qeveren

I actually find this more annoying than the fact that the rocket in the VAB wasn't aligned with how it was on the launchpad. I'd go so far as to say it's a bad fix for an unimportant issue, as it immediately creates an unintuitive state for the controls in the VAB. Imagine yourself a new player, and you want to rotate a part clockwise in the plane of your screen in the starting view in the VAB; knowing you use WASD to rotate parts, what would you press? The other option of course would be to rotate the default view in the VAB 90 degrees as well; leaving it to the player to rotate his camera manually every time, in order for the controls to be sensible, is just bad UI design.

Considering that Earth is absolutely covered in hungry, carbon-based self-replicators, I'd probably feel worse for the poor space bugs than I would about said space bugs being a threat.

There's always that old standby when you need to burn something nominally non-flammable: chlorine trifluoride.

A bojillion thankyous for this fix, and for MechJeb itself and all your hard work.

With such a small population, they could easily be accommodated just about anywhere on the planet, assuming the environment here is compatible and we don't end up killing each other off with the introduction of horrible extraterrestrial (from both sides) plagues. Whoever does reach out to help them will likely cut a deal for access to their technology, and this is where the real problem starts. Remember how the back-story for Macross goes?

I think it was some variant of DecWar or Star Trek or something, on a mainframe back in the late 70's. XD

Don't underestimate the damage output of a housecat. Two paws are equipped with knives, the other two with razors, and the face a staple-remover. XD

Realistic planet killer? Set up shop in their Oort cloud and start a momentum transfer system by flinging comets past their planet. Keep this up for a few million years and you should manage to drop their planet into the star.

Pretty much the only things I can think of that would be of any value to interstellar-capable aliens would be cultural in nature; eg. artistic expression and language.

Mostly the terrible, terrible writing.

A really big flywheel that's used to keep the galaxy spinning, of course.

Remember not to (non-physics) timewarp while you have debris in the bucket, 'cuz it won't stay there...

Man, Dunning-Kruger is in full effect in this thread.

The oceans? Comedy gold.

I wonder if we'll start seeing vacuum balloons as our carbon-materials science improves.

Sure is sociopathic in here (omg there's that word again!). I guess if we turn it around, someone out there comes here and decides to terraform all this irritating muck off of this planet so they can use it, you'll all have no ethical objections?

I invest in a cool powered tech-monocle. Basically, this:

I love the continuous trail of falling engines it leaves behind it.

Is there really a point to this aircraft, though? Most all the surveillance it could do is being done by satellites, arming it seems pointless since it's completely unnecessary for any foreseeable conflicts (the US will never fight a peer nation directly)... It is pretty sexy, though.

Within the event horizon, spacetime becomes so warped that there are no longer any paths you can follow that don't eventually lead to the singularity. Another way I've heard it described (anyone with a physics background, feel free to correct me here) is that, within the event horizon, the 'down' direction - toward the singularity - swaps places with the 'time' direction. So instead of laying below you, the singularity is now a finite distance in your future, leaving you no way to avoid it.

The obvious solution is, of course... don't land on the equator. XD

Ignorance, and fear-mongering by folks with monetary agendas.

Simple! Just make your lander donut-shaped and go for a ringer!

A scientific law is basically just a set of observations that have been repeated enough times to find the consistent rule to them. They're a 'what' to a theory's 'how'.

Turn the portal around so it points the ejected stream forward (as the ship sees it) instead. Then use magnetic fields to keep this plasma beam collimated - at least while it's inside your ship - and grab onto it, stealing some of its momentum. You'd have the most delightful thing: a reverse-torchship. Or if you want to be more traditional, find some way to bottle the forward stream and bend it out the back like a traditional rocket.