Introducing superscience into THS while keeping the feel

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It's sort of a relic from the 70s or 80s too. I speak as one who has experience in that era/area.:)

If it turned out the old view was actually correct, would that imply other interesting things about the universe?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

If it turned out the old view was actually correct, would that imply other interesting things about the universe?

Well, the main reason we don't think primordial black holes exist is because if they did we'd see them occasionally dying with a fairly distinctive signature, and since we don't, they're at least quite rare.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

If it turned out the old view was actually correct, would that imply other interesting things about the universe?

I'm sorry if old paradigms v. new paradigms with radical changes and much energetic controversy between them would be more interesting but it hasn't really been the era for them.

The last "old view" that bit the space dust was probably the Steady State Theory which got blown up when the Cosmic Background Radiation was discovered and that directly supported the Big Bang.

New theories over the last 50 years or so have mostly been expansions and elaborations with new ideas woven in to account for new data. Some of what were new ideas faded away for lack of support and /or interest.

There's a good bit of future-tech that became retro-tech without ever stopping over in reality but theory has been busy but low conflict.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I'm sorry if old paradigms v. new paradigms with radical changes and much energetic controversy between them would be more interesting but it hasn't really been the era for them.

If you're looking for paradigm shifts with practical effects, there hasn't been much in physics since GR and QM.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

This is why I suspect they are drive cores. Artificial black holes would explain it.

Why not used for fusion more "advanced" than the He3 form ubiquitous to THS? Less "adventure game fancy" but with my very limited knowledge more plausible and possibly interesting for setting research into breaking the He3 economy.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Why not used for fusion more "advanced" than the He3 form ubiquitous to THS? Less "adventure game fancy" but with my very limited knowledge more plausible and possibly interesting for setting research into breaking the He3 economy.

So aliens built power plants in our solar system?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Why not used for fusion more "advanced" than the He3 form ubiquitous to THS? .

Black hole initiated fusion is the ultimate non-portable energy source. Except perhaps for the Sun itself.

Even if you don't make your own black hole you're still investing a ton into infrastructure for absorbing both gamma rays and neutrons and turning those into energy. If you use Deuterium 80% of that energy will be in the form of those inconvenient neutrons too.

Then when you've got your energy it's almost literally in the middle of nowhere and you've got to spend more on getting it to your consumers. It's not automatic that this would be cheaper than He3 fusion which only has to deal with the gammas and can be whatever size is convenient and adjacent to whoever needs it.

Actually I suspect that black hole fusion would never compete very successfully with space-based solar. You'd have the Sun doing all of the front end of the business for free and the consumer only needing to construct the receiving structure.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I ask because as I read up on this, I keep seeing references to number of space-time dimensions having a big impact on black hole physics.

The number of space-time dimensions have a big impact on all of physics. Theories of additional dimensions require them to be "rolled up" or something to avoid them having obvious effects on large scales. The issue is that low mass black holes often are small on the same scale. For that matter that scale issue is the same one that leads to (also entirely calculated) Hawking radiation issue - they're small on the scale of ordinarily invisible quantum fluctuations.

We actually have very little certainty on what tiny black holes are like, or even if they are physically possible, and aren't likely to until we can produce a theory of quantum gravity or some other clean unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

[Flyndaran]

But for gaming purposes, what sets of features are not incompatible with what is known now? That's where some of the "fun" for hard sci fi futuristic settings may come from.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

But for gaming purposes, what sets of features are not incompatible with what is known now? That's where some of the "fun" for hard sci fi futuristic settings may come from.

Seconded obviously.

Been thinking more about something like total conversion tech. If the Total Conversion Torch from Spaceships is too much, you could tone it down to a "proton decay drive" that works like an antimatter-pion drive, but can use hydrogen for fuel. Even that, though would seem to entail "cosmic" power and then some. Though it might be difficult to harness those cosmic levels of power. It also ought to be cheap source of positrons, but antimatter in THS is already relatively cheap—$1/microgram—so I don't know how big a deal that would be. I guess you don't need solar power or whatever for your antimatter factory now, and can build them anywhere, which is terrifying if the Trojan Mafia gets their hands on that tech.