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

[Kyrusia]

Well being near a growing wildfire has got me thinking about how firefighting would work out in NSFT, tried looking into it but trying to get the right words for the search function came up with nothing. Guess I will just ask a series of questions and hope for the best. First up, how does your nation deal with fires, from the large wildfires that catch the news today to the simple structure on fire. If the technology is not there to instantly put it out and forget about it is there plans for when things go wrong like a change in the wind or maybe flooding that will occur after or even during the fire. Then there is preventive plans to think about as well, which maybe is so good that your nation never has to deal with an out of control wildfire. Suppose if it is a human nation there is plenty to go off of with how we deal with it here and now along with the ideas for the future, but what about for any other species that do not really fit into the humanoid mold, what do their firefighters and their equipment look like. Little bit of a ramble but I am curious to see if anyone else has thought about it enough for this shot in the dark.

Huh. Go figure. Not something I've really thought about... :thinking:

Regardless, though, assuming we're talking about good ol' fashioned fire as a redox reaction, even non-humanoids would likely have equipment and fire suppression systems akin, at least in practice, to what we have. After all, the physics don't exactly change; so that means dousing the fire, depriving it of oxygen, or depriving it of fuel - which, unless I am mistaken, is the general M.O. for most wildfire management and wildfire fighting.

Of course, the latter bit of your post is interesting to me. Namely, I'm suddenly imagining how a cephalopod-esque species in physiology might design a fire-retardant suit. Hm. Uncontrolled wildfires are not really something either of my primary accounts have to deal with... 'Course, I say that, then realize one of my primaries are nomadic and ship-locked, in which case fire suppression would be a Big Fucking Deal™, in general... I'm going to have to think on that, besides the standard clean agent fire suppression and/or oxygen reduction systems in sensitive areas and/or onboard atmospheric venting in extreme circumstances (which a brief search of Fire Suppression in Human-Crew Spacecraft by Friedman and Dietrich indicated will actually briefly worsen the fire through forced convection before oxygen is ultimately removed). Of course, things will get more complicated if the fire has both fuel and an oxidizer outside of the vessel's own atmosphere, especially since, at least on earth, the choice for fighting fires fed by an oxidizing agent besides ambient air is water (since some fire suppression chemicals can, themselves, react with the oxidizer)...

Inert gaseous fire suppression and mixed-phased foams seem the most practical course of action, at least aboard spacecraft, with hypoxic atmosphere isolation for key components. The "Vacuum Extinguishing Method" ([1], [2]) is another, experimental method I found while looking into this; though I haven't done a full reading-up on such, it's interesting and essentially amounts to a "space vacuum cleaner." Of course, none of these necessarily address potential pyrolysis dangers in a low-oxygen atmosphere, but I imagine that has as much to do with careful materials engineering as fire suppression and prevention, with mop-up as required. Similar for "self-oxidizing" agents, prevention and careful storage seems the primary focus. This all, also, will be dependent upon whether art-grav is present or not, as well, given the peculiarities of fire's behavior in a microgravity environment.

Regardless, thanks for that. Now I'm going to be dedicating an inordinate amount of time reading about fire suppression and control in space.

Edit: Also found this which is... interesting.

[Great Aletia]

How would I go about calculating the interior space of a ship? I want to see how many troops I could fit into a transport.

[Diopolis]

How would I go about calculating the interior space of a ship? I want to see how many troops I could fit into a transport.

That's a more complicated question than I think you realize, but there's an atomic rockets page on it. Volume is pretty easy to calculate, but how much interior space is going to be crew habitable versus how much is going to be machinery versus how much is going to be fuel tanks?
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/habmod.php

[Great Aletia]

How would I go about calculating the interior space of a ship? I want to see how many troops I could fit into a transport.

That's a more complicated question than I think you realize, but there's an atomic rockets page on it. Volume is pretty easy to calculate, but how much interior space is going to be crew habitable versus how much is going to be machinery versus how much is going to be fuel tanks?
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/habmod.php

Yeah, you're right. It is complicated. I was going to go with a figure of 50% of the volume for usable internal space, but even getting the volume led to a massive number, so I probably won't go any further. I can just slap a semi-realistic figure on it anyway.

[Diopolis]

That's a more complicated question than I think you realize, but there's an atomic rockets page on it. Volume is pretty easy to calculate, but how much interior space is going to be crew habitable versus how much is going to be machinery versus how much is going to be fuel tanks?
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/habmod.php

Yeah, you're right. It is complicated. I was going to go with a figure of 50% of the volume for usable internal space, but even getting the volume led to a massive number, so I probably won't go any further. I can just slap a semi-realistic figure on it anyway.

I'd pick the number I wanted and then go to change the external dimensions to fit.

[Emaha]

Does anyone know regions that have a good map of the Galaxy for their RP?

[Kyrusia]

Does anyone know regions that have a good map of the Galaxy for their RP?

I might recommend Tanabiku Galaxy, a region set in the eponymous Tanabiku Galaxy. There's also The Fifth Quadrant, which have their own map and style for their region.

For "the Galaxy"/"the NSFT/Milky Way Galaxy" overall, there is no universally accepted map, however; it'll depend on whom made it, whom you ask, and the respective interpretations thereof - not to mention the thread in question and half a dozen other things.

[Ella2 6]

Best Quadrant. :^)

[Kendari]

The planning I've been doing for my coronation thread has inspired me to try to refine my timeline so that, for example, I can figure out about how long the current monarch has actually been in power. Is there any widely-accepted timeline that gives relative dates for events like the formation of major alliances that I could use as reference points to make sure my timeline isn't wildly incompatible with everyone else's?

[Sunset]

The planning I've been doing for my coronation thread has inspired me to try to refine my timeline so that, for example, I can figure out about how long the current monarch has actually been in power. Is there any widely-accepted timeline that gives relative dates for events like the formation of major alliances that I could use as reference points to make sure my timeline isn't wildly incompatible with everyone else's?

Nope. The closest thing would be the RL timeline for those events and of course many people are not cognizant of those events in both directions, given the large body of NS role players, even in the FT segment.

I might suggest - to keep the nitpickers at bay - using a timeline without numbers. The name of the ruler, an important event, their heir, next entry. Make it about the events rather than the numbers. Events are more interesting - to me - than the numbers anyway.

[Vocenae]

The planning I've been doing for my coronation thread has inspired me to try to refine my timeline so that, for example, I can figure out about how long the current monarch has actually been in power. Is there any widely-accepted timeline that gives relative dates for events like the formation of major alliances that I could use as reference points to make sure my timeline isn't wildly incompatible with everyone else's?

There's no solid history, calendar, map or hard definition of really...anything in Future Tech. It is one of the great freedoms of writing science fiction, you can pretty much do whatever you want (within or beyond reason, though these will get you varying results). To be more specific to your question, no, there is no timeline of events for the wider community, though smaller groups that often roleplay together will typically form rough timelines between themselves. One exception with the wider community not having timelines though would be when certain large community events happen. These often create 'milestones' that people then say 'well it's [x] amount of years from [the milestone] for me'.

For example, the last really big thing that happened for the Future Tech Community was the 'Great Displacement' (a giant refugee crisis that affected many parts of the NSFT galaxy) that essentially mirrored the Syrian Refugee Crisis and peaked in 2015-2016. So people will says 'it's been four In-Canon years for me since the Great Displacement'.

So again, no, there's no set timeline of events to go buy. The FT community is just too large and WAY too old to really make that feasible without infringing on the individual creative rights of the players.

But if you need a internal timeline for building your nation, that's fine. Sunset pretty much said it best, use events and not hard numbers to build it and make it interesting.

[Vocenae]

This is just a quick and small post that I felt like making after a discussion on the NSFT Discord server (link to which is in the OP of the thread).

But if you're someone that heavily relies on generator sites to give you ideas, please do not just accept what those sites give you as the absolute. Generator sites are just basic writing prompts. They're excellent places to get started, but they're not meant to serve as the end all, be all of your idea. They are just there to jump-start your imagination and get you writing/drawing/creating. Always, ALWAYS expand upon what a generator site gives you, be it an alien species, a planet, a star system, a corporation or government, even natural disasters.

Generators are a starting point, not an ending point in the creative process. You can do so, so much more by adding details to the generator's prompt, exploring new avenues that might take you somewhere awesome and unexpected and leave you feeling much more satisfied with the end result than just letting a computer algorithm for string keywords together do all the work for you.

[Kassaran]

Interesting FTL design concept here, lemme know what you all think:

The Shift Drive was developed as the Human solution to the great distances needed to cross deep space in a period of time where Humanity had effectively begun to overpopulate their own home system. Developed in conjunction with temporal probing techniques (originally developed to enable Humans to observe the Big Bang from the present-day by tapping into the echoes of the event), it was discovered that one could effectively change the past, however this had its limits.

The Shift Drive was originally developed as a military weapon for deploying weapons behind enemy defenses. The method would utilize two different sources to create a single object, the first being a series of 'instructions' generated by a quantum-processor designed to quickly and rapidly bombard highly-energetic materials still closely packed together in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. These instructions would then reorganize materials actively to create a facsimile of the desired weapon at a predesignated time. The second source was a material source, which was initially misunderstood. It was originally believed that the source material had to come from nearby matter at the destination and had to be within a certain range during the predesignated time. It was eventually determined that by using entanglement, one could effectively transfer materials at faster-than-light speeds to a predesignated point using the instructions in the first source.

So it was, that eventually the significant applications in transportation of biological organisms, became apparent to civilian-side engineers and thus the first 'Shift Drives' were invented. Several designs were, as with most new technologies conceived of before them, designed at around the same time. Some developed probes that were limited by range from the initial transmission, others were limited by mass, but the largest restrictions came from energy required overall. It eventually became a problem solved by a junction of the greatest minds and circuits developed by Humanity, that being the cyborg researcher Jacob Vandyr in the late 23rd Century. By bringing together the sheer processing power of a quantum processor, and the power of a custom-designed Hydrogen fusion reactor, he managed to successfully 'shift' a series of prototype, complex, multi-cellular organisms across deep space almost instantaneously.

This revolution in transportation would eventually create the Shift Drive as it is known today, the modern means of expansion and exploration at superluminal speeds, without actually needing to move anywhere. There have been many complications and instances of duplication of certain beings being transported, due to improper exchange of entangled materials, but overall it has evolved into the most reliable form of interstellar transportation and has likewise revolutionized the history of the Milky Way.

The aesthetic appearance of the drive in action, would make an object appear to simply vanish from one point and appear in another at superluminal speeds. There is no speed requirement, but rather power which scales by the approximate potential energy of the bonded elements being 'shifted'. The ship will simply cease to exist at its previous point and exist at its new point in space. In the few times where duplication has occurred, it generally has been immediately fatal for highly complex forms of life and highly dangerous for simple single-celled organisms.

[Kyrusia]

I'm getting Krasnikov tube tingles, oddly.

...it was discovered that one could effectively change the past, however this had its limits.

Any play/internal mechanics for retrocausality here (resolving it, recognizing it, handwaving it, etc.), or is that just not something you were aiming to play with?

The ship will simply cease to exist at its previous point and exist at its new point in space. In the few times where duplication has occurred, it generally has been immediately fatal for highly complex forms of life and highly dangerous for simple single-celled organisms.

Are there any cultural/philosophical/ethical conflicts/debates that have arisen due to what amounts to a "continuity of consciousness problem"?

[Kassaran]

I'm getting Krasnikov tube tingles, oddly.

...it was discovered that one could effectively change the past, however this had its limits.

Any play/internal mechanics for retrocausality here (resolving it, recognizing it, handwaving it, etc.), or is that just not something you were aiming to play with?

Can't change the past, unless you can account for everything within a specific point in time at a specific location and understand how it was affected by everything around it which would require absolute omniscience. Given that it is likely impossible at this point in time with the technological advancements assumed, we're actually looking at projected shifting, as real-time shifting doesn't work. Let's say you're shifting a watermelon and you tell the universe to use matter that came from an ancestor of this watermelon to create the new watermelon. That could work, but only if the material in this watermelon isn't critical. If you tell it to delete the information that would have led to the creation of the watermelon, it simply skips that part of the instructions and moves on. The result? You end up with a watermelon missing atoms because you tried to source critical matter from likewise critical parent matter.

You can't cheat the universe.

Let's say you decide to eat the first watermelon. So you go ahead and remove the first watermelon from it's time and create it in the present? The result? Nothing, you don't create the first watermelon, you create nothing. For you to move the first watermelon into the future, you'd end up deleting all of its descendents and the affects it had on anything and likewise cascade into oblivion with ripples which the Universe doesn't like. It'd also mean you'd forget what a watermelon is the second you summon it into the future, so you'd end up staring at a green, stripy thing sitting on your table and have no clue what to do with it (this is of course assuming you'd managed to properly instruct the universe on how to do this task in the first place, which it wouldn't be able to do and would just ignore like a computer being given incomplete code).

tl;dr? You can't cheat the universe. You can try to imagine what would happen if you did, but managing to do so would only mean you forget you even did so in the first place. Retrocausality can't be done in the same way moving faster-than-light can't be done. It breaks a limit of the known universe by creating a paradox. The closer you'd get to doing the action, the harder it would be until it'd be quite literally impossible.

The ship will simply cease to exist at its previous point and exist at its new point in space. In the few times where duplication has occurred, it generally has been immediately fatal for highly complex forms of life and highly dangerous for simple single-celled organisms.

Are there any cultural/philosophical/ethical conflicts/debates that have arisen due to what amounts to a "continuity of consciousness problem"?

This was moreover developed as a means of exploring a new take on the same old technological concept. The major point for changing the past mostly limited due to the need for having to accurately account for everything at a certain location given a certain passage of time. You would have to know the specific location and time that a specific set of sub-atomic particles would need to be at a location. Gravity makes things infinitely more complicated as it's not constant, even on planets and time dilation is a fucking bitch when moving things. Best bet is to choose a large patch of open space far from a gravity well to shift from and to. The limits on changing the past come from the mechanics of what is actually happening during a 'shift'.

For one, you don't 'stop' existing. That would require deletion of information and in the Universe, all energy is information which cannot be created or destroyed. Rather, you're exploiting a 'bug in the software', like when playing a video game and trying to get out of a map or use a cool cheat. FTL assumes speed, but speed has limits in the finite universe. Information positioning does not. Star Trek transporters take a person apart piece by piece and then reassembles them elsewhere within range. It takes time and is prone to fail due to the complexities in this process and at some point during it, you cease to exist. Information is not transferred by the Universe at the quantum (and thus atemporal) level, but rather at the spatial (temporal) level. Consciousness does not exist outside of the universe, it exists within it and thus it is information that would move as appropriate with the matter it is tied to.

[Birina]

Interestingly, dimensional travel as a means of FTL was what I had been toying with for Birina. Sashay technology is, in fact, technically not FTL. It just takes advantage of the fact that in four-dimensional terms, places that are far away in three-dimensional terms are actually quite close.

Most FTL seems to function like a motorbike. You can speed up, slow down, change trajectory, etc. Sashay technology is more like an elevator. You go to a specific destination, have to travel along a specific track, can't stop between your origin and your destination (the doors won't open between floors), and you're either here or there (not in between). An elevator can't intercept a motorbike and vice versa. And, arguably most importantly, the discovery of Sashay technology is possible without the invention of the windmill which as we all know is a dangerous technology that needs to be kept out of the public hands.

The discovery of sashaying as a dance move, however, is vital to Sashay Technology's discovery. Only through a coalition of Russian ballroom dance instructors and scientists whose participation was varying degrees of voluntary was this incredible breakthrough possible.

[Lord Dominator]

An elevator can't intercept a motorbike and vice versa.

Not with that attitude

[Kyrusia]

You would have to know the specific location and time that a specific set of sub-atomic particles would need to be at a location.

TLDR: Don't give God crayons and tell him to re-draw your world lines.

That would require deletion of information and in the Universe, all energy is information which cannot be created or destroyed. [...] Consciousness does not exist outside of the universe, it exists within it and thus it is information that would move as appropriate with the matter it is tied to.

UNITARITY INTENSIFIES.

So, essentially, shifting is momentously acausal/atemporal (the precise "moment" one is shifted from Location A is the same "moment" they appear at Location B), (ideally) reversible, and adheres to unitarity. In other words, if I understand correctly, shifting is what amounts to hitting the tilde key, going into the console, and editing location coordinates of the object/entity, in effect; there's no delay because, fundamentally, only location-in-spacetime, not... well... time-in-spacetime has been, well, "shifted." Spacetime curvature, while it cannot be ignored in theory, can practically be ignored given proper starting conditions ("...large patch of open space far from a gravity well to shift..."), removing the need for the shifting machine/operator to perform corrections; in other words, no need for onerous corrections when spacetime is sufficiently "regular/flat." Interesting.

An elevator can't intercept a motorbike and vice versa.

Not with that attitude

As is true in the time honored tradition: the elevator must be painted with red stripes.

[Kassaran]

TLDR: Don't give God crayons and tell him to re-draw your world lines.

Yep, pretty much.

UNITARITY INTENSIFIES.

So, essentially, shifting is momentously acausal/atemporal (the precise "moment" one is shifted from Location A is the same "moment" they appear at Location B), (ideally) reversible, and adheres to unitarity. In other words, if I understand correctly, shifting is what amounts to hitting the tilde key, going into the console, and editing location coordinates of the object/entity, in effect; there's no delay because, fundamentally, only location-in-spacetime, not... well... time-in-spacetime has been, well, "shifted." Spacetime curvature, while it cannot be ignored in theory, can practically be ignored given proper starting conditions ("...large patch of open space far from a gravity well to shift..."), removing the need for the shifting machine/operator to perform corrections; in other words, no need for onerous corrections when spacetime is sufficiently "regular/flat." Interesting.

Yes. Now, as quantum processing technology improves, it could be easily done that one could transfer information instantaneously between a 'curved' section of space by having highly accurate start-point/end-point data. If you know the specific gravitational field signature of your destination, and all anomalies that could be affecting it and vice versa, you could shift just as easily. It's instantaneous. No waiting because you're not 'moving' per se. Just, existing somewhere else at that time. If you want to try and get information on a location early, you could just send a probe with the right information and trajectory, then shift it near the gravity well of your choosing. Then, at the right time, have it shift back and rendezvous with the mothership to give the information on a suitable shift destination.

A ship doesn't even need to orient itself correctly- theoretically speaking. Inertial dampening isn't required, because momentum is a value that can be zeroed out altogether with enough trial and error. Of course, it'd suck if your quantum processor/shift drive doesn't set all the values correctly in such an instance and so your melon slices itself in half through sheer stoppage in momentum alone... The poor things I do to watermelons in the name of purely speculative science fiction superluminal transportation.

As is true in the time honored tradition: the elevator must be painted with red stripes.

FOR SPEEED!

[Kyrusia]

Of course, it'd suck if your quantum processor/shift drive doesn't set all the values correctly in such an instance and so your melon slices itself in half through sheer stoppage in momentum alone... The poor things I do to watermelons in the name of purely speculative science fiction superluminal transportation.

I, for one, welcome the oncoming, watermelon-flavored gamma flashes.

[Lord Dominator]

Of course, it'd suck if your quantum processor/shift drive doesn't set all the values correctly in such an instance and so your melon slices itself in half through sheer stoppage in momentum alone... The poor things I do to watermelons in the name of purely speculative science fiction superluminal transportation.

I, for one, welcome the oncoming, watermelon-flavored gamma flashes.

I'm presently imaging a Hulk watermelon, or kinetic kill weapon watermelons. Not sure which is funnier

[Kassaran]

I, for one, welcome the oncoming, watermelon-flavored gamma flashes.

I'm presently imaging a Hulk watermelon, or kinetic kill weapon watermelons. Not sure which is funnier

"This recruits, is a 2 kilo Citrillus Lanatus. Feel the weight."

"Every 5 seconds, the main accelerator near the Kassaran deep space laboratories shifts one extra-dimensionally across vast distances in deep space using highly experimental and dangerous technologies."

"It impacts with the force of 50-megaton bomb. That is the same yield as the largest hydrogen bomb ever used on Earth, the Soviet Tsar Bomba."

"That means, Shrodinger is the deadliest sunnuva bitch in space - when observed."

[The International Space Station]

So the premise of my country is that it is a space station without contact with Earth because of an apocalyptic event that killed all life. Thus, in order to stay self-sufficient, it has developed nuclear fusion technology that allows it to generate elements en masse. From elements such as iron, it can also create other more complex compounds such as proteins. It does this by harvesting helium from its planet, Saturn, and placing it in a reactor.

This means that traditionally expensive materials are no longer in low supply constantly, making them very cheap. Companies can also fabricate whatever it is they want. Keep in mind: I have infinite resources, but not infinite space and infinite manpower.

How would infinite resources influence my economy?

[Kassaran]

So the premise of my country is that it is a space station without contact with Earth because of an apocalyptic event that killed all life. Thus, in order to stay self-sufficient, it has developed nuclear fusion technology that allows it to generate elements en masse. From elements such as iron, it can also create other more complex compounds such as proteins. It does this by harvesting helium from its planet, Saturn, and placing it in a reactor.

This means that traditionally expensive materials are no longer in low supply constantly, making them very cheap. Companies can also fabricate whatever it is they want. Keep in mind: I have infinite resources, but not infinite space and infinite manpower.

How would infinite resources influence my economy?

You effectively have limited yourself though. Here's the issue:
1) It requires matter to create more matter, but cannot randomly generate new matter from nothing.
2) It takes energy to create new matter from pre-existing matter, but will also be requiring energy to use that matter effectively.
3) It is inherently flawed to believe that any system is perfect or without leakage. In spite of one's best attempts, fusing materials together to create the raw material itself, and then manufacturing a product from that material will be extremely energy-intensive. This is of course assuming you have the material ability on hand to even conduct this.

In short? Your nation would probably fizzle out if it didn't find a planetoid or moon to settle down upon. Space-station living is inherently highly resource expensive and in spite of your belief that you don't have to worry about resource scarcity, your incredible bill for energy usage would argue otherwise. We're talking about needing Star Trek Anti-matter reactor levels of energy here. Something that would make the worldwide energy expenditure per year now, be a mere afterthought after providing you with all of your base needs, nevermind the actual luxury goods of some corporate entities that somehow survived nationalization.

[Lord Dominator]

Off the top of my head it'd essentially wreck any regular capitalist economy, given the fundamental constraint of scarcity being removed for most regular things.

That said, as described you don't actually have infinite resources, there would still presumably be fabrication limits on either how much material can be fabricated in a given time frame due to collection limits or time to fabricate.