Random SF Links

[tkdguy]

This thread is similar to the Random Links thread in the NGD. It's for scifi-related videos, articles, pictures, etc. for topics that don't quite fit anywhere in the threads here. If you find something interesting but don't really want to start a new discussion about the topic, feel free to post it here.

 

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

I seriously doubt our technology will be this advanced like this in 2050, but you may find a use for this in your game.

 

 

 

[tkdguy]

Here is one person's POV on alien spacecraft. Agree or disagree?

 

 

[tkdguy]

This is for those of us who prefer slug throwers to beams in our SF games.

 

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

Robots, anyone?

 

 

[tkdguy]

 

[L. Marcus]

I've been surfing the Orion's Arm web project lately. Rather fascinating -- a hard sci-fi space opera setting, set about 10.000 years in the future. The Singularity has come and gone -- and done the same about five times over. Humanity's descendants -- both genetically and culturally -- are mostly ruled over by these S6 archailects who are almost at Clarkeian levels of technology.

[tkdguy]

Those of you who played Star Frontiers will remember gyrojet pistols and rifles. Here they are in action.

 

 

[tkdguy]

Here's a character generator for Classic Traveller. Refresh the page to create another character.

 

https://devilghost.com/software/travellercharacter/

[Cancer]

Not a link, but I can't see a better place for it.

 

The Exoplanet Handbook (2nd edition) by Michael Perryman from Cambridge U Press, (c) 2018, ISBN 978-1-108-41977-2.  Just over 950 pages of tiny print making a monumental, massive heavy-duty technical reference book at the apex of that genre's glory.  I think around $100?  $120? from the publisher (I bought mine at a steep discount at a scientific meeting early this month).  The last 185 pages are references.  The last 62 before that are a list of exoplanet systems, sorted by detection type, with comments that range from five words of reference to more than half a page.  Though like any print book it will go out of date in terms of the data in it, it is graduate-level in discussions of detection techniques (chapters 2 through 7), host stars, brown dwarfs and free-floating planets, formation theory and observations, interior and atmosphere modeling, and our Solar System through the same considerations.  Then two short appendices before the exoplanet list already mentioned.

 

For the professionals and their libraries; for that price it's worth trying to wheedle your library into getting a copy.  It'll be a difficult read, but hard-core science (and sci-fi) geeks will have lots of nuggets they can glean from this.

[tkdguy]

Perhaps your PCs will visit one of these planets.

 

 

[tkdguy]

Robots delivering your stuff: Will this idea take off?

 

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/11/18220287/nuro-robot-delivery-softbank-investment

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

On the lighter side of things, here's a guide to Explaining US Holidays to Extraterrestrials

[tkdguy]

What will your astronauts eat?

 

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

Useful information if you're running a near future, hard science campaign

 

 

[tkdguy]

Here are a couple of short videos about space combat in The Expanse.

 

 

 

 

[tkdguy]

While we're on the subject of space combat, here are the types of warships you may encounter in a film or game.

 

 

[tkdguy]

Crossover fan film. There's something extra after the end of the credits.