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Author Topic: black spathi?  (Read 13054 times)
Lukipela
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #45 on: June 23, 2004, 02:11:31 pm »

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There are alot of races in the Ur-Quan universe. Feel free to mix and match the ideas, so maybe a little of everything is used. For example, I don't think the orz have to worry about getting flattened against a wall, since their corporeal forms are little more than nifty tools.


No dice. If every one of your tools always break while travelling, none of your tools will make it to the next solar system, and certainly not to Sol. It might not hurt you per se, but you wont get any work done either.
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ChainiaC
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #46 on: June 23, 2004, 02:55:51 pm »

Hmm... I thought according to quantum mechanics information CAN actually be transmitted faster then light...

And ofcourse there's the tachyon... but that's highly theoretical I think.
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Death 999
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #47 on: June 23, 2004, 08:10:22 pm »

The tachyon is suggested by special relativity, but no one can really figure out how it would fit into general relativity.

As far as FTL information transfer -- the universe must remain consistent, and it is lazy about making decisions. This means that the universe can transmit information about its recent random choices faster than the speed of light -- but this is not exploitable for us to transmit information. All we can do is 'roll dice' and gaurantee that someone far far away got the same exact roll we did... but we can't choose what roll we'll get.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2004, 08:11:30 pm by Death_999 » Logged
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #48 on: June 23, 2004, 08:55:20 pm »

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No dice. If every one of your tools always break while travelling, none of your tools will make it to the next solar system, and certainly not to Sol. It might not hurt you per se, but you wont get any work done either.

Well, that's why they travel so slowly, then? They've never had to actually bother with inertial dampers, but they don't want to completely destroy their tools, either. Also, they are shown to be in the water, and you can handle much higher G's when you're full of water, than you could ever do with hollow and collapsable lungs. Would it be reasonable that they just wouldn't care about dampers? Why would you need individual designs for every ship, if they weren't vastly different in one way or another?

Once again I ask, are we talking about real, well known physics? Or reasonable explanations for things in the Ur-Quan universe? Because the arguments for these things will be completely different. And because real life physics are probably better argued in a physics forum.

So far, every single discovery on the universe has been made on earth, from earth, or from the orbit of earth. In the grand scheme of things, there is absolutely no reason that every single cubic inch of the universe has to follow the exact same rules. The only reasons we have now, are that it should happen, and that it would be really nice.

That's the whole point of hyperspace. It doesn't give a damn about the rules of our space. Things can travel FTL, because we say they can do it in hyperspace. So, the only thing that's really needed, is a small and reasonable explanation of how that would work.

oops. I notice this is waayyy off topic from the Black spathi. I think this discussion needs to be moved to a new thread. Roll Eyes
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #49 on: June 23, 2004, 08:56:29 pm »

I see, thanks for bringing me up to date on this Smiley
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #50 on: June 23, 2004, 10:25:26 pm »

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Actually, I've heard of that experiment. All it really proves, is that you can't cheat with lasers, to move data faster than light. Since light is the fastest thing we know of, we have no idea on how to make any information travel faster.

It's a theoretical argument. I probably shouldn't have brought it up in the first place, as I don't know the details. The idea was that if you could send information faster than light, you could get contradictions if the theory of relativity is right.

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Are we talking about real life physics, or conceptual stuff for Ur-Quan? Because I am confident that mankind hasn't even scratched the surface on science. Heck, we haven't even explored past earth. How could we possibly know what's out there?

It's not a matter of things we don't know about yet. It's a matter of a fundamental law which works well in practice having to be simply wrong.
Even special relativity didn't make Newtonian physics unusable, it just made Newtonian physics an approximation for every day usage. For FLT relativity would have to be just plainly wrong. It's not impossible, but "not even having scratched the surface" doesn't mean everything we know now is wrong.

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On the other hand, I don't have a problem with making stuff up to make a video game interesting. As long as it can answer all the questions about it, it'll work perfectly fine as game science.

Sure, it's about the fun, not the science. But it appears this thread is (currently) about the science, not about the fun. Smiley

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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #51 on: June 23, 2004, 10:38:34 pm »

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There is a theory about black holes stating that a neutrino could escape. And to escape a black hole it would need to travel faster than light.

You're talking about Hawking radiation. But that doesn't involve superluminous speeds.
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #52 on: June 23, 2004, 10:54:52 pm »

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So far, every single discovery on the universe has been made on earth, from earth, or from the orbit of earth. In the grand scheme of things, there is absolutely no reason that every single cubic inch of the universe has to follow the exact same rules. The only reasons we have now, are that it should happen, and that it would be really nice.

Indeed. In fact, there's no reason that our laws of physics are exactly the same on Earth tomorrow.
Which brings me to one of my favourite filosofical problems, Hume's problem of induction.

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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #53 on: June 24, 2004, 01:58:37 am »

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Well, that's why they travel so slowly, then? They've never had to actually bother with inertial dampers, but they don't want to completely destroy their tools, either. Also, they are shown to be in the water, and you can handle much higher G's when you're full of water, than you could ever do with hollow and collapsable lungs. Would it be reasonable that they just wouldn't care about dampers? Why would you need individual designs for every ship, if they weren't vastly different in one way or another?

Once again I ask, are we talking about real, well known physics? Or reasonable explanations for things in the Ur-Quan universe? Because the arguments for these things will be completely different. And because real life physics are probably better argued in a physics forum.


Actually, the argument you made was that Orz would not care for dampeners ebcause their bodies are just shells. I assumed that this argument postulated that other races need to use dampeners so that they don't get crushed. In that case, it's still no dice, since no dampeners still means fleet of dead Orz in HS, or Orz travelling at combat speed between star systems. Which can't be true, as you encounter them in hyperspace.

Neither of that has anything to do with the physics of the regular universe, it was emrely a riposte to your theoeretical proposition of "If inertial dampeners are needed to survive, the Orz might still not care".

Personally, I doubt that there areinertial dampneres in SC science, and I doubt there is a HS in real science.

As for individual designs, why do you need them for different airplanes? their basically all the same, aren't they? Or individual designs for cars? Or bikes? Or anything? Yes, they are all different. But they're not necessarily THAT different.
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #54 on: June 24, 2004, 04:48:33 am »

In the stories I make up myself I always make sure that every spacefaring species has a totally different way to cross interstellar distances Smiley
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #55 on: June 24, 2004, 07:28:02 am »

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Personally, I doubt that there areinertial dampneres in SC science, and I doubt there is a HS in real science.

Ah, but that's why I brought them up in the first place; they're specifically mentioned in the SC2 manual: (emphasis added)

Collision with Asteroids and Planets
Asteroids are large rocks which endlessly tumble through a solar system, trapped by the gravity of the star and its planets. Due to the sophistication of modern inertial dampeners, colliding with asteroids causes no damage, just a sudden change in course.

Impacting a planet is a different matter altogether. Your ship will be damaged severely, and potentially even be destroyed. Once again, AVOID HITTING PLANETS.
The point they were raised in service of was that SC2 doesn't get bogged down in "hard science", it just lets the story move forward, and invents any technologies needed to service the story.

But even then, it was thread-jacking, so I'll not be one to complain that the thread has been hijacked.  Wink
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #56 on: June 24, 2004, 01:12:24 pm »

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In the stories I make up myself I always make sure that every spacefaring species has a totally different way to cross interstellar distances Smiley



What, like some have rockets, some HS and some... paddle? How many ways are there to travel?

And OXDE, good point. I'd completely forgotten about that (My SC2 manual was borrowed many years ago by a friend who then promptly moved to another country). Still, Orz don't lose crew if they collide with asteroids, ergo dampeners exist. I think.

And if that was your point, I agree. Thread jacking? QWell, the original question has been answered, so it's a free for all now...
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #57 on: June 24, 2004, 09:09:24 pm »

Well a couple of ways are...

* cryo suspension and being underway horribly long
* near light speed: your not underway very long... but according to the rest of the universe you are Tongue
* transfer your consciousness to a robot host body in another solar system via a kind of instant data transfer quantum internet.
* transfer your consciousness through ESP
* teleport yourself through quantum entanglement / tunneling effects.
* warp space around you
* punch a hole through spacetime (create a black hole), this can be done either by gravity manipulation or by simply accelerating your ship till your mass is suffucient to form its own event horizon
* open a wormhole
* simply know where all the wormholes are
* fiddle with time itself
* travel interdimensionally
* convert yourself to energy and transmit youtself at the speed of light.

er... should I continue? Smiley
« Last Edit: June 24, 2004, 09:09:58 pm by ChainiaC » Logged
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #58 on: June 24, 2004, 09:15:20 pm »

Opening a wormhole and fiddling with time itself are basically identical in principle, even if they are rather different in practice.

Also, you didn't include spacefaring but sublight colonies which slowly drift from star to star in no particular hurry.
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Re: black spathi?
« Reply #59 on: June 24, 2004, 09:20:04 pm »

Ah! indeed, yet another method, thanks Smiley
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