SciFi and Time |
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Legion 4
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Post subject: SciFi and Time  Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:25 am |
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Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 5:13 pm
Posts: 36952
Location: Ohio - USA
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Very True ! 
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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
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Ilushia
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Post subject: SciFi and Time Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 6:16 pm |
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Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am
Posts: 1189
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Of all the sci-fi settings I've read about I think I like Niven's the best. A lot of the early stuff he does makes perfectly good logical sense in terms of physics behind it (not surprising given he's a trained chemist with an undergrads in physics IIRC), and the social aspects make a fair bit of sense. He supposates that humans will reach a point sometime in the near future at which point war becomes impossible for humanity to fight. Not due to some new 'pacivity' of humanity, but because weapons have become so powerful and destructive that if another world war were to break out no one would survive. So the major powers of the earth agree that for the good of humanity a new entity must be developed, the ARM. For those of you who haven't read his stories I highly recommend reading Gill the ARM, World of Ptavs and A Gift From Earth. The Man Kzin Wars series is the most famous of the items written in Niven's world, by far. The Ringworld series is also extremely good, in which he writes about a more 'practical' variation on the Dyson Sphere idea. A ring which is 299,500,000 KM in diameter and a million KM wide. Number significant in that they represent the orbital range of the earth and the width of the sun.
His stories are not 'realistic' in the classic sense of 'will it ever happen'. But the physics and ideas behind what he writes about theoretically will work. Well, everything but the Hyperdrive, which is never really well explained, in any case. He writes about Bassard Ramjets as well, in relation to sub-light movement. Fusion-powered drive systems using massive EM fields to collect interstellar hydrogen for power on long space journies. Accelerating half way to target then decellerating half way to target.
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Ilushia
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Post subject: SciFi and Time Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 6:29 pm |
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Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am
Posts: 1189
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On the not of Ortillary in games... The trouble with it is inherent with 'what do you throw at a planet which is powerful enough to make it WORTH throwing?' Virtually anything you're going to need a starship to fire at a planet rather then simply using conventional munitions to fire is going to be so powerful that nothing anywhere near where it lands will survive. A KE weapon could easily be expected to detonate with 20 KT worth of power. And dropping 50-60 MT torpedos wouldn't even be hard to imagine (An Anti-Matter would be roughly 63 MT for 1 gram of antimatter IIRC), so imagine a 'small' ship only 250 meters long, armed with 9 main cannons which can each fire these 50 MT warheads into a world... Even a single strike from a ship like that would have a roughly 450 MT power-output. Enough to level everything for hundreds of KM in every direction. Ortillary in RPGs and board-games is inherently flawed because if it were 'realistic' it would wipe out the entire opposing force instantly most likely as it rains down nuclear death across an area a hundred miles wide!
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