New answers tagged science-fiction
4
votes
My eusocial species has biological radio and limited verbal speech. Is this plausible?
Infrared communication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light
Radio is light. Your creatures communicate using light. Infrared radiation is also light; IR has frequencies higher than radio. It is not ...
- 273k
4
votes
Are Mass Effect "style" guns possible?
The previous answers address the projectile viability, but there's a logical consistency problem, too. Real weapons don't have the firepower they have because it's the "right amount", they ...
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7
votes
Are Mass Effect "style" guns possible?
Sure
Flechette style ammunition works just fine.
The late 1980s weapon in the second link fired a 0.66g metal projectile - though probably not fast enough to make a pretty light show.
Considerations
...
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15
votes
Are Mass Effect "style" guns possible?
The answer is "no," but just how it fails depends on the details.
If the projectile is a "shaving", a curved sheet of material, rather than axisymmetric, then it's going to be ...
- 18k
1
vote
Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
The OP asked about "species". Most answers refer to animal species, and the answers contain interesting examples. Plants are also characterized by species, and are also sexually, asexually,...
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1
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Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
Have two genetic contributors allows for more genetic variety in a short time. Asexual production produces what are basically clones, identical copies of the single parent. there will be some ...
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1
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Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
They are hermaphrodites
They reproduce sexually. A scenario of a meeting of equal and equivalent partners would have each be both male and female, each fathering the child that the other carries. ...
- 273k
3
votes
Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
Extreme Dimorphism
Your species has two options for reproduction.
Female makes unfertilised eggs. These only contain genetic info from the mother. Perhaps they are her clones. Perhaps she scrambles ...
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6
votes
Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
There already are:
The whiptail lizard family (to name just one) has several groups where only females exist. They do not have sexual reproduction, but instead reproduce by parthenogenesis. Other ...
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0
votes
Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
In real life temperature effects the gender of some species. If it's hotter there are more males, if it's cooler there are more females, or vice versa.
It could be that some form of environmental ...
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3
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Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
Gender and sexual reproduction aren't necessarily linked.
Evolution is favoured by sexual reproduction because genetic character mixing is faster, but you could have your creatures be ...
- 52k
9
votes
Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
Evolution through the intermediary of partial sexual reproduction
You specifically ask for an evolutionary reason - rather than asking about a species that was always single-gendered.
This has ...
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0
votes
Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
Intermediate sperm storage
Many reptiles have evolved the ability for the females to, after mating, store their partners' sperm for use later. From there, some females may develop the ability to ...
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3
votes
What location options are available for a large-scale underground mining city
The Dengie Nature reserve
Dengie nature reserve is a 3,105 hectare biological and geological
Site of Special Scientific Interest between the estuaries of the
Blackwater and Crouch near Bradwell-on-...
- 273k
1
vote
What location options are available for a large-scale underground mining city
British Guyana
Britain had one colony in mainland South America. It was a bit of a backwater and in real history, operated by absentee slave owners. Its main exports were bauxite and gold. Just keep ...
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1
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What location options are available for a large-scale underground mining city
You need a location with a temperate climate and a low indigenous population.
Western or eastern seaboard Canada has potential, but inquisitive Americans are very near. The Americans could easily ...
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0
votes
How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
Skinner's Malebolge, or The Learning Maze
Malebolge translates to "evil ditches." It's a part of hell that has a bunch of little sub-hells.
A Skinner Box is a psychological tool where you ...
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0
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
You've just made a really dangerous baby
Let's assume your biofabricator is really well-designed. It forces all the varying bits of physical and brain development to occur that are normally performed ...
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1
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If a person had control of every single cell of their body, would they be able to transform into another creature?
Everyone here has very good points. It would be very difficult and inefficient to transform. On top of that it would also be very dangerous. But you could do so much more with a power like this.
Your ...
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2
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
Permanently braindamaged - blind and deaf
Learning key perceptual skills requires data, and is limited to certain development stages. If you fabricate an adult human with an adult brain, it has not ...
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2
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
Your clones' brains are 3D printed with the patterns representing learned knowledge from a base matrix.
They are basically copies of a VM, but instead of a computer, it's a human brain. Our knowledge ...
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2
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
We don't know how the brain encodes the information, but we can easily assume that a lot of information is related to memories. Even the most simple information like a word in the language used ...
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2
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Using coilguns or VASIMR as thrusters in a game
Induction furnace / coilgun hybrid.
I wince at lasers and fast moving pellets. Much waste, much danger. The horror of moving parts!
I propose instead that you melt your reaction mass using an ...
- 273k
4
votes
Accepted
Safe Alcubierre drive
The warped space is supposed to create a flat region in the center, so any blue shifts going through the warped space should be nullified by complementary redshifts, I believe.
However, there is still ...
- 18.3k
25
votes
How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
Legal loophole!
As several of the answers point out, an adult with a "blank" printed brain would be at best at the stage of a newborn (but probably worse, because the newborn's brain is much ...
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4
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
I prefer to think in solutions rather than problems.
A purely 3D printed brain wouldnt know much, in fact this printer likely wont be able to guide the synapses to the right dendrites to make a ...
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1
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Using coilguns or VASIMR as thrusters in a game
Vasimir might be the better option in the sense that on paper at least easily tunable when it comes to your rocket thrust/efficiency ratio. My (lay) opinion would be that assuming the two competing ...
- 12.4k
3
votes
How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
Need to be educated/have a life
After 9-12 months in or so. They would need to hooked up to a "dream machine" or Matrix or some sort of VR. A virtual environment where they can learn. Then ...
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38
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
The problem with this is that mature brains develop in parallel with the body, growing and making connections initially 'organically' but later on in response to external stimuli. Physical skills ...
- 12.4k
3
votes
How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
"Implanted memories" would be gamified.
You can't print someone who walks off the assembly line knowing English, if they don't have a memory of English. A memory of how to spell an English ...
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9
votes
How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
You can't do it.
If implanted memories is illegal, the adult comes out as a new born baby. They first need to learn to walk and talk and not soil themselves in public.
Everything you do is memories. ...
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0
votes
How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
I have never watched Blade Runner but I believe that the brain could be manipulated to make them speak and perceive the world like a regular person after they are released from the vat grown machine ...
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6
votes
Accepted
How would the laws of physics need to be adjusted if there really were a preferred frame of reference for FTL?
There's really nothing needed to make a privileged frame consistent with what we currently know - you just have to make it so that the privileged frame is empirically undetectable with any experiment ...
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9
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Safe Alcubierre drive
Not a Problem
I do not understand the maths behind the Alison Cubert Warp Drive. But I am VERY good at reading Wikipedia articles. On a good day I can also read the Abstract and Summary of an ...
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1
vote
How would time logically be measured on a massive starship in perpetual flight?
They will follow the same standards for more granular time(minutes days weeks seconds etc) that they had before they took off, the same way as has happened throughout history, while the time will ...
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1
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How would time logically be measured on a massive starship in perpetual flight?
Day zone and night zone
Have the ship split into two parts; a night zone and a day zone. The day zone is brightly lit, while the night zone is only very dimply lit. You can travel between the zones ...
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0
votes
FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
Babylon 5 does this - their jumpgates are fixed systems that allow ships with no/limited hyperspace capability to enter hyperspace, and act as part of the navigation beacon system. Warships and some ...
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1
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
can wormdrives, wormgates and warpdrives in this scenario exist without making any of them obsolete?
Cheap, fast, no infrastructure required. Pick 2 out of 3.
Gates probably require a large upfront ...
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1
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Advantages of reverse jointed legs in bipedal mechs?
Let's look at the anatomy of a pair of Mechs in popular fiction:
The savvy one might recognize the iconic MadCat Mk2 from Battletech/Mechwarrior and VF-1 Valkyrie from SDF Macross in GERWALK mode. ...
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1
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
My question is can wormdrives, wormgates and waprdrives in this scenario exist without making any of them redundant/obsolete?
Yes, because each of them has different use cases, requirements and ...
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4
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How would time logically be measured on a massive starship in perpetual flight?
Atomic clock?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock
An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the
frequency of radiation of atoms. It is based on atoms having different
energy ...
- 273k
10
votes
How would time logically be measured on a massive starship in perpetual flight?
I assume all of these species(!) evolved on a planet. Their biology will be atuned to their planets' day-night cycles, so it will still make sense to have artificial cycles on the ship. (see Circadian ...
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1
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
You can fix anything with economics. A technologically inferior method is likely to persist if it cheap enough compared to the alternatives.
Also:
A wormdrive requires the exact "coordinates"...
- 10.9k
0
votes
How would the world view superhumans that are more human or weaker?
There's no real rules for this based on the real world, as all our social conventions would fall apart if there were people capable of the standard comic book powers.
Everything about the world would ...
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2
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
It all comes down to money - abstracted, in this case, as energy cost.
A wormgate, while a permanent portal to another location, will transport anything any everything through it, like a regular door. ...
- 12.1k
3
votes
FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
Lots of good answers here, but I can provide an overview with less text.
Wormgates are easy.
They require infrastructure. Think of this as your railroads: high infrastructure cost, limited access ...
- 1,653
2
votes
FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
Safety
Other answers have touched on this but I thought it bore some further discussion: the main reason you still have warp drives at all is they they are a 100% safe means of travel. "Space ...
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0
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
@JohnO has the right start, but there is a way to make all three technologies simultaneously viable and important.
Here are the principles you need:
To make a wormhole by drive or gate, someone needs ...
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3
votes
FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
Wormgates/Wormdrives have a minimum practical range.
So one would want to use Warp for insystem use, nobody wants to spend six months on the way to Mars when Alpha Centauri is just an eyeblink away.
...
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6
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
You just described interplanetary and interstellar transports.
The wormgates are awesome for ships without any drives. They take you to and from one planet to another, or even across interstellar ...
- 39.5k
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