Spacescifi

Well yeah.... but the pufferfish's organs are not exactly reaaranged as opposed to a true shapeshifter.

That's actually a cool idea to be frog based. Could catch prey by flying low and shooting out their tongue to snag prey into it's mouth. In this way it would not have the digestion issues the Nope alien has, since this floaty frog alien shapeshifter would discriminate food and nonfood and be as intelligent as humans are.

For a large SSTO freighter you actually do need to make fairly quick attitude changes if you wanna land right.

Here are my thoughts: Whether they exist or not matters not to me. What matters to me is whether they even can.... through the laws of physics. Turns out they are QUITE possible, but how they look and get around in their natural unshifted form may surprise people. I honestly think a very large creature can compress itself to become small and dense, but a dense creature spreading itself out to become thin is far less likely. What kind of creature am I thinking of? Some type of airborne floaty creature not unlike the alien from the movie Nope. Normally it would fly around all huge relying on hot air balloon physics and combusting methan/oxygen in special organs to create the hot air effect, with other special organs using methane/oxygen combustion in the atmosphere for thrust. Landing would involve leaking air so they shrink and lose buoyancy as they descend. Once landed the huge form would fold itself up together and become soft like jello before semi-hardening (still need muscle fibers to work) into whatever compressed shape it can. My guess is that a creature the size of a blimp probably cannot compress itself to the size of a human and still have it's organs work OK, but may be able compress itself down to the size of a van or a room or something like that. Thoughts? Diet: Likely going to need a lot of energy for shapeshifting, and will probably only shapeshift only as a necessity during the day and not casually. The most nutrient dense form of food with protein for muscles is... well... meat. So chances are shapeshifters could be omnivores.... but with a heavy reliance on meat. Vulnerabilities: Fire, their insides, would be combustible, so they would be careful not to puncture their skin in compressed shifted form around a fire lest they risk spontaneous combustion death. Thoughts?

My guess is if you are using a catalyst to ignite your propellant... it's probably more thrusty than compressed gas pound for pound.

Here you can discuss it, analyze it, or say how you solved it (or if you did not). I go first. The Frenemy: Let's call him Dave (not his real name) This guy has a reputation for being kind and helpful to those he is friends with on the job already, but also someone who will harass or make fun of anyone he thinks is not pulling their weight on the job. The Past: Intitally I was not as good at my job starting out when I began years ago, and he did not like me much. But he did notice I tried hard and gave me unsolicited advice that actually did turn out helpful when I followed it (which I thanked him for). The Present: We get along for the most part, and he is even friendly on occasion. Which is why the latest incident at first I did not take seriously... until I did. The incident: My work involves being on feet and a lot of walking and lifting. My feet are sore at times and I walk with a limp occasionally (especially after just getting out of my vehicle from break or lunch). I can walk normal, but it's easier to limp if my feet are just "waking up" again as it were, until I am fully active and going full steam ahead again. Whenever I limped in the past he would ask why and I told him. I remember once when I asked him why he cares he said the sound of sliding of my soles on the ground annoys him. This happened on and off for months. So just a few days ago he sees me limping coming back from a break or looking for a guy I was supposed to work with and he says "Is walking like that fun?" Since I was on my way to try to find somebody else I brushed aside his sarcasm with my own. "Try it!" "No, I know how to walk." Dave said with a hint of bitterness. "Still can!" I said with a shrug, but sensed all was not right so after walking away came back and asked him if my limp bothered him. He said he does not like the sound of it. I said if my foot hurts it's going to happen so he's just going to have to get used to it. He replies that as many breaks as I take my feet should feel fine. Now I realize he is serious and I likewise take on a serious demeanor. "That was unnecessary." "No, it was'nt." With that I walked off, since I had work to do and this guy was stalling me. It was not as if I answered to him since he holds the same job title I do, nor should I have to explain my comings and goings to him. It's none of his business if I am looking for someone I need to work with who has paperwork without which I cannot start my assignment (the guy I was looking for I later learned was on break). It's none of Dave's business if I have to use the toilet during my work shift, we don't even work in the same area, he just happens to work near the exit, so he sees anytime anyone uses the bathroom or takes a break. I will admit some days as of late I had to go to the bathroom more often due to a runny nose from the cold weather, or worse case scenario use the toilet, but this is not something I do always. I never take more breaks than assigned but he obviously thought I was goofing off or being lazy. Since I recently learned I had to wait for the guy I was looking for to return from his break, I returned to Dave to deal with him, since I have had to before, and if I did not correct this it would continue and I am not one that will tolerate anyone talking to me rudely on the regular or with acceptance. His back was turned as I approached so I said "Dave?" He turned around and I continued sternly "I don't want to hear you tell me about that again, and if you do, this will become an office matter (meaning I will report him to the boss)." "OK." "That's harassment. I won't tolerate that." And with that I walked off. Strangely... the next day he tells me good morning (he never does this usually since he usually only talks if I talk to him first UNLESS he is either trying to be helpful or is harassing). I told him good morning back, since I try not to hold grudges. He even said good hustle as I worked (I tend to work harder and faster if I am angry even if only a bit, which I was). Of course, my personality type is an omega, and I really don't need anyone's praise or complements or even approval, especially anyone who feels the need to judge me when they should focus on what they are doing rather than others since they are not a manager and just the same as the rest. I said nothing in reply and just kept working, and later when work became slower he engaged me in small talk and I wished him a happy holiday. Analysis: Part of me kinda felt like saying "I accept your apology." Since this was his attempt to make amends I could tell even though he never gave an apology. The reason I did not is because he is a frenemy who has helped me in the past on the job, and I see no need to rub salt in a wound since what good does that do for peaceful relations? None. He already realizes he wronged me, and is obviously trying to make nice, so I saw no need to bring up or force an apology. So ultimately I am glad he has enough maturity and humility to to try to make amends when he has wronged someone, since not everyone does (even some far older than him). Even so, I am marking the date on my calendar, so when and if he screws up by harassing me on the job I will report him the day it happens. Since I will not tolerate that. Nor should anyone. He can try that mess and may even get away with it with some, but not with me. Regardless if others know my worth I have always felt I had it and deserved as much respect as any average person.

Why is it that in reality RCS thrusters seem to usually be just compressed gas (like mere puffs of white smoke) as opposed to the flaming exhaust we see coming out main engines? I would think what you want most out of RCS is enough thrust to change your vessel's roll, pitch, or yaw attitude in mere seconds. I suppose you do not need to push out the propellant as fast as possible so that is why compressed gas thrusters are used as opposed to combustion rocketry for RCS thrusters. Also possibly that is easier to pulse fire gas thrusters than bi-propellants with oxidizer. What you want for RCS is either a monopropellant with the oxidizer already mixed in, or compressed gas thrusters to avoid the whole issue of that. So maybe that is why we don't see many flaming plumes out of RCS in real life. In media science fiction we probably see them more because show/movie directos think it looks cool without giving regard to the mechanics of it all. Thoughts? Am I right? Close? Or way off?

[snip] I think.... ultimately, if AI every did become human-like with emotion and morality combined, they would make both the same mistakes and triumphs as their makers. Secondary question... what happens when the AI becomes lazy and designs an AI to off load their own moral dilemmas to? Species are designed by default to survive, but taking away the ability to decide is one step closer to extinction. That is why animals so often go extinct. They lack the ability to understand enough to truly decide what is best for them in many circumstances, especially when faced with unfamiliar situations. Their reasoning capacity compared to humanity hits a wall with diminishing returns far faster than it does with men and women. A higher sense of morality and intelligence combined is what makes us human. Take either or both away and we become as vulnerable to extinction as the unreasoning animals who lack basic human morality.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/liquid-metal-battery Notably, the downside mentioned in the article was the long road of development, since the makers are quite literally blazing a trail not traveled, with no technology to help them but rather having to make things on the spot to make it all work out. Sounds really awesome... and makes sense too, since as we all know heat is a higher energy state than cold, so it makes sense that one could store and discharge larger amounts of energy with a hot storage mechanism rather than a cold one. This ain't fusion, but the makers did face problems with melting seals during development, but that was in 2017, and I would like to think that with all the money Bill Gates is throwing at it maybe they have solved that... especially now that they are getting ready to start implementing and selling the tech as a power supply for Microsoft which wants renewable energy resources instead of relying on diesel (fossil fuel) generators because of the global warming problem.

True... unobtanium is a stretch of imagination, As unlikely as it would be in real life, I think it even more unlikely for a single macguffin do it all unobtanium. Therefore the alien world will have several types of flavors of unobtanium native to their solar system such as: 1. Room temperature zero resistance super conducting materials. 2. A molten metal that can when purified of impurities can hold it's mass worth of electrical energy.

Just curious. Since I have been thinking that a lot of what makes scifi races exactly what they are is tied to what they can do and what they have. So is it possible for an alien habital earth to exist without uranium? In it's place would be a few flavors of unobtanium humanity would LOVE to get their hands on such as: A naturally found metal that when refined of impurities doubles as a zero resistance room temperature super conductor AND can be charged with it's mass equivalent of electrical energy. Otherwise has properties, availability, and density on par with lead. Thus here an the alien earth they never made the atom bomb... not natively anyway. Their first atom bomb was made from uranium found on another planet in their solar system. They still managed to make pure fusion bombs though. Their unobtanium is used for super battery energy storage, with the hazard that if overheated by a fire they would explode releasing all energy stored. Thoughts?

It dawned on me just now how easy it would be... for a scifi civilization capable of making large space armadas, to make disposable ones. What I mean is fully automated fleets, with only a few manned control vessels among them. Imagine a fleet of a thousand flying to attack an Earth-like world. The Earth 2 fleet has a home fleet of 1000 as well, plus orbital defense satelites. Now Earth 2 may seem to have an advantage but that depends on how much damage they can inflict. For example, if an enemy space fleet has put itself on a collision course with earth, simply taking out their engines or weapons is not enough, since inertia dictates ALL of them and their wreckage WILL hit Earth 2's atmosphere unless deflected or diverted somehow. Even worse... a space fleet that is designed to be disposable and crash into planets can be filled with the worst radioactive materials known to man. Meaning once they do hit the atmosphere, it's a bad day.... for everyone below. So instead of mererly diverting or disabling enemy vessels, you would need to literally incinerate or vaporize them... something which is much harder to actually do. Only then could you ensure they do not crash into the planet. Or try to ram them with your own vessels as a last resort... ramming them hard enough to knock them off course.

In scifi it is common for block everything scifi shield bubbles to stop not only incoming enemy fire, but radiation and virtually any other hazard you can think of. Yet the elephant in the room for me was always the fact that fictional such shields have no blindspots and somehow work just fine with the main engines blasting off on them in the rear while simultaneously being hit by enemy fire. An Alternative: In space the best way to maximize efficiency is to specialize. So instead of scifi shields you make defense ships and attack ships. Scifi setting: Spaceships are 300-500 ton SSTOs that have excellent thrust with specific impulse measured in a few hours rather than mere seconds, and missiles are are multi-hundred g thrust (that cannot throttle down) monsters that have specific impulse measured in a few minutes (which is why they are space only as atmosphere would burn them up). Attack Space Vessel (ASV): Designed totally for attack of one sort or another. Think of a laser vessel with an engine at one end and a giant laser lens at the other... or a giant phased laser array that can fire in a cone arc without moving. Ironically a fleet of these is excellent for long range missile intercept IF they all mass laser focus with a combined beam on whatever target they wish. Defense Space Vessel (DSV): Designed for active defense of one sort or another. For example an anti-laser vessel would be a sandcaster, firing off sand in the direction of laser zaps to weaken the beam intensity. With sandcaster pulsed fire acceleration measured in thousands of g's. For example, a cannon could fire pulses of sand in a cone shaped beam at 4000g. Excellent for wrecking incoming missiles as well as weakening laser beam intensity. Battle Outcomes: Inteligence is key... and lack of it would be a deciding factor in battles. I find it amusing how in Star Trek they go hopping from solar system to solar system not knowing what they will face and yet more often than not their weapons are are the right ones for the job. For example, a defense sandcaster vessel would be excellent at short range space combat (4000g sandcaster blasts sprayed liberally will kill anything), but at long range it would not be effective and a good counter to it would be a fleet of laserstars focusing a massed beam upon it. Quantity is a quality of it's own, and I would argue that a large enough fleet of laserstars could only be beaten by a sufficient amount of missiles or sandcasters. Star Trek Combat Speed: At star trek combat speeds (literally flying up to orbit a planet in less than a minute after you can see it in the window with your eyes) missiles are more or less obsolete unless they can actually keep up. Certainly no real missile we could make could. The more ridiculously fast space vessels are, the more lasers and ultra high g sandcasters become the only weapons that matter much at all in my opinion. Thoughts?

Just curious... if you take two lasers, both hot enough to melt steel, only one laser has a rapidly rotating beam while striking the steel and the other laser does not... any advantage whatsoever other than some scifi character being able to brag that they have a RBD (Rotating Beam of Death)?

Very likely they will mention some stuff we already know about living on mars, namely: 1. The dirt is toxic, thus any plants you grow for food are bound to have toxins unless you make a way to filter them out... and the plants grown so far using simulated martian dirt were yellow rather than green so let that sink in. 2. Much less water than earth, which obviously means it will need to be both heavily recycled and conserved. 3. Radiation hazard due to thin atmospheric protection, requring heavy under ground infrastructure tunnels before you can have population safe... unless we make a scifi thin material that can block/reflect it... which we have'nt yet. And there is so so much more... don't get me started lol.

It DOES produce heat, just not nearly as much as photon drive. The heat it produces is on par with big search lights used in WW2 to scan the skies for enemy aircraft, which is virtually inconsequentual, since that is not enough waste heat to be a bother for the crew or risk detonation. Overheating would occur if powerbanks were hit by high energy weapons fire, or if the ship crashed hard enough that the powerbanks detonate. EDIT: The heat is low enough that it is virtually a non-factor so I did not bother mentioning it. Why? It's dependent on the exotic photons (let's call them quotons) hitting off the nozzle as they are emitted to push it away in the opposite direction. Which works in vacuum just like it does in air. Normal photons when absorbed by mass produce heat. Quotons when absorbed by mass cause mass to repel in the opposite direction it is hit from the quotons. Quoton rays going through the air spread out and weaken their repulsion at a distance, much how a rocket plume won't hurt you nearly as bad at a big enough distance.

It actually would if repeller rays were real. For every action there is a reaction. As you shoot something in one direction that is strongly repelling you, you go the opposite direction. It's a basic of physics really, just taking it to extremes for scifi.

Repeller rays leave the mirrored nozzle and repel it... and the rest of the ship, in the opposite direction. The rays reflect off the mirrored nozzle as they leave the emitter, providing thrust.

Scifi Scenario: Repeller ray drive exists that emit extremely repulsive scifi rays that repel all mass that it hits. Mirrored nozzles with emitter lenses down the throat is how it looks. No fuel is required, only power. Repeller rays drives are not super hot like photon drives... as they trade energy/heat conversion for energy/extreme repulsive force conversion. That said, they will blast away the ground on liftoff much like an ordinary rocket... just without the heat of a photon drive. Power source: Powerbanks that can store their mass equivalent of electrical charge, and discharge it in large amounts as energy as well (otherwise it could not power the repeller ray propulsion). So a kilogram powerbank fully charged would weigh 2 kilograms, whereas fully drained it would weigh a kilogram. If overheated a charged powerbank will detonate, releasing all it's stored energy in a catastrophic explosion. Power generation: The moon has been turned into a scifi solar base, with solar panels covering it to charge vast arrays of powerbanks. SSTO Question: Possible but surely there will be a mass limit from the designers for public safety reasons. Examples: The heavier an SSTOs mass, the more energy your powerbank needs to store, leading to larger powerbanks and ultimately a more dangerous outcome if your powerbank overheats and detonates due to a crash or weapons fire hitting it(ka-boom on steroids). Main Question: Ship designers can give a ship SSTO as much delta v and thrust as they want, the only question is what amount is reasonably safe for the public. For example a 300 ton SSTO that can do 1g for 2 hours (3g for a third of that) would still have a dangerous bomb of a powerbank if it ever went off. Conclusion: I think SSTOs would generally be under 1,000 tons, simply because 1,000 tons is more dangerous than the public would want to deal with. So superheavy SSTO freighters I don't see occurring, but 300 tonners is a possibility. As it is... based on previous calculations of power scaling of mass/energy equivalence powerbanks, they would detonate at near Tsar bomb levels anyway... more so if you build heavier and heavier. Secondary Conclusion: You can totally do van size star trek shuttlecraft SSTOs now... I just expect their powerbanks to be quite limited for public safety... which means limited delta V but good thrust. Like I dunno... 30 min of 3g is good enough to deorbit, land, and go back to the mothership in orbit... once. Third Conclusion: Missiles would be overpowered in this setting, as you could get ridiculous levels of delta v AND thrust since safety is not a concern for the missile. I am talking 1000g missiles with less than a kilogram of powerbank that is nearly fully charged that can accelerate for an hour. They would also be expensive (since they require a solar paneled covered moon to generate the power to charge them). Thoughts?

Imagine an Earth-like world that has giant mushrooms instead of trees dotting the landscape. Fruits and veggies come either from bushes or vine plants... meaning lots of berries and starchy plants like potatoes and carrots, but no apples, oranges, or any fruit that comes from trees exists here. Is a world like that even possible in theory? Right away I see possible issues, since trees clean the air, and mushrooms are fungi who don't do that as far as I know. Also the sheer amount of fungus under the ground would be massive with mushrooms that huge. Good thing is that giant mushrooms would provide better shade than trees already do, bad thing is wood will not be as easy to get in large quantity, and I have no clue what you can build with mushrooms. Wood would be expensive since there would be less of it. I have no idea what effect giant mushrooms would have on animals, though some would eat them I imagine or try. Birds would perch and poop all over them. Thoughts?

I was reading a novel where the heroes were shot at with a glowing beam weapon.... only problem for the people that shot at them was that they missed. They heroes had normal guns, and were easily able to track where the beam shots were coming from and return fire in their direction to take them down. Therein lies both the cool factor and the flaw of scifi beam weapons. Unless you are a one-hit one kill aimbot who never misses, glowing scifi beam weapons are just going to let EVERYONE know your location immediately and draw a firefight to you. So really, even if we had scifi glowing beam shooting pistols, they would not be preferred over regular guns, at least not anywhere in atmosphere. Ironically a laser pistol would be more stealthy in space as the beam would be invisible as well as have no recoil, so for space vacuum, actual scifi beam pistols are ideal and even better than guns. Inside an atmosphere regular guns won't let everyone know your location so they are better than glowing beams that track back to you. Thoughts? EDIT: If there were a ray gun that fired invisible beams hot enough to be as lethal as bullets but not so hot as to inonize the air... that WOULD be superior to a gun... which kind of cancels out the cool scifi look, but also makes the scifi weapon more practical.

The big question is... how does outer space vacuum feel to the exposed human body? I think it would feel awfully empty. You may see a few flashes from cosmic rays passing through you before passing out. I doubt it feels cold, since there is nothing to shed body heat quickly. Ears tend to make a popping sound when air presssure changes, and I expect it to be painful even if you hear nothing in space. So basically a painful or unpleasant 15 seconds before passing out in space.

Atmosphere Question: Correct me if wrong, but it is my understanding that even if an object is heat resistant enough not to ablate during reentry, the air running into it at the front would still glow and become plasma because of friction and compression from not being able to get out the way fast enough. Not sure if a fireball with a tail would still form if the object is not ablating. My guess is maybe, but it will be less bright and shorter than if it were from the object actually ablating. Space Question: I could not enjoy Guardians of The Galaxy 3 because it seemed too... immature. Worst of all, Star Lord's near death scene turned my suspension of disbelief right off... since he beginscto freeze solid within moments of being exposed to vacuum in outer space, and a tree's limbs that grow out to catch him also freeze solid and break like ice from apparent amazing coldness of fictionap vacuum. So my question is this... space vacuum does not feel cold does it? If anything your eyes would feel hot since they would begin to boil from the lack of air as the liquid on them turns to gas. And that is besides the fact that heat is hard to loose in space since vacuum does not conduct heat through touch, only by radiation, and the human body is never hot enough to glow without a person already being dead, so that's not a way to loose heat fast either. So my guess? Space would not feel cold, your body temperature would not change, but could feel hotter from the sun's rays hitting you eith no atmospheric filter, also your eyes and tongue would both feel hot as the liquid boiled off them. So instead of freezing within moments, Star Lord would be in pain trying to cover his eyes and mouth before he lost consciousness. Thoughts?

Hahaha! Absolutely nothing actually. The antigravity drive is made to be charged at a specific gravity rate. It is possible to charge at weaker gravity levels, but that only increases the time it takes to charge the trans-gravitric capacitor, which as you know is already a bit over 2 weeks. Why bother? The thrust is excellent and allows spaceships to behave like SSTOs without worrying much about the rocket equation nor radioactive exhaust. You are probably wondering what good is 4 hours of thrust given how vast space is. It is for landing and taking off planets, as well as matching speed/orbit for rendezvous... because using the warp drive won't adjust the ship's true heading and inertia.. which is revealed the moment you drop out of warp. I did mention warp earlier. For fast interplanetary travel a kind of warp drive is used that translates space ahead of the vessel behind it, so as to translate the vessel across space without propelling it. It only takes 30 seconds for the warp drive to accelerate warp translation of space up to lightspeed. For interstellar travel there are hyperlanes hidden below normal space that can be accessed by vessels with working hyperdrives. Hyper lanes look like the scifi warp tunnels of fiction, and they function like 1 way roads where all ships go the same direction. It's like a network of roads connecting systems... but they use stars as hubs, so navigation computers are programmed to take the ship out of the hyper lane before they drop out of hyperspace on the surface of the star. EDIT: It is possible to reduce the charge time by making a much more massive trans-gravitric capacitor, which would trade cargo space for sheer get out of dodge fastness. So large freighter-like vessels without freight carrying massive trans-gravitric capacitors could enable faster waits with a small crew.

I do not think the universe is like Star Trek where life is fairly so common that just about every solar system you go to has an Earth-like variant brimming with life and 1g. Why do I even care about how common or rare 1g worlds are? Thoughts?