Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Frosty on September 11, 2008, 08:35:52 pm
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Do you think that the destruction of the galatea had a big hand in reinforcing terran - vasudan relations?
I think the sacrifice of terran lives to attempt the salvation of the vasudan homeworld went a long way in showing the vasudans that the GTA was truly dedicated to the idea of a joint resistance. Later on when the GTVA was formed I think the Galatea sacrifice was a deciding factor in the Vasudan minds.
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It probably did. Khonsu II had the idea of a juggernaut to combat the Galatea's killer, remember? ;)
Keep in mind, however, that the Galatea is but one destroyer. Many pilots from the GTA also lost their lives, or were otherwise stranded due to the skirmishes with the Shivans.
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Just a suggestion:
Good job on warning people that this is a spoiler thread, but next time, you might not want to put the spoiler in the thread title. :)
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Many pilots from the GTA also lost their lives, or were otherwise stranded due to the skirmishes with the Shivans.
Well all fighters have intrasystem jump drives so I think they wouldn't be stranded unless they were stuck in a system filled with Shivans, in which case they'd be screwed, not stranded.
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Just a suggestion:
Good job on warning people that this is a spoiler thread, but next time, you might not want to put the spoiler in the thread title. :)
good idea :lol:
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Many pilots from the GTA also lost their lives, or were otherwise stranded due to the skirmishes with the Shivans.
Well all fighters have intrasystem jump drives so I think they wouldn't be stranded unless they were stuck in a system filled with Shivans, in which case they'd be screwed, not stranded.
Did they have them by the time of the galatea destruction? I know they got them sometime during the campaign, but did they have them by the time of that mission?
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They had INTRA- (ie. within)system jump drives since the beginning.
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Fighters are capable of atmospheric flight as well, so they probably could land on a habitable planet
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I'm not too sure about that.
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Fighters are capable of atmospheric flight as well, so they probably could land on a habitable planet
:wtf:
The only fighter that would be even remotely capable of atmospheric flight is the Perseus. But even then, it simply can't.
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FS reference bible
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come on... atmosferical fighters?? have you seen the shape of some of them??
the perseus is by far one of the worst... maybe the pegasus...
and I remember seeing a description for some atmosferical fighter... I think it was on the shivans v.2 mod.. though it was not possible to choose it on any mission.
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In FS ref bible it's an Elysium in the atmosphere, which has the worst aerodynamics of just about anything.
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None of the fighters can have a hope of going down on the surface without crashing. They don't have any wheels to slow them down, or anti-grav projectors like Star Wars ships. Even places where they can land has to be specially suited for some fighters, e.g the Herc M2. There's a big cut on the floor of the hangar bay just to accommodate the big hook at the bottom of the Herc M2.
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Fighters are capable of atmospheric flight as well, so they probably could land on a habitable planet
:wtf:
The only fighter that would be even remotely capable of atmospheric flight is the Perseus. But even then, it simply can't.
If a Hercules can crash-land on a planet and have the pilot survive and remain conscious enough to crawl out of the mostly-intact fighter after the impact, there's a good chance it could probably land while undamaged too.
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Just a suggestion:
Good job on warning people that this is a spoiler thread, but next time, you might not want to put the spoiler in the thread title. :)
good idea :lol:
You can always change the title of the thread by editing your first post if it matters.
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None of the fighters can have a hope of going down on the surface without crashing. They don't have any wheels to slow them down, or anti-grav projectors like Star Wars ships. Even places where they can land has to be specially suited for some fighters, e.g the Herc M2. There's a big cut on the floor of the hangar bay just to accommodate the big hook at the bottom of the Herc M2.
How do you know they don't have some type of antigrav?
If an Elysium can land on Vasuda Prime, a Hercules I certainly can.
You'll notice the only types of fighter landing pads we see is either the hanger floor or two shelves that fighters sit on with their various parafinalia hanging below in the middle.
I don't see any reason to assume that these shelves can't be on surface hangers as well... why should they be exclusive to ships?
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Fighters are capable of atmospheric flight as well, so they probably could land on a habitable planet
:wtf:
The only fighter that would be even remotely capable of atmospheric flight is the Perseus. But even then, it simply can't.
If a Hercules can crash-land on a planet and have the pilot survive and remain conscious enough to crawl out of the mostly-intact fighter after the impact, there's a good chance it could probably land while undamaged too.
But how is it supposed to land?
And that Herc 1 FS Intro stuff is complete bollocks. What exactly absorbed all this kinetic impact? The pilot should be some kind of liquid stuff flowing out of the fighter.
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I agree, that cutscene, while cool, was flawed in many ways. Not just the graphical ones that earned me my current title.
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I agree, that cutscene, while cool, was flawed in many ways. Not just the graphical ones that earned me my current title.
...and I was wondering why Goober would give you that sort of title.
In the reference bible, I thought the Lucifer mowed down a couple of fighters when it was about to blow up Tombaugh Station.
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Fighters are capable of atmospheric flight as well, so they probably could land on a habitable planet
:wtf:
The only fighter that would be even remotely capable of atmospheric flight is the Perseus. But even then, it simply can't.
To be honest I think the Perseus could make it. Please consider that spacecraft speeds might increase radically with an atmosphere. Maybe the Perseus could be very fast and therefore able to fly without crashing in that environment.
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What about the shields? We know the shield stops physical projectiles so, assuming that the shields shape is a less-than-aerodynamical blob (as it looks that way when you're hit), when you enter a planets atmosphere it would be like hitting a brick wall. Or should we assume the heat generated by the friction simply nullifies the shield altogether?
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Fighters are capable of atmospheric flight as well, so they probably could land on a habitable planet
:wtf:
The only fighter that would be even remotely capable of atmospheric flight is the Perseus. But even then, it simply can't.
To be honest I think the Perseus could make it. Please consider that spacecraft speeds might increase radically with an atmosphere. Maybe the Perseus could be very fast and therefore able to fly without crashing in that environment.
It should travel faster in space. Because in an atmosphere, the friction & resistance by gases and stuff would slow the already ridiculously slow fighters down to the point where gravitation makes short work of them.
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I agree, that cutscene, while cool, was flawed in many ways. Not just the graphical ones that earned me my current title.
Wait a sec...which cutscene? the FS2 intro with the Herc crashing on the planet?
EDIT:
Methinks it's important to remind you that in-game speed and universe speeds are two different things. The ships travel at slower speeds for gameplay reasons. Try fighting in a 300m/s fighter. It'd a pain in the a** to hit anything. They could have just used a bigger scale - the hud shows kilometers instead of meters, thus giving you an "illusions" of greater speed. But such illusion would be ever worse than the current situation - at least the scales work ATM.
Last, but not least, remember that in FS universe we got ships and transports flying to and from planets. Remember the vasuda Prime bombardment? We got a freighters leaving the atmosphere with fighter escort.
We got a Ursa sitting on the floor of the Galatea in the mainhall. How do you think it lifts off?
Some form of anti-grav, surely. FS ships do have artificial gravity without rotating sections. Put 2 and 2 together.
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Why is it so hard to believe that fighters are capable of atmospheric flight?
Every canon piece of information says they can.
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Actually, considering that these fighters are so bulky that they produce enough drag in space to keep them from going faster than 60 m/s, it isn't that hard to believe that the impact when falling out of orbit would be survivable.
:nervous:
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Come on. If it says it can fly in atmosphere, then it means it can.
And maybe it was a rather soft landing?
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I'd say he had some control over his fighter, and tried to land, but didn't have any landing gear.
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I can't believe this topic has detracted from the worst moment in GTVA history. The fall of the sexiest destroyer i have ever served on. It made my eyes leak tear water :(
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I felt so in the last 3 battles of Capella.
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It should travel faster in space. Because in an atmosphere, the friction & resistance by gases and stuff would slow the already ridiculously slow fighters down to the point where gravitation makes short work of them.
Yes but what about their engines' energy? What if with an atmosphere around the energy is higher, allowing the fighter or bomber to travel fast enough to avoid any problems related to gravitation?
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It should travel faster in space. Because in an atmosphere, the friction & resistance by gases and stuff would slow the already ridiculously slow fighters down to the point where gravitation makes short work of them.
Yes but what about their engines' energy? What if with an atmosphere around the energy is higher, allowing the fighter or bomber to travel fast enough to avoid any problems related to gravitation?
Thrust - lift =- no flight.
Thrust + Lift - drag = flight :p
Aside from no control surfaces.
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Look at it this way, they stay up for the same reason Centauri Prime isn't littered with Shadow vessels :p
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Actually, considering that these fighters are so bulky that they produce enough drag in space to keep them from going faster than 60 m/s, it isn't that hard to believe that the impact when falling out of orbit would be survivable.
:nervous:
Nooo they don't. There's no drag in space. But I know you know that.
It should travel faster in space. Because in an atmosphere, the friction & resistance by gases and stuff would slow the already ridiculously slow fighters down to the point where gravitation makes short work of them.
Yes but what about their engines' energy? What if with an atmosphere around the energy is higher, allowing the fighter or bomber to travel fast enough to avoid any problems related to gravitation?
Sorry, Mobius, but the engines will produce the same amount of thrust, and now there's air to slow the ship down. They'll go slower.
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Actually, considering that these fighters are so bulky that they produce enough drag in space to keep them from going faster than 60 m/s, it isn't that hard to believe that the impact when falling out of orbit would be survivable.
:nervous:
Nooo they don't. There's no drag in space. But I know you know that.
There are four hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. They have to add up to something.
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People, with the way the Hercules fell towards the planet I doubt it would survive atmospheric entry, nevermind trying to fly anywhere. Obviously he must've been able to afford some amount of control to his fighter to create some thing of a crash landing.
There's no guarantee that the planet is Earth norm-gravity wise either, which may have contributed to a successful landing.
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'Successful' is relative here, cause I think it'd say he failed, since his fighter survived, relatively speaking, while he did not. :p
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He did manage to crawl out and look at that hologram of his loved ones before croaking. That's pretty impressive considering he smashed into a freakin' planet.
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Nah, some pedestrian came along and did that as a prank.
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'Successful' is relative here, cause I think it'd say he failed, since his fighter survived, relatively speaking, while he did not. :p
I don't recall the condition of his flightsuit but there's no evidence that he died due to injuries in the crash. He could've simply had a damaged radio, and died awaiting some sort of rescue or recovery operation. Either way, it was a good image for the intro.
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He did manage to crawl out and look at that hologram of his loved ones before croaking. That's pretty impressive considering he smashed into a freakin' planet.
Point that.
I don't recall the condition of his flightsuit but there's no evidence that he died due to injuries in the crash. He could've simply had a damaged radio, and died awaiting some sort of rescue or recovery operation. Either way, it was a good image for the intro.
Pretty much.
The vid also shows you how tough Hercs are, to be able to withstand atmospheric re-entry like that.
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The part where the Manticore shot his fighter down with a missile was awesome.
He probably crash-landed into a boulder, crawled out and stared at a hologram of his parents, hoping that someday, he would be rescued, although a scene like this probably inferred that he knew he stood almost no chance of living to see the GTVA Colossus.
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The part where the Manticore shot his fighter down with a missile was awesome.
He probably crash-landed into a boulder, crawled out and stared at a hologram of his parents, hoping that someday, he would be rescued, although a scene like this probably inferred that he knew he stood almost no chance of living to see the GTVA Colossus.
Parents? That's him and his wife (or her and her husband)
Evidenced by the fact that it looks like they're in wedding clothes, from what I can remember, and typically if a child has pictures of his parents its not on their wedding day.
EDIT - oh wait, it's inconclusive. doesn't look like wedding gear. Even so, I always thought it was the wife rather than the parents.
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Interesting point, Akalabeth. I drew my presumption about the parents from the dialogue that was being spoken at that time.
Of children who saw, in the embers of dying stars, the destiny of their race. And they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khIWdolT9xY)
But your point is valid too. You'll recognise a tuxedo anywhere. :nod:
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I think that that scene shown how the pilot felt hopeless, that the Lucifer will annihilate the entire terran and vasudan races, and that he wouldn't ever see his family again ( disregarding that he died anyway ).
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He did manage to crawl out and look at that hologram of his loved ones before croaking. That's pretty impressive considering he smashed into a freaking' planet.
Point that.
I don't recall the condition of his flightsuit but there's no evidence that he died due to injuries in the crash. He could've simply had a damaged radio, and died awaiting some sort of rescue or recovery operation. Either way, it was a good image for the intro.
Pretty much.
The vid also shows you how tough Hercs are, to be able to withstand atmospheric reentry like that.
The scene was and is for cinematic purposes only.
This scene is, IMHO, not meant to show how tough Hercs are. Because that would be downright ridiculous.
(To get a picture, imagine a 20 tonne (and that's probably much to light) metal object crashing unto a surface with 20 km/s.
What should be left is a smoking crater and a few chunks of metal lying around)
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Interesting point, Akalabeth. I drew my presumption about the parents from the dialogue that was being spoken at that time.
Of children who saw, in the embers of dying stars, the destiny of their race. And they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khIWdolT9xY)
Actually that probably makes more sense; if it were a sweetheart they probably would've just had the single portrait of the lover rather than a double portrait like that.
The scene was and is for cinematic purposes only.
This scene is, IMHO, not meant to show how tough Hercs are. Because that would be downright ridiculous.
Yeah I'd agree. All the cinematics are basically there to tell a story, nothing more nothing less. Well, they're supposed to look wicked cool too of course. Which by and large they tend to accomplish.
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You could say, however, that the entire purpose of Freespace is to tell a story, none of it actually has to be right or in-line with the laws of Physics any more than stories like Star Wars or Firefly.
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There's a reason its Science FICTION. :P
If it says they are atmosphere-capable, then they are...
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There's a reason its Science FICTION. :P
If it says they are atmosphere-capable, then they are...
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html#fiction
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There's a reason its Science FICTION. :P
If it says they are atmosphere-capable, then they are...
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html#fiction
Problem is, I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Putting shackles of reality on fiction is probably one of the most creatively inhibiting things you can do.
Asimov's books, for example, fly way outside the realm of physics in some respects, and are incredibly out-dated in others (since the were written circa 1950's). Doesn't mean they are not excellent stories.
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Problem is, I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Putting shackles of reality on fiction is probably one of the most creatively inhibiting things you can do.
Asimov's books, for example, fly way outside the realm of physics in some respects, and are incredibly out-dated in others (since the were written circa 1950's). Doesn't mean they are not excellent stories.
Not necessarily, putting reality onto fiction or science fiction only forces the author to be creative in different ways.
It really all depends on the audience in any case. Honor Harrington I've heard is rather realistic in terms of warfare, and has a large audience, whereby the same token Star Wars is entirely unrealistic and has a large audience as well or on the extreme spectrum of things, something like Spell Jammer which age of sail ships travelling through space ether via some magic mumbo jumbo was very popular too. (Volition Bravos!!!)
Saying all science fiction should be realistic is forcing ideas onto other people, but that doesn't mean that author who want realistic fiction can't pursue it. I think that's mainly what the webpage is for, giving authors with realistic ideals the tools they need to create science fiction. Or that's how I take it.
The main problem is when you get Star Wars or Freespace fanboys screaming "no it's realistic!". Well no, it's not. Its just a movie or a video game, take it for what it is and enjoy it. Sci-fi universes or even fantasy ones can be as creative as they want as long as they don't break the suspension of disbelief, and that further, they're internally consistent. All in my opinion of course.
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http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html#fiction
Hogwash. If I want to blow up the laws of physics and replace them with something assembled from the fragments plus my own stuff, or simply throw them out altogether, I am fully within my rights to do so. Now, on the other hand, that's not to say that Narrative Causality and Powers As Required By Plot should be allowed to run rampant.
Rather, the way in which stupidity lies is when in the construction of your own universe, or the borrowing of somebody else's, that it does not have an internally consistant set of laws. The presence, absence, or total failure of such is the only valid judgement of a work's worth that you can make in this area.
...Also, never ever say Honor Harrington is realistic again.
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There's a reason its Science FICTION. :P
If it says they are atmosphere-capable, then they are...
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html#fiction
Problem is, I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Putting shackles of reality on fiction is probably one of the most creatively inhibiting things you can do.
Asimov's books, for example, fly way outside the realm of physics in some respects, and are incredibly out-dated in others (since the were written circa 1950's). Doesn't mean they are not excellent stories.
Then you and I hold realistic scifi and unrealistic scifi into two different tiers of appreciation. Don't get me wrong, I love all scifi, it's just I tend to prefer scifi that tries to adhere to realism. :)
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There's a reason its Science FICTION. :P
If it says they are atmosphere-capable, then they are...
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html#fiction
Well, it happened. They broke the laws of physics. What are you going to do about it?
Its fine and all to say, "its not ok". In fact, I will admit the physics are incorrect. I know that. I'm not saying its realistic, but there's the fact that it was never intended to be realistic in the first place.
If you really wished, you could rewrite the FS engine to have accurate physics and everything. Would it make for a better story or a more enjoyable experience? I would think not. It would probably just be a massive waste of time.
We have fiction/fantasy because reality is boring. That's my opinion at any rate.
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Problem is, I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Putting shackles of reality on fiction is probably one of the most creatively inhibiting things you can do.
Asimov's books, for example, fly way outside the realm of physics in some respects, and are incredibly out-dated in others (since the were written circa 1950's). Doesn't mean they are not excellent stories.
Not necessarily, putting reality onto fiction or science fiction only forces the author to be creative in different ways.
It really all depends on the audience in any case. Honor Harrington I've heard is rather realistic in terms of warfare, and has a large audience, whereby the same token Star Wars is entirely unrealistic and has a large audience as well or on the extreme spectrum of things, something like Spell Jammer which age of sail ships travelling through space ether via some magic mumbo jumbo was very popular too. (Volition Bravos!!!)
Saying all science fiction should be realistic is forcing ideas onto other people, but that doesn't mean that author who want realistic fiction can't pursue it. I think that's mainly what the webpage is for, giving authors with realistic ideals the tools they need to create science fiction. Or that's how I take it.
The main problem is when you get Star Wars or Freespace fanboys screaming "no it's realistic!". Well no, it's not. Its just a movie or a video game, take it for what it is and enjoy it. Sci-fi universes or even fantasy ones can be as creative as they want as long as they don't break the suspension of disbelief, and that further, they're internally consistent. All in my opinion of course.
To an extent I agree, but to my mind it all boils down to what the author wants to do, it is, after all, their story to tell. If I use Asimov as an example again, there were a series of books commissioned by famous sci-fi authors based on Asimov's novels, and they decided that, rather than set it in the original point-point hyperspace universe, they'd try to 'real it up' by using wormholes to travel as well as other little 'adjustments' to make the story more up to date with modern physics.
To my mind, it pretty much ruined the Asimov universe in doing so, I didn't find the stories nearly as enjoyable. That may have been, in part, down to the writers themselves, but the addition of accurate physics did nothing to save it.
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What about the Herc crash defies physics? :wtf:
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If a Herc can widthstand multi-kiloton explosions, I don't see why it couldn't partially survive a crash at 20 m/s
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We have no idea HOW he crashed...what angle, what speed. Probably the pilot re-gained some control.
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We have fiction/fantasy because reality is boring. That's my opinion at any rate.
What this man said. Quite frankly, realistic space travel as we know it utterly sucks. Chemical rockets burning massive amounts of fuel to achieve low-Earth orbit? Long-distance missions taking more than a decade to reach Pluto? Even the most remotely plausible high-speed propulsion systems always being limited by the persistent bastard that is relativity? **** all that. I want my damn warp/hyperspace/subspace drives already. :p
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What this man said. Quite frankly, realistic space travel as we know it utterly sucks. Chemical rockets burning massive amounts of fuel to achieve low-Earth orbit? Long-distance missions taking more than a decade to reach Pluto? Even the most remotely plausible high-speed propulsion systems always being limited by the persistent bastard that is relativity? **** all that. I want my damn warp/hyperspace/subspace drives already. :p
So 2001 and 2010 are bad movies?
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I've never seen either, so I couldn't tell you, but I do know that they're going from an entirely different vein of sci-fi than that which I usually prefer. I'm much more in the Star Wars "slower-than-light lasers and massive explosions in space" school. :p
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2001 is good, 2010 is ok, allegedly there was a 2015 in the works.... I rmember seeing it on film-something or other (BBC Review show) with barry norman years ago. The Jovians were at war with us and it was meant to be worse than Starship Troopers 2.
Never ehard from it since. Actually i might check IMDB :nod:
Edit- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364192/ is all there is, doesn't sound right though..
I know that books three and four are calle 2064 and 3001. No joy looking for those titles though :bah:
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I've never seen either, so I couldn't tell you, but I do know that they're going from an entirely different vein of sci-fi than that which I usually prefer. I'm much more in the Star Wars "slower-than-light lasers and massive explosions in space" school. :p
Perhaps a better question is what have you seen of realistic sci-fi? Or are you assuming its bad because the very concept turns you off?
As an example, there is the school of thought that, ships need to be within spitting distance of one-another to make for an interesting battle. But then JMS made the battle of Gorash 7 in B5 where the Narn and Shadow ships are never within visual range (save the fighters) but the battle is still very entertaining. He then of course, proceeded to completely ignore the fact that he could do that sort of battle and went back to everything within spitting distance.
Even realistic sci-fi can be done well and interesting. The appeal factor of a given story is the story itself, and how it's presented, not whether or not fighters fly like WW2 craft or like they should in a zero-g environment. The very idea of realistic sci fi might be boring, but then again, having a ship get hit by a virtual shotgun blast of metal flying at relativistic speeds can be very entertaining if presented in a smart way. Some genres, like Batteletech for example are pretty realistic save for the theoretical use of the hyperspace jump. But most insystem travel to any area of interest is measured in weeks at most, and then when the battle is joined the ships are either fighting at the jump point itself or near the planet of interest so you get a pseudo-realistic setting with the potential to have somewhat entertaining battles. Similar in many ways to Freespace save the lack of in-system jumps.
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I've never seen either, so I couldn't tell you, but I do know that they're going from an entirely different vein of sci-fi than that which I usually prefer. I'm much more in the Star Wars "slower-than-light lasers and massive explosions in space" school. :p
Perhaps a better question is what have you seen of realistic sci-fi? Or are you assuming its bad because the very concept turns you off?
As an example, there is the school of thought that, ships need to be within spitting distance of one-another to make for an interesting battle. But then JMS made the battle of Gorash 7 in B5 where the Narn and Shadow ships are never within visual range (save the fighters) but the battle is still very entertaining. He then of course, proceeded to completely ignore the fact that he could do that sort of battle and went back to everything within spitting distance.
Even realistic sci-fi can be done well and interesting. The appeal factor of a given story is the story itself, and how it's presented, not whether or not fighters fly like WW2 craft or like they should in a zero-g environment. The very idea of realistic sci fi might be boring, but then again, having a ship get hit by a virtual shotgun blast of metal flying at relativistic speeds can be very entertaining if presented in a smart way. Some genres, like Batteletech for example are pretty realistic save for the theoretical use of the hyperspace jump. But most insystem travel to any area of interest is measured in weeks at most, and then when the battle is joined the ships are either fighting at the jump point itself or near the planet of interest so you get a pseudo-realistic setting with the potential to have somewhat entertaining battles. Similar in many ways to Freespace save the lack of in-system jumps.
I've read some CBT books, played MW4 and read pages off sarna.net. TBH, CBT is utterly unrealistic. Consider a modern MBT in the likes of Leopard 2, Challenger 2 and M1A2. Those tanks weigh in the range of 60-70 tonnes. Let's say we extrapolate such designs of such a weight class of armoured vehicles into the 30th century.
For a mech of that weight class, we are talking about Mad Dog to Warhammer. Those mechs are far larger in volume and surface area than tanks of the equivalent weight, which will, by real physics, given them paper thin armour compared to the tanks. Yet we see mechs being the king of the battlefield.
If we apply the same materials and technology onto armoured vehicles, they would be turning those fancy mechs into scrap metal with rail guns firing fin stabilized "sabot" shots while those melon shaped gauss rounds be bouncing off the glacial armour of tanks.
Of course, such a rational analysis would turn a geeky "cool" game with big shiny mechs into a dry military simulation like Harpoon.
Another thing, the rate of scientific advance is morbidly slow. While the IS states were blasting each other back to the stone age, the Kerensky formed clans should have leapfrogged in terms of technology (especially given their interest in warfare) to the stage that they should have
melted any IS army they touch, instead of facing the battlefield reverses as they did (guerrilla actions aside). The clans even lose the Trial of Refusal on the invasion of the IS and the IS forces didn't even have access to Clan tech.
Even after the arrival of the clans and temporary reformation of the Star League, the IS states with their vast amount of manpower, still couldn't reverse engineer clan tech and out compete the Clans in terms of tech. The FC/FS even developed their "black boxes" prior to the 4th Succession War and never took them further technologically or use them more widely. Instead, they relied (post 4th Succession War) on ComStar for communications, and the ComStar neutrality pledge is not worth the breath used to speak it, makes no military sense. The term "secure communications" does not seem exist in the CBT universe. It's like the US military using Nokia phones and a Nokia operated network for their secure communications.
I think I'll just stop here.
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If a story is good enough for the suspension of belief to work, then it doesn't really matter in my opinion. It's like complaining that the Sword of Isildur could never be re-forged properly because there would be micro-imperfections in the steel that would make it weak. That might be true, but nobody cares, Magic is the technojargon of Fantasy novels.
Come to think of it, Spaceships powered by magic could make an interesting theme if done properly ;)
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Perhaps a better question is what have you seen of realistic sci-fi? Or are you assuming its bad because the very concept turns you off?
To be perfectly honest, the only thing I've seen of even semi-realistic sci-fi was a few minutes of the new BSG. My sci-fi exposure as a whole is mostly limited to the general Star Trek/Star Wars universes, with a smattering of games and anime series thrown in for good measure. While I can certainly appreciate an author's desire to craft a realistic view of scientific progress in the future (which is one of the reasons I've wanted to try out the anime series Planetes for some time now), that sort of approach has always felt fundamentally limiting to me. I suppose it's a function of my being somewhat frustrated by seeing all of these fantastical space-based settings and knowing that there's no way in hell I'll get to do so much as float around out there, much less visit another planet (or fly around in a spaceship taking out xenocidal aliens). That cheesy 1950s-esque view of the future of space travel has become sadly unfulfilled as the realities and practicalities of the world have overtaken it, and I kind of figure that, if I'll never get to experience flights of fancy like that in real life, at least I can seek out the sort of entertainment that lets me do so vicariously.
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It was said somewhere by V that fighters are anti-grav capable.
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Come to think of it, Spaceships powered by magic could make an interesting theme if done properly ;)
Don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind ... several dozen times ... In actual fact, the original incarnation of my Worldslayer ships were powered by magic ... Then I changed it, and seperated my fantasy and science fiction universes into two seperate universes, although some of my earlier stories still have them as a single universe.
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Even after the arrival of the clans and temporary reformation of the Star League, the IS states with their vast amount of manpower, still couldn't reverse engineer clan tech and out compete the Clans in terms of tech. The FC/FS even developed their "black boxes" prior to the 4th Succession War and never took them further technologically or use them more widely. Instead, they relied (post 4th Succession War) on ComStar for communications, and the ComStar neutrality pledge is not worth the breath used to speak it, makes no military sense. The term "secure communications" does not seem exist in the CBT universe. It's like the US military using Nokia phones and a Nokia operated network for their secure communications.
I think I'll just stop here.
Oh I dont disagree with you. CBT is wildly unrealistic for many reason beyond even the ones you mentioned (ie weapon ranges).
But, the technology itself is fairly realistic in theory if you throw out all of the stuff that doesn't make sense (which of course is a statement which makes no sense, but . . ). I mean the ships don't have gravity, the mechs are ludicrous but there's no such thing as energy shields. Technology wise, there's not that much suspension of disbelief. But there is of course a lot of suspension when it comes to how the technology is implemented, how it progresses and how it is represented within the game. Could be worse.
Realism-wise, something like Dream Pod 9's stuff like Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles blows CBT out of the water.
It was said somewhere by V that fighters are anti-grav capable.
Why does the Hapshetsut used a thruster-controlled launch pad to bring fighters up to the launch port though?
Which imo is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in Freespace, but some people differ on that.
Come to think of it, Spaceships powered by magic could make an interesting theme if done properly ;)
Don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind ... several dozen times ... In actual fact, the original incarnation of my Worldslayer ships were powered by magic ... Then I changed it, and seperated my fantasy and science fiction universes into two seperate universes, although some of my earlier stories still have them as a single universe.
It's certainly crossed my mind a few times, though more in terms of visual style in doodles and drawings rather than anything FS2 modding related. Take treasure planet for example. Crap movie, but some the concept art is pretty damn nice to look at.
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*snip*
All that's true, but you can't deny CBT makes for awesome games. I used to think CBT was God-like, but then I grew up.
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*snip*
All that's true, but you can't deny CBT makes for awesome games. I used to think CBT was God-like, but then I grew up.
I play it somewhat regularly actually, though . . . less often that I used to. That sort of pass time is losing it's appeal for me.
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Amusingly, the original Mobile Suit Gundam was fairly realistic in that it makes something of a big deal in the non-show materials about how the mobile suit was not designed for land warfare (instead, it was all about the Newtonian physics of being able to uses its limbs to orient itself in space!), and devotes an episode or two to the Federation's tanks laying the smackdown on Zakus once they realized that its reputation for space-based badassery did not apply. Most of the shows that it spawned behaved much more poorly about this though, and the titular mobile suit has been described as "a Super Robot in a Real Robot's world."
A number of other early anime entries into the mecha genre come to mind as well, like VOTOMS (whose mecha don't even really walk) or Patlabor (in which a mecha the size of an Abrams is armed like a Bradley and gets taken down quickly and painlessly by a conventional armored vehicle).
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Most of the shows that it spawned behaved much more poorly about this though...
*cough*gundamseeddestiny*cough*
*cough*jesuskiramosesathrunmarylacus*
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A number of other early anime entries into the mecha genre come to mind as well, like VOTOMS (whose mecha don't even really walk) or Patlabor (in which a mecha the size of an Abrams is armed like a Bradley and gets taken down quickly and painlessly by a conventional armored vehicle).
Well VOTOMs and Heavy Gear (which is heavily based upon the former) are basically armoured power suits rather than walking tanks. So they're basically heavy infantry. And in both genres they either have the ability to walk or switch over to a wheel or tread based system for faster movement over flat terrain. Hell of a lot more realistic.
Though with the exception of Gundam, none of these really apply to Freespace and I'm guessing the thread has wandered a little off-topic by now. Though speaking of Gundam, that's the one thing that always turned me off to it. That the main character wasn't just a grunt, but they tended to be an invincible force of nature whose mobile suit could shatter entire fleets. I actually asked on the game-warden forum how they planned to address that sort of issue with the Gundam Seed mod for freespace but I don't think my question has garnered a response yet.
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:lol:
I love this place, from Galatea to Gundam in 4 pages ;)
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Though with the exception of Gundam, none of these really apply to Freespace and I'm guessing the thread has wandered a little off-topic by now. Though speaking of Gundam, that's the one thing that always turned me off to it. That the main character wasn't just a grunt, but they tended to be an invincible force of nature whose mobile suit could shatter entire fleets.
Gundam Wing was probably the one series most blatantly doing this. Anything the Gundam Boys touched became GODLIKE, even grunt units they had no problem blowing away with few hits earlier on. And beam sabers became beam bats when used against Gundams themselves.
I actually asked on the game-warden forum how they planned to address that sort of issue with the Gundam Seed mod for freespace but I don't think my question has garnered a response yet.
I think the problem being that anything designated as a "Gundam" is generally a high performance, usually experimental, mobile suit, that's meant to represent a concentration of force unlike anything seen in their universe. Its like a commando unit, versus the mass production models. It will be interesting to see how they balance it though, which I suspect will be the main problem they encounter.
:lol:
I love this place, from Galatea to Gundam in 4 pages ;)
Well, they both start with G ... :p
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I actually asked on the game-warden forum how they planned to address that sort of issue with the Gundam Seed mod for freespace but I don't think my question has garnered a response yet.
I think the problem being that anything designated as a "Gundam" is generally a high performance, usually experimental, mobile suit, that's meant to represent a concentration of force unlike anything seen in their universe. Its like a commando unit, versus the mass production models. It will be interesting to see how they balance it though, which I suspect will be the main problem they encounter.
Well yeah I know the Gundam tend to be the experiemental, top of the line, one of a kind sorta suits. But Alpha 1, the player is already a godlike creation laying smack across the universe. Give him a toy which is far superior to that of the enemy and some balance issues creep into things. Unless the player is always going to be drastically outnumbered or somesuch thing. Who knows, will be interesting to see what they do if anything ever comes of it.
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Well yeah I know the Gundam tend to be the experiemental, top of the line, one of a kind sorta suits. But Alpha 1, the player is already a godlike creation laying smack across the universe. Give him a toy which is far superior to that of the enemy and some balance issues creep into things. Unless the player is always going to be drastically outnumbered or somesuch thing. Who knows, will be interesting to see what they do if anything ever comes of it.
Huh. I forgot that Alpha 1 would be piloting it. That'd be like having a fleet of Lucifers at your disposal 24/7. Might even be able to pwn Jesus Kira.
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Realistic space travel, a tht moment, takes way too long. How long does it take for a space probe to get past Pluto? :p
About Gundam, I'm actually quite amazed that these mobile suits are, what, about sixty to eighty feet tall? And yet they can move about so freely.
Fiction exists because there has to be an outlet for us to be ludicrous. Of course, if the ten dimensions theory is fact, then fiction is fact too. :D
Uh, guys, why do you post so quickly?
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Cause we rock.
Well, mobile suits are usually defined as agile but weak, while mobile armors are the opposite...
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If a story is good enough for the suspension of belief to work, then it doesn't really matter in my opinion. It's like complaining that the Sword of Isildur could never be re-forged properly because there would be micro-imperfections in the steel that would make it weak. That might be true, but nobody cares, Magic is the technojargon of Fantasy novels.
Come to think of it, Spaceships powered by magic could make an interesting theme if done properly ;)
Reminds me of the Starshield books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
The only Gundam I have watched is Wing. While the mech designs look cool, especially in EW, the show is essentially a ludicrous storyline wrapped in pseudo philosophy. Never mind technology.
It's more or less the same in Macross, but at least there are better storylines (barring M7) and no pretensions.
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Well VOTOMs...are basically armoured power suits rather than walking tanks.
Considering both the size of the VOTOMS armored troopers (3.8 meters tall, dry weight of more than six tonnes) and their control method (pilot in cockpit), I really have to disagree with that assessment.
About Gundam, I'm actually quite amazed that these mobile suits are, what, about sixty to eighty feet tall? And yet they can move about so freely.
16.5 meters is standard MS height in Wing. The original MS Gundam's namesake suit is only 18 meters and a Zaku 17.5. A VF-1A from Macross/Robotech is only 12.9 meters. So it's not quite that big. Forty or fifty feet instead.
EDIT: One of the things that tends to make Wing more palatable to me (and also MS Gundam) is that the mobile suit is a weapon in its infancy; the tactics and techniques for it have yet to be worked out, particularly as it applies to using them against each other. The MS has only been around in Wing for about twenty years, and the Leo is nearly that old, making the slaughtering of them by the much more recently designed and built Gundams basically the same as pitting the first tanks ever developed against a Char-1 bis or Panzer IIIE. In MS Gundam, the mobile suit might even be as young as five years. Someone without preconceptions can waltz in and throw away the book on tactics and be proven correct very easily, as it's the blind leading the blind.
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It is said that Gundam Wing was the Gundam arc that brought the whole thing into the spotlight. I was too young to understand why, though.
...we ought to split this thread, because it looks like we'll be talking about Gundams for a while. ;)
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Stop it with those anime mech/mobile suit/whatever crap! It's bad enough the Galatea is destroyed, you need to ruin it's thread?
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FreeSpace needs moar giant fighting robots.
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FreeSpace needs moar giant fighting robots.
Nah. Leave it at JAD, m'kay? ;)
I think the GTVA named one of their medals the "Order of Galatea" to remember the destroyer.
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I think the GTVA named one of their medals the "Order of Galatea" to remember the destroyer.
... I think that's kinda obvious ... The Galatea and Bastion always struck me as 'hero' destroyers.
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Well VOTOMs...are basically armoured power suits rather than walking tanks.
Considering both the size of the VOTOMS armored troopers (3.8 meters tall, dry weight of more than six tonnes) and their control method (pilot in cockpit), I really have to disagree with that assessment.
You know of any six tonne tanks? Only the lightest tanks, were anywhere near 6 tons. The Panzer I, the Vickers, and the Tetrach.
VOTOMS are power armour; remember the full name is Armoured Trooper VOTOMS. It's a trooper, in armour. They're deployed in infantry squads, they fight as infantry squads. They're better than infantry, but Tanks can make short work of them (at least in Heavy Gear, I've been watching VOTOMs but I've not seen a tank yet - police APCs don't count). But I mean really that's semantics or somethin' similar. Whatever you want to designate them, their function remains the same.
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*snip*
TBH, if I were the commanding officer, I'd have a lot more VOTOMS and a lot less tanks. More cost effective. The only real need for tanks would be to ... well ... tank.
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Pop quiz, roughly what year was the Galatea launched :)
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I KNOW I KNOW!
The answer is ...
"Wut iz teh Colossuss"!
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Pop quiz, roughly what year was the Galatea launched :)
2332?
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Pop quiz, roughly what year was the Galatea launched :)
Which one? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Galatea)
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Pop quiz, roughly what year was the Galatea launched :)
Which one? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Galatea)
:lol: :yes:
Smart.
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(http://1.2.3.11/bmi/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3d/HMS_Galatea_%28Leander-class_frigate%29.jpg)
I like that :yes:
Ummm, i'm not too sure, does it say in any briefings command or otherwise? :lol:
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2332 was a random guess, since it's symmetrical. However, I don't think an Orion can last that long.
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Was the Bastion brought out of mothball storage to be Meson bombed? I can't remember that much.
(For some sort of idea on operation life of an Orion)
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2332 was a random guess, since it's symmetrical. However, I don't think an Orion can last that long.
I thought the Orion had a reputation for toughness? I mean quite a number are still in service during the Second Shivan Incurion, aren't they?
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I give them a life expectancy of about three years (2333 to 2335).
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The Bastion has been in service until 2367, when you are told it's been retired, and you're gonna serve on the Aquitaine ( after the training missions ). 32+ years in service.
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If a story is good enough for the suspension of belief to work, then it doesn't really matter in my opinion. It's like complaining that the Sword of Isildur could never be re-forged properly because there would be micro-imperfections in the steel that would make it weak. That might be true, but nobody cares, Magic is the technojargon of Fantasy novels.
Come to think of it, Spaceships powered by magic could make an interesting theme if done properly ;)
Magic belongs in fantasy, not sci-fi.
There are a few physical rules that for story purposes must be ...bent a little.. like FTL travel. There's no way a interstellar empire could work without that. You don't need to bend or break any other rules for a sci-fi. You can do it, but you don't need to.
Heck, for example, Northstar (to be released) has FTL travel but no FTL comms. Which means currier ships that bring news are vital to the functioning of the interstellar society. An interesting twist, no?
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That 'clever twist' has been in common use since the 1940s in science fiction.
Furthermore, no interstellar empire requires FTL. FTL is magic, and it's not at all necessary for a science fiction story. Refer to Alastair Reynold's 'Revelation Space' setting for a plausible space opera without FTL, and an interstellar society that works fine without it.
Most science fiction uses magic to some degree. It is impossible to say that magic belongs in fantasy, not SF -- whether you call it 'handwavium' or 'technobabble', magic is present. This makes sense, as SF is a subclass of fantasy.
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SF = Science Fiction = Shivan Fighter :D
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Magic belongs in fantasy, not sci-fi.
Totally disagree, a story requires a story, nothing more. If people want to label those stories into genres that's their perogative, but magic belongs no less in sci-fi than technomages belong in Babylon 5 or a Connecticut Yankee belongs in the court of King Arthur.
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That 'clever twist' has been in common use since the 1940s in science fiction.
I meant to say, it not present in recent works. At least not any I've seen or read.
Furthermore, no interstellar empire requires FTL. FTL is magic, and it's not at all necessary for a science fiction story. Refer to Alastair Reynold's 'Revelation Space' setting for a plausible space opera without FTL, and an interstellar society that works fine without it.
FTL is not magic. Our understanding of physics is primitive at best, there may very well be ways around that apparent barrier.
Conservation of energy. Action an reaction. - those are the laws to watch about. Not to mention breaking logic on a fundamental level.
And a interstealar empire without FTL would be pretty much impossible. There would be no way for a central government to control all of it. It would be a collection of independent planet-states at best. That's no empire.
Lastly, there is a big difference between tech in Sci-fi and magic (at least there should be in any sensible sci-fi). Good Sci-fi can make things plausible without actually breaking the known scientific laws. there are plenty of unproven theories out there and a lot of things that are possible, but not now.
Antimatter or fusion reactors for instance. Artificial gravity.
On the other hand you got "tech magic" like teleporters. :rolleyes:
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I meant to say, it not present in recent works. At least not any I've seen or read.
Actually, the recent MW Dark Ages book has this alot, what with the downing of the HPG Net.
For the record, Uprising had a pretty good explanation for teleportation, i.e seperating the object apart into particles then transmitting the particles across to the reciever in an energy beam then reforming the object.
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1. These Parts would have to be very, very small.
2. If they ARE very, very small, the rebuilding plan would be ridiculously, and I mean so extremely super large that it is impossible to save all of it.
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The energy required to decompose something into atoms (read - VAPORIZE), then send those same atoms in an ENERGY BEAM (????) to a reciever that will re-build them PERFECTLY on a atomic level????
There are so many physical and logical loopholes you have to jump trough that it's not even funny.
Not to mention that any brain activity stops when you're transported..and, that every single electron in your being will have to be re-created with the exact same position, speed, etc or else you'll end up with half your memory missing.
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The biggest problem is finding a way of transmitting all the data before the end of the universe.
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That 'clever twist' has been in common use since the 1940s in science fiction.
I meant to say, it not present in recent works. At least not any I've seen or read.
Timothy Zahn's Conqueror series has this same twist and is fairly new. Well, humans fighting aliens and huge misunderstandings on both sides. But basically the humans have FTL tracking but no comms and the aliens have FTL Comms but no tracking. Plus there are some other misunderstandings about battles and so forth in general, the humans think their weapons have no effect on the enemy ships but in fact inside the hull the ships are smashed to pieces. Etecetera and so on. Pretty good, though I never read the last book of the series.
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People are at awe because we managed to move a few atoms on a slab of metal and draw a smiley.
Little do they know it had to be done one atom at a time and it took HOURS for each atom. And a slab of metal is fairly simple in it's atomic composition too.
If you ask how I know this - my physics professor (who works at CERN b.t.w.) knows the guys who did that.
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I thought that several quantum principles not only provided an explanation for teleportation (albeit from point A to point B) but that FTL communications was within the realm of possibility quite soon (next 100 years)
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Not really....not really.
Quantum mechanics is really strange territory...really hard to wrap ones' mind around that. But I don't recall anything in the 1 year long subject on it that would make me believe teleportation is possible.
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Teleportation is a much more plausible thing than FTL travel.
Heck, we already have teleportation technology. Granted, it is still incredibly primitive (IIRC only photons were successfully teleported) but it's still there.
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Teleportation is a much more plausible thing than FTL travel.
Heck, we already have teleportation technology. Granted, it is still incredibly primitive (IIRC only photons were successfully teleported) but it's still there.
Youre' joking right? FTL travel may very well be possible...especially if some theories, like the Einstein-Rosenberg bridge and similar prove to be true.
We don't have teleportation b.t.w. A photon is a completely different thing than a atom. And even if by some miracle we do manage to transport a atom, that is still a completely different thing that transporting a whole lot of them. Which is even more different than transporting a bunch of different ones at the same time. Which is even MORE different than being able to assemble them on the fly.
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That's "Einstein-Rosen" bridge Trashman. Unless you need an accountant as well. :lol:
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Well actually, you'd be surprised at the similarities between (the components) of an atom and a photon. We have a feasible means of teleportation, even if it isn't fully understood. We have no feasible means of long range FTL travel, none tested any way.
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Oh, brother! :rolleyes:
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Teleportation is a much more plausible thing than FTL travel.
Heck, we already have teleportation technology. Granted, it is still incredibly primitive (IIRC only photons were successfully teleported) but it's still there.
Youre' joking right? FTL travel may very well be possible...especially if some theories, like the Einstein-Rosenberg bridge and similar prove to be true.
We don't have teleportation b.t.w. A photon is a completely different thing than a atom. And even if by some miracle we do manage to transport a atom, that is still a completely different thing that transporting a whole lot of them. Which is even more different than transporting a bunch of different ones at the same time. Which is even MORE different than being able to assemble them on the fly.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1888-teleporting-larger-objects-becomes-real-possibility.html
Oh really? I guess you seem to know more about the subject than some scientists that managed to do that with atoms 6 years ago...
Like Mars said, teleportation seems to be having major progress while FTL drives are still so theoretical, even scientists have doubts if it will ever be feasible.
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FTL travel, the last time I checked, was more likely by using wormholes with exotic matter threaded through them than through physically going at vast speeds.
I would split this thread, but I'd have to split it into about 3 parts, and I'm tired tonight. I'll have a go at it tomorrow.
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:wakka:
It's a magazine/journal. Magazine ALWAYS blow things out of proportions.
Major progress? That depends how you define "major progress". If you define it as "We just managed to construct a working bow and arrow. For our next project, we're gonna blow up the Sun!", then yes.
Wait for Herra. Let him explain to you to why teleporting people is never gonna happen.
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Yeah massive OT, but hey, that Teleportation thing is pretty neat, even if we'll never be able to teleport people...
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Relevant...in more ways than one. :p
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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To be honest, I've always felt that teleportation, while undoubtedly cool, is infinitely less feasible and safe compared to FTL travel. I mean, if the reciever or transporter unit is screwed up, you could end up like the Fly. Or something.
Not to mention the massive amounts of money that teleportation would ostensibly require. I mean, in Uprising, you were mining power in the millions, and 700 million watts was only enough to teleport in a single Tier 1 tank. HL: Blue Shift's teleporter also needed alot of power, and just to teleport people outside Black Mesa, not to mention aligning the Xen signals.
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:wakka:
It's a magazine/journal. Magazine ALWAYS blow things out of proportions.
Major progress? That depends how you define "major progress". If you define it as "We just managed to construct a working bow and arrow. For our next project, we're gonna blow up the Sun!", then yes.
Wait for Herra. Let him explain to you to why teleporting people is never gonna happen.
:lol:
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That 'clever twist' has been in common use since the 1940s in science fiction.
I meant to say, it not present in recent works. At least not any I've seen or read.
Akalabeth Angel mentioned the superb Conqueror's Trilogy. It's also present in the wildly popular Honorverse (if I recall correctly) and dozens of other SF works in the past eight years alone.
Furthermore, no interstellar empire requires FTL. FTL is magic, and it's not at all necessary for a science fiction story. Refer to Alastair Reynold's 'Revelation Space' setting for a plausible space opera without FTL, and an interstellar society that works fine without it.
FTL is not magic. Our understanding of physics is primitive at best, there may very well be ways around that apparent barrier.
Conservation of energy. Action an reaction. - those are the laws to watch about. Not to mention breaking logic on a fundamental level.
As it stands, all FTL requires handwavium of one kind or another. Einstein-Rosen bridges require negative energy density, as do warp drives -- the two plausible methods of FTL currently theorized. This is magic, though to a lesser degree than the One Ring or, dare I say, a Portkey.
In essence, we're quibbling over word choice here. Perhaps you'd prefer 'handwavium' to 'magic', though one is really a subset of the other -- magic with marginal justification and some quick talk around the sticky points.
I don't understand what you say breaks logic on a fundamental level, and whatever point you tried to make by introducing 'conservation of energy' and 'action and reaction' is lost on me.
And a interstealar empire without FTL would be pretty much impossible. There would be no way for a central government to control all of it. It would be a collection of independent planet-states at best. That's no empire.
The situation would be similar to that of the farflung colonies of the British Empire -- remote, but at least temporarily governable. It might not be stable in the long term, but if the empire's social structures were good, and there were other factors (like enhanced longevity or really good social engineering), it's quite plausible.
The Revelation Space universe presents a number of possible social models for trans-system governments without FTL travel, particularly the Conjoiners, who share radical neural restructuring and cybernetic augmentation.
Lastly, teleportation is much easier than FTL. You seem to be thinking that it requires the transmission of actual atoms, where in fact all that's required is the transmission of information. A functioning teleport would be more like an excellent fax machine than any kind of 'dematerializer'.
It would also serve as a perfect duplicator, interestingly (and frighteningly) enough.
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But if there's no way of creating FTL communication, then it's really not going to help, because you'd still have to transmit that data at light speed, which isn't fast enough.
Also, the amount of data would be vast, imagine how many atoms there are in a human, about 12g of Carbon has 6.02 x 1023 atoms in it.
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We, right now, at this distance do have a means of FTL communication (see the link about teleportation.)
Right now it's pretty raw, but even if we don't yield full blown teleportation, the ability to exactly copy a photon from any distance away, instantly, is a form of instant communication in and of itself.
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I seem to remember something about being able to 'link' atoms, making them behave in exactly the same manner when they are miles away from each other, but I'll admit to being pretty hazy on the subject.
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We, right now, at this distance do have a means of FTL communication (see the link about teleportation.)
Right now it's pretty raw, but even if we don't yield full blown teleportation, the ability to exactly copy a photon from any distance away, instantly, is a form of instant communication in and of itself.
No we don't. You can't send information faster than lightspeed.
As TrashMan said -- very correctly -- quantum mechanics is fuzzy and hard to understand. It may seem like a process is occurring faster than light, but, in practice, you can't transmit any information through it.
Quantum entanglement, for instance, implies 'spooky action at a distance', yet it's still not possible to transmit information FTL even though particles are affecting each other instantaneously.
I can try to provide a comprehensive technical explanation of why that is, but I'd have to dust off some really rusty skills.
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Teleportation is a nice dream, but probably in the beta-testing, people would be so scared to try it out that the whole project will be dead.
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Teleportation is a nice dream, but probably in the beta-testing, people would be so scared to try it out that the whole project will be dead.
I'm sure flying was scary too, especially since most of the first planes slammed straight into the ground. But it certainly made it past the "beta-testing".
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They'd probably do the same things they did with space flight...except they'd take idiots, not smart people.
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:wakka:
It's a magazine/journal. Magazine ALWAYS blow things out of proportions.
Major progress? That depends how you define "major progress". If you define it as "We just managed to construct a working bow and arrow. For our next project, we're gonna blow up the Sun!", then yes.
Wait for Herra. Let him explain to you to why teleporting people is never gonna happen.
Is that your comeback? They blew out of proportion? What did they blew out of proportion? The fact that we can teleport photons, electrons and atoms at present time? That it's been proven that even complex molecules can be teleported even if we currently do not have the technological ability to do so? How did they blew these facts out of proportions.
It is major progress just as the Kitty Hawk was major progress in aviation (or indeed orbital space flight). Just because it seems remote doesn't mean it isn't major. By your standards then, FTL travel would be even more ridiculous. It would be on the level of "I drolled on the sand. Next, I'll create another universe!".
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It was said somewhere by V that fighters are anti-grav capable.
Why does the Hapshetsut used a thruster-controlled launch pad to bring fighters up to the launch port though?
Which imo is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in Freespace, but some people differ on that.
Well since a whole bunch of freespace really is ludicrous. The fact it says ships are capable of atmospheric flight in the game, and people want to say no (what happened to canon being godly?). While these ships may not be anti-grav capable, they obviously have gravity creating systems for the internals of the ships for crew. And really when you think about it, the way fighters in a hatshetsup take off and land is very similar to what happens on a terran destroyer where a huge crane comes out of no where and sits a fighter down.
Anyway the landing sequence for fighters what little is seen of it on a destroyer is that it's heavily automated. And that's great for how many fighters destroyers hold. In other words, using a thruster controlled launch pad for fighters taking off and landing is a hell of a lot more efficient and orderly and less dangerous when compared to all of the pilots flying in navigating all the ships corridors until they land, or navigating all of the corridors to take off (many accidents would happen). It's not necessarily that fs has anti-grav technology, but that they do at least have obvious ways to counter gravity, such as with thrust.
So while having assisted take offs and landings is considered dumb for you. I guess using a steam powered tow cable for fighters landing and taking off on modern day air carriers is the equivalent.
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Anyway the landing sequence for fighters what little is seen of it on a destroyer is that it's heavily automated. And that's great for how many fighters destroyers hold. In other words, using a thruster controlled launch pad for fighters taking off and landing is a hell of a lot more efficient and orderly and less dangerous when compared to all of the pilots flying in navigating all the ships corridors until they land, or navigating all of the corridors to take off (many accidents would happen). It's not necessarily that fs has anti-grav technology, but that they do at least have obvious ways to counter gravity, such as with thrust.
So while having assisted take offs and landings is considered dumb for you. I guess using a steam powered tow cable for fighters landing and taking off on modern day air carriers is the equivalent.
It's not the pad itself that's dumb, it's the ability to launch only one fighter at a time which is dumb. Using elevators to transfer fighters from the holding area to the launch/recovery area is fine. But when you're limited to launching one fighter with what seems like a minimum 10-20 second delay between it's a little goofy. Modern aircraft carriers even are a little better, with the capacity to launch at least two in quick succession with many more on the flight deck ready to be manoeuvred into position.
If the launching area had at least room for 2-4 fighters to launch in the Hatshepsut, I'd like it a lot more. But one at a time?? No thanks
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Yes. It's always interesting when Command tells a fighter to return back to base, with the destroyer's fighter-bay sitting less than 1/2 a kilometre away from the fighter, the fighter enters subspace - is there a jump node inside the destroyer?
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I'd have thought by now all of you have a general level of Command's intelligence.
Yes. It's always interesting when Command tells a fighter to return back to base, with the destroyer's fighter-bay sitting less than 1/2 a kilometre away from the fighter, the fighter enters subspace - is there a jump node inside the destroyer?
Perhaps the destroyer isn't the fighter's mothership.
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A good deal of the time when you're told to go back to base, the destroyer your stationed on is not in the level, meaning yuo actually warp out to wherever the destroyer is in the system before you land.
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As it stands, all FTL requires handwavium of one kind or another. Einstein-Rosen bridges require negative energy density, as do warp drives -- the two plausible methods of FTL currently theorized. This is magic, though to a lesser degree than the One Ring or, dare I say, a Portkey.
In essence, we're quibbling over word choice here. Perhaps you'd prefer 'handwavium' to 'magic', though one is really a subset of the other -- magic with marginal justification and some quick talk around the sticky points.
the problem with FTL is that it is in itself a rather murky territory. It deals with a higher degree of physics that we know jack s*** about. We do have some theories thrown around that don't have any real proof behind them except that it "appears" to work. Appears is the key word.
While some of the most basic laws of the universe are very likely to be correctly interpreted by us, the higher up the food chain you go and the more you throw in newer theories, the less solid they are.
FTL is improbable. And AT THE MOMENT it appears it might break something (frankly, I think the whole casuality argument sucks. It just makes so very little sense to me). But FTL is the smallest of all plausabiltiy evils you can come up with in Sci-Fi.
I don't understand what you say breaks logic on a fundamental level, and whatever point you tried to make by introducing 'conservation of energy' and 'action and reaction' is lost on me.
I can give you a lot of examples. Like introducing technology that does X and not taking into account that if it does that, it should also be doing Y and that would change Z. And you leave Z the same.
Another good example would be that shapechanger for ST: DS9.
Changing it's mass and volume like that would require amounts of energy equal to a atomic bomb. Not to mention that when they shapechange, even scanners can't tell them apart from the real thing. They are in essence physicly a perfect copy - which is beyond any logic, since then they wouldn't be able to change back.
check this:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html
Look under UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
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As it stands, all FTL requires handwavium of one kind or another. Einstein-Rosen bridges require negative energy density, as do warp drives -- the two plausible methods of FTL currently theorized. This is magic, though to a lesser degree than the One Ring or, dare I say, a Portkey.
In essence, we're quibbling over word choice here. Perhaps you'd prefer 'handwavium' to 'magic', though one is really a subset of the other -- magic with marginal justification and some quick talk around the sticky points.
the problem with FTL is that it is in itself a rather murky territory. It deals with a higher degree of physics that we know jack s*** about. We do have some theories thrown around that don't have any real proof behind them except that it "appears" to work. Appears is the key word.
While some of the most basic laws of the universe are very likely to be correctly interpreted by us, the higher up the food chain you go and the more you throw in newer theories, the less solid they are.
FTL is improbable. And AT THE MOMENT it appears it might break something (frankly, I think the whole casuality argument sucks. It just makes so very little sense to me). But FTL is the smallest of all plausabiltiy evils you can come up with in Sci-Fi.
Exactly. That's why you need magic/handwavium (a slight degree of it) to make it work. FTL is reasonably well-understood, of course; a wormhole's never been observed, but the kind of space-warp FTL drive that's been theorized is precisely what drives distant galaxies away from us at such incredible speeds.
Actually, the smallest of all plausible evils are probably human genetic engineering, cybernetic augmentation, and brain uploading. These are currently impossible (to one degree or another) but are very likely to be possible in the near future.
I don't understand what you say breaks logic on a fundamental level, and whatever point you tried to make by introducing 'conservation of energy' and 'action and reaction' is lost on me.
I can give you a lot of examples. Like introducing technology that does X and not taking into account that if it does that, it should also be doing Y and that would change Z. And you leave Z the same.
Another good example would be that shapechanger for ST: DS9.
Changing it's mass and volume like that would require amounts of energy equal to a atomic bomb. Not to mention that when they shapechange, even scanners can't tell them apart from the real thing. They are in essence physicly a perfect copy - which is beyond any logic, since then they wouldn't be able to change back.
check this:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html
Look under UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Ah, okay, I definitely agree with that. Star Trek was really terrible on that front -- ships never used their transporter beams as weapons against each other, for example (at least once shields were down.)
I have read that website.
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That's where i liked voyager. Some of the normal things that are almost unheard of but capable with trek technology they totally do in voyager. Doing things like using the transporter to teleport a whole entire ships crew over at one time to even teleporting a shuttle or other small ship. Voyager was cool because this is stuff you could totally do with trek technology, that just plain old no one did with at all in the other treks. Usually the transporter only is teleporting a small hand full of people at any one time in any trek series. Voyager even had cool stuff like exploiting temporary holes in a vessels shielding.
Then again, where voyager did some of the more outrageous stuff plausible by their universe. I think i liked stargate more for their abilities of simplifying situations. In star trek it's always "we need to shutdown their shield generator, beam in next to their shield generator, where you'll use only your 733t speedy, yet time consuming handling of alien consoles." In stargate it's like the moment of suspense where the enemy would totally be relying on intimidation to get by is never a second lost for a bullet in the head for the sucker, and anything that needed to be shutdown, rather got blown up (perma-shutdown). I've got to give that to voyager though, half way through the series eventually they did just start to transport torpedoes over to enemy vessels when shields were down. But, a torpedo can always be affected by a dampening field. Why not transport over massive amounts of 1920's style analog clock detonator (sounds like a dampening field wouldn't take care of that). They can do that in trek with the replicators.
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Voyager, eh? It would have been interesting if the Borg and species 8472 joined forces... Also, apparently in one of those two episodes where they introduced the borg/8472 conflict, the Borg had a planet...
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Voyager? Voyager?
(http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/8858/qftfs5.th.jpg) (http://img53.imageshack.us/my.php?image=qftfs5.jpg)(http://img53.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif) (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)
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:lol: So true, it's like the Replicators on Star Trek ships, it's amazing how they, cannot replicate more complex molecules whilst at the same time being tied into the transporter system, which can replicate any living organism, and keep it alive at the other end...
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IIRC It's stated that replicators do notproduce exact replicas due to information storage issues. Because of this they produce volume hundreds of molecules across which have identical structure (alright for dead biologicals but not for living). As a transporter stores the information for only a few seconds, it can store far more information about each item to be produced, and store everything down to quantum levels in the brain (if it didn't do this there would be regular neural scrambling).
As for teleportation in real life. 'sppoky quantum action at a distance' has to be started with a nearly zero distance and then the two entangled particles transported apart by conventional means (and kept entangled along the way). So while the environment of one particle will effect another some way away from it almost instantaneously, the set-up of this is sub-light. Its a bit like the FTL mag-pulses which were being reported a few years ago, where while the wavefront was moving faster than light, the average energy was not.
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Given the Heisenberg uncertanty principle, since it's impossible to know hte speen and position of en electron at a given time, ti's impossible to re-create a perfect copy on the other end.
Aditionally, the very definition of the teleporter being spoken about here implies what whatever is teleported gets fully VAPORIZED (dissolved into atoms). This means two thing - it kills whatever being is being teleported and it requires amazing amounts of energy.
Then the information is sent to another machine that reconstructs, atom by atom (exactly how this is done? Where are all the atoms stored if they are not sent directly?) the original being. This would require absolutely amazing amounts of time, power and knowledge, assuming it was even possible to re-create the original. Which is not. Whatever gets created at the other side isn't you. You're dead.
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This has given me an idea for a topic (which I will not post in General Discussion where it belongs).
The topic has to do with tachyons.
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Given the Heisenberg uncertanty principle, since it's impossible to know hte speen and position of en electron at a given time, ti's impossible to re-create a perfect copy on the other end.
Aditionally, the very definition of the teleporter being spoken about here implies what whatever is teleported gets fully VAPORIZED (dissolved into atoms). This means two thing - it kills whatever being is being teleported and it requires amazing amounts of energy.
Then the information is sent to another machine that reconstructs, atom by atom (exactly how this is done? Where are all the atoms stored if they are not sent directly?) the original being. This would require absolutely amazing amounts of time, power and knowledge, assuming it was even possible to re-create the original. Which is not. Whatever gets created at the other side isn't you. You're dead.
This is correct.
Of course, saying 'you're dead' implies you believe in a soul that can't be transmitted with everything else. If you don't accept that, then the identical copy that reappears is you, since it is, after all, perfectly identical -- down to mindstate.
It would be no different than a brief period of unconsciousness.
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But if there's no way of creating FTL communication, then it's really not going to help, because you'd still have to transmit that data at light speed, which isn't fast enough.
Also, the amount of data would be vast, imagine how many atoms there are in a human, about 12g of Carbon has 6.02 x 1023 atoms in it.
Actually, if we further develop the method of teleporting photons (which someone said we could already do), we could teleport them directly into fiber-optic cables from one end to the other for, at the very least, instant primitive voice communication.
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Well the original body has still been vaporized, soul or not.
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Doesn't matter. The pattern remains the same.
Think about it. None of your body is made of the same atoms as the day you were born. Effectively, you've been vaporized thousands of times over. But the pattern of atoms remains. That's what encodes your identity.
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Well maybe, but that's not why it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because the multiple "yous" never exist simultaneously, there are no memories the original has the new one does not, and moreover the original didn't feel anything. If, instead, you "teleported" the person, and the original just stood there as if nothing happened, and then for no particular reason you took a lightsaber or whatever to him to make him go away, then it's different.
Edit: I would have said phaser, but lightsaber fits better and I didn't think it mattered that I stick to star-trek weapons.
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Thing is, you would have to record the state of every atom in that persons' body at the same time, you couldn't do it sequentially, else each atom would be slightly further along the timeline from the previous one, so you would end up with an object that consists of atoms that are 'older' or 'younger' than others, in fact you would end up with atoms whose components are at different stages.
This might be ok for non-organic stuff, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too healthy for organic or living tissue, since there are constant reactions going on inside living tissue, and they would all arrive at different stages.
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Voyager, eh? It would have been interesting if the Borg and species 8472 joined forces... Also, apparently in one of those two episodes where they introduced the borg/8472 conflict, the Borg had a planet...
The borg have many planets actually. They are not only space faring. Borg do populate planets. In the second tng movie, if the enterprise hadn't gone back in time, then the borg would have conquered earth. Althoug borg planets are usually never seen in star trek, they were usually talked about all the time in voyager, and the fact that you see one get destroyed by 8472. I don't think the borg could have forged an alliance with 8472, voyager was barely able to do so, and that's only because the borg understand the federation through what they have assimilated of it.
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Well maybe, but that's not why it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because the multiple "yous" never exist simultaneously, there are no memories the original has the new one does not, and moreover the original didn't feel anything. If, instead, you "teleported" the person, and the original just stood there as if nothing happened, and then for no particular reason you took a lightsaber or whatever to him to make him go away, then it's different.
Edit: I would have said phaser, but lightsaber fits better and I didn't think it mattered that I stick to star-trek weapons.
It's true that any functioning teleport of this type should also serve as a perfect duplicator.
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Doesn't matter. The pattern remains the same.
Think about it. None of your body is made of the same atoms as the day you were born. Effectively, you've been vaporized thousands of times over. But the pattern of atoms remains. That's what encodes your identity.
Except, as previously stated, you can't create a perfect copy. It won't be perfect.
And we haven't even dwelt into being able to re-create a human with his MEMORY or current thoughts in tact.
Think about it - with the most sophisticated methods today it took us s***loads of time to move a dozen atoms on a singular piece of matter. Just one the surface.
Teleportoing is not useful at all if it takes 12*10^30 YEARS to put a man back together on the other end.
as I said before, I've been over teleporting with my Physics professor. He happens to be something of a Star Trek fan and works at CERN on anti-matter. Long story short - teleporation of human being is a dream.
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I'm amused at what the topic started on, and at where it is now.
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I would split it, but it's such a spaghetti of topics, I'm not really sure where to begin...
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Doesn't matter. The pattern remains the same.
Think about it. None of your body is made of the same atoms as the day you were born. Effectively, you've been vaporized thousands of times over. But the pattern of atoms remains. That's what encodes your identity.
Except, as previously stated, you can't create a perfect copy. It won't be perfect.
And we haven't even dwelt into being able to re-create a human with his MEMORY or current thoughts in tact.
Think about it - with the most sophisticated methods today it took us s***loads of time to move a dozen atoms on a singular piece of matter. Just one the surface.
Teleportoing is not useful at all if it takes 12*10^30 YEARS to put a man back together on the other end.
as I said before, I've been over teleporting with my Physics professor. He happens to be something of a Star Trek fan and works at CERN on anti-matter. Long story short - teleporation of human being is a dream.
That's very true, but I'm dealing with the philosophical objections, not the practical ones (which are the valid ones.)
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I would split it, but it's such a spaghetti of topics, I'm not really sure where to begin...
True that. Change the topic name then :p
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Doesn't matter. The pattern remains the same.
Think about it. None of your body is made of the same atoms as the day you were born. Effectively, you've been vaporized thousands of times over. But the pattern of atoms remains. That's what encodes your identity.
Except, as previously stated, you can't create a perfect copy. It won't be perfect.
And we haven't even dwelt into being able to re-create a human with his MEMORY or current thoughts in tact.
Think about it - with the most sophisticated methods today it took us s***loads of time to move a dozen atoms on a singular piece of matter. Just one the surface.
Teleportoing is not useful at all if it takes 12*10^30 YEARS to put a man back together on the other end.
as I said before, I've been over teleporting with my Physics professor. He happens to be something of a Star Trek fan and works at CERN on anti-matter. Long story short - teleporation of human being is a dream.
You forget our good friend the Law of Accelerating Returns! Factor that in, and we can expect large-scale teleportation of living beings by, what, next Tuesday?
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I would split it, but it's such a spaghetti of topics, I'm not really sure where to begin...
Why not do it like bacteria? Split this one up, then split the split thread up, and so on.
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I would split it, but it's such a spaghetti of topics, I'm not really sure where to begin...
Why not do it like bacteria? Split this one up, then split the split thread up, and so on.
But, among all those totally unrelated posts, there just might be two posts that are insignificantly related. Then you'd have to merge those two into one topic and so on.
Though you could also break everything up and reassebmle them so that the conversations would make no sense whatsoever. But that might count as abuse of power.
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You forget our good friend the Law of Accelerating Returns! Factor that in, and we can expect large-scale teleportation of living beings by, what, next Tuesday?
The law of what? It doesn't apply here.
That's very true, but I'm dealing with the philosophical objections, not the practical ones (which are the valid ones.)
Well, there are philosophical ones too. Moral ones. The living being that gets teleported has to be killed as a first step. Let me repeat that - the first step of teleportation involves KILLING the person that's teleporting. That's just not a process I (or any sane person) would ever trust. If anything goes wrong you're gone forever.
I mean, imagine a airline company that goes "Oh hey. We're gonna shoot you in the head. Don't worry, once we transport your corpse we got people there who will bring you back to life!"
Aditionally, you forget one other inherent problem - data corruption and transfer errors. The amount of data would giganormeues and sent across great distances. Just a a few bits sent wrong, any interferance, and you pop up on the other side as a vegetable.
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The data corruption issue is a practical one.
And I was pointing out that yes, you die, but you also live. Teleportation forces us to confront some very dearly-held myths about our identites -- we have to recognize that all that really makes us 'us' is the pattern of atoms in our bodies and brains.
So long as that pattern is preserved, we live.
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The data corruption issue is a practical one.
And I was pointing out that yes, you die, but you also live. Teleportation forces us to confront some very dearly-held myths about our identites -- we have to recognize that all that really makes us 'us' is the pattern of atoms in our bodies and brains.
So long as that pattern is preserved, we live.
For which we have no proof that that's actually all that makes US.
Nor do we have the proof that it's possible to create a perfect replica. Actually, as I stated before, we have strong proof that it's impossible to create a perfect replica, due to the Heisenberg Uncertanty principle. If the replica is not perfect, then it's not me, now is it?
So you basicely think humanity should use a device that has no guarantees of success and who's first step is vaporizing you? Frankly, I have better chances winning hte lottery than getting out on the other end alive. Assuming whatever comes out the other end will be me in the first place.
I'd rather fly to my destination in a 100-year old, badly mantained plain from a shady third-world airline with no parachutes, filled with snakes and terrorists.
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Those are all practical objections. I'm dealing with the philosophical objection, and assuming that the construction of a perfect duplicate is possible.
I already know that in reality it's not.
Calm down, you're preaching to the choir.
For which we have no proof that that's actually all that makes US.
That's the only philosophical objection you raised, to which I'd say: what else could there be? Some kind of soul?
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Calm down, you're preaching to the choir.
What do you mean by that?
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Calm down, you're preaching to the choir.
What do you mean by that?
That's a metaphor, obviously! [/idiot]
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Calm down, you're preaching to the choir.
What do you mean by that?
It means 'you are arguing a point to someone who already agrees with the point', i.e. you're wasting your efforts on someone who agrees with you.
It's a fairly common saying in American (and perhaps British?) culture.
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Why 'choir' then. I know I never always agreed with my conductor when I was in choir ...
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No, like a minister/reverend/something, at a church, preaching to the church choir.
For which we have no proof that that's actually all that makes US.
That's the only philosophical objection you raised, to which I'd say: what else could there be? Some kind of soul?
I just find it ironic that if I were to play the devil's advocate here, I'd actually be arguing that there is such a thing as a soul.
Cuz the devil... and ... ah screw it.
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That's the only philosophical objection you raised, to which I'd say: what else could there be? Some kind of soul?
A human being at its core is just a bunch of chemicals and other materials put together. But can they put together a human in a lab? Has any lab in the world been able to create life? And if so, why not. What more is there to life than the basic elements composing the body? And if there is something more, how is it manufactured or can it be?
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That's the only philosophical objection you raised, to which I'd say: what else could there be? Some kind of soul?
A human being at its core is just a bunch of chemicals and other materials put together. But can they put together a human in a lab? Has any lab in the world been able to create life? And if so, why not. What more is there to life than the basic elements composing the body? And if there is something more, how is it manufactured or can it be?
There is a lot more to life than 'the basic elements composing the body.'
The system of a living organism is incredibly complex. Synthesizing it in a lab is a naive and, for the moment, pointless endeavor. It does not reveal anything about whether or not there is a soul.
It's easy to confuse practical problems with philosophical ones, but in this case, the objection you're raising is simply practical -- akin to going out in the 1600s and saying 'has any man been able to build a machine that can fly? Because they have not, what more is there to flight?'
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Saying that a human body is nothing more than chemicals is like saying that the a suspension bridge is nothing more than concrete and steel.
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Saying that a human body is nothing more than chemicals is like saying that the a suspension bridge is nothing more than concrete and steel.
A suspension bridge IS just concrete and steel, possibly with rope and wood.
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This is just concrete and steel
(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/218/473255778_c853968c5f_o.jpg)
This is a suspension bridge
(http://www.bristol.ac.uk/university/gallery/city-of-bristol/suspension-bridge-l.jpg)
Things are not just a sum of their components. That is to say, a splatter of blood and gore on the floor is no longer human, even if it's made of the same stuff.
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Exactly.
What matters is the arrangement of those components -- the pattern of information.
It is heartening to see such agreement!
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Why 'choir' then. I know I never always agreed with my conductor when I was in choir ...
That would be the "preaching" part; that is, telling the people who show up at church every week to sing about Jesus that Jesus loves them. :p
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That would be the "preaching" part; that is, telling the people who show up at church every week to sing about Jesus that Jesus loves them. :p
Oh, that kinda choir. Mine was a school choir. :p
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Isn't the suspension bridge a marvel of steel and concrete? Debris is just...steel and concrete.
I wonder who has the blueprints for the GTD Orion...
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That's so illogical.
Nothing can transcend its components. In the end, a suspension bridge is only as good as the concrete and steel it is made of. Form and function are irrelevant. We're talking about what it is, not what it does. A suspension bridge IS just concrete and steel. Why? Take all the concrete and steel away and what are you left with? NOTHING!
This doesn't change the fact that at our current technological level, we do not have the means to construct a living organism. However, there is nothing stating that it is completely impossible to do.
Of course, if you want philosophical, you can question if this reality exists at all, or we're in some Matrix-like thing...
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Well in that case I guess a transporter is easier than we thought.
As long as we get the atoms in roughly the right place, then everything will be alright, correct? After all, "form and function are irrelevant", as long as we get the components right.
Form and function matter to humans. I suppose if you were an impersonal observer, everything would eventually go entropy anyway, so you wouldn't care. As a human however, form and function matter a whole lot, and I personally would like my atoms staying in roughly the same configuration, even if I swap them out a lot.
I'm not arguing that it's impossible to construct a living organism, I'm saying it would be a hell of a lot more complicated than people seem to think to disassemble and reassemble a specific living organism, and capture all of the neural impulses at the exact moment of transport.
Remember, there's more than just matter in people, if one came through a transport and lacked electrical impulses, the person will come out the other end dead. And the matter is a tough enough problem.
I do think a quantum transporter might well be possible however
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does anyone even remember what this thread was about in the first place?
I mean how did we get from talking about whether the destruction of the Galatea strengthened Terran-Vasudan relations to talking about FLT drives and Transporters?
On a minor note, i prefere Dr Who's name for the transpoter - Transmat
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Well in that case I guess a transporter is easier than we thought.
As long as we get the atoms in roughly the right place, then everything will be alright, correct? After all, "form and function are irrelevant", as long as we get the components right.
Then the bridge analogy isn't the perfect one in this sense. A bridge is easy enough to replicate. You could do it with all the atoms in roughly the right place and it wouldn't fall apart.
Form and function matter to humans. I suppose if you were an impersonal observer, everything would eventually go entropy anyway, so you wouldn't care. As a human however, form and function matter a whole lot, and I personally would like my atoms staying in roughly the same configuration, even if I swap them out a lot.
I'm not arguing that it's impossible to construct a living organism, I'm saying it would be a hell of a lot more complicated than people seem to think to disassemble and reassemble a specific living organism, and capture all of the neural impulses at the exact moment of transport.
Remember, there's more than just matter in people, if one came through a transport and lacked electrical impulses, the person will come out the other end dead. And the matter is a tough enough problem.
That, I agree with.
But we are just made of chemicals and electrical impulses...its just that we're made of very specific chemicals and electrical impulses.
does anyone even remember what this thread was about in the first place?
I mean how did we get from talking about whether the destruction of the Galatea strengthened Terran-Vasudan relations to talking about FLT drives and Transporters?
The power of derailment.
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That, I agree with.
But we are just made of chemicals and electrical impulses...its just that we're made of very specific chemicals and electrical impulses.
I just don't understand what the purpose of "just" is in your argument.
I too think that we're made of chemicals and electrical impulses, very specific ones, I think you'll find that a jellyfish is as well.
I don't think we are JUST chemicals and electrical impulses, because they must be at very specific places, at very specific times. Together, they form a human. I fully acknowledge what a human is made of, thank you very much.
Of course an object can "transcend" its components, in the sense that an object is not just a random collection of components, but a very structured thing.
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Oh boy...This is when we get into the deep philosohical stuff....
Looks lets just skip the whole philosophical dicussion here - I've heard it all 1988 times before - Lets instead skip staight to the conclusion and say that humans and indeed all living things are more than the sum of their parts.
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There's no philosophical discussion at all... at least, I'm not trying to make a philosophical argument, because it would quickly become impossible to prove either way.
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I just don't understand what the purpose of "just" is in your argument.
I too think that we're made of chemicals and electrical impulses, very specific ones, I think you'll find that a jellyfish is as well.
I don't think we are JUST chemicals and electrical impulses, because they must be at very specific places, at very specific times. Together, they form a human. I fully acknowledge what a human is made of, thank you very much.
Of course an object can "transcend" its components, in the sense that an object is not just a random collection of components, but a very structured thing.
Okay, how did life begin?
If you watch something like All Good Things, the last episode of Star Trek, some pool of goo, decided it was going to be alive and set the ball into motion? Can such a simple organism as that be created in the lab? Because the very first spark of life on this world had to be just the sum of its components, some chemicals, or proteins or whatever got together and thus was life born. But can anyone replicate even something so simple????
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AS I SAID
I am not saying that it's impossible to construct a life form.
I am saying that a transporter should transport an entire organism, not just its various components.
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Okaaay...I think this is best off locked. I have no idea how this thread made it through as many topics as it did, but where it wound up isn't related to FS in the slightest. If you want to continue discussing the philosophical ramifications of teleportation, may I suggest the lovely GenDisc forum?