moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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General Gaming News and Discussion
- Thread starter Wintermute
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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I think Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross dove heavily into what economy and interstellar trading would look like taking speed of light communications in to consideration. They have fast money, medium money, and slow money that is moved between solar systems. Been a long time since I read it but it was interesting.
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
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Read house of suns. It is about powerful groups of clones that make full circuits of the galaxy, then meet up and share the memories. At the point of the books most of them are around ten thousand years old, but 6 million years have passed in ordinary galaxy time.
They have AI models that predict if a civ or empire will still be around by the time they get there, and they all share data and update the model at every meeting (every 200k years or so).
They have AI models that predict if a civ or empire will still be around by the time they get there, and they all share data and update the model at every meeting (every 200k years or so).
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Rabbit_Games
Blackwing Lair Raider
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That's awesome. Still, a LOT can happen in 200K years... seems like a lot of missed data between updates. heh
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
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Yea the whole premise is that in a fairly near future, Rich people get really really rich. Rich person decides "I want to see the entire galaxy", but they realize they can't. It just takes too long. Even if you go out and try to hit every star, quite a few of them will burn out before you get there.
So the idea is you clone yourself 999 times and send out 1000 ships, meeting up every circuit to share memories. That way you get to experience way more. None of the 1000 are supposed to be together or meet up so all of the viewpoints stay unique.
They spend so much time in transit that humanity spreads and changes and empires rise and fall. Civs come and go. Many of the humans are barely recognizable and basically alien after millions of years of changes.
There's a bit of Clark tech involved. They have abeyance cabinets that can make time go faster or slower for those inside. They can pull power from the quantum vacuum, and have propellentless electrical propulsion (which we are near to having).
Other than that though the science stuff is mostly hard. They have enormous ships many miles long with several meter thick steel hulls to absorb impacts near C. Not really sure that is enough, and in the authors other books they pile several miles of ice on the front of the ships to ablate away from the impacts.
Edit: I frogot one of the other important bits of fantasy tech they have: localized inertial control. They can make a localized field that saves those inside from huge G forces from big accelerations. That isn't really needed for what I described above as you can get pretty far just with 1G of accel, but they use it in battles and stuff.
So the idea is you clone yourself 999 times and send out 1000 ships, meeting up every circuit to share memories. That way you get to experience way more. None of the 1000 are supposed to be together or meet up so all of the viewpoints stay unique.
They spend so much time in transit that humanity spreads and changes and empires rise and fall. Civs come and go. Many of the humans are barely recognizable and basically alien after millions of years of changes.
There's a bit of Clark tech involved. They have abeyance cabinets that can make time go faster or slower for those inside. They can pull power from the quantum vacuum, and have propellentless electrical propulsion (which we are near to having).
Other than that though the science stuff is mostly hard. They have enormous ships many miles long with several meter thick steel hulls to absorb impacts near C. Not really sure that is enough, and in the authors other books they pile several miles of ice on the front of the ships to ablate away from the impacts.
Edit: I frogot one of the other important bits of fantasy tech they have: localized inertial control. They can make a localized field that saves those inside from huge G forces from big accelerations. That isn't really needed for what I described above as you can get pretty far just with 1G of accel, but they use it in battles and stuff.
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Daidraco
Avatar of War Slayer
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You know, if I didnt know who Alastair Reynolds was and that the book was written in 2008 - I would imagine him "thinking" of the concept of Elon Musk and his potential. To think of all the things you could do with billions upon billions of dollars to your name, even if it wasnt liquid. Fast forward that fortune another 10-20 years from now, if all things continue to trend upwards - and he'll have a net worth higher than the entire budget of NASA at some point. Insane and socially unacceptable, but its whatever.
The fallacies, or things that dont make sense still make me wonder if he was just a terrible scientist or he was just trying to come up with a way to make it work for drama's sake, though.
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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Tmac
Adventurer
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Penance
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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The money team has taken over and they are pushing design to modern audiences. Even when you take it the DEI shit it's the same old song and dance that Steve Jobs talked about. Creative people make something, money comes in and ruins it.
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moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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All the major leadership behind Witcher 3 is gone. One of them started a new company. Red Wolf Studios or something?
Harshaw
Throbbing Member
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moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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Rabbit_Games
Blackwing Lair Raider
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