Spacescifi

Warp is fast enough that crews are not multi-generational. And it is true that colonists would arrive prepped with data...still, there are some things you won't know even then till they start living on the colony. Besides, they are not going to make an exhaustive list of every animal threat before they make landfall. That would take forever, and an Earth world is a lot better than their long attempts at terraforming Mars clones, or being cooped up in space habitats. In other words, colonists are willing to take that risk over living forever on a spaceship or space habitat. Large animals take a while to pass out...hours even. Buffalo on National Geographic.

Good ideas...low tech solutions that actually work are preferable You would likely need electric netting though....the birds will swarm dive bomb netting to get through otherwise. Electric shock could persuade them otherwise. The first colonists would have a rough time not knowing what they are in for though.

The homeworld IS the behavior sink. Have kids? Fine. You must ship them off once they reach adulthood or go with them. Result? Lots of family living in spaceships, habitats, colonies, or in search of a new homeworld. Since dying through old age is not an option, the homeworld is considered commonwealth, and is rented out to people on a regular basis. Time shares. No one stays permanently. Everyone goes to space sooner or later, and eventually they get to return once they get their turn.

War would be interstellar with other races...but given that most all combat spacecraft are nonmanned they don't suffer many casualties unless a colony itself is attacked. Strip mine their entire world? You mean break it up to make more space habitats? That sounds extreme. They are not herd minded though.

There is little advantage in having two heads...except being harder to kill.

Essentially yes...it's easier to get the point accross to just say horse. Behaviorwise, the main difference between us and the aliens is that the aliens are naturally inclined toward actually being responsible, whereas humans have to learn this, with them it's something they just do. Besides new world colonies, the other option they have employed are space habitats....but planets are preferable for a host of reasons.

The reason for the dangerous planet in the story is to provide drama to the setting. Since: 1. This is a space faring alien race that MUST colonize if they are to reproduce. It's one of the challenges that occur when a race is both biologically immortal and able and with a desire to reproduce (at least as strong as a human's). The homeworld would be over populated otherwise since they don't approve of culling each other. 2. The colony planet looked like an oasis in a desert....then they found the skeletons and abandoned spacecraft of other aliens who had tried to also colonize and began to wonder just what mess they had brought themselves into.

Nonlethal? Do you watch National Geographic? The Komodos would say otherwise if they could speak. So? I already said the biggest land animal is the size of your average dog...that is bigger, but not by much. I guess you are thinking birds use so much energy on flight there is no way they could produce venom. Well...suspension of disbelief works well enough here for me. Since the changes are fairly close to reality anyway.

Snakes are not the biggest poisonous land animals. Ever heard of Komodo dragons? They are slow typically...and stalk their prey...usually big and slow buffalo who don't see them as a threat. One nip and the dragons wait for hours for the beast to pass out. Then they feast.

The reason to bring cattle is that cattle can reproduce...machines cannot. The colony is to multiply, that is the plan. The island idea sounds good. Even a scifi dome plasma shield may be in order here.

That's not chemistry. That's just your logic based on chemistry. There is nothing in physics that says a larger venemous creature cannot exist...they just don't. Which is fortunate for us. This is not fire breathing dragons. Venom is far more achievable than that.

Regarding hull smashing...you do not even need fancy antigrav for that. Metal hoof shoes and a magnetic floor will do. Dial down the magnetic force so they can still walk en route to the planet, dial it up before landing so they cannot even lift a leg. Also tranquilize the cattle before the final descent fall, since otherwise they will send bodily fluids all over the ceiling as they feel themselves dropping out of fear. The spaceship propulsion system is uber, so much that the ship can slow to a gradual stop from orbit, hover, and fall straight down like a rock to where it will land, slowing by retrothrusting on the way down. After landing the crew prepares to awaken the cattle and move out. What is that? Again, this is not our Earth. There is nothing in physics I am aware of that precludes venemous beasts from being larger. We are just fortunate animals on Earth are not predisposed to all being lethal.

Thanks...yeah, too bad reality has to spoil...or rather our knowledge of our own limitations. We may overcpme them someday.

Many Earth worlds is a common scifi trope. The scenario: Alien Earth world with wildlife that is predisposed for agility and lethality, at the expense of strength. In other words, large animals like elephants are not around. The largest land animal is the size of your average dog. It is common for land creatures to have venom or antivenom abilites. Even birds, which is most alarming. Birds are the apex predators since they just swarm bite creatures with venom till they pass out. Horses and cattle sound ideal for alien earth colonization. But when dealing with alien wildlife this menacing? I dunno...figure out a bird antivenom before you send the cattle. Lots of shotguns too I suppose. What do you think?

Not if they don't travel through space they don't. Hyperspace or it's many variants are an easy trope fix here. Lest we want all ships to have massive spikes for noses. In ST they deflect dust with some type of projected field deflection. IRL that would be hard. But if possible it means that both STL and FTL up to a certain speed are no threat at all. After all we are talking deflecting oncoming cosmic dust at 1 LY per hour. If that can be done, no STL projectile can ever hope to even try to hit the ship without being overpowered and deflected by whatever OP deflector field the ship is using. ST does not realize that it's tech is so OP it makes much of it obsolete even in the same setting. Phasers and torpedoes would not hit anything at all, they would be deflected.

That is one way I suppose....preferable for giant spacestations with fixed orbits and regular ressupply. Exploratory starships going at warp or FTL at a LY per hour? Probably need something else. I know I said thrust don't matter, but I was being purposely vague. It more or less does not near gravity wells. I plan to use a freeloader version of a gravity drive that converts gravity from a planet into direct thrust for the ship, which behaves weightless otherwise, even crew inside of it. The inverse square law still applies, which means trying to use gravity thrust far away by some asteroid simply is a no go. They would have to rely on rocketry, with all the known issues you know they have. Gravity drives would do the planning of trajectory and speed matching ahead for intercept, but actually flying on and off a space rock with negligible gravity would require rocket propellant. My point? The more massive and dense a spacecraft is, the more of it needs to be proportionately propellant to move it anywhere quickly. Unless one has fusion or AM burning off the propellant, which have known issues even if we had them.

That would be ideal...would it not? I suppose any hull like that would also be more flexible than the rigid scifi trope spaceships we know. Food? That's the harder part. Unless it has no problem eating asteroid rubble piles and converting THAT into energy. Really much energy is all around us. What's difficult is concentrating and harnessing it to do useful work. The only thing I know of that space has a whole lot of is radiation. If one had an FTL field that could concentrate a whole light hour's worth of space radiation in a second and actually harness it for useful work...that would be something. The problem is actually less concentration and more harnessing. We made nuclear bombs so we know how to concentrate. Yet we cannot harness massive energy levels without burning the containment box. There is a way in theory one could do it...if they only knew how to bend light without physical structures surrounding the light. Rather across distances at range, perhaps via field projection? Bending light is bending radiation, which means one could literally channel radiation away from his ship without it absorbing it. It's the same tech that would enable invisibility cloaks, at the cost of not being able to see stuff outside the field if inside the cloaking field.

Scifi Scenario: Thrust and propellant are not a concern...that's taken care of. So how heavy materials are is not a concern either. What is the best hull materials/thickness for long duration space mission? Or a space station located halfway between here and Proxima Centauri? In deep interstellar space? The goal: NOT to EVER have to replace your hull because space radiation has made it unsafe. Basically, I want a hull that can survive space radiation safely for at least a century, ideally centuries without needing to be replaced. My guesses: A meter thickness of hull at the very least. Probably composed of lead and hydrogen rich plastic composites. Two meters thick would be preferred. Still...I reckon that may not be good enough. Space radiation over time is kind of uber. Another option is to just use radiation absorbent fluids that one replaces periodically, kind of like a spaceship oil change. Yet for that you need FTL or warp to get fluids replaced before they no longer block radiation. What do you think?

I nearly laughed, had to fight it here. Wow. So absorbing all the energy from the sun and converting it into other forms of power is all you need to be super. Thanks.

Sounds absurd I know...and this is not for scifi. It's just fun deconstructing tropes with a bit of reality. So he says he is powered by the sun. OK...solar panels don't do what he does. But what if he literally absorbed ALL the sunlight radiation within a light hour's radius of the sun? For just a few seconds...as everyone else will notice the black out? What then? How much energy is in a light hour's radius of solar radiation from the sun packed into say..three seconds? I am betting that the power level will be generous enough to run several of our powerplants, but it won't probably be enough power to do everything superman already does. Realistically? He would probably have to absorb all the solar radiation around Earth at a few light hours for at least a month or two to really be Superman. But a month without sunlight for Earth because Superman is powering up would be bad. So yeah. What do you think?

You could have gave some to the kittens...probably would have shortened their lifespan too though...so on second thought good you did'nt. Cats don't take salt well...certainly not the amounts we gorge on. Craziest thing I ever did on the same level was attempt to fry chicken in expensive olive oil. Went so poorly I gave up and baked it in the oven until it looked fried, and made a gravy of all the oil left as I mixed flour into it with spices. My chest ached after, and it never does. This was years ago.

Yeah...cats have that unpredictabilty factor...which often works in their favor. When it does not..."Cat has nine lives." saying applies, or "Curiousity killed the cat." otherwise.

Not all dogs are known for being nice. Rottweilers. German shepherds. Dobermans. Pit bulls. There are yet more.

Is it not obvious that I have? Asteroid mining is most profitable when man already is living in space with large populations. Which itself makes little sense...unless in a scifi setting with overpopulation due to long life span or a ruined homeworld. Any scifi setting must have scifi abilities that make whatever they do viable and reasonable. Manned asteroid mining will only make sense when it does. Robotic is a given, but also boring for scifi.

This is a profitable one if you already have the resources to get it and bring it around for processing https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2019/06/27/gigantic-golden-asteroid-make-everyone-earth-billionaire-10075724/amp/ 16 Psyche is a large asteroid discovered by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis on 17 March 1852 from Naples and named after the Greek mythological figure Psyche. It is one of the dozen most massive asteroids, containing about 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt, and is over 200 kilometres in diameter. NASA has no plans to bring the massive asteroid home and lacks the technology to mine it for its valuable metals. Researchers told CBS News in 2017 that they don't plan to take advantage of the value of the asteroid's composition.