d20 Future and Hard SF - some random thoughts
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Priest_Sidran
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Johnny Angel said:
Alternately reading books like Ben Bova's Moon Wars series gives you the chills because a batch of nanomachines that eat carbon, e.g. us
As for the term Hard Science Fiction: It must be applied to things that are specifically placed firmly in the realms of real science rather than proposed science.
For instance dealing with death rays, and FTL is a proposed science whereas Weapons grade lasers, and slow, silent marches through space are hard science fiction.
Nanotechnology in the science fiction sense, is a proposed science in that it is usually something that does things which are not being done currently.
It should be said that light has been proven to not move at the same rate of speed, and that it can even be slowed down or sped up in laboratory situations. To the point that a pulse of light shot at a target can be sped up to hit it before another beam of light shot at the same time does.
As with a number of other Science fiction elements FTL, Antigravity among many have been experemented with within laboratory settings since the 60's.
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Priest_Sidran
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hobgoblin said:
More than you might imagine. The Starfury's force their pilots to stand in an upright position allowing them to take on the full force of their acceleration. Allowing them to survive more pressure in gravity. Once in space nearly any shape is possible, as there is a very minute level of friction (from external gravity sources, and from the level of particles in space).
By far the more realistic of the ships was the human battleships which spun to generate a near earth gravity well.
Priest_Sidran said:
technically it isn't a gravity well. It is the centripetal effect caused by the linear inertia of objects within a rotating frame of reference.
In general, yes. B5 was fairly hard sci-fi for the humans up till the last couple of seasons. Though the presence of psykers and the vorlon/shadow/minbari/jumpgate tech push it into the realm of soft sci-fi.
hobgoblin
First Post
iirc, "we" used cold sleep ships until we encountered the mimbari and managed to trade for jump gate tech (most likely from some rogue, low ranking aristocrat).
i kinda recall a episode where a lost sleeper ship comes into B5 space or something like that. with only 2 survivors and a very alien 3 like scenario
hmm, now that i think about it, was it not the episode that first hinted about the shadows?
i kinda recall a episode where a lost sleeper ship comes into B5 space or something like that. with only 2 survivors and a very alien 3 like scenario
hmm, now that i think about it, was it not the episode that first hinted about the shadows?
Plane Sailing
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EditorBFG said:
Read the accounts in 'Forever War' by Haldeman for an interesting take in hard sf 'starfighters'
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Plane Sailing
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hobgoblin said:
I liked the way that the starfighters had attitude jets all over the place, and that the ships facing could be independent of the ships direction of travel - a nice nod to realistic starship movement.
Morgan Keyes
First Post
EditorBFG said:
Well, there are ways:
1) The concept that 'fighters' have 'mustang' engines (ie., produce high amounts of thrust for their size but have consequently higher maintenance requirements)
2) In keeping with above; they provide a 'dispersed weapons battery' (by way of datalink) and can deliver ship-killer munitions, either ahead of the battle line and/or with short endurance, high thurst munitions delivering greater throw weight compared to stand-off shipborne munitions (exp Traveller 2300 submunitions).
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