Hardest SF possible

[Keklas Rekobah]

I say that Carl Sagan, brilliant as he was, took some liberties with the facts when he wrote that particualr piece of fiction -- as all SF writers must do in order to pitch their books as something other than pure science texts.

Did you notice that he violated the laws of causality by having Ellie Arroway spend 18 hours on that other planet, but 43 cameras recorded her passing through the machine in just a few seconds? The same person in two places at once just doesn't cut it as science fact.

Nice story, though. I wish Dr. Sagan had lived long enough to write a sequel.

ANYWAY...

A member at JREF named “Cuddles” and I (as "Fnord") came up with the following definitions. See if they agree with what has been established here:

1) Hard Science: "Nothing that breaks the laws of physics, or a reasoned extrapolation thereof."

2) Hard Science Fiction: "Things that we can't do and might be impossible, but we're not sure yet".

3) Soft Science Fiction: "Things that we know are impossible."

4) Woo, Fantasy, or Pseudo-Science: "Everything else."

Some might disagree over exactly what comes under "might be impossible" and "know are impossible", but that's really all just nitpicking over personal opinions.

 

[far-trader]

Not a bad set of criteria, except it's all very very blurry between 2, 3, and 4

I'd probably drop 4, change the name of 1 to "Science", change 2 to "Science Fiction", and change 3 to "Fantasy" to make it a little less blurry, maybe

 

[ElHombre]

Science Fantasy: When the laws of physics stop at 'Things Fall Down'.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Originally posted by ElHombre:
Science Fantasy: When the laws of physics stop at 'Things Fall Down'.

Is that just before 'Goddidit'?

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
So you say Carl Sagan is wrong?

I have no way to judge what you claim, I am sure professional astronomers and cosmologists are of two minds about this. Since no one really knows, no one has seen a wormhole, they are theretical constructs mathematically deduced through the application of Einsteinian physics and perhaps reinforced with quantum mechanical uncertainty.

No, more like: "Carl Sagan was wearing his science fiction writer's hat when he wrote that".

Skepticism about using wormholes for FTL flight would be similar to your skepticism if somebody presented you with an elegant mathematical proof that 1 + 1 = 3. One does not have to be from the future to know that there must be something fishy with the proof.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3al.html

 

[Space Cadet]

Well then you put the skepticism aside for your science fiction setting. Take the fusion reactor in the 100 ton scout ship from Traveller, as your example. A nuclear physicist might say that there is no way to fit a fusion reactor inside something so small as a 100 ton scout ship.

The Science Fiction writer might say prove it.

In which case the physicist would reply, "Can you build a fusion reactor of that size or maybe 10 times that size? I'd like you to tell me exactly how...

Can't do it can you! I told you such things were impossible, for if it were possible you'd tell me how to do it."

I don't know what is possible or impossible. I do not have a crystal ball that's clear enough as to say whether wormholes are possible or not. I hear experts who disagree with each other and each have their own opinion on the subject, with no way for me to independently judge who is right and who is wrong.

Are you sure a wormhole would produce a casuality violation? I don't think a casuality violation would occur, but I think there is more than one way to avoid a casuality violation. For instance there is a "many worlds" interpretation to various phenomina in quantum mechanics. For each event with many possible outcomes, their maybe a reality where each of the possible outcomes occurs. Partical/wave duality might be explained by the "many worlds" theory, and if "many worlds" is how the universe works, then that interpretation would take care of any casuality violations produced by wormholes. If a wormhole allowed travel back into the past, then one of the many worlds will be one where someone arrives from the future and others will be where someone did not arrive from the future, the guy who travels back in time is shifting from one parallel reality to another under the "many worlds" interpretation. And it seems to me that "Many Worlds" make for more interesting science fiction than "You cannot do that!"

Many Worlds is more logically consistent than the classic "Grandfather Paradox", or what happened in the Movie Back to the Future where Marty McFly is slowly erased from existance by his own action in the past and he sees his eldest siblings fade away from a photograph he brought with him in the future, so he must set things right before he fades away, this doesn't make logical sense and so is soft science fiction.

A hard science fiction time travel story would have him prevent the marriage of his father and mother and leave him clueless, his photograph would stay the same, and Doc Brown would help him repair the Delorian and he would travel back to his present only to find that no one knows him, strangers live in his house etc. Marty could go back into the past to try and fix things, he might even succeed in getting his parents together, but none of their offspring would likely be him of his brother or sister. Hard Science Fiction would insist that everything you would do in the past would have chaotic results even if you didn't try to change the past, your very presence would displace air molecules and rerandomize all the future events so they would occur differently and never quite the same as history books say. The Allies might still win World War II for example, but they might win it differently, the Germans might surrender at a different date etc.

Saying the time machine just doesn't work because its impossible leads to a very short science fiction story. I'd say wormholes if you are going to assume FTL, are a very hard science way of doing FTL., it explains for one why the Universe doesn't seem filled with extraterrestial civilizations. For if they relied on Wormholes, each colony would exist in a different reality, and we could only observe their home world or one of their colonies depending on what reality relative to them that we reside in. The Fermi paradox is very neatly explained away by this, other than the usual explaination that we are the only intellegent, technological species in the galaxy.

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
Well then you put the skepticism aside for your science fiction setting. Take the fusion reactor in the 100 ton scout ship from Traveller, as your example. A nuclear physicist might say that there is no way to fit a fusion reactor inside something so small as a 100 ton scout ship.

The Science Fiction writer might say prove it.

I fear that I failed to make myself clear.
The problem is that breaking a rule of physics for one's game or novel is like eating potato chips, you can't just eat one.

Laws have implications. The A-rating fusion reactor on the 100 ton scout ship has a much more serious problem. It runs full tilt into the law of unintended consequences.

An A-rating fusion plant consumes 20 tons of hydrogen for a jump-1. This means in one week it produces about 380,000 megawatt-years of energy. Which is about 160% of the energy production of the entire United States in a year.

So if you put a lowely A-rating fusion plant in your colony and ran it for one year, it would produce about 19,800,000 megawatt-years.

In other words, a single bottom of the line A-rating fusion plant can produce about 86 times the energy produced by all the power plants in the entire United States. Imagine if it had two A-rated plants. Or a B plant.

The unintended consequence is with this much energy available, the cost of producing consumer goods will be miniscule. Which means there will be very few goods that are worth the cost of interstellar trade. Refer to the link above for details.

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
The Fermi paradox is very neatly explained away by this, other than the usual explaination that we are the only intellegent, technological species in the galaxy.

That turns out not to be the case.
The Fermi Paradox more or less rules out other alien species even if they all us Slower-than-light spacecraft. The paradox does not need FTL.

With current estimates, using only slower-than-light ships, in the current age of the galaxy there would be enough time for alien species to colonize every star in the galaxy a minimum of 260 times. The Fermi Paradox asks the question "Why isn't Earth an alien colony?"

 

[TWILIGHT]

The Fermi Paradox asks the question "Why isn't Earth an alien colony?"

maybe it is...

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
Are you sure a wormhole would produce a casuality violation? I don't think a casuality violation would occur, but I think there is more than one way to avoid a casuality violation. For instance there is a "many worlds" interpretation to various phenomina in quantum mechanics.

The bromide is "Causality, Relativity, FTL travel: chose any two."

Relativity is about as close as you can get to a rock-solid iron-clad tested-to-fourteen-decimal-places scientific principle. You gotta keep it. Unfortunately it mandates that FTL flight and time travel are the same thing.

The "Grandfather paradox" can be created with a time machine, and it violates Causality with extreme prejudice.

There are four suggested ways of preventing a time machine from violating Causality: Special Frames, Consistency Protection, Restricted Space-Time Areas, and your Parallel Universes.

Special Frames violate Relativity, so we can throw them out.

Consistency Protection and Restricted Space-Time Areas means that sometimes when you try to make a Jump, nothing happens because had you made the jump you would have violated Causality.

And Parallel Universes means that sometimes at the end of a jump, you'll find yourself in a parallel universe where the Allies lost World War II, or where the Vilanti empire totally destroyed the Solomani empire.

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by TWILIGHT:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> The Fermi Paradox asks the question "Why isn't Earth an alien colony?"

maybe it is... </font>[/QUOTE]Gee, you could turn it around and ask why isn't Viland a Human colony?

no, wait...

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Originally posted by Nyrath:
The bromide is "Causality, Relativity, FTL travel: chose any two."

...

Consistency Protection and Restricted Space-Time Areas means that sometimes when you try to make a Jump, nothing happens because had you made the jump you would have violated Causality.

I think Mr. Miller called that a "Drive Failure." At least, in game terms, it's what happens when you punch the "Execute Jump" button and the only thing that occurs is very large expediture of fuel (a "Jump-Fart" -- IMTU I also rule that the fuel that would have been spent on the jump gets used up anyway). Usually, there is no apparent cause for a perfectly-tuned drive to fail; it just happens. Thanks for giving me a cause to throw out to the players!

Originally posted by Nyrath:
And Parallel Universes means that sometimes at the end of a jump, you'll find yourself in a parallel universe where the Allies lost World War II, or where the Vilani empire totally destroyed the Solomani empire.

This would cover a very special case of "Misjump." In game terms, instead of emerging from jump up to 36 parsecs away in a random direction, one emerges in a universe in which Grandfather lost the Great War, or in a universe in which Earth's communists really did bury western democracy (this time-line was covered in an earlier COTI thread).

Ah, well ... back to reality ...

Citing fictional principles as scientific "proof" is called the "Fallacy of False Data." One may as well cite 75 years of Superman comic books as "proof" for the existance of extra-terrestrial aliens.

Also, using the "Slippery Slope" fallacy in an "Ad Hominem" attack most certainly does not prove an assertion.

 

[Space Cadet]

Originally posted by Nyrath:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Space Cadet:
Are you sure a wormhole would produce a casuality violation? I don't think a casuality violation would occur, but I think there is more than one way to avoid a casuality violation. For instance there is a "many worlds" interpretation to various phenomina in quantum mechanics.

The bromide is "Causality, Relativity, FTL travel: chose any two."

Relativity is about as close as you can get to a rock-solid iron-clad tested-to-fourteen-decimal-places scientific principle. You gotta keep it. Unfortunately it mandates that FTL flight and time travel are the same thing.

The "Grandfather paradox" can be created with a time machine, and it violates Causality with extreme prejudice.

There are four suggested ways of preventing a time machine from violating Causality: Special Frames, Consistency Protection, Restricted Space-Time Areas, and your Parallel Universes.

Special Frames violate Relativity, so we can throw them out.

Consistency Protection and Restricted Space-Time Areas means that sometimes when you try to make a Jump, nothing happens because had you made the jump you would have violated Causality.

And Parallel Universes means that sometimes at the end of a jump, you'll find yourself in a parallel universe where the Allies lost World War II, or where the Vilanti empire totally destroyed the Solomani empire. </font>[/QUOTE]Parallel Universes preserve free will and freedom of action.

Consistency protection makes everyone a puppet and requires some intelligence to be at work in the Universe that says, "You already did this so you can't do that."

Time travel is impossible solution means you have nbo ball to play with, also too many physicists use it as a crutch to explain away why every scheme to travel back in time won't work. It is just one thin thread, and every so often a physicist comes up with something that does not appear to violate physics and seems to allow time travel, and the critics say, "Grandfater paradox" then they look aroundfor another reason why the scheme won't work with a predetermined idea in their head that it shouldn't. I mean if you already know the conclusion then why ask the question?

It just seems to me that "Time travel is impossible is only one solution." If the universe was classical, Newtonian, and will billiard ball elementary particles, then the time travel is impossible solution would be perfectly consistent with it. Unfortunately the Universe doesn't always seem to pay heed to our typical everyday idea of common sense. If weird stuff can happen at the qunatum mechanical level, then that seems to imply that the parallel universe model is very much in play, and those that say time travel is possible because it defies common sense seem to be "closet classicists", they say, "Never mind all that quantum mechanical stuff, thats all smoke and mirrors, and underneath it all its just classic "billiard ball" particles.

 

[Jame]

To speak to the title of this thread, I don't think that aliens are a violation of "hardest SF possible." They could be out there; we (and they) might never know each other except possibly through lightspeed transmissions.

 

[Space Cadet]

There are multiple answers to the question as to why we detect no aliens besides there aren't any.

1) There aren't any, the chances of any technological species is too remote for them to occur more that once in a single galaxy.

2) Technological civilizations consistantly destroy themselves in warfare, no matter how they evolve.

3) Technological civilizations don't use radio except for a short span of time.

4) Technological civilizations have found more productive means of expansion than interstellar space travel.

5) or if FTL travel involves wormholes, casuality violations occur and are only resolved by invoking parallel universes. Multiple wormholes connect multiple realities, the technological civilizations don't mind this so long as the wormholes remain open and provide access to other worlds to expand into, but interstellar travel is just too hard for them. consequently each technological civilization has only a small "footprint" in each galaxy and they don't spread to every corner of the galaxy by means of STL travel, the develop FTL multi-universe travel long before they accomplish much STL colonization.

 

[Space Cadet]

As far as 2300 is concerned, lets say there is only a short time horizon where civilizations use something like Stutterwarp drive and past a certain tech level, the move on to other universes. This leaves most of the spacegoing civilizations encountered at roughly the same tech level. with a few isolated exceptions such as in a single system connected by wormholes. My thread the Nemesis Wormhole deals with this subject.

It appears some supercivilization built themselves a wormhole, used it for a time and then moved on, meanwhile the wormhole remained, drifted past the Earth around 65 million years ago in one universe and connected to the 2320 AD setting in another one in "My Traveller Universe".

 

[TWILIGHT]

I, personally, don't consider wormholes as hard sci-fi. But i tend to stick to 2300/2320 canon.

 

[Nearside]

Space Cadet, while your campaign concept is interesting (and being discussed across several boards here) I can't help feeling 'spammed' by your setting. Are you looking for input, or advice? If so, then ask some questions. If not, I'd encourage you to set up a website for your setting so that those who want to can all follow the development of your game in one easy-to-find place.

 

[TWILIGHT]

we don't mean it personally space cadet but this the third thread to recieve your ideas on this matter. cool as they are...this IS supposed to be a 2300/2320 forum.
ya never know... setting up your own website with this could be the start of something big!

 

[Space Cadet]

How much creativity do you allow for?

If there is a Hitleresque madman that builds an army of cyborgs, is that just too creative for the 2320AD setting?

If the is some unknown alien artifact inbetween the stars, is that too creative?

The wormhole is just a plot device to get the 2320 PCs to a location they couldn't otherwise get to. One great thing about the past is that there is lots of books about what sort of creatures inhabited the Earth back then, and by examining them, you may get some ideas about what sort of alien flora and fauna to put on other worlds as well, that is the whole point of the exercise. With a brand new alien planet to explore, you have to make things up as you go along, and the two pitfalls one may fall into is making the flora and fauna too familiar, or on the other hand too alien looking. The Earth 65 million years ago is not that much different from a Garden world the PCs might be exploring in the general category of things.