Ravor

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) *chuckles* Nice try.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Sounds good to me provided that we also get to see any other predictive theories they have enspoused, endorsed, or believed.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Time period when the climate of Europe warmed and ended with "the little ice age", it may or may not have extended to other parts of the world. Milankovitch Cycles are interesting but the theory has some problems to say the least.

Re: New Campaign Idea: "X-Men: First Class" As The Only Canon Not to mention that as I recall Kennedy did not have the election locked down by any means, and given the anti-mutant bigotry in the universe its entirely possible that being saved by one could have led to a backlash from the voters, sealing his fate at the voting booth.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Personally I believe that it's also showmanship that plays towards the audience, most gamers that I know tend to shy away from religion in general, but in reality the "athiest" nations of history have been at least every bit as bloody as anything religion has inspired.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) *chuckles* Repped.

Re: Transplanted Immortality Sounds right.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Ok ... lets try this again, you're right, we really need a "save draft" fuction. --- ( 1 ) Global Cooling Nah, the predictions I was referring to were the ones where mankind was pumping so much junk into our atmosphere that we were going to block enough solar radition that global temps would begin to plummet resulting in another great ice age and possibly cumulating in a worst case of a snowball Earth. Pretty much the same rubbish we are being told now, only in reverse. ( 2 ) Population Bomb Has my memory failed me and my brain finally finished turning into jello? As I recall the population bomb was set to explode over thirty years ago. Did I miss the massive world wide birth control program and other "negative population growth" measures that was necessary to prevent massive food shortages and a diedown if not actual extiction. ( 3 ) The Death of the Oceans Yet the last time I checked, 1998 came and went and the planet is still spinning 'round and 'round. ( 4 ) Mass starvation in the First World Of course it is, and in six months when sociality hasn't devolved into cannibalism and the people of the First World are still able to feed themselves I'm sure that we'll still be told that mass starvation in the First World is a "very real possibility" and that we should check the price of food in "x months" as our civilazation is so very fragile and we are hovering on the brink of death and distruction at every waking moment. ( 5 ) Climate Shifts Nothing so pedestrian I'm afraid, I'm talking about the near consistant shifts of climate that this tiny little speck of dirt has been experiencing since before the days of yore. The medieval warming period, the great ice ages, the north and south pole supposedly making an excellant tropical vacation spot, ect. As I've said, I make a large portion of my living off the land, so legitimate changes in the climate are very much a concern of mine, which is perhaps why I'm as disappointed as I am in the enviromental movement for letting the watermelons rise among them. --- You know, the main problem I have with the various Chicken Littles of the world is that they have been screaming dire warning of all the horrible ways we are going to die unless we subugate ourselves and provide the correct sacriface as foretold by the latest ritual casting of the bones ever since humanity first stood up on both legs and gazed out into the night.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Very true, assuming of course that the short emersion time into branespace is an engineering problem that can be solved and not a physical limitation.

Re: Transplanted Immortality I don't remember which show I was watching, but I remember a story where someone had to upload her mind from a hopelessly damaged body into a fresh one but in order to prevent tampering to her mind during the process she was allowed to name a watcher. Of course, that worked just fine until the watcher she named was distracted and the "doctor" turned out to be an assassin.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Sounds more like a stutterwarp drive to me.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Actually I'm far more concerned with the idea of scientists pining over the idea of wishing to blacklist people with opposing views, although I do find it odd that people aren't concerned when the supposedly "pure as the wind driven snow" group of warmists (as opposed to the evil and corupt deniers who are merely shills of Big Oil) are trying to hide anything, whether it is the size of treerings or gobal temps. All kidding aside, I'm personally extremely sceptical of anyone playing Chicken Little, after all in my lifetime we were warned of "Gobal Cooling", "The Population Bomb", "The Death of the Oceans", "Mass Starvation in the First World", "Y2K", "Super Huricanes destroying the Gulf States every couple of months", just to name a few. Then the "man caused Global Warming" crowd has to be able to explain to me why I should ignore the previous global climate shifts in favor of their theories, as well as shed the bagage of the "watermelons" who all seem to want the common man to live by one set of rules while the elites get to live by another. Bottom line is, in the area where my family has lived for six generations we've seen the local weather come and go in cycles of ~40 years with a subcycle of ~15 years or so, I make a major portion of my living off the land and thus far haven't seen any evidence that causes me to fear for my family's wellfare.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) Scientists don't make things up or at the very least slant the data to fit in their own view of the universe? Got two words for you; "Climate Gate".

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? True, but on the upside it also has been a great uplifting factor and source of strenght and preverence for people throughout the ages and I doubt that will ever change either.

Re: What FTL Drives do people use in their campaigns? And what techno bable do you us I don't know, I think I'd explain it as the actual travel taking place in a blink of an eye, with the rest of the time being necessary to allow the "hyperspacy viberations" that crossing into hyperspace inflicts on normal matter to subside enough to allow the ship to cross by into normal time/space. Said "hyperspaciness" bleeds away in the normal universe in an instant hyperspace flash. Of course, anyone that is able to figure out an artifical way to bleed the viberations away quicker will be one of the richest men in the galaxy.

Re: What FTL Drives do people use in their campaigns? And what techno bable do you us ( 1 ) Phasic Impulse Drive In the darkest days of the Wars of Unity when the Confederacy hoard had sorely pressed our fleets into defensive positions around Terra itself an Atlantian genius finally made the breakthrough he had been grasping for his entire life, an exotic metal alloy he dubbed orichalcum. He demonstrated to an assembly of Lord Protectors how an engine using nestled rings of orichalcum spinning at the speed of light could produce thrust on par with the best drives of the day without venting dangerous plasma or subjecting the pilot to hazardous G Forces. Even so the assembled Lord Protectors were far more interested in the phase shifting properties of orichalcum which allowed the fairly delicate metal rings to spin at such incredible speeds and dreamed of indestructible warships raining death upon their enemies. Instead they had to “merely” be satisfied with a fleet of ships that are untouchable to the rest of the universe while traveling at FTL speeds. One interesting fact is that the thrust produced by the drive is truly virtual so if the drive fails the ship is unable to “coast” so for this reason every Alliance ship is fitted with a small secondary reaction drive. Note that even at FTL speeds, the phase shift does not allow the craft to pass through normal matter and the drive is currently only capable of relatively slow FTL travel, making it of very limited use in interstellar voyages but extremely useful for in-system travel. The Atlantian Alliance have had difficulties in scaling the technology in larger craft, so thus far the largest ship capable of using a Phasic Impulse Drive is a heavy cruiser, but this limitation is acknowledged as merely an engineering problem. As to date, all attempts of creating a Phasic Shield capable of rendering ships indestructible at STL speeds have failed and Alliance scientists have wrongly concluded that such a feat is impossible but research into various forms of damping fields to prevent the drive from reaching FTL speeds have born promising first results.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Although I personally have no problem with the idea that the world's religious texts aren't the result of the Divine, you are making way too much of a stretch in claiming that "God doesn't interfer with universal laws." is the same as "The Holy Bible is a fraud!", believe it or not, Christianity itself doesn't relay on the idea that the Bible is the literal truth. Sure, some branches of the faith do make that claim but then again I've listened to my fair share of rabid athiest morons as well.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Well, I simply call myself an Agnoistic and don't really worry about titles, although I do remember one television preacher that I saw while visiting my ex-father-in-law several years back, don't remember his name but he held a bible at arm's lenght and basically told his flock that although God could bend the laws of the universe he created he never would and if the preacher were to drop the bible it would always fall to the floor no matter how hard anyone prayed and no matter how faithful you were an angel would never pull you back out of harm's way if you happened to step in front of a speeding bus.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Seems to me that having the ability to negate freewill on a whim does not actually require the Divine to exercise that power. Just because one can do something doesn't mean that one should. *EDIT* If I remember correctly, freewill is depicted as a gift of love towards humanity, in part because the love of a drone is meaningless to the Divine.

I think the title says it all, I'll post mine later on tonight or maybe this weekend.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) *shrugs* Perhaps I should have said "one of the most basic principles" but it seems to me that once you give up the idea that information can indeed be destroyed then most of theoretical physics becomes fairly moot anyways. Still you're right, guilty as charged. *hangs head* As for the bit about Hawking Radiation, that is my entire point, I find it rather annoying that the same people who simply make things up in order to fit observed reality into their theories have the gall to rule certain things as simply impossible. Especially when we supposedly have observed things that amount to FTL reactions. Now with that said, don't get wrong, I'm not a Sci-Fi dreamer, reactions at the quantum level doesn't make actual FTL likely or even remotely possible, but it does show that what we don't understand is far greater than that we do.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) No, what I'm actually mocking is the idea that any theory should be considered to be "the one true way" and whenever anything is observed that doesn't fit within the framework of said theories then instead of taking even the briefest of looks at our base assumptions we instead simply make up imaginary new factors. Hell, look at the angst that the "Black Hole Wars" caused over the most basic principle of physics, "Information can not be destroyed." When a world famous theorist actually had the moxie to claim that black holes were proof of the multi-verse theory because the information contained in the universes without a black hole at that spot was preserved my faith in humanity ticked down a notch. Of course, the "winner" of said war says that information is preserved because Hawking Radiation (Has that ever actually been proven or is it just another make-believe factor?) serves to transmit the information from the black hole to the rest of the universe. I mean, even when we supposedly have evidence of particles interacting with each other at apparent FTL speeds at the quantum level we're told that it doesn't really matter because we currently have no way of predicting the reaction and thus can't transmit information through it. All the while ignoring the most basic factor which is the fact that an FTL reaction is indeed possible, at least at the quantum level.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) I've decided a long time ago to simply shake my head at the idea humanity has anything even remotely considering an accurate picture of physics when terms like Dark Matter / Energy have to be thrown around to make our theories of physics actually result in the universe looking the way it does.

Re: Transplanted Immortality Nah, the mirror you is only capable of existing when it isn't seen, and the trama of murdering yourself is quickly supressed only to surface in thoses briefest of moments when you stare at the stranger standing in the mirror.

Re: Transplanted Immortality Seems to me like the process wouldn't be much different then falling asleep and waking back up, after all do you really know that a perfect copy of yourself doesn't crawl through your mirror and replace you each night during the Witching Hour?