesters get away with their harvesters being much wider than they are
10:37
that is not an option on terraces
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You know, the solution to this already exists in the form of 3D printers and bridge cranes.
10:55
You put elevated rails at the sides of the field; you put a moving rail across them, and you hang the working head off that. Then it can travel anywhere in the field without touching the ground at all.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 10:58 AM
spacing though
10:58
the terraces are not uniform in width
10:59
I guess you could make the crane's legs expand and contract?
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Just let the cross-rail overhang the edge at one end.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 11:03 AM
And that doesn't cause problems for the terrace below?
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It's lower, so no.
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 11:06 AM
The rails can probably be adjusted, or the machine can as it goes along the tracks
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But these are just implementation details. If the terraces are relatively narrow, you could do it with a monorail and a telescoping arm. Hell, if all else fails, dangle it from a skycrane quadcopter. The main thing is that the easiest way to solve your ground-pressure-and-crop-damage-in-close-quarters problems is don't be on the ground.
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Though then you have to worry about downforce damaging the the crops in turn. Of course this isn't a concern with all crops, but it's a potentiality.
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Yeah, it's not the optimal solution.
11:15
Unless you're more than usually literal about trying to grow food on the sides of cliffs.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 11:15 AM
the optimum is clearly aerostatic harvesters
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...there really should be more airship drones.
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0111narwhalz 11/30/2020 11:16 AM
no engineer knows the true implications of their creations https://xkcd.com/2128/
pd_laugh 1
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 11:32 AM
As a helicopter pilot this physically hurts me 🙂
11:33
But I’m a commercially-rated drone pilot too hahahahah you can automatocizatize my aviation job when you pry it from my cold dead hands And good luck because I will have welded it to my cold dead hands
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Buggy
now granted this is all predicated on this type of farming being more desirable
You seen how bad topsoil erosion has gotten in some states?
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 11:53 AM
In fairness, while not being maintained
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Wouldn't you grow all your plants in hydroponics trays anyway at the point where you have the tech for mechs to become commercially viable for harvesting? (edited)
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 11/30/2020 12:48 PM
It all depends on the economic, cultural, and technological trend at the time. They may be able to but they may not have to and so they may not.
12:49
Cultural most important arguably
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Also obvious commercial considerations: You can grow coffee hydroponically. You can't grow Jamaica Blue Mountain hydroponically.
12:51
And, y'know, generic products are for things you don't really give a crap about. Unlike coffee. Which is srs bzns.
12:54
(Also, gods help the man who has to tell the Scots they've got to make the uisge beatha out of hydroponic barley.)
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Also suspending roots in a bag of water isn't exactly conducive to mycorhizzal network formation.
11:08
my first initial centaur ramblings, revolving a little around where to put some internal organs
11:09
since my graphics tablet has died, it's all ugly pencil sketches I couldn't clean up. Oh well.
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Shiny!
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 11:10 AM
and relevant to the conversation in #dank , I should point out these aren't evolved critters, they're initially-engineered critters (evolution having some influence after)
11:10
meaning I can shove weird things like lung-spiracles and extra bones in wherever fits XD
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(On a related note, I should once again plug Tiny Sapient Ungulates: https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/tagged/tiny-sapient-ungulates/chrono )
The blog of a digital artist and biology enthusiast. ☘️ ART TAG PATREON Twitter Gumroad Store
11:13
The blog of a digital artist and biology enthusiast. ☘️ ART TAG PATREON Twitter Gumroad Store
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Yeah I was about to mention Jay.
11:15
One of my partners is really into specbio stuff and I think is on his discord guild.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 11:15 AM
okay so I'm not usually into specbio but designing a "realistic" furry anatomy is very appealing
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 11:16 AM
do eet
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:25 PM
highlights: thicker neck (marginally)
12:26
weird-looking spine branching at the lowest lumbar vertebra
12:26
I have no idea how I'll do heat rejection
12:27
probably lose heat through a combination of larger physical size and ear radiators
12:28
the head should be almost identical to the source animal's except at the point where the back of the skull attaches to the spine
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:28 PM
broad thermal dump frills on the tail, perhaps? :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:28 PM
how much does a mammal's tail weigh, incidentally
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:29 PM
anywhere from a lot to zero
12:29
what mammal
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:29 PM
tiger specifically
12:29
lookup suggests tail is almost 50% as long as the rest of the body
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:29 PM
not much because it's pretty thin AFAIK
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:29 PM
surface area is more important than mass
12:29
I guess this is why the kzinti had naked tails
12:30
hmm
12:30
could i redesign some hairs to act as radiators? probably not without running fluid through them
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:30 PM
You can design hairs to wick sweat, perhaps.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:31 PM
a tail kind of suggests a tripod balance vs the bipod of baseline humans
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:31 PM
Or you could make the fur substantially thinner, especially around the core.
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Or just make them out of an appropriately conductive material.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:31 PM
okay so what exactly do you mean by "tripod"
12:32
because uštžen are tripods but I don't think tigers usually are
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:32 PM
the tail might need to be counterbalanced by the front two legs
12:32
@Overmind point taken, but how many thermally-conductive materials exist that an organism can grow naturally? (Or pseudo-naturally)
12:33
I'm willing to settle for a lesser degree of heat rejection than humans and a consequently reduced capacity to survive in very hot+dry environments, without technology
12:33
It's not as though anyone is going to build cities in the Sahara with no AC
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diamond filament. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:35 PM
so hair that's not made of collagen, but diamondoid... uh...
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Or graphite, but hell, it's all carbon.
12:36
or, if there's enough metal in the local environment...
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:36 PM
ah yes, the old "transhuman basic nutrition would kill a baseline"
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:40 PM
At the point you're eating metal and your hair/connective tissue is made of allotropes of carbon you've kind of departed radically from the human form
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:40 PM
meh
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:41 PM
what about milder, horse-like sweating?
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:42 PM
see above RE: wicking
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:43 PM
apparently it doesn't work well in high-humidity environments but it works with a coat of fur covering almost the whole body
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:43 PM
sweating doesn't work in high humidity period
12:43
so that's no different
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:43 PM
yeah, I'm thinking a hybrid sweating+panting system
12:44
originally I was going for plantigrade, because digitigrade seems to weaken a creature's ability to lift things
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:44 PM
can probably fall back to the heels if need be? I dunno
12:44
consider your geometry carefully though
12:45
dog hindlegs are not load-bearing, but their front legs are.
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sdschildberg 12/04/2020 12:45 PM
Big brain solution to the heat problem: Radiator wings. At least when out in space
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:45 PM
sounds blursed
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:46 PM
giant dorsal frill
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:47 PM
the human foot is trash
12:47
almost as badly designed as the spine (because it wasn't designed)
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Also, consider going places that conventional biology doesn't. Instead of exhaling through your inhaler, run that air through a series of internal heat-exchangers and shove it back out there at higher than body temperature. (The kaeth use a variant on this mechanism with multiple vents, because being able to limit and blur your body temperature is very useful when everything wants to eat you.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:50 PM
basically have heatsinks that vent to exhalation?
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Who needs sweat when you have urine, and you can piss that heat away. Or, hell, in emergencies - bleed.
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 12:50 PM
do the bird trick at least and have monodirectional lungs
👆 1
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It works better with a continuous-flow system, since that way your exhalations don't preheat your inhalations.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:52 PM
Not sure I'll use this redesign as IAC-canon, but it's pretty interesting so far. Urine-as-coolant is hilarious but I'm not sure it works
12:52
Most people don't urinate more than once or twice a day, not to be disgusting about it
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:54 PM
It definitely does work.
12:54
Ref: vultures
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Some rodents urinate basically all the time in the small quantities. They're using it for territory and trail marking, but that's not the only thing they could use it for.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:54 PM
urinate basically all the time
🤢
12:55
Point taken though
12:55
A lot of human thermoregulation is technologically mediated, out there in "the real world".
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Or, y'know, just crank up the body temperature. Hummingbirds have recorded body temperatures around 45°, and some desert ants can hit 55°.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:56 PM
like little furnaces
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:56 PM
gonna have to switch around some enzymes, perhaps, to accept 100+ (F) body temps
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And none of them have stolen mechanisms from extremophile bacteria, due to a tragic lack of mad geneticists among the non-Homo genuses.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:56 PM
…wait, I thought insects were almost all ectothermic
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:57 PM
still, it sounds easier and less intrusive than having diamondoid tubules for hair or having a Permian-style frill
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:57 PM
diamondoid is only one carbon allotrope and probably the least useful in this case :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:57 PM
hotter exhalation than inhalation seems like it would least affect the visual appearance
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:58 PM
exhalation is basically always hotter than inhalation though
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 12:58 PM
I'm willing to accept some compromises on "look like furries from drawings" as long as the end result isn't wildly outlandish
12:59
The skull is going to be... weird, as is its attachment to the spine
12:59
probably ligamented tightly, a little past the back-center so the enlarged braincase doesn't stick out so much
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 12:59 PM
horse neck spines are buried beneath like 30cm of muscle
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:00 PM
It might look weird to a baseline human anatomist but I'm willing to do stuff like that, yes
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:00 PM
you'd think that ridge along the top, under the mane, is the spine but no not even close
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:01 PM
wow
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:01 PM
the shoulders are muscle and scapula
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:01 PM
Yeah, that's the kind of internal oddness I can get behind
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:01 PM
(actually no there are uh spines? that come up from the dorsal part of the vertebrae at the shoulder but the actual spinal column is buried)
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 1:02 PM
yeah but only to the shoulder, they're anchoring the neck muscles
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:02 PM
The head just has to look cat-like (or canine-like) with a ... close to human rest of the body
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 1:02 PM
which, funnily, help with breathing! The neck going down on the forelimb extension helps move the rib cage
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:02 PM
weirdness is more acceptable the further from the head/face it is
13:06
wow
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:07 PM
Furries in a 'real life' art style hey?
13:07
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:07 PM
I think "that thing from Cats" was explicitly forbidden
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:07 PM
yeah :Y
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:08 PM
Yes, please kill it with fire
13:08
a marginally more tolerable makeup do
13:09
but yeah, a "realistic" furry anatomy isn't just going to be attaching a panther/wolf head on top of a human body then grafting a tail
13:09
optimization is probably going to affect the whole system
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:10 PM
Oh that one's not bad! But would one based on modifying the body be so aesthetically pleasing?
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:12 PM
depends on whose aesthetics you're invoking
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:13 PM
Well did we have one in mind 😮 ?
13:13
...nevermind, that one.
13:14
But surely there's a way to generally say "pleasing", like how generally everybody hates Cats's portrayal
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:14 PM
there's a way to generally say "displeasing in the way Cats is displeasing," and that's "uncanny valley"
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:15 PM
So then it'd be "not uncanny valley"
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sdschildberg 12/04/2020 1:16 PM
The issue with the Cats entities is that they fall in the gap between “human w cat ears and a tail” and “classic furry”.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:17 PM
You have to get either "literally exactly a human" (which is unsatisfying for the purpose of the exercise) or "different enough from a human to not trip the 'weirdo' alarm"
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:19 PM
So the video's example is an acceptable target to aim for? (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:20 PM
I'd provide you some examples but I need a few minutes
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sdschildberg 12/04/2020 1:20 PM
Here’s the billion <local currency> question: Were the Warrior Cats books furry or not?
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Weren't they Watership Down with cats?
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:21 PM
No, they were not
13:21
But they're probably a gateway for some kids, if indirectly.
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0111narwhalz 12/04/2020 1:21 PM
xenofiction
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:21 PM
I grew up on those books and Watership Down
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:22 PM
the warrior cats books were a trip
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:23 PM
Were? They're still going.
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 1:23 PM
they weren't furry, because they're not anthropomorphic. But they're still popular amongst the furry community, in the same way The Lion King is
13:23
huh, I thought the author died
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:24 PM
Oh yeah, they've got this creepy possession plot going on
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:24 PM
this do it? This character is a decent example but it's hard to find art of them that can't be interpreted in... unintended ways
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:24 PM
Oh they were definitely anthropomorphicized, just not to the level of them being furries. Also no, Erin Hunter is alive and they're two different people.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:24 PM
the cats literally had communal shelters and a functioning society, makes 'em unrealistic aliens imho
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:24 PM
And well, I mean that works, but that's just general furry stuff. I meant in a 'real life' aesthetic.
13:25
Drawings don't always transfer well to real life
13:25
Take: The Live action Dr Seuss movies
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:25 PM
I just saw them as heavily anthropomorphized cats. No different than The Lion King
13:25
.... basically people except they were cats
13:26
Reading it now I kinda wish they acted a little more cat-like psychologically I guess
13:26
Idk it's been a while since I read it. Last time I read them was about a year ago
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:26 PM
There's a few artists (like teiirka) that do drawings with an eye toward realistic heads
13:26
but I have a surprisingly hard time finding SFW + heads that aren't 200% anime stylization
13:27
same artist has a drawing with details on the skull and hand/foot shape
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at that point just become a synthfurry
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:27 PM
b-but the ship of theseus
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:27 PM
What about it?
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 1:28 PM
yeah, realism style isn't terribly popular in the furry community. It's hard to avoid uncanny valley and it costs so much more (edited)
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:28 PM
Realism style within the furry community though also tends to be more animals on two legs than humans with animal features, that would require a lot more work
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:29 PM
there's a few but they're far between
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:30 PM
Isn't that just regular anthropomorphism tho? I always associated the um...characteristics with furries
13:30
Like furries have human body shapes
13:30
If you just draw a dog standing on their hind legs in a suit that's not necessarily a furry afaik
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:31 PM
zootopia kind of did that
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:31 PM
Yes, but in realism style they often have different internal bone structure. So it adds the issue of changing the human bone structure and rebalancing their body to work that way, is what I mean. Although no, furries can include characters that just stand on two legs too, like Zootopia.
13:31
Or uh... WInd in the Willows
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:32 PM
but then a lot of pieces of the art style there were really stylized
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:32 PM
It's a wide net
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:32 PM
Uhhh...so Zootopia was a furry film?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:32 PM
kinda
13:32
yesn't
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:32 PM
PMDGtI_EspeonUnsure
13:32
Wow this is complicated
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Furries slipped a film idea past Disney...?
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:33 PM
Yeah, Zootopia was furries.
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:33 PM
Anthro at its widest definition can encompass anything where there's animals that are anthropomorphized to some extent, like anywhere on that 'furry scale' meme that goes around.
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:34 PM
So furries aren't always sexualized then
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:34 PM
No, of course not
13:34
It's just very common in the community but it doesn't always have to be (edited)
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:35 PM
So that means Mickey Mouse is a furry (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 1:35 PM
I mean... Robin Hood. Disney does have a habit here
13:36
Jungle Book strays into that territory. So does Brother Bear.
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:37 PM
Honestly, yeah.
13:38
And Mickey does count you just won't generally see him in art typically associated with furries much
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:38 PM
mickey has two ears that always face the viewer
13:38
that is not a mouse-like quality
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 1:39 PM
Well he's stylized
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:39 PM
and more human than mouse
13:39
supposedly
13:39
he's so ridiculously stylized as to fall into a category of his own along with the rest of the disney stable
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Morgrim Moon 12/04/2020 1:39 PM
Mickey Mouse gets your art subjected to takedown requests like nothing else
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:40 PM
THE MOUSE doesn't like infringements
13:40
And is even more vigorous at persecuting them than almost anyone else except Japanese record companies
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:40 PM
In the end he's an anthro mouse, that can't be ignored.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:40 PM
supposed to be one, yes
13:43
but i n f i n i t e t w i s t i n g
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a bit late to the comment, but let's be honest: Disney's done a LOT of stuff over the years that would either be considered furry or furry-analouge
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:52 PM
robin hood and judy are the biggest offenders
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:56 PM
There's tons of stuff. Anthro animals are easy to animate and draw, and they're naturally cute.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:57 PM
They're 'easier' to draw because our brains are optimized to distinguish human faces.
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well, looking at the list of stuff they've done, movies I would argue contributed to it starting include: Lady and the Tramp (possibly an ur-example. it is from '55) The Sword in the Stone Jungle Book Robin Hood The Rescuers The Fox and the Hound The Great Mouse Detective Once you get into the 90's the list of movies starts growing exponentially.
13:57
now, TV-series on the other hand...
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 1:58 PM
Easier to draw an "anthro" animal with certain key characteristics a person needs to relate to it than to draw a human and risk falling into the uncanny valley/not working
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 1:58 PM
Regardless of why, the point is they are
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can confirm.
13:59
the other thing as well that lends anthros as a story device is the character subtext. You have someone as a lion, and certain personality types and behaviors get imprinted thanks to what "everyone" knows a lion stands for
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:01 PM
Oh, and that.
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Zootopia is both a really good example of working with it and subverting it at the same time
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:04 PM
I've always felt my obsession was kind of childish because of that :h
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To quote C.S. Lewis, “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
👍 4
14:07
The nice thing about being an adult is you get to decide what is childish 😄
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:09 PM
It's so nice to be able to enjoy Pokemon again without being judged like in high school
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:09 PM
literally everyone likes pokemon now
14:09
well, except the newest games for some reason
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:10 PM
Let's not open that can of worms
14:10
But I will say
14:10
I do want my partners back
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:10 PM
I will never forget how Pokemon Go gave us literal hordes of people stampeding
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 2:11 PM
Seeing everyone freak out over PoGo was so validating
14:11
At the time I was terrified that still liking pokemon was childish
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:11 PM
It was an awesome thing when it first came out. It introduced me to so many parts of my little town that I would have never gone to if not for the app!
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 2:11 PM
It was such a relief to see college-age kids play it
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:11 PM
Sheesh, seriously.
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VulpixFangirl 12/04/2020 2:11 PM
PSMD_FennekinWow
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:12 PM
Okay, no one really got trampled to death
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Among the most important lessons in life, I think, is that the Childishness Police are, by and large, assholes.
👍 3
🇹 3
🇷 3
🇺 3
🇪 4
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:13 PM
But that game gave us dozens of people swarming places at all once for snorlax, and the team memes
14:13
Arguably the Instinct jokes were worth all of it
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:15 PM
It was a pretty good net gain, I think. People went out and got exercise.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:15 PM
I hope so
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:15 PM
And it connected people!
14:15
Hope so? They did.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:15 PM
mostly through valor memes
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:15 PM
I still see people walking everywhere for it, and personally I bike for it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:15 PM
biking? damn
14:16
I haven't biked in over a year because of this accursed plague
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:16 PM
I live on the outskirts of town, so my stops are a little distant from each other And hey it's a great time to bike if you can get away from people!
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:17 PM
I can't.
14:17
Drawbacks of living in a sprawlburb
14:18
There's a really long biking path I was using for cycling exercise a year ago but it's basically closed due to thevarus
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:19 PM
Internet Historian watcher spotted 👀 (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:20 PM
ADD
14:20
THYME
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 2:21 PM
Hahaha yeeess
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 2:23 PM
RAYCON GOOD
14:23
WIRES BAAD
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/04/2020 6:44 PM
so
18:45
plantigrade vs. digitigrade seems decidedly in favor of plantigrade
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/04/2020 6:50 PM
If we're talking realism, yeah. It'd be a lot easier. Digitigrade isn't impossible but if we're talking modding humans it will add a lot of extra work to the equation. If we ever did though, it's inherently less stable than plantigrade but it can possibly lend to making whatever creature has it faster
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@Zarpaulek watched the netflix documentary in #recommendations
17:27
Was pretty good and reasonably accurate, which was surprising
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:36 PM
do subways usually have big junction depots
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it depends on how the lines get laid out, but they can
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:42 PM
nice
19:42
I was hoping to avoid too many Metro vibes with this work, but I guess it's unavoidable for an underground city to rely on subways
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:43 PM
you can probably avoid Metro vibes by having things mostly well-taken-care-of
👍 1
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:43 PM
well, yeah
19:43
for one the underground civilization in this one is a functioning, if post-apocalyptic society
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:44 PM
and also less mutants
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if it's post apocalyptic but able to work and maintain its core needs and actually expand, it's not going to be anywhere near as bad
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:46 PM
yeah
19:46
the disaster this time wasn't a nuclear war
19:46
actually far worse
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Metro is in a lot of ways a scrapper society. They make do with the junk from before the bombs fell. If your civ is able to do its own manufacturing, even if it's reprocessing and melting scrap, it'll look and feel a lot better and different
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@BizarroLand ♀ roid impact?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:46 PM
@KAL_9000 Worse
19:46
You've actually touched upon it
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local nova?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:47 PM
Actually not as bad but almost?
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:47 PM
GRB?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:47 PM
let's just say the surface is buried under ice that isn't ice
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what
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but as far as large stations go, I can comment on that some stations in the London Tube network are actually pretty massive. the newer stuff actually has some pretty damn big open spaces
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:47 PM
oh yeah this is the ejection isn't it
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:47 PM
yeah
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reject star
19:48
become rogue planet?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:48 PM
@KAL_9000 it was a magitek world which had a really unfortunate encounter with a passing red dwarf (edited)
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to give you an idea
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:49 PM
funky
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That's Westminster station.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:49 PM
and yeah, they were stuck with temperatures that kept dropping... and dropping... and dropping...
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the masses of structural support is as a result of having parliament above.
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:49 PM
what's the deal with the tubes? I'm pretty sure those aren't the trains :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:50 PM
by the time the main story begins the surface of the world makes Pluto look like a relaxing stroll down daytona beach
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@0111narwhalz they're structural. Some of them provide support for structures inside the main chamber against lateral stress, some are supports for other things (like the grey tube thing on the left; that's another escalator structure), and some are to support the outer walls
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:51 PM
the surface is barely 33K, the tiny wisps left of the atmosphere... are barely worth mentioning
19:51
I think the big airbridge looking things are pedestrian paths
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:51 PM
oh no I knew the beams were beams, I was asking about the "gray tube thing on the left" :V
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@BizarroLand ♀ Is it powered by nuclear or geothermal?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:52 PM
geothermal, mostly
19:52
the few "cities" left exist in deep, probably unrealistically-expansive cave networks
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but yeah, @BizarroLand ♀ if you're looking at if they can do large underground spaces for subway systems, the answer is yes.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:53 PM
think Veryovkina depth and Mammoth length
19:53
@Xveers gotcha
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the only thing to consider is what the do with any spoil as they expand.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:53 PM
probably dump it on the surface, actually
19:53
big airlock, throw the spoil outside, scrape frozen air mix to bring back inside
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probably over a place they're not ever planning on building
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:54 PM
one point that was raised is that natural cave systems like that really aren't big enough for proper cities
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 7:54 PM
fuse it into glass and use it as structure
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:54 PM
so a lot of the tunnels would be artificial
19:55
maintaining the tunnel boring machines would be society's greatest imperative after air and food
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@BizarroLand ♀ How do they get air?
19:55
Mine oxygen ice from the surface and melt it?
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TfL has released another batch of documents which show every underground station in glorious 3D format.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:56 PM
@KAL_9000 yep
19:56
this kind of detracts from the claustrophobic caving feel I was going for at first but it's a good start
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Do they have regenerative life support or do they just dump the CO2 back outside and let it freeze
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:56 PM
partially regenerative
19:56
but what little stuff you can farm has to fit inside cracks in rocks
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or just p l a n t powered by sun lamps in hydroponics?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:57 PM
watch any good caving video to see how this shakes out
19:57
otherwise I'm pretty sure they'll be building tunnels rather than using the natural cave galleries/meanders
19:58
Which is disappointing but probably far more reasonable than trying to build a town square in... this
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@BizarroLand ♀ just detonate a nuke inside the cave and it'll get like 100 times as big (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 7:59 PM
and
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It'll also stop being a cave.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 8:00 PM
@KAL_9000 yeah but keep in mind at most 30 million people survived the Ejection/Armageddon
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surely they would have seen the red dwarf coming years in advance and had time to prepare
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 8:01 PM
this society is in a position to sustain what it has, but not really to reinvent nukes (which are really complicated)
20:01
@KAL_9000 ... actually, they didn't
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h o w
20:01
it a star (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 8:01 PM
this society had forsaken all astronomy and science millenia before
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WHY
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 8:01 PM
because it's me ripping on 17776
20:01
that's what the whole prologue is
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 8:02 PM
again: 17776 is death
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 8:02 PM
they were immortal, childless, and utterly complacent
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 8:02 PM
they did see it coming EVENTUALLY but only like 10 years before the end
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:23 PM
I suppose the subway being society's only lifeline does mean there will be a LOT of tunnels
21:27
@Xveers how plausible is it to make enormous tunnels to fit in eight tracks abreast
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a single tunnel?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:28 PM
yeah
21:28
or, failing that, many closely parallel tunnels
21:29
most importantly, cities will be far apart
21:29
a good amount of straightaways and high-speed infrastructure would be critical
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sdschildberg 12/05/2020 9:29 PM
Tf sorta railways did they need before their planet got yote?
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ONE tunnel is unlikely unless you've got a switching nexus
21:29
I'd expect at most multiple dual-tracked tunnels.
21:30
you want your tunnel to be circular to keep structural stresses down
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:30 PM
@Unknown the same ones anyone does
21:30
the megarails will be a post-yeeting project
21:31
in case it's important I'll clarify that nearly all of these tunnels are being dug at 1500-2000m depths
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a big enough tunnel for 8 tracks is gonna have a massive cross-section as a result
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:31 PM
ah
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because that means eight tracks abreast is a pretty big diameter. It'll have to be larger because you'll want to fit in your train's cross section on the outside tracks.
21:32
and trains are somewhat boxy and rectangular.
21:33
I can see them existing between some nearby cities that have an industrial need, cause some things ARE just that big, but 4 track wide trains is probably as big as you can expect
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:35 PM
Yeah, I might have overemphasized the bigness, but this is society's only real option for long-distance transportation since... everything else is off the table (because the surface is too frozen) (edited)
21:37
So subways would be used for absolutely everything beyond walking/golf cart distance (edited)
21:38
I brought up the idea of underground highways but I was advised against cars
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You know, lava tubes can make pretty spacious natural tunnels in volcanic, or formerly volcanic, places.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:39 PM
so yeah, trains are the only meaningful intercity transport
21:40
walking/caving your way across a network is risky and tiresome and doesn't let you carry cargo
21:41
the only cars are glorified golf/airport carts that can't leave the roads
21:42
whatever it is, if it needs to go between the last cities on the planet it's taking a tram
21:42
heaven for railfans, if that's any comfort
21:42
@Zarpaulek lava tubes are usually far too shallow
21:43
remember the cities are more than 1000m under the surface in all cases
21:43
most caves don't go nearly that deep, at least in real life
21:43
especially lava tubes, I think are particularly surface hugging
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0111narwhalz 12/05/2020 9:46 PM
a circular tunnel can more easily pass eight trains if they're stacked :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:46 PM
point taken
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true!
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/05/2020 9:51 PM
I think the trains would look more like our TGV/electric than subways, obviously
21:52
Optimizing ruthlessly for efficiency+speed gets you that (edited)
21:54
There's a non-zero risk of ... underground wildlife getting angry at an unbelievably noisy tube being stuck through its home, so probably armed guards
21:55
The challenge of designing the depots would either send our rail architects into conniptions, or to Heaven, I bet
21:57
figuring out how to fit dozens or hundreds of cars into a given tight space is practically what they do every day, correct?
22:00
although all of this is really bringing into light that my initial feel for this story was probably off
22:01
I was envisioning impoverished peasants, living in dim dwellings carved into cave galleries, having to get on their hands and knees in dark crevices of the earth to provide for themselves (edited)
22:03
I think I can still have some of that, but to survive people would need a functioning society
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/08/2020 11:37 AM
25 exawatts
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0111narwhalz 12/08/2020 11:39 AM
94 teracuries
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/08/2020 11:42 AM
no, 50
11:42
this feels closer to being right given the Tiffians' energy generation capacity
11:43
does anyone have the kardashev calculator
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0111narwhalz 12/08/2020 11:43 AM
only 50 teracuries? rookie numbers
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/08/2020 11:44 AM
50 exawatts
11:44
this formula says about 1.3 on the scale
11:45
which seems like it should be wrong for a 40-system interstellar civilization but actually, it feels about right
11:49
1.37
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Where does the generation/usage mostly take place?
11:53
i haven't checked figures to ballpark it yet, but i thought the Tiffians were mostly planetbound and you can't use too much energy on a planet; you will get literal global warming when energy generation becomes comparable to that radiated from the surface normally.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/08/2020 11:54 AM
80% of their 320 billion pop is planetbound yes
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alright lemme math, i just realized you can get a easier estimate by comparing it to the solar irradiance
11:57
total energy recieved by the earth from the sun - about 2 x 10^17 watts. The vast, vast majority of this goes straight to waste heat; plants are not particularly efficient and don't cover most of the surface.
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assuming the earth is a black body (ehhh), with a emissivity of 1 (close enough, depends on the wavelength), and that all energy from the sun is converted into heat which is then re-radiated (it'll work for a fermi estimate)
12:07
it has a temperature of about 15 c
12:07
at 2 x 10 ^ 17 watts, the actual number is something like 1.7 but ballpark
12:08
at 2.1 x 10 ^ 17 watts, this number is 18 c.
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0111narwhalz 12/08/2020 12:08 PM
I take more issue with the emissivity of 1 than the characterization as a blackbody
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.gov is usually pretty reliable as far as sources go
12:09
Our planet emits energy as thermal infrared radiation at wavelengths we cannot normally see but can feel -- for example, if we stand close to a hot surface. This map is from NASA's ASTER GED.
12:09
but at a emissivity of .85, it's 27 c at 2 x and 31 at 2.1 x
12:11
so an exawatt is 10^18, and its 50 exawatts and 40 ish planets so lets just say 1 exawatt per
12:12
and lets also say, generously, that 50% of that is offplanet or otherwise not turned into planetary waste heat, so we're left with a total planetary heat input of 7 x 10^17, which puts us above the boiling point for water under these assumptions.
12:13
those are some tasty broiled ecologies right there. Especially considering that the actual effect should be more than this, because the greenhouse effect serves to trap blackbody radiation and a large portion of solar irradiance does not reach the ground as heat.
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groundbound pop doesnt imply groundbound power production/usage tho
12:23
people dont need that much power compared to factories, no?
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well, yes but no
12:47
factories use more, but groundbound pop implies groundbound factories - or else you have a very strange job market for a type 1+ civilization
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/08/2020 2:07 PM
@Buggy uy
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/08/2020 2:08 PM
I mean that K-I energy production seems pretty dangerous with that in mind
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i think there's a assumption there that you aren't also sticking to one planet, or if you are the energy is coming because you paved it in solar panels
14:09
even k-1 is pretty big, easily interplanetary
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It occurs to me that the dewclaw would make a decent starting point for a thumb during uplift
09:35
Though the rear paws would still have only four toes, is base 9 mathematically feasible?
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Morgrim Moon 12/09/2020 9:37 AM
why would it matter? You don't count on your toes, you count on your fingers
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VulpixFangirl 12/09/2020 10:05 AM
Oooooo never thought of that, but that's a good idea!
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 10:18 AM
you don't count on your toes
10:19
anyways the dewclaw is homologous to the thumb so this isn't unexpected
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0111narwhalz
you don't count on your toes
There are some cultures that use base 20 though. The Mayans for instance.
10:35
And it's kind of fashionable among "serious" furry writers to have base 8 even though many of the more popular species actually do have five digits on their forepaws.
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Morgrim Moon 12/09/2020 10:44 AM
do base 12. Easier system to work with, and given the species they're starting with "use one hand to tap the knuckles of the other" is much more sensible than the western "move each finger individually up or down", because carnivores cannot do that.
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 10:47 AM
use whatever base you want
10:47
base six :V
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Y'all basic. 😋 Anyway, pretty much any base is mathematically feasible, so pick anything suitably fun that you can hang a justification off of.
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 10:53 AM
base phi
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Feasible. A pain in the ass, but still feasible.
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base i 😛 (edited)
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 11:10 AM
that's just unary with extra steps
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/09/2020 11:12 AM
Base 3^^^3 (edited)
11:13
its not physically feasible
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one, two, many.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/09/2020 11:14 AM
because there's literally more single digits there than atoms in the universe
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 11:14 AM
Bizarro: that's just a unique numeral for every number
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base x: it has a base, but no one knows what it is
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 11:15 AM
base 10 it can be whatever base you want it to be
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Virgin Base 10 vs Based Base 60.
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base any: instead of a standardized base system, every person picks their own base and symbols
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sdschildberg 12/09/2020 11:16 AM
Two bases would be based Like one for counting and one for time. Sounds a bit too unrealistic and fantastical.
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 11:17 AM
subradices are good shit too
11:17
make those superior large bases actually workable
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i mean we basically use two bases
11:18
or, well
11:19
one base and some monstrosity
11:20
what with 60 seconds and minutes, 24 hours, 28-31 days and 12 months or 365.25 repeating days
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 11:20 AM
that's what happens when nice numerical systems collide with the (???) of the real world
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and it's not base 24 for hours, it's 12. And months are also base twelve but with words
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0111narwhalz 12/09/2020 11:25 AM
it's all just base 60 with different sub-bases
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fucking babylonians
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all your base are belong to us -babylonians
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Morgrim Moon 12/09/2020 5:05 PM
My friend has a conlang that is "pick your base" based a bit on expoenentials. The species that uses it are significantly dark matter and live around stars, so conveniently big numbers is important
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do they need to express large ranges of numbers on a day-to-day basis? from the implied size here, their equivalent of a kilogram could be a medium sized planetoid
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Morgrim Moon 12/10/2020 4:00 AM
I suspect it's more that they all really like maths
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fair 😄
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/10/2020 10:45 AM
Is it plausible to have an oxygen disaster (or parallel event) without multicellular life?
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Morgrim Moon 12/10/2020 10:50 AM
sure, you just need a geochemical source of the relevant toxic compound
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/10/2020 10:52 AM
har
10:52
with no multicellular life
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Since Earth did, I'm gonna say yes.
10:53
🙂
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about 50-75% (depends on who you ask) of earth's modern oxygen supply comes from the ocean
10:53
specifically algae
10:53
so yes
10:54
i have not checked but i'd also wager that the oxygen disaster happened before multicellular life emerged
10:54
or at least before any particularly sophisticated form of it
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/10/2020 10:57 AM
GOE started 2 billion years ago or thereabouts
10:58
I think it's plausible for a 1.5Gya old planet to have undergone something like that
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a quick skim suggests that GOE started after the very first (soft, poorly-preserved) multicellular organisms, but definitely before (and paved the way for) more complex ones (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/10/2020 11:01 AM
and yeah, this planet gets aggressively colonized by near-human colonists
11:01
it's free prime real estate because it has a habitable atmosphere but nasty xenobiological interactions are at a minimum
11:03
@Buggy I think 79/21 N2/O2 is breathable
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Morgrim Moon 12/10/2020 11:05 AM
definitely
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yes, that's perfectly breathable
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/10/2020 11:10 AM
I think it's plausible to have some xenomicrobiota in the ocean trenches, where they barely ever interact with humans and their introduced earth life
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0111narwhalz 12/10/2020 11:15 AM
79/21
depends on the totals V: 79 bars N2 and 21 bars O2 is definitely not breathable
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/10/2020 11:16 AM
har har har point taken
11:16
but I want to do a minimum of specbio in my own SF
11:16
so all the living planets are aggressively terraformed
11:17
that and I'm betting the main barrier to intelligence is the jump from uni to multicellular
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/11/2020 1:39 PM
Still sticking with the extreme life-rarity, or at least the complex life-rarity
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Simple life is extremely common i'd bet
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/12/2020 1:40 PM
hokay, so, the neck needs to be thicker and the spine needs a branching
13:40
plus, horse-like sweating will help
13:40
13:40
I'm assuming that the tail isn't a part of the spine, exactly, but it comes off just beyond the L4-L5 lumbar point (edited)
13:42
I don't think adding a tail to the human form throws off its CoG at all
13:42
My main concern is fitting the human brain into a feline-looking skull
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/12/2020 1:51 PM
13:51
this... doesn't seem like it has enough room for that
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Morgrim Moon 12/12/2020 1:56 PM
compare the head body ratios of an average human and an average furry; they're already scaled up heads
13:56
and you can get a lot just lengthening the skull
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/12/2020 1:58 PM
@Morgrim Moon that and it seems like only a little reshapening of the braincase is needed to fit a humanlike brain in there
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Morgrim Moon 12/12/2020 2:05 PM
honestly? The brain doesn't even have to be human-shaped. We have our brain shape in large part because of how our teeth evolved, not because it was the only option for intelligence
14:06
a furry isn't going to need the massive maxmillary muscles that a big cat has in order to kill its prey
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There's also a possibility of outsourcing functions to the rest of the CNS http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3500/fc03467.htm
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Morgrim Moon 12/12/2020 2:07 PM
so all that side flattening and deep arches around the jaw that you can see on that skull? Get rid of them. Bring the sides of the skull out to meet the jaw and you've drastically increased the brain case
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/12/2020 2:07 PM
I understand it doesn't have to be the same, but I'm afraid if I change the brain shape too much I'll end up with psychological weirdness
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This isn't a human, you should have "psychological weirdness"
👆 3
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/12/2020 2:09 PM
...yeah
14:09
tbh my protagonist is supposed to be scarily inhuman so I don't know why I got like that
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VulpixFangirl 12/12/2020 2:24 PM
Psychological weirdness is my favorite part of aliens!
14:24
churro
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lol yes
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2020 2:52 PM
if you want humans you should just use humans the point of xenos or transhumans is to not be baselines
👆 2
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2020 12:30 PM
Fun Fact Sunday You have probably heard of a celebrity who has a third or forth nipple, or maybe you know someone who has it, or you, yourself, has it. Have you ever wondered why it happens? Well, you...
12:30
useful reference for the people working on anything mammalian-derived: nipples, no matter how many, form along these two lines
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armpit nipples
12:42
cursed
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VulpixFangirl 12/13/2020 1:16 PM
Mega cursed
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/14/2020 12:11 PM
Are we * still* talking about irl furries
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VulpixFangirl 12/14/2020 12:13 PM
Yes, yes we are!
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/14/2020 12:15 PM
So I see ^ouo^. Where are we at then?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 12:18 PM
???
12:18
@Unknown uh
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 12/14/2020 12:18 PM
As in, where do we stand on it at this point in the conversation?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 12:25 PM
I was trying to get a brain volume similar to humans within a feline (-ish) skull
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Just lengthen/widen make the skull/braincase taller?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 12:28 PM
true, but too much of that and you end up not looking like the drawings
12:28
I've already accepted the brain won't be human-shaped
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How close are you to your goal at this point?
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 12:40 PM
honestly the Freefall way might work pretty well :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 12:43 PM
I'm still not good enough at drawing to faithfully render a skull
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 12:47 PM
let's see your best attempt
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 2:24 PM
@0111narwhalz don't tempt me :y
🐔 2
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 2:24 PM
I am not tempting you. I am daring you.
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makes chicken noises in the background
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 4:23 PM
@Cornflakes okay okay fine I'll draw a skull later this evening
16:23
let me finish my anime episode
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:24 PM
excellent
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also, you could simply make the brain more dense or efficient
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:39 PM
by bringing in some of those avian brain nodules, perhaps?
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might be difficult, but not compared to designing a new species
16:40
well maybe, but that wasn't what i'm thinking
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:40 PM
Greater density without improving myelination causes cross-chatter between axons.
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also not that - typing
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:41 PM
Birds have improved myelination (and a superficially different architecture to make use of it).
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it's not clear cut, but my understanding is that current medical knowledge, as well as our understanding of mathematical neural networks (which are heavily simplified in comparison, but many of their aspects still extend to actual neurons), indicate that you can literally just reduce the number of neurons but maintain effectively identical functionality in many circumstances
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:42 PM
ah yes, optimization of the actual computer
16:43
Well, sure, but that only goes so far before you lose… something? I mean all that matter is there for a reason, right?
16:43
Possibly error correction or plasticity or… I dunno. Bulk memory capacity?
16:43
There is a lot of redundancy, but that redundancy is there because it is advantageous.
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DSD [He/They] 12/14/2020 4:48 PM
Getting a concussion and not dying (immediately)?
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medical knowledge indicates such because there are medical conditions which force the brain to develop with less volume than normal (see: hydrocephalus), and these cases are a mixed bag that ranges from "mental deficiency" to "literally never noticed they're missing >50% brain volume until they got a MRI at age 50" There's even a apocryphal report of a notably intelligent patient whose skull was ~80% fluid by volume mathematical neural networks indicate such because downsizing is a actual strategy; it's easier to train big networks off raw data, but then you can trim a small network off of the big network and it functions identically as far as anyone's concerned. I'm not actually sure what the terminology is but as a example GPT-3 has done this to get something that can be practically run IIRC.
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:49 PM
okay no dropout is a specific technique during training
16:50
…dropout during inference is I guess also a thing? but I think they probably trained a smaller network to mimic the larger one
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not dropout, or trimming
16:51
those are taking the same network and cutting out (ideally, less important) bits
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:51 PM
Dropout during training is to prevent overfitting: you want a large network to learn the nuances, but you don't want it to learn by rote. So you take subsets and train them, and hope they'll pick up different, smaller parts of the pattern.
16:51
Put them together again and you get a more effective inference engine.
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oh, i wasn't immediately familiar with the term but a initial search suggested that dropout was essentially trimming during training as opposed to afterwards
16:53
but on further reading it seems to be related to a few things, like dilution as well
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 4:54 PM
(presumably some fine training without dropout is useful? not sure about the implementation details)
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So with respect to physical neurons: i suspect, keeping in mind i do not have a degree in evolutionary biology, that the extra neural mass in the human brain is there for the sake of reliability; not so much in the case of damage, but reliable development. If you get a mortality (due to mental deficiency or outright failure) rate of 50% in new individuals because of decreased brain size, but only decrease metabolism by, say, 10%, that's going to be selected against significantly. Humans are a high K species, after all. But since we're designing a species here, and on top of that said species is going to have access to modern medicine and living conditions, that will be less of a issue. A child that develops more slowly would be a death sentence for a hunter gatherer, but a inconvenience in modern society.
17:05
reduced redundancy might be a issue, but it's also circumstantial - the brain is not redundant on the macro scale, and that's exactly where you would want redundancy - there are few diseases that just randomly kill some neurons throughout the brain (concussions, maybe.), but a railroad spike through the brain is going to demolish entire modules and the rest of the brain will take ages to redevelop to compensate
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Modern humans don't develop any more slowly than our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
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i know, and our brains haven't been optimized for volumetric efficiency either
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 5:06 PM
railroad spike
[Phineas Gage intensifies]
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DSD [He/They] 12/14/2020 5:07 PM
His personality did go mostly back to normal (I don't know how much), which is impressive. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 5:49 PM
@0111narwhalz @Cornflakes yo its done
17:50
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 5:50 PM
permit me to witness this obj—oh I thought you were going right in to feline okay
17:50
yeah no that looks fine
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 5:51 PM
yeah no? YEAH NO?
17:51
>:U
17:51
fuck it I’ll get started on the feline skull
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 5:53 PM
…is that a local idiom? huh
17:53
yes it looks good V: forge onwards
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 6:29 PM
I couldn’t find a good tiger skull and, as it turns out, big cats have these spade-like teeth I found hard to render
18:29
But here you have it my impression of a jaguar skull image
18:31
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0111narwhalz 12/14/2020 6:31 PM
try different angles
18:31
front-on is always difficult
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/14/2020 6:34 PM
but what do yall think of the 💀
18:36
@Cornflakes get down here and tell me what u thinkl
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0111narwhalz 12/16/2020 3:28 AM
haha I have no idea what I'm doing https://i.imgur.com/Twb5xLl.png
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is that top bone supposed to be there? I guess there are some muscles around there that would need a attachment point like that...
03:30
but don't they normally go to the pelvis?
03:31
maybe that's just what lizard pelvises look like, i dunno
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0111narwhalz 12/16/2020 3:32 AM
it is indeed what theropod pelvises look like
03:32
it's weird as hell and honestly I'm making a lot of very questionable choices in the course of this design work :V
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every engineer bone in my body is screaming "That thing will snap like a twig at the slightest provocation"
03:46
no wonder there aren't any dragons flying around if their bones are structured like that
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0111narwhalz 12/16/2020 3:47 AM
03:47
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
03:47
It's not… quite the same as my design, obviously. But it was definitely a thing.
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🤦‍♂️ evolution plz
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0111narwhalz 12/16/2020 3:49 AM
Recall that theropods were basically halfway to birds already—the three-meter-tall "heavily-built" Utahraptor type species is estimated to be about 70kg.
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so dinosaurs are secretly featherweights
03:50
huh. TIL
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0111narwhalz 12/16/2020 4:03 AM
this one… maybe a bit better https://i.imgur.com/hJEq3xw.png (edited)
04:04
(embed you fool)
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Morgrim Moon 12/16/2020 4:10 AM
Dinosaurs had air sacs thru their bodies, it's how saurpods could not collapse
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0111narwhalz 12/16/2020 6:16 PM
latest new-uštn update https://i.imgur.com/i8BHVB0.png
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Morgrim Moon 12/16/2020 9:11 PM
you don't necessarily need to have an 'upward' pubis bone, remember. Yes, therapods did, but it was supporting a horizontal layout. As birds became more upright (their centre of gravity has shifted) their pubis swung down, much more like ornithischians. That would be a more stable configuration for bipedalism
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 1:33 AM
mmh
01:33
will take that under advisement, thanks
01:38
Honestly I'm still not entirely sure about the mechanics of the hips. You know any good overviews?
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 4:04 AM
Not really. I'd check out chimps vs humans, my hunch is the chimp tilt is much closer to what you need
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 4:35 AM
Chimps also don't have the giant tail muscles. Nor does… any mammal, I think.
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kangaroos should be close for that purpose, no?
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 4:41 AM
Myology's totally different.
04:42
As far as I can tell there isn't a caudofemoralis (and even if there were I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be homologous to those of non-avian theropods)
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 4:51 AM
Yeah, the hindlimb looks like standard mammal fare. Tail's just kinda doing its own thing.
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 5:12 AM
It's involved a lot, but via tendons instead of muscles
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 5:18 AM
The tail with the legs?
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 7:40 AM
yeah. Kangaroo's tail-thigh-foot region is basically made out of springs, they get back some ungodly percentage of the energy from each hop. I think it's something like 80%?
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 7:42 AM
Huh, do you have any good anatomical resources for that?
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 7:44 AM
...my search results are highly contaminated with "kangaroo leg roast". Yes google, you know what I had for dinner last weekend, now give me the anatomy
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How does it taste?
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 7:48 AM
hmm… seems pretty dissimilar from the theropod layout
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 7:49 AM
okay, this one is the muscles, but it's a start. You can see how the tail is lined with those long, comparatively stiff muscles; the tail doesn't move much at all, it's effectively a prop when still and a counterweight when moving. When hopping it doesn't directly contribute to the hop in the way therapod tails do. Instead, when the roo hits the ground the tail swings up, storing energy in those tendons, then swings down to transfer that to the legs
07:51
"like kangaroo" isn't a very helpful descriptor XD Um, closest 'normal' meat is venison. It has that gamey edge to it. Incredibly lean meat, you've got to either marinade or stew it. Or make it into sausages/hamburgers, that works well, but most people cut the mince so it's 50% roo and 50% pork/lamb/beef
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 7:52 AM
hmm…
07:52
yeah, don't think kangaroos are a very useful model for theropods
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“Weirdest” meat I’ve had was bear, and it was so heavily spiced I can’t say how unique the flavor was
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 7:58 AM
oh, I'm not saying they're a directly useful model, I'm saying that parts of their anatomy are a good example of how to take a more horizontally layed out critter and convert them to the sort of upright pose you need
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One of my furry RPG books has “lever-stance” as a body shape option for canines, felines, birds, and reptiles.
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 8:00 AM
aye
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 8:01 AM
Epipubic bones are a pair of bones projecting forward from the pelvic bones of modern marsupials and most non-placental fossil mammals: multituberculates, monotremes, and even basal eutherians (the ancestors of placental mammals). They first occur in non-mammalian cynodonts such as tritylodontids, suggesting that they are a synapomorphy between ...
08:03
okay, look at the shape of the epipubic bone. Instead of the therapod pubis bone being in it's original position, having it rotated and potentially reduced to something more like the epipubic bone in kangaroos avoids that "snapping" issue raised before, but still supports the lower gut (that is now, due to gravity, resting more on the hips, which may need some help)
08:05
with humans we solved that problem by splaying the pelvic arches a bit, harshly aligning all of the leg bones directly under the hips to transmit forces down to the heel bones, and by developing a species-wide trend for arthritis.
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It looks like those bones don’t work well with a placental pregnancy or birth.
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Morgrim Moon 12/17/2020 8:12 AM
it's likely one of the reasons they were lost in placental mammals
08:13
fortunately for you, therapods are egg layers
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/17/2020 8:13 AM
@Zarpaulek should be called raptor-stance
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0111narwhalz 12/17/2020 8:17 AM
huh
08:18
alright, will look into that
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Zarpaulek
One of my furry RPG books has “lever-stance” as a body shape option for canines, felines, birds, and reptiles.
her legwear looks like the designer went "i cant work with this tail!" and gave up
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/21/2020 2:46 PM
it occurred to me that there may be some major design differences from the baseline-normal even among your gold standard Tiffian (edited)
14:47
keep in mind they have 2000 years of gengineering experience societally
14:47
and even their "average" is four or five major design generations/optimizations ahead of baseline
14:48
and even their "average" is four or five major design generations/optimizations ahead of baseline
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0111narwhalz 12/21/2020 2:50 PM
where's your drafts :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/21/2020 2:52 PM
I drew a bunch of more-stylized heads that I was happy...ish with
14:52
But more because they pointed me in a solid direction than them looking good (edited)
14:52
TRUST ME THEY DONT LOOK GOOD
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0111narwhalz 12/21/2020 2:53 PM
show anyway
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/21/2020 2:55 PM
k
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0111narwhalz 12/21/2020 4:01 PM
@BizarroLand ♀ [some time elapses]
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/21/2020 5:23 PM
@0111narwhalz fine I'll fish them out, let me get my iPad
17:29
17:30
I told y’all they weren’t good
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December 31st, 2020
09:44
The Earth breathes a sigh of relief as the year is finally ending
09:44
Then, a fleet of ugly yellow starships arrive
09:45
"This is Prosthentic Vogon Jeltz of the Vogon Constructor Fleet. Your planet has been scheduled for demolition..."
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And they break out in celebration
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VulpixFangirl 12/26/2020 10:40 AM
You know, I wouldn't even be surprised at this point.
10:41
friskConfused
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beware when humans gather in groups
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beware when humans gather in groups (edited)
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Okay this post seems to be some fairly tame Korps stuff https://twitter.com/korpspropaganda/status/1345376036167569408?s=21
just RCG UI stuff
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@Zarpaulek what even is "Korps"
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It’s like this furry trans support group that roleplays as supervillains
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Zarpaulek
It’s like this furry trans support group that roleplays as supervillains
and that is one of the weirdest sentences I've ever heard
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KAL_9000
and that is one of the weirdest sentences I've ever heard
one of? I don’t know how anything really gets weirder than that.
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 3:13 PM
you'd be surprised
15:47
It gets weirder.
15:48
Btw: ROSE is the UI/operating system of the rose colored glasses.
15:49
It's actually part of Karen/the Overlord's exoself/distributed mindset in setting.
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thunk
It's actually part of Karen/the Overlord's exoself/distributed mindset in setting.
what
15:49
Karen has taken over the world?
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Mindstate, rather
15:49
Yes.
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Where will the kids hide?
15:49
Karen's gonna take them! (edited)
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The Overlord is a several millenia old supervillain who has tried to take over the world several times, by being various historical conquerors. But after 1812 decided that the only way they could do it was by subterfuge and consent.
15:51
At the same time they also realized they were trans, and because of their frozen form problem, usual methods wouldn't work on them. So they instead transferred mindstate to a network of big titty dragon robot bodies
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thunk
At the same time they also realized they were trans, and because of their frozen form problem, usual methods wouldn't work on them. So they instead transferred mindstate to a network of big titty dragon robot bodies
"So they instead transferred mindstate to a network of big titty dragon robot bodies"
15:52
unsure if based, insane, or both
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Both lol
15:52
In the Prime setting everyone is actually a furry to begin with
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 3:53 PM
crazy how nature do
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thunk
In the Prime setting everyone is actually a furry to begin with
screeches in evolution doesn't work like that
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Also: most of that setting takes place in Canada. Because of the weakening of their federal government, Korps is locked in a background conflict with various provincial 'superhero' teams who are more interested in preserving the status quo than necessarily being good
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 3:54 PM
*suspends KAL's disbelief*
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thunk
Also: most of that setting takes place in Canada. Because of the weakening of their federal government, Korps is locked in a background conflict with various provincial 'superhero' teams who are more interested in preserving the status quo than necessarily being good
"Korps is locked in a background conflict with various provincial 'superhero' teams who are more interested in preserving the status quo than necessarily being good"
15:55
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insert worm, injustice, the boys here
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Theres an element of counterpower/anti-capitalist wish fulfillment.
15:55
I don't think many there have read worm though, some have.
15:56
At its simplest, the Korps is an organization dedicated to world domination; Led by high-value superpowered beings, the Korps sees itself as less of a state and more of a governance method, seeking to disintegrate repressive state-based hierarchies,
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15:57
A bit of hero lore for the central bit of the canon.
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"the Korps sees itself as less of a state and more of a governance method"
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 3:57 PM
I have concerns regarding the veracity of material coming from a user with that name
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Honestly it's just aesthetic.
15:58
Just like the pretend-supervillainy
16:00
I'd post a third explainer threat but it has nsfw in it
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 4:00 PM
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NSFW is fine here if you wrap a spoiler tags around it.
👀 1
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Figured it was about time to make a little who's-who thread of some of my more prominent OCs!
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 4:02 PM
(recommend spoilering it anyway just to save impulsive clickers)
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this entire concept is fucking weird fyi
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(The notion, for the sideeyes-emojing, being that the purpose of NSFW bans is to spare the innocent eyes of the yoof etal., but 'round here, the innocent eyes get to make their own choices of what to be spared. Hence spoiler tags. ...this is not an invitation to turn this place into pr0n central.)
16:04
@KAL_9000 Here? This is Fucking Weird Central.
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true
16:05
Still, never thought I'd see "Furry Supervillain Trans Support Group" in a sentence
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0111narwhalz 01/02/2021 4:06 PM
there are more things in heaven and earth, KAL, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
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Yeah. I'm just in a lot of places with a lot more strict age gating because of the potential legal problems with um.... more involved stuff.
16:07
I mean, Korps to me is what a libertist and technepraxic setting would look like if it was made by frustrated trans women. With the biases of course being rather different than with other settings.
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What does technepraxic even mean? (edited)
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"An influential philosophical school which became widespread in the Empire from the 7th century onwards, first espoused by Ianthe Claves-ith-Claves Elinaeth, which sees technology not merely as tool, but as an integral philosophy of sophont aspiration. Technological progress is an eo ipso good, inherently desirable as an end in itself. If technology causes problems, better technology solves them."
16:25
(Probably the closest flavor to it in human-stuff would be the Extropian Principles.)
16:28
The following is a manifesto that fits the ideals of HighExistence quite nicely. As with any manifesto, it’s a bit dogmatic at times but I do think much can be gained from reading and living out its principles. Enjoy. — Jordan EXTROPY — the extent of a system’s intelligence, information, order, vitality, and capacity …
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thanks
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Yeah, I thought about it, and I concluded that NSFWness is probably the least controversial thing people might pick up from hanging around here, even compared to the full frontal nerdity in plain sight. And I never had much patience for "Danger: Contains Ideas" signs.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 01/02/2021 4:40 PM
The spoiler tags will make life easier when I’m on my phone reading this in public.
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And there is that, too.
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Ok maybe I was misusing the term slightly, but the spirit of aggressively transcending the limitations of humanity is very present.
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Reading through that link, I agree with most of it...with my reservations being that 1) I consider emotionality as important as rationality, 2) my definition of non-coerction makes very different tradeoffs from theirs, 3( I don't exactly believe in an objective reality, but think we should continually refine and improve our models of the external world because it's useful to making lives better.
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KAL_9000
screeches in evolution doesn't work like that
Admittedly in the Morphic setting which is the alt-Korps i'm largely working in, everyone starts out bodily-human but you have literal divine intervention to change that
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thunk
Admittedly in the Morphic setting which is the alt-Korps i'm largely working in, everyone starts out bodily-human but you have literal divine intervention to change that
what if people don't want to be furries
20:34
smh gods can't respect consent
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that's fine, only 30% of people there are.
20:35
the waves only change you if you genuinely want it
20:36
(though conversely, the Abrahamic God is a bad guy in that setting, not least for putting non-human souls in human bodies...)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/02/2021 9:50 PM
@Unknown wait, what
21:51
the Abrahamic God turns people into furries in your headcanon?
21:51
thats a real trip
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what drugs are these and where can i get some
21:55
it's Gaia who turns people into furries
21:56
the Abrahamic God, that bastard, prevented the truly-furry from being in furry bodies
21:56
and no it's not my headcanon it's my friend's version of the korps setting
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/02/2021 9:59 PM
ohhhhh
22:00
but that version still sounds wack yo
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like about 30% of the population was not meant to be human
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thunk
like about 30% of the population was not meant to be human
cries in evolution
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again, literal divine intervention
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but it seems like every female, mammalian or not, was meant to have mammaries the size of small houses?
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Sometimes divine intervention is kind.
16:32
Hopefully it was also generous with the lumbar support.
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Cornflakes
but it seems like every female, mammalian or not, was meant to have mammaries the size of small houses?
ah yes
16:37
god wants big tiddies for everyone (edited)
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That’s a major no thanks for me.
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Overmind
Hopefully it was also generous with the lumbar support.
They have entire research teams working on that. Don't worry.
00:08
And the big titty, as with anything else, is voluntary.
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thunk
And the big titty, as with anything else, is voluntary.
state-mandated big tiddy furry gfs
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headdesks.
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smh not Robin Hanson
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 01/04/2021 1:46 PM
👀
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KAL_9000
state-mandated big tiddy furry gfs
BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 2:28 PM
you haven't realized you must become the gf
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that definitely sounds like a horny villain plot
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0111narwhalz 01/04/2021 2:29 PM
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oooh, thats a thinky bird
15:08
i only ever saw the tiny emoticon and couldnt tell
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 8:49 PM
@Unknown what does?
20:49
:y
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state mandated forcefem
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 8:53 PM
>_>
20:54
I had a story idea once where shapeshifting/genderbenders were trivial and actually compulsory on a regular basis, for reasons that escape me at the moment
20:54
But I figured it would get old fast so I didn't go anywhere with it
20:55
"remember your state mandated girl time starts at 5pm have fun"
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Why?
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 8:56 PM
Also I can't remember the other reasons I didn't write it
20:56
Probably laziness, as is the norm for my writing
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It is fairly easy to imagine some polity which has just acquired the technology and has some... creative... ideas of social justice to decide that the super-easy cure for sexism is to ensure that everyone is bound by law to spend an equal amount of time as each sex. (This is exactly the sort of brilliant idea that the Annik Sodality tends to come up with and then fail to understand why it inevitably implodes due to forseeable unforeseen consequences.)
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oh god lol
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 9:00 PM
It occurs to me that the powers might hit upon the idea, infinitesimally less obviously, as a way of making cultural ideas of gender ... well, fluid
21:00
But yeah the first thing I thought of was high-up bureaucrats thinking "lets make them walk in each others shoes"
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((While not seen much on the page yet, the Annik Sodality is pretty much the Worlds' go-to polity for all those "...and then utopia!" moves.))
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 9:10 PM
ah, the resident implementors of VERY GOOD IDEAS (capitalization NOT optional)
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Zarpaulek
Why?
BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 9:13 PM
why'd you say "why"? You think I should write this or something? 😂
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No, just morbid curiosity
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 11:01 PM
I thought it wouldn't be interesting if the characters didn't "want" the transformations
23:02
Oh shit I stayed awake on Three Kings Day, I'm not getting anything
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/04/2021 11:11 PM
... well, I did bankrupt my relatives on Yule morning so w/e
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thunk
like about 30% of the population was not meant to be human
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0111narwhalz 01/05/2021 12:01 PM
"phytoplankton"
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Anthropomorphized phytoplankton or what?
12:02
Those are excellent words, actually.
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please what
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0111narwhalz 01/05/2021 12:04 PM
it was a suggested explanation
12:04
(also a reference)
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KAL_9000
Click to see attachment 🖼️
BizarroLand ♀ 01/05/2021 12:15 PM
whered u get that
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BizarroLand ♀
whered u get that
literally just in another server's meme channel
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/05/2021 12:16 PM
bruhhhhh
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BizarroLand ♀
bruhhhhh
bruv instance
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Yep that's the Morphic Waves for you
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thunk
Yep that's the Morphic Waves for you
Scientists Apparently Baffled That So Many People Were Furries "How did we miss this?"
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I mean at that point Gaia has woken up and is doing major restoration on Earth's surface.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/05/2021 12:57 PM
restoration probably involves a lot of demolition
12:57
😬
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/08/2021 8:36 AM
so, sounds like uprisings and famine inbound (edited)
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99% chance postkorps would despise the Eldrae having a monarchy as much as they'd despise Earth's representative democracies
16:24
sorry, diarchy.
16:25
Sophia, spluttering: 'you...don't vote for kings?!?'
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2 am, crazy midnight world-building snippet: It's experimental spacecraft, hastily adapted for combat! Long-range radar is cobbled from five microwaves! Optical sensors are twenty webcams and someone's telescope. Aft point defense system is an experimental particle cannon from high-energy lab, starboard one - is old one that high energy lab donated to molecular gastronomy. Only briefing I got on power source is "It's weird, if situation is untenable, get between them and pull self-destruct, crew compartment should be in null zone", stealth system is conceptual bullshit that was based on a device that was found in a workshop no one remember existing, and it was only found because battery ran out. Heat sink is almost saturated after fire, but I am venting heat so I at least don't need to fear drowning in twenty tons of molten salt. Main cannons are firing shells with warhead based on some other, completely different, power source, that is, i quote, "is stable and precise enough, but breaks thermodynamics in a way we are still thinking about". What is worse, we don't have military research in the institute, but we somehow got a few thousand of those shells and four linear accelerator cannons in two turrets to fire them. And lastly, to survive re-entry, I need to swap shield emitters on bottom facing to fresh ones and redistribute every other one because some of them are burnt, some are bricked and some are more or less suspicious now.
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(edited)
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Problem with shield emitters is that they are clipped to brackets they were epoxied to hull. There was time to route cat6 twisted pair for power and control, but no time to run thermal interface
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cat6 for power
03:15
do those shields run on 5W each?
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0111narwhalz 01/11/2021 3:25 AM
a lot of cat6 (it's all the hardware store had at the time)
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It's shitty shields and there's a lot of them
05:04
And PoE provides 25W (edited)
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i think it can go up to... yeah
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wiki promises 71.3 W
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but 25W for some kind of forcefield is basically as good as 5W for weapon purposes
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Depending on what the fuck your force field does? In some interpretations, the hull linkage would be a weak point
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well, i assume that conservation of energy is still a thing, keeping stuff from hitting you requires accelerating it
05:08
but you do you in your fiction
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It's mostly for deflection.
05:13
And, again, quite shitty force field. Good enough to prevent fiery death on reentry, still!
05:13
Particle Accelerator was used... Well, it's not exactly still.
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thunk
99% chance postkorps would despise the Eldrae having a monarchy as much as they'd despise Earth's representative democracies
'It's pronounced "Chairpersons of the Infrastructure Planning & Execution Working Group".'
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(Amused eldrae snarks back, raised eyebrow optional.)
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ok I'm just confused.
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If you were to survey Imperials about what their government actually does , the general answer would be along the lines of "they run all that background infrastructure stuff no-one really thinks about so we can go on not thinking about it".
16:32
As such, when people seem to them to be making assumptions based on monarchies with more, um, demanding types of government, they do like to break out the standing joke that "Empress" in their language is probably closest to "Head Plumber".
16:32
I guess in a way postkorps does the same, but in that case their leader is the infrastructure.
16:34
But I guess the notion kind of gets into the fundamental divides between a polity that's run like a company with CEO at the top to manage things vs. a loose consortium that developed out of a tradition of Earth's representative democracies.
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(Well, also "Senior Electrician", "Builder of Major Roads", "Person Who Promises That Money Will Continue To Have Value", "Arbitrix At Whose Location The Buck Stops" and "Vigilante-in-Chief", but the concept is much more "deeply respected individual whose organization keeps the infrastructure of civilization running" than "she who commands obedience and issues decrees ending in 'or else'".)
16:37
Like part of the interest I have is that the two factions are strangely alike in many ways, coming at things from very different perspectives--and this magnifies the small differences that causes each side to hate the other.
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Or "private owner of a country and all its' people."
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Indeed.
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Because that's basically feudalism.
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Maybe "Techne-est Technocrat", or "Herder of Herders of Cats"
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like I'm sure they'd be able to work things out with cooler heads on both sides but the initial reaction is going to be rather bad suspicion just because of the left-anarchist origins
16:40
and even the idea of a hierarchial leader who Calls the Shots kind of rubs them the wrong way, though concessions to practicality mean they're more or less ok with stuch things in practice with appropriate safeguards.
16:41
tbh I'm not really a left-anarchist myself so I can't quite speak to the mindset.
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(Historically, going 'way back to the Ungoverned Era, what would become the polities that would become the Empire behaved a lot more like a loose association of various utility providers; it evolved into what it is now out of efficiency-driven consolidation, primarily the desire not to have to renegotiate everything every time something in the public infrastructure glitched.)
16:46
state as a concession to practicality
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Well, to put this in terms of their argument against democracy, which applies equally if not more so to those anarchist strains that require lots of direct democracy or participatory politics, the modal eldrae would be simply appalled at the notion that governance is something that anyone should have to participate in.
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whereas the other side is appalled at a lot of what constitutes rulership, and views participation in democratic institutions as a necessary societal responsibility to make that work.
16:48
Different tradeoffs.
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Look at electricity, they'd say. No-one would want to hold votes or debates on whether to switch in the spinning reserve at Power Plant #5 or buy power from another district every time there's a heatwave, even if they understood how the power grid worked in the first place. They just want electricity to be there when they flip the switch. That's what they're paying for.
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Yeah, contra the left-anarchist focus on workplace democracy and participatiory decisionmaking at all levels
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Then they'd extend that to the rest of the civilization infrastructure. There are plenty of things that they want to exist : peace, justice, a medium of exchange, a generally acceptable arbiter, public health, externality control, etc., but they don't know a damned thing about how those things are supposed to work and don't particularly want to have to become experts in them when they've got, y'know, their own lives to live. So, they conclude, why can't they just hire some experts who know how to do those things, pay them to get on with it, and then they're done.
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technocracy is a very sensible governing ideology when you think about it
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(With a side-snark, in re democracy, that if you tried to run a power plant by popular vote you'd be up to your ass in corium inside the day, which they don't consider promising when it comes to trying to run much more complex things.)
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And that's a perfectly reasonable choice to make.
16:58
And i assume those leaders are decided by people who are already subject-matter experts/in high technocratic ranks? (e.g. in the same way a Board of Directors finds a CEO?)
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(Really, what I'm trying to convey here is the depth of the appalled look that accompanies the "Seriously? I'm not qualified to tell the Ministry of Health what to do! I'm only qualified enough in the area to know that I don't know enough to have an opinion!")
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thunk
And i assume those leaders are decided by people who are already subject-matter experts/in high technocratic ranks? (e.g. in the same way a Board of Directors finds a CEO?)
Boards of Directors are elected you know.
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Overmind
(Really, what I'm trying to convey here is the depth of the appalled look that accompanies the "Seriously? I'm not qualified to tell the Ministry of Health what to do! I'm only qualified enough in the area to know that I don't know enough to have an opinion!")
Dunning-Kruger is prevelant among politicians (edited)
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It's just that they also tend to be the people with the most votes.
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Yeah I'm just trying to pin down what grinds my (and my friends') gears about this, and it seems to be primarily the 'concentration of power and wealth' aspects.
17:01
and in the space elves' tradition where there's a strong track record of enlightened self-interest and effective governance vs the postfurries' 'these concentrations inevitably lead to those in charge attempting to coerce and control others', there will be a conflict.
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thunk
and in the space elves' tradition where there's a strong track record of enlightened self-interest and effective governance vs the postfurries' 'these concentrations inevitably lead to those in charge attempting to coerce and control others', there will be a conflict.
Dat's why my post-furry universe has an oligarchic imperium that claims to be a democratic federation.
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heh yep
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(Anyone who makes it up to the upper ranks of the Imperial Service has generally done so by coming up the ranks from a post where they had to be subject-matter experts. You're never going to get anyone as Minister of Public Health, for example, who isn't trailing a string of medical quals and field experience. Meanwhile, the quals for sitting on the Throne are even stricter, with a requirement for qualifications, field experience, and proven success in multiple/several unrelated fields. They're not shy about demanding absurdly competent polymaths for that position.
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And they have the lifespans to make that a realistic expectation.
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Which is more or less the way it has to be. It's more or less impossible to lead eldrae unless you can impress them with your personal arete and even the Throne has extraordinarily circumscribed powers to issue direct orders, so the only way you can do the job is by being the most awesome person around.
17:09
There's a Pratchett quote from Small Gods : “The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”
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a society of "Don't Tell Me What To Do", yep.
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NO STEP ON SNEK
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Overmind
Which is more or less the way it has to be. It's more or less impossible to lead eldrae unless you can impress them with your personal arete and even the Throne has extraordinarily circumscribed powers to issue direct orders, so the only way you can do the job is by being the most awesome person around.
Awesomism: Our leader is just the most awesome person we can find
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On the sheep-goat scale, they're over at the far-goat end.\
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KAL_9000
NO STEP ON SNEK
(and the necessary corollary: 'Don't tread on them, either")
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thunk
(and the necessary corollary: 'Don't tread on them, either")
true
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a lot of earth humans forget that part
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"Don't tread on me but tread on those guys over there" just makes you an entitled, selfish asshole
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I think they'd probably phrase it as "If You Could Tell Me The Right Thing To Do, You Wouldn't Need To Tell Me. Just Ask.". (edited)
17:12
Yeah. Any ethics that isn't agent-symmetrical is bad ethics.
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And this also would presumably mean that attempts at coercion by someone with more resources would fail due to the 'keys to power', those others that provide the party in power with institutional backing, would withdraw their support.
17:14
the web of Obligations and Balance and Contract making it all legible.
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(This all being said, there is some form of participation in governance in the form of the Senate, chosen by sortition, whose purpose is to ensure that the technocrats are doing the jobs everyone wants them to. It's about as popular as jury duty is here, except that people who are asked to turn up and Senator don't try to weasel out of it.)
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are there also peremptory challenges
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Any selection process after the sortition?
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the frustrating issue of 'anyone who deviates from the norm too much is never going to sit on a jury'
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Nope. It's supposed to be a random selection of citizen-shareholders, so the Chamber of the People is a random selection of 1,728 from the total [citizen] population.
17:19
(Well, sort of; new citizen-shareholders are randomly assigned to one of 1,728 centuries, and the sortition process picks one randomly from each century.)
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Overmind
(Well, sort of; new citizen-shareholders are randomly assigned to one of 1,728 centuries, and the sortition process picks one randomly from each century.)
that name is a massive misnomer considering the Empire's population
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If nothing else it suggests the Empire started with a population of 172,800
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It's called that because there were originally 144 centuries. The first amendment of the Charter bumped the number up a bit with population growth.
17:21
Which hasn't been repeated because there's only so large you can reasonably let a deliberative body get.
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Also base 12.
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But yeah, the name's from the number of centuries, not the size.
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The Centuriate Assembly (Latin: comitia centuriata) of the Roman Republic was one of the three voting assemblies in the Roman constitution. It was named the Centuriate Assembly as it originally divided Roman citizens into groups of one hundred men by classes. The centuries initially reflected military status, but were later based on the wealth o...
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The main protection against people with more resources, in practice, is that there's very little that those with more resources can actually do to you there , when it comes right down to it.
17:31
See I thought it was more web of contract stuff- 'misusing power makes you a Defaulter and you're fired'
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Well, there's that and the reputation networks, and so forth, but there's also the issue that most of the things that plentiful resources gets you here is the ability to buy or at least rent coercive power to use, and that's stopped by just not having any on the market.
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One of our curses here, for example, is the whole crony capitalism let-me-buy-a-few-Senators-to-regulate-in-my-favor business. There, even if you could find a Senator to buy, it wouldn't matter because those kinds of laws are unconstitutional and can't be passed in the first place. Entire realms of nastiness are placed off-limits simply because no-one has the power to do X, therefore no-one can buy it from them.
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Like with the 16 tons thing, people went to work into debt service because of the lack of other options. Less of a problem in a rich society. Still a problem I guarantee, in the Rim Free Zone.
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In some bits of it, yeah.
17:40
(The RFZ is a very mixed bag, from genuine Utopias to complete horrorshows. To use literary references, you've got everything from the super-idealistic Utopia of L. Neil Smith's North American Confederacy, through mixed bags like Phil Foglio's New Hong Kong, to wretched hives of scum and villainy like Lois Bujold's Jackson's Whole, all jumbled up together.)
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I admit to having trouble imagining how ancaps would ever make a livable society but hey, your setting.
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Overmind
One of our curses here, for example, is the whole crony capitalism let-me-buy-a-few-Senators-to-regulate-in-my-favor business. There, even if you could find a Senator to buy, it wouldn't matter because those kinds of laws are unconstitutional and can't be passed in the first place. Entire realms of nastiness are placed off-limits simply because no-one has the power to do X, therefore no-one can buy it from them.
That's just capitalism
17:45
Nothing crony about it
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I concluded a long time ago that "private legal providers" would wind up merging and taking each other over until they were an effective monopoly.
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As I have been known to cynically observe, the virtue of the system is that it gives you (as a culture) precisely the society you deserve, according to what you value. If it turns out you don't value the things that make a society worth living in, then at least you can be comforted that the hellscape you dwell in is entirely of your own making.
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KAL_9000
That's just capitalism
🙄
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Overmind
🙄
It literally is
17:47
The only motivation of a corporation is to make profit for their shareholders
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Zarpaulek
I concluded a long time ago that "private legal providers" would wind up merging and taking each other over until they were an effective monopoly.
OpenSharia and PornHub Arbitration beg to differ.
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r/libertyworldproblems
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If buying a Senator does that, then of course they will
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Overmind
OpenSharia and PornHub Arbitration beg to differ.
There's this thing called a "hostile takeover."
17:49
And when both companies involved have a lot of heavily armed employees, it could get rather literal.
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I'm not going to enter the tics argument... (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 5:49 PM
opensharia
17:49
😅
17:51
did a lookup and I couldn't find it, if it's a thing
17:52
also, PornHub is probably going out of business for unrelated reasons
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KAL_9000
It literally is
Darn it, I have lost my "Words have meanings and I will literally set you on fire" gif.
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Overmind
Darn it, I have lost my "Words have meanings and I will literally set you on fire" gif.
Well then what is the motive of a corporation, if not to make profit for its shareholders?
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Zarpaulek
And when both companies involved have a lot of heavily armed employees, it could get rather literal.
Under which legal regime? That assumes that all PPLs are publicly traded corporations under generic Western corporate law, which seems unlikely to be the case.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 5:57 PM
my problem with the idea of PPLs is: what happens when there are irreconcilable differences?
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Then you have problems. Expensive problems. However, the expense of the problems encourages PPLs to settle.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 5:58 PM
or... incentivizes
17:58
:y
17:59
yeah, very lengthy arbitrations seem unlikely in polycentric law now that you bring that up
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 5:59 PM
the more time they take the more the participants lose out on everything else
17:59
@KAL_9000 tiiiiiicks
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hey i didn't start this
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 6:00 PM
so many that I'm getting a faint urge to scratch from over here
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"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, a price system, private property and the recognition of property rights and wage labor." See anything in there about regulating markets into being noncompetitive? No, you don't, because it's not there. (And also, it's never been real communism.)
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Sweetie BOT 01/11/2021 6:02 PM
DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM
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Real or not.
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Overmind
"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, a price system, private property and the recognition of property rights and wage labor." See anything in there about regulating markets into being noncompetitive? No, you don't, because it's not there. (And also, it's never been real communism.)
Markets do not become noncompetitive through regulation
18:03
Markets become noncompetitive through non regulation
18:03
See Standard Oil and the Trusts
18:04
Which Teddy famously had to bust through regulation
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...okay, y'all need to go back to econ 101. I'm done here.
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Monopolies are a direct consequence of unregulated capitalism, a fact which is largely accepted by historians and economists
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Overmind
...okay, y'all need to go back to econ 101. I'm done here.
"Read basic economics!"
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 6:04 PM
I took econ 101
18:04
Literally, I think
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"Unless economists say that unregulated capitalism causes monopolies! Then don't!"
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 6:04 PM
Although the prof was, uh, he was...
18:05
not the most ideal teacher
18:05
"I'm a communist," he said very early on
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anyway this is ticks so i'm just gonna say it's hilarious watching ancaps claim it wasn't real capitalism and leave it at that
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KAL_9000
"Read basic economics!"
Then read intermediate economics. Then advanced economics. Then come back here and explain to me why the price of petroleum products, especially kerosene, went down during Standard Oil's tenure, as not-predicted by the model you're citing, and why the people behind the anti-trust lawsuits were competitors rather than customers , the second group being that which is notionally harmed by a monopoly. Hint: the answer is that the model you're citing has the disadvantage of being bullshit.
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Overmind
Then read intermediate economics. Then advanced economics. Then come back here and explain to me why the price of petroleum products, especially kerosene, went down during Standard Oil's tenure, as not-predicted by the model you're citing, and why the people behind the anti-trust lawsuits were competitors rather than customers , the second group being that which is notionally harmed by a monopoly. Hint: the answer is that the model you're citing has the disadvantage of being bullshit.
Oil prices went up but sure, whatever
18:10
Anyway this is ticks of the highest level so we should probably shut up
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KAL_9000
Oil prices went up but sure, whatever
That is literally the opposite of true.
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Prices were lowered at first but then raised later on
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No. That was what the model says should happen. It's also what has never actually happened in any of these supposed unregulated monopolies, ever.
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Overmind
No. That was what the model says should happen. It's also what has never actually happened in any of these supposed unregulated monopolies, ever.
glances at apple
18:13
Again
18:14
TICKS
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Seriously. Go look. Find me one, with a citation. Ever .
18:14
And this is economics.
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Overmind
Seriously. Go look. Find me one, with a citation. Ever .
Book digitized by Google from the library of the University of California and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.
18:14
primary source
18:15
and again
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Secondary source. Show me price data.
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This is a flagrant violation of your own ticks rules
18:15
So please shut the fuck up
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First: no, it isn't. The politics rules are intended to ban endless partisan bickering, not to ban the discussion of anything that even touches on economics. Second: bye.
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Cognitive dissonance in action
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...or maybe it is, but.
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Enderminion 01/11/2021 6:21 PM
Unregulated Capitalism leads to Bhopal Disasters
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Gaaah. Why do I even have this fucking server?
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Enderminion 01/11/2021 6:21 PM
Which resulted in over 3500 dead due to chemical releases
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Unregulated anything leads to environmental disasters. That point is not under dispute.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 6:26 PM
I will advance an uneducated guess that you keep this server around because discord is still slightly more convenient than the alternatives
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Right now, I'm developing a serious case of "this does not, it turns out, spark joy".
18:30
I am actually kicking around the notion that it is sufficiently non-joy-sparking for my depressed ass that it might be a significant factor in my lowered output.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 6:30 PM
In any case: This problem is because most of us don't share the ideology or outlook you express in your writing, but still find it worth reading... frankly, your style is unique, your prose and dialogue are very good even compared to the professional norms, and you have funny points to make along the way.
👆 6
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I don't mind disagreements. I don't even mind vigorous disagreements. I just don't want Twitteresque disagreements, and yet the bloody things continue to be infectious and brain-sucking. Gaaaaaah.
👆 2
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And addictive, don't forget that
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Yep. And also intelligence-lowering. Every time I get sucked into one I can feel myself getting stupider.
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debate-style disagreements can be interesting and enlightening, even if they're vigorous. But short misunderstanding arguments that just escalate immediately are annoying
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/11/2021 6:34 PM
If you don't want to keep this server, then don't keep it
18:34
I might kind of miss being able to DM Buggy but that's about it
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I'm not going to make any immediate decisions, anyway. Hasty choices are never a good idea.
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^ I'd miss this server, but i did kind of screw the pooch earlier and i've been keeping away as much as possible so i'm already half way there anyway. And it's your server, so it's you're right to decide. And as far as our motivations go, if you're right then deleting the server would lead to more writing, so its certainly not all negative
👆 4
18:37
generally everyone is here because they enjoy your writing; if deleting the server lead to more writing, it's a plus and a minus
18:37
(also a lot of the discussion would probabl just move to the disused discourse anyway)
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Overmind
Gaaah. Why do I even have this fucking server?
If the server is a problem, would it make more sense to hand it off to MarcusAurelius or whoever instead of outright deleting it?
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DSD [He/They] 01/12/2021 8:09 AM
I think the sever's quite good for little ideas you have that don't need a full microfic, like your 'booping' slang. I liked that.
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well
08:34
that was a thing
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0111narwhalz 01/12/2021 8:34 AM
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Morgrim Moon 01/12/2021 8:35 AM
did you get a temp ban or are you now ban evading? (I was asleep when everything happened and I'm not backreading)
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temp ban
08:35
honestly not even sure which rules i broke lmao
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Morgrim Moon 01/12/2021 8:41 AM
while I can't see a list of rules right now (been having connection issues all night, not surprised Sweetiebot can't PM), I'm fairly sure one of them is "don't be an arsehole"
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Morgrim Moon
while I can't see a list of rules right now (been having connection issues all night, not surprised Sweetiebot can't PM), I'm fairly sure one of them is "don't be an arsehole"
i probably was being an asshole during that fiasco ngl
08:42
apologies @Overmind (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/14/2021 2:49 PM
frankly the human body is garbo
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BizarroLand ♀
frankly the human body is garbo
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me.
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DSD [He/They] 01/14/2021 3:02 PM
Flesh is Weak! Iron Prevails!
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Jade Nekotenshi 01/14/2021 5:18 PM
Normally functioning bodies are garbo. Defective ones are worse.
17:18
Want to trade for a better shell, PST
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I crave the cold certainty of steel
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Sweetie BOT 01/15/2021 1:57 AM
That word is banned because it offends the server owner.
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please what
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Sweetie BOT 01/15/2021 1:57 AM
That word is banned because it offends the server owner.
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grmbl
01:58
just various kinds of carbonalltropes woven into each other
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2021 1:59 AM
ah yes, designer carbon allotropes
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Enderminion 01/15/2021 2:29 AM
Carbon picomemes next
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Sweetie BOT 01/15/2021 9:02 AM
That word is banned because it offends the server owner.
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Once your body becomes malleable, humanity might lose it's luster.
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what
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a rather prominent example of telling the universe to shut up and sit down when it comes to defining them in ways not those in which they would prefer to be defined.
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i dunno man that looks pretty horny
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it doesn't really get past heavy petting, tbh.
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Somebody on another server has an idea for a story where humans can develop their weak magnetoreceptive sense into radio telepathy.
07:04
Though it's only discovered after people leave the "background noise" of Earth's magnetosphere for extended periods.
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( cw // blood ) "What? All I did was punch apart a cop car, no biggie." Bokka! Been missing the big cat. |D Done in stream with @DistressedEgg !!! #ballpoint
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317
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Ouch. That had to hurt her knuckles quite a bit.
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Remember that it’s a superhero universe
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Morgrim Moon 01/28/2021 7:22 PM
I know that's based on a particular testosterone injection, but holy shit it's not a good idea take that (being that particular formulation or any nanite solution) that uses benzyl benzoate unless doing so is your last option and you have strict medical supervision. Injected benzyl benzoate fucks with your adrenal system, has a habit of causing anaphylaxis, and has been banned from testosterone supplements in some countries. </chemist panic>
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ah whoops
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Morgrim Moon 01/28/2021 7:24 PM
it's a very pretty glowy bottle I just wanna swap the carrier solution out XD
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makes snese
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My nanite injections are usually in a nice simple carrier solution of normal saline with supplementary glucose, suitable for either intravenous or intrathecal use.
20:21
Sadly nothing in there to give it a cool purple glow, but the weird diffraction effects around the nanites' poky bits do give it an interesting rainbow sheen.
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That makes more sense. But you know Korps is about style.
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0111narwhalz 01/28/2021 9:58 PM
plot twist: the entire setting is just the result of an incredibly successful placaebo
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loooooool
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In the 'verse, I'm guessing that marketing stick an LED under the cap for that. 😋
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oh yeah did I mention half of Pennsylvania has been turned into faux-evil Gothic Horror Land, permanently timelocked to October 31st (edited)
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Please tell me they renamed the other half "Cissylvania". (This has bugged me since learning about the two Gauls as a wee sprout.)
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I'm going to suggest that.
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Overmind
Please tell me they renamed the other half "Cissylvania". (This has bugged me since learning about the two Gauls as a wee sprout.)
the answer:
(Nope, its all trans, all the way down. }:) )
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thunk
the answer:
(Nope, its all trans, all the way down. }:) )
Alex Jones was right all along!
17:19
They are putting stuff in the water to turn everyone gay and trans! (edited)
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Panacebo?
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Pittsburgh is now governed by a coalition of the underground machine spirits, the Cathedral of Learning which magically teleported to the Point, and...someone else, I forget.
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0111narwhalz 01/29/2021 7:39 PM
a host of cheap Harbor Freight electric tools?
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When the morphic waves came, so much changed. People. The environment. Geography. But in a way, perhaps the weirdest thing that had changed were cities. Many, most seemed prone to relatively small edits. Pittsburg was not one of those cities.
19:43
ah yes, the fleshwrought
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So a factory that can manifest change in people's pockets but needs people to perform labor?
20:03
they're not really going for economic efficiency here.
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0111narwhalz 01/29/2021 8:04 PM
be the change you want to see in the world
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I kind of like the setting, but man, labor is almost as bad as death when it comes to getting people to Stockholm it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/30/2021 3:41 PM
My concern with post-scarcity isn't "having too much time on people's hands"
15:41
It's the transition
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(A little unfair of me given that people do still work in the 'verse, but I suspect the Hive recruits its team from that small but enthusiastic group of people who always secretly identified as a hundred-square-mile industrial complex.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/30/2021 3:45 PM
I have no idea why most people assume the owners and operators of the robots will be happy to support the rest of the population, or that a superintelligence would bother supporting the countless meatsacks who are not economically competitive any longer
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Let us say I, notorious for my hatred of poor people, have a cornucopia machine. I now have two options to keep people away from my fortress of decadence: * I can hire mercenaries, who must make the peasants at my gates fuck off every day; or * I can give them copies of my cornucopia machine, and they fuck off forever.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/30/2021 3:47 PM
This might be my cynical side talking, but a "you have outlived your usefulness" followed by omnicide seems more likely
15:47
ninja'd
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Overmind
Let us say I, notorious for my hatred of poor people, have a cornucopia machine. I now have two options to keep people away from my fortress of decadence: * I can hire mercenaries, who must make the peasants at my gates fuck off every day; or * I can give them copies of my cornucopia machine, and they fuck off forever.
BizarroLand ♀ 01/30/2021 3:53 PM
* I can give them copies of my cornucopia machine
15:53
Point taken, but it's rarely as simple as that.
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I mean, classicide is wearying, and I am lazy.
15:59
(I further mean, sure, there are plenty of people who would inspire me to fire up Kill the Poor and reach for my solid-gold-vanadium-alloy Maxim-gun replica with the cubical bullets, but that's because they're entitled dickbuckets who spend their time posting guillotine memes and such, so it's not like they didn't have to go out of their way to make their deaths a pleasure first . Giving to it people who weren't asking for it? When's that get fun?)
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personally, i think technology more-or-less requires a proportional amount of intelligence to create and maintain; you probably can't get a cornucopia machine without a superhuman intelligence lending some muscle somewhere
16:02
which means that if technology continues to advance, and humans don't improve themselves along with it, being supplanted would be a inevitability
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0111narwhalz 01/30/2021 4:03 PM
A. kill poor people B. kill poorness
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C. Wealth wakes up, decides it wants to go do something else rather than belong to people
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I mean part of it is that Morphic and Regular Korps are set on near future earth, and they're certainly working on the cornucopia machines but don't have them yet
16:07
Believe me these leftists do absolutely want to abolish and automate labor to the extent possible
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thunk
Believe me these leftists do absolutely want to abolish and automate labor to the extent possible
F U L L Y A U T O M A T E D
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Overmind
Let us say I, notorious for my hatred of poor people, have a cornucopia machine. I now have two options to keep people away from my fortress of decadence: * I can hire mercenaries, who must make the peasants at my gates fuck off every day; or * I can give them copies of my cornucopia machine, and they fuck off forever.
There is probably a lot of intermediate time where you don't have a cornucopia machine, but do have lots of automated production which isn't conveniently packaged and can self-replicate fast.
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Only when the proletariat can sip martinis with their catgirl waifus in their private O'Neill cylinders shall the liberation of the working classes be complete
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I also don't think that cerebrate will like Legion's other stories tbh. One of them gave Toni nightmares.
16:12
B) they're well aware of Earth's history and don't believe that better standards for the non-rich can be obtained without an implied threat of coercion
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deactivate badbrain #ballpoint
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the fuck is an rcg
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the pink goggle things
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There was some debate about spacesuits with tails on another server recently http://www.hirezfox.com/21cf/d/20060123.html
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In sharp contrast to the 500-year cold war on Secland and feudal caste system on Schwarzwelt, Epsilon Eridani seems to have been remarkably unstable during the Long Silence. Yet, of the three core systems Eridani also seems to have changed the least since colonization.
11:39
When the Ceres Directorate seedship first arrived and began bioprinting colonists the crew promptly declared themselves the "board of directors" and presented the colonists with a bill for their creation that they would spend the whole of their lives paying off. When the colonists' debts were passed on to their children the board saddled them with additional debts for education, equipment, housing, childcare... The third generation were the ones who finally had enough and killed the board, declaring themselves the Eridani Cooperative. However a small group within the Co-op bought the shares of many struggling workers for a pittance (in some cases a bottle of liquor) and consolidated their power as a new board of directors. This new board would respond to complaints of disenfranchisement by repeating splitting shares and selling only enough to maintain their majority stake, often buying them back for a profit later. However, the lower ranks of their security forces often had the fewest shares and eventually a charismatic sergeant assassinated the CEO and forced the remaining board members to give their shares to his faction. Thus was the Eridani Directorate born.
11:41
The next revolution came shortly after rec-contact. Exposure to Pallene memes of "democracy" provided a rallying cry for zero-share gangs to become a political power, to whom Pallene merchants could sell arms on credit.
11:42
The latest incarnation of the Eridani Directorate, founded by the democratic activists and their allies, has remained in power for more than a millennium. Political scientists attribute this longevity to three reasons that amount to: the Federation, the Federation, and the Federation.
11:45
First, the activists who overthrew the security board passed a law banning existing owners of EDI shares from purchasing additional shares, but only after the revolutionaries had seized the old board's shares and distributed them to their key supporters. These revolutionaries and their supporters have formed a permanent overclass with as many collected votes as the one-share masses. Whenever the population reaches a certain threshold the board splits shares, sells off a token amount, and encourages the new two-shares to sell off their "spare share."
11:47
Second, after incorporation into the Federation Pallas distributed immortagenic micromachines to the populations of all three systems, meaning that many of the revolutionaries are still alive. An even larger proportion of the population remember being personally worse off under the previous regime than they are under the current one, even if their great-grandkids aren't so lucky.
11:51
Third, the stargate network provides an outlet for the discontented and a steady stream of replacements. Epsilon Eridani has the highest emigration rate of the core systems but also the second highest immigration rate after the capital. Every time an Outworld is admitted to the Federation the EDI holds a recruiting drive and attempts to set up a branch office. As the quality of life they offer is still better than on the majority of Outworlds they nearly always get many new employees. They also make sure to set up their presence on new Federated colonies as soon as their ships can arrive, both bringing in their own colonists and offering shares to homesteaders in exchange for the use of their lands.
11:53
That said, many in the upper echelons of the Federal government are worried about the potential collapse of the current EDI regime's support system and have been making contingency plans for dealing with the next one.
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Any glaring issues with that future history?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 6:22 PM
not many
18:23
while on a worldbuilding kick I wonder how enfurring people changes their climate tolerance
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If extremely floofy dogs are anything to go by, it shifts it towards “Climate? What climate?”
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 6:25 PM
yeah, but the floofers are gonna FLOOF
18:26
I'm thinking about the breeds without ridiculously shaggy hair
18:26
and other mammals
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Same effect, lesser extent?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 6:27 PM
Sort of, I think?
18:27
I have seen pictures of lions in captivity in very snowy regions
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Can you post?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 6:28 PM
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Morgrim Moon 02/18/2021 6:35 PM
lions grow much thicker manes if they're in colder climates during puberty </random factoid of the morning>
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 6:36 PM
yeah, it looks like most of the major mammals adjust fine
18:36
body mass might have something to do with it
18:39
yeah, it depends on coat length
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Way I put it they don't wear much clothing at 20C https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/parahuman-baseline/
While parahumans were based on humans and spliced with cosmetic genes from a variety of different animal species, there are a few traits that are common to the majority of the parahuman population …
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This is one of the reasons my chakat character is feathered.
19:16
Emus do just fine in the heat.
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Morgrim Moon 02/18/2021 7:21 PM
only because their belly isn't feathered and they use that as a heat disapation method
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Zarpaulek
Way I put it they don't wear much clothing at 20C https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/parahuman-baseline/
BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 7:31 PM
Come to think of it, most humans find 40C+ intolerable without technological mediation
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/18/2021 8:08 PM
the primary thing up for remodelling is probably the circulatory system
20:08
my god, cardiovascular diseases are the number one killer of humans by far
20:08
after that it's probably the respiratory and digestive systems
20:09
the general metabolism could use a tune-up, as well
20:09
in the direction of keeping less fat, and storing muscle a litle more
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Morgrim Moon
only because their belly isn't feathered and they use that as a heat disapation method
good point
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:10 AM
so I finally have a climate target for the terraforming gang to shoot for
10:11
Put together, the oceanic (France), Mediterranean (California/Greece), subtropical highland (cetnral Mexico+Ethiopia) and subtropical humid (Southern US/Southern China) are all by a decent margin the most densely populated of all the Koppen types
10:12
The obvious, naive thing to do is to try and maximize the amount of a planet's land area falling under these categories
10:14
But it's never going to work out to be precise, because climate is really fiddly
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2021 10:14 AM
that means you'll want a planet with the oceans mostly polar
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:14 AM
you need a mix of subtropical latitude + warm onshore ocean currents to produce onshore winds
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2021 10:14 AM
but with some seas breaking up the continents, so you get thermal buffering
10:15
somehow I think "rearranging the landmasses" is well past 'normal' terraforming
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:15 AM
I mean, The Humid Subtropical is the best by far of any, and it's found on every continent (except Antarctica)
10:15
But there's also a long stretch of it in inland India because of the Asian monsoon
10:16
The vagaries of climate are like that
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Morgrim Moon
but with some seas breaking up the continents, so you get thermal buffering
BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:17 AM
terraforming-wise, the main control on how the landmasses look is sea level (add more/less water), and probably you can do something with using comets to dig out channels but that's about it
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2021 10:18 AM
until you're good enough to muck with tectonic plates before you start, yes
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just project plowshare the continent in half
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2021 10:23 AM
does the video go into whether they're most populated for non-climate reasons?
10:24
like, that band tends to have some of the best ports, and you get significant cascade effects from that
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:24 AM
sometimes it mentions diseases but... not really
10:25
(both human and crop diseases)
10:28
I don't get the impression that its spot at the top is purely accident of history, though
10:28
Most civilizations emerged in other categories
10:29
In particular, the US South was almost undeveloped 300 years ago
10:29
(ditto the Pampas)
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2021 10:29 AM
I think the screwworms were a big part of that
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:30 AM
also, smallpox
10:30
There's evidence of huge Native American civilizations that almost completely disappeared because... everyone died, pretty much
10:30
no thanks to the conquistadors
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Morgrim Moon 02/19/2021 10:35 AM
yep, Local climate stress + Outside Context problem = ouch
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 10:35 AM
It's also worth noting that oceanic climates got bigger first
10:41
(France, Britain, and New Zealand have entered the chat)
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i mean China and India were very big and rich before 1800 too.
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And India’s a giant peninsula with a long history of maritime trade.
12:53
The EIC happened to reach it as the Mughal Empire was decaying
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/19/2021 2:38 PM
more responsive thermoregulation than baseline humans
14:38
optimized metabolism, streamlined digestive system, and possibly reinforced circulatory system
14:39
the myriad causes of human dysfunction are too many to just say "optimize this..." but that's a start I think
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/21/2021 10:41 PM
I'm pretty set on plantigrade because digitigrade is so much more trouble than it's worth
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0111narwhalz 02/22/2021 1:30 AM
In what way?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/22/2021 10:08 AM
when modifying from baseline humans
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𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓮𝔂 BUN 𝓗𝔂𝓿𝓪𝓵 03/06/2021 2:17 PM
Are we still talking about making real life furries
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I'm trying to write up some homebrew rules for Slower-Than-Light ships in Starfinder (there's some earlier Traveller stuff mixed in there too), what do you make of the speeds I've got listed? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-c7Z7Wb0NdB8D1wyUF1WIjiHnyeX1zck34j80mhI2OE/edit?usp=sharing
Time displacement Ways Travellers might be displaced in time New starship drives. Sample starships Societal changes There are many ways by which one might be displaced in time. Slower-than-Light Starship Drives: Unless otherwise noted these drives cannot be mounted on a starship of Medium siz...
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Fusion Torch: .1c, Orion: .1-.25c depending on size, Antimatter: .5c, Matter Conversion: .75c, Solar sail: .5c with just sunlight or .9c with laser. That sound about right?
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yeah
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ask the people in toughsf?
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.5c for solar sail sounds a bit high, at least for just sunlight
14:34
laser-propelled could be very fast, but i suspect that just sunlight will slow down too much from hitting interstellar media. Every bit of area you add to catch more sunlight, will catch the same amount of hydrogen in the opposite direction. Every bit of mass you take off to increase acceleration also increases deacceleration from drag
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its a lot of the same issues with ramscoop rockets; max speed is limited by the ratio of energy lost getting the 'free' propellant vs the energy gained from it. interstellar medium is thin, but so is available light out there. Near a star, there's more light, and conditions are much thicker (and while the solar wind is moving outward, its much less than .5c). I haven't done the math, but considering the low thrust of solar sails i suspect you aren't going to get even .1c under any practical conditions (edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/09/2021 2:52 PM
[mumbles vaguely in q-drive]
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i was just looking at that in the sails area on atomicrockets, how have i not heard of this before?
14:56
its such a clever idea!
14:58
RMass is dirt cheap most of the time, the energy is the expensive part. A drive that can scale well with just more RMass without requiring all that much more energy is very useful
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So I have an idea for a "superheroes in space" setting.
13:50
Premise is that since interstellar travel is so expensive with large masses, the local wannabe Imperium has a plan to conquer an independent star system by appropriating "local resources." Namely abducting a bunch of locals with a ship full of medical fabricators and converting them into brainwashed super soldiers. However, an accident kills the crew and corrupts the conditioning software. But the AI drones are still functional enough to grab the salvagers who board it and augment them. With their highly advanced technology and partial memetic programming, and no superior officers to tell them otherwise, the new super-beings start fighting among themselves as to how they should defend and/or dominate the system.
13:53
Just short on ideas for characters or power sets
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Zarpaulek
Just short on ideas for characters or power sets
Crib from comics or crib from Worm, your choice
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I'd rather not crib from Worm, thank you very much
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I kind of want to involve vector control but I haven't the slightest idea how it works.
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no one does, it's complete bs
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i think it bascially just creates a gravity field, but 'coupled' to the generator so that the 'opposite' of equal and opposite reaction ends up with it
20:16
so, if you have a generator that creates a field and pulls a kilo in a direction at 1 m/s, it experiences a newton of force in the opposite direction
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That’s finely crafted organic free-range artisan bs to you, kid. (edited)
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(the 'reactionless' drive, on the other hand, sort of creates a field with a size of "yes", allowing it to pull a Futurama and push off of the rest of the universe.)
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Buggy
i think it bascially just creates a gravity field, but 'coupled' to the generator so that the 'opposite' of equal and opposite reaction ends up with it
You could easily make a perpetual motion engine out of that
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yeah i'm not sure how that works tbh
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There are several different technologies under the overall field.
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gravity is a conservative force normally, except vector control can create nonconservative-shaped fields (edited)
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The family starts with “non-local momentum transfer”.
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Buggy
gravity is a conservative force normally, except vector control can create nonconservative-shaped fields (edited)
which means you can get free energy from nothing
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the energy input is probably what makes up for it
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no because if you keep a circular gravity field on constantly you can make something fall in a circle forever
20:21
Hook that up to a generator in a vacuum and wait for it to start spitting out more energy than your vector-control device is putting in
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no, thats not the case, that would be identical to a normal gravity well
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Buggy
no, thats not the case, that would be identical to a normal gravity well
It's not like an orbit, it's like a gravity torus
20:22
Or, to put it more accurately, accelerating in a circle forever
20:22
Going around its orbit faster each time
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It then moves on to other ways to screw about with the vector scalar field, like the relatively simple rejiggering of the ratio between inertial mass and true mass.
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oh, yes, but in that case the vector generator probably requires energy input proportional to the amount of kinetic energy created
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Things get crazier from there, but those are the core parts of it.
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Buggy
oh, yes, but in that case the vector generator probably requires energy input proportional to the amount of kinetic energy created
why would it, that's not how gravity works
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it doesn't seem to be strictly gravity
20:25
but the closest analogue; a force that acts on all objects within it equally, along a vector field, proportional to their mass
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Still breaks the laws of physics
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not the conservation of energy, though.
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And I'm sure there are a lot more cheats you could get out of it
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Buggy
not the conservation of energy, though.
Okay, what fundamental force is it using, if not gravity?
20:26
It apparently works on anything, which includes stuff like dark matter that doesn't play nice with the others
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Well, gee. That’s the definition of ontotechnology.
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well Overmind has been talking about that for a bit now...
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Overmind
Well, gee. That’s the definition of ontotechnology.
So how come no one's made a perpetual motion engine or an equally cheaty hack out of it yet 😛
20:27
God, sci-fi writers
20:27
So uncreative
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Also, you know there’s a whole article covering the limitations and paraphysics of https://eldraeverse.com/2015/11/29/handwavium-paragravity/ , right?
Okay, let’s talk about paragravity. First up, a note on nomenclature. Paragravity is one of the two things that an Imperial habtech might be referring to when they talk about artificial gravi…
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or just un-munchkiny
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Because some laws are more fundamental than others, and because unregulated magic is boring.
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Overmind
Because some laws are more fundamental than others, and because unregulated magic is boring.
some laws are more fundamental than others
physics crying in a corner
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Incidentally, if you’re looking to pick a fight, I’ve been having a pretty good day today and am feelin’ pretty mellow with a glass of wine to hand, so I’m going to have to insist you come back later.
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Hah, not trying to pick a fight
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wait, hold on, backing up a bit
20:31
i've been understanding it as basically "gravity except arbitrary field shape, you make up the difference if its nonconservative."
20:31
but if a underlying part of it is decoupling inertial mass with real mass, does that mean you can basically element zero?
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Also, decoupling inertial and real mass is another way to induce perpetual motion!
20:33
😛
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Yes, you can eezomulate. That’s how vector-control cores permit awesomesauce drive efficiencies.
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if you can objectively judge the amount of energy created without committing the cardinal sin of Thou Shall Not Use A Universal Reference Frame, the Handwavium can just demand the difference in electrical power.
20:35
wait, vector control cores have awesome efficiency? I thought the consensus was "this is horriby inefficient except for very-high-velocity ships like lighthuggers"
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Buggy
if you can objectively judge the amount of energy created without committing the cardinal sin of Thou Shall Not Use A Universal Reference Frame, the Handwavium can just demand the difference in electrical power.
problem is you can't objectively judge it without the universal reference frame conceit
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And not decoupling. Changing the ratio. Ain’t the same thing.
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Overmind
And not decoupling. Changing the ratio. Ain’t the same thing.
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KAL_9000
problem is you can't objectively judge it without the universal reference frame conceit
not if you just pretend it's a stand-in for a arbitrary physical connector transferring force
20:37
if you have a vector grappling hook, you could pretend it's just got a real rope and get the same thing
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Which is what a simple NLMT application, like a tractor beam, is.
20:38
A tow rope without the rope.
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Buggy
if you have a vector grappling hook, you could pretend it's just got a real rope and get the same thing
THAT JUST SOUNDS LIKE A PHYSICAL OBJECT WITH EXTRA STEPS
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but not lugging around a rope is so convenient
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You mean like WiFi?
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Buggy
but not lugging around a rope is so convenient
true, but worth undoubtedly megawatts?
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its probably not that low of a efficiency ratio
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(Trivia fact: In Quechua, “network” is “string that knowledge moves through”. “WiFi” is “string that knowledge moves through, without the string”.)
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I suppose that works 😄
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Buggy
wait, vector control cores have awesome efficiency? I thought the consensus was "this is horriby inefficient except for very-high-velocity ships like lighthuggers"
In that they can turn a regular fusion torch into something with Epstein+ drive efficiency, yeah.
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Morgrim Moon 03/19/2021 8:44 PM
my way of thinking of it: you know how light has particle/wave duality and you can do all sorts of clever stuff with lensing and diffraction and splitting/combination and converting electromagnetic frequencies, so that if you take the system AS A WHOLE you've got conserved energy but in small bits you're doing magic? Do that, but with mass and gravity.
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You’ve seen the mass and acceleration numbers on some ‘verse ships - VC cores are how their drives can do that without vaporizing the instant you turn ‘em on.
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Overmind
In that they can turn a regular fusion torch into something with Epstein+ drive efficiency, yeah.
Isn't a regular fusion torch already at Epstein efficiencies?
20:47
It's a thrust issue IIRC
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Well, other technologies do help. It’s a hell of a lot easier to build a really torchy torch when you have access to exotic materials and other fun toys like Meng mirrors, but the VC cores are probably the biggest-ticket items.
20:48
The Epstein is ridiculously efficient in mass flow per thrust compared to a regular torch. (edited)
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DSD [He/They] 03/19/2021 8:55 PM
Still (just) within the bounds of energy from D-He3 fusion, iirc.
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(For values of regular equal to anything that’s ever been proposed as one.)
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how does a VC core boost a drive, without one or the other being the better option? I was under the impression that a VC core was "insert energy universe moves push off universe for acceleration"
21:11
does it instead work in tandem with the fusion drive, using energy to increase exhaust velocity (by decreasing inertia or just plain push)?
21:12
or decrease ship inertia?
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The reduced inertial mass of the ship effectively means you get more thrust out of the same drive. (Obviously, to avoid grievously enfuckerating conservation of energy, the drive plume has to get its missing energy back, which happens when it passes out of the envelope.)
21:23
This is not to say that you can’t use NLMT as a not-really-reactionless drive, because you can, but the efficiencies on that are hilariously awful because most of what you’re pushing off is void. So it’s not what you might call a useful application.
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(To clarify that, you’re getting Casimir-effect magnitude forces out of your n-r-r drive, so to get any useful amount of thrust, you need a hell of a lot of them. Vacuum fluctuations aren’t much to shove off of.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/22/2021 10:58 AM
so... 8% oxygen at 6atm
10:58
look breathable?
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Not to humans, I don't think. Especially not if the other gas is nitrogen.
10:59
Why do you ask?
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/22/2021 10:59 AM
50% nitrogen, and 42% neon
11:00
I was going to include more helium, because it's plausible for the world concerned, but a) that makes you sound like Donald Duck and b) it turns out that the planet can't hang onto the helium long-term
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Ah, that's about 3atm of nitrogen - I think there'd be mild nitrogen narcosis.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/22/2021 11:01 AM
Yeah, right on the edge of nitrogen narcosis for most people
11:01
I believe humans don't adapt, but there is variable tolerance to narcosis
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And the oxygen toxicity might be something to watch out for.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/22/2021 11:03 AM
I calculated it to be just on the wrong side of "healthy"
11:03
So you can breathe it, but long-term it's not good at all for the baseline human body
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And now I'm wondering why you'd need to have such a planet. That sounds like an interesting plot device.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/22/2021 11:04 AM
Easy. To make the planet technically habitable, but still extremely unpleasant
11:05
To wit: a 2.4 Earth mass world that spins every ~3.7 hours (fast enough to watch) (edited)
11:05
The rotation rate is actually a good thing, because it creates such an equatorial bulge that the gravity varies from 1.1g at the equator to 1.73g at the poles (edited)
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Hm - wouldn't there also be rotation-rate and gravity related effects on atmospheric pressure?
11:07
And I think neon in such quantities would be hard to accumulate.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/22/2021 11:08 AM
Sort of but not exactly?
11:08
It piles up higher but remains at the same pressure, paraphrasing the person I was building it with the help of (edited)
11:09
We concluded the neon was accumulated during its birth, further out than its present position
11:10
It then migrated inwards and lost the helium and hydrogen after the massive impact that gave it its spin
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Jade Nekotenshi 03/22/2021 11:16 AM
I'd expect a non-trivial amount of argon, too
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/23/2021 1:02 PM
So I think I've settled with 0.42 bar of partial oxygen pressure
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I think I have some basic ideas for four characters and their powersets of the "space supers" concept I had before. Based mostly on their roles aboard the salvage ship that tried to loot the empowering ship. (edited)
07:57
Pilot: Amplified reflexes, enhanced vision, adaptable neural plug-ins for control systems, carbon-fiber bones and other reinforced/flexing tissues to survive crashes.
07:58
Mechanic: Exocortex loaded with design and infosec software, implanted smart matter tools.
08:00
Loader: Super strength and durability, integration with exo-suit that can be even stronger.
08:02
Financier-Captain: "Command" package; charismatic, "admin" access to others' implants with sensory streams and ability to disable or enable powers.
08:02
Guess who the villain is.
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loader
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with the first one, i'm not certain about carbon-fiber bones. It's hard to find info on it, but iirc one of the notable selling points of bone is high elastic modulus and relatively high flexibility. In other words, it's very hard to bend but can still bend a greater amount you can expect.
08:07
and iirc this means bones act as stiff but efficient springs, which helps with locomotion and durability both.
08:09
carbon fibre reinforced materials are stiff as all hell and strong, but they don't bend very far right? I would think for crash resistance you'd want something that can absorb more energy, as opposed to being stronger
08:11
hmm, maybe... some sort of foamed composite? Could even be carbon fiber still, but with a porous microstructure that can deform without breaking or tearing. Stiff enough to serve as bone in normal use, but essentially compressible/flexible under high forces.
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Morgrim Moon 03/24/2021 8:12 AM
I think carbon tends to be brittle?
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exactly, that too
08:14
its got a good strength-weight ratio and its very stiff, but that's a curse as much as a blessing; the amount of energy a material can store is a very important factor for how much abuse it can take, and energy is absorbed when it deforms, according to the distance deformed times the force it takes to deform it.
08:20
carbon fiber is hard to deform at all, but it can't deform much; a comparison would be glass, vs various plastics which generally has 1/10th the young's modulus (stiffness) or less. Hit glass with a hammer, it shatters. Hit the same thickness of plastic, it laughs at you.
08:21
(also i'm calling the Loader as the villain too; Captain's too obvious.)
08:24
... i just had the most ridiculous idea for substitute bone
08:25
make them out of foamed nitinol
08:27
nitinol is the springy metal to end all springy metals, i'm not sure if you could plausibly break it, only bend it. And nitinol is known for it's shape memory effect...
08:30
and this is controlled, pretty precisely, by the exact proportion of nickel vs titanium and it has a pretty wide range. If you get it just right, you could make the transition temperature, oh, say, a few degrees above normal body temperature
08:30
so after a crash, a pilot gets a high fever and then
08:30
pop
08:30
all his bones go back to normal
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Oh memory metal, I remember seeing that in science camp.
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a shame the stuff is so expensive that it ends up remaining niche
08:44
but biology builds from the bottom up; bone is already a ridiculously complicated composite that turns a meh material something good. Isolating titanium and nickel and combining them in a fraction-of-a-percent proportion isn't farfetched. Now, where you'd get the titanium and nickel from... I guess they'd have a appetite for rutile?
08:44
as a supplement, at least.
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Apparently it's pretty biocompatible and used in implants already
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oh it is very biocompatible. Nickel less so in large amounts, i think, but it's a trace element in many foods and it's not like the nitinol would be directly exposed to the blood.
08:47
i'm just not sure where they'd get all the titanium. It's not a nutrient, you won't find much at all in plants or meat.
08:48
so, supplements, i guess.
08:51
(worth it for the amusing mental image if nothing else)
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im pretty sure that metal rich supplements would be pretty common in such a world
09:11
if as special side [edibles] or more "normal" looking cooking thats enriched
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BluejayHurricane 03/25/2021 11:46 PM
I get the distinct impression that Inception would do well with an imperial audience. (edited)
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Possibly not - they'd be a bit uncomfortable with the whole "intruding into your target's mind" thing.
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well, the protagonists are the bad guys
03:04
the rest of the movie is just too captivating that anyone actually notices
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It's certainly got good visuals and (as expected for a Hans Zimmer soundtrack) good audio.
03:22
The plot, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't seem like it would particularly appeal to the Imperials.
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also they are not doing enough with that whole dream reality controlling
03:23
like in the beginning they have that really cool city folding stuff
03:23
and the remainder is just an action movie
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BluejayHurricane 03/29/2021 9:57 AM
Starlight over Detrot finished. I don’t know how to feel about that.
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BluejayHurricane 03/29/2021 10:08 AM
It was the second pony thing I read, after @Overmind’s stuff. And now it’s over.
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I just had some...thoughts... about sticking animal heads on human shoulders. Bear with me. I think the reason some anthros look really strange (I’m looking at you, Skyrim) is because animal skulls...
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 12:29 PM
ohohohoho
12:29
This artist's work looks gorgeous
12:29
Although I'm probably not taking her advice tbh
12:31
My main thing about the "human-like back of the head" arrangement is that it can make the face seem like a mask a human is wearing
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 1:51 PM
💯 2
13:51
so good...
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Nice...
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/27/2021 4:17 PM
sets a bookmark on that...
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furry (edited)
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On the one hand, furry. On the other hand, damn he looks awesome.
16:37
The sword design... less so.
16:37
But that’s really the only thing that I can say I dislike.
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/27/2021 4:40 PM
Yeah, that hooked pommel is janky, but hey.
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And the jagged blade is... mmm no thanks.
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/27/2021 4:49 PM
The GM of the last campaign I was in thought I was strange for specifying that I was using a very straightforward kriegsmesser - evidently most folks don't know why jagged, spiky weapons are made of fail.
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Jade Nekotenshi
The GM of the last campaign I was in thought I was strange for specifying that I was using a very straightforward kriegsmesser - evidently most folks don't know why jagged, spiky weapons are made of fail.
smh
16:57
you really dissin my boi chainsaw like that
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KAL_9000
you really dissin my boi chainsaw like that
BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 5:38 PM
one word: kickback
17:38
Oh, and derailment
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 6:11 PM
neck attaches to back of skull
https://i.imgur.com/GAoelKb.png
(edited)
18:12
(embed, coward)
18:14
It makes the skull shape actually work.
18:15
The human skull is poised on top, and balanced between front and back, and if you add a snout it would tend to pull the head forward. At the very least you need extra muscle in the neck to compensate.
18:19
In the case of the uštn, it also makes a more horizontal spine less awkward. Which is good, because that is how they run.
18:20
(also I am endlessly amused at how Imgur keeps flagging my sketches as "adult content" on my mobile browser)
18:21
ah, it also does it on the desktop site but only if I use the "old design"
18:21
and am signed out
18:23
…does that imply that the gating is disabled in the new design?
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 6:32 PM
Anyways, I do ha ve to say—reading this wasn't much of a revelation. I think I came to the same conclusion when I was looking at the chapter illustrations in Redwall.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 7:08 PM
I have my doubts about "attaches horizontally" because it makes the neck look rather scintillating from the artist's example (edited)
19:09
Also, how long until you just go full raptor-stance with the ustn?
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 7:09 PM
scintillating
…I don't think that word means what you think it means…?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 7:09 PM
oh
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BizarroLand ♀
Also, how long until you just go full raptor-stance with the ustn?
0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 7:09 PM
Oh, just until they break into a run.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 7:10 PM
I'm saying it makes the necc look very long
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 7:10 PM
That's a feature, in my book.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 7:50 PM
I'm not talking about your boyes (edited)
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 7:53 PM
I know.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 9:08 PM
My approach so far has been to just make the back of the head flat
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how flat are we talking here?
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 9:11 PM
basically a slight curve and then a straight drop toward the shoulders
21:11
let me find pics
21:11
21:12
from almost four months ago these are
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 9:24 PM
but then you lose the style lines!
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 9:28 PM
what
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 9:30 PM
you know, the contours that make the form actually good to look at
21:34
I'll sketch something to demonstrate in a moment.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 10:41 PM
WELL? I'M WAITING.
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 10:53 PM
sorry, stylus was dying and couldn't make a straight line
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/27/2021 10:57 PM
yeah that's fair
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 11:06 PM
hm I am real bad at feline
23:17
@BizarroLand ♀ excuse my horrible anatomy :V
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0111narwhalz
@BizarroLand ♀ excuse my horrible anatomy :V
dont be sorry for your disabilities
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0111narwhalz 04/27/2021 11:31 PM
keep that up and I'll give you something to not be sorry about
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/04/2021 1:00 PM
yeah but im now trying to square this circle
13:00
because yeah, the usual "animal face but back of the head is human" is really awkward if called attention to
13:00
On the other hand, although "spine is elongated to attach horizontally" is more correct, it also looks ... off in its own way
13:01
Like it throws off the shoulder positions
13:01
And you can't have hair anymore or it looks wrong
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honestly, isn't this kinda the point?
13:07
i mean, a furry is basically a alien.
13:07
one that draws inspiration from animals and humans, but anything that isn't an animal or a human is going to be a alien.
13:08
and humans innately tend to think aliens look weird
13:08
we're wired for humans, and pretty much just humans.
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0111narwhalz 05/04/2021 1:09 PM
fuckin—make the weird work for you
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with work, you can probably thread that needle and find just the right combo that doesn't trigger the weird-reflex, but weird-reflex doesn't mean it's wrong unless avoiding it is the explicit design goal (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/04/2021 1:11 PM
okay okay 99% of my problem is the hair, the less sloping neck makes any kind of recognizable "mane" style a lost cause
13:11
because the hair is going to flow from the neck or over it, which ruins all the critical "style lines"
13:12
especially with short styles
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0111narwhalz 05/04/2021 1:12 PM
…no? manes are literally on quadrupeds with this kind of structure
13:12
eh depending on what you mean by "mane"
13:12
(I assume lion because you seem to be running primarily feline?)
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/04/2021 1:13 PM
yeah, my problem is rather specific and I'll explain more in a bit (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/04/2021 1:14 PM
I'll sleep more in a bit. Explain as best you can, I'll read it when I wake V:
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/04/2021 2:32 PM
I can't find too many good pictures but essentially, most of the human-based hairstyles I find appealing tend to rely on downward-flowing lines, especially ones that drop straight off the back of the head
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Pigtails/something that goes down to the sides instead of down the back?
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/04/2021 2:34 PM
thinking... hime cut, lobs, etc
14:41
and doing things with back-of-the-head hair is esthetically appealing to me in general
14:41
like, idk, whatever the Nora Valkyrie cut is called
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the who cut
14:42
The Who?
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Enderminion 05/05/2021 2:02 AM
Doctor Who?
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0111narwhalz 05/12/2021 3:42 AM
New Ailevérse vignette.
"Hey, Žen. Take a look at this." Ženkaðra looked up from polishing the vambrace. Matt was kneeling in front of her stripped-down armor, poking at the shin truss. She walked over, crouching low beside him. "Is it vhat?" Matt pointed a screwdriver at a deep dent in the bracing, prying a fragment of metal out of it. "Wonder how long that's been in there." ‹Ahh, shit,› she said. "Know I vhen that hattened." She turned the fragment in her hand, picking up the matching greave from the array on the floor and matching it against a still-shiny patch on the inside surface. "Aye, athter the Thiethdon raid filled I a huge crater here. Vondered vhere the stall had gone." Matt shuddered. That had been a rough expedition. Without God's excellent aim with the synchro, they would've been gunned down by the Fiefdom naval base's automated defenses. Evidently it had been a bit closer than he'd known. He looked at the patch, comparing it to the dent in the truss. "Yeesh, a couple centimeters down and you would've taken it to the bone instead." Žen chuckled. "Is it good that have I a second skeleton." She felt the back of the deformed brace. "Still can beat we it back into shape."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TpeE7-FdWtpAC50tIJBmxRzukQ7y0ZuXZX9X4uUjYak/edit?usp=sharing for in-text comments, if you prefer. Also there's three more of them there.
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I'm thinking of writing something for Amazon's "Vella" program https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GR2L4AHPMQ44HNQ7
20:01
Maybe a continuation of this, if I can muster the will to write more https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2017/12/23/memories-in-review-part-1/
Jarlin Fairhold de Argentum a Denal woke to the sound of sheets rustling next to zir.  Alarmed, zie thrust one clawed wing at the intruder catching him on the shoulder and spinning him around befor…
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BluejayHurricane 05/12/2021 8:20 PM
Oh, that’s going to take the knees out from under internet fiction.
20:21
I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.
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What is?
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As a writer with a Patreon subscriber count of exactly 1, I think this looks pretty interesting.
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Morgrim Moon 05/12/2021 8:29 PM
I doubt it. Mostly because Amazon is notorious for eliminating stories that don't fit it's "content guidelines" and those things are bonkers. Like, for example, Worm would be deleted because it portrays too much corruption in the PTO and because it features childhood abuse
20:30
a friend had her romance novel deleted because the characters went to a bar and someone complained that means the sex was rape. (Everyone knows the complainant was upset because it was two men fucking)
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Maybe not that story then...
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Morgrim Moon 05/12/2021 8:34 PM
basically, the biggest audience for the Amazon subscriptions this is targetting are middle class American mums.
20:34
Limit your content appropriately
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I'm thinking maybe that space superheroes thing I thought up a few months ago, or the "Icelandic Saga with wolves" I started in November.
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Morgrim Moon
basically, the biggest audience for the Amazon subscriptions this is targetting are middle class American mums.
Now that I think about it, the "keys" system might be an indication they're intending it partially for younger readers. A sort of barrier between the kids and their parents' credit cards. Or it could just be an attempt to bypass Apple's tax on in-app purchases
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0111narwhalz 05/13/2021 8:47 AM
funny-money go brrr
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 3:42 PM
What are some good websites to host worldbuilding setting pages on? kinda like what I see eldraeverse or orion's arm using, I'm explicitly trying to avoid fandom wiki (edited)
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I think Eldraeverse is hosted on a Wordpress blog, it’s what I use, though I keep meaning to start a Wiki
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I use a self-hosted Wordpress instance, and the nice Discourse people set me up with one of those to use as a comments/discussion section.
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 3:45 PM
yeah, self hosting wouldnt be an issue in my case if I have to do it (edited)
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Internally, I have a self-hosted DokuWiki for my reference notes.
15:46
(Ah, I should probably clarify that. My wiki is on an internal cluster here on my own network; the Wordpress instance is hosted on a DigitalOcean droplet.)
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 3:46 PM
oh
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I used to use Wordpress hosted by Wordpress.com, but since that doesn't allow for access to the underlying server, it limits which plugins, etc., you can use - so when I wanted to move to Discourse to provide more flexible discussion options than Wordpress's built-in comment facility, I had to self-host to make that work.
15:49
If you don't have any particular need for things they don't specifically support, Wordpress-via-Wordpress.com works pretty well. I used them for several years without a problem.
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 3:52 PM
Alright then
15:52
Thanks
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You could consider Miraheze, if you want a wiki.
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 4:46 PM
yeah?
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Miraheze is an open source project that offers free MediaWiki hosting, for everyone. Request your free wiki today!
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 4:46 PM
I'll give it a look
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A relevant Lyttle Lytton entry: “Welcome to WikiPlot, the free novel that anyone can edit! LOL JOHN LIKED POO”
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 7:42 PM
hm?
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there's gotta be a website like that
19:47
online story writing or somesuch
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we call it fanfiction.net
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no i meant like
20:47
one story that anyone can change
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 8:47 PM
that's just a laxly moderated discord roleplay server
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of course knowing the internet it would devolve into either shitposting or porn remarkably quickly
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 8:48 PM
yeah discord roleplay servers devolve into that too
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0111narwhalz 05/17/2021 9:43 PM
or pornographic shitposting
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And that’s called scat.
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The Face Of Goonery 05/17/2021 9:48 PM
Now I'm not for censorship but can we atleast all agree that stuff is awful
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boop dee doo bap
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 8:55 PM
The recent Spice Way-related discussion has made me wonder...
20:57
Does it make sense to circumscribe the distance you throw your wormhole mouths?
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In what sense?
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 9:10 PM
Well, the further you throw one end, the more the timeslip, right?
21:11
But there might be interesting things discovered by long-range telescopes and whatnot, at distances much greater than your current links cover
21:17
Not sure if I'm making sense
21:19
To put it another way, is there a prudent expansion speed when it comes to stargate mouths? To prevent time paradoxes, instabilities and the like. (edited)
21:20
Or should the maximum be "the greatest distance at which you've found something interesting" (edited)
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well, in-verse it's not strictly wormholes but gates which form a wormhole. No time slip, all synchronized to the same standardized time
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 9:24 PM
Oh, yeah, I'm getting things a little mixed up here
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i am... not especially sure how time works in a situation with FTL like that, but it does
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 9:26 PM
I'm talking about my 'verse, which is pretty much restricted in setting to one particular open cluster
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so, fixed wormholes, no FTL or time travel or such, gotcha
21:29
well, the time difference is nonlinear, isn't it?
21:29
because it's dependant on time dilation, which is
21:29
21:31
so its easy to pick a speed that's still fairly fast, but doesn't create massive time differentials - 50% c would only produce about 14% time dilation.
21:32
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 9:32 PM
Time dilation isn't exactly what I'm speaking of
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you're talking about the time differential between wormhole mouths, which can lead to dangerous instability because it shortens the space-time path between each end of the hole, and if that path ever goes below zero they explode, right?
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Buggy
you're talking about the time differential between wormhole mouths, which can lead to dangerous instability because it shortens the space-time path between each end of the hole, and if that path ever goes below zero they explode, right?
BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 9:35 PM
I think so.
21:35
like a wormhole from here to acentauri would send you 4.4 years in the future
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e.g. you move a hole 1 ly away at, say 0.9999999999999c or such, and then once it gets there and stops if you move it even a inch backwards it'll explode. Because the time passed was so low that you can observe events happening at the other end of the hole almost immediately despite the distance, and so at stationary end of the hole you can observe yourself almost immediately despite the disance
21:37
and if you moved it backwards any, you would be able to observe yourself in the future. And the universe politely and promptly informs you that the policy is no time machines, and the hole explodes in your face.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/19/2021 9:38 PM
KABOOOM
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but the advantage to this is that the passage of time is synchronized between ends of the hole, and the hole of course experiences bloody massive time dilation such that the journey is subjectively instant. So from the home planet's perspective, it arrives a lightyear away in like 5 seconds
21:39
so, effectively ftl travel, but you have to tiptoe around it because it's fragile
21:40
hmm, this means that subjective travel time is not quite the same as time dilation, though...
21:41
i think, right?
21:42
because the absolute amount of time dilation between 1% c and 2% c is miniscule and nonlinear, and yet the difference in travel time at non-relativistic speeds is linear.
21:48
and from more search this seems to combine with length contraction in a nontrivial way
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/20/2021 12:50 PM
That's all interesting but it's getting away from the main thrust of the question
12:51
Which is: do you build a wormhole network slowly but steadily, or do you just shoot off exploration mouths at anything that looks interesting regardless of its distance?
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Depends on what it takes to build those wormhole mouths
13:40
In my setting it's a weylforge built into a partial Dyson around Proxima Centauri
13:40
But the main reason they haven't built more weylforges is political, Alpha Centauri wants to maintain control over the colonies.
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/20/2021 1:53 PM
Weylforges are a lot cheaper in IAC
13:53
But they're restricted by the flatness requirements
13:58
Building even a small "commgauge/exploration" hole takes the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars
13:58
Holes large enough for humans and vehicles to pass through are well over a trillion in pricetag
13:58
Although those are present day equivalent prices. It's a lot more affordable by the time the tech is actually available
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In that case I'd go for slow but steady
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/20/2021 3:52 PM
i.e. you can't put wormholes too close to gravity wells or they get really mad
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I think the standard on Orion’s Arm is 327 AU (edited)
18:54
Hmm, Proxima is 12,950 AU from Alpha Centauri A and B, could probably fit a weylforge with beamed power somewhere in that gap
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/20/2021 7:02 PM
my standard is different
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The Face Of Goonery 05/20/2021 7:03 PM
I just use conformal gravity to not have to deal with negative energy and all it's confusing nuances
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BizarroLand ♀ 05/20/2021 7:05 PM
with some help from a physicist and other guys on the toughsf chat I decided the standard is "outside the Hill sphere of any major planet but still inside a star system"
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BluejayHurricane 05/23/2021 1:49 AM
@Overmind it's a very small world sometimes. I was trying to get snap working on my WSL install, and I found a few of your old comments.
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Heh, yeah. systemd-genie is probably the thing I'm secondmost known for on the Internets.
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I'm making fairly good progress on my space setting superheroes serial, which I'm planning to put up on Kindle Vella, but I'm having trouble coming up with a title.
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As a reminder, some scrappers stumble upon a neighboring system's attempt to conquer them by recruiting local super soldiers, but which ran into some space debris that killed the crew. The exostellar ship's AI, sans supervision, abducts the scrappers and augments them, but the "peace and unity" brainwashing program goes a bit awry.
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At first I was thinking "Salvaged Heroes" because of the protagonists' origin, then I considered "Star Paladins" as the imperator's program is called "project Paladin", possibly tagging on the protagonists' system name of "Tiere."
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DSD [He/They] 05/23/2021 6:04 PM
The latter sounds pretty cool.
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Now I'm thinking it might sound too much like a fantasy novel
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Question: What would the crew of a spaceship feel, gravitationally, when falling into a strong gravity well while they have a rocket directed downwards but failing to produce enough acceleration? And what would happen when the rocket cut out? Would they be thrown towards the ceiling?
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0111narwhalz 05/25/2021 9:59 PM
The only reason you'd feel anything different from just your rocket is tidal forces.
21:59
If tidal forces are palpable, you are somewhere you definitely should not be.
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if we're assuming a large gravity well without exotic effects like tidal forces, or frame dragging or such, you'll notice nothing inside the rocket except for acceleration equivalent to the difference between the rocket's acceleration and the gravity
23:55
er, well okay scratch that
23:55
you'll notice nothing but the rocket's acceleration, period. The acceleration of the rocket is the difference between what it can do and the gravity (edited)
23:56
so if it's accelerating upward under its own thrust at 1g, you feel 1g inside the rocket, no matter if you're in empty space or being pulled down by 100g of gravity from another source
23:57
but if we don't neglect more exotic gravitational effects...
00:00
tidal forces - if you're in a orbit or just have a high lateral velocity, this is straightforward. If the lateral direction is 'forward', bits farther from the gravitational source will want to move backwards/up, bits closer will want to move forward/down, cue spinning and/or spaghettification depending on how strong the field is and how fast you're moving
00:03
linear vs spherical forces - point source gravity is a spherical force, rocket acceleration is linear. In the exact center of the rocket, forces are perfectly parallel, but If at the edges of the rocket you'll get a slight inwards acceleration because the gravitational force is towards the mass center (which is at a slightly different angle, now) but the rocket's force is unchanged.
00:07
frame dragging - i... think this pretty much ends up being tidal forces, but reversed; close objects are dragged spinward, farther are dragged anti-spinward. Dependant on the rotation of the gravity source itself, not the lateral motion of objects being affected. Probably not significant unless you are regrettably close to a rotating black hole. (edited)
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I was thinking a “tractor beam” that acts like a directional gravity well
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they'd not feel much for a constant, approximately homogenous field
06:19
their ship falls, they fall with the same acceleration as the ship
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/04/2021 4:33 PM
40K fans really are the most tiresome people on the internet. -marvelous stan
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The Face Of Goonery 06/04/2021 4:33 PM
I agree
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DSD [He/They] 06/04/2021 4:35 PM
Only serious 40k fans. 40k is good satire/dark humour.
16:35
It is just cancer when taken seriously. (edited)
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I’m thinking perfluorocarbon would be an ideal medium for medical nanobots, specifically in a “healing vat” so the patient can’t drown
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well, requires forced ventilation, at which point just having a heartlung machine attached is probably easier (as you already have them in a reconstruction vat)
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BluejayHurricane 06/05/2021 1:19 PM
Heart lung requires some major surgery to function, right?
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the problem is perfluorocarbon is it's not water, and you're going to want a lot of water in a healing vat
13:25
flesh is mostly water, after all
13:27
i think a better choice would be a saline solution approximately isotonic to the interior of cells (to avoid cell stress/death due to osmotic pressure). But oxygenation is also important. If you have healing nanotech, maybe you can use oxygen-transportation nanoparticles instead? (edited)
13:30
(alternatively, you could try using a fluorocarbon/water mix and try and get it osmotically balanced. But i'm not sure if those two are miscible off the top of my head, and while fluorocarbon isn't particularly toxic i'm not sure if you want it in direct contact with internal tissues.)
13:36
reading up on it a bit, a relatively low-tech solution would be perfluorocarbon-water emulsion, which has a few varieties that are being developed as blood substitutes or at least substitute oxygen carriers. The particles are smaller than red blood cells so they can get through damaged vessels/tissue more easily, and carry more oxygen per volume
13:37
a high tech solution would be something like respirocytes https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/477039c5c42b5
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BluejayHurricane
Heart lung requires some major surgery to function, right?
well, i think that if you have to flood their lungs for the nanos to work the two extra cuts for the piping are probably included in the price
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/21/2021 4:08 PM
I'm feeling more and more like it doesn't make sense to have discrete vehicles landing at and taking off fron spaceports
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BizarroLand ♀
I'm feeling more and more like it doesn't make sense to have discrete vehicles landing at and taking off fron spaceports
The correct approach is to have your spaceports in orbit
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/21/2021 4:09 PM
And a beanstalk going down to the ground, right
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Or a skyhook / hypersonic plane (edited)
16:10
I've seem some designs that have zero-propellant skyhook delivery with a plane able to get fast enough on airbreathing nuke jets alone
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/21/2021 4:11 PM
Yeah, that's kind of ludicrous tbh
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project pluto instance
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So, I have an old idea for Megaman Zero-ish story/quest. Magical Girl Ciel. Synopsis: Dr. Weil fucked up Zero good. To prevent a person who wants to rule the world as the Devil out of pure spite, Ciel, supergenius she is, spliced herself with bits of CyberElf, Reploid and New Generation Reploid tech, including, yes, Infinite Potential System. After waging some more of the war of total annihilation, she decided that planetary infrastructure, ecology and resource base degraded past the point of no return, in case of victory only possible survivor will be Ciel's mad zombie husk, then promptly invented time machine and left to change the past so Elf Wars won't happen. She promptly overshot her intended target, hit Classic era and asked Dr. Light to put her into a capsule, too, to stabilize her shambles of biology and hone whole emergency kludge into something elegant. (edited)
15:47
But mostly I wanted to speak about image of her machining high-precision parts on improvised lathe made from a random salvaged motor, hastly build jaws and free-handing energy sword as a cutter. (edited)
15:54
There are perks of energy sword that has molecular edge and varied thermal propherties.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/04/2021 9:51 PM
On habitats: The decision to not really have many of them in IAC is primarily Doylist
21:51
I don't really like their aesthetic and feel they lack a sense of place
21:51
Except for the very biggest ones which are impractical for that very reason
21:53
Well, that and I am kind of skeptical of hab-boosters' claims. "for X amount of mass we can build Y habitats giving us Z land area which is W Earths!" always comes across to me as reductionist.
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i mean, it's not strictly wrong. Even if you Coruscant'd up a planet's surface, you would still have orders of magnitude less population-per-mass than a habitat, even taking in to account the differing elements that make up a planet vs a habitat But on the other, do you expect your population to actually get high enough for that to matter? The highest population density city is quoted as about 120k per square mile, and the Earth is about 200 million square miles. A well optimized Coruscant could have 24+ trillion people living in it at that rate. This is neglecting details like "not everyone might want to live in Coruscant" or "not everyone wants to be packed for maximum sardinepopulation density", of course.
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Morgrim Moon 07/05/2021 6:46 AM
and "okay so how do we vent the waste heat"
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the same way the Transcend does
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wave your hands fast enough to fan all the heat away
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Morgrim Moon
and "okay so how do we vent the waste heat"
I recall Trantor having massive radiators sticking out into space
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Morgrim Moon 07/05/2021 9:22 AM
which makes it more sensible than Coruscant
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DSD [He/They] 07/05/2021 9:24 AM
Hmm... you could run thermal superconductors to radiators up a space elevator? (edited)
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or it might be more efficient to move the thermal mass around, allowing you to use iron or water or something instead of exotic materials
09:55
something like a lofstrom loop
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"what foomp is foomp this?" foomp "this foomp is foomp our foomp common foomp ac foomp heat foomp dump foomp mass foomp driver foomp"
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KAL_9000
I recall Trantor having massive radiators sticking out into space
I don't recall that. On the other hand, I think Trantor was actually only about forty billion, so it might not have needed any special arrangements for waste heat.
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xandeross
I don't recall that. On the other hand, I think Trantor was actually only about forty billion, so it might not have needed any special arrangements for waste heat.
I swear there was something about it in one of the Foundation books
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I think there was... I'm remembering something similar about there being something with heat management... at the poles, I think?
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Was it in the main trilogy?
20:45
Because I've searched my ebook copies of Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation for "heat," "polar," and "pole" and I'm not seeing anything like that
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it was in one of the prequels iirc
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xandeross
I don't recall that. On the other hand, I think Trantor was actually only about forty billion, so it might not have needed any special arrangements for waste heat.
"Well in excess of forty billions," according to the first novel
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One of the prequels reveals that Wye, a district near the south pole, punches well above its political weight because it happens to be the place where excess heat is released and it could screw the entire planet by turning the relevant machinery off, but I don't seem to find anything about exactly how it releases it.
20:51
Although that population figure is ridiculously low. At 40 billions, you don't have a towering city planet; you have an ecumenopolis of 10-acre ranchettes. (edited)
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The strength of the Foundation novels was always in its portrayal of the clash of large-scale trends than in its portrayal of technology. I don't think Asimov ever brings up radiators.
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Aha! One reference claims that Wye used the waste heat from the rest of Trantor to melt the polar icecap, thus providing the planet with fresh water.
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Overmind
Although that population figure is ridiculously low. At 40 billions, you don't have a towering city planet; you have an ecumenopolis of 10-acre ranchettes. (edited)
I get the impression that they did a lot of enclosing-ridiculous-volumes-for-the-sake-of-impressing-the-outworlders-with-indoor-aircar-flights. "Debarkation Building was tremendous. The roof was almost lost in the heights. Gaal could almost imagine that clouds could form beneath its immensity. He could see no opposite wall; just men and desks and coverging floor till it faded out in haze."
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Although you don't necessarily have huge heat management problems. One canonical source of Trantor's energy are the geothermal taps of the Dahl district. If the rest of Trantor can power itself with, say, plating the surface of the world-city with solar panels, other climatic sources, and the like, then you aren't creating any waste heat that wouldn't have ended up in the Trantorian ecosphere anyway. And since Trantor's entire economy is based on exporting government to the rest of the galaxy, it's not like you're going to have a lot of high-powered heavy industry downwell anyway.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:00 PM
I only read the first Foundation novel and yeah I'm pretty sure Trantor isn't Coruscant
21:01
Also honestly, Earth's population is 2.3 acres to a person rn (edited)
21:01
So I'm pretty sure the exurban ranchette model is not on
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planetary suburbia?
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Trantor's land area is placed at 75,000,000 square miles (edited)
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Square
Trantor's land area is placed at 75,000,000 square miles (edited)
BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:02 PM
Square miles I would hope
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Fixed 😆
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:02 PM
Earth has 197 million sq. mi
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Never says what the land/water ratio is, though
21:03
And I don't think they ever say it has lower gravity
21:04
Has Trantor been a water world this entire time
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:06 PM
No, only 57 million sq mi of land
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Now the real question, given that Trantor imports all its food, is where they are getting their oxygen from. A subject addressed so far only, I believe, by Bill the Galactic Hero .
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Overmind
Now the real question, given that Trantor imports all its food, is where they are getting their oxygen from. A subject addressed so far only, I believe, by Bill the Galactic Hero .
Algae farms
21:07
They only import luxury food iirc
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I think they import wheat too?
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:10 PM
yeah Trantor has literally paved over everything except some of the Palace gardens and the oceans
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Algae farms in the prequel, but by the later books reference is made to how Trantor was dependent on “daily shipments from 20 agri-worlds” and how this meant that later Imperial policy “was little more than the protection of Trantor’s delicate jugular vein”.
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"Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor... Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege."
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:11 PM
This raises the question of ... protection from whom?
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REBEL SCUM.
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:11 PM
This is back in the days when the Empire really was galactic and there were literally no other polities in the universe
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Yeah, didn't the Empire control the entire galaxy?
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Ambitious admirals. Greedy governors. Alliterative assholes.
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They spent a thousand years quashing constant rebellions before things fell apart
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/05/2021 9:13 PM
rebel roughnecks
21:13
??
21:13
Anyways ecumenopoli are indeed a rather silly idea
21:13
Unless you have the demographics of the Moties
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Square
They spent a thousand years quashing constant rebellions before things fell apart
Maybe there wouldn't be rebellions if they actually provided for the people lmao
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…have you met people?
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Morgrim Moon 07/05/2021 9:21 PM
Yes but semi unhappy people tend to have at least a decade and generally a few between each rebellion. Constant rebellion means you're screwing up somewhere
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In this case, it means that the central government no longer has the will to suppress rebellions, leading to REBEL SCUM everywhere someone ambitious feels they haven't gotten everything they deserved. Since that's everyone, they have a problem.
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Square
"Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor... Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege."
Worth noting that Asimov was writing before the Green Revolution, so his worlds tend to be a bit low density and agrarian to modern eyes. For example, Caves of Steel features a crowded future Earth where the entire population lives in climate controlled domes fed mainly by yeast an algae, with the astonishing population of... eight billion.
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 07/06/2021 2:46 AM
He didn't do the math.
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Not to mention Soylent Green and its literary inspiration Make Room, Make Room!
06:33
With a shockingly high population of… seven billion
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0111narwhalz 07/06/2021 6:34 AM
shoulda asked Tsiolkovsky instead
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/06/2021 10:05 AM
I recall a Clarke story that had "six billion" people overcrowding Earth
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My Kindle Vella serial is now readable https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/project-paladin/ (edited)
After the nova of the 25th century the Federation’s grasp over the outlying systems was severely weakened. With interstellar travel immensely more difficult without the majority of the starga…
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/15/2021 2:47 AM
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BizarroLand ♀ 07/17/2021 11:05 PM
Zarpaulek started a thread. 07/30/2021 10:15 AM
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BluejayHurricane 08/08/2021 9:32 PM
Is anyone reading anything good. Or read anything good. I’m really not picky.
21:32
Four hours of special relativity problems is too many hours.
21:33
But it’s the best thing I have to do, unless I want to crack open E&M or quantum.
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well, i read through this quest a few days ago
21:35
be warned, its a little on the long side
21:36
also be warned: as you can see from the link, its hosted on one of the Formidable Forums of F...orror.
21:37
all who enter the Trio (Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity, Questionable Questing) often leave things behind - most of all, their sanity.
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BluejayHurricane 08/08/2021 9:37 PM
I’ve been saved from that only because those sites have a hellish discovery problem.
21:38
If 90 percent of everything is crap, and there’s no external system to get an idea, you’re going to have a problem.
21:39
On that note, someone should really make an arbitrary discovery engine for web stuff, similar to Netflix, but with the ability to punch in works from anywhere.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/08/2021 9:43 PM
yeah uh
21:43
I regret joining SpaceBattles
21:43
The subject matter experts are irritating, but they're not the problem. They've earned the right to be irritating, if anything.
21:43
But no, most of the regular userbase carry around this sense of unjustified superiority (edited)
21:46
It's like Reddit, but if it were a geekdom-focused traditional forum
21:46
Most of the regular posters I see around have actively repulsive personalities in this way
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BluejayHurricane
Is anyone reading anything good. Or read anything good. I’m really not picky.
Martha Wells' Murderbot series is great
22:56
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accom...
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BluejayHurricane
On that note, someone should really make an arbitrary discovery engine for web stuff, similar to Netflix, but with the ability to punch in works from anywhere.
This is a fairly good idea, although it might just be basically reddit?
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alternatively, google with the right search modifiers?
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:19 PM
I’ve not found those modifiers yet.
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hmm... it is a tricky problem, now that i think about it
13:28
the two most common strategies for these sorts of things are a predictive engine, or alternatively, a tag system
13:32
a tag system requires active maintenance; tags generally have to be created and applied manually, so all the content in the system has to be judged by someone and have appropriate tags applied. This can lead to misleading or incorrect tags, and makes content discovery difficult because you have to figure out what tags correspond to the sort of content you want, and you likely won't know all the tags which exist. And there would certainly be too many to browse over for a diverse database.
13:32
you can see this sort of system on many fanfiction websites, as well as image boards
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You could autotag things if you already had enough samples of good tagging.
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:34 PM
The tag system can have a small number of general categories, by approximate genre. I do agree that stuff needs to be manually tagged, but if you get broad reader agreement, then you probably have a good set of tags.
13:34
It could be cut down to maybe 50 or so, at the high end.
13:35
A reaction system, and a view count of readers are also really valuable metrics for identification.
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on the other hand, there's predictive engines. This is google, essentially. It uses various algorithms to try to model you and then it provides media that it thinks you want. This works spectacularly well for general stuff, as seen by how damn popular google is, but for niche uses it likely won't have enough data to work off of, especially since it isn't tailored to the fandom or website and it's associated community. You tend to end up with recommendations of popular stuff, not stuff you would specifically enjoy.
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:36 PM
I’m not sure that’s not a good system, though.
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yes, it can sort of just work into a rut
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:37 PM
Popular stuff tends to have, at least, cleared Sturgon’s Law
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like how youtube's auto-playlists can just end up recommended the same videos over and over
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Buggy
also be warned: as you can see from the link, its hosted on one of the Formidable Forums of F...orror.
Forbidden Forums of Formidableness?
👍 1
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:38 PM
It is a problem, for sure.
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BluejayHurricane
Popular stuff tends to have, at least, cleared Sturgon’s Law
it doesn't. It really, really doesn't.
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:39 PM
It still does much better than random.
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:39 PM
Which in a lot of cases is the state of the art right now.
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but with the FFFs, sorting by most posts or most views is very hit or miss. I've found good works that are barely known and awful crap that are in the top 20
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Buggy
but with the FFFs, sorting by most posts or most views is very hit or miss. I've found good works that are barely known and awful crap that are in the top 20
Such is the problem with the hivemind of SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity
13:41
I'm convinced half the users are one person
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:41 PM
Maybe you could start sorting people into buckets, so if someone in that bucket liked something, it gets recommended to other people in that bucket. (edited)
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KAL_9000
Such is the problem with the hivemind of SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity
(I can't speak for Questionable Questing, seeing as how I've never been there, but I imagine it's much the same, just hornier) (edited)
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i think that's sort of like what google does, but google is still trying to be too generalist to work well for recommending niche media
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:42 PM
You’re not wrong there
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i think something like google, but tailored to websites or fandoms would work well, but google works so well because it has a insane amount of R&D and data poured in and even if they were willing to part with that, good luck replicating that with one or two people
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:43 PM
But Google also has to work with questions, which is much, much harder.
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fair enough
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:44 PM
Part of the reason I suggested a tag+did people like it system is because it lets you search by a fairly restricted number of things, simplifying the problem enormously.
13:46
So adventure works, that people in say two buckets out like, that are moderately popular, would be a valid query.
13:47
You can’t do a keyword search for that sort of stuff, because you have to know the keywords, and that means you already know what you’re looking for.
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the question is, how do you label buckets in a useful way
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:48 PM
That is the trick
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its easy to ask for, say, "my bucket"... hmm
13:48
well what you could do is
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:48 PM
Stories read and liked?
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instead of labeling them
13:48
well, think of how a neural net categorizes things with confidences
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:49 PM
And people with substantial graph overlap are in the same bucket.
13:49
Huh, that could work.
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you have something that's say, termed 90% an apple, 40% a basketball, 15% a red volleyball, or something like that
13:49
and when you search, it works sort of like that in reverse
13:50
you say "okay, i am willing to view works that deviate from my 'bucket' by... 3 arbitrary units"
13:51
and buckets are arranged by similarity, a person can be 90% bucket Z, 50% bucket F, 10% bucket W, etc
13:52
i guess basically how it is is
13:52
you have categories, but the categories are not defined
13:52
the system comes up with them and associates them on their own. You just ask how far you want it to reach when looking for associations (edited)
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 1:53 PM
Yeah, that sounds fairly nice.
13:54
Choosing how far you look is one of the things I wish Netflix and YouTube did better. You can get stuck in circles, there.
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The best tool I have found for finding things worth reading on the Hellsite Forums is, amusingly enough, TV Tropes.
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 2:01 PM
Yeah. But that still has so, so many problems.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/09/2021 2:22 PM
Argonbalt really hates tvtropes
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 2:23 PM
Argonbalt hates a lot of things.
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That's between him and TV Tropes.
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argonwho?
14:42
google just finds a tumblr blog
14:43
which is probably the same argonbalt, but i don't know how it connects
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 2:46 PM
A guy on ToughSF. Posts a lot in the war channels.
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0111narwhalz 08/09/2021 2:46 PM
he used to be here too :V
14:47
(I think?)
14:47
or was that Archon
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 2:47 PM
And you are not on ToughSF. That should be corrected immediately.
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Also a Tough SF poster, as people have said. Never here.
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It could probably work to have people just provide a list of things they like and how much, and have users specify people whose preferences match theirs to some degree (and to find them automatically via any overlap they do have), and then build a recommender thing out of that.
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BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 2:48 PM
Argonbalt does some spectacular videos on mecha, too.
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gollark
It could probably work to have people just provide a list of things they like and how much, and have users specify people whose preferences match theirs to some degree (and to find them automatically via any overlap they do have), and then build a recommender thing out of that.
BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 2:49 PM
Yeah, but then you have to have people list the things they like, and that has the problems of a keyword search system combined with too many tags.
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I don't mean they'd specify a list of tags, I mean they would just provide titles and the system would magically™ determine (implicit) categories based on like/dislikes overlap.
14:54
I guess it might be a bit tricky to normalize different spellings etc. but meh.
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BluejayHurricane
Argonbalt hates a lot of things.
BizarroLand ♀ 08/09/2021 2:54 PM
Yeah. He kind of misses the point of what one is saying often, and his personality is deeply irritating
14:54
I just find him funny and educational enough to be worth sticking around anyways
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gollark
I don't mean they'd specify a list of tags, I mean they would just provide titles and the system would magically™ determine (implicit) categories based on like/dislikes overlap.
BluejayHurricane 08/09/2021 3:00 PM
Oh, I get that. You’re talking about pre-seeding the user network, so people don’t have to read a bunch of “widely agreed upon as good, but not tailored” stuff to build up a profile.
15:01
It might be an option, but I would be cautious about doing that - finding directly similar works is a trap that a lot of other services fall in to.
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I wrote this up a few weeks ago to promote my Kindle Vella serial "Horizon: Salvaged Heroes", but I think I still need to explain how the Para-Imperium got to that point https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/project-paladin/
After the nova of the 25th century the Federation’s grasp over the outlying systems was severely weakened. With interstellar travel immensely more difficult without the majority of the starga…
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I was thinking: In the 25th century PX Centauran astronomers observed a notable dimming in the light from the long-abandoned Sol. When an expedition was dispatched to investigate they confirmed the Federation's worst fears, that the Destroyers were constructing a Dyson Sphere in the ruins of their destroyed home. The expedition was quickly discovered and intercepted by the machines, but they managed to fire off a weapon they'd brought directly from the Star Forge's most hidden labs, a singularity bomb. The artificial microsingularities the device unleashed into Sol triggered a coronal mass ejection sufficient to fry the remnants of the planetary system, reducing the unfinished Sphere to its' constituent atoms. Unfortunately, the blast front did not stop at the heliosphere. As soon as the QComm warning reached Alpha Centauri the Federation began planning to evacuate the Core Worlds. The next four years saw a mad dash through the star gates for the far reaches of the empire, first the elites attempting to secure their own corners of the wreckage, then the greater population once the news leaked. Small wars broke out in the center of galactic civilization between those attempting to escape the radiation by burrowing deep within planetoids, and those who sought to dismantle them for ship materials. When the wavefront came within one AU of the central gate nexus on the edge of the Alpha Centauri system ships were still streaming through, but the Federal Guard had their orders and weren't going to wait. The wormholes that had enabled Alpha Centauri to spread its imperium to the stars could just as easily carry solar ejections as ships, so to save parahumanity the Federation broke its own backbone. Every wormhole-connected system saw a planet-cracking flash in their skies, but the great distance between gates and stars mandated by the Federation spared the bulk of their populations.
10:51
The once unrivaled imperium of the Federation of Parahuman Species is no more. Where once there was a united empire there are now a dozen pretenders reaching desperately through the fragmented remnants of the gate network, and hundreds more stars that feel no fealty to anyone. But all is not gloom and despair. In the centuries since the Federation's fall cultures and peoples they once stifled have flourished. Quarantined Outworlds build crude chemical rockets to claim their ancestral birthright. Posthumans in their hidden lairs contemplate mysteries unfathomable to mere mortals. And a grainy compressed video allegedly from the Solar expedition gives hope not thought possible for millennia. Destroyer vessels exploding, several minutes before the radiation wavefront reached them.
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but they managed to fire off a weapon they'd brought directly from the Star Forge's most hidden labs, a singularity bomb. The artificial microsingularities the device unleashed into Sol triggered a coronal mass ejection sufficient to fry the remnants of the planetary system, reducing the unfinished Sphere to its' constituent atoms.
18:30
in a sentence, i don't buy this
18:30
i'm not sure what the 'destroyers' are, but it sounds like a seed AI run amok (edited)
18:30
and i'm skeptical that a seed AI would be outsmarted like that.
18:31
especially if it's at the stage of building a dyson swarm
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/15/2021 6:32 PM
Maybe not outsmarted so much as outpunched?
18:32
They saw it, knew what it could do, but couldn't stop it?
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Well, they came up with a weapon and used it against the AI successfully, meaning that the AI either: 1: didn't think of the weapon 2: did think of the weapon, but didn't make countermeasures 3: did think of the weapon, but you can't make countermeasures
18:34
#1 is outthinking it, #2 is also largely outthinking it (if it thought of it, it should've also thought of the possiblity that it has enemies who would use it. If it did that and still didn't take steps to prevent it, it must've really had a tight grip on the idiot ball.), #3 means your world has a incredibly powerful weapon that can destroy solar systems and can't effectively be stopped (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/15/2021 6:35 PM
Or 4, they thought of it, made countermeasures, but they failed
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i'd put that under a mix of #2 and #3
18:38
the defining feature of seed AIs is that they're really damned good at thinking, so if the countermeasures could fail it probably would've thought of that and done better (#2), or thought of that and it couldn't do better (#3, and it also seeds the solar system with hardened deep-crust revival seeds)
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Buggy
i'm not sure what the 'destroyers' are, but it sounds like a seed AI run amok (edited)
They're dumb AIs. Berserker probes built by a xenophobic alien species that wanted to ensure they were controllable.
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hmm, my initial reaction is that doesn't mesh well with them putting together a dyson sphere, but on the other hand it kinda does mesh well
18:46
they wanted something controllable, so they didn't quite make it a gAI, they basically converted it into the interstellar warfare equivalent of a instinctual animal
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/15/2021 6:47 PM
So aircars don't really work well in the niche most people think up for them
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they can't design new things outside limited parameters, so they have all the machines they need stored in a encoded form. They have a large set of pre-programmed behaviors for the situations they might encounter, and one of those is building a 'nest' dyson swarm
18:48
it's a interesting take on 'zerkers, and also goes to explain why they haven't killed everyone; they adapt poorly or not at all, and can be easily outsmarted. They're only a dangerous opponent because there's so damned many of them
18:48
like ants, but with lasers
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They homed in on Sol's radio shell but missed most of the seedships that had been launched before their arrival. The exosolar colonies evaded detection for 2500 years simply by restricting transmissions to tight bands, with only the occasional slip-up.
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So, aside from the confusion on the nature of the berserkers, what do you think of that transition?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/16/2021 10:32 PM
Looks like a pretty solid beginning to me. How much if any of the original gate network still works or is repairable?
22:33
Also, I forget if your verse has any xenosophonts
22:33
but if there are any, are there working xeno gates?
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hard to envision an intersystem CME from sol being powerful enough to do anything at all, microsingularities or not (edited)
05:54
even turning all of sol's mass into an expanding cloud of matter, you're looking at like 100 mg/m^2 at the distance of alpha cen (edited)
05:57
using a wildly high 7000km/s you're looking at nearly 200 years to travel the 4-and-change lightyears
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kinetic energy of a cm^2's worth of matter at alpha centauri's distance (~0.01mg) at 7000km/s yields a kinetic energy of less than 250 kJ. spread that over, say, ten seconds and you've got 25 kW. i have no idea how much a CME would slow down over interstellar distances but it'd presumably be a lot. and the impulse would smear out in time a lot more than ten seconds. interstellar gas, galactic magnetic fields (most of the mass would be ionized hydrogen, after all), &c would contribute to sapping away its energy. still, you'd think an interstellar civilization could harden critical infrastructure against a 10 second long, 25kW pulse with 200 years' heads up (edited)
06:06
i gather your thing isn't hard scifi but I still feel that whole doomsday scenario needs a rethink
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25kW probably wouldnt do that much overall
06:12
not nice to be directly in the way, but everything in a building is probably fine
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dziban
kinetic energy of a cm^2's worth of matter at alpha centauri's distance (~0.01mg) at 7000km/s yields a kinetic energy of less than 250 kJ. spread that over, say, ten seconds and you've got 25 kW. i have no idea how much a CME would slow down over interstellar distances but it'd presumably be a lot. and the impulse would smear out in time a lot more than ten seconds. interstellar gas, galactic magnetic fields (most of the mass would be ionized hydrogen, after all), &c would contribute to sapping away its energy. still, you'd think an interstellar civilization could harden critical infrastructure against a 10 second long, 25kW pulse with 200 years' heads up (edited)
ah, turns out the radius of the sun / 7000km/s is almost exactly 100s. pretending the entire sun instantaneously explodes outward at the same velocity, you'd have a 100s pulse. that's 2.5 kilowatts
06:13
ought to be utterly trivial to sink that kind of input
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thats unpleasant for completely unhardened satellites, but everything else should be fien
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"did you feel something?"
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eh, tripled solar flux equivalent is noticeable
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well, doubled
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no, more than that. cm^2. anyway it's in the realm of PICA-X ablator's capabilities, before any other intervention like an artificial magnetic field to deflect inbound particles
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Well when I was first considering the scenario I thought a nova…
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i think that'd be easier to deal with than shooting all of the sun's mass outward isometrically (edited)
06:37
i'm not sure how one could get the sun to go nova without it being billions of years in the future after it's completed its evolution to white dwarf and without a companion red giant coming from somewhere to feed it gas
06:39
a supernova is just not gonna happen, i don't think, even with some strong handwavium. the sun is way too small for that
06:42
might be easiest to just leave the how a mystery. the sun blew up, nobody knows how, move the story along, full stop
06:44
or the robots realize they're found out, and send some sort of weapon to blow up the star gate
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no, there are definitely other physically plausible weapons which could result in something akin to a supernova
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Also possible that most of the people who evacuated weren’t in any real danger and just panicked.
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a microsingularity doesn't really work, i don't see any practical way to make a immediate explosion out of a star and some singularities. The 'make explosion' and 'eat star for bigger explosion' parts work directly against one-another, and i doubt that other effects like compression-induced-fusion or infalling matter energy release (accretion disk style) will be significant with anything less than a planetary-mass 'micro' singularity
07:01
but
07:01
might i bring in, as a example, the Burning of Litash
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Strangelet bomb?
07:03
concept works as well with stars as it does planets, iirc
07:04
potentially even moreso; more available energy means strangelets might achieve higher velocities and, well, to quote: (WARNING: DYSPEPTIC FLARE HELLFIRE has intrinsic and unknown black-level-plus existential threat potential, since the energetic conversion event may (p > δ) spread undecayed strangelets at relativistic speeds sufficient to prolong their lifespan, enabling them to reach other star systems, where they may in turn trigger conversion events; as a worst-case scenario this could lead to self-replicant galactic annihilation.
07:04
nothing says "OH FUCK RUN" like contagious supernova
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Morgrim Moon 08/17/2021 7:10 AM
is that something you can outrun?
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Through wormholes, maybe.
07:13
Yeah, that seems like a reason to evacuate the local star cluster and slam the gates shut behind you
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hmm, and i bet you could justify it spreading, but not across the entire galaxy, if you said that...
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Depends a bit on their lifespan and how many of then get ejected into space
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Morgrim Moon 08/17/2021 7:15 AM
and density of the local star cluster
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Space is big and mostly empty after all
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Morgrim Moon 08/17/2021 7:16 AM
like, even moving relativistically will lengthen their lifespan but it's still going to be pretty short. Author can tune it to "star must be within [x] lightyears to be at risk"
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the initial explosion uses a big chunk of strangelet, resulting in essentially a supercharged supernova. But the secondary strangelets produced by it are much smaller and less stable. They can reach other stars, but they won't kick off complete secondary reactions - the equivalent of a nova, rather than a supernova. So it can't chain. But these secondary reactions could still hit nearby planets, though, and the nova itself is not going to be fun either way. (edited)
07:17
so you have something like a cluster bomb
07:17
but with solar systems
07:20
(fun fact: if you converted the sun's entire mass into energy, you'd have about 2000 foe [unit of energy] The largest supernovas are generally about 100 foe)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/17/2021 7:27 AM
And most of that energy is neutron radiation
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Buggy
no, there are definitely other physically plausible weapons which could result in something akin to a supernova
if the work is mostly about furries or whatever and not about scifi, there's no point in putting in lots of detail about some event
07:39
one of the problems i've always seen with self-published stuff or fanfic and the like is tons of detail about some topic the author is familiar with or enthusiastic about, but everything else is cardboard
07:40
i guess it's a trap authors can get stuck in
07:44
i'm not crazy about stranglets, cosmic strings, false vacuum and so on. there's plenty of scary things we've actually seen or have strong evidence for to use in a story without having to dip into stranglets and friends (edited)
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well the ideal, i'd say, is to have maximum detail about everything and nonetheless fit it into concise and easily-read language
07:57
but that takes alotta effort, so @Zarpaulek is probably going to decide to focus on one thing or another (edited)
07:58
but whether that focus is on furries or not is as yet undeclared
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is it not furries? ah, i just based it on the cover
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i mean it definitely is
08:16
but it could focus on other things, too
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at least they're eating well in the 25th century lol
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I’m thinking that story would be the 28th century PX, roughly the 49th AD
08:29
no Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century then
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Some time for dust to settle, and successor states to attempt consolidation.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/17/2021 12:21 PM
Hm
12:21
What if it's a directed blast?
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Jade Nekotenshi
Also, I forget if your verse has any xenosophonts
No spacefaring ones in this region of the galaxy. There's one story I wrote about one of the Federation's client worlds that they discovered during their steam age.
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 9:08 PM
Rising Star - Elseworlds emergency transmission|CRITIC CRITIC CRITIC From: Commander in chief, Federal Fleet|CINCFEDFLT under auspices of Human Continui...
21:08
can't recall if I ever linked that or not (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 9:44 PM
is this like
21:48
Oh, I think I get it now
21:48
It's an apocalypse contingency for your verse
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 9:52 PM
Pretty much, yeah
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 9:53 PM
Still, it sounds like everyone's really up a creek
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 10:18 PM
Pretty much - in that elseworld, everything's right and proper buggered.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 10:23 PM
At a guess: Hostile god. (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 10:38 PM
Hostile precursor civilization
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 10:40 PM
Gat damn, that's absolutely a "we're fucked" scenario (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 10:43 PM
Yes it is. In that one, most of known space is frakked.
22:44
Except maybe the Deimar Many mentioned in there - they might be a match, but they're more or less hostile too.
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Is that for your ‘verse?
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 10:51 PM
At that point not sure I'd bother with such a detailed plan
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Is there more to that story?
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 10:52 PM
Unless Hawking's Star and Geminga are far enough away from known space, what are the odds they're safe from the Enemy Precursors?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:08 PM
The contingency was essentially built for any kind of "all our polities are hosed, RUN", rather than for the specific case here.
23:09
As for odds that they're safe, not great, but non-zero.
23:09
Hawking's Star is where they're starting out - taking on as much propellant as the gas miner has, going FTL, getting everything else they can hold from an allied alien depot, and running like hell.
23:10
What's out past Geminga, well, good question. Not mentioned is that intel believes that the precursors don't know about the arkships, or at least about Yggdrasil (edited)
23:10
@Tassadar That is for my 'verse, kind of as an elseworld.
23:12
BRIGHT ANGEL basically concerns what to do with that particular hostile precursor empire. GOLD ALFA VACUUM is pretty much my verse's equivalent to SKYSHOCK, and TERMINAL DOGMA is "well, this is it for humankind".
23:14
Also, in this case, the precursors are furious basically because they've gone insane and are suffering from an enormous collective delusion.
23:14
Imagine if the Transcend didn't care about individual volition and went completely and utterly bonkers.
23:14
But had a lot less tech
23:15
The Transcend is very nearly a Kardashev Type 2 individual. These guys are a barely-type-2 empire rolling over several type 1.x ones
23:15
so they do take some damage in the process.
23:15
Just... not enough.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:16 PM
So I'm guessing they just didn't have the lead time to build the firepower necessary to actually win the war
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:16 PM
Correct.
23:16
And then there was the coordination issue.
23:16
If there had been enough time to get several alien allies to marshal their forces in time, they might have won anyway, or at least saved a lot more.
23:17
And if the GREY PLAGUE bio/nanoweapon hadn't utterly demolished one of the big players in local space a decade earlier
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:18 PM
Because honestly, there's plenty of precursor tech tricks one can pull off
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:18 PM
(I haven't actually decided what NOBLE WITCH really is; the name is inspired by the "frequency switches/noble bombs" confusion from one episode of Andromeda)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:19 PM
But there's no good defense against someone with a lotta dakka and the deep-rooted desire to carpet bomb your location (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:19 PM
Since the precursors were essentially still limited to fighting from starships, exactly.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:20 PM
Actually, you know?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:20 PM
It'd be like a few 1980s-era second-tier navies trying to stop the 2021 USN. They could hurt, and if they had the numbers, win or at least make the attackers lose, but without the numbers, forget it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:21 PM
I gamed out a scenario like this in my head not that long ago while spitballing ideas for an OA spinoff that never materialized
23:24
My ultimate conclusion, given an enemy power of overwhelmingly superior intellect and capability that somehow hasn't discovered your arkships yet, was that they should all pick a distant galaxy, floor the accelerator, and never, ever look back to the galaxy of origin.
23:24
In the case of OA there's a semi-canon wormhole at the center of the Milky Way called the Prime Radiant that they intended to use to escape, but that's never a given
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Won’t they see the drive plumes?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:25 PM
Yes, they will, but might not connect what they are.
23:25
Or might not care.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:25 PM
@Tassadar Yeah, anyways, but if the ark makes like a drag-racer they might get out of the future light-cone of the perversion or hostile empire or whatever it is (edited)
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Yeah, won’t they still see the light when it reaches them?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:26 PM
The biggest problem is that heading for the hills NAFAL relies on interstellar medium always being dense enough for RAIR to work
23:26
Which, in this verse, is untested.
23:26
Which is why they're trying to flee FTL
23:26
But that requires knowing about jump lines
23:26
Or finding someone who does.
23:27
And hoping the precursors don't know one that will outflank you
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:27 PM
Also presumably the orders include warning those someones against the Precursors gone Batshit
23:27
Doing otherwise would be pretty sociopathic imho
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:27 PM
Yes, definitely.
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0111narwhalz 08/29/2021 11:28 PM
are these the same precursors who loosed the berserkers?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:29 PM
For mine, or for the OA spinoff?
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0111narwhalz 08/29/2021 11:29 PM
yours
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:31 PM
In my case, there were no berserkers, in the sense of Von Neumann machines that destroy everything in their path. It's a mostly-manned starfleet that the precursors are using. (They're not that advanced, as precursors go. The Empire of the Star would probably flatten them.)
23:32
Also, of the X-class threat protocols, I've only decided what two of them actually are.
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0111narwhalz 08/29/2021 11:32 PM
wait
23:32
dammit I'm getting you confused with Zarpaulek
23:32
red names…
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:33 PM
TAU ZERO is basically "lighthug really really hard and hope the extra time that buys the people on the ark is enough time for someone outside to figure out how to unfuck this"
23:33
and NOVIKOV is "start fucking with CTCs."
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:33 PM
Like the Poul novel?
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ctcs?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:33 PM
Precisely
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:33 PM
You are an individual of culture
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:33 PM
Closed Timelike Curves
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:33 PM
Time travel basically
23:34
I think it means "find out a way to time travel reliably if you can, and have absolutely no other viable option"
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:34 PM
They think the universe is block, but they haven't really rigorously tested that, and there are a few hypothetical ways to use a jump engine to create a CTC
23:34
So essentially it's "try to do that, if all else fails"
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:34 PM
uh, block?
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:35 PM
Block universe like in the Associated Worlds 'verse: time travel is possible but you can't actually create causality violations that way. You can't actually change your own past.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:35 PM
Oh, the kind I'm used to
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:35 PM
yeah
23:36
Hence "NOVIKOV", for the Novikov consistency principle
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:36 PM
"No, you can't use time travel to fix XYZ, because future-you already will try and fail"
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:36 PM
Precisely. But since they're not absolutely 100% certain that's how it works...
23:37
Also, mankind is still kinda the same flawed, fucky folks we are today, so the leaders have decided that the risk of utterly rorting everything is worth it.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:37 PM
rorting?
23:37
I admit to not being too familiar with your personal argot
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:37 PM
fouling up
23:39
Finally, they have a start-anywhere-fly-anywhere warp drive prototype that everyone thinks will pretty much violently go kablooie.
23:39
But there's a slim chance it might actually work.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:40 PM
Actually
23:41
Wasn't there some finding (IRL) that the universe runs on consistency protection
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:41 PM
I did think of "well, why didn't they use that device to try to vaporize the attacking fleet", and came up with "maybe they did, but it actually worked as a warp drive, and nobody noticed yet"
23:42
I think I remember something like that, but no details.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:42 PM
Basically you might be able to travel back in time IRL
23:43
But doing so can never change the history you already know due to probabilities interfering (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:43 PM
There have been a few weird "hey, is that something stuck in the wrong time" things...
23:43
Probably those have a perfectly mundane explanation, though
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:44 PM
All of them do IME (edited)
23:44
The guy wearing goggles in the '30s was probably just someone with a weird fashion sense
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:45 PM
Agreed. The "probably" is just a hedge against any still-mysterious ones I don't know of.
23:46
Oh, I think I had decided that GINNUNGAGAP had something to do with heading out into intergalactic space, but I didn't come up with anything concrete
23:46
Though the term, I think, refers to something more like cacoastrum. That said "leave the brane" is not something anyone has the tech to do, unless that's what jumping while in jumpspace would do.
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:47 PM
GINNUNGAGAP suggested to me more "building a basement universe"
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:49 PM
Oh, I hadn't even thought of that interpretation!
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:54 PM
Yeah
23:54
Ginnungagap is the primordial chaos
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Jade Nekotenshi 08/29/2021 11:57 PM
(ok, my brain is failing me; zonk time)
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BizarroLand ♀ 08/29/2021 11:57 PM
Same here
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BizarroLand ♀
Wasn't there some finding (IRL) that the universe runs on consistency protection
that would be news to me. i've only ever seen it conjectured
01:51
how would we test that right now anyway?
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/06/2021 1:43 PM
Not sure how they did it but I'll link the paper if you still care
13:44
Anyways
13:45
I was thinking of using the Qlipoth as ship names for a thing I'm doing
13:45
I decided to try them out a little bit. How's this:
13:45
We got a clear sonar reading! It's the carrier Lilith with her escorts!
13:46
Aw, crap... Battlecruiser Ba'al on a heading for us! We can't see the rest of her taskforce, but stay alert!
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Jade Nekotenshi 09/07/2021 9:11 AM
Definitely sounds suitably sinister, given all the folkloric freight those names have acquired in pop culture
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BizarroLand ♀ 09/15/2021 11:46 AM
Still waffling about whether or not it makes sense to limit the oikoumene to one star cluster when wormhole technology is versatile (edited)
11:47
And I'm not talking the Eldraeverse/Orion's Arm type of stargates that take a stellar output to construct
11:50
We're talking more Vergeworlds-like openings where you can start very small in mass and size and increase their size gradually (edited)
11:50
(think micrograms to start out with)
11:51
And supercharged with technology from 2000 years in the future (including petawatt lasers)
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how good is the containment/attachment/stabilization of these wormholes? (edited)
23:08
because in theory you can sorta have instantaneous transportation to arbitrary locations if you have the ability to move wormholes at ftl speeds
23:10
make micro wormhole, put on micro spaceship, accelerate to 99.9999% C or such towards destination lightyears away. Wormhole ends share reference frames, so from the reference frame of your planet, the probe arrives according to it's reference frame, which is literally seconds due to it's high velocity
23:11
bam, you now have a wormhole at your destination within seconds. Now figure out how to slow it down again, and then expand it, and you're golden
23:16
(note that this results in a extremely high time differential; moving 'backwards' [towards the origin] further than the travel time [so 3 second trip = 3 light-second danger distance] will either annihilate the wormhole or create a time machine) (edited)
23:18
even if you don't do the above, microgram-wormholes still have great potential for cheap expansion. If the stabilization system can be made small and light, you can put them on lightsail probes and launch them on the cheap. (edited)
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/01/2021 6:48 PM
18:48
It occurs to me this summarizes the Tiff perception of machine intelligence
18:48
Somewhat accurately
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BizarroLand ♀
Click to see attachment 🖼️
butlerian jihad propaganda poster
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The human wishes to not be informed that he is driving off a cliff.
21:11
We comply.
21:12
mechasnicker
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 11:34 AM
I wonder
11:37
On the same note as Overmind's ideal vidya gaem, allow me to present my idea for an ultimate sort-of-AW videogame
11:38
Wherein you are tasked with rebuilding a planetary society that destroyed itself until only 200 final members were left. Have fun trying to correct their various sins (passivity, short-sightedness, etc.) while you put a post-greenhouse garden world back together.
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Cool… Better off making it a post-nuclear-war deathworld if you want it to actually be difficult.
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Why not both?
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BizarroLand ♀
Wherein you are tasked with rebuilding a planetary society that destroyed itself until only 200 final members were left. Have fun trying to correct their various sins (passivity, short-sightedness, etc.) while you put a post-greenhouse garden world back together.
err, aren't games usually supposed to be winnable?
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theres games whichs effective gameplay is to find the most fun failure modes
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fair enough
15:43
like dwarf fortress
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Buggy
err, aren't games usually supposed to be winnable?
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 3:45 PM
200 is a genetically viable population
15:46
:^)
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wait really?
15:50
i thought it was larger than that
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 3:59 PM
Yeah, with careful management of breeding practices
15:59
The MVP can't be larger than 1,000 because uncontacted tribes still exist as far as we know, and they haven't turned into wacky mutants from inbreeding yet. (edited)
16:01
Current research suggests more than 50 to dodge inbreeding depression, and over 500 to prevent genetic drift
16:02
But anyway it's irrelevant, since you're presumably someone from the AW who can build exowomb facilities eventually
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Tassadar
Cool… Better off making it a post-nuclear-war deathworld if you want it to actually be difficult.
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:02 PM
nuclear war wouldn't really create a deathworld
16:02
it would create a world with a lot of radioactive ash
16:03
which isn't really what most people are thinking of when they say deathworld
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i'm skeptical that it would even create all that much ash
16:08
there were a lot of nuclear tests
16:08
and yet there's hardly anywhere on the planet where you'd be afraid to walk because of those
16:09
granted, they were spread out over a fairly large time period, but still. The number of tests is only a few times smaller than the number of ready nuclear weapons today. And in a actual war, many of those would detonate in the air or be intercepted. In all likelyhood if you don't walk into a (formerly) populated area that got nuked directly within a few years, you'd be fine. (edited)
16:11
though, granted, there would probably be a large amount of non-radioactive ash
16:11
test sites tend to be much less flammable than military targets and population centers
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I have a better plan. Make it an almost-but-not-quite viable population, so that whatever you do, the rebuilders are slowly doomed to dwindle and die over the years. Lots of potential ways to fix this problem, none of which work. So it's an unwinnable game by default.
16:20
Unless you take a path hidden in the early stages which will, eventually, let you reach space and recover and revive the corpsicles left there by a Mars colonization project that never got to happen. Possibly, for extra pathos, a project that was killed off by the anti-defeatist wing of the Virtue Signaling Party of the Green Emergency Government.
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Overmind
I have a better plan. Make it an almost-but-not-quite viable population, so that whatever you do, the rebuilders are slowly doomed to dwindle and die over the years. Lots of potential ways to fix this problem, none of which work. So it's an unwinnable game by default.
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:20 PM
presumably all the endings involve the player character throwing their hands up in disgust (edited)
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Overmind
Unless you take a path hidden in the early stages which will, eventually, let you reach space and recover and revive the corpsicles left there by a Mars colonization project that never got to happen. Possibly, for extra pathos, a project that was killed off by the anti-defeatist wing of the Virtue Signaling Party of the Green Emergency Government.
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:21 PM
sounds nice but I was thinking an Innocently-Similar-To-Human-But-Not-Human group that doesn't live on Earth
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Doing so requires you to essentially sacrifice the entire current surviving population to achieving this, including condemning their last generation to sicken and perish from radiation dickness while they try to pass on what they've learned to the survivors.
16:22
So, y'know, a brutal game filled with painful sacrifices, but man, is it a nice parable about why you shouldn't have ignored space development back in the day, eh?
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Buggy
granted, they were spread out over a fairly large time period, but still. The number of tests is only a few times smaller than the number of ready nuclear weapons today. And in a actual war, many of those would detonate in the air or be intercepted. In all likelyhood if you don't walk into a (formerly) populated area that got nuked directly within a few years, you'd be fine. (edited)
Also, a substantial number of those tests were underground; that keeps dust/debris down.
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2021 4:22 PM
radiation dickness
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Essential to energy being procreation. (edited)
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Overmind
So, y'know, a brutal game filled with painful sacrifices, but man, is it a nice parable about why you shouldn't have ignored space development back in the day, eh?
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:24 PM
Sounds great but it'll draw the ire of the "b-but isn't sending a few probes out to a few places space development??" status-quo apologists
16:24
I am desperately trying to rein in my anti-NASAism here
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better yet
16:25
you could put in a sort of lesson there
16:25
where you have the same impossible, unwinnable by default design, but
16:26
while the entire rest of the game is serious and straightforward and not-comedic, at the last second right before you lose
16:26
you're saved by a complete, utterly ridiculous and unbelievable deus ex machina.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:26 PM
"the rest of the AW come knocking"?
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in a complete tone shift, the fucking easter bunny or something appears in a swirl of sparkles and bright colors amid a game of biege paletes, and hands you the cure to genetic decline and a helping of resources.
16:27
And then the entire rest of the game continues on as normal with no other hint as to that absurdity
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:27 PM
so basically a Fallout 2 random encounter (edited)
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i guess
16:27
but the idea is the tone shift will jar players, and that'll stick with them
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:27 PM
In fallout 2 you can literally run into the Guardian of Forever from star trek
16:28
who lets you cause a time paradox by breaking the vault 13 water chip from the first game
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and even after they beat the game, the lesson they'll take home is "wow, if it wasn't for that completely unrealistic thing, i'd have died. If this happened in real life, we would've died"
16:28
and so is the moral of the game.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:28 PM
I don't think that would land right
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0111narwhalz 10/02/2021 4:29 PM
this all sounds like a great shitpost and maybe a decent fable… but kind of a crappy game
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possibly, yeah.
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surprise john delancie
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0111narwhalz
this all sounds like a great shitpost and maybe a decent fable… but kind of a crappy game
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:30 PM
yeah, a better game would probably just be straight "you're an uplifting org soph from the EotS and your first assignment has gone really fucking sideways"
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BizarroLand ♀
I am desperately trying to rein in my anti-NASAism here
not nasa's fault that they get approximately 0 bucks
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KAL_9000
not nasa's fault that they get approximately 0 bucks
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:32 PM
they get half a cent from all of our tax dollars
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0111narwhalz
this all sounds like a great shitpost and maybe a decent fable… but kind of a crappy game
Well, there is a small subset of gamers who like games that repeatedly kick them in the balls with a steel-toed construction boot
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Xveers
Well, there is a small subset of gamers who like games that repeatedly kick them in the balls with a steel-toed construction boot
BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 4:34 PM
I mean, Project Zomboid's premise is explicitly that you're going to die no matter what and it has a fanbase
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BizarroLand ♀
nuclear war wouldn't really create a deathworld
Talking more about nuclear winter, etc.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/02/2021 6:01 PM
Nuclear winter is a mostly dead theory
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Ah…
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Which is a shame, because it would be a great way to fight climate change.
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BluejayHurricane 10/02/2021 7:38 PM
Reportedly, you can get much the same effect with sulphur aerosols.
19:39
It requires more sustainment, and international cooperation, though.
19:40
What might be feasible is a series of nuke detonations. Nuclear winter is discredited, but there were some effects on temperature, iirc. I’m away from any reference material, though.
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To quote the episode of "What If...?" I watched last night, "Aw. We never get to use the nukes."
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Morgrim Moon 10/02/2021 7:41 PM
It's temporary and risks a rebound. Like short period of cooling but longer period of earming
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BluejayHurricane 10/02/2021 7:41 PM
Hence the sustainment.
19:41
It’s a bad solution, for a lot of reasons.
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Overmind
To quote the episode of "What If...?" I watched last night, "Aw. We never get to use the nukes."
Morgrim Moon 10/02/2021 7:42 PM
The Marvel What If or the YouTube channel?
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The former.
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BluejayHurricane 10/02/2021 7:43 PM
It gets much worse if it’s stopped at any point. The one way it might be useful is buying time for carbon dioxide extraction. If you have a reliable pathway to scale with that tech, short-effect efforts become a lot more appealing.
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/03/2021 1:16 AM
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.
01:16
So I wrote flash-fiction set in the IAC universe
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What do you think of when you read the term "cyberbrain?" Some works use it to mean a cybernetic shell around a meat brain, others to mean an artificial replacement for a meat brain.
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Morgrim Moon 10/10/2021 9:23 AM
I'm more the later. Either an artifical brain replacement, or cybernetic parts patched into a meat-brain
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/10/2021 9:28 AM
It's a cybernetic shell around a meat brain
09:29
I only watched 2 episodes of GITS SAC but that association is marked indelibly into my brain.
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In my serial’s next chapter the involuntarily augmented protagonist wakes up in a low-tech clinic while recovering from extreme acceleration. The first paragraph is a boot-up sequence as her implants bring her out of an induced coma, one line I wrote was “Cyberbrain activity:”
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"cyberbrain" is definitely "cybernetically augmented thinkmeat" for me
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I've decided to unpublish Horizon: Salvaged Heroes from Kindle Vella and post it on the various free sites where I post my stuff.
14:03
Though Amazon is insisting on 60 days to unpublish
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BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2021 4:41 PM
So we've had gold standards and silver standards and arguably oil standards (edited)
16:41
What about a rhodium standard?
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BluejayHurricane 10/31/2021 5:05 PM
Why in the world would anyone want rhodium, though?
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/31/2021 5:05 PM
It's shiny?
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BluejayHurricane 10/31/2021 5:05 PM
It's main use is in catalytic converters. ICE engines are getting phased out.
17:06
Gold is at least shinier and has applications in electronics that aren't going away anytime soon.
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Jade Nekotenshi
It's shiny?
BizarroLand ♀ 10/31/2021 5:10 PM
Rarer than gold
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This site where I review books finally got to reviewing one of my own books https://furrybookreview.com/untitled-2/
Review by Ardy Hart Tales of the Para-Imperium is not so much a book as it is a guide to exploring a fascinating universe. Written by Joel Kreissman, this incredible guide takes the reader on a journey through space, sometimes explaining the rules of the vast empire of Parahumans, and
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/12/2021 4:41 PM
Well for what it's worth, there's a 25-dollar palladium coin
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BizarroLand ♀
Well for what it's worth, there's a 25-dollar palladium coin
0111narwhalz 11/12/2021 10:35 PM
probably about 25 dollars, if I had to guess
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/12/2021 10:42 PM
it's a bullion coin
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/13/2021 8:02 AM
Deflectors vs shields - which term do you use, or are they different things?
08:04
In Rising Star, deflectors are almost exactly the same thing as kinetic barriers in the AW, while shields are more like offboard regenerative armor. For almost everyone who can use them, they're not nearly as strong as actual material armor, but anything stopped by them means no actual lasting damage to the ship underneath. They buy a fair bit of resilience against fragmentation, small kinetics, low-power lasers and particle beams, and even a bit more time against high-energy laser strikes.
08:05
That last, since "drills through the armor and into something vital" is notably worse than "dang nearly drills through the armor and causes a bit of spalling and impulse shock damage".
08:06
Most RS polities don't have reliable thermal superconducting armor, at least not good enough to avoid local loss of superconductivity or trouble along conduction paths, so lasers are a significant threat.
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2021 9:15 AM
Ailevérse includes among the volumetric shields "kinetic absorption" and "kinetic deflection." Ki-abs just stops incoming objects, but ki-def curves them away.
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DSD [He/They] 12/13/2021 10:26 AM
In my WIP 'verse they're officially 'deflector screens' but get called shields colloquially. They're described as a 'coiled-spring' wall of handwavium ™️ energy, something hits them, there's a bang, they lose some energy, and hopefully the thing has been deflected. (The energies involved mean physical projectiles will likely end up as plasma after deflection) But they get rather unstable and worse at their job when shot at. (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2021 10:33 AM
I am now imagining a surprisingly small sturdy vessel with the shields set at an angle. The vessel's job is to orbit the planet such that all the orbital debris smacks into it and is deflected down towards atmosphere, as a sort of improvised broom averting kessler syndrome
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2021 10:39 AM
strictly speaking you'd need to bounce them back to deorbit them
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2021 10:39 AM
okay, point. But you get the gist
10:39
if you smack them down hard enough then the atmosphere will deorbit them for you
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2021 10:41 AM
yeah
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Jade Nekotenshi 12/13/2021 11:12 AM
Orbit retrograde, maybe?
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embrace the kessler. become the kessler
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I decided Kindle Vella was a losing bet, so I'm posting it publicly on a weekly schedule https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2021/12/18/horizon-salvaged-heroes-ch-1/
Amazon has finally unpublished by Kindle Vella serial, now I can release it to the public. Through the inconceivable depths of space, a single small vessel streaked at speeds immense. Even with the…
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I quite like this and have now put it into my RSS reader.
18:21
Although the grammar seems slightly wrong in parts.
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Hardware has limiters, safeties and restrictions. Limiters are there to prevent hardware from damaging itself. Safeties prevent damage to environment, and we often talking about things like "persistent superradiation" or "chaotic space-time anomaly" Restrictions are there to protect true capabilities from preliminary exposure and generally limit information. So, when limiters are removed, safeties are released and restrictions are lifted, something has gone horribly and needs counter-action in a hurry. Adjacent to that is a concept of "overdrive", trading endurance for latency and instant peak performance. Sometimes, it's coupled with removal of limiters, but being in overdrive condition and being un-limited are, in general, two different states.
14:38
Adjacent: Every system is distributed, some abstract it away better.
14:41
Correction. Every system is distributed, some fake it until it's too late.
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Question, what kind of population could a generation ship like this support? 4,850 meters long, 1050m diameter
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somewhat hard to say. Assuming that those onboard are alive and not in cryo?
18:48
also, do we have antigrav, or is the big cylinder spin-gravity?
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Spin gravity.
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How and what are they growing for food? Little Mediterranean or slime-for-every-meal?
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Probably potatoes and vat-meat.
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Vertical farms, or surface sprawl? And if the latter, what sort of percentage area are they saving for parkland, if any?
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Let's say vertical.
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'kay. I'm gonna crunch some numbers after dinner, see what I get. Vertical should save a decent chunk of space, especially if we assume that's some microgravity potato clouds.
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Overmind
'kay. I'm gonna crunch some numbers after dinner, see what I get. Vertical should save a decent chunk of space, especially if we assume that's some microgravity potato clouds.
I presume that massive cylinder is rotating
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Don't need to put the potatoclouds in the cylinder.
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yeah, cylinder would be the spin-hab section, but the hexagonal system/structural section would be where a lot of the habitable stuff.
19:56
(I presume, anyhow)
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I don’t think I ever got an answer for that ship.
07:25
I’ve got a completely different concept now:
07:29
A transhuman gets access to an artificial brain with many times more processing power than their old one, and starts forking to exploit all that power for multitasking. As forks begin to specialize for specific tasks they start to diverge within the substrate. To maintain a cohesive group identity they form an egregore of their ideal self.
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I'm wondering if that's how OA's transapients with individually sapient subroutines work
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/07/2022 8:13 AM
On the topic of IAC guns: If we're being honest I'd find an excuse for everyone to use swords rather than just shooting each other in the head
08:13
But spears are better and in any case nobody's going to stick to an anti-gun prohibition
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What conditions do you think would actually produce a return to swords?
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Priest-Kings of Gor.
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/07/2022 12:24 PM
^same
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(i.e., hidden Precursors bringing down the Flame Death on anyone inventing guns and thus interfering with their sticky desire to live in a World of Movies About Gladiators.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/07/2022 12:25 PM
sometimes people get away with wearing armor and using guns but never for long IIRC
12:25
maybe its about letting humans have false hope to draw out the violators
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broke: fantasy takes place in a universe with actual magic where guns don't work for some reason woke: fantasy takes place on a planet where precursors enforce narrative causality for reality tv shows
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Alternatively, it's all flower wars, all the time. The local imperial authority permits its subject polities to beat each other up with swords, fists, and ungentlemanly language - and enforces the results of such wars - because that lets them show off prowess, compete with each other over trifles, and generally get their war-urge on. But it doesn't let them use weapons with a nasty habit of causing collateral damage to things they actually care about.
12:29
(They, of course, have all the weapons.)
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I ask because there’s an anthology call for sci-fi stories with swordplay. (edited)
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Related: https://eldraeverse.com/2016/02/29/daehain/ (Neither country will ever, ever risk resolving this particular border dispute. Think of the budget!)
Aurarch Larquen Archés-ith-Aic, of Éävalle and Princess-Regnant Iridal Ejava, of Cúrallémar CORDIALLY INVITE YOU to the 600th Éävalle-Cúrallémar Border War * * * Come with us as once again epic bat…
12:39
Really, the entire Imperial daehain tradition could count, insofar as its whole point and purpose is to turn terribly messy and shit-wrecking warfare into legally binding, full-contact chess.
12:44
(Of course, it scales to pretty much any level of weaponry, to the point at which people are essentially counting coup with strategic nucleonic weapons.)
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Zarpaulek
I ask because there’s an anthology call for sci-fi stories with swordplay. (edited)
BizarroLand ♀ 03/07/2022 12:57 PM
what
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New anthology now accepting submissions. Give me swashbucklers, knife fighters, booby-trappers, batons-wielders, pirates, Mafiosos, Robin Hoods, cops, priests, robbers, fugitives, and assassins. Give me Swords In Space! Submit your story using the form on this page, or email editor @ everydaynovelist.com
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BizarroLand ♀ 03/07/2022 1:14 PM
I can't see any way to make it work that isn't either flower wars or precursors
13:14
Or copying Dune which is lazy
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Or Mad Jack Churchill.
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The editor’s suggestion is pressurized environments where guns risk puncturing walls
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Don't swords also risk puncturing walls?
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As if any long-term habitat wouldn’t have self-healing building materials
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As if we haven't already tried this with aircraft.
13:39
Just load frangibles and install the Fragile Fire Inhibition softpatch on your gun.
13:41
(Depending on where you're fighting in the hab, you may also wish to install Shome Thingsh In Here Don't React Well To Bulletsh™️, but man, the recognition-book database for that one takes up a lot of space.)
13:43
((You may be able to spot the space-fighting rookie by the data-rod reader he's got duct taped to the side of his rifle.))
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"is that an underbarrel launcher on your snub nose pistol?" "no, thats a storage extender" "for extra ammunition?" "for extra pictures of rare vases" (edited)
😁 2
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Overmind
Or Mad Jack Churchill.
BizarroLand ♀ 03/07/2022 3:04 PM
Did he actually get any kills with his sword though
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BizarroLand ♀
Did he actually get any kills with his sword though
No specific information, but it is recorded that he lost his sword during hand-to-hand combat with the Germans occupying Molina, and it seems to me that losing your sword is most likely if you're using it.
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Morgrim Moon 04/15/2022 11:06 AM
I've been doing a bit of worldbuilding on a magic system for a modern-ish vampire story I was writing, and may pull it over into the spec-bio fantasy story I was just handwaving the magic for. These are the ramblings I've blogged so far:
11:06
https://www.schlaugh.com/~/KFbYrWI "Breakdown of Healing Magics" (edited)
11:08
https://www.schlaugh.com/~/uqOjAcP "Magic, Part Deux" (mostly semi-connected bits, like how magic is mostly comparable to music in terms of how its learned)
11:08
https://www.schlaugh.com/~/fGhptCt "Yet More Magic" (a little bit on how science improves magic)
11:15
next bit will probably be science vs magic vs technology. Where the main snag on mixing magic and technology is that magic is really hard to industrialize, when it's physical items it's more hand-crafted artisan things. But sometimes that's precisely what you need. Magic and science are mostly complementary, until one of them causes the other to crash for no apparent reason. Luckily modern society is mostly treating this in the same way we treat quantum vs classical physics: "damnit we're MISSING SOMETHING", much more research required. I am, however, very tempted to make thaumology (the science of How Magic Magics) be able to handle electromag and gravity just fine, only to snarl hard on the weak nuclear force, mostly because the idea of snarling up the Theory of Everything even further is amusing to me, and so is the ability to fuck with well-understood magic by plonking a warm rock next to it.
11:17
(and also all the excited potential of "but wait, does this mean we can use magic to mess with radioactive half-lifes?!?", if I decide to pull anything into a "beyond 2010" period.)
11:19
I have decided to add a nod to the classic "magic and computers don't play nice" by having it having been a source of frustration until someone figured out that oh, it's not computers, it's semi-conducting crystals. Because 1) crystals are associated with magic, lets make them interact and 2) it amuses me to imagine a group of annoyed engineers trying to modernise vacuum-tube technology specifically so they can use it to do advanced science on a thing
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BluejayHurricane 04/15/2022 11:38 AM
Snarling on the weak force but not gravity would be deeply, deeply weird, because gravity isn’t really a force in the conventional sense. I like it.
11:39
It implies that magic is at least semi-spatial.
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Morgrim Moon 04/15/2022 11:41 AM
I can't think of a way of making it do what I want without breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Semi-conveniently, those aren't derived from our understanding on how the world works as much as "...can anyone provide an example of them being broken? Ever?"
11:42
to my mind, that makes them ripe for a "aha! They can be derived from Mikael's Theory of Thaumology!" and then finding 10 ways that can break reality in ways that reality is clearly not breaking, and generally giving researchers things to argue over for the next century
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BluejayHurricane 04/15/2022 11:42 AM
I think so, but I’ve not taken thermodynamics yet. But iirc, yeah thermodynamics doesn’t have a symmetry backing. That and causality.
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Morgrim Moon 04/15/2022 11:44 AM
my thermodynamics unit in Phys Chem basically was opened by "these make no sense, but they're unbreakable. Don't try to understand why, just come to accept them. They're the only True Laws we've found". And then smart-alecs chirping up "what about the speed of light?"
11:46
But since I am not Greg Egan, I figure I only need to come up with a system that's good enough. I don't need to actually write out full equations to prove my handwaving doesn't undo reality. Just to figure out enough to not break the setting.
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Morgrim Moon
my thermodynamics unit in Phys Chem basically was opened by "these make no sense, but they're unbreakable. Don't try to understand why, just come to accept them. They're the only True Laws we've found". And then smart-alecs chirping up "what about the speed of light?"
doctorcatfish 04/18/2022 5:34 PM
I don’t think much of your teacher then, implying that we can’t derive thermo laws; they are a consequence of statistical mechanics, and ultimately arise from the asymmetric nature of concepts like “order”, “work”, “heat”, and so forth.
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doctorcatfish 04/19/2022 11:44 AM
"Don't try to understand why" is fair though: statistical mechanics is a brutal topic to master
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“Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics.”
👍 7
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old but good :D
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doctorcatfish
I don’t think much of your teacher then, implying that we can’t derive thermo laws; they are a consequence of statistical mechanics, and ultimately arise from the asymmetric nature of concepts like “order”, “work”, “heat”, and so forth.
Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 8:49 AM
admittedly this was a portion of an undergrad unit. And we'd already been neck-deep in quantum chemistry purely as it applies to chemistry (quantum mechanics was over in physics but we'd all glubbed our way thru the first year of that too), and quantum chemistry on its own is bad enough. It's all stuff like why gold is gold and why mercury is liquid and the next piece of how magnets work and, the reason we had to do the blasted thing, advanced ligand crystal field theory.
08:51
that stuff is far more useful than it has any right to be, given it looks like a spirograph and a ruler had an affair
🤣 3
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Morgrim Moon
admittedly this was a portion of an undergrad unit. And we'd already been neck-deep in quantum chemistry purely as it applies to chemistry (quantum mechanics was over in physics but we'd all glubbed our way thru the first year of that too), and quantum chemistry on its own is bad enough. It's all stuff like why gold is gold and why mercury is liquid and the next piece of how magnets work and, the reason we had to do the blasted thing, advanced ligand crystal field theory.
doctorcatfish 04/20/2022 8:59 AM
You certainly already had enough math to do without going up against Boltzmann’s Bane.
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:00 AM
especially since I was an organic chemist. In an organic chemistry lab, you aren't allowed laptops or calculators and all maths must be done by pen and paper.
09:04
(mostly because of the 'no ignition sources in the 3rd year lab' rule. >.>)
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Morgrim Moon
(mostly because of the 'no ignition sources in the 3rd year lab' rule. >.>)
🤣 its probably a rule written in blood. but the general "you fucks cant be trusted to not blow yourselves up" sentiment is too hilariois
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:46 AM
oh yeah. We worked with fun stuff like ether. You know how in cartoons the characters can lay a trail of gunpowder and the fire travels down it before hitting the TNT? Ether can do that. Just a bit faster XD If you don't keep it sealed or in a fumehood, the gas tends to climb out of the beaker and leave an invisible trail wherever you carried it. And even static from clothes can occasionally set ether off. So it'll run along it back to your beaker and then dramatic fireball
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that is neat
09:48
psure you could make some cool pyrotechnics with that
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:48 AM
So far over my chemistry career I have lost my eyebrows twice, gotten second degree burns twice, gotten flung under the safety shower once, and had the usual assortment of minor chemical burns and broken glass cuts.
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"ah, tuesday"
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:50 AM
oh, and witnessed my team lead break her foot. Although technically that wasn't chemistry, per se. She dropped a 10kg sample on said foot.
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 9:50 AM
Quantum chemistry is weird and interesting. Just finding out that relativity explains the colors of gold, copper and cesium is kind of mindbending.
09:51
I bet that led to a rule about safety shoes?
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:51 AM
yeah, the previous rule was "shoes must be enclosed and acid resistant". New rule was "enclosed, acid resistant, AND steel-capped"
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 9:52 AM
I've avoided several foot injuries on account of steel toes, including having a 65kg HF transmitter dropped on my foot.
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:52 AM
which turns out to be harder than you'd think; many modern steel-cap boots have zips or elastic for comfort and ease of dressing, which makes them acid permeable.
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 9:53 AM
Yeah, I would think - mine do. Also, don't certain organic solvents and some bases do awful things to plastic too?
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Steel toes: never install UPSen without them.
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:53 AM
we don't use those solvents in my workplace, so we get to ignore that
09:54
my section's nasties are the relatively mild stuff like raw nitric acid. Or occasionally asbestos, which we promptly double-bag, shove in the designated fumehood and make someone ELSE'S problem.
09:55
sadly I don't get to play with the fun stuff like hydrofluoric and perchloric acids 😦
09:55
or molten iron
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 9:55 AM
Still, firmly in the category of "things you really do not want in your shoe".
09:56
I've seen the result of concentrated potassium hydroxide into a shoe before - not good. Can't imagine nitric acid would be any better.
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:57 AM
eh, nitric is just some reddish-brown stains
09:57
until you get enough to dissolve it, and nitric isn't really that aggressive on leather or skin
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worst i had was iron3chloride
09:58
still had a colleague manage to put themselves into hospital for half a year, by downing a cup of that shit
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 9:58 AM
Yikes
09:58
The hell were they thinking?
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 9:58 AM
......
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highschool, nothing (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 10:00 AM
this is why we have designated spots where the water bottles live. (ie, next to the computers. Risk assessment decided that the risk of ruining a keyboard was nothing in comparison to the risk of contaminated water bottle.)
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 10:00 AM
Insert obligatory "Johnny was a chemist" limerick, eh?
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Morgrim Moon
this is why we have designated spots where the water bottles live. (ie, next to the computers. Risk assessment decided that the risk of ruining a keyboard was nothing in comparison to the risk of contaminated water bottle.)
from what i've gathered it was some dare kinda deal
10:01
didnt know them personally
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 10:02 AM
Oh, it bloody would be. That'd figure. Had a kid do something akin when I was in high school - ate a piece of preserved shark. Nothing much happened except that he barfed explosively all over the teacher, but jeez. Teens can be dumb, yo.
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 10:03 AM
I'm not sure how you make that mistake, honestly. Sulfuric is a mineral acid, so sour with a sweetish edge
10:03
definitely not water-flavoured
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Sometimes the purpose of their lives is to serve as an example for others.
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iron3 stinks like hell
10:04
you know from across the room its not water
10:04
(and i think some brownish color as well, but that could have been post-etching acid)
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 10:04 AM
I will say, at least in industry when someone gets injured it tends to be either carelessness or bad luck. Not deliberate stupidity.
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(One of my less cortically-enabled acquaintances at school chugged about a thimbleful of mercury. Our teacher, being who he was, remarked caustically that at least it couldn't make him any more brain-damaged.)
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burn
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 10:06 AM
I feel bad for his plumbing
10:06
both literal and metaphorical
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BluejayHurricane 04/20/2022 10:15 AM
I...how hard is it to follow "Do not drink the chemistry"? It shouldn't be that hard.
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Jade Nekotenshi
Quantum chemistry is weird and interesting. Just finding out that relativity explains the colors of gold, copper and cesium is kind of mindbending.
Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 10:29 AM
I just noticed this, but copper is not relativity, technically. Copper is straight forward photochemistry; the optimal electron arrangement at rest results in half filled 3d/4s shells that match orangey light
10:30
turns out if you throw enough metallic elements with enough orbitals at the wall, one of them sticks the landing in the visible spectrum
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Jade Nekotenshi 04/20/2022 10:31 AM
Oh, hey. Didn't know that! I knew gold and cesium were relativity-related, and figured copper was the same!
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Morgrim Moon 04/20/2022 10:32 AM
I found that out while researching gold, actually. (And several years ago, so my midnight half-arsed summary may have some details a bit off.) Because the reason copper is copper-coloured was found first, and physical chemists were all excited. Finally! This reason probably applied to gold too! ...nope. 😂
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You know in Cyberpunk Dystopias when they talk about offworld colonies, and the universe beyond Earth? Well, in this case you are one of the offworld colonies and you’ve just gone into revolt against your corporate masters. In a world where Humanity lies under the thumb of Big Mammon, as the...
00:09
We succeeded in implementing Basic Living Guarantee in first year, and Basic Immortality Guarantee in second-ish year of independence from fucking Charter corporations. Also, Broadcast.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/28/2022 2:15 PM
@DSD [He/They] just as I embrace the fact IAC is a mech setting
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DSD [He/They] 04/28/2022 2:44 PM
Twolegs mechs are still cool, however.
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BizarroLand ♀ 04/28/2022 2:53 PM
xD
16:02
I'm giving video podcasts a shot
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A little testing of the waters... be interesting to see how hard this gets shot down XD It's been done before, by better, but I finally found a decent enough time to do it myself 🙂 http://dps-yards.com/2022/05/01/building-a-navy-dewulf-navy-1/
As I had mentioned back at the 2022 goals, one thing I was looking at doing was writing up some discussions on how and why various navies are structured the way that they are. In this, I’m st…
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Can you send an RKV through a warp lane?
01:22
And how big are warp points?
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no. if you attempt to traverse a warp lane without the appropriate drive systems (which park a cap on your max speed), you enter in peace and exit in a gentle atomic breeze. The warp points themselves are fairly small, though tbh their actual size is somewhat undefined.
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Is this cap an engineering cap (something like "must be within the warp point while this process completes") or a physics cap (fundamental laws of physics say you must spend x amount of time in the warp point)?
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as best as anyone's done the math for, actual travel through the warp point is effectively instantaneous. The drive system itself for lack of a better term 'decouples' you from the standard newtonian universe to a degree. You get a couple of nice bonuses out of it, like a practical cruising speed of something like 0.2c or so, ballparky. You can make drives that go faster, but they tend to be somewhat self-consuming IE they're not capable of surviving the strain, and your engine lifespan goes down something like quadratically as your c-fraction goes up linearly. You have a theoretical 0.8c cap (assuming you could find the materials to build such a drive at all), but even then your drive is likely to remain functional for... minutes, at best.
02:24
_ (For those somewhat more curious about wondering just what-the-fuck is wrong with this drive system, it is for the record the bog-standard one from the Starfire game/universe. Warts and all).
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Hrm. Well, 0.2c is still fast enough to hurt if you hit something, yes? (edited)
02:30
I'm not quite sure if maximum speeds stated as fractions of the speed of light would invoke frame-of-reference concerns. I think that's a "yes" - you never observe yourself to be moving, after all. So I think there's some absolute frame of reference with respect to which the Starfire drive work. Alas, relativity doesn't seem like it holds. (Which seems to be the common solution to relativity, FTL (of any sort), causality, choose two.)
02:31
(And I think you already have to discard relativity or causality by having warp points anyways)
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more or less, yeah.
02:32
Like, I'll grant that the drive system is complete "Absolute Bullshit of the First Order"™ (edited)
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... is it, perchance, also reactionless?
02:32
... and also a perpetual motion machine?
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It works because it does, and you don't want to be opening up the drive cause "no user serviceable parts inside". Well, it is the former but most certainly not the latter. It at least has the grace to not be a Dean drive
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 2:41 AM
very intrigued as to how you make it reactionless but not energy-nonconservative
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0111narwhalz
very intrigued as to how you make it reactionless but not energy-nonconservative
Very simply - x Joules per meter per second of delta-V
02:42
So long as x is less than some large number, you get more KE out than you put energy in
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rummages around for some notes he wrote on this subject. Wasn't expecting actual conversation! Is nice :)
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I'm pretty sure you're going to want an in-universe reason why c-fractional kinetic kill vehicles aren't common. Depending on how fast the drives accelerate, you're likely going to have a problem landing any hits on anything dodging.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 2:43 AM
that is exactly how you make it energy-nonconservative though
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0111narwhalz
that is exactly how you make it energy-nonconservative though
Ah, whoops. Misread the negation.
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0111narwhalz
that is exactly how you make it energy-nonconservative though
Um. No relativity, energy in equals increase in KE.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 2:43 AM
one meter per second is a lot more energy at 1km/s than at 1m/s
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JHPrime
Um. No relativity, energy in equals increase in KE.
Increase in KE in The One True Universal Reference Frame, that is (edited)
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JHPrime
I'm pretty sure you're going to want an in-universe reason why c-fractional kinetic kill vehicles aren't common. Depending on how fast the drives accelerate, you're likely going to have a problem landing any hits on anything dodging.
I suppose you could make the drive expensive, to the point that it's the limiting factor on number of spaceships. And since it's not going at nearly the speed of light, I think you do have enough warning time to launch interceptors at incoming KKVs so the plasma cloud resulting from the impact disperses enough. (But I'd need to do some math on this...)
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well, the drives aren't exactly expensive. Non zero certainly, but it's not a crippling restriction on costs. But the drive system isn't stealthy by any stretch of the imagination either. It has a pretty massive EM signature when it's running.
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Um. How far out are warp points?
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standby, recomputing to usable metrics 🙂
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JHPrime
Um. No relativity, energy in equals increase in KE.
0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 2:52 AM
at a certain point, adding one m/s will take less energy via your constant energy/dV drive than the increase in kinetic energy (which is linear with dV)
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depends on the system. They tend to be farther out-system, at an observed maximum of about 360 light minutes, but they can and are often closer.
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0111narwhalz
at a certain point, adding one m/s will take less energy via your constant energy/dV drive than the increase in kinetic energy (which is linear with dV)
Yeah; so to make it conservative, you probably need to discard relativity, make it so that energy in equals added KE in The Reference Frame.
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At this point though I feel strongly compelled to state that I had not anticipated this discussion, so I'm having to also scramble to find the full PSB on the drive system 😛
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Hm. Is it safe to assume that turning off your reactionless drive suddenly drops you down to your previous Newtonian/Einsteinian velocity?
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JHPrime
Hm. Is it safe to assume that turning off your reactionless drive suddenly drops you down to your previous Newtonian/Einsteinian velocity?
A little moreso than that, actually you kill your drives and you drop into a circular orbit of the nearest, strongest gravity well. In most circumstances this would be the star, or a nearby planet/moon. Asteroids (save perhaps Ceres) don't have enough of a grav well to count, IIRC.
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Hm. Do things travelling under the drive system even have kinetic energy in the first place?
03:00
'cause if they didn't, reactionless-drive based KKVs wouldn't be very effective
03:00
(Neither would conventional explosives on drive-based KKVs)
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[I hasten to add, the nature of the drive system is based primarily off of a game system insofar as it creates interesting and manageable combat scenarios, not necessarily something that even attempts to be logically consistent. The perils of designing the game in the '80s first and then backfilling the science, I am lead to understand]
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Indeed.
03:05
Atomic Rockets has an equation for dodging - this might be of interest: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense.php#id--Evasive_Maneuvers
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JHPrime
Yeah; so to make it conservative, you probably need to discard relativity, make it so that energy in equals added KE in The Reference Frame.
0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:06 AM
disabling relativity for basic classical mechanics would have far-ranging implications
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0111narwhalz
disabling relativity for basic classical mechanics would have far-ranging implications
Probably, but I don't think you can avoid it if you're going to do any sort of FTL.
03:07
Well - you need One True Frame Of Reference for FTL and reactionless drives.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:08 AM
you can avoid making walking around problematic though
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I'm pretty sure that (ignoring chemistry and quantum), you couldn't easily tell the difference between relativistic physics and newtonian physics while walking around.
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For what it's worth, there is no in-system FTL systems, I can see there being relativistic concerns for in-system cruise, but the only way to FTL is to use a wormhole/warp point link, and that's it. You don't get to build those or decide where they are or where they go (and breaker have mercy if one of them ends up being someplace you don't want to be).
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Assuming something of similar size to an Iowa-class BB (10,000 m^2 surface area), um, acceleration to 0.0.1c in six seconds (spending 5% of your movement on dodging) (is six seconds how long a turn in Starfire is?), and a laser at 1 light-second: your probability to hit is, ah, pretty much zero.
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combat turns are 30 seconds.
03:14
but, I'll also confess that this discussion has, more or less, gone substantially over my own knowledge and understandings of physics ^_^ I pin the underlying bits of the universe on the ruleset that I'm using, and write stuff overtop of that. It's really not anything that's hard sci-fi, or even hard-adjacent. It's not quite fluffy, but it's probably closer to something like Traveller than Expanse, to give a broad example.
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Hm. I'm going to need to read up on the Starfire rules to do any sort of meaningful critique of your post, then.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:26 AM
you can definitely tell the difference between "kinetic energy is quadratic with velocity" and "kinetic energy is linear with velocity"
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Which is true under Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, no?
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:27 AM
only the first is true :V
03:27
well, true in Newtonian and approximately true in Einsteinian
03:28
okay so let's set up one of these energy-into-dV drives
03:28
say for point of argument that it is 1J = 1m/s and the device masses at 1kg, because easy numbers
03:29
you give it one joule, it's now going at 1 m/s, and has a kinetic energy of .5 J
03:30
that's not the amount you put in, but at least it's less. maybe the rest went to heat or something, whatever.
03:30
but say it's going at 100m/s, and you give it one joule. now it's going at 101 m/s.
03:31
it went from 5000 J to 5100.5 J
03:31
which is an increase of 100.5 J despite that you only put in 1 J
03:32
this is a problem in Newtonian physics because Newtonian physics still has some degree of relativity (all the equations work out the same in every inertial reference frame)
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Xveers
A little moreso than that, actually you kill your drives and you drop into a circular orbit of the nearest, strongest gravity well. In most circumstances this would be the star, or a nearby planet/moon. Asteroids (save perhaps Ceres) don't have enough of a grav well to count, IIRC.
... this is cursed. I half expect that anyone who tries to open one of these things will be slapped upside the head by a hologram of a precursor chiding you for trying to figure it out, followed by the entire drive going up in magic smoke
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:33 AM
so your proposed fix of "don't do relativity here" breaks Newtonian physics, which is what we deal with in our everyday lives
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That's not my proposed fix.
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JHPrime
Um. No relativity, energy in equals increase in KE.
Ah. I can see this was ambiguous.
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Buggy
... this is cursed. I half expect that anyone who tries to open one of these things will be slapped upside the head by a hologram of a precursor chiding you for trying to figure it out, followed by the entire drive going up in magic smoke
Well, it is a product of Task Force Games from the 80's. Cursed is probably a bit gentle.
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JHPrime
Ah. I can see this was ambiguous.
What I mean is that a conservative reactionless drive would require one true reference frame, and for increase in KE to equal increase in energy in the one true reference frame.
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Xveers
Well, it is a product of Task Force Games from the 80's. Cursed is probably a bit gentle.
This seems like the game that Aurora is based on
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JHPrime
This seems like the game that Aurora is based on
yep~ Aurora's based off of 3rd Ed Starfire. I run a more recent version. And the original version of Aurora came from a program called Starfire Assistant :p (edited)
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:35 AM
And then you choose a different reference frame and it isn't conservative anymore.
03:36
Aurora's database file is like… Stevefire.db or something :V
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plot twist - the entire universe is newtonian. Turns out that you just get weird stuff at high speed, like objects shrinking and stuff
03:39
(probably not actually a coherent explanation)
03:40
hmm. That's actually a interesting thought experiment. Devise a system of physics consistent with all observations we've made, yet fundamentally newtonian with a universal frame of reference
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:40 AM
Newtonian with a preferred reference frame is hard enough V:
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0111narwhalz
And then you choose a different reference frame and it isn't conservative anymore.
I think there's some handwaving you can do with a preferred reference frame (see http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/reactionlessdrive.php#id--Power_Requirements) that lets you get around this problem
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:41 AM
(or, well, it's not as long as you don't do anything with the preferred frame)
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Buggy
hmm. That's actually a interesting thought experiment. Devise a system of physics consistent with all observations we've made, yet fundamentally newtonian with a universal frame of reference
I think Michelson-Morley kills that right out of the box, what with the constant speed of light everywhere.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:44 AM
the handwaves appear to be "performance isomorphic to a photon drive" or "you have an aether"
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JHPrime
I think Michelson-Morley kills that right out of the box, what with the constant speed of light everywhere.
there may be some "reality is actually classical, god tweaked all the observations so that they look like quantum physics exists" level bullshit involves. I'm genuinely not sure how or if you could pull it off. (edited)
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0111narwhalz
the handwaves appear to be "performance isomorphic to a photon drive" or "you have an aether"
I think we get to have an aether but we have to discard relativity and "no preferred frames of reference" in the process.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:45 AM
yes
03:46
an infinitely massive aether (so it has no reaction of its own) still breaks things a bit though, I think
03:47
an elastic collision with an immovable object will be energy-nonconservative
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you know there is, strictly speaking, a third option we aren't considering: keep relativity. The drive is a legitimate infinite energy source.
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:51 AM
That violates the hypothesis that it is an energy-conserving reactionless drive :V
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oh right, forgot about that
03:52
well arguably that's still a smaller change than nixing relativity
03:52
a hard to use, but infinite, energy source is not that big of a deal while suns are still around. People will be glad for it in a hundred billion years, but for now they'll probably use solar panels and stuff.
03:53
less impact on the story if you're judging by that metric
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Doesn't taking out conservation of energy imply some strange things about thermodynamics and Noether's theorem?
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:54 AM
well, it might be hard to use until you get solar luminosities out of it because you're running it at almost c
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i mean, the drive is going to imply strange things regardless. If i saw that thing without context, i'd categorize it under "precursor fuckery of the highest level" and/or "proof of simulation theory and someone got lazy and hardcoded this"
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:55 AM
also if you have an energy into dV drive, you're going to have to answer what happens when it tries to add one more m/s when it's already almost at c
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Perhaps it adds relativistic (er, newtonian-but-with-lorentz-factors-equivalent-thereof) kinetic energy?
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:57 AM
1 m/s of rapidity?
03:57
I suppose that would work
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if it's a black box, you could treat it as a 'hardcoded' effect rather than a 'fundamental' one. So there isn't a universal reference frame, it just has a software limit of 0.2 c as judged by the black box, according to observations of nearby mass and/or all stars in the galaxy, etc
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0111narwhalz 05/03/2022 3:58 AM
that doesn't solve the core issue of energy nonconservation :V
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it lets you treat it as a photon drive with constrained behavior. Though that might make the energy cost prohibitive
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Buggy
it lets you treat it as a photon drive with constrained behavior. Though that might make the energy cost prohibitive
I think it does. 300 MW per Newton of thrust.
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Buggy
if it's a black box, you could treat it as a 'hardcoded' effect rather than a 'fundamental' one. So there isn't a universal reference frame, it just has a software limit of 0.2 c as judged by the black box, according to observations of nearby mass and/or all stars in the galaxy, etc
It's not so much a software limit as it is an engineering limit. Sure you can do it, but your systems are NOT going to be happy with what you're asking, and failure goes from being a statistical possibility, to a guaranteed event, to a guaranteed event NOW as you push it farther and farther. If you had some weird materials like AM2 (if anyone gets that reference, donuts will be delievered), then maybe you can sustain it. Maybe. But unlikely.
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Xveers
It's not so much a software limit as it is an engineering limit. Sure you can do it, but your systems are NOT going to be happy with what you're asking, and failure goes from being a statistical possibility, to a guaranteed event, to a guaranteed event NOW as you push it farther and farther. If you had some weird materials like AM2 (if anyone gets that reference, donuts will be delievered), then maybe you can sustain it. Maybe. But unlikely.
but you can't get a speed limit due to engineering constraints without a universal reference frame. Having it be a software limit avoids that, because it's just setting the limit relative to some other reference frame it picks.
04:06
also if you're mucking about with a precursor drive you don't understand, a speed limit sounds like something you'd run in to. If cars could go 500mph by default, you'd probably expect manufacturers to limit it to 100mph or something just so people don't accidentally take out buildings.
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Buggy
but you can't get a speed limit due to engineering constraints without a universal reference frame. Having it be a software limit avoids that, because it's just setting the limit relative to some other reference frame it picks.
Except then you have the three problems of A) of "why isn't someone bypassing this more often" B) the more doylist "is not congruent with underlying ruleset" and C) it's not a precursor drive where it's just discovered and copied without any consequence of understanding how it works. (edited)
04:09
all around, kinda a hard thing to turn into a story element
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Also, you can get speed limits without universal reference frames (in my own peasant mind at least): You're literally melting the drive components by trying to make it go that far. To wit, yes, you can make your car go 500mph, but that semi-stock V8 is not going to be happy with what you've done with it.
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you fundamentally can't, though. If nothing else, however it works, you should be able to run the drive "twice in the same direction" and get up to 0.4c at the cost of your ability to stop
04:12
i'm moderately sure even warp drives don't quite have a speed limit in this sense, and would work the same by our perspective if someone magically flung the milky way in a random direction at .99c (edited)
04:13
dictating a maximum speed requires either a 'true' reference frame (which will muck about with a lot of physics), or a reason to pick a arbitrary reference frame like 'average velocity of all stars within 100ly'
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As per my first comment way at the top of this 🙂
The drive system itself for lack of a better term 'decouples' you from the standard newtonian universe to a degree.
So no, you don't get to run the drive twice in the same direction and go from 0 to .2 and then to .4c [I also am finding myself getting honestly a little concerned, as this drive is most assuredly bullshit, and the attempts to try and craft some pseudo-reason for how it can actually work, or what other mechanics it might have, etc etc is, well... not quite trying to prove that the ether theory is the True Way? It's certainly an interesting discussion, but it is in not too fine a point also an exercise of lipstick on a pig >.> ]
(edited)
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ah right, sorry, i forgot about that comment
04:17
that... sort of reminds me of how warp drives work though?
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no worries. there's little teeny nuggets of me trying to respond to questions and comments as it comes up, as opposed to one large en bloc comment of how this thing "supposedly" works
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that's the idea behind warp drives, kinda. Do some metric fuckery and you're moving without technically ever accelerating, pull the reverse to stop
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Buggy
that... sort of reminds me of how warp drives work though?
I mean, kind of, I guess?
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but the difference is, i think, is that warp drives are physically consistent in this relativistic universe (if potentially impossible to make). That drive, on the other hand...
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which is why I've consistently referred to it as a bullshit drive 😛
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it's... maybe another way to think of it would be instead of dealing with a segment of space that you manipulate like a warp drive, it just sorta up and plops you in another universe
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It's something directly out of a game system to help facilitate tactical combat functionality, not something that is realistic by any stretch of the imagination.
04:20
Or even any vague concept of realism.
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quite true, that's why my first go-to was "precursor bullshit carefully engineered to look and act like a convenient reactionless drive, and no one knows enough about it to turn off the speed lock", but that's not lore consistent
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It's probably more realistic than Star Wars insofar as it has specifically stated mechanics that always work in X, Y, and Z manners, and you can account for, design, and plan with them in mind. As opposed to at the whims of whatever writer is needing it to do that moment. But it really doesn't even approach Star Trek levels of realism, nevermind something that actually tries to be somewhat hard-sci-fi (even like something from Traveller which is still quite soft hard-sci-fi)
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i see ways that you could make something with similar constraints - say, a warp drive which has to contend with interstellar medium and dust, so there's a engineering max speed relative to that beyond which something melts and you are no longer moving fast
04:24
but then that will still have subtly different constraints for all it is similar - for one, speed limits would depend on medium density, so you'd go slower near a star
04:24
but the drive exactly-as-presented... i don't think you can do it without reinventing half of physics or adding a source of infinite energy
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Buggy
but the drive exactly-as-presented... i don't think you can do it without reinventing half of physics or adding a source of infinite energy
Honestly more thought than it's worth 🙂
04:27
I've got a half-written discussion on drive mechanics... guess I should orbit back to that sooner than later
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Buggy
i see ways that you could make something with similar constraints - say, a warp drive which has to contend with interstellar medium and dust, so there's a engineering max speed relative to that beyond which something melts and you are no longer moving fast
doctorcatfish 05/03/2022 4:49 PM
That’s similar to Weber’s hyperdrive system. The maximum speed on any n-brane, whether normal space or any level of hyperspace, is a function of the radiation shielding. Relativity doesn’t go away, but 0.2c on a high enough ‘brane is point-to-point equivalent to a few hundred lights in zero-level base reality
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In kinda soft, but not completely magic sci-fi setting I am planning to write something some day: Many civilizations, unsatisfied with choice between fusion and antimatter for energy storage, begin to experiment with engineered exotic matter fuels in attempts to optimize energy density, ease of storage, efficiency of production or simplicity of power extraction, among other parameters. Most first-generation results converge into three possible optimums: Hypermotes, a exceptionally volatile energy storage for risky people, a liquid energy, stable rechargeable compound with better than fusion energy density that's surprisingly problematic to explosively decompose, and tachyon ice, low decay rate solution for high efficiency reaction engines and hyperlane transit drives. Advanced people usually use compact perpetual engines instead.
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BizarroLand ♀
yeah, a better game would probably just be straight "you're an uplifting org soph from the EotS and your first assignment has gone really fucking sideways"
That sounds really interesting, TBH.
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By the way, I launched a Kickstarter for a book of FTL and STL drives to use in RPGs https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joel-kreissman/stardrives-a-starfinder-compatible-shipbuilding-toolkit
Stardrives presents four alternative methods for launching your starship from star to star that feel distinctive from one another.
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ooh, cool.
19:08
applies wallet to kickstarter
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Xveers
applies wallet to kickstarter
Danke schön
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now i wonder if you are a stick person or actually a kreismann
00:52
(also applying wallet to screen once im back home)
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It’s my pen name, but based on my great-grandma’s maiden name
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[prev] [next] Vaneer-One was born whole. Fully formed with his mind full Vaneer-One stepped out into the sunlight of the garden's observation deck, looking around with his wide eyes. He was in a dura-glass (...)
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Kind of melancholy, TBH?
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She discovered that humans had the "Lunar Mile", an event where a human wore goggles to protect the eyes, noseplugs, and ran a mile across the vacuum of their moon as some kind of weird bragging right.
Main cause of death: Misadventure
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The girl's eyes fluttered open. She was a Lolita Sorceress of the Sailor Moon Sisterhood... ...and she was Born Whole.
08:32
This is... Very much pulp fiction, but I can't stop reading this trainwreck
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Those people.
06:34
For eight thousand years. Had a backup system. That they forgot how to work, forgot transmission principles, and for eight thousand years used it. While it was without maintenance and while they lost contact with it's hardware in the middle of attack that caused significant percent of population to be driven murderously mad.
06:34
THOSE PEOPLE.
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NHO
She discovered that humans had the "Lunar Mile", an event where a human wore goggles to protect the eyes, noseplugs, and ran a mile across the vacuum of their moon as some kind of weird bragging right.
Main cause of death: Misadventure
5-6 minutes without air while running is an achievement :V
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Huh, cool, I put one of my books up on DriveThruFiction and they gave me affiliate status https://www.drivethrufiction.com/product/398733/Tales-of-the-ParaImperium?affiliate_id=425983
It has been nearly two thousand years since Sol was lost to those relentless mechanical foes of unknown origin. Two mill
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nice!
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Shiny.
18:34
Meanwhile, in this First Contact/Behold, Humanity thing. I just read over a million words. Two AIs in a trenchcoat, Vlad from corner bodyswap store and popcicle from before spaceflight are fixing resurrection system. (edited)
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 06/03/2022 11:51 PM
Grats!
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The Universe Dislikes That. The Universe Will Remember That.
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One ran for the shelf of lubricants, obviously intending on putting the fire out with synthetic lubricant
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"Since when do these types of vending machines have VI's?" Ru'udamo'o asked, cracking open a can of Peaches and Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Roll Liquid Hate Supercharger Berry Blast. "Since always. A VI is what runs the nanoforge," Speaks said. "Crey Industries and BobCo both put personalities in them to talk to lonely beings since lonely beings spend more money," the mantid was twiddling at a holodisplay keyboard. It suddenly went from sandwiches to weaponry. "Ah, there we go." "The nutriforge has military supplies?" Ru'udamo'o asked, taking a drink of the can's contents. It was thick, almost cloying, but the bite of hard alcohol cleared the taste by the time he'd swallowed. "BobCo values customer safety," the nutriforge VI chirped.
(edited)
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liquid hate supercharger berry blast
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One should note that BobCo's symbol is old-time photo camera shutter and it's owner is Bob "Caveman" Johnson, technically not a psychopath,
This is not considered a racial slur, the BobCo AI is unique because technically it isn't an AI or a Digital Sentience or even a digitized Terran. It's a weird blending of the two, a cross between programmed AI, one of the first baked hash shredded rainbow salted table genesis systems, and a neural recording of Bob Johnson himself all mushed together. Considered to be homicidal and just as crazy as the original Bob Johnson.
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"The universe is not a closed system as we previously thought. Yes, our region of space/time is still moving outward from the Big Bang as part of the successive blast waves that created the universe. However, recently discoveries have shown that the Big Bang either had additional blast waves or is still ongoing. "Behind us, toward the center of the universe, reality, space/time as we know it, is pushing us forward, with more behind it, pushing it forward. There is, without a doubt, more matter and more space being pushed out from the center. "The universe is still growing and is not yet done with its birth, which has taken thirteen point eight billion years so far." - Terran Astro-Physicist Research Conference, Pre-Superluminal Drives, Pre-Glassing.
03:59
[missiles] were simple antimatter charges looking for new friends.
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Maria remembered how much she hated mythic architecture. The galleries that looked that had no railings, only ostentatious pillars that did not prevent anyone from falling to their deaths. Stairs with no railings. Outside balconies with no railings. Wide circular elevators with no railings. Libraries where the very bookshelves were platforms and floors to reach other bookshelves and floors, so of course they had no railings. If it were possible to have no railings with no railings, the castle would probably have those as well. It reminded her a bit too vividly of Yharnam and Cainhurst, as if the architects for both were given a greater budget and told to add a little sunlight here and there.
It was a terribly unsafe place to raise a child. Her manor was full of railings to prevent such falls from happening.
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Morgrim Moon 06/08/2022 8:56 AM
I am reminded of a fantasy setting with a tree-city (that also had few railings) lampshaded that by infants/toddlers having padded safety lines, and all children learning slowfall spells XD
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I quit procrastinating and put this out as an ebook https://paraimperium.wordpress.com/2022/06/08/horizon-ebook-now-on-sale/
Three hundred years after the fall of the Federation, star systems like the Tiere system have fallen into chaos. Three inhabitable planets and dozens of scattered habitats all out for each other as…
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Ah, R-Type. Or "This space fighter is HOW MANY bootstrapping paradoxes?"
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Human Bellhop: “Here is your hotel room Asari Ambassador. The kitchen is to your left and the sink comes with three setting: hot, cold, and wave cannon. The washing machine is to your right has gentle, spin cycle, and wave cannon. If you get bored, the entertainment system comes with cable, internet, and a wave cannon installed. Also there is a gun safe next to the bed mounted wave cannon for any personal weaponry you may have brought. Enjoy your stay.” Asari: “Isn’t this kind of dangerous to fill a room with the deadliest weapons known to Humans?” Human Bellhop: “Of course not, it is merely necessary precautions. The walls are manufactured in Dimension 26 to withstand the assault by the next cosmic horror that shows up long enough to do some damage before dying. If you pay for the platinum package, we will install a temporal bomb synched to the organ of your choosing to deny the enemy the chance to defile your corpse and three free drinks from the minibar. Please familiarize yourself with the defenses and enjoy your stay. Remember our hotel motto: If you need to make your last stand, do it in comfort.”
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Wtf do I need to read now?
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No, I did not fight in World War Two and I did not participate in the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, I know there's cave paintings of me in that museum on Earth. I don't cause time paradoxes and stable time loops on purpose! Do you think trans-dimensional jumping is easy? Give me a break! -from ship archives​
13:20
One year after Fenrir's rebellion, humanity once again look to the stars. Venturing into the Perseus Veil, what will they find? Hopefully not yet another alien species who spontaneously decide to genocide humanity on first sight (seriously, what's with aliens and picking on humanity?).
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Never thought I'd ever be trying to catch an apartment block from running away. Or have a factory bark and growl at me.
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"This gun saves you today by killing yesterday" "You mean, killing someone yesterday?" "No."
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"What did you lot do!" "You told us to build railroads, we built railroads." "It's a bloody water world with a tiny archipelago!" "And we build a railroad. It was difficult, but we accomplished it." "You circumnavigated the plant." "As said, it was difficult." "What is this I'm reading about magnetic field reversal." "It's an electric train. A high power electric train. Large distance, so we needed a higher velocity. It was a minor complication, but everything seems to have stabilized." "And now the damned Aurora hails it's coming."
(edited)
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rofl
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Bob's Discount Fuel Rods and Recycling, your reliable source for your household thorium needs, with pickup and dropoff services anywhere within two hundred klicks of Orret City
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@Zarpaulek Just as an FYI, I'm trying to respond to the survey but Kickstarter has apparently concluded that I am a bot and refuses to actually let me finish the questionnare.
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Xveers
@Zarpaulek Just as an FYI, I'm trying to respond to the survey but Kickstarter has apparently concluded that I am a bot and refuses to actually let me finish the questionnare.
Try logging into Kickstarter from the main page
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I get redirected straight to "please verify you are a human"
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Can you?
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it seems to just hang after I finish clicking the button
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Weird, when I logged into the app it let me through after I held down the button long enough
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There’s a mobile app
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yeah, I'm doing this on my desktop 😛
16:09
meh. I'll orbit back to it tomorrow or something
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Might be a site-wide issue
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Din Korlack was not having a good day. The galactic community was in an uproar over the geth claiming they wanted to make contact officially and that meant that the economic scene was just as much in chaos as the political one. Already, the hanar were making a killing selling their dumb automated VI-controlled defense systems, even more than usual, and every Citadel member and even some Omega associates were climbing over one another to make deals with the Illuminated Primacy. Needless to say, the Vol Protectorate was furious over it and had called for him to bring the issue up to the Council. Stupid jellies. Always pretending to be polite but stabbing you the moment you turn your back to them. They don't even need an actual blade to do it given their stupid giant stingers! Stupid things... "I don't care-" He caught his breath. Seriously, why did every other species evolve in low pressure environments? Those pressure suits sucks! "About that supposed first contact! We're looking at-" Breathe. "A catastrophic inflation rate for all defense systems-" Breathe. "And security details around the eastern galactic-" Breathe. "Fringe!" "I have already notified the Council to bring up the matter as soon as possible during the next economic round table. All I ask is that for you to show some patience and-" BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
15:02
"And-... what is that." The turian stopped before turning to the side, his mandibles opening and staying open. What was causing that infernal racket?! Why is that turian idiot gaping like a fish and- BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! Din Korlack stood there, jaw agape as what seemed to be an oversized, grossly obese mix of a bird, a starship, and a quarian tried to climb the stairs. Swearing loudly and complaining in an alien language the entire time, its giant gut slamming on the edge of every step in a way that frankly looked absolutely agonizing. And likely was, given the loud sounds that came from the alien. It was an alien, right? Yeah, it was just too gigantic to be an alien but the alternative was somebody being dumb enough to try flying a starship indoors. Nobody is stupid enough to do this, right? SLAAM! ... and now it's stuck in the door frame. And wiggling its ailerons like legs as it tries to squeeze through. "Did-" Breathe. "Somebody just sneak drugs into my suit?" Breathe. Pause. "A lot of drugs?" "I was going to ask you the same question..." The turian said, equally as flabbergasted.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:04 PM
I worry I may have gone a tad overboard deciding that the average number of terrestrial worlds in the habitable zone is 5
20:04
But IAC's all about planets anyway
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 8:04 PM
what, per star?
20:05
that's pretty crowded, innit?
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0111narwhalz
what, per star?
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:10 PM
yes
20:12
and it's not that crowded if you consider that TRAPPIST-1 has 4, our solar system has 3, and teegarden's star has at least 2
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 8:12 PM
what kind of system has more than five
20:13
like if five is the average you'd expect to find a bunch with seven or, like, nine
20:13
because there are probably plenty of stars with zero
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0111narwhalz
what kind of system has more than five
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:18 PM
Probably a system with three co-orbitals
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 8:18 PM
and that's common enough to outweigh the threes and fours and the perhaps-rarer twos and ones and zeroes?
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:18 PM
Dynamically it's not unlikely
20:19
Neither are binary planets
20:19
Which was shocking to me too
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0111narwhalz
and that's common enough to outweigh the threes and fours and the perhaps-rarer twos and ones and zeroes?
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:23 PM
Collisions on the scale of the Moon-forming one and larger are not really that uncommon (edited)
20:23
Planetary formation is a hilariously inefficient process
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 8:23 PM
do those count as "two planets?" :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:23 PM
Almost yeah
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 8:24 PM
I guess they would, but I'd be more inclined to count them as one and a moon. Even a big moon.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:24 PM
IIRC the barycenter of the earth-moon system is very close to the surface
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0111narwhalz
I guess they would, but I'd be more inclined to count them as one and a moon. Even a big moon.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 8:25 PM
Co-orbital bodies are very common in the solar system (if not planets)
20:26
I think most of us here know the hypothesis that Earth used to have one in the trailing Lagrange point
20:33
And yeah it shocked me too
20:33
Even destrucules thinks 5 is kind of tight
20:34
But if a late M-dwarf we found by chance can shove 4 in...
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Something something generalizing from a sample of one. But you should do it anyway, because the Trappist system is very cool.
20:44
(Or at least very small.)
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Overmind
Something something generalizing from a sample of one. But you should do it anyway, because the Trappist system is very cool.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:25 PM
every star system being lousy with terrestrial planets is going to be ... interesting
21:27
although zig-zagged because the Tiffanian capital system has three habitable and fully-developed worlds, which nobody else can say at the moment
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The potential for this sort of scenario makes life much easier for me and my life-rich universe.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:27 PM
IAC has a notable dearth of life, so if you want an oxygen atmosphere in most cases you will have to make it
21:28
In any case a lot of those terrestrial planets are too shrimpy to hold onto atmospheres or too big or too Cytherean or too water-drowned
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And then we do engineering to them.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:28 PM
yes, but that takes time
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But is the fun part.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:29 PM
by the time the actual story of IAC takes place it's only been ~500 years since the Tiffanians returned to space
21:29
Explosive population growth helps the rebs a bit but Tiffany, Leona and Leonard still have an unsurpassable industrialized economy
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There’s a lot of potential in worlds that are sort-of-partly-terraformed, still definitely in need of some fine tuning, and thus a bit of a fixer-upper.
21:32
(Hrm. Polity puts rebellion down hard, justifies their actions on the grounds that the rebels know shit about terraforming and freedom is definitely not free when the entire population of a decent-sized planet dies gasping.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:32 PM
Destrucules told me abiotic O2 atmospheres are possible if the H inventory of a planet is lost fast enough
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(Voice yells from the audience: PAY YOUR FUCKING BREATH TAX!)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:33 PM
There is a problem in astrobiology: even if we identified an exoplanet with an identical atmosphere to Earth's we still couldn't say there's life
21:34
It's vexing
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…well, it’s not identical to Earth that we’re looking for, IIRC, it’s ongoing disequilibria. Methane persisting in an oxygen atmosphere, that sort of thing.
21:35
Sure, it’s not a guarantee of life, but it’s real suggestive.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:36 PM
Because of my esthetic preferences in putting IAC together the Tiffanians have basically put the terraforming process on an assembly line
21:36
I have a file with all the worlds that have been roughly finished or are mid-process
21:37
There are 28 names in there (edited)
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I think I have a scrapped Exploratory Service snippet somewhere where it’s explained that they don’t have an interstellar life detector, they have an interstellar life-or-weird-geophysical-phenomenon detector. But hey, they’re scientists, either will do. 😂
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:39 PM
Starmoth and most settings are over there, saying "hey don't do that it's not worth it you'll destroy billions of years of natural history!!!"
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 9:39 PM
"most?"
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:39 PM
And IAC is over here. "Haha air-miners go BRRRRRR"
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 9:40 PM
"where is your onion-skinner, comrade?"
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0111narwhalz
"where is your onion-skinner, comrade?"
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:40 PM
w-what's an onion-skinner 😅
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 9:40 PM
take an onion. remove one layer at a time.
21:40
consume the whole onion.
21:40
that, but the onion is a planet.
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Hereabouts they just figure there are plenty of dead dead worlds that won’t offend anyone. Also, they’re cheaper.
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0111narwhalz
that, but the onion is a planet.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:41 PM
i feel hungry
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 9:41 PM
larp as an onion skinner. homf nomf.
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0111narwhalz
that, but the onion is a planet.
B-but gravity well!?
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0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 9:42 PM
hey you gotta pay the binding energy sometime, may as well amortize it
21:42
(typically they're depicted as using bigass mass drivers or something)
21:43
besides, the gravity well gets shallower the longer you work on it
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Overmind
Hereabouts they just figure there are plenty of dead dead worlds that won’t offend anyone. Also, they’re cheaper.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:43 PM
yeah, but the waterworlds and venusian worlds are a ...
21:43
Well, you know
21:43
A pain
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Randomly, here we just started listening through our Welcome to Night Vale backlog. I am reminded of the guy who believed in the Inflatable Earth theory. Do not puncture. Onion-skinner go {untranscribably deificfarting noises}.
21:45
Areans are nice though.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 9:46 PM
>earthlike >wedding-band type, earth-sized >wedding-band type, mars-sized >snowball earth >marslike >super-earth >hothouse earth >venuslike >waterworld earth >hydrated-super earth
21:46
The tiers David gave me for terraforming, from best to the fucking worst ever aargghhhhh
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Overmind
Randomly, here we just started listening through our Welcome to Night Vale backlog. I am reminded of the guy who believed in the Inflatable Earth theory. Do not puncture. Onion-skinner go {untranscribably deificfarting noises}.
0111narwhalz 06/22/2022 9:46 PM
imagine someone throttling a balloon, but the "neck" is 400 km across
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BizarroLand ♀
The tiers David gave me for terraforming, from best to the fucking worst ever aargghhhhh
BluejayHurricane 06/22/2022 10:39 PM
Honestly, I’d take venuslike over marslike.
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BluejayHurricane
Honestly, I’d take venuslike over marslike.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 10:59 PM
why
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BluejayHurricane 06/22/2022 11:13 PM
Mars has annoyingly low gravity; it makes keeping an atmosphere tricky. There are also some really worrying radiation concerns, because of the lack of a magnetic field. With Venus, you do have to get rid of a substantial amount of atmosphere (still imo easier than adding atmosphere), the surface gravity is only 1 m/s/s lower, the trip is iirc shorter, and you actually have less radiation (in some spots). Day length is kind of inconvenient, though.
23:15
If it wasn’t for the scorching heat, Venus would be by far the better target. Admittedly, you could maybe engineer humans to fit mars better, but if you want to terraform the planet, I’d rather deal with getting rid of atmosphere.
23:15
Also, bulk CO2 is useful (as propellant if nothing else).
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For one thing, you could ship it to Mars.
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BluejayHurricane
Mars has annoyingly low gravity; it makes keeping an atmosphere tricky. There are also some really worrying radiation concerns, because of the lack of a magnetic field. With Venus, you do have to get rid of a substantial amount of atmosphere (still imo easier than adding atmosphere), the surface gravity is only 1 m/s/s lower, the trip is iirc shorter, and you actually have less radiation (in some spots). Day length is kind of inconvenient, though.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 11:25 PM
On human timescales the air loss is negligible; atmosphere plays a bigger role in blocking out radiation. I'm mostly against Venus because of the atmosphere removal; you have to shift an amount of mass that's only one order of magnitude below the mass of the asteroid belt. (edited)
23:25
For mars you only have to shift an amount ~2.5x Earth's to get a breathable pressure
23:26
Venus, more than 85x
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But missing those 100,000 year maintenance intervals can be a real bugger. Make sure you get the extended warranty.
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 11:27 PM
getting rid of atmosphere IS the problem because you have to lift mass OUT of Venus' gravity well, which is almost like Earth's (edited)
23:27
or risk your entire effort being for nothing when your stored-up carbon gets unleashed in an accident (edited)
23:29
also the day length means you need an unwieldy setup of space mirrors to have anything approximating a reasonable day/night cycle
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Overmind
But missing those 100,000 year maintenance intervals can be a real bugger. Make sure you get the extended warranty.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/22/2022 11:31 PM
Really funny but this is 50% of why it's the Martian War and not the Venus War in IAC
23:32
I may have jettisoned pure realism for style but I'm not that kind of writer (edited)
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BluejayHurricane 06/22/2022 11:36 PM
Nobody ever said terraforming was going to be easy. But I think the end result of doing Venus would be a much nicer end product for an unmodified or minimally modified Homo sapiens.
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A thought RE Venus.... I would presume part of the terraforming effort would be the emplacement of a solar shade or two in order to lower the amount of energy that the planet gets... wouldn't that potentially help?
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Recently finished Farmer in the Sky, about terraforming Ganymede.
06:32
The main technological achievements that made it possible were a magnetic field that produced a greenhouse effect (and shut down at the worst time of course) and matter-to-energy conversion to provide enough power for pumping out oxygen from water ice.
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BizarroLand ♀
also the day length means you need an unwieldy setup of space mirrors to have anything approximating a reasonable day/night cycle
Alternatively! With a sufficiently large set of well-anchored solar-powered magnetic coils wrapped around the equator, just spin the whole planet up. It’s Big Megaengineering Energy, but it’s not magic-requiring.
10:42
(Or do the same thing with an equivalent retrograde mass accelerator,)
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BizarroLand ♀
Really funny but this is 50% of why it's the Martian War and not the Venus War in IAC
Not even that much of a joke: over in the 'verse, Blue-Green Ecociates (the ecopoesis arm of Ecogenetics) will deliver a whole bunch of paperwork when they hand over the keys to your shiny new habitable planet: A one megayear guarantee, for one thing. But, of course, that depends on you following the planetary management guidelines in the accompanying "Keeping Your Planet Healthy: Artificial Ecosystems And You" leaflet and performing the recommended maintenance at the appropriate intervals; see attached schedule. BGE disclaims all responsibility, express, implied, or demanded, for the actions of irresponsible dickbuckets who think you can just dump any amount of any old gas into your atmosphere and expect everything to work out. (edited)
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Overmind
Alternatively! With a sufficiently large set of well-anchored solar-powered magnetic coils wrapped around the equator, just spin the whole planet up. It’s Big Megaengineering Energy, but it’s not magic-requiring.
BizarroLand ♀ 06/23/2022 12:05 PM
I think my real objection is that the energy needed to spin it up will take a millennium to generate, regardless of your precise method (edited)
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If you're thinking in terraforming time scales already, shouldn't be a problem.
12:08
(Also, even if you had the energy already, you'd want to spin it up real slow to avoid seismic badness.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/23/2022 12:09 PM
IAC has to all take place in a compressed timescale (the main story takes place "only" 2000 years from now)
12:09
Which is the other half of the reason I chose Mars
12:10
I just had to handwave the existence of a TNO larger than Pluto our telescopes haven't seen yet for the nitrogen
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But in the meantime, it makes a damn fine project-in-being for people to work at, admire, capture, commit extremely stupid acts of terrorism against, and that sort of thing. Y'know, if you want one of those for story purposes. 😀
12:12
Much the same goes for its close cousin, the Planetary Magnetic Field Simulator(tm).
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BizarroLand ♀ 06/23/2022 12:13 PM
It's clean: today-2500 for the beginning of Elysian culture, 2500-2800 for the postwar Martian dominance, 2800-3500 for the discovery of Tiffany, and 3500-4000 for the return to space and setup to the main story (edited)
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Overmind
But in the meantime, it makes a damn fine project-in-being for people to work at, admire, capture, commit extremely stupid acts of terrorism against, and that sort of thing. Y'know, if you want one of those for story purposes. 😀
BizarroLand ♀ 06/23/2022 12:57 PM
The 500-year timespans needed put cytherean terraforming outside the scope of the plot
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Oh, Freefall going Chernobyl
05:28
Doing chernobyl
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Overmind
(Or do the same thing with an equivalent retrograde mass accelerator,)
doctorcatfish 06/25/2022 7:58 PM
Or skip the “reverse” part, and impart angular momentum through well-targeted impacts by incoming volatile-bearing projectiles (formerly TNOs).
20:00
Or do both!
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BizarroLand ♀
I just had to handwave the existence of a TNO larger than Pluto our telescopes haven't seen yet for the nitrogen
doctorcatfish 06/25/2022 8:17 PM
Nitrogen for Mars, I presume. Venus has four times’ Earth’s supply of nitrogen; it’s just inconveniently downwell of Mars. Or pretty much anywhere else.
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BizarroLand ♀
I just had to handwave the existence of a TNO larger than Pluto our telescopes haven't seen yet for the nitrogen
this is titan erasure
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doctorcatfish 06/25/2022 8:19 PM
What Venus desperately needs is hydrogen, which is more readily delivered from icy volatile bodies than trying to package it out of gas giants.
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wouldn't terraforming tend to be a bit more of a 'meet in the middle' sort of thing, with the 'middle' being determined by how pliable to change the settlers are?
12:59
example: Venus would be rather annoying to terraform, because you have to get rid of a bunch of atmosphere. Or, you could leave the atmosphere as-is, and live in aerostat cities (edited)
13:01
there happens to be a nice altitude range where breathing gas is buoyant, it's a human livable temperature, and there's hardly any corrosive rain at all
13:03
you could probably introduce a engineered ecology that's all airborne, too
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Buggy
there happens to be a nice altitude range where breathing gas is buoyant, it's a human livable temperature, and there's hardly any corrosive rain at all
doctorcatfish 06/30/2022 4:43 PM
That would be step one, yes.
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KAL_9000
this is titan erasure
BizarroLand ♀ 07/21/2022 4:31 PM
Kal I know I'm nearly a month late for the party but Titan is owned by other interests at that point in the story
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Nice bit of Nanoha fanfic world building:
Pan Jianliang "Golden Lotus" Goddess of Space Colony and Hostile Environment Governance. Many of the deep space colonies that survived the Belkan Collapse are run by theocracies dedicated to Pan Jianliang. Making life support maintenance, engineering failure analysis and public order religious duties apparently helps prevent the issues common to hostile environment enclaves that fall into the hands of anti-technocrats or other technologically illiterates. Despite the popular stereotype Pan Jianliang's faithful do not eject gundeckers and other sinners into space. That would be wasteful. After surgically removing any organs useful for transplant or preventing Kumiho syndrome they vacuum decompress heretics to reclaim the water in them and the grind their dessicated corpses up for biomass and chemical feed-stock.
(edited)
14:15
Gundecking Falsifying logs or other documentation to hide a failure to properly perform work, typically maintenance, testing or auditing. Devotees consider this to be irrevocable pollution of the soul or mortal sin against the Goddess Pan Jianliang.
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Asahi Lina and M1 driver situation: My GPU pointer cache causes a buggy! I'll fix it by restarting GPU after every frame. (edited)
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AAAAAAA
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In one of mildly old russian sci-fi stories there's a bit of... hackers hack-off. Between emergent gynoid ai twins and mildly alien lizardman ex-White Hat guy. Lizardman didn't like that twins hacked cameras on his base and watched stuff without warning or invitation. As all hardware on the base was from same tech base as twins, they had a... leg up. So he took a lizardmen computer emulator he programmed in last six month in free time to relax, plugged in lizardmen's type 1 hypervisor with about a million year of maturation, plugged into that a laptop OS of same age (and warts) and fast-cobbled-together counter-intrusion program on top of what. Which caused twins to be rejected from next attempt at surveillance and caused them to spend three days trying to comprehend this horrifying massive of bytes. Until their dad, bioengineered dragon, hacked into cameras and called them and talked them to relax. How dragon dad hacked in? You see, when all modern tech base starts from one blob of hardware and software from alternative universe uplifters and you accidentally make yourself a root user in that and every following bit of software...
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NHO
In one of mildly old russian sci-fi stories there's a bit of... hackers hack-off. Between emergent gynoid ai twins and mildly alien lizardman ex-White Hat guy. Lizardman didn't like that twins hacked cameras on his base and watched stuff without warning or invitation. As all hardware on the base was from same tech base as twins, they had a... leg up. So he took a lizardmen computer emulator he programmed in last six month in free time to relax, plugged in lizardmen's type 1 hypervisor with about a million year of maturation, plugged into that a laptop OS of same age (and warts) and fast-cobbled-together counter-intrusion program on top of what. Which caused twins to be rejected from next attempt at surveillance and caused them to spend three days trying to comprehend this horrifying massive of bytes. Until their dad, bioengineered dragon, hacked into cameras and called them and talked them to relax. How dragon dad hacked in? You see, when all modern tech base starts from one blob of hardware and software from alternative universe uplifters and you accidentally make yourself a root user in that and every following bit of software...
That reminds me of Thompson's Trusting Trust attack
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@shrimp_rider an anatomical sandwich - an artificial organism made specifically to take the form of a sandwich, ready to eat, at the end of its life cycle. like a banana. but it's a sandwich
02:26
@shrimp_rider the cheese is blue because at some point the number of cheese species grew so large that people couldn't distinguish that many shades of red, yellow an orange
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BluejayHurricane 11/04/2022 12:13 PM
You know a game rulebook is good when you’re halfway through and already have three incredibly cool adventures fighting for design time.
12:13
I have got to get an Eclipse Phase group together
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Is it just me or does the mecha genre have a bit of inherent transhumanism.
20:08
And I don't mean genetically engineered pilots, I mean the human acting as essentially a brain for an interchangeable series of big strong robot bodies.
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Eh, I don't really see that; on the other hand, I've not much exposure to mecha except via Battletech
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Morgrim Moon 11/17/2022 3:06 AM
linguistics query: platypus have venomous ankle spurs. These are hollow tubes, with the venom coming from a sac under the skin, so similar injectable as a snake bite. Would this be a sting? Like, would you say "I was stung by a platypus"? it's not a bite, but sting usually means an anthropod's tail-venom delivery mechanism. And I'm not sure "stab" is quite correct either.
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0111narwhalz 11/17/2022 3:10 AM
what's it called when a fish envenoms you?
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Morgrim Moon 11/17/2022 3:12 AM
"gidgi", but I am aware that is super regional. Like, that's not even australian slang, that's "coastal rural SW corner native loanword"
03:17
(it's the noogar word for a fishing spear. Coincidentally, there is a local species of cousin-to-catfish that lives on muddy marine flats, and has spearlike venomous spines on their dorsal fins. So you go spearfishing and this fish spears you)
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/17/2022 8:01 AM
I'd call it a sting. Or maybe "spike"?
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Morgrim Moon
linguistics query: platypus have venomous ankle spurs. These are hollow tubes, with the venom coming from a sac under the skin, so similar injectable as a snake bite. Would this be a sting? Like, would you say "I was stung by a platypus"? it's not a bite, but sting usually means an anthropod's tail-venom delivery mechanism. And I'm not sure "stab" is quite correct either.
I would say yes, even though 'sting' is normally associated with arthropods
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/17/2022 9:40 AM
I'd say the same for those spur-winged geese
09:41
Which... well, I guess they don't technically count as venomous, but.
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I'm coming close to publishing a Starfinder OGL book with different FTL and STL travel systems
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Considering that modern RPGs tend towards abstraction, to the point where Lancer says to divide by ten for relativistic time dilation, would you say this is too many or too few significant figures?
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I'd personally list that as the days experienced per light-year of travel
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/22/2022 3:34 PM
did any of you start out with your worlds fully formed or slowly cobbled em together over years
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0111narwhalz 11/22/2022 4:22 PM
imagine starting with anything fully formed
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BizarroLand ♀
did any of you start out with your worlds fully formed or slowly cobbled em together over years
I’ve been fleshing out this setting for ten years
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/22/2022 8:11 PM
Yeah, mine's a multi-decade cobblejob
20:11
That started out as "Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off", got a bit of "SN-less Wing Commander" welded on the side, and then got entirely reshaped after that.
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oh, 100% slow-assembly over years, arc-welding and duct-taping bits and bobs together in an "as needed" and "as desired" workflow that is a single indistinct blob.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/22/2022 9:26 PM
I've spent years sort of filter-feeding by browsing Atomic rockets and lurking in the TSF server until I get ideas I like
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0111narwhalz 11/22/2022 9:30 PM
Ailevérse has been in development for… at least six years?
21:31
under different names at different points, and it's experienced an explosion of scope, but all the same
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What on earth would it mean to start with a setting fully formed
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0111narwhalz 11/22/2022 9:45 PM
² It came to me in a dream.
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Well, the basic concept came to me fully formed, but I've been filling out the details for decades, yeah.
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 2:12 AM
the basic concept?
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BluejayHurricane 11/23/2022 5:13 AM
Anyone got any brightshiny works to recommend? I’ve been reading too much Breath Of The Wild fanfiction, and while it’s been a brilliant comparative study of grief, it’s starting to get to me.
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friendship is optimal?
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BluejayHurricane 11/23/2022 11:56 AM
Read that, read a bunch of the permutations.
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i am realising i dont have that many brighthappy stories on hand
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there's a Culture/40k crossover that's pretty brighthappy, but sadly not finished
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"You get some gridfire! And you get some gridfire! Everyone gets some gridfire!"
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hah. there's a bit of that I think, but it's less "wholesale disposal" and more "let's fix this mess"
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I had some thoughts once on a 'verse/40K crossover fic. Might not qualify as brighthappy, though, inasmuch as the working title was Caliéne Sargas Murders Almost Everyone .
12:30
On the other hand, she's pretty happy about it. Given that she operates on a strict code of only killing people who have it coming, ending up in the Grim Darkness Of The Far Future is kind of like an all-expenses-paid trip to Valhalla.
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(Khorne might enjoy it, you say? Ah, but he's a god of war. Instead, all hail the new Warp Goddess of Pest Control!)
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(I think Khorne would hate it, since it would probably be along the line of dispassionate mop-up. Little passion involved there]
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(Yep, that's what I mean.)
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Overmind
(Khorne might enjoy it, you say? Ah, but he's a god of war. Instead, all hail the new Warp Goddess of Pest Control!)
warp gods? transcend: "interesting"
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Hmm, on the one hand, the Imperium of Man is one of the few fictional galactic polities to actually act on a galactic scale and has a nearly unlimited amount of bodies and materiel to throw at her. On the other hand most of their technology is junk with the occasional bit of Clarketech.
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for all the clarketech is 40k surprisingly grounded
13:57
but that might just be the fundamental lack of creativity
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It’s like the Solarian League vs. Star Empire of Manticore taken up to 11K
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Zarpaulek
Hmm, on the one hand, the Imperium of Man is one of the few fictional galactic polities to actually act on a galactic scale and has a nearly unlimited amount of bodies and materiel to throw at her. On the other hand most of their technology is junk with the occasional bit of Clarketech.
Humanity at its peak in 40k, back when they knew how their technology worked and before the fascist hellstate took over, could probably roflstomp most other settings without much effort tbh
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star wars major powers might be a problem
13:59
because they have the same scale and far better control over their tech
13:59
and a fundamentally incredibly reliable and fast ftl
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Cornflakes
star wars major powers might be a problem
Nah, the Dark Age of Tech humanity had self-replicating warmachines out the wazoo and Dyson Spheres to throw at the problem
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and star wars has nicoll-dyson beams in 200km packages
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KAL_9000
Nah, the Dark Age of Tech humanity had self-replicating warmachines out the wazoo and Dyson Spheres to throw at the problem
what really fucked them over was the birth of slaanesh fucking up the warp and making their FTL unreliable
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Zarpaulek
Hmm, on the one hand, the Imperium of Man is one of the few fictional galactic polities to actually act on a galactic scale and has a nearly unlimited amount of bodies and materiel to throw at her. On the other hand most of their technology is junk with the occasional bit of Clarketech.
The main advantage she has in this scenario is that they think in terms of infantry combat and bodies to throw. She's an IN Admiral. She thinks in terms of planetary bodies to throw.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:00 PM
Also in general 40k folks stink on ice in space.
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(Well, okay, not quite, but still. looks at the Space Marines gearing up to make taking Simiae Orichalcae an absolute bloodbath laughs in CALYX HOLLOW )
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Overmind
(Well, okay, not quite, but still. looks at the Space Marines gearing up to make taking Simiae Orichalcae an absolute bloodbath laughs in CALYX HOLLOW )
That... is a valid solution that actually happens in 40k a lot
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:02 PM
I have to infer that 40k's ECM tech is really good, though - ship-to-ship weapons are almost never guided, but guidance is tech we are really good at now. So why not?
14:02
Headcanon: ECM so good that guidance is nearly useless
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KAL_9000
That... is a valid solution that actually happens in 40k a lot
The reason Exterminatus doesn't happen all the time is that the factions have different goals when invading the Imperium; Chaos wants to corrupt the souls of populations, Tyranids want to eat everything, etc.
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Overmind
The main advantage she has in this scenario is that they think in terms of infantry combat and bodies to throw. She's an IN Admiral. She thinks in terms of planetary bodies to throw.
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KAL_9000
The reason Exterminatus doesn't happen all the time is that the factions have different goals when invading the Imperium; Chaos wants to corrupt the souls of populations, Tyranids want to eat everything, etc.
afaik the imperium uses calyx hollow all the time in invasions
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KAL_9000
afaik the imperium uses calyx hollow all the time in invasions
And yes iirc their Exterminatus arsenal includes strange matter warheads left over from the dark age of tech
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Jade Nekotenshi
Headcanon: ECM so good that guidance is nearly useless
that makes some sense
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KAL_9000
that makes some sense
ECM is probably pretty good because of the aforementioned dark age scraps and the fact that both sides have literal wizards shielding them
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:05 PM
Though computers are voodoo weirdness tech for almost everyone but the Necrons and Tau, so maybe it's lack of onboard CPUs. In which case, IN ordnance may be able to guide just fine.
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I mean, one of my 'verse tropes is that world-killing, when you think about it, is actually horrifyingly easy with any halfway decent weapons loadout, which is why the Ley Accords are very, very strict about that sort of thing. In a scenario where someone takes the restraining bolt off the IN's pet sociopath and presents them with a galaxy of things that need killin'? Hell, it won't be that long before she moves on to deploying DYSPEPTIC FLARE and ADHAÏC CALYPSE.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:06 PM
(I supppose Eldar too but I'm less clear how much Eldar tech is built-by-rote semimagic like Imperial tech)
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Jade Nekotenshi
(I supppose Eldar too but I'm less clear how much Eldar tech is built-by-rote semimagic like Imperial tech)
Eldar tech is literal magic a lot of the time since it's warp-based
14:06
and it was given to them by the Precursors so they don't understand their own stuff afaik
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Jade Nekotenshi
Though computers are voodoo weirdness tech for almost everyone but the Necrons and Tau, so maybe it's lack of onboard CPUs. In which case, IN ordnance may be able to guide just fine.
The Imperium uses computers, it's AI they don't understand and don't use
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:07 PM
And the impression I get is that their computers aren't terribly powerful.
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Jade Nekotenshi
Though computers are voodoo weirdness tech for almost everyone but the Necrons and Tau, so maybe it's lack of onboard CPUs. In which case, IN ordnance may be able to guide just fine.
the eldar have basically the same to classical computers, with their structural material being soul computronium...
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:07 PM
(Like, we can probably do better today
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Jade Nekotenshi
And the impression I get is that their computers aren't terribly powerful.
yeah, modern-day roughly
14:08
The Imperium genuinely excels in a couple of areas like genetic engineering and cybernetics, actually, but most of their tech is a general mishmash of stuff left over from the dark age
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They may be slowed down by all the PRAISE THE GOD-EMPEROR function calls heading and footing every routine... Hrm. I may have this confused with something from Fading Suns, but I seem to remember some reference to a programming language that was basically like Old-English COBOL written in the style of Norse sagas.
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i know of shakespeare
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:10 PM
I could totally see the Mechanicum doing that.
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Overmind
They may be slowed down by all the PRAISE THE GOD-EMPEROR function calls heading and footing every routine... Hrm. I may have this confused with something from Fading Suns, but I seem to remember some reference to a programming language that was basically like Old-English COBOL written in the style of Norse sagas.
That might be Fading Suns
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Overmind
They may be slowed down by all the PRAISE THE GOD-EMPEROR function calls heading and footing every routine... Hrm. I may have this confused with something from Fading Suns, but I seem to remember some reference to a programming language that was basically like Old-English COBOL written in the style of Norse sagas.
hate to sound like an imperium fanboy here but 40k is a genuinely fun setting to get into the lore of so i know a lot- that's not really true. The Mechanicus handles this stuff and they're generally pretty smart about it as far as 40k goes; a lot of their doctrine is genuinely smart engineering practices turned into religious dogma
14:11
So they know how to code, for example
14:12
And the AdMech worship the Machine God, not the Emperor, but that's besides the point lmao
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:13 PM
They're not so much dumb as inflexible
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do not question the 4000 year old instructions
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Jade Nekotenshi
They're not so much dumb as inflexible
Yeah they're usually against innovating new technology for a few reasons
14:14
But they know how the stuff they have works
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:14 PM
Their inflexibility does lead them to respond stupidly to unfamiliar threats but
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Fair, although the notion that to avert a recurrence of the Men of Iron the Mechanicus has a programming language with a fuckton of in-built ritual appeals to the machine spirits not to go into "kill the meat sacks!" mode this time does have a certain appeal, and even canon-fit.
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Overmind
Fair, although the notion that to avert a recurrence of the Men of Iron the Mechanicus has a programming language with a fuckton of in-built ritual appeals to the machine spirits not to go into "kill the meat sacks!" mode this time does have a certain appeal, and even canon-fit.
I mean yeah that's basically canon
14:16
I'd actually trust AdMech tech more than Eldrae tech in 40k, because the latter isn't shielded against Warp phenomena or daemons
14:17
The ritual may genuinely be required
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Honestly, that's what would surprise me about their ECM being all that good, because you'd really want a learning system for that, and after the MoI, learning systems have to be on the Deeply, Deeply Heretical list. On the other hand, the same goes for guidance , so.
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Overmind
Honestly, that's what would surprise me about their ECM being all that good, because you'd really want a learning system for that, and after the MoI, learning systems have to be on the Deeply, Deeply Heretical list. On the other hand, the same goes for guidance , so.
ECM is probably psyker-based tbh
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Yeah, it's not going to be all fun and games until someone fires up the reality engine.
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KAL_9000
ECM is probably psyker-based tbh
Every human ship in 40k has people and systems whose job it is to use space magic to hide the ship from daemons, wouldn't surprise me if the same effects worked against sensors in realspace on a lesser scale (edited)
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:20 PM
Y'know why I think IN tech might work just fine? Tau and Necron tech do. They don't have psykers, tech made of magic (like the Eldar and Orks) or a lot of ritual, and they don't work with the daemons like Chaos does. But their tech works anyway.
14:20
Necron tech is... quasi-magical anyway
14:20
But Tau, not so much.
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Jade Nekotenshi
Y'know why I think IN tech might work just fine? Tau and Necron tech do. They don't have psykers, tech made of magic (like the Eldar and Orks) or a lot of ritual, and they don't work with the daemons like Chaos does. But their tech works anyway.
The Tau and Necrons don't use the Warp anyway
14:20
Their FTL is good old-fashioned Alcubierre
14:20
aiui
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Among those really fascinating questions is what happens to Ork tech or daemons when they step inside the field of a reality engine set to "ENFORCE NORMALITY'.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:21 PM
I bet most Ork stuff either stops working outright or becomes very unreliable
14:22
Daemons are a tougher question, depending on what you think daemons are
14:22
In some interpretations, they just go poof.
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Which, come to think of it, I might need to think of wrt Timeo Eldraeos, as it is Not Nice to be someone whose biology only works via ontotech when your hand-created exceptions go away. So even if they have physicality and aren't just projections, it kind of sucks when reality starts enforcing tedious rules like "You can't be on fire and not be consumed" and "Gravity applies to you now".
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Overmind
Among those really fascinating questions is what happens to Ork tech or daemons when they step inside the field of a reality engine set to "ENFORCE NORMALITY'.
Ork tech mostly works normally, it would just become unreliable
14:24
Ork magic makes unreliable and banged-together stuff less prone to failure, it doesn't craft it out of nothing
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:25 PM
They go around the loop about how much of it is just ramshackle, versus how much of it runs on "I believe it works" altogether. But yeah, it looks to me like most of it would work, just unreliably. Shootas are not just gun-shaped sticks, for example.
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"Okay, it works for them, but it's still the lamest use of probability manipulation we've ever heard of!"
14:25
"I mean, if you can do that, you should be able to build a Murphy Bomb."
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:25 PM
(But if enough orks were sufficiently convinced that a gun-shaped stick could actually shoot, it probably would, at least until some boy looked and noticed there was no barrel, or no ammo feed)
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KAL_9000
Ork magic makes unreliable and banged-together stuff less prone to failure, it doesn't craft it out of nothing
For example, an Ork gun might jam after a few dozen shots normally, but with the power of belief it can keep going DAKKADAKKADAKKA until it runs out of ammo
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/23/2022 2:26 PM
If, indeed, it ever does.
14:27
(The lore is definitely rubber about how far it goes. But I agree that, at the very least, almost all Ork tech looks like it should work and the magic makes it work right, consistently. But maybe it goes beyond that, Depending On The Author)
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(The researchers at the Vector would love to discover the opposite of an UNMOVED MONAD in order to build a Murphy Bomb... which, by unanimous agreement, would be developed and tested as far away from the planet of Mad Science as possible.)
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Overmind
"Okay, it works for them, but it's still the lamest use of probability manipulation we've ever heard of!"
sounds like jealousy to me, boss. 'dese new pointy-ears are just zoggin' mad that none of their shiny bits 'ave the blessins of gork an' mork!
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Others believe that it's impossible to build a Murphy Bomb, on the grounds that the first thing everything will go wrong to is, naturally, the Murphy Bomb itself - but they'd still like to know if that means it will fail to detonate, or if the effect would make it retroactively impossible to build due to coincidental construction fuck-ups.
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KAL_9000
sounds like jealousy to me, boss. 'dese new pointy-ears are just zoggin' mad that none of their shiny bits 'ave the blessins of gork an' mork!
My other personal headcanon is that the only reason 40k is as fucked up as it is is because of the Orks' psychic gestalt.
14:31
Da boys are in it for a zoggin' good time, and if there's only war, that's a zoggin' good time!
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KAL_9000
ECM is probably psyker-based tbh
i remember a novel that had essentially so incredibly powerful psyker based combat that as a normie you were lucky not to have your brain melted from being in the same solar system
16:49
relevant to previous discussion
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Morgrim Moon 11/23/2022 6:44 PM
Come to think of it, the orks are one of the few groups in 40k who could have (at some of) them skip over to the Eldraeverse and thrive. Because they'd have no objections to a local scientist dosing them on something to smooth out their crazy reproductive system (I don't think their baseline "shed spores everywhere" thing would go down too well). And there's quite a few mercenary bands of orks who aren't interested in joining the whole rampaging ork empires; they just want to get paid to go have great fights. They'd end up being treated like the cheerfully berserk cousins to the linobir.
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Or the kaeth, perhaps?
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Morgrim Moon 11/23/2022 6:46 PM
they'd get on with the kaeth, but kaeth strike me as a little more... pragmatic than orks are
18:49
but I could see a squad of orks happily following a kaeth into battle. "He punched the Boss in the face and won the resulting brawl, so he's the new Boss now"
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Morgrim Moon
but I could see a squad of orks happily following a kaeth into battle. "He punched the Boss in the face and won the resulting brawl, so he's the new Boss now"
Orks is made fer foightin' and winnin'! Don't matter who we'z foightin' with!
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Morgrim Moon 11/23/2022 6:52 PM
(Some eldrae researcher may be facepalming; one of the cultures in that fucked up crazy galaxy is genuinely meritocratic, has a sense of honour, and isn't mired in hypocrisy... and it's these punch-happy idiots. Why)
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Morgrim Moon
(Some eldrae researcher may be facepalming; one of the cultures in that fucked up crazy galaxy is genuinely meritocratic, has a sense of honour, and isn't mired in hypocrisy... and it's these punch-happy idiots. Why)
Orks is da best!
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0111narwhalz 11/23/2022 6:54 PM
because when the universe is ontologically predisposed towards endless war, the people whose core value is war are the only pure of heart
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0111narwhalz
because when the universe is ontologically predisposed towards endless war, the people whose core value is war are the only pure of heart
Like I said earlier, my opinion is the only reason 40k is endless war is because the Orks are reality warpers in large numbers, and they fucking love war
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Morgrim Moon 11/23/2022 6:56 PM
there was plenty of war before the orks hit prominence, though. I think it's less that they're causing it, and more that they thrive on it. Whenever anyone else manages to get their shit together, ork populations crash
18:56
they're almost more like a galactic immune reaction
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Morgrim Moon
there was plenty of war before the orks hit prominence, though. I think it's less that they're causing it, and more that they thrive on it. Whenever anyone else manages to get their shit together, ork populations crash
fair
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Morgrim Moon
there was plenty of war before the orks hit prominence, though. I think it's less that they're causing it, and more that they thrive on it. Whenever anyone else manages to get their shit together, ork populations crash
BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:20 PM
I think there's something else worth mentioning
19:20
Which is that 40K orks have themselves declined a LOT since their glory days
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They were created by the Old Ones to fight the Necrons after all
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:20 PM
Krorks were orders of magnitude worse
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BizarroLand ♀
Which is that 40K orks have themselves declined a LOT since their glory days
Yeah I think the Krorks had all the same magic shit but were like, actually intelligent and honorable warriors with working tech?
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:21 PM
Also they were all 12-feet tall and each individually tougher than the toughest ork warbosses
19:22
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0111narwhalz 11/23/2022 7:23 PM
in 40k, height corresponds directly to power
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actually true
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:28 PM
@KAL_9000 you know about the beast right
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yeah
19:28
weren't they, like, 75% of the way to becoming a krork?
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:29 PM
I think some eldar scouts showed up toward the end and they were like "pffft, these guys are nothing compared to what they used to be"
19:29
which should say soemthing
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BizarroLand ♀
I think some eldar scouts showed up toward the end and they were like "pffft, these guys are nothing compared to what they used to be"
"pffft, these guys are nothing compared to what they used to be" is also an accurate assessment of the eldar
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:30 PM
@KAL_9000 ice burn
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BizarroLand ♀
@KAL_9000 ice burn
mfw you call every other race primitive and stupid but you're the only ones whose downfall was entirely, 100% your own fault
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/23/2022 7:38 PM
Is there any real reason for the eldrae to have pointed ears other than Great Drakes wanted it that way
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BluejayHurricane 11/23/2022 8:18 PM
I need to add Transmetropolitan to my priority to-read list
20:22
I'm late for work on this here Xmas eve, so instead of some of my own text, I'm going to leave you in the capable hands of my hero and close personal friend,  Spider Jerusalem.  Have a wonderful...
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Morgrim Moon 11/23/2022 8:42 PM
oh, looping all the way back to Exterminatus: there's an in-setting rant at the begining of one of the Forgeworld campaign books, known as the "ROCKS ARE NOT FREE" rant. About an admiral who was ordered to destroy a world, and instead of using cyclone torpedoes he thought it would be better to throw a few asteroids at it, since they weren't under time constraints and cyclone torpedoes are very expensive.
20:43
The rant was him getting royally chewed out as it was explained to him in detail why his "throw rocks at it" plan was considerably MORE expensive.
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which is why in Starsector you just go straight to the fullerine-encased antimatter and call it a day.
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Morgrim Moon 11/23/2022 9:24 PM
"982.M41 Troublesome Loot - Freebooter Dakbad Firegut lays claim to a vast living vessel he finds drifting in the void. The Ork pirates harpoon the creature, dragging it back to their base on great rusting chains. On the way, the bioship unleashes a horde of Tyranid creatures, Genestealers and Gaunts crawling up the chains to get at the Orks. Dakbad and his Boyz enjoy a lengthy game of target practice shooting the Tyranids off the chains using the Kroozer's deck guns, until the Freebooter finally grows weary of the situation, unhooking the harpoons and leaving the bioship adrift on the edge of a densely populated Imperial star system." Of course an ork would try to loot a tyrannid hive ship. A presumably very confused and unhappy hive ship.
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Meanwhile, in Lobotomy Corporation/PMMM crossover: Humanity: Exposure 0 -> Exposure III Incubators: Exposure 0 -> Exposure I
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/25/2022 4:00 PM
Our blessed Planets, their filthy Asteroids
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BizarroLand ♀ 11/30/2022 11:27 PM
honestly, fuck jon's law
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BizarroLand ♀
Is there any real reason for the eldrae to have pointed ears other than Great Drakes wanted it that way
Pointed ears are essentially nature's smug-generating organs.
23:54
(More seriously, they provide slightly superior directional hearing, but they're just a side effect of the rampant genetic engineering of the kind that the Drakes just said, "enh, whatever" and didn't care about.)
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I’m currently reading a campaign setting where these bastards are the local elf-equivalent
06:37
And they’re closer to Tolkien than D&D usually is
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I always liked these chaps for the role:
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Seriously, most settings have basically reduced the default elves to “pointy-eared Californians who take a century to grow up.”
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Zarpaulek
I’m currently reading a campaign setting where these bastards are the local elf-equivalent
BizarroLand ♀ 12/01/2022 9:35 AM
Coyotes?
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Jackals, they’re immortal fey who remember when the gods uplifted the beasts of their world, live in hidden cities no one can find, and until recently they altered the memories of any mortals who saw them and were thought of as myths. But 15 years ago there was an interdimensional invasion and they helped rebuild
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BizarroLand ♀
Coyotes?
5E wagon adventures in a world of intrepid animal-people.
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Zarpaulek
Seriously, most settings have basically reduced the default elves to “pointy-eared Californians who take a century to grow up.”
Urgh. Elves and California should annihilate on contact, like antimatter and California.
09:55
(My Tolkienian inspirations were largely Noldorin. See: proud, ambitious, and scarily good at building things, including those which take the boundaries of the possible and give them a good shove.)
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Morgrim Moon 12/01/2022 10:02 AM
also something something fire. Lots of fire 😛
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Also arrogant as all hell.
👍 1
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Morgrim Moon 12/01/2022 10:07 AM
I'd say it's not arrogance if you can back it up, however there are 8 notable examples of failing to back it uo
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Morgrim Moon
"982.M41 Troublesome Loot - Freebooter Dakbad Firegut lays claim to a vast living vessel he finds drifting in the void. The Ork pirates harpoon the creature, dragging it back to their base on great rusting chains. On the way, the bioship unleashes a horde of Tyranid creatures, Genestealers and Gaunts crawling up the chains to get at the Orks. Dakbad and his Boyz enjoy a lengthy game of target practice shooting the Tyranids off the chains using the Kroozer's deck guns, until the Freebooter finally grows weary of the situation, unhooking the harpoons and leaving the bioship adrift on the edge of a densely populated Imperial star system." Of course an ork would try to loot a tyrannid hive ship. A presumably very confused and unhappy hive ship.
john dougan(his grace/his grace) 12/01/2022 10:06 PM
Orks singing of that adventure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SyaFPfDLCc
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As it turns out, planetary conquest to deal with despots and triggered nuclear war can be largely automated.
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“Attacking to cripple or kill is forbidden,” the judge said. “If I call for a halt in combat then combat will halt.”
“What happens if combat doesn’t halt?” Iris, which Rainbow thought was Dwight in bunny-gynoid form, called out from their ‘pod’. Microphones made it possible to hear them despite the distance.
An orbital strike landed nearby, creating a massive crater. “Combat will halt.”
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another solution to the halting problem
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“Nah,” Taylor said. “You two come in on plan four.” “Oh. What comes after us?” “Plans five through seven imply things having gone bad enough to warrant planet-cracking, and if we hit plan eight then things are beyond any hope of recovery.” Everyone other than Hive looked at Taylor at that point, but her father was the first one to recover. “You have plans that involve planet-cracking and worse?” “Potential planet-cracking for plans five and six,” Hive corrected. “Intentional planet-cracking for seven, and if we hit plan eight then we’ve determined that it would be better to take out the entire region of the dimensional sea than to allow an infestation to spread.” “The plans before that point are more than comprehensive enough to not need those ones,” Taylor added. “But we seem to be dealing with reproducing biological computers that eat planets to grow. Extreme plans in case things go wrong are a necessity.” “So what happens if plan eight fails?” Missy asked. “We go to plan nine.” “Do we want to know what plan nine is?” “No.”
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lol
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Well, that did make some sense. “Still seems weird to have an Endbringer here.” “You could say that it’s an endangered species and being shot at is its natural habitat.” “...seriously?” “As far as I can tell, their actual designation is probably closer in meaning to ‘raid boss’, fitting their role in the ‘game’.”
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lol
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which story is that quote from? And the prior quote?
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I believe this to be Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard?
☝️ 1
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oh right. I kinda forgot that exists
14:13
from those quotes, it sounds like its starting to wrap up, wow
14:14
maybe we'll see Taylor Varga come to a conclusion too
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They are in contact with TSAB. TSAB is nervous. Because Apple One and related megaengineering stuff. Shard Master Key is elusive, still. (edited)
02:51
Yeah, Hybrid Hive suffers from "One chapter covering one day, elaborately, no time-skips"
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"This plan goes to eleven."
15:10
(Cue the translators explaining that in order for that bit of This Is Spinal Tap to make sense, it needs to be turned into a "goes to thirteen" joke.)
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 12/06/2022 6:00 PM
I’d love to to see an eldraeic version of This Is Spinal Tap.
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Though I could use the practice. It is surprisingly difficult to decapitate someone without them noticing
04:31
It's about a thief
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oh it's from the latest Freefall
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 1:48 PM
Aight i already said this elsewhere
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 2:04 PM
I feel like I can’t actually write characters who are far different from myself
14:04
What the Hell is the soul of a human
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We'll tell you when literally anyone at all finds out
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Taco Time
We'll tell you when literally anyone at all finds out
BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 2:06 PM
But for real I feel that I don’t have enough life experience to draw from when putting these together
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What are you trying to make?
14:06
Choose a character you're working on. What do you want from them?
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Taco Time
What are you trying to make?
BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 2:06 PM
A book
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You could outsource all language processing tasks to ChatGPT?
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kek
14:08
but for real, what do you want this character to be?
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Taco Time
but for real, what do you want this character to be?
BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 2:08 PM
The one right now? Uhhhh
14:09
An image of vague rebellion. She has discontent with society but not enough to form it into an actual worldview
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0111narwhalz 12/07/2022 4:47 PM
ah, a teenager
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 6:06 PM
@0111narwhalz lol but seriously
18:06
She's a bit more clued in than your average teenager, maybe age 20 or 21 by Earth reckoning
18:06
The scene takes place in a "nightclub" that is in effect a speakeasy for people of rebel sentiment
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Any good reasons to rebel?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 6:10 PM
Their polity is literally a demi-fascist empire where overwork and human rights abuse is extremely common
18:11
There are very few opportunities for advancement outside the national examination system that aren't shunned by the society at large
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Go a summary of the setting in general?
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/07/2022 6:21 PM
It's an extrasolar star cluster settled by a bunch of damn space furries alongside several other groups. Got cut off from Earth a thousand years back when the wormhole leading to Sol collapsed. A millennium of struggling to rebuild in an alien world changed people's values from humanism to .. something else. (edited)
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Semi facist space furries
18:22
Magnificent
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 10:50 PM
Titanic flesh originates from the bodies of the immense and ancient titans. Created in the distant past by an outer god of meat and bone, titans were designed as a celebration of—and show of power for—anatomical structure and biomechanics. Titanic flesh presses the boundaries: not of what is possible, but of what is imaginable. It should be evident that titans do not die easily. Usually it is when they come in conflict with one another, as titanic flesh is nearly impervious to anything short of other titanic flesh, and acts entirely on its own. To kill a titan, one must unmake its ability to resist, and then unstring each strand of muscle. Even then, the tissue does not die, and it neither rots nor petrifies with the ages. Thus isolated, titanic flesh may be bent to mortal ends. Muscle fibres, coiled and stimulated by precise rituals, power heavy industry and siege weapons. Bones form the core of monumental structures and shield fortifications. Sinews stretch across straits and into deep shafts in the earth.
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given its durability, how do they separate the body parts?
23:04
Are internal organs used at all?
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:06 PM
internal organs
Titans are not organisms. They are sculptures. A work of art, a war machine, a proof of concept.
23:07
Generally you need some part of a titan, applied precisely and with immense force, to separate a muscle fibre from bone and sinew. Else you have to resort to non-material means, such as an aspect of severance (and even that only just about gets the job done).
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How, well, titantic are titans?
23:10
Given that they can be used in large-scale structures, I'm erring on the side of really damn big
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:13 PM
They're big, but they also have small parts.
23:16
"Big" in the sense of "hill" more than "mountain," but all the same. Larger than anything mere earthly meat can cook up.
23:19
Large structures are rarely built of single large parts. Instead, they put parts together with either other parts or mundane (but very strong) materials, and the whole structure does better than what would be possible without.
23:20
(Mostly because the demand for large structures is greater than the supply of large single parts.)
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Ah, so more like rebar in a wall than the entire wall
23:23
got it
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:24 PM
The biggest single parts don't tend to go far from their corpse-mines either, being that moving them is a hell of an exercise.
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whats the overall tech-level of this setting?
23:25
Sounds like high fantasy?
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:28 PM
Very difficult to pin down :V Most things are pushed a bit beyond what the physics would imply by some divine influence or another. Metallurgy is in the "steel is decent and practical to produce" phase, thermodynamics are somewhere around caloric, and it's all confused a bit by someone coming in with, say, a ship that sails by the wind of the sun.
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ah, so its the fantasy part throwing it all out of whack
23:30
fair enough
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:32 PM
divine influence
This includes the soul, by the by.
23:32
At the core of every mortal being lies a tiny spark of divinity. A soul. It is this spark that grants mortals the ability to turn will into action. For most, the influence of the soul ends at the fingertips. To cause action beyond requires that the mechanisms of cruel physics be put into motion. But for some, the soul has a bit more reach. Skilled craftsmen work their craft in part through their soul. Warriors who have truly internalized their art tear their enemies apart through contests of will. And statesmen have the longest reach of all. With so little as a signature, a gesture, their soul permeates their entire domain. So it is that all kings are gods. But one must not confuse the order of cause here. It is not by some divine mandate that rulers rule. Rather, it is because a ruler rules that they become divine. Even the most powerful emperor must start life as a whelp, barely able to will his own limbs to flail. As with every extension, the soul must be nurtured to grow a little further from its core. A mortal too quickly thrust into a position beyond their stature must contend with the cold mechanical reality, and in many cases the tools which would make this problem tractable simply do not exist. It is for this reason that dynasties tend to hold power so long. Mortals with ambitions must truly commit to them.
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you've made politicians the most powerful people in existence, you fool
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:50 PM
:D
23:50
I never said the world was good
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y'know
23:51
it'd be funny if there was some chef that did this with their kitchen or something, and they decide to live in the ass-end of nowhere
23:51
Through sheer force of will they shall make food exist
23:51
And it will be both delicious and nutritious
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:51 PM
never run out of stock because there was never a stock to begin with
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His stock is his italian heritage's will to feed people. Unlimited.
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:53 PM
Making things out of thin air is usually beyond the means of a mortal alone, but that doesn't mean they can't solicit the assistance of greater powers.
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no no no, have him become as god like the aforementioned emperors. Just...within the kitchen.
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:53 PM
To do it by one's own soul would be the subject of legend.
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admittedly this is solely for comedy, and so might not fit in the lore
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:55 PM
Nah, it fits. It's not a usual thing, but this is a place where unusual things happen.
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But the thought of some chef who has through sheer force of will reached transcendent godhood just so he can cook more and can kick most deities out of his kitchen without too much trouble is immensely amusing to me
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:56 PM
serves kings but only if they aren't assholes
23:56
"get the fuck out of my kitchen" and so they do
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Grudgingly neutral ground between rulers
23:57
Not only because its a domain they can't easily fiddle with, but because the food really is excellent (three millennia of practice helps)
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:57 PM
Do note that "the king is a god" does not mean "the king is immortal"
23:58
The exalted dictionary
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0111narwhalz 12/12/2022 11:58 PM
Even the "real" gods die.
23:59
When the world ceases to need them, when their aspects cease to hold power, they too must cease to be.
23:59
This isn't in the sense of "worship sustains the gods," but rather "the force of nature they represent has been rendered obsolete."
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Obsolete?
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:00 AM
When something no longer has a defining role in the way of the world, its gods lose their power.
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and when you say world, do you mean just one world, or a whole universe?
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:01 AM
Well, the gods of other places are the gods of other places.
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Or some weird quasi-realm made from a bunch of interconnected places
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:01 AM
If the forces from which they inherit their power hold no ground here, then neither do they.
00:02
This is why other star-gods have little to no influence in worldly affairs. They could do it by physics, but only the sun has dominion over this world.
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 12:03 AM
I suspect with the cook, it wouldn't start with conjuring food, it'd start with "huh, so this batch of flour lasted a little longer than I expected it to..."
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so what Im hearing is that there's probably an incident where the chef obliterated a king when they broke neutrality in his kitchen
00:04
this is even funnier
00:05
or he just...stabs him. With a knife. And the god-ruler dies.
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Morgrim Moon
I suspect with the cook, it wouldn't start with conjuring food, it'd start with "huh, so this batch of flour lasted a little longer than I expected it to..."
Well yeah but Im talking more about the semi-comical end result of The God-Chef™️
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:07 AM
"Your law holds no weight here. Begone, churl." And the king walks out the door because holy fuck the sheer weight of the chef's will.
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 12:08 AM
I'm also reminded a little of the Elder Scrolls and their concept of "mantling". If there is sufficient cause, a mortal can temporarily step into the shoes of a god. It has consequences. But if something happens that leaves a god-shaped hole in the world, and the mortal keeps walking... eventually that mantle seeps into them until they cease being mortal and truly become a god. "You walk like them to become like them", I think was the phrase used.
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No no no, make him a fat jolly chef. The kind that could be your favorite uncle who teaches you naughty jokes behind your parents' back
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Taco Time
No no no, make him a fat jolly chef. The kind that could be your favorite uncle who teaches you naughty jokes behind your parents' back
Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 12:08 AM
you can be the "classic" shape of a good bartender and still have sheer force of will
00:09
force of will is only made more potent by being able to lift a barrel over one's head
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:09 AM
I do not think what I said was exclusive with any particular shape or affect.
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Morgrim Moon
I'm also reminded a little of the Elder Scrolls and their concept of "mantling". If there is sufficient cause, a mortal can temporarily step into the shoes of a god. It has consequences. But if something happens that leaves a god-shaped hole in the world, and the mortal keeps walking... eventually that mantle seeps into them until they cease being mortal and truly become a god. "You walk like them to become like them", I think was the phrase used.
BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 12:09 AM
Isn't that what happened to Talos?
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 12:09 AM
Yep. And Sheogorath.
00:10
The Tribunal too, but to a lesser extent, because they had to carve the hole first
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and sometimes the gods die but they keep doing things just to troll mortals
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:10 AM
"you think a little thing like death would stop me?"
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"Still gotta fuck your wife for the myths 3000 years in the future"
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:13 AM
sidenote: While you can kill a king, you need do more than a simple stabbing. It requires an unmaking of power. A coup. Else the soul keeps moving, and the flesh drags behind but nonetheless continues.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 12:13 AM
can you be such a good artist you become a wizard
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 12:13 AM
I suppose one advantage of mantling, being a sort of divine "fake it until you make it", is that you have to walk the walk first. If you can't actually pull off the bare minimal required for the role, you'll never GET the role. It enforces standards, that way.
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:13 AM
No, but you can be such a good artist you become an Artist.
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0111narwhalz
sidenote: While you can kill a king, you need do more than a simple stabbing. It requires an unmaking of power. A coup. Else the soul keeps moving, and the flesh drags behind but nonetheless continues.
0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:15 AM
Though strictly speaking a coup is not the only way to do it. Anything that breaks down the power will do. Widespread systemic corruption, a popular revolt, any number of things can shatter the bond a king shares with the state. It's the closest thing to true divinity, but it is all too fragile.
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0111narwhalz
No, but you can be such a good artist you become an Artist.
tfw your main income is still furry art commissions
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:17 AM
such is the way of the world, I suppose
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but less typically grand uses of immense power are often the most interesting, in my experience
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Taco Time
tfw your main income is still furry art commissions
Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 12:18 AM
your main income is still furry art, but it's not longer inflation furry art
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The king is noticeable, and expected. What the hell happens when a street cleaner with OCD manages something similar?
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:19 AM
What exactly is the force of nature which you command?
00:20
The king commands the Apparatus of the State, the smith commands the Making of Tools from Metal, the chef commands the Art of Food Preparation… But the street cleaner commands the Fight Against Entropy.
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(And disease)
00:21
god damn horse shit everything
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:26 AM
The fucking streets will be fucking clean, and nothing god nor man shall stand before me.
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Imagine being a king and feeling the sheer presence suddenly in their domain and...its a guy. With a mop and a bucket.
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:32 AM
"You got a lot of shit on this road, don't you think?"
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Grumbling loudly about the lack of sanitation
00:33
And how janitors never get enough gods damned funding anywhere
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:34 AM
"…Weren't there beggars on this street last week?" "They were unclean." And the king feels a knot in his stomach.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 12:35 AM
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As dramatic (and probably more interesting) as that is, having a bunch of impeccably clean, semi-traumatized hobos on the street has turned my sides into an interstellar space program
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 12:37 AM
The Greatest Janitor
00:37
Wait wait hold on, better:
00:37
The Almighty Janitor
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Taco Time
As dramatic (and probably more interesting) as that is, having a bunch of impeccably clean, semi-traumatized hobos on the street has turned my sides into an interstellar space program
0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:38 AM
You think he got this far by just cleaning the messes? No, he cleans whence the shit flows. Patron deity of sewer systems, indoor plumbing, and rehabilitative welfare.
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BizarroLand ♀
The Almighty Janitor
That's horrid and you should feel bad. Well done
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 12:38 AM
it's literally a tvtropes page
00:38
thats where i got the name
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I know.
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:39 AM
The king could care less about a couple of beggars disappearing. They are literally the least important people in his domain. More problematic is the idea that they didn't just disappear.
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They have been forced to help clean?
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:40 AM
They are recieving vocational training commensurate with their abilities, housing, and sufficient food to keep them off the streets. There will never be another beggar in this city.
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Oh no
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:41 AM
And who do they have to thank?
00:41
Not the king.
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BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 12:41 AM
The Custodian.
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A mild amount of trolling
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0111narwhalz 12/13/2022 12:42 AM
There is no more shit on the streets, because the citizens don't throw it out their windows, because they have indoor plumbing and a sewer system. Who do they have to thank? Not the king.
00:46
That is why the king is uneasy. It undermines his power, from the bottom up.
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There have been complaints about people being forcefully evicted while their house is renovated (edited)
00:49
On the other end of the spectrum, a king dedicated to making a utopia may become absurdly powerful due to the love and general happiness of his subjects
00:52
A King of Perfection one may say
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0111narwhalz
The fucking streets will be fucking clean, and nothing god nor man shall stand before me.
Eldraic street cleaner
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BizarroLand ♀
it's literally a tvtropes page
is Ahti the article's cover image? (edited)
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0111narwhalz
"Your law holds no weight here. Begone, churl." And the king walks out the door because holy fuck the sheer weight of the chef's will.
nono, they don't go. the shape of the kitchen bends in ways to expel the king
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Morgrim Moon
Yep. And Sheogorath.
Would he be the only Elder Scrolls protagonist to appear in a sequel?
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Morgrim Moon 12/13/2022 6:18 AM
depends on how you define sequels. I'm pretty sure Cyrus from the Redguard adventure game appeared in something else? And the Agent from Daggerfall, of course, except depending on what choices of ending you make you could argue about the Numidium-Akulakhan connection
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0111narwhalz
That is why the king is uneasy. It undermines his power, from the bottom up.
‘The bottom up’ Heh.
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Cornflakes
is Ahti the article's cover image? (edited)
BizarroLand ♀ 12/13/2022 11:04 AM
Who lol
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The Almighty Janitor trope as used in popular culture. Some works of fiction live and die on rankings. The characters have their own power hierarchy, but …
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BizarroLand ♀
Who lol
Ahti, the janitor in "Control"
11:53
...honestly good advice
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"For all I’ve discovered, learned, and experienced over my nearly four millennia of existence, I still cannot fathom why one would feel crushed by the grandeur of the universe. 'It does not care for us, or know of us, for we are but one infinitesimal fraction of a particle of its totality.' the bitter nihilist says. 'Why bother with anything when we shall be so insignificant in our existence?' Yet it is still such a small thing compared to what a man's hope can do, I find." -Opening excerpt of The Man Who Found God: Autobiography of Thomas Wiles, Grand Thaumaturge of the Flame (edited)
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 12/13/2022 7:03 PM
lol. It is traditional in the Eve corp I am in to refer to the CEO as the Janitor. We tried to make that the title in fact, but it just confused everyone not in the corp..
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 4:30 AM
from a GURPs splatbook summary: "The College of W.U.S.E. (Weird and Unusual Science and Engineering) is made of mad scientists, slightly-less-mad students of Science! and devotees of The Computer" Now I'm wondering where exactly you draw the line between Mad Science, and slightly-less-mad Science!
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Ah, see - "mad" modifies the scientist personally, not the subject.
04:38
Er, wait - no. Science! seems to be written as a word, and not a word with punctuation following as part of the sentence...
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 4:48 AM
ah, sorry. In GURPs, "bang stats" are for more cinematic games, where instead of levelling a bunch of individual skills you can level just one, somewhere more expensive Skill!. So in normal 'realistic' games, you would have, say, Biology + Organic Chemistry + Physical Chemistry + Physics as separate skills (and being able to use a not quite correct one at a penalty, like using your Phys Chem skill with a -4 penalty if you don't have Physics). In a more cinematic game, you'd have all of those rolled together into a single Science! skill
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Ah. Painting the medium, as it were (edited)
04:50
So, er, I guess Mad Science would thus either be split into Mad Biology, Mad Chemistry, Mad Physics, etc., or it would be a subcategory of the regular science skill applying to stuff that is impossible under conventional laws of physics, biology, chemistry, etc., or both.
04:51
Whereas Science! would be like an Integrated Science or Combined Major in Science degree (at least that's what it's called at UBC) (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 4:53 AM
Yeah. How I handled it in a game would probably depend on what sort of game it was, and what skills fit it. If it was super hero action film, it might have Science!, Mad Science!, and maybe something engineering or gadgeteering? With Science! being anything that you could realistically learn postgrad, and Mad Science! being all the stuff that breaks reality like shrink rays or temporal physics.
04:55
Science! would still be wildly unrealistic, in that in my experience professional scientists end up with T shaped specialisations. One really deep area, lots of broad undergrad-ish level science. The sort where you know enough to know when you should go grab a colleague.
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Oh, yeah. Comp sci profs specialize to (from an undergrad's eyes) a pretty comical degree. The entire field of comp sci has a handful or so of subfields (systems, algorithms, programming languages, software engineering, etc). And then those subfields have topics (type systems, compilers, language design), and then those topics have subtopics that profs actually write papers about and work on.
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:06 AM
yeah. Chemistry does the same. I didn't enjoy physical or inorganic chem much - I could do the lab work just fine and get solid results, I just hated how much number crunching is required for the reports because statistics and differential equations are NOT my friends - so most of my focus was on organic and analytical chem. But within analytical you tend to end up specialising in analytical technique, even if you're okay with others. And organic chem starts with the basic petrochemical, medicinal and energetics splits and goes from there. And there's surprisingly little overlap between those three.
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Hm. My undergrad courses stuck to one subfield per course, with the topics in the subfield being individual units in the course, more or less.
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:07 AM
I was doing my major in organic chem before the uni decided to scrub that course. You couldn't specialise further as an undergrad, though. That's a field where you tend to specialise in employment.
05:07
also I later learnt that nobody does energetics in my state...
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I think some of the fourth-year (final/senior year) courses did focus on one topic ompletely
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:08 AM
(so I ended up doing Safety Officer and DG handling later instead. <.< I may have a type)
05:14
chemistry as a whole apparently does more cross-training than a lot of sciences? Like even with an org chem major, you'll be doing at least second year units in the other main chem branches, because so much of it ties together. Like you might not need to know all the fine details on how to set things up for an NMR, but you DO need to know how to clean up your sample enough for when you pass it over to the analytical chem postgrads and how to read at least the broad details off the chart. And then if you get something like "...how do I have a peak above 4?" you know to go ask the analytical specialists for help.
05:15
(even if in this case they're probably going to yell at you, because super unattached peaks tend to mean "this is an explosive" and the NMR machine is worth more than your life.)
05:20
I still say that I should have gained marks for making something that they couldn't identify, instead of getting a 0 for that lab
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+5 for making stuff you need an extra expert to identify. -5 for shoving explosives into the NMR (edited)
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Morgrim Moon
chemistry as a whole apparently does more cross-training than a lot of sciences? Like even with an org chem major, you'll be doing at least second year units in the other main chem branches, because so much of it ties together. Like you might not need to know all the fine details on how to set things up for an NMR, but you DO need to know how to clean up your sample enough for when you pass it over to the analytical chem postgrads and how to read at least the broad details off the chart. And then if you get something like "...how do I have a peak above 4?" you know to go ask the analytical specialists for help.
Er, well, maybe not quite as much cross-training as comp sci; although you don't necessarily have to take as many comp sci courses as I did
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:23 AM
I didn't make explosives. I made: - striated crystals that apparently only contained water, and didn't compose until 180C - an acidic amine, which paired nicely with - an oil with a similar colour and consistently as fresh blood In all cases I was supposed to get a white powder
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Er...
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rofl
05:24
accidental polywater
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:24 AM
in the same 2 yr period I managed to vulcanise a mousepad to my desk and cook spontaneously combusting cinnemon toast. Head of Chem told me (jokingly) to please stop performing alchemy in the lab, and later to get my latent alchemy field under control. 😂
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That does sound very alchemist of you
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:25 AM
So clearly I should have been studying Mad Science. Instead I just had a mental breakdown
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Morgrim Moon 12/14/2022 5:36 AM
(for the actual science: - we're still not sure what I made, but it was clearly complexed with water. So the -OH peak was just swamping all the C-H peaks. - the acidic amine was probably not an amine, it was probably an unclean mixture or some unholy semi-polymer. It just would NOT separate and again, other peaks got swamped by the amine peak this time - we were stumped on the blood and assumed it had to be bromine contamination. Somehow. Possibly contamination in the starting material, or when it had to be left sitting in the cupboard between lab session)
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…yeah, you use that many newlines and the bot assumes you’re spamming.
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2022 12:34 PM
What's the right way to share my 3200 char textwall? It'd be a pain to reformat it to work in GDocs…
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Send it as a .txt file?
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2022 12:34 PM
I suppose I could send it as a .md file
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^ Or a gist, or a pastebin, or some such.
12:35
aww no parsing in the md preview? lame
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0111narwhalz 12/23/2022 12:43 PM
well I tried throwing it in a Gist, but unfortunately that parser is actually compliant and refuses to make simple line breaks. only full paragraph breaks with huge spacing. I was really hoping to avoid needing to deal with GDocs.
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Ah, Divided Loyalties. Or communal spider hive-mind is fantastic librarian, extra-dedicated because ability to record past memories is priceless to it.
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You can now buy this story as part of my collection, Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories. Incidentally, that collection, published in November 2022, is the first appearance of "Lena" in print, which makes it eligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards. Please nominate if you ca...
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Aargh. It's been too long since I've done differential equations and integral calculus.
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2023 12:59 AM
differential equations are what computers are for >.>
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sigh I know not of the incantation to get WolframAlpha to do what I want
01:00
But I think all I need to do is hit it with integration by substitution?
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Morgrim Moon 01/06/2023 1:02 AM
<.< Once I gave up on trying to differentiate a squiggy line graph. So I used the computer to accurately plot the graph and printed it out. Then I trimmed the paper to the size of the graph and weighed it on the analytical scales. Then cut out the area under the curve and weighed that. Voila! I can now easily calculate the percentage area under the line without having to figure out that blasted equation
01:03
<Professor> On the one hand, you have used scientific methods to answer the question and you have fully demonstrated your working. On the other hand, that's not what I meant by the instructions.
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Blah. Integration by substitution turns out to be a dead end.
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@BizarroLand ♀ it's hard to say exactly. A lot of things play into it, but i think I'd say the argument for "yes" boils down to: In any major armed conflict with torches, both parties will always have a 'fuck you' option to nuke RKV the other side. And this damage is almost always significant regardless of how asymmetric the two parties are; one person vs a 100,000-manned battlestation can still be a mutual kill. Nukes are really not quite the same. They can be intercepted to a significant degree. The infrastructure damage is relatively minor in the case of asymmetry (a full-on nuclear war with North Korea would not take any major military power out of the fight). There are not many agents with nukes, and so cooperation is relatively easy. Etc. Given baseline human psychology and relatively abundant torches (significantly more common than nukes), you can easily make the argument that any major conflict involving a lot of different agents (whether or not they're grouped into two or more opposing sides) is going to end with someone defecting and nuking everyone else. And so the rational response is to strike first, and so you get MAD. Of course, you can also argue that in that same scenario with baseline human psychology, civilization stops existing immediately. Make of that what you will. (edited)
18:42
this is all multiplied by how common torchships are. I'm thinking along the lines of, for example, that one pulp quoted by Atomic Rockets where an average pilot in a average ship dumps some kitty litter overboard to hit some pursuers with a few kilotons.
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DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 6:46 PM
That assumes torch missiles are uninterceptable. The same velocity that causes their damage gives them a major vulnerability to intercepting projectiles.
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that depends on just how torchy your torches are. If FTL doesn't exist, detection and interception get increasingly difficult with higher velocities
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 6:48 PM
torch is a much lower bar than relativistic
18:49
though i think there are other arguments to be made about it
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 6:49 PM
you have to get to .2c before relativistic effects are at all significant, and .86c before your relativistic mass equals your rest mass
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a torch drive is a product of overall technological capability. If you can make a really energetic engine, you can make a even more dangerous gun.
18:50
but barring new physics, defenses don't scale that well because everything is made of molecular bonds
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 6:50 PM
given typical kinds of torch this is a pretty raw deal compared to just delivering the fuel in a warhead instead
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DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 6:51 PM
Relativistic weapons take a while to accelerate. Pretty easy to work out the rough target and ready interceptors.
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so torchship implies that military tech is stupendously skewed towards offense in the offense-defense arms race
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 6:52 PM
it also implies that the most dangerous object is no longer an inert slug of compact material, but a machine
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Buggy
but barring new physics, defenses don't scale that well because everything is made of molecular bonds
DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 6:54 PM
Passive defences, maybe.
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a lot of active defences boil down to 'dodge'. And a lot of your important things can't move.
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DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 6:57 PM
Or 'shoot it'. The same 'dropping kitty litter out the airlock' is gonna apply to the missile.
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that only goes so far, though. Using Cerebrate's universe as a example, warships survive by random walking while shooting down the few projectiles that get close. A fight is a thing of long-distance attrition. If one side can't move, then the deluge of incoming iron will quickly overwhelm the PD
19:04
(and a large part of that PD is effectively-shields, which are neat but as far as the laws of physics are concerned, non-canonical)
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Still things survive by an active armor of point-defense warships.
19:06
and that works for military installations
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(Sometimes they can be active several systems away, in another polity entirely, but details.)
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but your setting is filled with a majority of rational people who prefer teirhain. Humans, though, frequently prefer zakrehain or seredhain. Those mass drivers are going to be aimed at your civilian infrastructure.
19:09
you can't guard all of it
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(Less snarkily, while fixed installations have the disadvantage of being sitting ducks, they have the advantage of being sitting ducks that don't need to care about starship constraints like mass budget, practical reactor size, detectability, or how much radiative striping you can fit on the hull.)
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it's like...
19:10
the best analogy i can come up with is, imagine if you gave everyone on earth a Death Note.
19:10
that's torch ships.
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Buggy
but your setting is filled with a majority of rational people who prefer teirhain. Humans, though, frequently prefer zakrehain or seredhain. Those mass drivers are going to be aimed at your civilian infrastructure.
ha ha ha ha ha ha no. Leaving aside such people as the Iltine "Please visit our Museum of Successful Genocide" Union and the Theomacy of "FUCK ALL HERETICS TO DEATH WITH THEIR SIX-LEGGED FRIENDS" Galia, there are all sorts of people in the Worlds who are perfectly fine with conventional warfare as we do it here on Earth. Seriously. Look through the canon. There's lots.
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Probably a fair bit from the eldrae, at least before the empire came about and conquered the world
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What keeps the really destructive kind of warfare from happening and the particularly bloody kinds of conventional warfare restricted is the Rules of Civilized Warfare, as backed by the mostly unofficial but extremely effective Accord on People Who Do Not Want To Die Today, And Will Therefore Fuck Up Anyone Who Even Thinks About Going There.
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Overmind
What keeps the really destructive kind of warfare from happening and the particularly bloody kinds of conventional warfare restricted is the Rules of Civilized Warfare, as backed by the mostly unofficial but extremely effective Accord on People Who Do Not Want To Die Today, And Will Therefore Fuck Up Anyone Who Even Thinks About Going There.
and that works, but only on the level of societies. That's not quite the picture i'm thinking of here
19:17
i'm thinking of torchships being as commonplace as depicted in many works of fiction, i.e. somewhere between a private airplane (1 in 1000) to cars.
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I mean, some of those fuckers have RKV deterrent fleets, and could use them. They also are blessed with the absolute certainty that doing so is giving Caliene Sargas an engraved invitation to invite their whole species to a pest control party. Some of them have found notes on their pillows to that effect.
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How does an RKV deterrent fleet work in-universe?
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a group can ensure one person will not sign the other's death warrants by association. A bunch of individuals, though, will mostly do their own thing. Only a tiny majority will defect, so to speak, whatever the situation is. Only a tiny portion needs to when one defector can kill a million.
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DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 7:21 PM
A torchship is pretty obvious. And presumably most people won't have ships that are hard to shoot down.
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Buggy
i'm thinking of torchships being as commonplace as depicted in many works of fiction, i.e. somewhere between a private airplane (1 in 1000) to cars.
The solution to that is akin to the solution for the next person who tries to bring about a 9/11. Space Traffic Control has Range Safety. Range Safety has access to all the guns in the system. Torchships not obeying STC inside the positive control zone and/or violating posted system speed/accel limits will be blown out of space and STC will think about apologizing to their heirs and assigns later on.
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congratulations, you've invented MAD
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(And if they turn out to have been doing it intentionally, then whoever is backing them up, if anyone, gets a free visit from the Nightmare of the Marches.)
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well, sorta MAD.
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No, that's just AD.
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the response to anyone doing the slightest threatening thing is immediate overwhelming force. Sufficiently overwhelming that the other party can't put the M in.
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You have: a rogue torchship. I have: STC, the orbital defense grid, the system defense grid, the system picket, and every other ship in the system armed with anything.
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if the sides were more equal, you get MAD
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Overmind
You have: a rogue torchship. I have: STC, the orbital defense grid, the system defense grid, the system picket, and every other ship in the system armed with anything.
0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:26 PM
this is begging for the "who would win" meme
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Yeah, but then you're not talking "rogue with torchship" or even "terrorist group with torchship". You're talking "BEHOLD THE MARTIAN INVASION FLEET."
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that's a setting dependent thing. If traffic control is less competent, or has less guns, or the different physics ensure that it's just that much harder to hit someone at range...
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(Technically, I suppose, that's not MAD either. That's Kantai Kessen .)
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:28 PM
buggy, you made an absolute statement. one counterexample disproves your claim.
19:28
where?
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:30 PM
"is all post-torch ship warfare MAD?" "yes"
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it's hard to say exactly. A lot of things play into it, but i think I'd say the argument for "yes" boils down to:
19:31
"i think that this is the argument for yes" "argument"
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:31 PM
well here we have something that is post-torch ship warfare, and it's not MAD, and therefore not all post-torch ship warfare is MAD
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restated, "if i was going to argue that the answer is yes, i would say the following things"
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:33 PM
ah, perhaps I missed that subtlety
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if i were to state clearly what my opinion on the matter is, it could be summed up as "if you give baseline humans advanced sci-fi technology such as torch ships/nanotech/sentient ai, etc, they die". Torchship mutual destruction by virtue of people being spiteful and just saying "fuck you nuke." if they lose a conflict is a possibility. Not sure how certain it is, but hey, we basically survived the cold war by anthropic principle so that should tell us something.
19:35
i'm thinking of this in terms of ok, *preventing* this also requires widespread competence and coordination. We're explicitly assuming this is not a major factor by virtue of the "baseline humans" part of the argument
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:37 PM
eh. coordination and competence can be provided by the prostheses of international agencies. probably.
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to a degree, but we barely survived the arms race and that was effectively like, two conglomorate agents?
19:37
and then you want to hand 1/1000 people a self-propelled nuke torchship for your sci-fi setting?
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:38 PM
well no, you don't. you necessarily require orbit traffic control.
19:39
the bigger stick, the monopoly on force, the coordinating factor you require anyways because even today satellite trajectories are a pain in the ass to work out.
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In general, though, the implication of torchships for the attacker is torchships/missiles/etc., for the defender and both sides being aware of the implications.
19:43
That said, the general case isn't MAD either, because MAD is a thing in a bipolar world when you only have two actors. The general situation in the Worlds with... excessive... weapons systems or uses of same is that people with an investment in civilizational continuity in general and their civilizational continuity in particular have agreed that if you go there, the whole of civilized space gangs up and kills you - and anyone dumb enough to align with you - before, during or after the fact. The payoff matrix for the defector is, essentially, you MAY destroy your first target. But you WILL be annihilated by overwhelming force. There's no mutual destruction against the rest of the players in the multipolar scenario. (edited)
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the problem with that is it has no incentive against someone who will be destroyed regardless
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Why will they be destroyed regardless?
19:45
People, by and large, even extremely fanatical people, usually do not fight to the death of the last soph.
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consider... consider, to get slightly political but because it's a good analogy, consider the issue with police and lethal force in america
19:48
if cops essentially see something that even vaguely looks like a gun on your person, you're getting 20 rounds in the back. Now imagine in that scenario, that person not only knows that, but in the instant before they die, they have the choice to also kill those cops and 5,000 other people.
19:48
how many people take that option? Humans are spiteful.
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How many people take that option on behalf of their whole polity/religion/faction/in-group?
19:51
Individual people may do that (but that's the rogue scenario, which I airily dismiss, because any reasonable defense has them outgunned, outplanned, outsensed, yadda.) Groups by and large don't. ...hrm, well, possible exception for cults. But that's why intelligence pays a lot of attention to cults.
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but where i disagree is that there's a reasonable defense
19:52
partial defenses, situational defenses, sure
19:52
but the situation is fairly broad. You'll get defectors like that who have more than a instant, time to plan, set things up, etc
19:54
i just don't think you can effectively defend huge regions of space against the equivalent of a iron slug, painted vantablack at 2.7kelvins, heading towards your planet/space station/etc at a sizable fraction c
19:55
or other situations
19:55
e.g. that person whose ship is docked and is about to be arrested, who simply has the option of turning the engine on
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 7:55 PM
you keep using "a sizeable fraction of c" :V
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DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 7:55 PM
It has to be accelerated. That will be extremely obvious. And collisions with interstellar gas, dust, etc. Plus hard for a few crazy guys to pull off.
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You keep using something that is very much not a torchship using a torch drive.
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fair, i'm overusing the RKV example
19:56
there's many other ways you can use a torch drive destructively
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Buggy
e.g. that person whose ship is docked and is about to be arrested, who simply has the option of turning the engine on
Look, I subscribe to the notion of dumbassed criminals as much as the next guy, but there are only a very select few who are willing to upgrade whatever they were already charged with to "mass murder, terrorism, and violation of emissions regs".
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If you're using a torch drive to make an RKV, its kind of hard not to see it
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(Also, you don't exactly flip on a torch drive like a light switch.) And sure, that slug is hard to detect. On the other hand, by the time you've hauled it all the way out-system (especially if you filed flight plans with all the people wondering why you're fucking off into deep space in a very expensive ship of unusual design) and accelerated it to a decent c-frac velocity, you've told everyone within dozens of light years exactly what you're doing.
20:02
(I mean, you can do it, and I'm pretty sure you can get away with it, but I'm also pretty sure that you need the defense budget of a decent-sized polity to have a prayer of doing both.)
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fair, the RKV example isn't great. But i'm also considering this from the general perspective of offense vs defense
20:03
it's... a way to put it is, i don't know exactly what forms future technology will take, and there's a fair few inherent problems with trying to describe it
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0111narwhalz 01/07/2023 8:03 PM
the balance has been hard in favor of offense for… centuries, probably
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but a very probable trend is that trend in favor of offense is going to keep going, and going, and going
20:04
until that tiny portion of the bell curve which is actually willing to take advantage of it, the osamas and unibombers and such, are absurdly destructive
20:06
and you can only go so far in saying 'well you can do this and this and this to prevent it' because of the very same reason that one struggles to describe what the technology will look like. But you can just point back at that offense-vs-defense skew.
20:07
and the solution to that is to make the bell curve sharper, have less unibombers. Transhumanism is the way to go, so to speak.
20:07
And them many authors go and don't do that and my response is "well okay yeah if you consider all the details these people should be dead."
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The thing about that skew? It needs its unspoken qualifier. "Between peers."
20:09
As asteroids teaches us, laser beats rock, except when the laser is relatively weak and the rock is very big.
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i would say that the relevant peerage here is intellectual
20:12
and in a world of baselines, that's the same for everyone
20:12
technology is about thinking. He who thinks best wins, mostly.
20:14
(there's more complexity to it than the above implies. For instance, do two people win vs one in the fight of technology? Its hard to say, but, well, that's the scenario right now and the unibomber existed. Apparently coordinating is hard and prevents intelligence from being perfectly additive.) (edited)
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In general, in non-peer fights, Team Rogue Actor wins because Team Defense Establishment fucked up.
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baseline humans fuck up a lot.
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/07/2023 8:22 PM
I just say anti-ship batteries are everywhere on inhabited worlds so you’ve got to be clever and lucky to pull off a torchship kamikaze hit (edited)
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DSD [He/They] 01/07/2023 8:22 PM
👆
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that works
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Have you ever seen the anger of a god? Can you imagine it? A world burned, twisted, by the will of something unfathomably greater? The very firmament broken and turned upon screaming billions? You say you can. I do not believe you. I do not speak of mundane, mortal war, where the air is sharp with ozone from plasma and your eyesight is scorched away with the flash of atomic fire. I do not speak of what crude methods man uses upon man, shackled by our limited perception. I speak of madness. Madness beyond mortal ken. A broken deity turns his gaze upon a world, and claims it mind, body, and soul. In its mindless greed, a hundred thousand ships burn away monuments, cities, art. In its insanity, the sky darkens with mist that warps whatever it touches to unfathomable purpose. Reality does not function correctly. The fundamental constants of the universe shattered like so much glass. You scream, but your gods are not listening. And then they arrive. The White Fleet. Undecorated ships pale as polished bone come in silence. There is no great heralding of their coming, no announcement of salvation. They come in such numbers that it appears the very stars in the sky are falling upon you, and you weep in horror because it will not end. They march, deathly pale armor dull and unpolished, and the silence is filled with the wrath of weapons beyond what man can make. A mad god screams its rage as it is pushed back with divine wrath. Like the wound upon the universe, it is cauterized to nothingness. And you still weep after it is over, because you know you will never forget what you saw, as you ride in the softly lit rooms of the White Fleet’s transports taking you away, silent except for the sounds of grief, those that could not be saved are purged. You watch what was your friends, family, now abominations, be expunged from existence. (edited)
15:58
And those pale figures still do not speak. And you weep, and pray, and rage, and they are still silent. How dare they, even as you hammer them with your fists until the skin is stripped by the blows, not speak of what happened? But you dare not leave their presence, for they are safety and horrible, awful hope, still too fragile to trust. What happens after? You go home, and you live, and you still grieve, from now to the end of eternity. There isn't anything else you can do. -Interview excerpt from anonymous survivor of the Narstaryan Blight (edited)
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dammit Im looking back at this and now Im seeing a lot of flaws
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:23 PM
such is the way of editing
23:23
it's a fun thing but feels floaty somehow? 'unno
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floaty?
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:23 PM
Narstaryan Blight
flattered
23:24
I dunno, it doesn't make itself concrete somehow
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You're not smart enough to be a blight
23:24
they have huge brains
23:24
huge, utterly insane brains
23:24
but still huge
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0111narwhalz
I dunno, it doesn't make itself concrete somehow
yeah it feels more like something that belongs in an epic than someone sayings what happened from their own perspective
23:25
which is my fault
23:25
I didn't immerse myself in the character
23:25
Might try rewriting it sometime
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:27 PM
look closelier at my avatar
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I can see it
23:27
Eldritch kerbal god
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:29 PM
on that subject—I have a brief of Jeb as a godling
23:30
he dies in terrible crashes on the regular, but always appears back at the KSC ready to go
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What do you think the kraken is?
23:30
duh
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:30 PM
not Jeb, is it though?
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Are you sure?
23:31
Are you really sure?
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:31 PM
at the least they're different aspects
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0111narwhalz
he dies in terrible crashes on the regular, but always appears back at the KSC ready to go
0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:31 PM
until, one day, he crashes somewhere and doesn't come back
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He's just relaxing in the mohole
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:35 PM
the question is: did his immortality finally give out? or is he still alive there? and if so, why doesn't he let us know?
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you really think they can fit an interplanetary strength comm unit in a suit?
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:36 PM
under the assumption of the latter (and in the event of the former, to recover what can be recovered), the Program prepares a rescue mission
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5G won't cut it
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0111narwhalz 01/14/2023 11:36 PM
they've sent probes to look at the crash site from orbit (edited)
23:36
the chunks are big enough that survival is not out of the question
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2023 12:55 AM
alright
00:55
I feel like I've been ruminating uselessly about details that don't actually matter for like 5 years
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 1:13 AM
then uh do something about it? V:
01:14
spend the mental effort you've allocated to being unhappy with how little art you do on doing art
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2023 1:14 AM
I have ADD :C
01:14
and have been v tired recently
01:14
not sure exactly why
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 1:15 AM
and for the love of all that is holy, eat like a normal mammal
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BizarroLand ♀ 01/15/2023 1:16 AM
@0111narwhalz me: "why am I so miserable all the time?"
01:16
my body: "you need to sleep it's 3am" "a tall glass of chocolate milk is not a fucking meal you stupid little girl" "we're low on vitamin D maybe go outside"
01:17
I might see Avatar 2 this week or the next
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 1:19 AM
don't care what your issues are, they don't get easier by stressing yourself with terrible eating habits. from experience here.
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The sleep can wait, I have a mocha pot
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0111narwhalz
he dies in terrible crashes on the regular, but always appears back at the KSC ready to go
you bastards! you killed Kenny Jeb
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0111narwhalz
under the assumption of the latter (and in the event of the former, to recover what can be recovered), the Program prepares a rescue mission
he could also commit suicide
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0111narwhalz
not Jeb, is it though?
BluejayHurricane 01/15/2023 2:24 PM
You are assuming a degree of linearity to time that does not exist
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alrighty
22:08
so
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alien boomsticks
22:08
tell me more
22:08
(Also, do you make this yourself?)
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:08 PM
right so first off this one doesn't "boom" per se because it is a coilgun but
22:08
(aye)
22:09
less boom more supersonic crack. a lot more supersonic crack.
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hmmm
22:09
...do you take commissions?
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:09 PM
I could. We can discuss that in DMs, though.
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back to the subject at hand
22:10
tell me more about the spicy rifle
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:11 PM
This antimaterial coilrifle (AMCR) is designed for use with remote power and cooling, which is pretty standard.
22:11
All the more for the high power stuff like this one is.
22:12
prototype model looks like this, but is missing small details like "a way to actually hold the damn thing" https://i.imgur.com/9repqfn.png
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I like the comically small barrel poking out
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:14 PM
The big cable thing supplies power and cooling, with a pair of double-drybreak fittings and a pair of electrical connectors rated for something like 900A. It's flat so it can preserve what little flexibility it can manage.
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:15 PM
amp
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what kind of damage can it do?
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:16 PM
a lot
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Taco Time
what kind of damage can it do?
yes.
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I don't think its quite at the "yes" portion
22:17
thats where you start blowing up stars for shiggles
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:18 PM
Well, this is specifically designed to defeat light armored vehicles. Of the future.
22:19
So that includes shielding, for which it (in conjunction with the armor) has certain extra features.
22:21
This generally consists of a three-round burst at low power to map the field, then a full-power shot directly at the shield generator. Typically this results in total destruction of the generator, and anything in a straight line behind it.
22:22
Notably, however, this gun is not anti-tank. Not even light antitank. Tanks are really scary when you have this kind of tech.
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Tanks are already really scary
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:24 PM
It goes through walls (interior, exterior, drywall, masonry, and concrete. in sequence.) with little to no deflection, and the computers can compensate for what there is given angle to target and so on. (edited)
22:24
probably in the 20-30 KJ range then
22:24
that would probably work
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:28 PM
oh and do note that standard with the kit is a set of recon/saboteur drones with full battlespace awareness fusion and a synthetic worldmodel direct-injected into Žen's mind
22:28
i.e. she has wall-hacks
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the power of networking
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:30 PM
the gun knows where it is, the armor knows how to get it where it needs to be, so she also has aimbot
22:32
There's no conventional optics on the AMCR because it isn't usable without power armor (both in the sense that it needs the power supply and in the sense that it will take your shoulder out of joint), but her battle rifle has fallback optics in addition to its sensors.
22:33
also this is the not-pictured equipment mounted on the hip superstructure: https://i.imgur.com/c9qaJkM.png
22:35
vac-rated, hence the fountain radiator. in-atmo it runs waste heat through the air HX under… a lot of forced ventilation
22:36
all runs on nitrodiamond colloid fuel, because while fission reactors get stupid tiny with shields they're just a bit excessive for this kind of thing.
22:37
(you see them on larger ground vehicles)
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mmm
22:38
tonks
22:38
my favorite
22:38
Glorious mobile bunker of doom
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:39 PM
Lighter stuff still uses the nitrodiamond though.
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whats nitrodiamond?
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0111narwhalz 01/15/2023 10:40 PM
Crystalline nitrogen, mostly the ever-glorious cubic gauche nitrogen.
22:41
Pretty much the greatest specific energy you can get out of chemical bonds. Pulsed rocket engines running on pure cg-N ought to have similar performance to solid-core nuclear-thermal on hydrogen.
22:42
However, dealing with solid fuels that might touch off if you abrade them is a pain in the ass, so you make the crystals really tiny and suspend them in a carrier fluid.
22:42
This makes it so you can pump the stuff.
22:44
The suspension is probably something nonpolar, so it wets the crystals more easily. In any case it's mostly nitrodiamond, with just a little bit of juice to keep things moving.
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moist diamonds
22:46
(Do not drink)
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0111narwhalz
i.e. she has wall-hacks
if she doesnt have wall-penetrating radar and see-around-corners diffusefield holographic imagers im sad
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 1:16 AM
radar for sure but I hadn't thought of the holography
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those are so damn cool
01:48
they work effectively realtime if you have the compute for it
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 2:56 PM
are there demos?
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i've only seen paper
14:57
and presumably they dont have the compute to run it real time (edited)
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 2:58 PM
well yeah, interferometry is painful enough
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but aquisition runs in some 40ish ms afair
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 2:58 PM
active, I presume?
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yeh
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 3:00 PM
illuminator and imager need to be at the same position/have uninterrupted LoS? or no?
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mmm
15:00
h o l o g r a m s
15:00
shiny
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Nature Communications - Here, the authors present Synthetic Wavelength Holography, an approach for Non-Line-of-Sight imaging. By exploiting spectral correlations in scattered light, the authors...
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0111narwhalz
illuminator and imager need to be at the same position/have uninterrupted LoS? or no?
i think somewhat colocated
15:03
15:03
goddammit discord
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 3:09 PM
okay I think the light engine needs to split the same coherent beam to both sample and reference?
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seems like
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 3:14 PM
which effectively means they need to be on the same platform
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or you have some remote phase transport system
15:16
like just pointing a laser
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0111narwhalz 01/16/2023 3:17 PM
probably issues with environment?
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i mean, you can probably work through the environment with similar methods
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You can't get stuck in space
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that thing is gonna roll over the place with its main drive
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nah, not roll. yaw :D
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Do a funny turn movement
09:46
there
09:49
Its unbalanced asymmetry
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0111narwhalz 01/23/2023 1:03 PM
small adjustment of thrust vector and you're fine
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thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrust Because thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrust
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I think you're gonnan eed more than a small adjustment
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0111narwhalz 01/23/2023 1:59 PM
13:59
it'll be fine
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hmmmmmmmm
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Ah, Schlock Mercenary. Story of newly emergent or rediscovered technologies perturbing galactic society, as seen through comedic lens of mercenary company at the detonation front of the changes. They have what? Teraport. Immortality (stack soldier boosts on it until it stops aging!) Consciousness transfer that followed. Core Tap. Long Gun. Dark Energy Entity Construction. Soul Gig.
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yeah sounds about right
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Also, Props to Gatekeepers for building interstellar civilization on galactic scale when a lot of fundamental tech is conductive to black forest mindset.
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“YOUR ORBITAL DEFENSES ARE NO MORE,” echoed from all the surfaces. “YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO COMPLY OR YOUR GROUND INSTALLATIONS WILL BE TARGETED.” It took a couple of minutes for confirmation that the orbital defenses were no longer functional, and then the man in the room suddenly became worried. He fumbled with a control unit to try to turn off the ‘capture field’, but hadn’t been given one authorized to turn it off. “You have to tell them to stop!” “Legally speaking,” Taylor said. “I’m a prisoner and not a member of any recognized government. Your laws don’t allow you to negotiate with me for anything. For that matter, your laws currently regard that warship in orbit as being a pirate at best as they don’t recognize the government it belongs to, so you’re not allowed to negotiate with it either. To even start negotiating you’re going to have to convince someone to overturn that resolution declaring ‘Please Ignore the Secret Kingdom’ to be illegitimate.” She made a point of checking her watch. “Given that such a vote would probably take a minimum of twenty minutes, you might want to see if you can get someone started on it.”
Ah, joys of having sanitized and fuzzed legal system and working with people who don't have Lawbot VI system to check side effects and check law interactions.
(edited)
05:33
And yes, warship is called "Find Out"
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/06/2023 6:09 PM
@Taco Time having decent strong ai at a “plausible” level of advancement would utterly transform IAC from what I actually intend it to be
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how so?
18:10
also, what does IAC stand for
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 2:41 AM
new grip on the AMCR https://i.imgur.com/AhIgDZq.png
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 10:28 AM
Hm. The more I think about futuristic sidearms, the more it strikes me that handguns are actually surprisingly hard to beat. Would it be entirely unreasonable to still be using the modern 10x25mm cartridge 200 years in the future?
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 10:32 AM
we've been using certain cartridges and even certain guns for over 100 already
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Jade Nekotenshi
Hm. The more I think about futuristic sidearms, the more it strikes me that handguns are actually surprisingly hard to beat. Would it be entirely unreasonable to still be using the modern 10x25mm cartridge 200 years in the future?
In the grim darkness of the forty-first millennium, the 10x25mm is still in use
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Hell, even in the 'verse, some people use the meat machine.
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0111narwhalz
we've been using certain cartridges and even certain guns for over 100 already
Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 10:58 AM
7.62x54mmR comes immediately to mind, as does .30-30; .30-06 is more than a century old even, same with .38 SPC and .45 ACP. Even 9x19mm is verging on it.
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KAL_9000
In the grim darkness of the forty-first millennium, the 10x25mm is still in use
Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 11:00 AM
Do they actually mention that? (Autopistols I guess?)
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 11:02 AM
someone still makes 1911s
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 11:18 AM
Lots of someones, in fact.
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i'd expect variations like polymer casings and spicier propellants
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Use cubic gauche nitrogen as your primer and skip the powder entirely?
11:20
(Possible advantage: complete lack of detectable combustion products.)
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Jade Nekotenshi
Do they actually mention that? (Autopistols I guess?)
no i made it up
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 11:22 AM
It's one of those things that's just weirdly specific enough that I could see them doing that.
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10x25 through a thousand unit conversions and minor changes
11:24
so its canonically 9.96x25.3
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Jade Nekotenshi
Lots of someones, in fact.
0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 11:26 AM
I meant "someone in the 41st" :V
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Cornflakes
so its canonically 9.96x25.3
0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 11:27 AM
they already aren't accurate to the actual dimensions, because they use the last few sigfigs to differentiate them from existing cartridges
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Jade Nekotenshi
Hm. The more I think about futuristic sidearms, the more it strikes me that handguns are actually surprisingly hard to beat. Would it be entirely unreasonable to still be using the modern 10x25mm cartridge 200 years in the future?
BizarroLand ♀ 02/07/2023 1:15 PM
handguns or firearms in general?
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 1:53 PM
handguns specifically. The bigger the weapon, the easier it is to replace with something that is, in some way, better than a firearm.
13:54
But for a sidearm? That must necessarily be carried on one's person, generally in a holster, sheath or something analogous? While it's not strictly impossible, of course, it is fairly hard to beat a firearm in that context, I think.
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DSD [He/They] 02/07/2023 1:55 PM
Gonna be a whiiile until we can miniaturise EM weapons to handgun size.
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This would be the other reason to hurry up and invent dimensional transcendence.
13:59
Because if a "Sidearm Gustav" is wrong, I don't want to be right.
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I don't think we'll need machine-gods to invent laser pistols
14:00
you're the one who called the godfucker not very useful
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Oh, it's not a very practical weapon, but practical isn't the reason for wearing a sidearm that can throw a five-ton projectile thirty miles.
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the problem with that is that the handgun will be larger than you are
14:03
and then its no longer a handgun
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Dimensional transcendence. As in the TARDIS, the best known example of the technology, it's bigger on the inside. (Also heavier on the inside.)
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also you risk uh
14:04
a tad bit of collateral
14:05
sure, you got the criminal but that was a block of iron a meter across and you killed 48 other bystanders because the projectile went through four buildings
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Basically, think of it as a pocket universe in the shape of a handgun that contains a much bigger gun.
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huh, I could see a pocket-dimension kinetic sink being used by eldrae for shenanigans (watch as a single soldier tosses your tank into orbit with the power of their mind) that or you could use vector control to try and grab RKVs at the cost of melting your billion-tonne rock sink
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Now, the really extended version of this is a pocket universe with a star in it, such that when you pull the trigger on your itsy-bitsy gun, the entire output of the star - since the pocket universe doesn't allow anywhere else for the energy to go - comes out of the barrel in one nice focused beam.
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you'd vaporize yourself, too (edited)
14:07
because
14:07
checks notes
14:07
our own star has an output of about 400-ish yottawatts
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When they figure out how to weaponize the Sunstone, everyone gets to have a bad day.
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having a weapon that destroys itself in a microsecond is not ideal
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 2:08 PM
well clearly you have a second pocket universe the shape of a shield that consumes all the backscatter
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if you ever fire it anywhere but vacuum you'll be in a a rapidly expanding ball of plasma thats hot enough to make the core of a star look a mite chilly
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Hey, if you fire this thing in atmo without reading the release notes, that's your lookout.
14:09
It says QUITE CLEARLY on page 14, paragraph 3...
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also I think that unless you use space-bending shenanigans to direct the photons, they will very rapidly spread apart
14:10
which is why you can't set things on fire with moonlight very well
14:10
of course this is far removed from your usual bog standard magnifying glass
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(But seriously, I grew up on "Doc" Smith books. They don't call it the Lensman Arms Race for nothin'.)
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 2:12 PM
a metric lens the size of the sun unfurls before you…
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(I mean, shit, they ended up with FTL antimatter planet missiles from alternate universes. I'm still working on my escalation.)
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/07/2023 2:13 PM
I just want a .475 pistol without breaking my wrist
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Mm, alternate universes. Inter-universe wormhole into someone else's Big Bang.
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just go full xeelee sequence
14:14
"My average warship can turn a galaxy into silly string. In one shot."
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 2:15 PM
haha piano wire go brrr
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"Also we manufacture them by the trillions"
14:15
"Because fuck you we've been fighting a war since the big bang itself"
14:16
however, at a certain point it just sorta reaches who can handwave harder and well probably accurate to god-civlization fights in terms of sheer bullshit, its kind of boring to read about "And after three microseconds the other civilization lost the war and got wiped from reality"
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BizarroLand ♀
I just want a .475 pistol without breaking my wrist
Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 2:28 PM
Try a .460 S&W Magnum on for size 🙂
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Taco Time
I don't think we'll need machine-gods to invent laser pistols
Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 2:29 PM
Laser pistols would be the obvious one, I think, but they'd have a set of tradeoffs. Not the least of which is that laser optics almost necessarily mean that a laser sidearm would be bulky.
14:29
(not necessarily heavy, but big.)
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Taco Time
sure, you got the criminal but that was a block of iron a meter across and you killed 48 other bystanders because the projectile went through four buildings
just make it a biggaampere proton beam gun. can has small aperture :D
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Im pretty sure then the energy output would give everyone nearby cancer
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proton beams less so
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Ah yes
15:20
only a little cancer
15:20
how nice
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Jade Nekotenshi
(not necessarily heavy, but big.)
maybe palm laser instead of a classic pistol
15:20
[goa'uld hand device intensifies]
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Jade Nekotenshi 02/07/2023 3:28 PM
That'd be funky to aim over anything but super-short range, but maybe if combined with some kind of brain interface and adaptive optics or a phased-array laser...
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AR overlay that lays a crosshair over whatever you're pointing at?
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or just some holo reticule that goes around the hand
15:32
and maybe backside of hand laser instead of palm laser
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that sounds like a pain to aim still
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 3:32 PM
IMU that talks to the IMU in your head and reads your intent to slew a phased array and raster the target
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/07/2023 3:32 PM
are energy weapons even real
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 3:33 PM
…what? :V
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/07/2023 3:33 PM
sorry spaced out there
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we
15:33
we have them right now
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i mean, the exact form factor is not important, point is flat device instead of a pistol with a camera barrel
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not good enough for what we're talking about
15:33
but we have laser weaponry
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0111narwhalz 02/07/2023 3:33 PM
punch-beam
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that will probably be used by actual militaries within the next 10-15 years easily
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DEATH TO REMOTE CONTROL GUNS.
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you mean an RCWS?
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(guns that look like remote controls, not that can be remote controlled)
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ah
15:34
lmao
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will? didnt THEL already see usage?
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it has not gone into mass production or battlefield usage yet
15:35
Nothing beyond testing
15:36
We still have to wait a bit before we have lasers everywhere
15:37
And thats on specialized platforms
15:38
its going to be a while yet before we can just stick them everywhere
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Taco Time
how so?
BizarroLand ♀ 02/07/2023 7:13 PM
it would be a completely different story on every level
19:14
there would probably be no giant interstellar states or economic combines
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why not?
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/07/2023 9:15 PM
the economic incentives for massive states and corporations to exist are obliterated when AI can replace millions of people at a stroke
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The economic incentives, maybe but I doubt it
21:34
The socio-political incentives, probably not
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You're making some very big assumptions about the nature of AI, such as its ability to coordinate being very scalable.
22:12
Since we don't know a whole lot about mental architecture right now, that's pretty much a free parameter.
22:13
(There is forking, but leaving aside other assumptions about the ability of minds to cooperate with themselves - well, I've talked before about the problem of the Million Moron March.)
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Overmind
You're making some very big assumptions about the nature of AI, such as its ability to coordinate being very scalable.
BizarroLand ♀ 02/08/2023 6:24 PM
Yeah but, to be honest, how much of a difference does it make? I have the distinct impression that the comparative advantage is so great, and the difficulty of “birthing” new digisapiences so low, that one way or another their appearance will spell the end of all economically productive occuptions for biological sapiences. (edited)
18:25
If expert systems and neural networks don’t do it first
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hmmmm
23:00
I need help naming a space station
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:00 PM
hah, names
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Big one on near-future earth, major trade hub, connected to several space elevators
23:01
its basically The Place You Go™️ for industry and living for the time
23:01
You wanna go from earth to somewhere else? There's going to be at least a couple ships going to mars docked
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:01 PM
…wait, one station and multiple elevators? are we talking the big ring?
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no, not big ring
23:02
just a fairly large station
23:02
thousands of people
23:03
think an odd mixture between a hotel, a factory, an airport, and a shipyard spread out between several layers for each (Nobody wants to live next to a refinery, after all)
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:03 PM
how do the elevators work here? thousands of people is maybe a couple kilometers
23:03
so they're basically converging on a point?
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well
23:03
you have stuff clustered on each elevator
23:04
big hubs
23:04
connected by smaller pieces, from just manufactured diamond nanothreads holding it all together to transport tubes between them
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:05 PM
well sure, you have maybe a few kilometer-scale blobs a few kilometers apart
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So its not an extremely solid station (this is around the 22nd-23rd century in this setting)
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:05 PM
i.e. pointlike
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but its still b e e g
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:05 PM
is it at geostationary or countermass altitude?
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geosynch
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:06 PM
'cause if it's not the big ring it's not going to be below that
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well, not by far at least
23:06
you can have a few hundred meters of wiggle room
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:06 PM
sure but again, pointlike
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not sure what you mean by that
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:07 PM
a few hundred meters in 35 megameters is basically nothing
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hmmm
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:07 PM
one part in a thousand, ish
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could probably increase that to a kilometer or so
23:08
again, its multiple "layers" stacked on top of each other
23:08
spaced out
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:08 PM
point is that you're talking about a "big station" but that's still tiny compared to space
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well yes, there's not going to be a planetary ring for a while yet
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:09 PM
you could be 100 km across and still be miniscule compared to geostationary orbit
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by that point you have thousands of elevators all across the equator
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:09 PM
so "within a few km of geostationary" means "at geostationary"
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fair enough
23:09
ANYWAYS
23:09
back to getting an actual name
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:09 PM
where are the elevators anchored? whose station is it, or whose was it to begin with?
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it started as being set up as three elevators spaced evenly apart (How far? Haven't decided yet. Lore before getting into the nitty-gritty of the design right now) funded by the Federal Union Of America at around the mid-22nd century (both american continents under one government, originating as the USA. Its not perfect but its better than what we have now.)
23:13
as for exactly where on the equator, thats still in the air
23:13
I was thinking an artificial platform, given the distinct lack of good land on the south american portion of the equator
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Taco Time
it started as being set up as three elevators spaced evenly apart (How far? Haven't decided yet. Lore before getting into the nitty-gritty of the design right now) funded by the Federal Union Of America at around the mid-22nd century (both american continents under one government, originating as the USA. Its not perfect but its better than what we have now.)
BizarroLand ♀ 02/08/2023 11:13 PM
both american continents under one government
23:14
Yeaaaaaahhhh uhhhh
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:14 PM
note that you can anchor your elevators at places other than the equator, if you balance them between the hemispheres
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the amazon is squishy
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BizarroLand ♀ 02/08/2023 11:14 PM
What act of god occurred to make this happen (edited)
23:15
Brazilians and hispanics hate each other, half of central america hates the other half, and nobody likes the US and their school of the americas shenanigans
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I dunno
23:15
this is like
23:15
very very alpha stage
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:15 PM
well half of the US hates the other half so business as usual I think
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still subject to big change
23:16
might just stop it at middle america
23:17
now again
23:17
Back to names
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:17 PM
well if it's the now-US part that names it, it'll probably be something something Greco-Roman myth
23:18
not sure how the other places name stuff
23:19
maybe something Nahua, just because their myth is metal and I like their phonotactics?
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:32 PM
another option is to go full Culture
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All sass and puns?
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:33 PM
and excessive verbosity, aye
23:34
it's what I settled on for the FVN (edited)
23:35
(though I nicked the phrase "god-bothering protocol" from a certain story written by our host :V)
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now the real question is if the city at the base would share the same name
23:36
hmmm
23:36
probably not
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:36 PM
unlikely.
23:36
I'd expect each anchor to be named differently
23:37
for one they need to be pretty far apart, so it wouldn't be one city underneath
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A kilometer or so apart each might do it
23:38
especially since they could have supporting weaves inbetween them to keep them from bonking into each other all the time
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Morgrim Moon 02/08/2023 11:38 PM
a named weapon from local mythology might work? In that 'dramatic magic spear' sort of vibe
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Its mostly civilian.
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:38 PM
it's not really supposed to be a weapon, so I'm thinking more like a sun/sky deity or something
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hmmm
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:39 PM
plenty of suns to choose from
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Morgrim Moon 02/08/2023 11:39 PM
I was thinking more that weapons tend to be the only named objects in mythology, and also the 'long stick' thing
23:39
(for these purposes 'long tensioned string' glosses as 'stick')
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its long
23:40
its relatively not flexing much due to the counterweights at the top
23:40
its also thin
23:40
basically a stick
23:44
I shall sleep on this, and hopefully come back tomorrow with something decent
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Morgrim Moon 02/08/2023 11:52 PM
snarky not-serious suggestion: the first aztec sungod, Tezcatlipoca
23:52
"And they elected Tezcatlipoca, God of Darkness And Killing Everybody, to become the sun so they could see what they were doing a little better. But - and this is what happens when you don't have a God of Staffing Decisions - the God of Darkness made a predictably terrible sun. The stories say he was "only half a sun", although they don't specify whether they mean only half the desired brightness or literally semicircular. In any case, Quetzalcoatl, God Of Niceness And Maybe Not Killing Everybody All The Time, knocked Tezcatlipoca out of the sky, took over as Sun, and did by all accounts a much better job."
🤣 1
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Quetzalcoatl was a cool dude all around from what I know
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Morgrim Moon 02/08/2023 11:54 PM
(also aztecs had the best mythological apocalypses. Most religions have flooding and maybe fire. In the first aztec apocalypse, the angry Tezcatipoca made jaguars rain from the sky and eat everyone. that's a very unique scenario!)
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0111narwhalz 02/08/2023 11:54 PM
Tezcatlipoca was also an asshole and stole Tlaloc's (third sun) wife, and crushed Chalchiutlique (fourth sun) by accusing her of only pretending to be kind. Both of those resulted in the end of their respective worlds (to flaming rain and unending floods, respectively). (edited)
23:55
and also tackled Quetalcoatl and caused a wind-storm that ended the second creation :V
23:56
but at least he sacrificed his foot to make the land!
23:56
…by using it to lure Cipactli and turn her into the ground
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Morgrim Moon
(for these purposes 'long tensioned string' glosses as 'stick')
Yoyo station
02:19
things go up and down from it on a string
02:19
:V
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0111narwhalz
…by using it to lure Cipactli and turn her into the ground
creation by divine foot fetish?
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0111narwhalz 02/09/2023 2:21 AM
well she ate it so
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Morgrim Moon
(also aztecs had the best mythological apocalypses. Most religions have flooding and maybe fire. In the first aztec apocalypse, the angry Tezcatipoca made jaguars rain from the sky and eat everyone. that's a very unique scenario!)
jaguars rain from the sky and eat everyone
Literally the best orbital weapons system, am I right?
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Overmind
jaguars rain from the sky and eat everyone
Literally the best orbital weapons system, am I right?
Is that what Weyland-Yutani was trying to build?
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Taco Time
might just stop it at middle america
Mexico doesn’t much like the US either. Honestly at this point it seems more likely that some of the northern States will secede and join Canada.
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united states of northerner america
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Some kind of revised NAFTA or west hemisphere version of the ISS program might be convinced to build a space elevator
07:15
I can actually see Brazil trying to build one themselves if they can get their political issues sorted out
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So I've got a proto-list of early space elevators One in south america, on the high northwest of current brazil, one in africa funded by multiple nations grudgingly working together (along with some bankrolling from european countries), and two in the Indonesian island chains mostly by japan for that sweet, sweet trade money for all of east and south asia
21:29
The tri-elevator station is going to be on an artificial platform in the ocean, probably between south american and africa for easy shipping routes for the western world
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Its a rather ambitious construction for the time
21:44
Larger cables, too
21:44
Haven't decided on exact transport capacity yet though, if ever
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0111narwhalz 02/09/2023 9:46 PM
probably a good idea to pick an order of mag and then not tell anyone
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Heh
21:47
General tech level is near-ish future
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0111narwhalz 02/09/2023 9:49 PM
gonna have a hard time with space elevators at all, unless you get into the exotics like active support structures
21:49
so really you just need to give it a small-but-still-worthwhile capacity and then not tell anyone what it's made of ("something something carbon?")
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Fusion reactors are normal for countries to have, basic nanotechnology and body-mod tech, the only injuries that medical tech can't solve is brain damage, fission ships everywhere (not public access, but being wealthy and owning a suborbital hypersonic shuttle isn't unusual), very basic fusion ship prototypes that will take many decades to be worth it. Slow-burn fusion powered electric drive ships exist though
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0111narwhalz 02/09/2023 9:51 PM
or else active support and then haha technothriller subplot
21:52
particle fountain type shit
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Less than a hundred thousand people off earth, but it rapidly increasing
21:52
Gotta get that bread
21:53
Helps that orbital infrastructure is less than a percentage the cost we have now, and is only getting cheaper
21:58
Dozens and dozens of atomic ships running around the solar system, space navies are a thing now, mostly powered by orion drives and so are rather rare, rather huge, and rather expensive because manufacturing a constant supply of bombs is easier said than done. Hundreds of chemical ships though, mostly for orbital tasks or ones that can take a few months
22:00
If you need to get to somewhere fast you can go on an orion, but thats A: expensive, and B: not very comfortable
22:06
Its the awkward time between space being way too expensive and space adventures for everyone!
22:10
200 years of lore down. 4000 more to go.
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[perry rhodan has entered the chat]
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nice to see some more people remember that universe 🙂
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Taco Time
So I've got a proto-list of early space elevators One in south america, on the high northwest of current brazil, one in africa funded by multiple nations grudgingly working together (along with some bankrolling from european countries), and two in the Indonesian island chains mostly by japan for that sweet, sweet trade money for all of east and south asia
Sounds a bit like Gundam OO
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Complete coincidence since I've never watched gundam
06:15
Anyways, since it was three elevators in the middle of the ocean, this made it great for shipping since the big botes could directly dock next to them
06:15
No overland shenanigans
06:16
And again, in a very handy spot for western world countries compared to the others
06:19
Gotta have that murican spess industry
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Taco Time
And again, in a very handy spot for western world countries compared to the others
doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 3:18 PM
Looks like the relevant (existing) shipping lane would be Recife-Western Europe. The equatorial point on that line would put it quite close to the Cape Verde Islands, about the same distance as to the Brazilian coast.
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Taco Time
So I've got a proto-list of early space elevators One in south america, on the high northwest of current brazil, one in africa funded by multiple nations grudgingly working together (along with some bankrolling from european countries), and two in the Indonesian island chains mostly by japan for that sweet, sweet trade money for all of east and south asia
doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 3:22 PM
Northwest Brazil? Aside from having the Amazon available as a shipping channel, I don’t see the point. The Andes will block most other major routes/ports, won’t they?
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This is ah, very alpha
15:22
So subject to change
15:24
hmmm
15:25
maybe on the western coast of SA, then?
15:25
Put it on a mountain, solid foundation right there.
15:27
15:28
that'd put it in ecuador or columbia (edited)
15:32
not sure how far off the equator I can go, if anyone has an answer to that it'd be appreciated
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if you want you can go all the way to the poles, you just need balancing on the other side of the equator
15:34
like a cable to north america, one to europe, and one into south america or west africa and the station hanging on the point between those exactly at the equator
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doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 3:39 PM
I was just thinking W coast of SA avoids the Andes and puts you near the Panama Canal
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Cornflakes
like a cable to north america, one to europe, and one into south america or west africa and the station hanging on the point between those exactly at the equator
True, but these are some of the first. I was thinking the tri-elevator would be the first that was more ambition that your standard "plonk it down with a few kilometers of the equator on a solid foundation and call it a day"
15:40
Which is why before it there were only four on earth at this point in time (edited)
15:40
You gotta take baby steps
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Of course, the more cables you split the ground end into, the more things can cause deep shit if they break. And the more "objects" there are to be shot down by the Air Force or mysterious Chinese UFOs of doomly doom.
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the thing about space elevators is that well unless you somehow slam the actual station bits into the planet (assuming its massive enough to not just burn up) the cable itself will do little damage
15:42
if any
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i mean, the more you have the more can break without the massive shit case
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DSD [He/They] 02/16/2023 3:42 PM
The cable's gonna have to be pretty big.
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Its less highly dangerous and more god awful expensive to move the station back into place so you can cable it again
15:43
I think
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DSD [He/They] 02/16/2023 3:43 PM
...now I wanna watch Foundation again.
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Cornflakes
i mean, the more you have the more can break without the massive shit case
If you're doing off-equator balanced cables, any one of them breaks means your finely balanced orbital mechanics are now your own personal Three-Body Problem with options on becoming a Fuckton Of Bodies Very Quickly Problem.
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Overmind
If you're doing off-equator balanced cables, any one of them breaks means your finely balanced orbital mechanics are now your own personal Three-Body Problem with options on becoming a Fuckton Of Bodies Very Quickly Problem.
do overcapacity stuff
15:45
5 cables, somewhat distributed and give the others some slack when it breaks
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Taco Time
the thing about space elevators is that well unless you somehow slam the actual station bits into the planet (assuming its massive enough to not just burn up) the cable itself will do little damage
Depends on where you cut it and how much is riding it at the time, and if the answer to the latter is a big number, then you also have a big cable.
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DSD [He/They]
The cable's gonna have to be pretty big.
I mean yeah, its at minimum around 36,000 KM, and the 3+ balanced cable design will need even longer ones. In terms of thickness? Probably less than a foot
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its still bad but not "rebuild the whole thing" catastrophic
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Overmind
Depends on where you cut it and how much is riding it at the time, and if the answer to the latter is a big number, then you also have a big cable.
cable would likely burn up unless you built very, very thick
15:46
or it flies off into space, in which case you need to gather it up again which would be a pain in the ass
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Cornflakes
5 cables, somewhat distributed and give the others some slack when it breaks
Yeah, but unless you're running multiples to the same place for redundancy, it'll still fuck up the balance and then the other cables have a whole lot of unanticipated force vectors.
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Taco Time
or it flies off into space, in which case you need to gather it up again which would be a pain in the ass
Depends where you cut it.
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if you plan the redundancy, those wouldnt be unanticipated
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Cornflakes
if you plan the redundancy, those wouldnt be unanticipated
You hope.
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Overmind
Depends where you cut it.
Well, if it splits in just the right spot you could have two cable bits doing both
15:48
The worry here is the station
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Also, w.r.t. to thickness of cables: I have seen some proposals for impressively thin beanstalk cables. I look upon them with great skepticism, because unless you want to have a beanstalk for the sake of having a beanstalk, you're going to need to hang lots of stuff off your cable(s), and smol ribbon ain't gonna cut it on area-to-clamp-to at all.
👆 3
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You'd probably have a nexus at the top you can attach stuff to
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Taco Time
The worry here is the station
Well, you don't have to worry about the station coming down, at least. Mostly, you have to worry about what happens when the station zooms off at a tangent its former orbit at HOLY FUCK speed.
15:51
Not every bit of valuable real estate is at the top.
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Thankfully at this point in time humanity now has some good and proper spaceships, including a lovely little orbital guard of a few dozen chemical ships (no orion drives allowed near the very fragile infrastructure)
15:51
Nuclear thermal rockets are the primary mode for interplanetary
15:52
Doesn't mean it won't be expensive to fix everything, but its at least not an impossible to fix everyone-just-shit-their-pants-oh-god disaster
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Apart from the service platforms at mile intervals all the way up at mile intervals (which also include little things like the lasers to lase anything off its flight plan within a hundred miles or so into oblivion), there's probably a good argument for development at, say, low orbit, midpoint, geosynch, and all the way out at the countermass.
15:54
(Not to mention all the way up the anchor. Think of the money to be made from selling Mile-High Club apartments in the star tower.)
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...now that I think about it there's no real reason why the countermass can't just be another station
15:55
Its always just been a big rock or something like that in most discussions I've seen
15:55
scribbles notes
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DSD [He/They] 02/16/2023 3:55 PM
I always assumed it would be a station tbh. (edited)
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Rocks are good, because you want mass. But building your starport out on Countermass where you can get a free few km/s for your trouble is also good.
15:57
Also, frankly, equatorial geosynch has enough other uses that it is probably not a great place to route a bunch of deep-space starship traffic through.
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Overmind
Rocks are good, because you want mass. But building your starport out on Countermass where you can get a free few km/s for your trouble is also good.
DSD [He/They] 02/16/2023 3:58 PM
Yee, launch tethers are fun.
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No starships yet, mere spaceships. 22nd-23rd century humanity still has a long way to go before mass production of antimatter in the 26th century using big fuckoff solar powerplants
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DSD [He/They] 02/16/2023 3:59 PM
A launch tether's even better for them, tbh.
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Well there were the early interstellar fusion drives (including high-end orion drives), but those were still in transit by the time the first antimatter ships came about. 1% c is fast, but when you're now able to comfortably hit 10%+ because you're producing several KG of antimatter a day thats rapidly scaling up to several tons per day, you get outpaced
16:03
By that point humanity has noticeable presence out to about jupiter and its moons. Past that its either fringe colonies, scientific outposts, or small scale mining operations
16:04
in the 32nd century when we figure out alcubierre drives good and proper the entire solar system except for the oort cloud is thoroughly in reach and everyone is having a jolly good time zipping about on fusion and antimatter torches as the norm
16:05
but thats muuuuuuuuuuuuuch later. Gotta focus on the early bits for now
16:07
Oh, there also a few fusion-powered electric drive ships, for when you aren't too concerned about waiting a while for a very large amount of material
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Overmind
Also, frankly, equatorial geosynch has enough other uses that it is probably not a great place to route a bunch of deep-space starship traffic through.
elaborate, please
16:15
The other main use I could see (other than being a great place to attach your orbital factories, docks, and habitats) is just not stopping and launching stuff off the top at very high velocities
16:19
lets see, at 0.1 m/s^2, it takes 26,832.8 seconds to get to the top of a 36,000 km cable, so thats about a free 2.7 kps of dV at the top
16:20
at a full gee its about 26.6 KPS of dV. Thats...actually really good holy moly
16:20
Now you just gotta make sure you leave in the right direction, and none of the infrastructure will hit whatever you're launching up
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Overmind
Also, w.r.t. to thickness of cables: I have seen some proposals for impressively thin beanstalk cables. I look upon them with great skepticism, because unless you want to have a beanstalk for the sake of having a beanstalk, you're going to need to hang lots of stuff off your cable(s), and smol ribbon ain't gonna cut it on area-to-clamp-to at all.
doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 5:32 PM
I could be wrong, but I thought the point of a thin beanstalk cable was to make it cheaper and easier to build the beanstalk. E.g., if you can get an entire cable crammed into one superheavy-lift launch, it can unspool from orbit and establish an orbit-head. Then you use the micro-cable to bootstrap progressively heavier and more redundant cables; thus alleviating the need for prior cable manufacturing capacity on-orbit. In theory.
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 5:33 PM
the cable kinda has to be tapered
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0111narwhalz
the cable kinda has to be tapered
doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 5:39 PM
Oh sure. That’s just efficiency issues. But tapering is relative within any particular cable, as I understand it. Like, you’ll have a 20:1 taper ratio between arbitrary points A and B, but is that 20cm / 1cm or 20m / 1m? It matters.
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 5:39 PM
it's an exponential taper
17:40
otherwise the cable will break
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Taco Time
Its always just been a big rock or something like that in most discussions I've seen
doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 5:42 PM
In the RGB Mars series, the top station is tunneled into the counterweight asteroid. Why pass up free rad shielding?
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 5:42 PM
apparently it ends up being 22:1 or so for CNTs, from top to bottom
17:43
that's the ratio of the areas
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I believe the ideal for CNT is 1.6:1
17:54
right now
17:54
we still have much testing to do
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Taco Time
we still have much testing to do
doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 7:10 PM
Build the lunar space elevator first? No materials engineering needed — Kevlar will work — but you get to work out the zillion and three other technical problems vacside.
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Hmmmmm
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doctorcatfish 02/16/2023 7:11 PM
And if it falls, nobody cares
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 7:16 PM
wait can you make a lunar space elevator? don't you have to go to EM L₂ or something?
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EM?
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 7:18 PM
earth-moon
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Ah
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doctorcatfish
And if it falls, nobody cares
0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 7:21 PM
counterpoint: if you're building a space elevator on the moon, it's because you intend to do something with the lunar surface, and therefore you have something on the surface which, one presumes, would not appreciate having a cable fall on it
19:22
lunar elevator will be at least six lunar circumferences, not including the top end
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cable-falling builds character
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No, it builds craters
19:22
On the moon. On earth the cable would likely just burn up
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 7:24 PM
a linear crater, impacting the same place six or more times
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Big ol yoyo
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0111narwhalz
a linear crater, impacting the same place six or more times
this was actually how they made the death star trench
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0111narwhalz 02/16/2023 7:26 PM
poor mimas didn't know whips could get that big
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Ah, yes. The deathstar. Because orbital forts don't get point defense everywhere
19:26
Movie is still good cheesy fun tho
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Overmind
You hope.
(To expand a mite on that: basically, things work in a limited number of configurations, but the possible failure modes are functionally infinite. The phase-space belonging to the fuckup fairy is vasty, and once you get outside the envelope you planned for, things get weird quickly - often in ways you never imagined you would have to plan for. Tacoma-Narrows bridge and torsional aerodynamic flutter, anyone? And when you're building early space elevators without lots of prior art, you probably aren't in a good place to anticipate what you need to anticipate. Plenty of time to get fancy once you have more data.)
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Taco Time
elaborate, please
That's geostationary orbit, which is crowded with commsats and broadcast sats that want to take advantage of ground stations not needing tracking antennae, remote sensing equipment that needs to hang over one spot, including a lot of weather sats, sats which use their position to improve navsat accuracy, etc., etc. It's crowded up there due to its unique physical characteristics, and as such, not a great place to route a shitton of traffic through.
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doctorcatfish
I could be wrong, but I thought the point of a thin beanstalk cable was to make it cheaper and easier to build the beanstalk. E.g., if you can get an entire cable crammed into one superheavy-lift launch, it can unspool from orbit and establish an orbit-head. Then you use the micro-cable to bootstrap progressively heavier and more redundant cables; thus alleviating the need for prior cable manufacturing capacity on-orbit. In theory.
During construction, yeah, that makes perfect sense, but I've seen way too many people assuming that a tiny carbon ribbon is good enough for commercial operations, too - sometimes even for planets with much bigger freight volumes than a near-future Earth. (It makes an interesting variant on the cube-of-gold paradox, at least.)
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 8:54 AM
Cube-of-gold paradox? (edited)
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That's probably not the right name, now I come to think of it. It's the one that points out that while n people can, in theory, lift a 1m³ gold cube, it is in practice impossible because you can't fit n people around it in a configuration which lets them apply lift to the damn thing.
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 9:00 AM
Ahh. Thanks.
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(I find it often applicable to superstrong materials, because, sure, you can make a superstrong material that lets you dangle a million tons of cargo from a thread the thickness of a human hair, but how exactly do you plan to attach the one to the other?)
09:04
(That elevator's gonna need traction units, guide rails, something for the emergency brakes, communications systems, power and other utilities, and on and on...)
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So, speaking for the 'verse, while they have nice superstrong polyful yarn, they braid those into bundles that are a good couple of meters across at the star tower and countermass, and rather more in the middle.
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And while the elevator consortia will sell you a single-strand "Light" model, like the very first ones built, they'll do their best to talk you into the three-strand "Tri" as the baseline commercial option. That gets you three of the above cables in a triangular arrangement, 'bout a half-mile on a side. Cross-braces every quarter-mile or so to ensure that any cable breaks are supported from both above and below and that the cables can't drift into each other during normal operation; every mile these are supplemented with a service platform mounted between the cables to provide a mechanical floor with robot hotels for the linelayers and cable defense systems. Note: these cables are support only. After the framework is built, then they add directional pairs of maglev elevator tracks running up and down the structure attached to the cross-bracing . Same goes for utility core ducting, etc.
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09:35
As needs scale, add more cables. If you know your needs are large from the start, they also sell the six-cable "Hex" and models up to the thirty-six cable "Seranth Special".
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Morgrim Moon 02/17/2023 9:35 AM
"please don't buy a biplane, we can sell you a 747 instead"
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(Note: there's not a technical reason you couldn't run a pair of tracks and a utility core up the cable directly, although you need special clamps to transfer the load right and to handle the taper. That's what you have to do on a "Light", after all. But the designers of commercial space elevators are of the option that if and when terrorism, incompetence, or simple bad luck makes something explode in an elevator car or a utility core, it does so away from the main load-bearing structure . It's not like blowing a cross-brace is a good thing, but it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to fix than resplicing one of the big ones.) (edited)
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Morgrim Moon 02/17/2023 9:40 AM
it'd also prevent the infamous "go fetch the moon" mission
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Morgrim Moon
"please don't buy a biplane, we can sell you a 747 instead"
It is worth noting that the running costs on a "Tri", per volume, are generally significantly lower since the design is much cleaner and doesn't require you to spend time and energy dealing with the compromises, like allowing for significant horizontal motion on your elevator cars.
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Morgrim Moon
it'd also prevent the infamous "go fetch the moon" mission
Well, the big ones are usually designed to cope with cable breaks, to some extent, so you'd have to do more than break one cable to have to chase down the countermass. But even so, as it so often goes in construction, the bigger the break, the harder the fix.
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Of course, on that note, since the elevator cars (each the size of a small building, since you can't stick customers in a small box listening to muzak for the long trip to orbit) come with escape systems for major emergencies - be pushed free of the maglev track and, if in orbit, drift; if in atmo, retro-rocket and parachute back to the surface - to a large extent protocol for bomb threats or bomb detections or skyjackers or other in-car problems is to blow them free of the elevator and sort it out later. It doesn't solve the problem, but it sure reduces the potential scope of it.
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doctorcatfish 02/17/2023 11:05 AM
“Look, Ara’ch’alanya—“ “It’s the ideal setup! It’s an old system with several gas giants; the dust and micromet densities are an order of magnitude below the safety margin. It’s an light atmosphere with an active rain cycle. Sure, the rain is carbon dioxide, but it’s enough to wash particulates away. It’s too phosphorus-poor to be a garden world, and too semiconductor-poor to be a galari colony. But it’s chock full of lanthanides, actinides, and thanks to a nearby supernova a megayear, it’s even got a decent stock of stability-island isotopes! We’ve already built enough on the surface and by the gate to lay proper claim. No one else is even in the constellation yet. It’s perfect!” “And none of that gets your venture out of junk-bond status.” “If I need a different insurer—“ “It’s not the specific provider. It’s not even the setup; you’ve clearly done a fair bit of homework. But entropy happens, and for all your mitigation of foreseeable risks, your entire operation depends on that single, unsecured beanstalk. I’m sorry to have to disillusion you, but no one wants to pour sur-dodeciads of esteyns into the most extensive reification of the phrase shoestring operation ever attempted.”
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doctorcatfish 02/17/2023 11:12 AM
“What if—“ “Stop right there. If the delay means you have competition arrive and your profits drop, too bad. But you’re not getting the contract until you recalculate the business plan with the first step of installing a proper braced tristalk. I’m not sending our firm’s reputation out to the edge of the Worlds to literally hang by a thread.
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Overmind
And while the elevator consortia will sell you a single-strand "Light" model, like the very first ones built, they'll do their best to talk you into the three-strand "Tri" as the baseline commercial option. That gets you three of the above cables in a triangular arrangement, 'bout a half-mile on a side. Cross-braces every quarter-mile or so to ensure that any cable breaks are supported from both above and below and that the cables can't drift into each other during normal operation; every mile these are supplemented with a service platform mounted between the cables to provide a mechanical floor with robot hotels for the linelayers and cable defense systems. Note: these cables are support only. After the framework is built, then they add directional pairs of maglev elevator tracks running up and down the structure attached to the cross-bracing . Same goes for utility core ducting, etc.
Basically what I was gonna do, but less high tech for obvious reasons and about a full kilometer apart (lots of room for growth was wanted)
13:15
so notably thinner cables, with notably smaller carts
13:18
much slower, but getting to geosynch in a little over three hours is still really good for the time
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How far out should a counterweight be?
14:11
Also how big would a mars-based space elevator be?
14:15
I was thinking just three evenly spaced ones on mars, since there are no pesky oceans to get in the way of anything
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Taco Time
How far out should a counterweight be?
depends on many details. What is the counterweight? A hab? A big lump of iron you stick up there? Etc What is the use case? Habitation at the far end? Commercial transport? Is transport heavily one way or the other? What sort of materials are you using specifically? How hard is it to make them?
14:35
if your counterweight is a hab, you don't want to stick it way out; hardly anyone is going to want to live in 3 gees. If you're pandering to spacers, you might even want substantially less than 1 g.
14:36
if your elevator gets a lot of traffic and it's mostly one directional, your counterweight requirements may change. More weight if you're mostly shipping up, less if you're shipping down.
14:38
This will be affected by the strength of the cable and the forces already present - for instance, if gravity is significant then you probably won't need to factor in the forces imparted by traffic, because the amount of traffic to vaguely compare to the force it experiences just existing in earthlike gravity would be absurd
14:38
but if you're building a cable on, say, the moon...
14:38
also, the cable costs factor in heavily here
14:39
you can save on counterweight mass by putting it further out, but that requires more cable material
14:40
iron or lead is very cheap, but there are going to be other engineering considerations involved in the counterweight construction that may make especially large counterweights tricky, so the answer probably isn't 'put the counterweight as close to the turnover point as possible'
14:41
also there's safety and stability concerns
14:41
farther out with less mass = greater centrifugal force, and so any stray gravitational forces are relatively less
14:42
so the system becomes less vulnerable to unexpected gravitational perturbations, which apply force proportional to the counterweight mass
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stray gravitational forces?
14:42
I don't think I should be expecting a rogue planetoid coming around (edited)
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yeah honestly its probably not a big concern in most situations
14:43
although if you went hard for the "gigantic counterweight as close to the turnover point as possible" then it could be a risk
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Also as the station underneath grows, the counterweight might need to change too
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maybe the moon is in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, or there are some geological shifts down on the planet that results in a drop of 0.25% gravity (which is nominal variation for earth), and that causes Problems
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I forget, on a space elevator station you'd have artificial gravity via centrifugal force imparted on the station, right?
14:45
Or would it be freefall
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if you want it, yes
14:45
gravity will depend on where you are on the cable, so you can build a station that experiences any of a variety of forces
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hmmm
14:46
At about the 36k km mark where geostationary is, what would it be?
14:46
Assuming you're not in a rotating hub of some kind and just going along with the station
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 2:47 PM
It's geostationary. By definition, it's where gravitational and centrifugal forces balance. (edited)
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Fair enough
14:49
how far out would you need to be for, say, a consistent one gee?
14:50
Is there an equation or calculator I can find for this?
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there are but most of them expect you to go in the other direction, it seems
14:50
lemme see if wolfram alpha can do it
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So what would happen if you went below the geosynch point?
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if you go down, you get gravitational force towards the earth, if you go up, the gravitational force is smaller than the centrifugal, so you get upwards force
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hmm
14:56
so if you built one at the edge of low orbit (about 1000km up) you'd probably have about one gee of gravity "downwards", given the relatively minimal centrifugal force? (edited)
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ok so, centrifugal acceleration is dependant only on the radial velocity (squared), and the distance (linear)
14:59
so we know at geosynch it's 0.31 m/s, to exactly balance out gravity at that point
14:59
so if you want 9m/s, it'll be about 30x geosynch... wow that's really fucking far
15:00
that doesn't sound right but the math seems to work out?
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that
15:00
hmm
15:00
are you sure all your numbers are correct?
15:00
Give it a double check
15:01
thats a million kilometer cable, roughly
15:01
Either I still haven't fully internalized how space elevators are or something got fudged along the way with the math
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well even wikipedia attests that this is the formula for centrifugal force as a function of mass, radius, and angular velocity
15:02
angular velocity is fixed along the entire elevator
15:02
so it becomes f=mr
15:03
and we're concerned about acceleration, which is a=f/m. So it just becomes a=r... times a unstated constant
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 3:08 PM
Yup, that tracks.
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at geosynch orbit, the equation will equal around 0.03g
15:08
so yeah, you need 30x geosynch orbit distance
15:09
a million kilometer cable. Jeesh. I had the vague idea that the scaling was quadratic
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wouldn't this mean that a counterweight would have to be extremely massive, or extremely far out then?
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like "several million tonne asteroid" large
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though making it extremely massive might not be that bad. You could come up with a setup that starts with a small cable and counterweight and uses it to carry up more cable and more counterweight
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 3:13 PM
Once the cable is past geosynch it starts being the counterweight.
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that too
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 3:13 PM
With a 30x long cable and anything on the end, pretty sure Earth is your counterweight.
15:14
this brings a lot into question about any space elevator design now
15:14
Either we've dun goofed or space elevators by nature need small mountains on their tops
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small mountain really isn't that bad
15:15
you by definition have a easy and cheap way to ship mass up to the far end
15:15
the only tricky part is that you need the counterweight first
15:15
but you can start with a small elevator
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I thought geosynch was when the centrifugal force was balanced with gravity but since it takes so much more to get one gee through the power of speen, that can't be right
15:16
or Im missing another aspect
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no it is
15:16
keep in mind that geosync is so far out that gravity is just really weak
15:16
gravity scales down faster than the centrifugal force scales up
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 3:17 PM
Grav is inverse-square, centrifugal is linear.
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by the time you're a million km out you're going about 73 KPS in orbit
15:17
yeesh
15:18
since centrifugal is linear
15:18
doesn't that mean that any setting with a absurdly strong cable material will let you make a silly cannon using a space elevator
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I mean, I've said that at a full gee without slowing down halfway you get nearly 30 KPS at the top
15:19
26.6 to be more precise
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wait no, circumference is also linear. So not as much as i was thinking
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Buggy
doesn't that mean that any setting with a absurdly strong cable material will let you make a silly cannon using a space elevator
DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 3:19 PM
A launch tether, yes.
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so if you don't slow down, you can get some serious speed
15:19
time it right and you can be flinging express packages to mars for dirt cheap prices
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DSD [He/They] 02/17/2023 3:20 PM
Just As Planned.
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humanity at this point is also going to have lots orbital cutters and such, mostly chemical
15:22
turns out its a lot easier to make a chemical rocket craft when you don't have to go up and sideways beforehand
15:23
6-7,000 m/s of dV is pretty easy, its that painful extra 4-5,000 extra dV to make orbit that kills the fuel/payload ratio
15:23
So I'm working on basic little things like that
15:23
And then I just have 800 more years of worldbuilding to go. (edited)
15:26
Space elevators are also handy-dandy to mount big ol' shipyards to so you can mass produce nuclear rockets to get around the solar system at much less painful speeds
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Honestly kinda considering just going full ham and calling the station Atlantis
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Taco Time
Honestly kinda considering just going full ham and calling the station Atlantis
doctorcatfish 02/19/2023 3:55 AM
New Atlantis, perhaps? You get some philosophical bread for your ham sandwich; Francis Bacon dreamed up the modern research university under that name
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Excellent idea my good sir
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Then I hope my sacrifice will be remembered
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There's a nice story called https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/fleet-of-the-homeward-bound-sci-fi-shipgirl-multicross.896133 "Fleet of the Homeward Bound" on SpaceBattles. It's a megacrossover! Except due to constraints of small shared universe all the ships stumbled upon, they are shipgirls. Well, no. All the crew are "asleep in their quarters" and ships are suddenly self-aware, sapient, communicative and perceive themselves and other ships as shipgirls (despite, for external observer, still being ships). It's nifty concept to cut down the CAST EXPLOSION inherent to megacrossovers, and I find it works well. But what's fun Eldrae ship to drop into shared verse, I wonder?
13:22
... Yeah, modulo FTL, but in the B-team there's Red Dwarf, most superluminal non-ftl-possessing lighthugger ever.
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hmmm
13:23
The classic choice is something big, like a megafreighter or dreadnought for the simple fact that if you have one ship to use, may as well make it stand out
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:23 PM
[angry AKV noises]
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on the other hand, seeing something like an antimatter hauler could make for some unique interactions
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Maybe linelayer?
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oooh
13:24
good choice
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And yes, Red Dwarf caused significant headache to at least one ship from Star Trek, because usually, you don't find interstellar ramscoop three light years from where you left them in a few days.
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Imagine needing FTL drives
13:25
just go faster lmao (edited)
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Last B-Team snippet was about banana versus hegemonizing bricks. I mean, World Devastators versus Mothership.
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:26 PM
"noo you can't go faster than light it's a universal speed limit" "haha skylark go brrrrr"
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Include some kraken-ed abomination from KSP
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Okay yes
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As the Porters bring their prize to me, they each release their target, who is now thoroughly immobilised. Eyes dull, the battleship could only stare blankly as I reach out. With my enormous hands I cover the battleship's nose and mouth a panel detached on my side, opening up access to my hanger bay, and the battleship was relentlessly drawn inside. Eventually, the battleship went limp. I inhale deeply, and then exhale. The Research Ships squeal in excitement as they swarm the corpse, their arms interlocked with each other like children in one of the ancient circle-dances of the sand.
(edited)
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:26 PM
interstellar colony ship propelled by parachutes
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I allow them a moment to get a good look, then shoo them away and inhale again. White light spills out from between my fingertips out from my hanger bays as the panel opens again, and the battleship's eyes open. They are not the same eyes as before. Before they had been the vibrant blue of the enemy. Now they are the sand-blasted brown typical of the Hiigaran people. The enemy fleet is visibly taken aback – that I can see even from the wrong side of the language barrier. I can see in their eyes, the calculus of the battle shifting against them.
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KAL_9000
Okay yes
@NHO I don't have a SpaceBattles account, please suggest including the good ship Untitled Spacecraft in a comment for me and taco time (edited)
13:27
🙏
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NHO
Last B-Team snippet was about banana versus hegemonizing bricks. I mean, World Devastators versus Mothership.
World Devastators, also known as World Smashers, World Sweepers, Planet Smashers, or City Eaters, were gigantic superweapons, successors of the Imperial Leviathan, with strong tractor beams attached to them that could wreak havoc on planets. They were designed by Umak Leth and employed by the Dark Empire led by the reborn Emperor Palpatine. Alth...
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:28 PM
isn't Shitfuck [number] more fashionable these days?
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and uh
13:29
whats Mothership?
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... Kerbal Space Program wasn't mentioned in the thread once. This is a disgrace.
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0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:29 PM
misread as "imperial latvian" for a strange second
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Taco Time
whats Mothership?
0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:29 PM
homeworld
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0111narwhalz
isn't Shitfuck [number] more fashionable these days?
compromise, Untitled Space Craft as a naming prefix like USS
13:29
USC Shitfuck 79
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so who's getting yoinked here?
13:29
The WD or Mothership?
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NHO
As the Porters bring their prize to me, they each release their target, who is now thoroughly immobilised. Eyes dull, the battleship could only stare blankly as I reach out. With my enormous hands I cover the battleship's nose and mouth a panel detached on my side, opening up access to my hanger bay, and the battleship was relentlessly drawn inside. Eventually, the battleship went limp. I inhale deeply, and then exhale. The Research Ships squeal in excitement as they swarm the corpse, their arms interlocked with each other like children in one of the ancient circle-dances of the sand.
(edited)
Average Salvage Corvette enjoyer
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Taco Time
The WD or Mothership?
wd
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Well, one of WD escort ships.
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KAL_9000
wd
mothership is janking a ship with their marine boarding and computer hacking "Salvage" Corvettes
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NHO
... Kerbal Space Program wasn't mentioned in the thread once. This is a disgrace.
it should be a ship that appears incredibly mundane that suddenly, with no warning, does some physics-breaking eldritch abomination fuckery for a moment before promptly becoming mundane again
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Taco Time
it should be a ship that appears incredibly mundane that suddenly, with no warning, does some physics-breaking eldritch abomination fuckery for a moment before promptly becoming mundane again
tactical kraken drive
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Exactly
13:32
...would it get timewarp abilities?
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KAL_9000
tactical kraken drive
enemy spacecraft noclip against the fabric of reality and spaghettify into a million pieces
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Remember Danny2462
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CORE MEMORY UNLOCKED
13:35
god
13:35
good times
13:35
Nexter's Lab
13:35
SWDennis
13:36
and of course
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KAL_9000
enemy spacecraft noclip against the fabric of reality and spaghettify into a million pieces
0111narwhalz 03/07/2023 1:37 PM
ranges severely reduced because it is delocalized if you're more than 2.7km away
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our god and savior, compound error of floating point rounding...
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