Future Tech Advice and Assistance Thread [O.O.C.]

[Tierra Prime]

STL = Slower than Light, i.e. travelling 'normally'.
FTLi = Faster than Light Interdiction, usually some kind of tech that force people to exist FTL travel, or prevents them from doing so. Think Interdictor Cruisers from Star Wars.

So FTLi is used to “justify” FTL travel? Or no?
Or is it more like a reason to why FTL isn’t possible?

You can give your FTL method limits without using FTLi. Star Wars hyper drives, for example, do not function in areas of intense gravity. Neither do 40k warp drives, IIRC.

My own hyper drives don't work in such areas because very high levels of gravity break down the barriers between dimensions, violently forcing the ship back into real space.

[Shwe Tu Colony]

Question: how effective would blasting your opponents' machines/people with solar wind to deal damage be?

[Sunset]

Question: how effective would blasting your opponents' machines/people with solar wind to deal damage be?

Unlikely. Assuming their machines are inside a ship, or on a planet with atmosphere, the solar wind doesn't put out enough direct juice to punch through either the armor or the atmosphere. Even civilian vessels would 'reasonably' carry enough armor/shielding, since the solar wind is pretty high up on the list of potential threats for any ship. In an Earth-like atmosphere it just won't do much of nothing. Now, if you were talking about a solar flare - that's a whole different bag of potatoes.

[Shwe Tu Colony]

Question: how effective would blasting your opponents' machines/people with solar wind to deal damage be?

Unlikely. Assuming their machines are inside a ship, or on a planet with atmosphere, the solar wind doesn't put out enough direct juice to punch through either the armor or the atmosphere. Even civilian vessels would 'reasonably' carry enough armor/shielding, since the solar wind is pretty high up on the list of potential threats for any ship. In an Earth-like atmosphere it just won't do much of nothing. Now, if you were talking about a solar flare - that's a whole different bag of potatoes.

Just checked my posts, & I did mean solar flare, not solar wind (this question relates to one of my characters, who uses a jewel to summon a solar flare that whips across his enemies). What happens with a solar flare, then?

[Sunset]

Unlikely. Assuming their machines are inside a ship, or on a planet with atmosphere, the solar wind doesn't put out enough direct juice to punch through either the armor or the atmosphere. Even civilian vessels would 'reasonably' carry enough armor/shielding, since the solar wind is pretty high up on the list of potential threats for any ship. In an Earth-like atmosphere it just won't do much of nothing. Now, if you were talking about a solar flare - that's a whole different bag of potatoes.

Just checked my posts, & I did mean solar flare, not solar wind (this question relates to one of my characters, who uses a jewel to summon a solar flare that whips across his enemies). What happens with a solar flare, then?

10 - 20 Million Degrees Kelvin. I'd say the guy who used the jewel would also be very dead unless he happened to attack from behind hard cover, over the horizon, possibly on another continent.

[Shwe Tu Colony]

Just checked my posts, & I did mean solar flare, not solar wind (this question relates to one of my characters, who uses a jewel to summon a solar flare that whips across his enemies). What happens with a solar flare, then?

10 - 20 Million Degrees Kelvin. I'd say the guy who used the jewel would also be very dead unless he happened to attack from behind hard cover, over the horizon, possibly on another continent.

Oh, he roasts them? For some reason, I thought that the targets would suddenly fall down after the spell rather than be obliterated in a burst of fire. The user of the jewel survives anyway, because ye ole magic solved it & the spell isn't intended to harm him. There's no friendly fire on this spell! Also, that hot of a temperature does convert the air into plasma, right? How large of a plasma sphere/area of effect should I expect?

[Vocenae]

You're using magic. The rules of reality don't apply. Make it as big or as small as you need it to be.

[Hydraic Empire]

10 - 20 Million Degrees Kelvin. I'd say the guy who used the jewel would also be very dead unless he happened to attack from behind hard cover, over the horizon, possibly on another continent.

Oh, he roasts them? For some reason, I thought that the targets would suddenly fall down after the spell rather than be obliterated in a burst of fire. The user of the jewel survives anyway, because ye ole magic solved it & the spell isn't intended to harm him. There's no friendly fire on this spell! Also, that hot of a temperature does convert the air into plasma, right? How large of a plasma sphere/area of effect should I expect?

Yeah I think you’re posting in the wrong advice thread. There’s one for fantasy/magic too, can’t remember where but you should find it pretty easily.

[Ordocravia]

Well... For me a good FT army needs to be balanced, think about making a class concept for uh... let's say For Honor, it needs to have strengths and flaws: E.X: kinda universal IMO, when someone enters or exits Warp Drive, it creates Shockwaves, EXTREME sound if it is atmospheric, burns a lot of fuel and is a dead giveaway for enemy scanners. Those are Pro-Cons, they are both good and bad. You cannot have a Ship that can endlessly warp while being as silent as a Mosquito. That's bad.

For AnotherExample; my Interceptors bypass most energy shielding technologies because they fire solid Projectiles, but also because it fires Solid Projectiles it has a Finite amount of ammunition, it can't just fabricate ammo out of thin air, it needs to resupply and be guarded because it can't do anything against smaller ships.

It's all about balance imho

[Tierra Prime]

Well... For me a good FT army needs to be balanced, think about making a class concept for uh... let's say For Honor, it needs to have strengths and flaws: E.X: kinda universal IMO, when someone enters or exits Warp Drive, it creates Shockwaves, EXTREME sound if it is atmospheric, burns a lot of fuel and is a dead giveaway for enemy scanners. Those are Pro-Cons, they are both good and bad. You cannot have a Ship that can endlessly warp while being as silent as a Mosquito. That's bad.

For AnotherExample; my Interceptors bypass most energy shielding technologies because they fire solid Projectiles, but also because it fires Solid Projectiles it has a Finite amount of ammunition, it can't just fabricate ammo out of thin air, it needs to resupply and be guarded because it can't do anything against smaller ships.

It's all about balance imho

I personally like the idea of shields only blocking objects which are travelling over a certain speed. Your missiles and aircraft need to be able to get through your shields somehow, and it opens up interesting areas of attack. Fighters, for example, could dive beneath your shields and strafe your ships. I haven't figured out how shells and energy bolts are supposed to get through the shields, though. Maybe it thins for a few seconds to allow fire through? That could be easily exploited, though.

[Vocenae]

I'll agree. The best way to make your military forces (both for RP and any offline projects) is to design them like you're designing units for an RTS game. They need to have strengths and weaknesses, things they do really well against, things they don't. At the end of the day, it does all come down to Communicating with your RP partner and the needs of the story and plot, but designing as an RTS will help you, the writer, immensely.

[Ordocravia]

Well... For me a good FT army needs to be balanced, think about making a class concept for uh... let's say For Honor, it needs to have strengths and flaws: E.X: kinda universal IMO, when someone enters or exits Warp Drive, it creates Shockwaves, EXTREME sound if it is atmospheric, burns a lot of fuel and is a dead giveaway for enemy scanners. Those are Pro-Cons, they are both good and bad. You cannot have a Ship that can endlessly warp while being as silent as a Mosquito. That's bad.

For AnotherExample; my Interceptors bypass most energy shielding technologies because they fire solid Projectiles, but also because it fires Solid Projectiles it has a Finite amount of ammunition, it can't just fabricate ammo out of thin air, it needs to resupply and be guarded because it can't do anything against smaller ships.

It's all about balance imho

I personally like the idea of shields only blocking objects which are travelling over a certain speed. Your missiles and aircraft need to be able to get through your shields somehow, and it opens up interesting areas of attack. Fighters, for example, could dive beneath your shields and strafe your ships. I haven't figured out how shells and energy bolts are supposed to get through the shields, though. Maybe it thins for a few seconds to allow fire through? That could be easily exploited, though.

Shielding technologies may vary from civilization to civilization. In most popular franchises Ships and Bolts can get out of the shield from inside out while nothing can enter from the outside. In others shielding tech is a very power draining S.O.S button which blocks every single thing it comes through, and in other they can only defend against certain things, take for example Star Wars Battlefront EA, the Cycler rifle could totally bypass shields because it fire bullets while the rest of the Blasters had to first wear the shield down, shields in general are a very interesting concept, Speed, solid materials or even nothing at all can bypass them, it all depends on the author/ "inventor"

[Shwe Tu Colony]

Yeah I think you’re posting in the wrong advice thread. There’s one for fantasy/magic too, can’t remember where but you should find it pretty easily.

No, I'm posting in the right thread since ya'll are the sciencey folk (that is not to say that there are also none in the other threads, mind you :U) & my question is related to the science of how a weaponized solar flare would work. The jewel could easily be some artifact from some far future tech nation that dropped it off, or it might be powered by magic, but nonetheless it should function like a normal solar flare with the catch that it only hurts those marked as enemies because magic. Also, none of this reply is supposed to be taken in a passive-aggressive way or as though I were insinuating something. Plus, I've never seen a fantasy tech assistance thread, so I'd wager that it would probably be gravedigging to find it.

[SquareDisc City]

A real solar flare, at the distance a habitable planet would be from its star, would have no immediate dramatic effect on a human. The symptoms of radiation sickness would take a few days to occur. If the flare is large enough it would be fatal - for a sunlike star I'd guesstimate there'd be one such flare naturally per century. Futuristic medical treatment might prevent death.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ster ... nauts.html

To cause death or injury quickly enough to be useful in a fight the radiation dose would need to be significantly ramped up. "Solar flare" is just shorthand for a mixture of X-rays, protons, and other assorted radiation in that case. You're still probably looking at a few minutes before the target starts to really suffer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiobiol ... erministic

Look into things like the atomic bombings of Japan, the Therac-25 incident, nuclear testing, animal studies on radiation, and similar.

[Rhu Rivi]

I'm working on a little fling project that is this nation here, and the concept is something I have seen done in some sci fi but nothing I've noticed played out in the FT community, so I wanted to field the concept and see if it floats.

In its barest bones, my idea is to make an entire society of what amounts of sapient spacecraft, large biomechanical organisms that have as organs of their body warp drives, sublight engines, shielding pylons and energy weapons amoung other things. Their working origin story is that of a precursor creation, that this species that I've taken to calling the Rivi (if you can call such a thing a species) were engineered as biomechanoid warships capable of self replication and autonomous thought and action, and that certain splinters of an ancient Rivi force might have survived the calamitous end of their creators and now exist as an isolated enclave, perhaps headquartered in the orbit of a black hole to take advantage of the natural time dilation effect to pass the time and survive the ages.

I am still debating whether or not make them hive minded, although I'm leaning towards no because I want to flesh out Rivi individuals, and I think its important to at least have individual personalities and something approaching a full fledged character, because its not like the reader can relate with the body language and facial expressions of a living warship. On a relating note, I'm thinking there would be certain symbiotic relations with more humanoid life forms, acting as intermediaries for the Rivi to communicate with outsiders, and perhaps even full fledged client states living under the protection of a Rivi horde out in space.

But yeah, what do you guys think? Hives of living bio mechanical spacecraft, plying the stars with friendly emissaries in tow, hollowing out planetoids to establish their colonies, ever vigilant for any vestige of their makers that they might uncover.

[Sunset]

I'm working on a little fling project that is this nation here, and the concept is something I have seen done in some sci fi but nothing I've noticed played out in the FT community, so I wanted to field the concept and see if it floats.

In its barest bones, my idea is to make an entire society of what amounts of sapient spacecraft, large biomechanical organisms that have as organs of their body warp drives, sublight engines, shielding pylons and energy weapons amoung other things. Their working origin story is that of a precursor creation, that this species that I've taken to calling the Rivi (if you can call such a thing a species) were engineered as biomechanoid warships capable of self replication and autonomous thought and action, and that certain splinters of an ancient Rivi force might have survived the calamitous end of their creators and now exist as an isolated enclave, perhaps headquartered in the orbit of a black hole to take advantage of the natural time dilation effect to pass the time and survive the ages.

I am still debating whether or not make them hive minded, although I'm leaning towards no because I want to flesh out Rivi individuals, and I think its important to at least have individual personalities and something approaching a full fledged character, because its not like the reader can relate with the body language and facial expressions of a living warship. On a relating note, I'm thinking there would be certain symbiotic relations with more humanoid life forms, acting as intermediaries for the Rivi to communicate with outsiders, and perhaps even full fledged client states living under the protection of a Rivi horde out in space.

But yeah, what do you guys think? Hives of living bio mechanical spacecraft, plying the stars with friendly emissaries in tow, hollowing out planetoids to establish their colonies, ever vigilant for any vestige of their makers that they might uncover.

Yes. But.

Don't go with either the isolationist or the hivemind concept. Both tend to die the same death: An effective way to interact. The stories most people like to read are about characters and while a ship and its symbiotes are a big character, they are a character. As far as crew goes... You could.go with some manner of linked symbiote. They go out, attend a party, then return to be absorbed by the ship and thus return their memories to the vessel. Overall I like the concept; just work hard on the execution.

[Rhu Rivi]

I'm working on a little fling project that is this nation here, and the concept is something I have seen done in some sci fi but nothing I've noticed played out in the FT community, so I wanted to field the concept and see if it floats.

In its barest bones, my idea is to make an entire society of what amounts of sapient spacecraft, large biomechanical organisms that have as organs of their body warp drives, sublight engines, shielding pylons and energy weapons amoung other things. Their working origin story is that of a precursor creation, that this species that I've taken to calling the Rivi (if you can call such a thing a species) were engineered as biomechanoid warships capable of self replication and autonomous thought and action, and that certain splinters of an ancient Rivi force might have survived the calamitous end of their creators and now exist as an isolated enclave, perhaps headquartered in the orbit of a black hole to take advantage of the natural time dilation effect to pass the time and survive the ages.

I am still debating whether or not make them hive minded, although I'm leaning towards no because I want to flesh out Rivi individuals, and I think its important to at least have individual personalities and something approaching a full fledged character, because its not like the reader can relate with the body language and facial expressions of a living warship. On a relating note, I'm thinking there would be certain symbiotic relations with more humanoid life forms, acting as intermediaries for the Rivi to communicate with outsiders, and perhaps even full fledged client states living under the protection of a Rivi horde out in space.

But yeah, what do you guys think? Hives of living bio mechanical spacecraft, plying the stars with friendly emissaries in tow, hollowing out planetoids to establish their colonies, ever vigilant for any vestige of their makers that they might uncover.

Yes. But.

Don't go with either the isolationist or the hivemind concept. Both tend to die the same death: An effective way to interact. The stories most people like to read are about characters and while a ship and its symbiotes are a big character, they are a character. As far as crew goes... You could.go with some manner of linked symbiote. They go out, attend a party, then return to be absorbed by the ship and thus return their memories to the vessel. Overall I like the concept; just work hard on the execution.

So you think a ... ship race could work in practice?

I was leaning away from hivemind for pretty much that same purpose, not really fun to play with hiveminds.

With the symbiotes, I was actually thinking of having some sort of micro-hivemind, that is to say that a Rivi organism and the little automaton mites crawling on its surface and inside its internal cavities, preforming repairs, modifications, excavating on the surfaces of planetoids, basically doing all the fine detailed work and manipulation that a big fat Rivi cannot, would be as one, with the Rivi's intelligence just driving the little mite cyborg bots around, and without the Rivi to move them, they would just fall motionless. They might appear in a battle, bursting out of little pores to repair some damaged section of carapace, or to attack some hostile thing trying to board or otherwise invade the Rivi, or maybe you might see them in a Rivi colony, laboring away in the background, but in terms of interactions, I would think they're pretty much null. They's just disposable minions/cyborg phagocytes that serve some particular purpose and nothing else.

For actual character interactions, I was thinking more along the lines of intermediaries of other species, like perhaps wayward human colonists that might have been rescued by some wandering Rivi group and now accompany them as attendants for the express purpose of going out and speaking on their behalf, because of course the Rivi don't have spoken language the way we do, and even if they can communicate directly, I feel it would make logical sense of them to bring a human retinue in tow to engage in diplomacy, maybe a little bit of intelligence gathering (you can imagine a sentient Cruiser would have trouble blending in and gathering information covertly)

Roleplay wise, such servants would carry a good portion of any interaction with the Rhu Rivi, to be like a personal perspective to balance out the broader actions of a Rivi group or even the specific traits of one Rivi. Would that work, do you think?

I could always make little autonomous mites that could just act as walking mouthpecies for the Rivi that moves them, to act as a literal personification of the Rivi vessel for the purpose of character roleplay, if I wanted to have a Rivi converse with someone else's characters directly. I feel like that's pretty close to the tyrannid-esque temporary beings you propose.

[Sunset]

So you think a ... ship race could work in practice?

I was leaning away from hivemind for pretty much that same purpose, not really fun to play with hiveminds.

With the symbiotes, I was actually thinking of having some sort of micro-hivemind, that is to say that a Rivi organism and the little automaton mites crawling on its surface and inside its internal cavities, preforming repairs, modifications, excavating on the surfaces of planetoids, basically doing all the fine detailed work and manipulation that a big fat Rivi cannot, would be as one, with the Rivi's intelligence just driving the little mite cyborg bots around, and without the Rivi to move them, they would just fall motionless. They might appear in a battle, bursting out of little pores to repair some damaged section of carapace, or to attack some hostile thing trying to board or otherwise invade the Rivi, or maybe you might see them in a Rivi colony, laboring away in the background, but in terms of interactions, I would think they're pretty much null. They's just disposable minions/cyborg phagocytes that serve some particular purpose and nothing else.

For actual character interactions, I was thinking more along the lines of intermediaries of other species, like perhaps wayward human colonists that might have been rescued by some wandering Rivi group and now accompany them as attendants for the express purpose of going out and speaking on their behalf, because of course the Rivi don't have spoken language the way we do, and even if they can communicate directly, I feel it would make logical sense of them to bring a human retinue in tow to engage in diplomacy, maybe a little bit of intelligence gathering (you can imagine a sentient Cruiser would have trouble blending in and gathering information covertly)

Roleplay wise, such servants would carry a good portion of any interaction with the Rhu Rivi, to be like a personal perspective to balance out the broader actions of a Rivi group or even the specific traits of one Rivi. Would that work, do you think?

I could always make little autonomous mites that could just act as walking mouthpecies for the Rivi that moves them, to act as a literal personification of the Rivi vessel for the purpose of character roleplay, if I wanted to have a Rivi converse with someone else's characters directly. I feel like that's pretty close to the tyrannid-esque temporary beings you propose.

I think a fully fleshed-out ship race would be pretty awesome, actually. A lot of it would come down to the execution, but I'm always in favor of characters interacting over the more nebulous 'My nation does X' and this would seem to me to make character interaction the front-and-center.

Why not go with both? The first would make a good introductory RP; Something along the lines of the ever-popular 'Prince X seeks a wife!' threads except that it's more 'Ship X seeks a mouthpiece!' Having both would also allow for some differences in ship personality; One might prefer to speak through another race, even if it's through a symbiotic mite in their ear, while another might prefer a more personal conversation. It would also allow for more non-ship RPs, since it would be somewhat difficult for a ship to go shopping. Why the ship wants to go shopping, well... Still, it would take a very big Mall. Anyway, to add to the long list of 'If it's one thing I've found to be true's that I've come across, it is that more options are always good. Even if you don't end up using them, one never knows.

[Shwe Tu Colony]

A real solar flare, at the distance a habitable planet would be from its star, would have no immediate dramatic effect on a human. The symptoms of radiation sickness would take a few days to occur. If the flare is large enough it would be fatal - for a sunlike star I'd guesstimate there'd be one such flare naturally per century. Futuristic medical treatment might prevent death.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ster ... nauts.html

To cause death or injury quickly enough to be useful in a fight the radiation dose would need to be significantly ramped up. "Solar flare" is just shorthand for a mixture of X-rays, protons, and other assorted radiation in that case. You're still probably looking at a few minutes before the target starts to really suffer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiobiol ... erministic

Look into things like the atomic bombings of Japan, the Therac-25 incident, nuclear testing, animal studies on radiation, and similar.

The heat should still be useful, & apparently solar flares also emit electrons, among other particles, so there might be some disruption or changes to how magic works in the area as well since magic in my world is somehow powered by purely electron clusters that replace electrical energy. Don't question how it works, just know that it do.

[Tierra Prime]

I have a question. If you use nanites, rejuvenation drugs, cybernetics, or similar technologies, how do they affect life expectancy and ageing among your citizens? I use nanites and rejuvination drugs, and although they keep the average person healthy for longer, they begin to lose their effectiveness around about age 60, which results in rapid ageing and death by about age 85. Some people survive for longer, but living past your late 90's is very rare. Gene therapy is common, but Tierran humans aren't far from baseline humans, so life expectancy is not too different. Cybernetics and cloning are used, but even the best replacement organs cannot stave off the physical and mental degradation caused by a life time of taking rejuvenation drugs.

I ask as I used to play these technologies straight about five or six years ago. By that I mean people would live hundreds of years without ageing. I thought that was very unrealistic, though, so I toned the affects of the technologies down quite a bit.

[Ordocravia]

I have a little dilemma; I have this weapon I give to my Stealth Operatives, I call it a disruptor and it is basically a Hammer that acts both as an utter surface annhilation device and as a melee weapon, I now think about adding a Cartrige Databank function to it; Like, Prerecording a certain Frequency on a specialised device and upload the Data to a small computing chip on the Hammer, kinda like a USB, basically storing frequencies of different materials for the hammer to properly reproduce to utterly and sneakily crush said material, effectively reducing the time it takes to destroy several materials that would otherwise also take putting the hammer on the Surface and flicking it...

For me it sounds good until someone mentions; What about humans? If I were to upload a Human's frequency it would effectively one-shot each and every opponent the Stealth Op faced while probably killing the Stealth Op itself... So what should I do?

[Rhu Rivi]

I'm curious what conditions would be like in and around the accretion disk of a large black hole.

I read somewhere that the disk of a stellar black hole would have a temperature of around a hundred kelvin, but I assume this temperature would be a bit higher for a more massive black hole. Could, for example, some Rivi vessels sustain colonies of some nature within such an accretion disk? Could mining operations and permanent sturctures be built, in spite of the conditions of heat and gravitation stress, not to mention the threat of collision. I am trying to make my civilization hug a black hole, for the double purpose that sensible species would likely avoid such a dangerous cosmic body, thus leaving the Rivi colonies alone, and that the gravity of the black hole would slow down local time, enabling the Rivi to more easily pass the astronomical lengths of time they're been around (most likely hundreds of millions of years, as I figure the precursors that made them would have had their last gasp in outright primordial times).

Basically, my question is whether I could have open colonies, with mines and structures on the surface of asteroids and other bodies in the accretion disk (or floating in the dust, if large bodies have be crushed down too far to base stuff on) or if it would be more fitting to have just free flying structures, like stations that are entirely self contained and stay clear of the disk.

[Tierra Prime]

I have a little dilemma; I have this weapon I give to my Stealth Operatives, I call it a disruptor and it is basically a Hammer that acts both as an utter surface annhilation device and as a melee weapon, I now think about adding a Cartrige Databank function to it; Like, Prerecording a certain Frequency on a specialised device and upload the Data to a small computing chip on the Hammer, kinda like a USB, basically storing frequencies of different materials for the hammer to properly reproduce to utterly and sneakily crush said material, effectively reducing the time it takes to destroy several materials that would otherwise also take putting the hammer on the Surface and flicking it...

For me it sounds good until someone mentions; What about humans? If I were to upload a Human's frequency it would effectively one-shot each and every opponent the Stealth Op faced while probably killing the Stealth Op itself... So what should I do?

Soldiers tend to wear armour, so it's going to be attuned to the armour, not the person inside. There's also no guarantee that the hammer is going to penetrate the armour. If you're hitting an unarmoured person with a power hammer, they're going to have a bad time, but a soldier wearing power armour may have energy shields and is protected by a composite shell designed to be as hard to penetrate as possible.

[Kyrusia]

I'm curious what conditions would be like in and around the accretion disk of a large black hole.

I read somewhere that the disk of a stellar black hole would have a temperature of around a hundred kelvin, but I assume this temperature would be a bit higher for a more massive black hole. Could, for example, some Rivi vessels sustain colonies of some nature within such an accretion disk? Could mining operations and permanent sturctures be built, in spite of the conditions of heat and gravitation stress, not to mention the threat of collision. I am trying to make my civilization hug a black hole, for the double purpose that sensible species would likely avoid such a dangerous cosmic body, thus leaving the Rivi colonies alone, and that the gravity of the black hole would slow down local time, enabling the Rivi to more easily pass the astronomical lengths of time they're been around (most likely hundreds of millions of years, as I figure the precursors that made them would have had their last gasp in outright primordial times).

Basically, my question is whether I could have open colonies, with mines and structures on the surface of asteroids and other bodies in the accretion disk (or floating in the dust, if large bodies have be crushed down too far to base stuff on) or if it would be more fitting to have just free flying structures, like stations that are entirely self contained and stay clear of the disk.

For the sake of discussion, I'm going to ignore the "handwave can make it possible" point here, since that doesn't seem to be the angle you want here.

A solar mass black hole with an accretion disc at close to the Eddington limit, will have an inner temperature not of "a hundred kelvin," but between 10⁵ to 10⁷° Kelvin (1.799995e+8°F/9.999973e+7°C for its upper bounds), just based on a quick, Google search. At that temperature, I significantly doubt there will be anything of substantial mass not rendered to a "gaseous" form for any considerable period of time.

National Geographic covered a story related to this in 2012 that you may find interesting. They've been attributing x-ray flares detected by the Chandra observatory to asteroids orbiting in a cloud, likely ripped from nearby stars of their own, around Sagittarius A* being pulled into the BH's accretion disk. As they get pulled in, intense tidal forces rip them apart, they impact high-velocity gaseous debris and detritus in the accretion, and are subsequently vaporized, resulting in x-ray flashes. They note that "only asteroids at least 6 miles (10 kilometers) wide create flares bright enough to be seen from Earth"; note, these are being pulled in from an orbiting field approximately "160 million kilometers" out from the edge of the accretion of Sgr A*.

Now, Sgr A* is a supermassive black hole. That being said, for the sake of this not being a physics paper, you can make some logical deductions about black hole physics in general. In short: personally? I would think not, no; the forces present in the accretion - between the extreme gravitational forces drawing bodies to the black hole's hyper-surface and the Eddington-scale luminosity/temperatures - would likely simply annihilate anything in their vicinity, rendering the masses gaseous as they are drawn into the hyper-surface. It'd necessitate some significant handwavium if you wanted to have this, which is fine, but without it, I just don't find it likely anything would survive in a "solid" state actually in the accretion disc. Now, it could be orbiting the black hole at significant distance; after all, it's still just a very large body with a very large gravity, but that doesn't prohibit other bodies orbiting it (we orbit Sgr A's barycenter, after all, and there are a fair number of stars orbiting much closer as well) given appreciable distance.

[Rhu Rivi]

I'm curious what conditions would be like in and around the accretion disk of a large black hole.

I read somewhere that the disk of a stellar black hole would have a temperature of around a hundred kelvin, but I assume this temperature would be a bit higher for a more massive black hole. Could, for example, some Rivi vessels sustain colonies of some nature within such an accretion disk? Could mining operations and permanent sturctures be built, in spite of the conditions of heat and gravitation stress, not to mention the threat of collision. I am trying to make my civilization hug a black hole, for the double purpose that sensible species would likely avoid such a dangerous cosmic body, thus leaving the Rivi colonies alone, and that the gravity of the black hole would slow down local time, enabling the Rivi to more easily pass the astronomical lengths of time they're been around (most likely hundreds of millions of years, as I figure the precursors that made them would have had their last gasp in outright primordial times).

Basically, my question is whether I could have open colonies, with mines and structures on the surface of asteroids and other bodies in the accretion disk (or floating in the dust, if large bodies have be crushed down too far to base stuff on) or if it would be more fitting to have just free flying structures, like stations that are entirely self contained and stay clear of the disk.

For the sake of discussion, I'm going to ignore the "handwave can make it possible" point here, since that doesn't seem to be the angle you want here.

A solar mass black hole with an accretion disc at close to the Eddington limit, will have an inner temperature not of "a hundred kelvin," but between 10⁵ to 10⁷° Kelvin (1.799995e+8°F/9.999973e+7°C for its upper bounds), just based on a quick, Google search. At that temperature, I significantly doubt there will be anything of substantial mass not rendered to a "gaseous" form for any considerable period of time.

National Geographic covered a story related to this in 2012 that you may find interesting. They've been attributing x-ray flares detected by the Chandra observatory to asteroids orbiting in a cloud, likely ripped from nearby stars of their own, around Sagittarius A* being pulled into the BH's accretion disk. As they get pulled in, intense tidal forces rip them apart, they impact high-velocity gaseous debris and detritus in the accretion, and are subsequently vaporized, resulting in x-ray flashes. They note that "only asteroids at least 6 miles (10 kilometers) wide create flares bright enough to be seen from Earth"; note, these are being pulled in from an orbiting field approximately "160 million kilometers" out from the edge of the accretion of Sgr A*.

Now, Sgr A* is a supermassive black hole. That being said, for the sake of this not being a physics paper, you can make some logical deductions about black hole physics in general. In short: personally? I would think not, no; the forces present in the accretion - between the extreme gravitational forces drawing bodies to the black hole's hyper-surface and the Eddington-scale luminosity/temperatures - would likely simply annihilate anything in their vicinity, rendering the masses gaseous as they are drawn into the hyper-surface. It'd necessitate some significant handwavium if you wanted to have this, which is fine, but without it, I just don't find it likely anything would survive in a "solid" state actually in the accretion disc. Now, it could be orbiting the black hole at significant distance; after all, it's still just a very large body with a very large gravity, but that doesn't prohibit other bodies orbiting it (we orbit Sgr A's barycenter, after all, and there are a fair number of stars orbiting much closer as well) given appreciable distance.

Well, this throws a wrench in my plans. While a handwave assisted citadel in or near the accretion disk would be interesting, on account of how mere location would make it practically unassailable, I'm not sure I want to give the Rivi that level of technological prowess as to be able to negotiate those kinds of forces at that scale. Based on what you said, I would be best served by moving my focus away from the acretion disk to things orbiting the black hole further out, although I would personally opt for the scattered remains of systems broken up by the black hole, rather than a whole system unto itself, just for thematic purposes. Maybe I could do things like Mercury sized rocks and planetoids and other scraps a "safe" distance away from the black hole, far enough to not be immediately threatened by tidal forces and thus able to sustain permanent structures in a solid and not gaseous state. While the black hole would work as much as a deterrent as I had hoped, on account of the deterrent being to dangerous for us to hide behind, it can still serve its other purpose, which would be time dilation. Leads me to another question...

I'm not trying to provoke a lecture on general relativity and temporal theory, but in say, the case of a stellar black hole, nothing too large, what kind of distortion might one expect? Could a civilization around a black hole run at say, half the speed of normal time, so for every year there two years would pass elsewhere?