The Current State of Human Technology

[Aygar]

The bell inequalities show that Non-Local phenomena must exist using quantum entanglement. Non-Local phenomena may allow for useful and causality problem free FTL communication and transport. Thus the confusion.

[Atomic]

The bell inequalities show that Non-Local phenomena must exist using quantum entanglement. Non-Local phenomena may allow for useful and causality problem free FTL communication and transport. Thus the confusion.

Hmm. I'm ashamed to admit that i've gotten rusty at this since I left High Energy studies. Add that that i'm more or less foreign. Yeah, that was the term i was looking for.

On another thought,

Is it me or the way hyperjumps are described allow for hyperspace "ballistic" shots?

[Aygar]

Is it me or the way hyperjumps are described allow for hyperspace "ballistic" shots?

They do allow for "ballistic" shots through hyperspace.

If that does not answer your question please rephrase your question.

[Paragon]

Really, anything that gets people to stop having boring unfunny arguments over physics that this thread isn't even supposed to be about anyway.

Seriously please, stop getting butthurt over physics or people calling your ideas unrealistic. Go have internet slap fight somewhere else. Thank you.

You haven't been here very long, have you?

Besides, is it unreasonable to ask that a world - even if it is a science fiction setting - follow its own consistent laws? Or that those laws not violate what we know to be true about the mechanics of reality?

To your first question, no I haven't.

To your second question, that's completely reasonable. It's also not what this thread is supposed to be about. Like, at all. I also don't think it's unreasonable for people to talk about what the original poster made the thread about. If Mjolnir wants to correct people on common misconceptions about real world physics that are commonly misrepresented in science fiction, then is it unreasonable to ask that he go make a thread about that instead? i don't think it is, since making a thread takes all of one minute to do. Really, the off-topic derails going on here would be no different than if I went into one of the RP threads and posted page after page on the changes in English literature between the time of Shakespeare and the writing of Robinson Crusoe.

[Arioch]

This board isn't busy enough to keep dozens of threads active at one time, so I don't have a problem when threads drift a bit in terms of topic. If a thread on Loroi technology turns into a three-page pissing match about Warhammer 40,000, that's potental cause for a thread split. But I don't see any problem having a discussion about the nature of technology in fiction in a thread about technology.

Let's please try to give each other a bit of leeway in the discussions here.

[Nemo]

Let's please try to give each other a bit of leeway in the discussions here.

Leeway? Look pal, there ain't but one internet, and it ain't big enough fer the two of us. /highnoon

[Aygar]

Let's please try to give each other a bit of leeway in the discussions here.

Leeway? Look pal, there ain't but one internet, and it ain't big enough fer the two of us. /highnoon

The bar freezes. . . . . Some guy leans back nudges Nemo, saying 'that's the God of this here world you don challenged'. . . . Bar continues its depopulation at ever higher rates.

[Nemo]

Now where have I seen this before... oh ya.

[Paragon]

Okay, fine. I see your point there.

Say Arioch, what's the view on transhumanism in the future? Do people try to do crazy shit like make human eyes see more of the EM spectrum, or make ourselves more tolerant of gasses (for example carbon dioxide vis a vis alligator genes like in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books)? Or maybe get implants that let us access the internet like in Ghost in the Shell?

[Karst45]

Say Arioch, what's the view on transhumanism in the future?

LOL i like how you formulated that question.

[Arioch]

Say Arioch, what's the view on transhumanism in the future? Do people try to do crazy shit like make human eyes see more of the EM spectrum, or make ourselves more tolerant of gasses (for example carbon dioxide vis a vis alligator genes like in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books)? Or maybe get implants that let us access the internet like in Ghost in the Shell?

As I mentioned in my post of the first page of the thread, the humans in Outsider have a specific role to play in the story as the reader's point of view, so for all practical purposes, they are essentially modern humans transported 150 years into the future. There are a number of ways to explain this, some of which may even make sense, but it's important to keep in mind that this is a story-mandated decision, not a prediction of the future.

As mentioned before, genetic manipulation of humans will still be heavily restricted if not totally banned in most Earth nations, so most genetic experiments will have been exported to the new colonies, where there is less restriction. Anything that you can imagine is probably being experimented with, from super-troopers to exotic "pleasure models"... but this is taking place on the Offworld frontier where it doesn't have that much impact on humanity as a whole. 100-200 years farther in the future, it will become a much bigger issue.

Increased longevity will have significant impact on our social systems, but perhaps not as much direct impact of the individual lives of younger people like Alex and the scout crews. Though it does mean that someone like Hamilton might be a lot older than he actually looks.

As I've mentioned before, I think Ghost in the Shell-type implants and prosthetics are not as near-future as many authors assume, but also for this story we want a human Alex that's easy to relate to, and not a weird cyborg with plugs in his head. So we infer that such things are not yet commonly available.

[Atomic]

Is it me or the way hyperjumps are described allow for hyperspace "ballistic" shots?

They do allow for "ballistic" shots through hyperspace.

If that does not answer your question please rephrase your question.

So technically hyperspace may be abused to impunely drop any kind of crap in the next gravitational well (read: star system).

Oh the vandalism and the abuse...

[NOMAD]

Is it me or the way hyperjumps are described allow for hyperspace "ballistic" shots?

They do allow for "ballistic" shots through hyperspace.

If that does not answer your question please rephrase your question.

So technically hyperspace may be abused to impunely drop any kind of crap in the next gravitational well (read: star system).

Oh the vandalism and the abuse...

not quiet, If you go to the extra sections of the outsider, under FTL, it's has been really updated. To give a bare-bones summary; hyperspace travel is ballistic is nature, but its still hazardous. Once a ships enters hyperspace, You had to make sure that your course was correct, since the ship must enter the entry point precisely and at the right distance from the target system sun ( and avoid any planets)

Imagine this ( might not be correct so bear with me), making a hyperspace jump is like trying to hit a 10 point target, some distance away, while aiming for the 6-7 point line, since 1-3 might end up hitting short and your lost in hyperspace. 4-5 is where a planet hit and you could hit the planet and go KA-BOOM, 8-9 is very close to the sun and will result is a nearly missing the sun or entering an inescapable orbital decent into the sun and 10 is the sun centre, no need to explain what would happen their.

now what stops a jump: a sun gravity well ( think of target butt, but with only covering the target ring) the larger the sun or planets for more larger the target and the better your able to stops. However, if the system is unknown, then a hyperspace jump is like shooting at a target with an unfocused telescope site, your not able to judge or detect where the shoot.

and finally, if your wondering about missing the target, your your ships is never heard from again or you enter negative-hyperspace

if this doesn't make sense Arioch ( and other on this forum) said it so much better

[Arioch]

Hyperspace jumps are inherently "ballistic" in the sense that once you've lined up your vector and engaged the jump generator, it's like a cannon shot -- you either hit or miss your target, as there's no (current) way to alter your course once in hyperspace.

However, whatever is within the jump field goes into hyperspace. It's not (currently) possible to lob garbage into hyperspace without the lobbing ship going with it. If that was the question.

[Fotiadis_110]

What really makes me curious is the materials we humans choose to construct our starships in this modern era.

Titanium is a expensive and small resource even with the entire surface of the earth on hand, so unless they develop means to identify deposits deep below the surface i don't believe the entire human fleet can be made of such materials.
Tungsten is another 'high tech' solution with an even smaller collection of viable deposits despite obscene prices regularly being paid.
So this suggests either lightweight alloys or heavy ones.
Lightweight ones come with high strength and low weight, but also are practically transparent to high energy particles, not a good look for exoplanetary transportation, while heavy alloys currently identified are more or less materials for the purpose of blocking high energy radiation from things like nuclear reactors... and come with high weight and low strength.

My instinct is to say 'Oh they'd use ceramics' however I also recognise one of their material weaknesses, low tolerance for high energy radiation due to the types of bonds involved... frustrating really, but glass for example is degraded rapidly by alpha particles due to the collapse of Si-O bonds, and gamma and beta are the same but on a lesser scale.

Metal alloys 'heal' small damages due to radiation, while covalent bonds collapse and ionic bonds are destabilised :/

Has anyone given thought to this topic aside from me?

[Arioch]

Weight is going to be critical for a low-tech starship, especially for a long-range vessel like Bellarmine. So I would expect that heat-critical areas in the engines will be made of exotic, expensive metal alloys, but most of the rest of the structure of a scout will be lightweight composite materials analogous to fiberglass or carbon fiber.

Terran vessels designed for combat will no doubt have much heavier, more expesnive armor platings.

[TrashMan]

I'd assuem starship plating to be layerd. Not a single material, but rather a composite...a sandwich if you will.

[Trantor]

Titanium is a expensive and small resource even with the entire surface of the earth on hand,

Who says so? It´s rather the other way, titanium is cheap and ubiquitous, it´s the 9th most element on earth. At the top of it´s pork cycle titanium sheets were so cheap, cheaper than stainless steel, they used it for roofs and facades here in europe.

[Ktrain]

Question on jumps: In the Outsiderverse, has there ever been a recorded instance of a ship making a jump and then missing its target, and having it eventually found someplace else?

[Mjolnir]

Titanium is a expensive and small resource even with the entire surface of the earth on hand, so unless they develop means to identify deposits deep below the surface i don't believe the entire human fleet can be made of such materials.

Titanium is extremely common, its relative lack of use is mainly due to it being difficult to work. 95% of the ore mined is actually currently used to produce titanium dioxide instead of titanium metal. Cost of the metal is largely due to the energy used to make it, and with the amounts of energy being thrown around to fly starships, there's plenty available to make titanium.

Tungsten is another 'high tech' solution with an even smaller collection of viable deposits despite obscene prices regularly being paid.
So this suggests either lightweight alloys or heavy ones.
Lightweight ones come with high strength and low weight, but also are practically transparent to high energy particles, not a good look for exoplanetary transportation, while heavy alloys currently identified are more or less materials for the purpose of blocking high energy radiation from things like nuclear reactors... and come with high weight and low strength.

Nobody's going to use heavy alloys as any major structural component of a spacecraft. Heavy metals are an extremely poor way to shield against radiation on spacecraft, the best performing materials are actually low density hydrocarbons and light metals.

Dislocations due to absorption of radiation can be annealed out by simple heating in some cases...look up the Wigner effect. Other components may simply require periodic replacement, or be limited to non-structural roles...only a small part of the ship will be exposed to high intensity radiation.