Nolgroth Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 http://rss.iscabbs.com/getpost.cgi?forum=67&post=37159 Enjoy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought Interesting article. Repped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought Yikes. Makes you want to recalculate the frequency of life-bearing planets in the universe. Apparently not only the solar system but the galaxy itself must be amenable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought Shrug. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you're toast. You need not have a full inventory of wrong places to grasp this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought I'm always interested in novel ways to go extinct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gewing Posted September 23, 2006 Report Share Posted September 23, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought http://rss.iscabbs.com/getpost.cgi?forum=67&post=37159 Enjoy. Wow. One thought though, even if it had been within the danger range of earth, wouldn't it have only bombarded a little over 1/2 the earths surface in the 33 minute burst? Would that have sterilized the whole planet? sure, it would have devastated the planet, but a planet is a big place, and life is resilient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Play4Keeps Posted September 23, 2006 Report Share Posted September 23, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought Wow. One thought though, even if it had been within the danger range of earth, wouldn't it have only bombarded a little over 1/2 the earths surface in the 33 minute burst? Would that have sterilized the whole planet? sure, it would have devastated the planet, but a planet is a big place, and life is resilient. I'd think the Earth's magnetic field (with "help" from the Sun's magnetic field) would bend it around the whole Earth. Wait: no, not the gamma rays. But the charged particles made when the gamma rays hit atoms in the upper atmosphere would be bent. And the interaction of gamma rays and atoms all through the atmosphere would heat up the air to the boiling point of water and beyond. At least, that's my guesstimate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 23, 2006 Report Share Posted September 23, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought . . . Well, that's an answer to the Fermi Paradox as good as any . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted September 25, 2006 Report Share Posted September 25, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought I'd think the Earth's magnetic field (with "help" from the Sun's magnetic field) would bend it around the whole Earth. Wait: no, not the gamma rays. But the charged particles made when the gamma rays hit atoms in the upper atmosphere would be bent. And the interaction of gamma rays and atoms all through the atmosphere would heat up the air to the boiling point of water and beyond. At least, that's my guesstimate. I hadn't thought of that, but I believe you're right. Repped! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodigyduck Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought All I can think is: ZAP! "Ow, my sperm!" ZAP! "Huh... It didn't hurt that time." It is a creppy though to think of a cosmic doomsday weapon, just as it is creepy to know that the world is completely unprepared for the event of a killer meteor. But, to be honest, I don't worry about such things. There is honestly -nothing- we can do about such events. If they happen, we die... or, at best, get thrown back to the cave-man days. Either way, there is no point in stressing about such events that we, as a race, have absolutely no control over. The only thing we can do is try to work harder on our space program. Only be improving our method of finding new ways to travel through space, and finding new worlds to inhabit, can we be truely safe from such calamities. Those individuals who say "we need to fix our problems on Earth before we start to think about going into space" are morons of the highest degree. If one of these comsic doomsday events does happen, and we are all, as a race, still on Earth when it does... goodbye Humanity. So look at it this way... Either don't worry about it (which is what I do, as I do not have the proper educational background for the second option), or go to work for the space program for the betterment of humankind as a whole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted October 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought I don't think I worry so much as I was thinking of the connotations in a Star HERO sense. Example 1: Doomsday Weapon. Players must stop the "mysterious and advanced remnant of an ancient civilization" from setting off this doomsday weapon. Why they would want to set it off in the first place would be an interesting exercise in and of itself. Example 2: Indiana Jones and the Doomed Planet. The characters stumble upon the ruins of an ancient civilzation, millions of years dead. Trying to figure out what happened and (more importantly) what technomagery was left behind could occupy a short campaign in and of itself. I'm sure there are more plot seeds that such an event can engender, but that's the idea. Actually having a naturally occurring supernova of that scale, that is unavoidable, would be a rather boring end to a campaign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought Example 2: Indiana Jones and the Doomed Planet. The characters stumble upon the ruins of an ancient civilzation' date=' millions of years dead. Trying to figure out what happened and (more importantly) what technomagery was left behind could occupy a short campaign in and of itself.[/quote'] That sounds vaguely, and unsettlingly, familiar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarek Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought "Indiana Jones and the Doomed Planet". That plot has shown up more than a few times in the past decade or so, in SF novels from a wide variety of authors. I've also seen it on TV. Babylon 5: Crusade, episode 9, "Racing the Night." In a way, it's also one of the major events of the main Babylon 5 series... only the 'dead' civilization wasn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MPT Posted October 9, 2006 Report Share Posted October 9, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought The link seems to have died. It comes up with the message... Could not find post 37159 in forum number 67 - it is no longer in our cache Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted October 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought That's too bad. I can't even find a reference with a quick Google search. basically, the crux of the article is that a Blue Giant that went supernova 242 million light years away may have sent out enough gamma radiation to destroy life in four galaxies. The gamma ray burst lasted some 33 minutes and I can't recall if the average length was a few seconds or a few minutes, but this one was substantially longer. However, if you google "killer supernova" there are a ton of links about closer supernova and other neat info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightning91 Posted October 21, 2006 Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought WOW!!! And to think I have wasted all this time worrying about being killed by holes in the ozone, nuclear winter, or the bird flu!!! Note: I also could not find the article. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted October 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought Looks like it was a temporary article at best. Sorry about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted October 21, 2006 Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought No problem. What were we talking about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 21, 2006 Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 Re: A Fun and Creepy Thought . . . Things that go BOOOM!, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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