Five Earths, All in a Row

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Generally speaking, it's not purely a question of 'can,' but also of 'will.' As noted earlier, 1,000 point or higher characters are very rare, but they do exist, mostly on Earth-2. 500 to 600 point characters are more common, but quite a lot, but most psis are 25 to 50 point characters with 5 points or less of abilities.

The most powerful psis that the average person on Earth-1 or Earth-2 is likely to meet in their lifetime have around 300 to 400 points of psi abilities, and 100 to 200 points of mundane abilities. That's not counting aliens and such.

The problem is Lina Inverse is one of those characters whose powers are more in what she channels. I did a write up of her shortly after 4e came out and she clocked in under 500 points. Philia and Zellos (servants of the Gods and Demons respectively) clock in over 600 points.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Incidentally, I was thinking that if Paul Van Zandt does not exist in Real Life, he also doesn't exist on Earth-1, but I also think I included a counterpart of his with a slightly different name (Paul Vincent? Peter Vincent?) in the timeline.

If you Google "Paul Van Zandt" you will find dozens of people with that name (some are Paul Vanzandt).

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I take the tack of it being like those who (apparently) mangle the following into Pasteur discovering Penicillin:

"He had not the precise methods of growing microbes pure—it took the patience of Koch to devise such things—and one day to his disgust, Pasteur observed that a bottle of boiled urine in which he had planted anthrax bacilli was swarming with unbidden guests, contaminating microbes of the air that had sneaked in. The following morning he observed that there were no anthrax germs left at all; they had been completely choked out by the bacilli from the air.

At once Pasteur jumped to a fine idea: “If the harmless bugs from the air choke out the anthrax bacilli in the bottle, they will do it in the body too! It is a kind of dog-eat-dog!” shouted Pasteur, and at once he put Roux and Chamberland to work on the fantastic experiment of giving guinea-pigs anthrax and then shooting doses of billions of harmless microbes into them—beneficent germs which were to chase the anthrax bacilli round the body and devour them—they were to be like the mongoose which kills cobras. . .

Pasteur gravely announced: “That there were high hopes for the cure of disease from this experiment,” but that is the last you hear of it, for Pasteur was never a man to give the world of science the benefit of studying his failures." - Paul de Kruif's (1926) Microbe Hunters

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You read that and realize that Pasteur could have discovered Penicillin c 1877 if things had been just a little different.

I take the same tack with Paul Van Zandt. Remember parachronics is superscience ie dependent on things that violate physical laws as we understand them. Infinite Worlds hints that that the odd physics that allows parachronics to work is limited to Homeline and Centrum (Reich-5 uses World Jumpers and natural "doorways" between worlds)

Its like Tesla's Beamed Power in our world - it simply doesn't work and it can't work. The closest thing to it that does work is microwave power.

[Prince Charon]

Just checking, but did you see the Space-warp article, and do you have an opinion on it?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Just checking, but did you see the Space-warp article, and do you have an opinion on it?

I saw it and I think calling them "Space-warp based sub-light drives" is more confusing then helpful

Space-warp by it very nature implies FTL while sub-light is anything that isn't FTL.

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In fact, I wrote up a simple explanation for one of my fanfic or how the Stargates there work:

“Simply put, spacetime is a concept that connects the three dimensions of space with one of time,” Ami held out her hands together palms up. “Think of one of my thumbs being the Earth and the other the Moon. The Crystal Gates bend space time,” she continued closing her palms, “until from their prospective the Earth and Moon are right next to each other,” she finished her thumbs touching. “The formal term for it is an Einstein-Rosen Bridge; the common term is wormhole and is a way to go between two points faster than would be possible in ‘normal’ space. The problem is other than intense gravity the only way to do that would to access another dimension and that would put stress on any structure.”

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I should mention that the above is completely viable under real world physics until you hit the "that would put stress on any structure" part with is plot cement as to way to explain why the Crystal Gates become Stargates.

Things like hyperdrive or the space-fold system in Macross/Robotech work along these lines.

I should add that Star Trek (TOS era) strongly hints at its sublight impulse drives being atomic powered. (Doomsday Machine)

There is so much variety that I doubt that Infopunk Earth would have anything even remotely resembling consistency of their sublight travel design.

There would be Flash Gordon/Buck Rodgers/Atompunk inspired atomic drives seen in the 1930s-1970s, the old round tubs forming the bottom par of an "A" seen in TOS, as well as the TNG inspired Warp coils.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

I saw it and I think calling them "Space-warp based sub-light drives" is more confusing then helpful

Space-warp by it very nature implies FTL while sub-light is anything that isn't FTL.

Not to me, due to having read (but not having the mathematics or physics knowledge to really understand) a number of magazine articles on exotic drive systems that various scientists are working on. One of the critiques I recall was that some other scientists think that while you could have a drive that warps space, you couldn't have one that exceeds the speed of light in a vacuum. Obviously I hope that they're wrong, or that there's another (not-horribly-expensive) way around the light-speed limit, but it's something that stuck in my mind, and no-one in the main discussion/development thread on SB.com objected to the title. Do you have any interest in joining SB.com, and perhaps saving me from errors like that (I really can't think of a better title, and it's a bit late to change it).

Originally Posted by maximara

In fact, I wrote up a simple explanation for one of my fanfic or how the Stargates there work:

“Simply put, spacetime is a concept that connects the three dimensions of space with one of time,” Ami held out her hands together palms up. “Think of one of my thumbs being the Earth and the other the Moon. The Crystal Gates bend space time,” she continued closing her palms, “until from their prospective the Earth and Moon are right next to each other,” she finished her thumbs touching. “The formal term for it is an Einstein-Rosen Bridge; the common term is wormhole and is a way to go between two points faster than would be possible in ‘normal’ space. The problem is other than intense gravity the only way to do that would to access another dimension and that would put stress on any structure.”

---

I should mention that the above is completely viable under real world physics until you hit the "that would put stress on any structure" part with is plot cement as to way to explain why the Crystal Gates become Stargates.

Things like hyperdrive or the space-fold system in Macross/Robotech work along these lines.

It's a very clear and concise explanation of what a wormhole is, certainly.

Originally Posted by maximara

I should add that Star Trek (TOS era) strongly hints at its sublight impulse drives being atomic powered. (Doomsday Machine)

Also in 'Court Martial,' where we find out that Ben Finney once left a circuit open in the USS Republic's atomic matter piles, which could have destroyed the ship if it hadn't been closed soon enough.

May reply to the last bit later, have stuff to do RL, shortly.

[warellis]

Charon you might find this channel useful for Dsp-Earth: https://www.youtube.com/user/webdev17

Lots of 1940s-1970s stuff you could mine. Lots of old training films and commercials and so on.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Not to me, due to having read (but not having the mathematics or physics knowledge to really understand) a number of magazine articles on exotic drive systems that various scientists are working on. One of the critiques I recall was that some other scientists think that while you could have a drive that warps space, you couldn't have one that exceeds the speed of light in a vacuum. Obviously I hope that they're wrong, or that there's another (not-horribly-expensive) way around the light-speed limit, but it's something that stuck in my mind, and no-one in the main discussion/development thread on SB.com objected to the title. Do you have any interest in joining SB.com, and perhaps saving me from errors like that (I really can't think of a better title, and it's a bit late to change it).

There are ways around the "can't exceed the speed of light in a vacuum" aspect of Relativity. Isaac Arthur's FTL03: Alcubierre Warp Drives goes into this.

The Science of Star Trek - Warp Drive gives the cliff notes on the process,

The way it works is spacetime itself can move FTL. So a "bubble" of spacetime is formed around the ship and that piece of spacetime (with the ship inside) is moved through universe spacetime. Yes it requires some exotic things (like negative mass) that haven't been discovered but per our current models they could exist.

I have found that many articles, even by scientists, over look this method of FTL and over focus on the ship itself going FTL. But from the standpoint of it own little bubble of spacetime the ship doesn't move at all. It is the bubble of spacetime with the ship inside of it that is going FTL.

This differs from hyperdrive FTL which is basically a way to create wormholes allowing one to bypass normal spacetime.

As side note I have added Isaac Arthur's channel as an additional material option for ''GURPS Space'' in the GURPSwiki article.

Edit: I followed your advice adding the relevant points to the thread and got "This message is awaiting moderator approval, and is invisible to normal visitors."

With pre moderation over on that site the no one challenged/contested argument falls to pieces; they could have been dozens of challenges that for whatever reason didn't pass the moderator. So the argument no one challenged/contested this and anything like it regarding posts over on spacebattles is deader then the Passenger Pigeon

[Prince Charon]

Will likely reply to the rest of the message in another post, but thought I should ge this out of the way immediately.

Originally Posted by maximara

Edit: I followed your advice adding the relevant points to the thread and got "This message is awaiting moderator approval, and is invisible to normal visitors."

With pre moderation over on that site the no one challenged/contested argument falls to pieces; they could have been dozens of challenges that for whatever reason didn't pass the moderator. So the argument no one challenged/contested this and anything like it regarding posts over on spacebattles is deader then the Passenger Pigeon

Pre-moderation is I believe only done to people who've just registered, or just started posting. It's designed to make sure you're not a spambot, and is done by a lot of forums. Your message was visible to me earlier (and I'm pretty sure I as OP don't have special privileges like that; OP can maybe set rules for a thread, and ask mods to intervene if people are getting out of control and be listened to faster than other posters, but seeing pre-moderated messages is not something I think we get), so future messages from you shouldn't be pre-moderated.

So, my argument stands, though I don't blame you for not knowing.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

There are ways around the "can't exceed the speed of light in a vacuum" aspect of Relativity. Isaac Arthur's FTL03: Alcubierre Warp Drives goes into this.

The Science of Star Trek - Warp Drive gives the cliff notes on the process,

The way it works is spacetime itself can move FTL. So a "bubble" of spacetime is formed around the ship and that piece of spacetime (with the ship inside) is moved through universe spacetime. Yes it requires some exotic things (like negative mass) that haven't been discovered but per our current models they could exist.

I have found that many articles, even by scientists, over look this method of FTL and over focus on the ship itself going FTL. But from the standpoint of it own little bubble of spacetime the ship doesn't move at all. It is the bubble of spacetime with the ship inside of it that is going FTL.

I'm aware of that, I've seen arguments like that before, but I've also seen scientists claim that it won't work/isn't that simple. It's something modern science is still struggling with, hence the decision I made to include both sub-light warp drives, and in one of the five worldlines (the Earth-1 universe), eventual FTL warp drive. The different worldlines have differing spacial conditions in the local interstellar area, and thus different FTL types are more or less efficient in each worldline.

Originally Posted by maximara

This differs from hyperdrive FTL which is basically a way to create wormholes allowing one to bypass normal spacetime.

That depends on which version of 'hyperdrive' you're using (speaking of fiction, not physics). While the wormhole version is common to some settings (e.g. Stargate, I think), hyperdrive in a lot of fiction involves crossing into another dimension called 'hyperspace,' and coming out some time later (whether instantly or after noticeable travel time) at one's destination... or at some place that isn't one's intended destination, but is interesting for storytelling purposes. That's the form of hyperdrive established for the Earth-2 universe (or the parts of it near enough to Earth-2 to matter in-story).

Originally Posted by maximara

As side note I have added Isaac Arthur's channel as an additional material option for ''GURPS Space'' in the GURPSwiki article.

OK, cool.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by maximara

There is so much variety that I doubt that Infopunk Earth would have anything even remotely resembling consistency of their sublight travel design.

There would be Flash Gordon/Buck Rodgers/Atompunk inspired atomic drives seen in the 1930s-1970s, the old round tubs forming the bottom par of an "A" seen in TOS, as well as the TNG inspired Warp coils.

The warp coil design becomes common because that's what DARPA ends up reverse-engineering from various shuttlecraft mockups and things like that, and spreading around due to tech-sharing agreements. That doesn't mean that the others don't exist, just that they tend to be less common than warp coils.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

The warp coil design becomes common because that's what DARPA ends up reverse-engineering from various shuttlecraft mockups and things like that, and spreading around due to tech-sharing agreements. That doesn't mean that the others don't exist, just that they tend to be less common than warp coils.

But wouldn't most of those shuttlecraft mockups be from the TOS era largely because it has been around a lot longer? IIUC there is a stronger nostalgia factors with with the TOS crowd then TNG and later crowds.

As 'Star Trek' Galileo Shuttlecraft – How It Was Restored To Flight Status' shows the TOS shuttlecraft were made with materials that somebody could easily get ahold of as TV budgets were minuscule back then (Doctor Who's budget from what I have read was even worse back then)

I should point out that Doctor Who also brings with it other spaceship propulsion designs and then there is the boatload of the anime stuff ranging from the insanely huge Macros series (which is more then what people have seen via Robotech) to Project Blue Earth SOS (2006)

I think just from the fact they has been in the public's mind a lot longer that steampunk/dieselpunk/atompunk and the tech being "cheaper" (or psudo off the shelf) DARPA wouldn't go the warp coil route.

If anything IMHO DARPA would go with the steampunk/dieselpunk/atompunk route with atomic powered rockets.

Most importantly wouldn't they put near Manhattan Project level of secrecy on just which of the dozens of designs they choose? Letting potential enemies mess around with "inferior" steampunk, dieselpunk, and atompunk based tech seems to be in keeping with DoD mentality.

"You are now entering...."

The Detail

Arnold Goldstein went over the ship a third time. Heat ray worked as did the inviable legs though the matter dissolving ray had been a bust, and he was sure the force field wouldn't hold up to an atomic bomb and wasn't to sure about heavy artillery but given his mission he doubted he would need that.

He could move the ship around on the ground but not take off. He had missed the early part 1954 movie but the "Martians" had to been able to fly through space. That was how they got to Earth darn it.

His grandfather had died in 1943 in one of these Death Camps and he suspected that Nazis were still planning on killing a lot of inferiors. Even if they had stopped the Martian War Machine would end the war even faster.

Grumbling he checked the mail box and smiled as he pulled the Netflix DVD. Now he would have his answer on how the Martians left Mars...and how he would leave this Earth.

After watching the early part of the movie he realized that he had missed the key detail that doomed his plan from the start: the Martian War Machines were incapable of fight much less space travel. They had to travel inside meteorite like devices and there was no clue on how those were launched. It would take time to even begin and it was time he no longer had.

'It is often said that the Devil is in the details. A phrase Mr. Goldstein has learned all too well.'

[Prince Charon]

Quoting this from SB.com, because it's also relevant here, and I'm still tired:

Too tired right now to give good replies. One thing I will say that I meant to say earlier is that due to the end of the TOS episode 'A Piece of the Action,' a lot of Star Trek fans believe that Treknology should be easy to reverse engineer (the crew thought it plausible that the Iotians would figure out how the transtator works from McCoy's communicator, despite the communicator being 23rd century tech, and the Iotian tech-base being around the 1920s or '30s). Also, I mentioned DARPA working on warp coils, but not Starship Enterprises, or the various independent groups with an interest in Treknology. That was a mistake, because they would be, but I skipped over them when trying to explain why the warp coils were widespread on Earth-1. Sorry.

Incidentally, is anyone getting warp coil and warp core mixed up? It occurred to me that some people might.

Oh, yeah, important note for '-punk' tech: It isn't just tech that diverges from the 'normal' path. A lot of it is magitech, aka technurgy or technomagic. It works because magic is being applied to it to make it work better in some way, whether by binding spirits to it (making it a fetish, which has it's own issues), or by using 'natural' magical materials (something Earth-2 and Earth-5 have in abundance, while they're rather less common on the other Earths, generally based on how long that Earth has had magic). I had to do that because a lot of the tech in Dieselpunk/Steampunk/Clockpunk stories, as well as even the less silly comics, literally could not work as well as it does (or sometimes at all) in those stories, and I wanted to avoid having too many 'unicorns in the garden.'

Sorry if this is lacking coherency, and for any important questions left unanswered. Hoping to be less tired later.


On another note:

Originally Posted by maximara

"You are now entering...."

The Detail

Arnold Goldstein went over the ship a third time. Heat ray worked as did the inviable legs though the matter dissolving ray had been a bust, and he was sure the force field wouldn't hold up to an atomic bomb and wasn't to sure about heavy artillery but given his mission he doubted he would need that.

He could move the ship around on the ground but not take off. He had missed the early part 1954 movie but the "Martians" had to been able to fly through space. That was how they got to Earth darn it.

His grandfather had died in 1943 in one of these Death Camps and he suspected that Nazis were still planning on killing a lot of 'inferiors.' Even if they had stopped the Martian War Machine would end the war even faster.

Grumbling he checked the mail box and smiled as he pulled the Netflix DVD. Now he would have his answer on how the Martians left Mars...and how he would leave this Earth.

After watching the early part of the movie he realized that he had missed the key detail that doomed his plan from the start: the Martian War Machines were incapable of flight much less space travel. They had to travel inside meteorite like devices and there was no clue on how those were launched. It would take time to even begin and it was time he no longer had.

'It is often said that the Devil is in the details. A phrase Mr. Goldstein has learned all too well.'

Do you want to post this to the fiction thread on SB.com? It looks good, and isn't in need of editing beyond the red bold bits a put in the quote box (id est, adding quotes around the word 'inferiors' (you can use single quotes or double quotes if you wish, I just don't see a Jewish man thinking of them like that without a qualifier) and correcting the word 'fight' to 'flight' - unless 'flight' wasn't what you meant, in which case I'm confused, but as noted, am tired).