Activity for TheDyingOfLight
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
Is this a reasonable way to enforce a ban on exotic weapons in an interstellar setting? In the late 23rd century certain groups of mankind stared down the barrel of what may be possible in the future: cross galactic relativistic kill missile storms, gamma-ray Dyson Beams, Kugelblitz black hole weaponry and potentially even exotic matter-based weapons messing with space and time itself. ... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
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A Seafloor of Ice and Rock: Ice VI / Water Boundary Many planets out there will be water worlds. Those generally come in two flavors: either the oceans are so deep that the water turns into high-pressure ices like ice-six, -seven, -ten and -eleven or they aren't, leading to worlds with rocky seafloors. On a world with Terran gravity, ice-six would fr... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
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How deep can the oceans be while still alowing some land? Many alien worlds will most likely be water worlds. I was wondering what the deepest possible global ocean dept is where land is still possible. I think that volcanic islands will still have a chance to form even after continents are no longer possible since they can have quite steep slopes which are... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
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Why do goblins never form societies bigger than about 500 members? The goblins in my world are classical fantasy goblins. They aren't too smart, have primitive technology, live in tribes, and use tamed boars, wolves, and other wild animals. They usually have a boss, who runs the show because he is so nasty, convincing, strong or intelligent that the others respect h... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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Are Alpha and Beta-Voltaics the solution to the energy storage problem in Scifi? In Scifi there is often the issue that all the fancy technology like Mechas and Lasguns need a lot of energy. Chemical sources are limited by volumetric and regular power density. Batteries and capacitors even more so. Compact fusion, fission and antimatter devices produce problemeic amounts of waste... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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Can I use an active flood basalt province as a "biome" without messing my world up? I want to use the an active large ignious province (LIP) as a "biome" on a continent in my world. This video about the Siberian Traps inspired me. A LIP modeled after the Siberian Traps gives you a vulcanic hellscapes and justification for end of the world prophecies in one. A great deal in my opinio... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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How does the ecosystem of the Underdark/underground world work? The Old Ones build continent-sized bunker complexes to protect themselves from the enemy, which followed through the cosmic ocean. The Hunter succeeded easily despite their efforts and their corpses were entombed in the deepest vaults by their corrupted servants, so their masters may continue to drea... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Is this a plausible interstellar propulsion system? Interstellar travel is hard and complicated, yet I want to have a plausible interstellar propulsion system for my setting. Rockets are out because of the rocket equation and the horrible top speeds even if antimatter is used. Laser-sails are out because they can't slow down. Ramscoops are out because... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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The Properties of Flaming Fire Magic Magical fire is often depicted as flames. To get fire and flames the right mixture of oxygen, fuel and heat is needed. Assuming that the magic only provides the heat, there are only two chemical reactions that could explain the flames. The nitrogen in the air reacts with oxygen to form nitric oxide: ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Could life arise using iron pentacarbonyl as a solvant? Iron planets are planets which lack a significant mantle. These planets are essentially lone planetary cores. Since water and iron are unstable together iron pentacarbonyl and other exotic metal-based volatiles might form bodies of liquid on the surface of these worlds. An answer to an earlier questi... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How would oceans of supercritical CO2 on Venus-like exoplanets look like/behave? Carbon dioxide turns supercritical above a pressure of 73 atm and 304.25 K (31.10 °C). The surface of Venus fullfils these conditions. The density of the air at the surface is 67 kg/m3, which is 6.5% that of liquid water on Earth. The pressure found on Venus's surface is high enough that the ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How could formamide lakes form on an exoplanet? I've been recently looking into alternative biochemistries for life and the environments were these could be found. I already asked a question about how ammonia oceans might form a while back. Today I'm interested in formamide, as according to a book I read recently, CH3NO is quite a decent solven... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How much energy does a bee/micro robot need per second of flight? In my scifi setting small utility robot swarms are used for many purposes. I'm currently trying to estimate how much energy such a swarm would need to operate. Since biology, robotics and nanotechnology have pretty much merged into one thing in the setting I decided that taking bees as an example for... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Solving the biggest problem of relativistic interstellar spacecrafts In FTL-free universes, interstellar travel is often done by vessels capable of continuous acceleration (the drives themselves are often magitech), which can use the effects of relativistic time dilation to "shorten" travel times. However, while we often talk about the vacuum of space, space isn't a t... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How to protect oneself against strong magnetic fields? Spacecraft in my Scifi setting use strong magnetic fields for many purposes. Fusion containment, magnetic nozzles, gauss guns, magnetic fields as pusher-plates for nuclear pulsed propulsion and defensive plasma-windows as well as cure-point sand casters are among the technologies using large and powe... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Is it possible to build a black hole (kugelblitz) gun? Assume that space warfare is dominated by gamma and x-ray lasers (Wakefield-Plasma and Free Electron Lasers) capable of killing targets several light-seconds away. Stealth in space is possible due to optical metamaterials and cooling tech, this is a set assumption. However stealth is rendered useless... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Is an earthlike planet with ammonia oceans even plausible? The idea of a planet where ammonia replaces water as the dominant liquid in the environment is quite popular in science fiction. I tried to develop a scenario where these kind of oceans are plausible from an astrophysical point of view. There seem to be several problems with the development of such a... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How would the atmospheric circulation look like on a planet with high axial tilt? Assume an Earth-Clone, that has an axial tilt of 90°. How would the circulation of the atmosphere look like? Would there still be three convection cells? (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How to make classical firearms effective on space habitats despite the coriolis effect? The direction of the force will always be perpendicular to velocity and pointing to the opposite side of the rotation direction. In plain terms, any object traveling in the rotation plane: up (toward the axis), down (from the axis), Westward (spinward) or Eastward (counter-spinward) will seem to b... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How to figure out that you traveled 570 million years into the future while in space on a small shuttle craft? I want a character to get sucked into what she thinks is an FTL-wormhole-gate. While it turns out that the gate is indeed a traversable wormhole, it does not allow for FTL travel. The gate transports her at a velocity of ca. 0.9999999999 c over a distance of 570 million lightyears (outside of the La... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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How would it be to be revived from voluntary death? (cryostasis) Cryostasis, suspended animation, cryo-preservation or cryosleep (the marketing guy's prefer this last one as "Oh yeah, we gonna kill you in a manner we that will hopefully make it possible to revive you." is a pretty bad, yet accurate sales-pitch compared to "You'll sleep for 150 years and then you'l... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Could a planet be habitable due to illumination from the galactic core? I recently saw this answers where it was suggested that the galactic core could illuminate a planet suffiently to make sure it is always summer on one side of the planet. This got me curious and after some research I came across this. Astronomers have estimated that the total luminosity of the ce... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Plausibility of helium dominated atmospheres on super-Earths I've been using this helpful diagram a lot for worldbuilding. Now I came to think about the fact that helium is more massive than hydrogen, thus a scenario where hydrogen escapes, but helium is retained is conceivable and suggested by the diagram. Since this line of helium retention but hydrogen e... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Why do dragons like shiny stuff? I like the classic trope of dragons loving gold and collecting it in their lair, yet it seems poorly justified. I know that it is often used as a metaphor for greed; "dragons disease" to show how material wealth corrupts people. I would like the same behavior in my dragons, but with a realistic and s... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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What's the minimal space/mass required to feed a human indefinitely with advanced technology? I know there are similar questions on here already, yet this is different because I don't care about traditional farming in this question. Environment This meant for food production on interplanetary and interstellar vessels, space stations and remote outposts. Assume that: energy is not an issue... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How would a very old biosphere differ from Earth's "young" one? On my world, the equivalent of the Cambrian/Avalon explosion happened 5 byr (2 byr after formation) ago as opposed to 0.5 byr ago on Earth. The planets rough parameters are: mass between 0.4 and 0.25 Earth-masses only 10 to 30 percent global ocean cover, water is mostly near the poles orbits a 10.... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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When will the last unambiguous evidence of mankind disappear? Humanity just disappears tomorrow, let's say it is like the Thanos-snap but it kills everyone. How long until the last unambiguous evidence of our existence disappears? What was this last relic? The faint spectres of electromagnetic signals which will travel space forever, odd isotopes ratios and mat... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How to get rid of the rainforest for a desert moon with only habitable poles? I wanna build a habitable desertworld which is a gas giant moon. The desired and already semi-fixed parameters are: mass between 0.4 and 0.25 Earth-masses only 10 to 30 percent global ocean cover, water is mostly near the poles orbits a 13,1 jupiter-mass warm superjovian extensive vulcanism and som... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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"Realistic" Dwarfs Part One: Bioluminescence for active Vision I've been thinking about dwarfs and their depiction in classical fantasy for while now and concluded that I find it unrealistic and lazy. Some research showed me that the current fantasy dwarfs have their roots in the christian interpretation of norse legends about lesser earth spirits or ironically ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How much surface water do I need for plate-tectonics on a planet? I want to build a habitable desert gas-giant moon and I´m not sure how little water I can give it and still get plate-tectonics instead of an Io-like lid-tectonic setup. I want plate tectonics because continental-continental divergent (East-African rift valley) and convergent (Himalayas) plate bound... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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What are the effects of a nearby supernova on a young solar system? I'm building a S-Type binary system where the primary star is a black hole. Yet the system formed as a O + K-Spectral class binary and the 20 solar-mass O giant went nova 2,7 myr after both the stars had transitioned from T Tauri tars to the main sequence after ca. 50 myr, like our sun did. Planets a... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How do I calculate the loss of primordial heat for a given age and mass of a planet? I'm working on a computer program which generates realistic planets for worldbuilding purposes. I've run into an issue with calculating my planets heat loss. While radiogenic and tidal heat generation and loss were easy enough to pin down, calculating primordial heat seems way harder. On Earth, we cu... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How much energy can I produce per kg of hydrogen using this process? In the far future the posthuman successors of mankind have disassembled the stars and live on ultra slow and ultra efficient solar system sized computers, Matrioshka Brains. The last enemy of intelligent life is entropy, the harbinger of the universes inevitable heat death. Once there is no energy gr... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Are these atmosphere compositions for habitation in space plausible/do they cause problems I don´t see? On Earth, our atmosphere contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, on average around 1% water vapor at sea level, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Looking through this list not everything seems necessary for a habitable atmosphere. Nitrogen is needed by plants, b... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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How would a physicist explain this starship engine? In my world, interstellar vessels use a drive whose design mankind learned from an extinct elder civilization. While construction of the drives is possible, the physical principles making them work are beyond mankind understanding. The drives have a number of curious properties, which I need them to ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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What's the useful range of atmospheric oxygen content for fire? Fire is certainly high up on the top ten list of mankinds most useful inventions. It allows for a more efficient utilisation of nutriants, is the basis of chemistry and the material sciences, allowed us to settle the Northern regions, was the main way of storing energy for most of our history and gav... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Brown Dwarf Star vs Gas Giant as parent for habitable moon I seek to build a habitable moon of a giant planet, thus I looked at the Rouche Limit Equation to figure out how to get the biggest possible Hill Sphere for my moon to exist in. $rH = a(1-e)\sqrt[3]{\frac{m}{3M}}$ $rH$ = radius Hill sphere $a$ = semi major axis satellite $e$ = orbital eccentrici... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Stellaser Part I: Trial by stellar Fire or The best design out of three for a solar powered 5 Petawatt laser? I´m building a hard-sifi setting and want to use Stellasers (abbreviation for stellar laser) to provide thrust and power to interstellar vessels. This part one is only concerned with the construction and physics of the laser and its abilities. Matters concerning the ship-side issues will be addresse... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Non-causality-violating FTL travel. / Can omnipotence beat causality? While building my sifi world I dug into ftl-travel and encountered these mean bullies, causality and relativity. They told me I can't have faster than light travel, because effect can't precede cause and it is easy to violate that using ftl. I really don't like that. My idea to circumvent causality... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How to calculate the thickness of the ice layer of a frozen ocean planet/moon? How do I calculate the thickness of the upper ice layer on cold ocean worlds like Europa, Enceladus, and Ganymede? I'm asking this for a programm I'm currently writing. The given/known quantities are: Mass Radius Average density of metal (assume Fe) core, rock (assume MgSiO3) layer, and ice (assum... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Biological touch based high bandwidth communication My alien race is supposed to have the ability to communicate a lot of information extremely fast, more akin to uploading something to your partner's mind than telling him. This should happen via simple touch; optimally touching hands should do it, but having to hold heads together or connect some for... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Water planet turns into desert world without being rendered uninhabitable A habitable (human could survive in its atmosphere without suits) desert planet which used to have large oceans is quite common in ScFi. I was thinking about the processes which could have been responsible for the loss of water. I want to leave biological processes"”like sandworms from Dune, out. Li... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |