Spacescifi

What if the 'rooster' is not willing to put in the resources or time to accomplish this? What if they do achieve it? Are they willing to accept being the new de facto gods? Since they will have done what humans have been asking for for too long? Are they willing to save us EVERYTIME we goof up from now on until eternity? I once saw a fictional post where an alien race cured most of our diseases and provided age halting treatments. They also selected a group of humans to live off world. The aliens themselves liked humanity, but decided that we cannot save us from ourselves. Yet they did not want nor did they have tbe capacity to babysit the ENTIRE human race. The end result: Those alien med treatments? For all the good they did, it sterilized the human race. Meaning no more babies could be born after the 4th generation of the cured. As for those humans living offworld, they returned to resettle earth with the aliens. Human population was kept in control from then on, by the aliens only reversing the treatment for humans to have children to either replace humans that died, or for colonization efforts. Afterward the sterilization was redone. Genetics science the aliens were very good at. Like flipping a switch on and off. One day you can have a baby, then once you go for treatment, you cannot. In all cases the alien pop always dwarfed the human pop, even on earth. In the end some humans grow disgruntled and leave, trying to develop or find a cure from other aliens and maybe... retake earth someday.

Infinite fuel? No. Metallic hydrogen reactors are used with photon accelerators, making quoton rays, which are crespucular FTL rays in an atmosphere. These rays have so much pressure that their exhaust is like a rocket's, only using light rays instead of a rocket plume. 1g acceleration lasts a 1000 hours before yoy run out of metallic hydrogen. 2g is 500 and so on, but you can get more time for less thrust. Rockets though, really are far from ideal. So you like rockets? Then I hope you have staging, since that is the most efficient way to use them. Your situation is very much like this with rockets.

I will be honest with you, the real reason for this is threefold. Variety: A starship that is not shaped like a rocket is not optimal for launch. Yet if you have sufficient thrust and constant acceleration engines, you can literally fly a brick shaped cargo ship to space. Or any other shape. I like variety in my science fiction that I create. Plotting: Rockets are so mission specific that they are optimized for one mission only. A spaceship with constant acceleration can change plans on the fly. A rocket? Literally is constrained between finishing it's mission and having enough fuel to return to base. In other words, a rocket cannot afford to change it's flight plan like a constant acceleration drive can. Style: Rocket nozzles are nice and all, but a spaceship's constant acceleration drive need not look like a rocket nozzle. Indeed, mine does not, since no fuel is being burned out a nozzle. It does have visual effects though.

If that works for you, sure. I provided a way around a common problem

The drive requires you to be in LEO of a planet to begin with. In other words, it is an orbit to orbit hyperdrive. If you land in deep space at all it will be because you missed a planet and ran out of fuel. Once you engage the drive it won't stop until you drop off in LEO radius flying away from the planet or you run out of fuel completely in deep space. In theory you could attempt what you said. But solar systems could still detect it with early warning satelites and drone ships with hyperdrives orbiting pluto. From there a drone would hyperdrive to earth to relay the message. Meanwhile lots of flack would be put in it's path as Earth has hours of response time (5 hours lightspeed from pluto). Hyperdrives go faster. Assuming you could get past the detection satellites, sure it could work. It would take so many years or months though that the chances of interception are high. All one has to is send out a bunch of RKV ships for intercept months in advance. Since your invading ship cannot afford a bunch of course corrections without veering way off course, this would delay it further.

Bad and good scifi? That is a subjective response is it not? What you may think is good scifi another may not, and what I may think is good scifi another may disagree with. In the end, the only judgment that really matters is that of the writer. Whose story will be inevitably influenced by his/her worldview. Case in point, to some, putting the words aliens and reality in the same sentence is an oxymoron because to them the whole idea of ET is fictional. Yet others suppose aliens could just happen to be out there, or at least hope so. They often reason based on evolutionary theories, so aliens have to be real.That is their general line of reasoning.

Good job. Although reaching planets now seems problematic. Inspired by your drive, I made another. Gravimetric hyperdrive: Can only engage it in low planetary orbit. Cannot if you achieve escape velocity. Hyperspace puts spaceship on an orbiial slingshot trajectory (like slinging a stone and watching it fly, only changing course slightly via gravity). Leave hyperspace two ways: Run out of hyperfuel and be stranded in deep space. Or make sure your trajectories line up and drop out in LEO radius of a planet. Oddly, hyperspace drops ships out at the minimum escape velocity on a vector directly away from the face of the planet. So even if you hyperspaced directly to a world, once you drop out you will be flying directly in the opposite direction. Thus you have to retroburn to adjust course and actually land. Which gives a planet plenty of time to respond. Max range before needing to refuel at a station is seven light years. Thus my drive precludes using hyperdrives in conjection with constant acceleration for WMD. Sure you could do so slowly from say alpha centauri. But some scout ship in the system is likely to notice a ship's speed buildup. I would expect a law mandated speed limit, as there is no good reason for extended constant acceleration other than RKV's since hyperdrives exist. Accelerating for a long period would and should raise eyebrows of any nearby security force or patrol ship.

Yeah I considered that. Want to know why I did'nt use it? It is scifi trope breaking. Many of the common ideas used and fantasized about no longer are the same or are utterly changed. Scifi warships are no longer as much of threat. They can be obliterated light miliseconds away. Battle distances also grow so exponentially that you will never see your target. Ever. Except maybe as a dot in a telescope. Same reason. That said, nothing is wrong with such a concept. It may even make for a kind of WMD moderated interstellar peace. It just makes planets potentially the strongest contenders in a scifi setting.

I well know that constant acceleration drives have the potential to be WMD. So how can you justify average civilians having constant acceleration starships? In a scifi setting? Especially with warp or jump drives in use? All a starship would have to do is accelerate at 1g for a year and then go to warp and drop out of a warp a light second away from a planet it wants to hit. A second is not much time to react. Let us assume a scifi setting has both hyperdrives and constant acceleration drives on starships available to civilians. How do you prevent WMD? Then it dawned on me. What if the starship instead used a hyperdrive that harmlessly auto-shifted it's speed on dropping out of hyperspace according to either the sun or nearby celestial bodies? Or even other vessels? What does that mean? It means that if you drop out of hyperspace above a world, your speed and orbit will automatically match the planet you're above Of course, since your orbit and speed matches the planet's exactly, you will fall to it like a rock. Unless you engage your constant acceleration engines to curve over the world at orbital velocity. What this also means: So average joe decides he wants to ram his ship at 99% lightspeed into Earth because of... reasons. He spends a year accelerating at 1g, many lightyears from earth. Then he engages the hyperdrive, hoping to drop out above the planet and crash into the atmosphere at lighthugger speed. He does drop above earth, just not at lighthugger speed. Hyperspace has auto-shifted his speed and orbital trajectory to the earth's. Thus his ship drops like a stone. Damaging? Likely, but nowhere near relativistic. Easy spaceship interception: Now you do not have to match speed and trajectory of your targeted vessel. Since the hyperdrive will make drop out relatively at the same speed and orbit. Thus all you have to do is chase and maybe retroburn for intercept. That is my solution for making constant acceleration drives with hyperdrives not WMD. For what it's worth, that is how many a common space sim could be explained away (not kerbal). What is yours? EDIT: I realize average joe could drop out near mars and accelerate at 1g to earth, but he would get intercepted by hyperdrive ships long before he reached earth. Since the only way to become an RKV for a ship is to either do constant acceleration or drop out of hyperspace while autoshifting speed to a near object more massive than your vessel that is already relativistic. Not exactly an easy find, as I am sure authorities would frown on that.

As I said in the original post, all I require of fictional aliens is that they act different than your average person. I do not have to jump through the mental olympics you might want to jump through. As this is fiction, and I know that humans want an entertaining a piece of fiction. Jumping through the hoops you stated.is not necessary to do this. Humanoids, even if you may not prefer such a design because you do not think it is 'realistic' enough, is a proven design that works. I have also noticed that some who believe aliens actually exist share your sentiments about fictional aliens. As for me, to start from scratch making alien designs is harder, and I see no benefit personally to myself in doing so.

I also agree that aliens may not need writing. It just depends on how efficiently they can spread ideas. If they are visual telepaths that can craft dream like worlds and transmit them across distances to each other, then yeah. Writing is no longer always necessary. Except for historical records. Also business.

Yes and no. It depends. If negotiation is possible I go with Asimov. If not, choosing to be subject or fight is a tough choice. In some cases though, there is neither an option to negotiate nor submit and not face extermination. If a nation is facing total extermination by the equivalent of space villains, then I hardly think Asimov would think that taking defense measures is incompetent. Even if that means violence. That said, humans wll fight over all sorts of things... sometimes even trivial matters. Fictional aliens? Might not fight over the same things nor for all the same reasons that we do. For example, eating anothet animal's food is enough reason to fight. Humans? Words alone and insults are all it takes. Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me can ACTUALLY be true for fictional aliens. If you wish it to be.

I think the bigger problem is looting other space vessels. To do so efficiently in a reasonable amount of time you need two things: FTL, warp, jump, or translocation drive to move space itself while your ship does not. Ideally you could also use it for intrasystem travel to planets and other objects, since even solar systems are vast. Design limiting it so it is not overpowered though is the responsibility of the author. A constant acceleration drive is also required. With it, adjusting your course when entering new solar systems where orbital trajectories may be different only becomes a matter of time. Not refueling. By dangerously skimming a gas giant at orbital celocities and increasing the travel time. Another significant problem is collecting loot from vessels. If they are destroyed, the loot becomed kessler syndrome or like Gravity. I think piracy would be more profitable on planets, and then using the starship to escape.

What movie is this?

Aww... as much as I love catfolk creation, the legs and feet need to be humanized, or else they will be inferior to human legs for load bearing (holding heavy stuff with arms). Here are some pics from a website that explains it more thoroughly. Also this: Simply standing would be a challenge for extended periods of time. Cat other creatures like dogs have legs optimized for pure speed. Ever seen a dog run so fast his hind legs literally arent even touching the ground as he lunges forward? Humans are optimized for reading, writing, and building. Animals? Are optimized for hunting, chasing, running away, and searching.

Well, it that had better not be a 50% chance. Otherwise whobwould use it? It would have to be reasonably reliable. At least as much as your average airliner I suppose.

Surely they have some limitations right? Sounds interesting though. If they do classic 'alien' (READ human) stuff they will also conduct trade and war with other races. The drive sounds familiar though Kind of like an upgraded like an upgraded alcubierre warp drive.

Yes Perhaps we will find a way to generate antimatter easier around saturn's rings (hopefully without blowing up a lot of tbose beautiful rings). Regarding eggs in other baskets though... there aren't any baskets. We would literally have to construct one, a whole nother eatth environment. The day war breaks out in such a contained environment will be a fatal day for whoever lives there. Long story short, the technology is an engineering issue, really hard but not impossible. Humans being flawed? That is not an engineering problem that can be fixed. Especially in a closed environment. Think like big brother but much harder because of the need for limited resources. Off world colonization is a horror story waiting to happen. Because we are'nt talking earth two, which would be feasible to colonize. We are talking places with no breathable air, and water that must be processed if found at all.

I never gave it any thought. But uh, clear and transparent with blue trim. This is kind of odd. Unless someone really does have a jewel encrusted gold toothbrush. Do tell us!

Having googled the causes of piracy when it was popular during the age of the sail, I thought it interesting to use fictionally. The causes were both economic and political. Unlike what TV would have us believe, according to wikipedia sailors, merchantmen and soldiers became pirates because the alternative seemed worse with less pay. Sailing on a merchantship the captain acted as if he were God and paid you snd fed you as less as he could. Often the death ratio of crew to slaves carried was similar during journeys, which is telling. Pirates captains, amazingly, could not afford to be so dominneering. This is insightful from wikipedia: Unlike what many people think, captains did not have a dictatorship over the rest of the pirates on their ship. Captains had to be voted in, and there were strict rules for them to follow as well. The captain was not treated better (with more food, better living conditions, etc.) than the other members of the crew, and was to treat the crew with respect. This was because many merchant captains treated their crews terribly. Many pirates had formally served on these merchant ships and knew how horrid some captains could be. Because of this, all ships contained councils. These councils composed of all crew members on a given ship. Some councils were used daily to make decisions while other were used as a court system. Whatever the case, these pirates had as much power as the captain outside of battle. The captain only had full authority in times of battle and could be removed from this position if they showed cowardice in the face of the enemy.[22] He was also to be bold in battle. The pirates did not want things to end up the same way as on a navy ship.[23] So in other words: Not like Captain Hook at all. His own men would have mutinied long ago. Doing this kind of stuff.

Even if I did have the materials to do it, I would have been arrested long ago LOL.

Hmmm... you may not like the answer then. An alien race that supports, accepts and provides freedom from... anything and to do anything anyone wants. That is what the freedom loving aliens are about. Even in a holo-deck like case where effects are not lethal it would hardly be healthy for you human. Not in that environment. That's anarchy my friend. Controlled anarchy but anarchy nonetheless. Here is an example that shows how more freedom is not necessarily a good thing. Even when we think it is.

Ouch. So that means that human space travel is almost a waste of time. About the only application benefits are: Improving flight and military technology, and some of it can be used for civillians as well. Kind of how NASA channel puts it. "Off the Earth for the Earth." So as interesting as human space travel may be, you think human resources would be better spent elsewhere right? Robotic and drone space travel on the other hand is very much within our power and can remain useful for solar power harvesting long to come.

Which is better? I guess the real answer is it depends on the engine and fuel source. Engine: Nuclear thermal reactor. We are doing an open cycle nuclear reactor to heat the oncoming air coming into the intakes as propellant by running it over the reactor. No this would never see the light of day in real life, but this is the engine required to come to conclusions with this study. Plus this is the only known plane that can stay in the air until it's parts wear out (besides weak solar), since running out of fuel is not a concern. Fuel: Air. Gimballed nozzle vectoring analysis: Put them at rear corners of plane and you can use them to pitch, roll, and even yaw. Less nozzles required for maneuvring. The disadvantage is like all moving parts, it will need maintenance from routine movement and from all the air resistance pushing on them, especially when doing sharp turns. Fixed nozzle vectoring analysis: The advantage here is no moving parts on nozzles so less maintenence and more durability. The disadvantage is you need more nozzles on the ship, at different areas so the ship can thrust vector. So less maintenence but more nozzles and ways required to channel the air to the reactor. Assuming you built the nozzles into the body of the ship rather than have them stick out, you would get the added advantage of a more streamlined airplane, which means less air resistance than thrust vectoring gimballed nozzles provides. Which is better in this scenario to you? You can even cite your experiences in kerbal as a reason or guide.

Interesting. So a proper fusion scifi spaceship that follows known principles can only look much like the ship on the expanse. I have wanted to make many of the absurd spaceship shape designs seen in scifi practical (for alien style and variety), but where real life engine constraints matter, there really would be an optimum shape. In other words, scifi human and alien ships, if they use fusion, will both look much the same because of optimization of fusion engines. Thanks for your informative post!