Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

[Michel Van]

10000 Gigaton

To be fair, ten teratons is a tenth of a Chicxulub. I don't blame the writers at all for their decision in 2003!

Well it´s still one shot from one canon and the larger ships have dozends of them...

the 10000 Gigaton were planetary defence Guns and ONE in bigger units like 2500 meter ships of 40th centuries
you needed that huge Kraaboom, because it's the pure radiation that does damage in Space.
next to that, if between you and target is a High overload energy shield or worst a Paratron allot of radiation got absorb into Hyperspace.

 

[UpForce]

View attachment 663885

Perry Rhodan - Death Star sized spaceships.

That is very reminiscent of Archigram's "walking cities" and also some arcologies. Any connections there?

 

[Anderman]

View attachment 663885

Perry Rhodan - Death Star sized spaceships.

That is very reminiscent of Archigram's "walking cities" and also some arcologies. Any connections there?

Most likely not this is a space battleship a Ultraschlachtschiff (a typ above the super battleships which are only 1500m in diameter) in PR terms.

 

[Michel Van]

View attachment 663885

Perry Rhodan - Death Star sized spaceships.

That is very reminiscent of Archigram's "walking cities" and also some arcologies. Any connections there?

That Drawing by Rudolf Zengler is from 1969, those are telescopic Landing legs
He draw this kind of telescopic landing legs since 1965, according description of Authors.

Ron Herron "Walking Cities" study were between 1964 and 1966

It's unknown, if one of both saw there work
Herron worked in England, Zengler worked in printing house near Frankfurt am Main in 1960s

 

[Richard N]

Why There's an X-Wing in the Smithsonian

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZojRDHNggI

 

[martinbayer]

Why There's an X-Wing in the Smithsonian

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZojRDHNggI

So there's now a Sci-Fi movie section in the Smithsonian? And people wonder why intellectually less endowed folks start confusing fiction with reality...

 

[Michel Van]

I saw DUNE
and it's perfect Sci-fi movie

You notice that Villeneuve read the book, in harsh contrast to David Lynch and Alexandro Jodorwsky.
Last one will be very Angry about this version, since Jodorwsky DUNE movie was never made.
While Villeneuve version has little homages to that DUNE or to put own words of Jodorwsky:

I want to raped Frank Herbert in a Positive Way (from docu JODORWSKY's DUNE)

It seems that Villeneuve raped Jodorwsky in a Positive way

 

[Orionblamblam]

So there's now a Sci-Fi movie section in the Smithsonian?

Where have you been for the last fifty years???

 

[Richard N]

The Starship Enterprise and Close Encounters of the Third Kind Mothership have been in the NASM for years. The Shuttle Enterprise was named after the Star Trek ship. The SpaceX Falcon is named after the Millennium Falcon.

As the woman said, sci-fi has been a significant influence in getting people interested in aviation and space.

The NASM is absolutely the right place for an X-Wing!

 

[Orionblamblam]

The NASM is absolutely the right place for an X-Wing!

Sure. A pity it's not a real X-Wing, and instead one of the ones from that badly made series of anti-fan films.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Without dreams, how can there be progress?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Without dreams, how can there be progress?

Some people don't want progress and thus attempt to squash dreams.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Given the fact that you apparently tried to mischaracterize electric quadcopters in drag as *real* X-Wings, I take your arguments with a grain of salt.

The frak are you yapping about? *THIS* to you is an "electric quadcopter in drag?"

Lucasfilm Built Most Detailed Versions of X-wings and Darth Vader's Star Destroyer Ever for Rogue One​

"We built two full size X-wings that we had on set and I say those are the best full size props that have ever been made," Knoll told Comicbook.com in an exclusive interview at Lucasfilm headquarters.

 

[dannydale]

I look at the world around me and see multiple things that are real that were present only in science fiction when I was a kid. I'm only 39 years old!

One very small personal example: Here's the history of supercomputing as a reference. In March 1996 the most powerful supercomputer in existence was the Hitachi SR2201 which clocked 'only' 600 GFlops. I was already 14 at the time that supercomputer was built. I currently have a homebuilt desktop pc with something called a Ryzen 7 5800x. It can do 738 GFlops. Furthermore, I ordered the parts for my 'personal supercomputer' off the Internet, something else that emerged rather recently from SF to reality.

This is before we consider what GPUs can do, or these things we directly ripped from Star Trek and farcically call 'phones' do. Together this probably takes my computing resources past Intel's ASCI Red. We've taken less than 40 years for computing to advance so fast a teraflops went from being beyond an entire planetary civilization's capability to an affordable pocketable square or parts kit for DIYers that gets used as a child's toy.

This whole argument doesn't make much sense to me. Science fiction is an essential part of the modern human condition, and a few cave trolls mistaking it for reality should be both forgiven and not coddled to.

One final reminder: We did Robert Heinlein proud yesterday with the SpaceX Inspiration 4 launch yesterday.

 

[Orionblamblam]

One final reminder: We did Robert Heinlein proud yesterday with the SpaceX Inspiration 4 launch yesterday.

The world is *filled* with things inspired by sci-fi. Chances are good you're looking at this on a smart phone or a tablet inspired by multiple sci-fi devices, not least of which the flat "newsreader" from "2001." Or you're using a laptop, which is functionally the same (thought much sleeker than) the briefcase computer also from "2001."

 

[dannydale]

Bingo. I'm on my desktop rather than the phone because the screen's too small and it won't install adblock. Different tools have different use cases, after all, and some future possibilities cannot even be imagined until they happen (such as the need for adblocking).

 

[Dilandu]

On 8 September 1961, 60 years ago
The first issue of Perry Rhodan was sold in Germany,
Original planned as 50 issue Sci-fi pulp Series.

It now sold issue 3133 and still is running !
And with over 5000 publication the biggest Sci-fi story ever written.
with 3687 years of future history, from first contact in 1971 to year 2071NGZ
We're Mankind try to find its way in Univers full of wonders and Horrors.

Awwwww, I love "Perry Rhodan"!

 

[Dilandu]

To be fair, ten teratons is a tenth of a Chicxulub. I don't blame the writers at all for their decision in 2003!

You mean, hyperimpedance increase? Yep, it was a clever way to go away of awkward questions like "what if accidental miss obliterate the planetary biosphere..."

 

[Orionblamblam]

some future possibilities cannot even be imagined until they happen (such as the need for adblocking).

And sometimes sci-fi figures it out a century in advance. "The Machine Stops" from 1909 predited social media, Vtubers and people becoming addicted to and reliant upon such systems for their human interactions... and the disasters that result when the system fails.

 

[dannydale]

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/playstation-5-gpu.c3480
Ten teraflops and it started life intended as a child's toy.

some future possibilities cannot even be imagined until they happen (such as the need for adblocking).

And sometimes sci-fi figures it out a century in advance. "The Machine Stops" from 1909 predicted social media, Vtubers and people becoming addicted to and reliant upon such systems for their human interactions... and the disasters that result when the system fails.

Oh god yes. What an absolute disaster. 'Clout' chasers are an absolute bane of existence now.

There's one strand of terrorists calling themselves 'team nohesitation' absolutely murdering the crap out of people on highways with their stunt driving. They weave through heavy traffic at triple the speed limit and involve everyone in their stunts non-consensually as a dominance behavior. If ever there's a behavior that makes the person doing it deserve being hunted for the rest of their lives, it's this intentionally dangerous stunting that involves other people against their consent.

 

[Orionblamblam]

There's one strand of terrorists calling themselves 'team nohesitation' absolutely murdering the crap out of people on highways with their stunt driving. They weave through heavy traffic at triple the speed limit and involve everyone in their stunts non-consensually as a dominance behavior.

Where have I heard that before? oh, yes, science fiction. Everything from "Death Race 2000" to "Fahrenheit 451."

 

[dannydale]

Our present is a quantum superposition of probably thousands of science fiction stories, many of which don't even exist in this timeline or universe but do in others. A model or prop of an X-wing or the Starship Enterprise being present at the Smithsonian is really very small potatoes in the face of that.

Enjoy your trip across the multiverse, yall!

 

[dannydale]

hyperimpedance increase

I'm going to interpret this as in-universe jargon for why the firepower numbers got nerfed by the Perry Rhodan 'developers'.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Am I dreaming or have posts been diverted to the outer limits?

 

[dannydale]

Am I dreaming or have posts been diverted to the outer limits?

I seem to be good at that!

 

[martinbayer]

Yes, there have been deletions today.

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygu8x7wxxlM


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituar...able-character-actor-whose-career-ranged-ken/

Rest In Peace

 

[Dilandu]

I'm going to interpret this as in-universe jargon for why the firepower numbers got nerfed by the Perry Rhodan 'developers'.

Well, the truly advanced technology of Perryverse worked using "hyperspace" and "hyperenergy". Both have a number of specific constants, some of them fundamental, some... not so much. Hyperimpedance (the level of which) is one of such constants, that actually varies over very long periods of time. At some moment, and not completely naturally (by the actions of some multiverse-level superbeings), the level of hyperimpedance suddenly increased.

The analogue for hyperspace-dependent technology could be described as if suddenly "pi" became not 3,14... but exactly 3. Just imagine how such change of "pi" would wreck everything in the universe)

By doing this, Perry Rhodan authors essentially re-booted the Lensman arm race from the beginning, removed a lot of too simple solutions for plot problems, and made too powerful factions more comparable to others (because less advanced factions used more primitive technology... which was NOT affected, and therefore their military and industry was NOT wrecked, while superpowers were hit hard). Quite... elegant solution.

P.S. Yes, I'm Perryfan) And nerd, I know)

 

[Justo Miranda]

Dreams take time to come true because they require materials, energy and economic resources that only the slow growth of our societies obtains over the years and centuries, in my opinion it is only a problem of supply and demand. The ancient Greeks knew about the steam turbine, but warships continued to be powered by slaves until 1748. A good business that of the slaves. The machine gun was invented at least six times before the kings stopped fearing it, the crossbow was banned during the Middle Ages because it pierced the armor of the nobles, firearms were banned in Japan (along with the Jesuits) because they disturbed the rigid social order. The Inquisition burned people for saying that intelligent beings could exist on other worlds, or for describing the human circulatory system, contradicting the belief that only air circulated through the veins. All past time was horribly cruel, ignorant and short of all kinds of resources. If you want dreams to come soon, increase your riches, that's what has always worked.

 

[muttly]

People a hundred years from now will say the same thing about us.

 

[Orionblamblam]

People a hundred years from now will say the same thing about us.

Or, given recent trends, they will speak more like:

This ain't one body's story. It's the story of us all. We got it mouth-to-mouth. You got to listen it and 'member. 'Cause what you hears today you got to tell the birthed tomorrow. I'm looking behind us now. . . across the count of time. . . down the long haul, into history back. I sees the end what were the start. It's Pox-Eclipse, full of pain! And out of it were birthed crackling dust and fearsome time. It were full-on winter and Mr. Dead chasing them all.

May come a time in the not too distant future when our descendants will look at the ruins of cities and wonder just how they were built and how we so angered the gods. They will look at the oceans and doubt the tales that at one time Men sailed those seas in ships of iron; they will look to the sky and shake their heads at the fanciful tales that Men once flew among the clouds. A few will look into the night skies and see a few scattered small lights moving against the stars, and sometimes see an old satellite fall from the sky and wonder that, just maybe, Men did indeed fly before the Dark Times came. There will be regions that It Is Known are places of sickness and demons, little understanding the radiation that poisons the landscape downwind of nuclear reactors that were allowed to melt down when the knowledge and willingness to maintain them failed. Ribbons of black rock that stretch beyond the horizon, used sometimes as pathways for those foolhardy enough to travel the bandit-filled wastes between isolated communities.

And of course, it's always possible that things could get *really* bad.

 

[Dilandu]

The ancient Greeks knew about the steam turbine,

...Which was absolutely useless for them, because their level of metalwork did not allow to create the engine, capable of any meaningful work. Not to mention that ancient Greece lacked the scientific method to invent it.

The machine gun was invented at least six times before the kings stopped fearing it

The first examples of automatic weapon were not exactly very practical. Heavy, unreliable, and - due to black powder used - essentially self-blinding. The canister shots from traditional field artillery were simply... simpler.

the crossbow was banned during the Middle Ages because it pierced the armor of the nobles,

This ban was nothing more than formality, nobody ever obeyed.

firearms were banned in Japan (along with the Jesuits) because they disturbed the rigid social order.

They never were banned; it's just that in the era of relative peace, established by Tokugawa shoguns, the warfare became ritualized, and large armies (that could allow efficient use of firearms) became uncommon.

 

[Justo Miranda]

People a hundred years from now will say the same thing about us.

Or maybe they practice cannibalism

 

[Justo Miranda]

The ancient Greeks knew about the steam turbine,

...Which was absolutely useless for them, because their level of metalwork did not allow to create the engine, capable of any meaningful work. Not to mention that ancient Greece lacked the scientific method to invent it.

The machine gun was invented at least six times before the kings stopped fearing it

The first examples of automatic weapon were not exactly very practical. Heavy, unreliable, and - due to black powder used - essentially self-blinding. The canister shots from traditional field artillery were simply... simpler.

the crossbow was banned during the Middle Ages because it pierced the armor of the nobles,

This ban was nothing more than formality, nobody ever obeyed.

firearms were banned in Japan (along with the Jesuits) because they disturbed the rigid social order.

They never were banned; it's just that in the era of relative peace, established by Tokugawa shoguns, the warfare became ritualized, and large armies (that could allow efficient use of firearms) became uncommon.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-hea...hanism-greek-computer-astronomy-google-doodle

 

[Dilandu]

https://www.vox.com/science-and-hea...hanism-greek-computer-astronomy-google-doodle

And? You seems fail to see the difference between astronomical instrument, that is not supposed to produce any heavy work, and steam engine, which is supposed to do exactly that. Antikythera mechanism was an example of very rare technology, made with a lot of efforts by essentially carefully tidying individual parts with jewelers's scale percision. With a lot of time and money, it could be done.

But imagine full-scale steam engine made by same methods? It would be utterly ridiculous. Such machine would cost several times its weight in gold, and it would took decades of efforts of very highly trained specialists to just make one. And it would not be very efficient engine. The level of iron-making of ancient Greece simply would not allow for that.

Essentially, trying to build steam engine in ancient Greece you would came with absurdly expensive, oversized monster, barely capable of performing any work at all.

 

[martinbayer]

People a hundred years from now will say the same thing about us.

Or, given recent trends, they will speak more like:

This ain't one body's story. It's the story of us all. We got it mouth-to-mouth. You got to listen it and 'member. 'Cause what you hears today you got to tell the birthed tomorrow. I'm looking behind us now. . . across the count of time. . . down the long haul, into history back. I sees the end what were the start. It's Pox-Eclipse, full of pain! And out of it were birthed crackling dust and fearsome time. It were full-on winter and Mr. Dead chasing them all.

May come a time in the not too distant future when our descendants will look at the ruins of cities and wonder just how they were built and how we so angered the gods. They will look at the oceans and doubt the tales that at one time Men sailed those seas in ships of iron; they will look to the sky and shake their heads at the fanciful tales that Men once flew among the clouds. A few will look into the night skies and see a few scattered small lights moving against the stars, and sometimes see an old satellite fall from the sky and wonder that, just maybe, Men did indeed fly before the Dark Times came. There will be regions that It Is Known are places of sickness and demons, little understanding the radiation that poisons the landscape downwind of nuclear reactors that were allowed to melt down when the knowledge and willingness to maintain them failed. Ribbons of black rock that stretch beyond the horizon, used sometimes as pathways for those foolhardy enough to travel the bandit-filled wastes between isolated communities.

And of course, it's always possible that things could get *really* bad.

It may come as somewhat of a surprise to many regular followers of this esteemed forum, but there are still a few precious things that Mr. Lowther and I agree on. Given recent events, I can well imagine this planet may enter another Dark Age in the not too distant future.

 

[drejr]

And? You seems fail to see the difference between astronomical instrument, that is not supposed to produce any heavy work, and steam engine, which is supposed to do exactly that. Antikythera mechanism was an example of very rare technology, made with a lot of efforts by essentially carefully tidying individual parts with jewelers's scale percision. With a lot of time and money, it could be done.

But imagine full-scale steam engine made by same methods? It would be utterly ridiculous. Such machine would cost several times its weight in gold, and it would took decades of efforts of very highly trained specialists to just make one. And it would not be very efficient engine. The level of iron-making of ancient Greece simply would not allow for that.

Essentially, trying to build steam engine in ancient Greece you would came with absurdly expensive, oversized monster, barely capable of performing any work at all.

The Antikythera mechanism was only slightly closer to the modern concept of computer than Stonehenge.

Everybody who has read the classics knows the ancients had very sophisticated machines - with the exception of siege engines these were almost always used for religious or political purposes. We're so used to practical machinery in the modern day we're reluctant to understand that some of these devices had no use other than spectacle (not to be confused with entertainment).

I've read a lot of science fiction and I'm not very impressed with its predictive abilities, which I think is overrated due to our tendency to read work from our own perspective and ignore the cultural innovations and anxieties of the time it was written.

Certainly computer scientists like Alan Kay were closer to the future of computing than 2001 in 1968, and the Star Trek cell phone connection seems to be largely a myth.

I lost interest in Perry Rhodan after they deposed the Robot Regent.

firearms were banned in Japan (along with the Jesuits) because they disturbed the rigid social order.

They never were banned; it's just that in the era of relative peace, established by Tokugawa shoguns, the warfare became ritualized, and large armies (that could allow efficient use of firearms) became uncommon.

Firearms were never completely banned but they were heavily restricted immediately after the establishment of the shogunate. Part of the way the shoguns enforced the peace was restricting the the daimyos' access to both domestic firearms and foreign imports of all kinds.

 

[publiusr]

Cosmological defects interest me. Cosmic strings to line Vissar's cubic wormholes..which Tannhauser Gate should be. Domain Walls, Textures. Phys.org teased a story about dark energy and the Sun's fields spotted by Italian researchers. There was also a blurb about a record breaking magnet that needed 3O watts not 2OO million. So-put high voltage in a frustrum made of that? I hope Planet 9 is a small black hole..and we learn more about the linear quakes of '93 that SMU thought were stranglets. Some intellectual cross-pollination with experts looking over their fences might open things up...

 

[martinbayer]

Cosmological defects interest me. Cosmic strings to line Vissar's cubic wormholes..which Tannhauser Gate should be. Domain Walls, Textures. Phys.org teased a story about dark energy and the Sun's fields spotted by Italian researchers. There was also a blurb about a record breaking magnet that needed 3O watts not 2OO million. So-put high voltage in a frustrum made of that? I hope Planet 9 is a small black hole..and we learn more about the linear quakes of '93 that SMU thought were stranglets. Some intellectual cross-pollination with experts looking over their fences might open things up...

Could you please transcribe your thought process into plain logical coherent English so an average scientific university graduate could follow?

 

[Justo Miranda]

https://www.vox.com/science-and-hea...hanism-greek-computer-astronomy-google-doodle

And? You seems fail to see the difference between astronomical instrument, that is not supposed to produce any heavy work, and steam engine, which is supposed to do exactly that. Antikythera mechanism was an example of very rare technology, made with a lot of efforts by essentially carefully tidying individual parts with jewelers's scale percision. With a lot of time and money, it could be done.

But imagine full-scale steam engine made by same methods? It would be utterly ridiculous. Such machine would cost several times its weight in gold, and it would took decades of efforts of very highly trained specialists to just make one. And it would not be very efficient engine. The level of iron-making of ancient Greece simply would not allow for that.

Essentially, trying to build steam engine in ancient Greece you would came with absurdly expensive, oversized monster, barely capable of performing any work at all.

https://www.amazon.fr/Mécaniciens-grecs-naissance-technologie/dp/2020053950