So I mixed Stratego and Chess. How?
Step 1. Take a chess board and an amount of opposing stratego pieces equal to the usual chesss setup.
Step 2: Make or find stickers to put behind the stratego pieces that ID them as chess pieces, at least to you.
The other player will have to make educated...
Plants on mars? I will tell you what I have read and seen.
Read: Plants using martian dirt are plausible, but they are also likely toxic due to the abundance of perchorlates (probably misspelled it) in the martian soil. Now it is possible to filter that junk out, but in all likelihood it will...
Was wondering this for a scifi alien race I have in mind, is it chemically possible to have a race with combustible blood.?
The answer: Yes, but I wonder how close the blood will be to our own? Since oxygen carrying blood like ours is preferred since it can deliver more energy for the work...
Hmmm... it's all in the details, especially the honeworld environment.
A somewhat Earth-like world is not a bad start, especially considering that oxygen provides a lot of energy for lifeforms.
Yet differences can easily crop up from there. For example, a world with more oxygen that was very...
Better efficiency would be nice, but the easiest way I know of doing that is by running through lots of propellant and mixing it with antimatter.
Granted you can fly for days at 1g that way, and a magnetic nozzle is likely a must as well as plenty of radiators. Magnetic nozzles are bad in the...
Interesting, but the handwave is the fiction part, just like so many scifi media spacecraft s have fiction working in league with known science to make them work.
Unless you guess or assume it will be possible to get 95% efficient radiators some day. It just might be.
Either way it favors...
There is a difference between being informed, misinformed, or being ignorant of the science behind common scifi staples.
Ignore that if you wish, but it won't change anything.
Strenghths and weaknesses eh?
I guess that comes with the territory.
For me scifi aliens must be distinct in their behavior from common humanity.
As far as strengths and weaknesses, my SF aliens take a concept and answer the what if question of how far they take the concept.
In several ways...
The challenges of fusion I have discussed at length and won't do so again.
But the main reason or showstopper, even if we had a ton of antimatter and a safe way to store it (we have partially a safe way to store it), we are not out of the woods yet.
Why? Radiator mass. The greater the heat...
I suppose you prefer scifi hard corrosponding to IRL limits and current understanding?
If so know this:
Neither antimatter nor fusion are the panacea scifi makes them appear to be, as both require a healthy helping of fiction to even work at all as commonly depicted in scifi media.
As for...
Thanks. The reason the sherpas are like that is because their blood is thinner (has less oxygen) and can work with less.
Now I suppose maybe after breeding a few new generations on an Earth world the descendents of the humanoids might adapt naturally.
Or it may even be an engineered given...
Scifi Humanoids by their very nature are'nt very alien. Where they compensate is how well they can interact with human characters.
However, there are internal ways to modify them.
Main question: I researched oxygen and learned that less oxygem breathed makes humans fatigued faster, while too...
Turns out creating life from nonliving matter is hard. Like really hard. So far impossible even for humans. Which is ironic given the popular ideas of our time.
Yet if intelligent effort continues to fail maybe we should throw some DNA and nanobots in a deep hole and let it sit for several...
Antimatter particle beam.
SF makes it possible to be cheap enough to produce to use as a weapon. SF also allows a spacecraft to fire it at near lightspeed velocity... without the massive radiators that would dwarf your vessel that IRL current science entails.
A gram of antimatter hitting...
Gravity is not something you could propel a ship with. Although you could do some gravity sling shots with it, or ecen mdke a gravity gun of sorts.
Gravity is far better at a launching or slowing objects other than the one posessing the gravity generation.
For 2020 only, every human on Earth suddenly gets the desire to accept, provide, and support responsibility.
What are the pros? Whay are the cons?
I go first. You can add anything I may have missed after.
Pros: People with normal good goals either achive them or make a lot of progress...
Space is space with the virtual absence of mass, with the presence of radiation and whatever stray particles that pass over it.
From a scifi perspective space can be used for a type or even types of scifi propulsion.
Since space is volume and the virtual absence of mass, any scifi drive that...
I cannot speak for the gazelles, but I saw antelope or some other horned grazing animal attack and try to kill a bear cub once.
The reason? The bear's mom had just killed the creatures kid and was dragging it off to eat it. It had to literally pause and stop to chase off the enraged antelope...
Well I can add one more to sum it up afterall.
Physical: Namely the one or thing one is in conflict with is a factual threat, not merely a perceived one. It's a matter of survival. Kill or be killed. This happens arguably more in the animal world than the human one. Wars involving humans or...
Good. You and others have added reasons why.
I think that sums it up. I cannot think of anymore reasons. But to super sum it all up:
Conflict both in scifi and IRL is based on:
Emotional factors.
Mental factors.
Resources
Idealogy
That's all. Easy.
Inasmuch scifi is a mirror of our reality and always has been on some level, I think that the nature of conflict in scifi is as well.
There are many reasons to fight in scifi, but I will summarize some broad reasons that should cover just about all possible reasons.
1. Resources. Real history...
Personally I think it is chess. Which also makes it relatively safer to play.
Video games are designed to suck up hours of time, while chess, if challenging enough, is such a mental workout that one game is enough.
Both chess and video games can be addictive, but video games are often designed...
Indeed... the solution is to twofold.
1. Bring the alien store to them.
2. Bring them to the alien store. Have alien starship? Will travel.
Both can be rich story material.
In the case of one, the issues are a bunch of human regulatuve redtape and security.
In the case of 2 humans are...
So one alien credit equals over a thousand USD?
Even so... it got me thinking.
Governments would put limits on what the aliens could buy I bet.
Like I do not think they want the aliens buying real estate or land.
Let the aliens buy whatever they want and they can subtlely dominate the...
In the USA if you go to Mexico your money is worth a lot more over there.
Likewise if you are a scifi alien with a scifi starship your money should go much farther in the USA than it would on your homeworld.
The question is... how far?
How much would a human nation realistically let alien...
Originally the concept was that hyperspace was a sphere with many layers. Circling around the layers could get to locations in real space faster, and with advanced drives one could burrow through layers to reach locations from hyperspace even faster.
In the popular media, scifi is often...
Interesting thoughts.
I think the easier interstellar travel is, the more the mundane stuff might ship.
Hyperdrives do help with that.
I am in brainstorming mode so I am not set on the OP idea, it is only an example.
I recently came across a really interesting hyperspace idea that I have...
It is possible to grow any spice anywhere there is dirt, water, and sunlight and ferilizer
Earth worlds, as common as they are in scifi, make such cross interstellae planting more likely if included.
Not sure if serious... but I can answer that.
Information or nothing at all.
Sending EM wave information LY away and keeping it intact enough to still be useable is a feat we have yet to manage.
And if we did... know what else we could do?
LY range laser cannons.
Have a nice day!
So in a setting with interstellar travel I was thinking about interstellar trade.
I know the method of travel dicates what is traded, so I will elaborate below:
Constant Acceleration: Refueling is virtually not a concern.
Stargates: Ships can accelerate for months to reach just bellow...
Perhaps.
Shapes offer advatages and disadvantages innately.
Common sense will apply no matter how advanced technology becomes.
So it is possible to pressurize a giant pyramid shaped vessel, and you may have scifi tech to keep the sharp edges from leaking under pressure.
But why? Other than...
Where we differ is the tech level.
In my opinion if a scifi race has the energy to fly spaceships at warp/FTL/jump drive and the energy required is anywhere near theorized, then they would be able to do much better than fusion and antimatter rocket propulsion.
And yes, alcubierre warp in...
Do you already know why we do not have a working fusion reactor right now?
Are you aware of the specific reasons?
Here's why as follows, which is why I think the way I do. I rather make stuff up than give peopke false hope that a technology we understand can do more than it already does:
Why...
The energies required for FTL/warp are staggingly high if using modern science theory.
Any massive concentration of energy that we know how to handle is either stored over a wide area, or released like water hose as opposed to having a deluge come down on you.
The energy of a nuclear blast is...
As there are several ways to cook an egg, there are several ways to create tension and danger for characters if that's what you want.
Sabotage? Traitors? Enemy attack on the control ship? There is still plenty tension to go around if that's what you want.
By the time our heroes are marooned on...
FTL and warp are energy intensive in fiction, and even real scientists calculated at first that warping space would take a planet Jupiter mass converted into energy amount.
Later it was revised to only about 800 kilograms, about the weight the voyager 1 probe.
Even so, that is still a massive...
Human command or it's scifi race equivalent is needed to direct attacks most efficiently.
I have a feeling that deception will play a huge role if tech is good enough for scifi staples such as casual FTL or warping between systems.
Ever play Stratego? This is just like that but on a massive...
This is not a spaceflight based forum, so I do not expect all to be familiar with Zubrin's nuclear saltwater rocket concept. Basically a rocket that uses plutonium or uranium salts in water to start a nuclear chain reaction which is supposed to happen somehow outside the engine (as it is getting...
The internet was designed to survive a nuclear attack, so I doubt it would not survive a nuclear attack, although wiping out satellites would kill a lot of connectivity.
As for the drones, they are only the advance force for invading troops and machines.
Troops and vehicles neutralize threats...
Well at least your keeping up with me rather than relying on outdated tactics to win.
Such a method could in theory work. But it would be limited in scope. Why?
Unlike scifi wise designers do not central control all, rather they use servers and backups, so if one section falls another will...
Depends on how sophisticated and ruthless the AI he is trying to hack is does it not?
Hacking requires a link does it not? And upon a hacker being detected, I am certain the AI would be sending whatever appropriate level of force is required to 'neutralize' the threat.
Star Trek makes me...
I am implying that a weaker opponent could not hope to militarily beat a technologically superior foe in space. Especially if they are outnumbered at that.
Tying one's hands behind's one back because of laws is a human concept that scifi aliens may discard, while they may care more about stuff...
GTOM that's more or less why I think outside the fictional box and use reality where it is not story-breaking.
Certain concepts really are story breaking if we follow reality, but I temd to always compensate somehow. Examples:
How do starships deal with meeting mass/energy ratios that would...
Given the energy required, I think plasma windows can be ruled out if working with current understanding of science only.
Either fiction or some future breakthrough or discovery is required for a spaceship to harness energy on that level and not be megastation sized because of managing the waste...
Meteorites are the least of a pirate ship's problems. For the most part there is little reason for two warring spaceships to close within a few kilometers of one another, since missiles can kill at beyond that range and can cover kilometers in a matter of seconds in space.
And at those speeds...
Using real science we can extrapolate what hull shapes could be used, assuming we actually did have high thrust constant acceleration drives (we don't because it requires energy/mass ratios that tend to cancel each other out).
So what shapes?
Pill capsules are ideal for crewed vessels. Even...
The interesting thing about scifi space travel is that it remains hard even with scifi tech, so long you allow propellant and gravity limits to still exist.
In a way it is kind of a good thing, only in that it prevents widespread easy RKV starship use.
My question is how long would travel take...