Jump to content

Nyrath

HERO Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,944

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Nyrath

  1. Space Warfare III – 'Warships' in Space?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare III – 'Warships' in Space?

     

    The basic breakdown of capital ships (battleships' date=' ships of the wall, whatever), cruisers (or frigates, or corvettes, or gunboats, etc.) to do patrol and other duties, and fighters (see next paragraph) was used in GURPS Space. (I have forgotten what they called the cruiser category.)[/quote']

     

    http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3as.html

    especially

    http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3as.html#analogies

  2. Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

     

    I admit it has been 48 years since I did any work with thermodynamics' date=' and I haven't pulled any old texts out of storage, but what about using the heat to boil a working fluid and spin a turbine?[/quote']

    The original heat is still there, but the heat gradient is not. The temperature of the room has risen as the heat boils the water.

     

    It's like a hydroelectric power plant.

     

    It converts the gravity gradient of the falling water into electricity. But the water is not annihilated by the plant, it still pours out the sluices and flows downstream.

     

    In technical terms, the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases. Turning heat into useful work would reduce entropy, which is forbidden. Turning a head gradient into useful work is allowed.

  4. Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

     

    I would be interested to see examples of such refuted laws. If you can find them.

     

    As for disproving theories, you are aware, are you not, that there is a 50% chance that the new theory could make things worse? There was an amusing SF story by George R. R. Martin called "FTA" where scientists discovered how to enter hyperspace. They were initially jubilant, with visions of FTL starships and Nobel prizes dancing in their heads. Their hopes were quickly dashed when they found out that the speed of light in hyperspace was slower than in our universe.

     

    Theories are only rarely disproven, usually they are just modified. Newtonian theories of motion are still used, its just that they had to be modified by Einstein's relativity to apply to velocities above about 14% of light speed.

  5. Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

     

    All Scientific Laws are Working Theories just waiting to be proven wrong. Not to say that laws like the Conservation of Energy and such *will* be proven wrong or inadequate' date=' but to say they [b']cannot[/b] be wrong or inadequate is folly.

    You are forcing me to sigh again. ;)

     

    Scientific Laws are totally unrelated to Scientific Theories. A law is a description of observed phenomenon. A theory is a scientific explanation of an observed phenomenon.

     

    So the laws of thermodynamics are "waiting to be proven wrong" in the same way that you can prove the law of gravity wrong by letting go of a 500 pound anvil over your foot and watching it float into the air. It's not the way to bet.

     

    But you are using two of the tired old fallacies SF authors resort to when science denies them what they want: "It's Just A Theory" and Maybe A Scientific Breakthrough Will Let Me Have My Way

  6. What would happen - and at what cost?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: What would happen - and at what cost?

     

    Suppose even further that travelling and landing on planets in our solar system was fairly simple and "relatively" inexpensive proposition and was also fairly quick (maybe travel would be measured in weeks not months.

     

    So now everybody has Dirt Cheap Planet Crackers.

    A ship that can do 1 g acceleration to Jupiter can travel from Earth to Jupiter in about 12 days.

     

    Say the ship was the same mass as a Russian Oscar submarine (13,900 metric tons). It's kinetic energy will be such that if the ship instead accelerated until its fuel tanks were empty, and aimed itself at Earth, it would crash into Earth with an explosion of about 3,000 megatons.

     

    With just this ship. Imagine what you could do with a fleet of them.

     

    It only takes 25 megatons to flatten a city.

  7. Space Warfare III – 'Warships' in Space?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare III – 'Warships' in Space?

     

    Space pirates are passe. We're fighting the Space Taliban now! :eek:

    I beg to differ

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_pirate

     

    There is an interesting analysis here:

    Cutthroat Capitalism: An Economic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Business Model

    http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/sp_cutthroatcapitalism

     

    We will have piracy, as long as it pays. It's just that it might not look like Captain Jack Sparrow or Captain Hook.

  9. Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

     

    Well' date=' sort of. If you were able to apply some device to it and generate useful power, it wasn't waste heat.[/quote']

    But if the point of the exercise was to "consume" the waste heat so that your ship didn't show up like a supernova on the infrared detectors, the fact that the waste heat was not consumed will get you wasted by enemy warships. :D

  10. Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered

     

    The problem with realistic space combat of course is that space is boring and therefore space combat is boring. Oceans have currents' date=' storms, shoals, fog banks, horizons, winds, mines. Space has...nada beyond the occasional rock and a bit of solar flare activity.[/quote']

    Which is why the better SF authors go to great lengths to invent an FTL system that is very un-boring. The system in the Honor Harrington novels has gravitational shoals and all sorts of peril.

  13. Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

     

    I just can't wrap my head around the idea that if you move faster than a photon - the visible evidence of a visible event - then you are in fact traveling through time. I won't claim to be right' date=' but my imagination says there are more ways to approach this than what conventional wisdom might suggest, and I thus contend that there is a "universal frame of reference" whereby you can travel "faster than light" without traveling through time as well.[/quote']

     

    Well, not to put too fine a point on this, it is not "conventional wisdom" so much as it is "Einstein's Relativity." ;)

     

    That's the way his math works.

     

    If you want to deny Relativity, you have to explain why every other application of Relativity has been confirmed to about nineteen decimal places. Indeed, things like GPS satellite location devices would not work if Relativity was false.

     

    Once you put in a preferred frame, Relativity crashes and burns.

  14. My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

     

    Plants and animals kept in space stations would have no problem adapting to their new homes. But would they be able to thrive in low-g environments? It may be possible to bioengineer them to be able to adapt, but would it be ethical to do so? Would it be necessary to have them? Are pets allowed, or would only livestock be considered?

     

    Another idea is to have stations that are preservations for species whose natural habitats are dwindling. Naturally, zoos and greenhouses on earth would be best suited, but if there is no room for them, would a space station be a viable alternative? And there's always the cost of bringing them to outer space to consider.

    It might be possible to justify cats as "working animals" instead of "pets."

    You know if there is a lot of cargo shipped up from Terra, eventually some mice and rats will stowaway their way into the station.

     

    I saw some proposals for making species preservation habitats in space, but they were placing them on Luna, not in free fall. They were roofing over medium sized craters.

    http://oceania.org/images/plate8.jpg

  16. Hard sci-fi adventures?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Hard sci-fi adventures?

     

    In my campaign' date=' some of the Martian and lunar colonies will have biodomes that have radiation shielding and allow for an earthlike atmosphere to exist inside. I'm making the assumption that these domes are built to withstand meteorites, so a bullet fired from a gun shouldn't even make a dent. A railgun salvo from a spacecraft would still damage it, however. Does that seem reasonable?[/quote']

    Even if your gun could puncture the dome, at the rate air would exit the hole, you'd have about a week's worth of time before the air pressure dropped to dangerous levels.

     

    Naturally a railgun salvo is a bit different. ;)

  20. My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

     

    I will note similar issues raised in the episode of Babylon 5 called "Passing Through Gethsemane." In their future, a person tried by jury and found guilty of a capital crime is not executed. Instead they suffer what is called "death of personality." Their mind is wiped and a new personality is written into their mind. In the interests of repaying ones debt to society, the new personality is altruistic and inclined to help others.

     

    The episode explores the darker implications of this situation.

×
×
  • Create New...