Spacescifi

A cursory look reveals it is a dystopia of sorts made to appear to be utopian. Would you want a an enforced utopia were your own mood was no longer under your control but controlled by the government? Humans will rail and fight against any attempt to subjugate their free will. In that sense, the Culture is unlikely to take off to the extent shown in the novels and would be more niche.

Humans do not like to laze around. Even homeless people 'work' to get their food or do other exploits to get what they cannot pay for. I was mildly amused when I overheard from a distance a homeless guy commenting to another about a likely valuable item he 'acquired' (that was the exact word he used), because saying exactly what he did to 'acquire' it may be damning for him (probably stole it). One giant robot factory.... is a massive means to hold an entire local population hostage if you do not have your demands met. This is not limited to attacks by foreign nations... even terrorists could pull that off. It's an uncomfortable concept, but why am I thinking robo-police and soldiers would be common in a setting where humans did not go to work? And again... all a human needs to do is mis-program the bots and once again.... human conquest or exploitation. Humans have being doing it to each other as long as we have been around as a civilization... giving them robot soldiers to do their dirty work for them would lead to war with less consequences beyond economic for the robot side, and likely a lot of collatteral damage since remote drones do that even today. I doubt robo-soldiers would be much different. Which leads to human unrest, government attempts to put it down... and eventually revolutions and chaos or else dystopias with robot armies funded by the elite. Rather dark.

Some have the view that money would or could become obsolete in a scifi universe because of post-scarcity. I am not convinced that it would... because money is an efficient means of exchange, without which leads to situations that either require benevolence on the part of every individual to work at all.... or an authoritian system that those in western countries would consider a dystopia... or slavery. Regarding post scarcity, the very idea of building robots to do all our menial work for us is hardly a long term solution and a bad one at that. Humans NEED to work. Idle hands make for criminal hands if they are not given proper work to do. That is human nature. You would require the same robots to police the freed up time humans, since I guarantee you they would wreck and exploit the robots for selfish ends otherwise.... especially if the robots are dumb and not true AI. Now it is true in some scifi that aliens may be more rational or perhaps more benevolent than us, leading to weird types of economies that could never work with us. For example communism based economies could in theory work with an alien race that was naturally more altruistic than a human is.... since IRL all commumist nations I am aware of switched to a type of capitalism since their economies suffered without it. In high school my teacher spent a good deal of time bashing the communist economic model, and went so far as to say the russians made up for backward economy and technology with pure strength in numbers in WW2. The truth is a bit more forgiving than that, but based on the fact that they use capitalism to this day.... it would seem the other system could only work with aliens or extremely benevolent humans. What are your thoughts about scifi economies?

You cannot possibly be serious. A cursory look at several scifi themed threads reveals just how grounded in reality some of the more vocal/mathematical members are on the forums. I have 'spoken' with them. I would know. And I would think you would as well if you frequent this forum enough.. which is why I cannot believe you think what you wrote. Now as regards space war, I feel the same as others have said.... it's all or nothing if it comes to that... Earth os where all is based so trust me... you do not want WW3.... which is the easiest way to start shooting down satelites since at that point no one has anything left to lose. Regarding the bullets in space video.... guns have recoil... especially in microgravity on low earth orbit. I actually think guns would need to be strapped to the chest of the suit and the user would have to hunch into a 'ball' before firing, so that the recoil only pushes him backwards instead of flipping him silly.... which is what would probably occur if you try firing a rifle from your shoulders in a spacesuit in.... spaaace. That is a great ironly. A relative aptly noted after seeing the first ID4 scifi movie, "They (Earth nations) unite to fight but not to make peace." The truth is actually darker than that though. ID4 is the kind of movie that assumes humanity will unite to fight a common threat and cooperate well to that end. COVID-19 revealed that.... we uh.... are not as cooperative in fighting known large scale threats as ID4 would have moviegoers believe.

No... I am spitballing ideas to see what could or not work. Very informative. Thank you.

Yeah I figured as much after I made that post. Who cares about the awesome rail gun if it is shooting out powder instead of slugs? I reckon the slug would be crushed into molten slag.... no... it would be crushed into plasma... which would dissipate fast over several kilometers. So about the only thing an awesome OP plasma railgun could shoot is plasma... which won't have the OP range nor damage anyway. However, if one combined a coil gun barrel and a hyper-diamagnetic slug (obviously fictional since it's extreme) then we could actually have OP turrets that won't need to be 800 kilometers long! The more diamagnetic the slug the harder the coilgun barrel will shoot it for less Ohm heating/electrical power. It would work... so long we allow a suspension of disbelief for how in the world a slug was engineered to be so hyperdiamagnetic that a non-gigantic coilgun barrel can launch it at 30 seconds per lightsecond distance speeds.

Hmmm... is there a way to artficially increase the diamagnetic properties of a material? If so that could allow for multiple smaller railgun turrets with the OP velocity. I know the velocity is a bit of stretch, but nonetheless the fact that electromagnets can be toggled on and off means a hyper-diamagnetic slug could be launched without heating it at all in space. In fact, the more diamagnetic it is the less powerful railgun you would need to propel it to the OP speed. About Diamagnetism: Diamagnetism A diamagnetic substance is one whose atoms have no permanent magnetic dipole moment. When an external magnetic field is applied to a diamagnetic substance such as bismuth or silver a weak magnetic dipole moment is induced in the direction opposite the applied field. All materials are actually diamagnetic, in that a weak repulsive force is generated by in a magnetic field by the current of the orbiting electron. Some materials, however, have stronger paramagnetic qualities that overcome their natural diamagnetic qualities. These paramagnetic materials, such as iron and nickel, have unpaired electrons. Some Diamagnetic Elements Bismuth Mercury Silver Carbon Lead Copper How a civilization could go about increasing the diamagnetism of an element or compound is beyond me, but I am aware that the ability to do that would open up or imply plenty of others at their disposal as well.

If I read correct information online, a truly scifi spacesuit would be hardshelled rather than soft. Doing so affords you the ability to suit up without having to do thd breathing before to avoid getting the bends. You could use regular air instead of pure oxygen like soft suits.

Hmmm... reality strikes again. Why am I thinking the battleship would end up having a kilometer or several kilometers long railgun to achieve the required 30 seconds per lighsecond speed? You would literally build the spaceship around the railgun, or simply attach it when in use and detach it when not in use.... leaving it to orbit somewhere in safe keeping with a fleet or station. Portable railgun... interchangeable between ships. I guess this kills the multiple turret railgun idea for scifi I was thinking of... at least if I was going for maximum realism.... which I am not. The scifi way to achieve multiple OP turret railguns would be to just use unobtanium materials with ridicously high melting points. Yet it is still interesting to note how you would not be fooling anyone about what kind of spaceship you have if a several kilometers long spinally mounted railgun is mounted on it's nose.... which seems to he what reality dictates for the OP. Small turrets cannot realistically do the OP withouut scifi make believe. Well.. there is one way but it would involve pusher plates and nukes.... which would quickly be more expensive than the pellets being shot off by them. That is an interesting idea though, using a shaped charge nuke to propel a bunch of shotgun pellets in space.

My most recent of late is playing Oolite, a freeware clone of the original Elite best played using many of the quality oxz or oxp add-ons that make the vanilla game either more playable or more fun. Arguably my most favorite laser in the game is a new oxz. Thargoid laser cannon. I found a lone Python trader ship minding his own business, I fired and to my delightful surprise ONE SHOT disabled him and I was able to trade his ship back to the station and trade it for cash. Mind you Pythons have above average shields too! No other weapon in the game does that except ones that are far more expensive. The Thargoid cannon is not cheap but neither is it too high to buy. What are your most satisfying moments in gaming?

Wait... you are saying the energy will be less if a non-conductive mass is used? Even then it must be heat resistant since the plasma I reckon will be hot... unless we use 'cold plasma'... would low heat or cold plasmas even allow for such a feat? So overall you are saying that the OP could work in theory... but the unanswered question is just how much heat transfer the pellet will have to survive. Since even if does not conduct electricity it will still conduct heat as all mass does that. Depends on both acceleration and range. If you start with 50 missiles in mars low orbit and a battleship with the pellet plasma armature railgun in Earth low orbit, and the missiles max out at 20g continous, but the battleship maxes out at 3g then the missiles will be be at a disadvantage. Why? Because the battleship has the sniping pellet railgun turrets AND 20g continous acceleration missiles of it's own. And shipbased anti-missiles could carry all sorts of anti-missile packages that do not require them to even directly collide with the missiles. Shrapnel, machine guns, nuke ECM.... sure there are more still.

Just reduce the time even more then.... oh I get it... the tungsten is vaporized no matter what. Oh well... I tried and physics won in the end. Turns out that physics does not make it easy for humans to make uber space weapons.... perhaps that is for the best. I would have to use unobtanium pellets (fictional metal with a ridiculously high melting point) that is likely used for hull armor too. Duralium, duranium... same thing I guess. Bonus is that now lasers really are kind of nigh obsolete. So railguns would truly be the most viable weapon in such a setting unless one had thousands of missiles to waste.

Thanks.... so a massive battleship is needed to 'cushion' the recoil. Unlike Star Trek yet ironically so, every time the Captain gives the order to fire the relativistic railgun the crew would lurch forward at 1g from the recoil lol. Won't matter if the battleship has multiple railgun turrets all firing at the same target. And a missile with a powerplant of it's own is a one-shot and done kind... unless it's a small ship itself Nope... but if a human can survive the surface of the sun of teleported there and back for a nanosecond... the tungsten pellet should be alright.

Apparently plasma armatures are not without issues and that limits their firing speed. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/22574 Yet the issuee seem like 'engineering problems' more than 'defy the laws of physics problems'. So it is not a show stopper for scifi.

You saw the power requirements of the railgun from sevenperforce? If fired once every second that is energy comsumption of New Jersey! A small missile is unlikely to be packing such a powerplant, especially since it is disposable. Unless there are more missiles than can reasonably be shot down the battleship with the pellet gun wins. Utterly.

Nice! Thanks! Amusingly enough tungsten pellets will work just fine... since if they only spend a nanosecond on the plasma armature during launch or less they totally can survive it. I still remember my old post of what would happen if a person teleported to the sun for a millisecond and teleported back to Earth. The answers were both scientific and humorous but they revealed that a millisecond is certain death.... but a nanosecond is actually survivable. I really can keep the OP railgun speeds and still use tungsten pellets! Interestingly plasma armature railguns could ALSO be used for space travel. At lower velocities of course, but once you seed a bunch of these around the solar system you could chuck stuff all over and use each railgun to slow or speed up ships or probes that passed through their plasma armatures. All with minimal propellant use. The main potential issue is ensuring vessels pass safely through the plasma armature instead of utterly ramming the railgun and obliterating them both. Other uses: Do you have a moon base? It's no longer safe. Do you have an orbital space station? Ditto. Any non-maneuvering target is toast or swiss cheese.... literally being shot up with holes. Orbital bombardment? Doubt it. The pellet would explode in the upper atmosphere at the speed it is flying. That said it would be an effective weapon to prevent land based ICBM's from launching.... maybe? Since firing off a few rounds may cause an explosion big enough to wreck an ICBM or screw up it's trajectory or guidance systems... even without a direct hit. I am rather certain (98.99%) that my OP railgun using the plasma armature railgun KSK mentioned would be more overpowered than even the weapons in The Expanse. Missiles become short range weapons when they can be sniped by relativistic pellets fired every second. A spaceship with my OP weapon is like death incarnate at long range. The only way you are killing it is if you also have a similar weapon. Otherwise you may as well stay home. It would be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.... or a bow and arrow to a machine gun fight.

Plasma armature? That's interesting... yet once again as per the usual the limit would be the melting point of the pellet. Plasma railgun anyone? Only problem there is that plasma projectiles are apparently even more wispy than gas... lots if damage it won't do at distant range due to plasma scattering and not staying focused. Yes and no. Yes: Requires the RCS to use a similar but smaller engine based on the main engine. A mini-torch drive RCS for efficiency is what you really need to dodge maneuver offten. No: Even if we had torchdrives we may not want them for RCS as the exhaust could radiate or burn stuff during docking or landing in space or elsewhere. Assuming you use good old fashioned gas or chemical RCS, then you can only afford so many maneuvers before you can no longer manever anyway but straight from main engined. Interesting post! I was unaware if atoms stopped moving that the pellet would be magnetically neutral.... makes sense though because electrons need to flow to do much. I had assumed getting objects colder and colder could be done to infinity, since one can virtually do so with heating objects. I say virtually because their may be a limit but I am unaware.... after all even stars have their limits. It would seem the solution to a melting pellet would be one of two choices: 1. Use a real material like tungsten for the pellets and forget the lightsecond every 30 seconds speed. 2. Use a handwavium fictional metal that has a higher than normal melting point. Of course such would be used for vessel hull.... making lasers reduced in effectiveness. Interesting Well yes and no. If a spaceship is only 300 kilometers away and I fire the lightsecond in 30 seconds pellet it is likely going to get hit with it. Weapons this fast force all combat into long range. And also means that anywhere from 300 to a thousand kilomters is a nigh guaranteed kill zone... likely farther than that.... but feel free to calculate the effective range of the relativistic pellet gun.

Literally time travel but you are young you again. Guess you think you nay get into trouble sooner? I myself would be incline to pursue some interests of mine that I would make time for, while avoiding and ending toxic relationships early on in the family. Would have been drama sure, but I would have been out on my own sooner than later.... minus any naive thoughts that things might improve with them.

In my case wow.... I would get a major jump start to my life.... with a chance of me getting into trouble as well.... purely from taking the road not traveled rather than playing it safe which is what I did IRL. Or I may just jump start my life and get out ASAP.... since I would know enough that I did not know then. I think arguably the hardest things will be less independence early on and a lack of the technology that nowadays is a staple that was not always around im my youth.

The Scenario: High thrust constant acceleration is a reality. Could do 1g to mars and back. Yet electromagnetic pellet cannon shoot faster still. Pellets like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=shotgun+pellet&client=firefox-b-1-m&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie-9TaoIX2AhV-IUQIHZFKBr0Q_AUIBygC&biw=360&bih=560#imgrc=1iZ1N-FVYkwhCM How fast? Once fired a pellet will coast a light second in only 30 seconds. Implication: Although scifi likes to show space battles at visual range, the truth is that the more high tech the setting the faster they will be as able shoot ANYTHING beyond visual range. Tactics: I imagine the pellet hitting the hull of a spaceship would hit it like a bomb blast from sheer kinetic energy deposited. At about a light second or so away, fleets could in theory shoot so as to do area denial... since you do not want to fly where you know relativistic pellets are flying. Real physics: Realistically would it even be possible to shoot pellets of the size depicted at a speed so great it can cross a light second in 30 seconds? I suppose maybe, but the pellets would need to be super cooled to avoid vaporizing from the electromagnetic launch energies (I reckon it may be beyond our current energy consumption). My guess is the pellets will be supercooled to the point that even their atoms have stopped moving. Which apparently is not scifi but possible... https://www.livescience.com/25959-atoms-colder-than-absolute-zero.html

Of course there is...... which is why the process goes further than mere knowledge into application. No knowledge comes from a vacuum though, so all skill knowledge they get is from cloned memories taken from real people. The superminds are not clones, but they do retain the skill memories that have been cloned and backed up on 'wetware'. Imagine if you will.... bio-computing. No chips... cells. A living computer to process and storie memories.... instead of all the extraneous stuff the usual human brain does that is more concerned with supporting a lifeform.

Does not change the OP though.

Lemme guess... the OP is irrelavent because your scenario accomplishes the same exact thing.... more realistically and cheaper too by comparision? Even so.... that really kills the scifi fun does it not? Nevermind that trying that IRL would not fly.... not with current culture. Businesses lose business for far less than your proposition.

Do they have their own military and security force? Because without it I guarantee you they won't last long. Civilizations.... any at all that last do so because they have 'teeth'. Sooner or later every civilization faces an existential crisis where they will either fly or fall. The USA's could be considered the civil war.... which had it gone differently the USA as we know it would not exist. So beyond my ignorance of the population in a few hundred years, I can say based on past experience that without paying in blood, sweat, and tears.... even the utopia will fall... from within or without. There will be struggle. There will be conflict. There will be blood.

Well yes... animals are capable of learning.... even insects. Instinct is just a basic starting point. Still impressive at times though.