New answers tagged science-fiction
2
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water producing creatures
If you have free hydrogen and oxygen in your atmosphere your problem won't be "can this creature burn them to make water?", but rather "how do I keep them separate long enough to allow ...
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Realistic physics
In fiction we often like to talk about kilometers-long spaceships capable of going substantial fractions of light speed like it's nothing.
It's often treated as if merely being in ...
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8
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Is this a breathable atmosphere for human-like aliens that have more efficient oxygen-carrying blood? Normal humans would require a gas mask (oxygen)
Welcome to La Paz
La Paz¹ is the capital city² of Bolivia. It has some 800,000 inhabitants, who are regular normal humans. The city is situated at an elevation of 3,640 meters (11,942 American feet) ...
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Orbital bombardment only works in a vacuum (heh), but if you consider anything else it immediately becomes clear its a technique no one would want to use.
Real world example: nukes.
If Russia would ...
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8
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Is this a breathable atmosphere for human-like aliens that have more efficient oxygen-carrying blood? Normal humans would require a gas mask (oxygen)
You're way inside humanity's ability to breathe
The "Death Zone" when climbing mountains (about 8km) is 0.35 atm/356 millibars and Earth's oxygen percentage is 21%. Simplifying a bit, that ...
- 96.2k
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Your maths is off.
The Chicxulub asteroid was 10-15 km diameter, and it "only" killed all life between Mexico and New Jersey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
The thing that ...
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13
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Is this a breathable atmosphere for human-like aliens that have more efficient oxygen-carrying blood? Normal humans would require a gas mask (oxygen)
Yes. Even humans could live there with some acclimation. It might produce some pretty horrible "filtering" of people who can't acclimate.
People have lived for two years at a pressure of 475 ...
- 899
4
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Is this a breathable atmosphere for human-like aliens that have more efficient oxygen-carrying blood? Normal humans would require a gas mask (oxygen)
A very simple way to accomplish this: The inhabitants have a larger lung area and thus can get more oxygen from the same biology. We reach our altitude limit at the point where we can't take in ...
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22
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Accepted
Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
You are assuming that the attacker is at the point in technological development where you can easily move the mass of 2km asteroids around (either an actual asteroid, or a ship with similar mass). But ...
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Planets have become highly mobile
The question implicitly assumes that planets are immobile compared to spaceships. Relax this assumption.
Some future motor has power proportional to surface area to ...
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Anti-concussion brain gear?
I think it's not possible to implement, because it would most likely be illegal and not necessary.
First of all, open violence between civilian population such as duels have been outlawed a long time ...
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3
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
It is that way for widely known stuff because no one did a proper modeling of what actually can happen in space, tropes were formed for purposes of snowing a conflict and then it was towed this way ...
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Beuracrats.
Whatever Mr Vader may think, the power to destroy a planet is very much significant compared to a lone space magician. It requires a massive industrial process to fit and supply a city ...
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2
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
"Mutually assured destruction doesn't help if war has already broken out." - doesn't it?
Let's assume that both sides have hidden fleets that can destroy the other side's planet(s).
If ...
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Theoretically, how well could endothermic chemical reactions work as a heat radiation system in space?
These things nearly always wind up being trade-offs. You pay for what you need at the expense of other things. It is not possible to make a ship that will survive arbitrarily much enemy fire.
You only ...
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Theoretically, how well could endothermic chemical reactions work as a heat radiation system in space?
Phase change is endothermic.
Collect matter from space. Any solid chunk will do. Chunks of metal would be nice. Water or ammonia would be fine too.
You heat the matter. It changes from solid to ...
- 287k
10
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Your factions all use late 1700s technology.
Except for the space tech, which is not theirs. Your people have come into possession of the Stargates and spacecraft which are artifacts of another ...
- 287k
4
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Sci Fi Energy Shields
Since we're assuming FTL ships, I think it's fair game to propose some other sci fi tropes to add in. Every advanced civilization has deployed some sort of anti-ballistic defense ...
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What kind of construction material would an advanced intergalactic civilization use to build megastructures?
I guess the same material which they can build dyson shpere - will do, wink wink
man really, dyson swarm, not sphere, why do you tow that old mistake from 70's which wasn't even original design.
And ...
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2
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Theoretically, how well could endothermic chemical reactions work as a heat radiation system in space?
I think you will struggle to remove much heat using endothermic chemical reactions. The best option (and it's not that good) is to arrange an onboard cold sink. For example ultra cold water or ammonia ...
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What kind of construction material would an advanced intergalactic civilization use to build megastructures?
I agree with the comments, nothing exists; to our knowledge such a material is impossible.
I would suggest as somewhat more believable a beaded necklace; you can put many Earth-like worlds in the same ...
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9
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Planets have a lot of firepower.
Planets have a huge amount of mass and energy, and can devote a lot of it to smashing enemies. They can make huge lasers that draw on a much larger power grid than any ...
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19
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
I've got one word for you, just one word... economics
Many worldbuilders ignore economics in favor of physics. It's as if they believe the cost of building a giant battleship magically vanishes as ...
- 96.2k
31
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Why does space warfare not lead to total anhiliation of both sides?
Your sides don't want annihilation. They want victory.
Smashing the other side's planets is not victory. It's like going to steal a prized racehorse and killing it during the theft. You want the ...
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Theoretically, how well could endothermic chemical reactions work as a heat radiation system in space?
Clever idea and there's nothing stoping you from using it!
So long as you don't take the time to explain the endothermic reaction, or how you "reset" that reaction, I think it's a great ...
- 96.2k
3
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What kind of construction material would an advanced intergalactic civilization use to build megastructures?
If you want something realistic you can use the current wonder material carbon nanotubes, or something more exotic sounding but not as well known (but potentially stronger) diamond nanothreads (also ...
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Anti-concussion brain gear?
Project Graham is a crash test dummy designed by a sculptor and trauma surgeon to show what a human designed to withstand a car crash could look like. Some parts of the design are flawed but several ...
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Coilguns as spaceship thrusters second attempt
More as a comment:
handwavium in the form of being able to break down just about anything into individual atoms and using a 3d printers make everything from an ingot to a fighter craft.
Not so much ...
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2
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
It is the ultimate tourist experience
Currently on earth there are very expensive tours who will take you to try to make 'first contact' with a people who have never been in contact with contemporary '...
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
This reminds me of part of the plot for The Starlost, a 1973 Canadian TV show created by Harlan Ellison. From Wikipedia - "The show's setting is a huge generational colony spacecraft called ...
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
The dome is for their physical and psychological protection for living on a "destroyed" Earth
The Nintendo GameCube game Custom Robo dealt with a similar premise. Putting the story points in ...
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
Arthur C. Clarke used the idea of gigantic domed cities in The City and The Stars, but his did not hold primitives. Man had reached an interstellar empire then lost it, the survivors turned inward, ...
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
Hazardous Materials - Proceed with Caution:
Your world contains recreated primitive cultures of a species or multiple species that devastated the galaxy. But wiping out an entire species of sentient ...
- 60.5k
2
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
You flee from a superstition to be trapped in another superstition
Each dome hold a slave population producing something for the higher power. A lot of people think in a lot of different ways, it is ...
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9
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
It's a zoo. An alien race has been capturing humans from different cultures, for hundreds of thousands of years, and the domes are their cages, a recreation of the exact ecology, weather, air quality, ...
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7
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Accepted
What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
The humans are test subjects.
The higher power are aliens trying to understand the capabilities of the human race. Their motives are either pure research or something hostile such as preparing for a ...
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
Go with part of the plot from Independence Day 2: Terrible movie but .... there is a xenophobic alien race (or their fleets of robotic hunter killers) that is fighting a continual war of extinction ...
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8
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
Welcome to Alpha Complex!
Friend Computer rescued the last remnants of Humanity from the impending nuclear war and communist mutants that roam the wasteland! Nobody would leave the safety of Alpha ...
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3
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
If we had it all to do over again...
Long ago, Man was much greater: master of the land, the air, the sea. Master of physics, chemistry, biology, and more. Indeed, it seemed there was nothing Man ...
- 10k
13
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
Rescued.
I am reminded of the Bottle City of Kandor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandor_(comics)
Kandor (commonly known as the Bottle City of Kandor)1 is a fictional
city spared from the doomed ...
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0
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What are potential avenues for firearms and weapons technologies for a biotech-centric species?
This is easy.
The raw materials for black powder are charcoal (cellulose that is anaerobically reduced to mostly carbon), nitrates (urea is the common one), and sulphur (animal manures). The more ...
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Coilguns as spaceship thrusters second attempt
let me cut to the needed parts...
The smallest drone has a single 5m long coil, followed by dual 10/15/20m, quad 20m, and quad 50m for the largest coils. The dual and quad 20m fire 0.1m³ (300kg) ...
- 13.4k
3
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Coilguns as spaceship thrusters second attempt
Newton's third law can be written (using the 2nd law) as $\vec F_1 = m_1 \times \vec a_1 = -\vec F_2 = m_2 \times a_2 $ -- use that and conservation of momentum.
Each block is thrown at some velocity $...
- 40k
6
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What are potential avenues for firearms and weapons technologies for a biotech-centric species?
Don't try to beat the humans at their own game. Play to your own strengths. You are a biotech species. Engage in biotech warfare.
Make gratuitous use of chemical and biological weapons. Did you know ...
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What are potential avenues for firearms and weapons technologies for a biotech-centric species?
They rely on drone warfare.
Metal and manufacturing is inherently better suited towards moving an object at immense speed. You're never gonna match steel for sheer durability towards rapid movement.
...
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2
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Accepted
How strong would a planetary magnetic field need to be in order to lighten the weight of ferromagnetic metals?
Ok, take this answer with a grain, maybe a truck full of salt because electromagnetism is not my area of expertise, but I researched something similar so maybe that could help.
Basically, ...
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What are potential avenues for firearms and weapons technologies for a biotech-centric species?
This race generally seems like the type not to fight for themselves? If they've spawned critters to do everything else for them I'd expect spawned critters for fighting as well, most likely Starship ...
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What are potential avenues for firearms and weapons technologies for a biotech-centric species?
When you want biological firearms, bombardier beetle is the answer.
How the bombardier beetle works:
The spray is produced from a reaction between two chemical compounds, hydroquinone and hydrogen ...
- 248k
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Physiological consequences of being a brain in a jar plugged into a robot body
The brain still perceives.
The nazi doctor was mad, but not angry and not mean. The doctor was aware that his dying brother's brain destined for the jar would suffer for lack of sensory inputs. The ...
- 287k
4
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At what point do you release aircraft from an orbital lander
As demonstrated by the Apollo Command and Service Module's heat shield, it's entirely possible to withstand entry into an Earth-like atmosphere at at least 36,303 feet per second (about 11 km/s or 6....
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