Nyrath

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority You just don't get it, do you? OK, I've had enough.

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Heh. You really think I'm the one true defender of the Fermi Pardox? Or that one can do an Ad hominem by using quotations? No, there just seems to be a pattern emerging from your posts.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Yes, a friend of mine had a nasty idea. As it turns out, there are many species of insect that are resistant to vacuum. He recalls several that survived exposure to the vacuum chamber inside an electron microscope. So it probably would not be out of the question to genetically engineer an insect that had a self-contained breathing system which could activate upon exposure to vacuum. Then there is the Bombardier beetle. it's jet can be adapted into acting as a space propulsion system. Now, combine that with organic diamond tipped jaws, prolific reproduction, and an instinct to seek out spacecraft's radar dishes, sensors, and other vulnerable items, and you have a real ugly biological weapon.

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority I repeat, you are nothing if not consistent.

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority You are nothing if not consistent.

Re: Physics of space battles - gizmodo article I hate to tell you this but you've been scooped. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/77323-An-interesting-article-on-the-Physics-of-Space-Combat (December 18th, 2009)

Re: Mass Effect Campaign Setting Ken Burnside of Ad Astra games and I got a cameo in Mass Effect 2. He's "serviceman Burnside", and I'm "serviceman Chung."

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Yes. In the same way that an oncologist might tell you that chemotherapy for your cancer gives you a 75% survival rate. It doesn't mean with any certainty that you will survive. But that's the way to bet. We are talking about probabilities here. The basic framework of the Fermi Paradox is The main theoretical explanations are: 5.1 No other civilizations currently exist 5.1.1 No other civilizations have arisen 5.1.2 It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself 5.1.3 It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others 5.1.4 Human beings were created alone 5.2 They do exist, but we see no evidence 5.2.1 Communication is impossible due to problems of scale 5.2.1.1 Intelligent civilizations are too far apart in space or time 5.2.1.2 It is too expensive to spread physically throughout the galaxy 5.2.1.3 Human beings have not been searching long enough 5.2.2 Communication is impossible for technical reasons 5.2.2.1 Human beings are not listening properly 5.2.2.2 Civilizations only broadcast detectable radio signals for a brief period of time 5.2.2.3 They tend to experience a technological singularity 5.2.3 They choose not to interact with us 5.2.3.1 Earth is purposely isolated (The zoo hypothesis) 5.2.3.2 It is dangerous to communicate 5.2.3.4 They are non-technological 5.2.4 They are here unobserved You can read details about each of the options in the link.

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Well, unfortunately there is something else to consider. The scenarios you outline only explain the lack of observable aliens if every single one of them acts as you say. It only takes one 'bad apple' to ruin the argument. In the history of our galaxy, there might have been ten thousand alien civilizations confined to their home planets. But if there was a single one that was expansionist, they could have colonized the entire galaxy in as little as 50 million years, sub-light. Much less time if they had FTL. Given the age of the Galaxy, this means it could have been entirely colonized 240 times. So where are they? Earth should currently be an alien colony.

Re: Extraterrestrial Organisms Already Here ? Well, there are two scenarios here. If we are sneakily trying to eavesdrop all other alien civilizations in our neighborhood, we will of course fail to find all the aliens who now use Quantum-Z Diffract Meson waves for communication. But any alien civilization that was intentionally trying to broadcast messages to primitive people like us would use crude radio waves. And they would use "anti-cryptography", that is, make coded radio messages that were designed to be easy to decode.

Re: Moon May Have Formed in Natural Nuclear Explosion From the article:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24721/ The mind boggles...

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

Re: Fiction resources for Solar HERO. And just a little reminder that out of print books can be found at http://www.bookfinder.com and sometimes at Amazon.com

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? What does it matter?

Re: Extraterrestrial Organisms Already Here ? Well, it might be a blessing in disguise. Here on Earth be managed to become difficult to detect before we were noticed by Emperor Ming, a Bezerker, or something else awful.

Re: Orion Drive space battleship Well, by that reasoning there is no use for any of NASA's rocket boosters because currently there are no space probes scheduled to be launched. Nor is there any use for your automobile because you currently have no errands to run. There are lots of space projects whose development efforts are on hold for the foreseeable future because there exists no heavy lift capacity. Once the capacity appears, development will re-start.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some. Ever hear about the Ugly American and the Not-Invented-Here syndrome? I get the impression that the bulk of the poster here are from the States.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Your figures are slightly low, Trantor has a land area of 194,000,000 square kilometers, about 130% of Earth's land area. Trantor as per the novel has a population density of 232 people per square kilometer. New York City has 842, Tokyo has 5,847, and the nation of Singapore is up there with 6,852 (not 7,027 as you stated, "18200 per square mile" ). Assuming a 2 day transit time: Trantor: 207 ships daily, 828 total Trantor with New York City density: 751 daily, 3,006 total with Tokyo density: 5,218 daily, 20,871 total with Singapore density: 6,116 daily, 24,459 total. (for comparison purposes, the number of daily commercial air liner flight in the US is about 37,000) Now you delegate. For each daily ship, have one landing pad evenly spaced over the available land area. Each pad will have the infrastructure to unload the ship, and deliver the food to the distribution network. Land surface area per ship (square kilometers) Std Trantor: 937,031 New York Trantor: 258,184 Tokyo Trantor: 37,180 Singapore Trantor: 31,727 The surface area of Connecticut is about 14,356 square kilometers, so even at Singapore Trantor population densities each landing pad will be in a area more than twice the size of Connecticut.

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some. which invites the response "Well, obviously because you are an uncultured low-brow", a flamewar erupts, and the moderator locks down the thread.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? * blink * blink * Where is the "matter of comprehension? Blacksword is trying to see if the numbers will work.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?