[Star Trek like] number of planets and sapients

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

Actually, as mentioned before, Romulan ships use a quantum singularity, a fictional concept.

Yes. artificial black holes are a fictional concept.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yes. artificial black holes are a fictional concept.

Sigh. I mean fictional in the sense they don't fit with physical laws as we understand them ie superscience.

Unlike artificial black holes (just throw enough matter together and you get one) quantum singularities require some additional physical laws to work.

FTL is in a weird twilight world in that you can get it to work under current physical laws but each case requires either unobserved effects (such as Quantum Entanglement), messes up physics in other ways (Tachyons and Time Travel), requires an exotic form of matter not seen (Alcubierre Warp Drives) or you and your ship aren't spaghettified the moment you try to use the thing ( Wormholes).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

Sigh. I mean fictional in the sense they don't fit with physical laws as we understand them ie superscience.

Unlike artificial black holes (just throw enough matter together and you get one) quantum singularities require some additional physical laws to work.
.

No, those would be stable and entirely pointless. What Ultra-Tech described as "artificial black holes" are too small to be stable. They don't innately require new physical laws to exist...temporarily... but the problem is how you would compress matter enough to make them.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No, those would be stable and entirely pointless. What Ultra-Tech described as "artificial black holes" are too small to be stable. They don't innately require new physical laws to exist...temporarily... but the problem is how you would compress matter enough to make them.

If you want to get technical all black holes aren't stable - they all eventually go poof its just that for some of them it will take well past the traditional heat death of the universe to happen. :-)

Seriously, depending on how many spatial dimensions are in the universe you could get one of these asteroid sized black holes to last 14 billion years. - NOVA, Tine Black Holes.

Superstring theory requires 10 to 11 spatial dimensions while bosonic string theory needs 26 spatial dimension well then more enough for the ones created during the big bang to still be around.

But, yeh trying to make one of these things is puzzle and I am wondering why Ultra-tech slapped a TL10 on them rather then a TL^ (TL10^).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No, those would be stable and entirely pointless. What Ultra-Tech described as "artificial black holes" are too small to be stable. They don't innately require new physical laws to exist...temporarily... but the problem is how you would compress matter enough to make them.

With a massive facility of powerful particle beams set to collide with each other. The beams also need to have an extremely high cyclic rate.

This is because after your colliding beams produce an extremely small and short-lived black hole you need to shoot more matter into it faster than Hawking Radiation can evaporate it back out.

I know this would be extremely difficult but much Radical Hard Science is like that. Theotically possible but far beyond any reasonable expenditure of resources.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by isf

I think this is a good approach. I'd like to reduce unnecessary technobabble and plot device of the week.

Yes, I'd be inclined to ignore sillier explanations in favor of more plausible ones with the same results. E.g., tritanium is the term for nanocomposite or diamondoid rather than some super-metal.

Originally Posted by isf

I like this a lot: I'll have to think about using something like this.

A more radical thought came to mind, inspired in part by Stross's Eschaton books and partly by 1491. Possibly a bit of "Robots & Empire."

The back story is that in our not too distant future humanity has a soft singularity. We develop AIs capable of coming with new scientific theories & technologies, expand to nearby star systems and terraform and settle many new world.

Unfortunately, we don't really know how the AIs come up with their science so the new technologies are increasingly like a black box. The AIs are like genies - powerful, following our commands but unpredictable in how they work. Eventually humans become like cavemen running around in a nuclear control room which causes a collapse of the interstellar society.

Earth abides and recovers. Humanity moves into space again but deliberately avoids relying on technology we do not understand, making sure we know what we're doing with our gadgets.

The end goal is to justify a lot of Star Trek tropes.

Why are there all these shirt sleeve Earth like worlds where humans roam? Because they were terraformed long ago.

Why are there all these humanoid aliens surprisingly compatible with us? Because they're not aliens, they're genetically modified humans.

Why are there all these species with the same level? Partly because they all started at the same level and partly because most lack a culture of science. They can build and use starships & blasters but don't really understand the principles behind them.

Why are their all these powerful alien relics? Leftovers of the previous human expansion.

Why is the Federation so skittish about genetic engineering and AI? Painful past experience.

Why does everything look out of the 1960s? When humanity revived interstellar exploration, there was a fad for the fashions of the original space age.

Getting back to your original point, this could also be used to justify a higher percentage of habitable worlds near Earth. A lot of marginal cases got terra-formed.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Infornific

Yes, I'd be inclined to ignore sillier explanations in favor of more plausible ones with the same results. E.g., tritanium is the term for nanocomposite or diamondoid rather than some super-metal.

It is thinking like this that makes me low ball Star Trek's TL to (7+2)^

Originally Posted by Infornific

A more radical thought came to mind, inspired in part by Stross's Eschaton books and partly by 1491. Possibly a bit of "Robots & Empire."

The back story is that in our not too distant future humanity has a soft singularity. We develop AIs capable of coming with new scientific theories & technologies, expand to nearby star systems and terraform and settle many new world.

Unfortunately, we don't really know how the AIs come up with their science so the new technologies are increasingly like a black box. The AIs are like genies - powerful, following our commands but unpredictable in how they work. Eventually humans become like cavemen running around in a nuclear control room which causes a collapse of the interstellar society.

Earth abides and recovers. Humanity moves into space again but deliberately avoids relying on technology we do not understand, making sure we know what we're doing with our gadgets.

While interesting the fact of the matter that outside of the experts very few of us actually "understand" our technology. Sure we know the basics but the detail? Little to no clue.

Originally Posted by Infornific

The end goal is to justify a lot of Star Trek tropes.

Why are there all these shirt sleeve Earth like worlds where humans roam? Because they were terraformed long ago.

Why are there all these humanoid aliens surprisingly compatible with us? Because they're not aliens, they're genetically modified humans.

Why are there all these species with the same level? Partly because they all started at the same level and partly because most lack a culture of science. They can build and use starships & blasters but don't really understand the principles behind them.

Why are their all these powerful alien relics? Leftovers of the previous human expansion.

Why is the Federation so skittish about genetic engineering and AI? Painful past experience.

Why does everything look out of the 1960s? When humanity revived interstellar exploration, there was a fad for the fashions of the original space age.

Getting back to your original point, this could also be used to justify a higher percentage of habitable worlds near Earth. A lot of marginal cases got terra-formed.

If you don't really understand the principles behind your technology then how do you repair it or tell when it is doing something it isn't supposed to do? This sounds a lot like the Talosians meet the Zentradi though considering how bad their repairs were it is a wonder their ships worked at all.

The rest works really well and IIRC that was Roddenberry's plan for several episodes. In fact, one of the episodes, I think it was "Omega Glory" was actually an Earth colony in an earlier draft - which goes a long way to explaining the Bible and US Constitution they have.

One of the books actually retconned "Omega Glory" to where their artifacts were actually left by another ship a century ago - which make far more sense the alternative.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

The rest works really well and IIRC that was Roddenberry's plan for several episodes. In fact, one of the episodes, I think it was "Omega Glory" was actually an Earth colony in an earlier draft - which goes a long way to explaining the Bible and US Constitution they have.

One of the books actually retconned "Omega Glory" to where their artifacts were actually left by another ship a century ago - which make far more sense the alternative.

In Psi Trek, I think we decided that anything equivalent to The Omega Glory would be the result of time travel. It's not unreasonably for time travel to be the case for Star Trek, as well, since they do have it.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

In Psi Trek, I think we decided that anything equivalent to The Omega Glory would be the result of time travel. It's not unreasonably for time travel to be the case for Star Trek, as well, since they do have it.

The ship visiting option better fits Occam's Razor.

Remember, we are talking more then 1,000 years and not only do you have to have the Bible and Constitution but Yankees (Yangs) and Communists (Coms) also coming into existence. Never mind the TL7+ biotech for the biological war.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

The ship visiting option better fits Occam's Razor.

Remember, we are talking more then 1,000 years and not only do you have to have the Bible and Constitution but Yankees (Yangs) and Communists (Coms) also coming into existence. Never mind the TL7+ biotech for the biological war.

They also had greatly extended lifespans in the episode, to a ridiculous degree. However, if something like Omega IV exists in that setting, I'd prefer a shorter timespan.