Things to See, Places (Not) to Go (13)

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

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@Max <maximiliancrichton512@gmail.com> on 2019-07-27 02:20:09 wrote

Surely the Esseli or the Gardeners of Rechesh would be able to engineer a ship with wooden heat shields and stage trees capable of landing and returning from the planet?

@driagledd <driagledd@aim.com> on 2019-07-29 15:02:00 wrote

Heh. Wood, more common in spaceships than you’d think:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtxYP9fLMmk

Wooden heat shields are a thing here. Would not surprise me if someone pulled a fully ‘wooden’ ship there.

@Dinode <matthewdinode@gmail.com> on 2019-07-27 21:38:10 wrote

Can’t they just study the bacterium in a vacuum? No air, no oxygen to cause oxidation. Perhaps extract the DNA analogue there and make a simulation?

@Alistair Young <us@arkane-systems.net> on 2019-07-28 01:27:49 wrote

Hard to study it without touching it with something .

I mean, it’s not impossible to contain or study; hence “little studied”. But the unparalleled ability of Hotephny’s lifeforms to ruin expensive equipment and decertify P5-grade biocontainment facilities is the sort of thing that makes Principal Investigators think carefully, and then consider letting someone else go first.

@Eric Manwill <ericmanwill@gmail.com> on 2019-07-29 14:26:08 wrote

There’s biochemistry on that world that can even eat fluoropolymers? Okay, now I’m scared.

@Ru <shearwater+eldraeverse@gmail.com> on 2019-07-30 03:23:12 wrote

Wake me when they can eat though glass, quartz, diamond or fullerenes. Also, whatever happened to fluidics, phononics and maybe even plain old micro mechanical computers?

For that matter, has anyone asked the galari (or other silicon-based people) for their input?

@Alistair Young <us@arkane-systems.net> on 2019-07-30 13:01:56 wrote

Wake me when they can eat though glass, quartz, diamond or fullerenes. Also, whatever happened to fluidics, phononics and maybe even plain old micro mechanical computers?

Nothing. Have fun trying to build a technological infrastructure using only them.

For that matter, has anyone asked the galari (or other silicon-based people) for their input?

The galari aren’t terribly interested in a world that would require them to go back to being sessile.

@Ru <shearwater+eldraeverse@gmail.com> on 2019-08-02 07:42:35 wrote

Who says you’d only need to use those? Once you’ve got the ability to make more than adequately tough and strong and indigestible tensile and compressive structural members, hardwearing bearing surfaces and ultra-thin, superhard and refractory coatings, everything else is just a bonus.

Non-metallic conductors and superconductors? Check. Good thermal conductors? Check. Clear windows? check. UV-transparent windows? Check.

Honestly, if you can’t make a ground vehicle, aircraft, power station, computer bank, radio transmitter, offensive laser or even a surface-to-orbit system that works at least once given all that, you need to hand your supersophont interstellar highly advanced technological civilisation card back and leave the thinking to someone else.

@Alistair Young <us@arkane-systems.net> on 2019-08-02 16:31:49 wrote

Let me put it to you this way:

You are planning to exploit a loophole you think you’ve found by nitpicking an excerpt from a constellation-wide travel guide, a type of source which doesn’t even pretend to be complete or conclusive.

It is possible that you might have stumbled across something that might work, but it’s more likely that - like most people who indulge in this sort of cleverness - you’ll end up languishing in a foreign prison, or eaten by hyenas. Maybe both.

Always remember: everything here is something as seen from someone’s perspective, not a definitive statement sprung forth from the forehead of Zeus.