Hard Space Redux

[Hyphen]

Can a computer cast spells?

Do you want it to be able to?

In the third novel of Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity" series, the android protagonist casts spells from a spell-book assembled by a computer.

So it depends; in your universe, is spellcasting like following a cooking recipe?

 

[Golan2072]

Just wait till Virus attacks.

Mythos Virus!

Mythos SHODAN!

 

[Golan2072]

You might want to check out Stross' The Laundry Files. Magic is a type of applied computation, so equations run on computers are orders of magnitude better than the classic "bell, book, and candle".

Thanks for the recommendation

 

[Golan2072]

Would you say terminals & laptops here sort of look like this?:
A Day Made of Glass, Part 1: https://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38
A Day Made of Glass, Part 2: https://youtu.be/X-GXO_urMow

Do you think holographic interfaces are a thing or they wouldn't fit the overall look you think?

In addition, since the UN & Euro-American blocs are sort of rivals here, is the currency of known space different in each area of i fluence?

This video looks more or less like what I had in mind. Holographic displays are less of a thing in my vision of this setting.

One thing I'm thinking about is C3 - the Colonial Commerce Commission. This is a supra-national, supra-corporate body, managed by the three trading blocks and the "Big Four" corporations. Its mission is to mediate between the various bodies in ways which facilitate commerce. Its authorities are quite minimal and based on agreement between the companies, but it also offers and arbitration court.

For example, C3 regulations call for "starport neutrality" - any starport should serve any legitimate ship, for a payment, of course. This prevents corporate blockades and starport monopolies which would impede interstellar trade.

I think that the universal Credits would be a C3 creation - easy to use to allow inter-corporate trade.

Local currencies might exist as well.

Indeed.
In some 'Mythos' stories, magic is arguably not 'magic' but Clarke's Law in effect.
It may involve bizarre math and alien geometry.

That suggest to me the possibility of computers either casting spells or at least assisting.

I was only halfway joking about Virus.

Killer AI driven nutty by Mythos corruption might fit Golan's setting.
Or maybe not.

Magic needs an organic component; thus, that killer AI would need biomechanical parts and/or an actual sorcerer wired into it to serve as its Mythos "symbiot".

 

[Golan2072]

Do you want it to be able to?

In the third novel of Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity" series, the android protagonist casts spells from a spell-book assembled by a computer.

So it depends; in your universe, is spellcasting like following a cooking recipe?

Magic represents the "true laws of the universe". I'm not sure a regular computer can grasp them well; an organic mind risks madness when trying to wrap itself around them...

 

[wellis]

Magic represents the "true laws of the universe". I'm not sure a regular computer can grasp them well; an organic mind risks madness when trying to wrap itself around them...

So would a computer spontaneously meltdown or something if you tried to record digital images of Cthonic script, like inscriotions for spells or grimoires, into it?

Also, would computer workstations in Hard Space be like lighter than their OTU counterparts? Like they're lighter or computers in general take up less space and tonnage compared to OTU designs?

 

[Whipsnade]

Magic represents the "true laws of the universe".

Again, it may not "fit" the concepts you want for the setting but in Stross' The Laundry Files computers make magic a "trivial" accomplishment. So trivial that the various national agencies tasked with combating, controlling, and cleaning up after "Lovecraftian incursions" keep a flinty eye on mathematicians, IT departments, and other researchers so they can hopefully prevent magical "mistakes" before they happen. Many of the people who unwittingly stumble across abilities like "computational demonlogy" or whose research reveals too much of the truth will find themselves unwillingly conscripted into those agencies.

The many entities in Stross' series are from other dimensions and certain equations run on computers can allow them to access our dimension. When you remember that jump drive is supposed to access other dimensions for FTL travel, the possibilities become clear.

I'm not sure a regular computer can grasp them well; an organic mind risks madness when trying to wrap itself around them...

A computer doesn't "understand" math at yet can perform calculations.

 

[Ulsyus]

There was some pretty interesting maths being thrown up on glass, white and black boards on this program last night.

If computers can crunch this stuff into spell-like effect, then everyone could be in trouble...

 

[willtron3030]

There was some pretty interesting maths being thrown up on glass, white and black boards on this program last night.

If computers can crunch this stuff into spell-like effect, then everyone could be in trouble...

And there you have summarized the existential crisis posited by Stross, facing all sophonts in this 'dimension'. And the more minds that are aware and think about it (DO NOT THINK ABOUT THE GREEN TRIANGLE), the weaker the veil between dimensions becomes.

 

[Golan2072]

The very attempt to decipher a Lovecraftian manuscript might act like a "computer virus", subverting the entire software "logic". This is very weird input to process.

 

[mike wightman]

Now the Lovecraftian horror element is being discussed can I make one more plea to abandon fusion reactors and fusion torch drives.

For true 'hard science' you extrapolate from what is currently possible - that means fusion power plants could be built but they are the size of a small shopping mall. Getting one to fit on a starship - unless the ship is very big - is out. Similarly the fusion torch drive can be written off as implausible.

Fission power plants driving ion engines and/or plasma rockets - souped up VASMIRs. 10%+ of the hull as fuel lasts a few hours to a couple of days at best. Constant thrust for gravity until it is time to coast, and then spin gravity or magnetic boots. Once in jump space the jump drive generates pseudo-gravity inside th ship but not in normal space.

Jump points are a little further away and ships are slower - longer to get to and from jump points - more opportunities for eldritch shenanigans...

 

[Golan2072]

Now the Lovecraftian horror element is being discussed can I make one more plea to abandon fusion reactors and fusion torch drives.

For true 'hard science' you extrapolate from what is currently possible - that means fusion power plants could be built but they are the size of a small shopping mall. Getting one to fit on a starship - unless the ship is very big - is out. Similarly the fusion torch drive can be written off as implausible.

Fission power plants driving ion engines and/or plasma rockets - souped up VASMIRs. 10%+ of the hull as fuel lasts a few hours to a couple of days at best. Constant thrust for gravity until it is time to coast, and then spin gravity or magnetic boots. Once in jump space the jump drive generates pseudo-gravity inside th ship but not in normal space.

Jump points are a little further away and ships are slower - longer to get to and from jump points - more opportunities for eldritch shenanigans...

I do like the idea of ships having a constant acceleration/deceleration of at least 1-G for 100 or so hours... Is this possible with handwavely-efficient plasma rockets? (i.e. the same level of handwave as my fusion torches' efficiency)?

 

[Daidoji Dave]

As to the extent to which I will adhere to the original Lovecraftian canon, I am yet to decide on this. On one hand, this provides me with a wealth of public-domain material to work with, but on the other hand, it will require very serious research to pull out well. I'll probably end up mixing some of the existing Lovecraftian canon with some creations of my own.

I have a bias towards original myself. The whole point of reading Lovecraft for the first time is you don't know what's up, you don't know what the eldritch horror is or what it can do, and if you learn at all it's likely to be the hard way. Using Lovecraft's creations in later stories or games weakens that experience, it substitutes the a-ha moment of "which one is this" for the terror in the face of the unknown of "what the heck even is this". So the trend in modern games and tribute fiction of getting all the fine details right of Lovecraft's established mythos profoundly misses the point.

 

[wellis]

Now the Lovecraftian horror element is being discussed can I make one more plea to abandon fusion reactors and fusion torch drives.

For true 'hard science' you extrapolate from what is currently possible - that means fusion power plants could be built but they are the size of a small shopping mall. Getting one to fit on a starship - unless the ship is very big - is out. Similarly the fusion torch drive can be written off as implausible.

Fission power plants driving ion engines and/or plasma rockets - souped up VASMIRs. 10%+ of the hull as fuel lasts a few hours to a couple of days at best. Constant thrust for gravity until it is time to coast, and then spin gravity or magnetic boots. Once in jump space the jump drive generates pseudo-gravity inside th ship but not in normal space.

Jump points are a little further away and ships are slower - longer to get to and from jump points - more opportunities for eldritch shenanigans...

Imagine someone going stir crazy while on a ship travelling to a jump point.

As for fuel, would say nuclear pulse engines be useful for long-range voyages out to a jump point?

Or might there be lots more stations and asteroid colonies, in addition to planetary colonies, to supply ships and provide spaceports?

Like Ceres in The Expanse.

 

[aramis]

A computer doesn't "understand" math at yet can perform calculations.

The same is true of many high school graduates. Heck, it's true of many a sailor, too.

 

[nobby-w]

I do like the idea of ships having a constant acceleration/deceleration of at least 1-G for 100 or so hours...

Bear in mind that you will be travelling at 3600km/sec if you accelerate at 1G for that length of time. That's about 1.2% of C. If you run into anything at that speed it's going to make a big splotty mess of your ship. A speck of grit weighing 100mg will hit your ship with about 650MJ of kinetic energy, roughly equivalent to 1.5kt yield.

 

[kilemall]

Just throwing the Invader Zim Spelldrive concept into the computer magic hopper-


http://zim.wikia.com/wiki/Spelldrive

 

[aramis]

I do like the idea of ships having a constant acceleration/deceleration of at least 1-G for 100 or so hours... Is this possible with handwavely-efficient plasma rockets? (i.e. the same level of handwave as my fusion torches' efficiency)?

You're wanting a delta-V of 100*3600*9.8 or so... so ∆v=3528000


Given the rocket equation ∆v=Ve * Ln(Mf/Md)
M (full or dry) mass

and 95% mass is fuel, 100/5=20/1
Ln(20)=2.995732273553991

3,528,000 = Ve * 2.995732273553991
Divide both sides by 2.995732273553991
3,528,000/2.995732273553991 = Ve
Ve ≅ 1,177,675.3...
Or an Isp of around 120,170.9

Note that current plasma thrusters run ISP of around 3000 (N-Star) to 5000 (Vasimir VX-200 running Argon).

So, for a more reasonable ship - say ony 40% fuel...
3,528,000 = Ve * Ln(10/6)
3,528,000 = Ve * 0.5108256237659907
3,528,000/0.5108256237659907 = Ve
Ve ≅ 6,906,466.4
Isp ≅ 704,741.5

That's some insane Isp. Ve in the 2.3 PSL range. You'd be causing a glow if your exhaust brushed atmosphere....

Personally speaking... It doesn't matter whether you power the magic thruster with Fusion or Fission - the problem is accelerating the exhaust. You're using a major particle accelerator for a drive at that ISP, and the power needs pretty much mean needing practical fusion.

The fusion rocket is estimated to have an ISP in the 130,000 range...
... which puts the Isp at 95% fuel in the fusion rocket range.

 

[Golan2072]

I have a bias towards original myself. The whole point of reading Lovecraft for the first time is you don't know what's up, you don't know what the eldritch horror is or what it can do, and if you learn at all it's likely to be the hard way. Using Lovecraft's creations in later stories or games weakens that experience, it substitutes the a-ha moment of "which one is this" for the terror in the face of the unknown of "what the heck even is this". So the trend in modern games and tribute fiction of getting all the fine details right of Lovecraft's established mythos profoundly misses the point.

You've got a point here. I think what I will do is to combine some existing Mythos with my own creations. This is especially important as many Lovecraftian monstrosities are local to Earth; even Cthulhu himself is local to Earth, having come here untold eons ago, and so are, as for as I recall, the Primordial Ones and the Shoggoths they created.

Only some of the gods and a few creatures are truly interstellar (such as the Mi-Go; Yuggoth/Pluto was, IIRC, only an outpost for their interstellar civilization).

So new worlds, new monstrosities.

 

[Golan2072]

If I use less handwavy engines, I'll still need a good method to abstract interplanetary travel.

How does The Expanse handle this, by the way? It has pretty fast interplanetary travel. Though I recall The Expanse having fusion power.