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Old 08-13-2009, 08:26 PM   #31
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Default Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy

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I'm pretty sure it was
I'm dead certain that it wasn't. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neu...al_constructor
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:27 PM   #32
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Specialization in research and development is a different beast than specialization in manufacturing.
At TL10, actual physical manufacturing is a trivial part of the cost of most common consumer products. The IP fees are the big ones.

So research and development pretty much is the economy, with the manufacturing itself being a very secondary aspect.

Interstellar trade in commodities is often from lower tech colonies to higher tech ones (where the labour costs on the high tech ones are so high that transport costs are far less) or it consists mostly of components and blueprints to enable the establishment of a local manufacturing plant.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:27 PM   #33
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Star travel = world-killing weapons in the setting.

Restrictions on nukes don't bother me in real life, restrictions on cataclysmic thermonuclear devices don't bother me in fiction.

The Empire isn't kind, touchy-feely or lovable. But it is, at least in the minds of Imperial officials (and mine, who often play one), profoundly necessary.
So, only relativistic STL, then? A suitable sensor net at the edge of the system slaved to a set of lasers would prove adequate to defeat the threat of getting hit. You see something coming in at relativistic speed, you laser the side of it, and the thrust knocks it a few degrees off and it misses your planet. At those speeds, it's not going to be able to correct its course, and it won't be able to evade.

It's a lot of space to build a suitable sensor net over, but that's what a Von Neumann factory swarm sitting in your local asteroid feild is for.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:31 PM   #34
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Default Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy

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So, only relativistic STL, then? A suitable sensor net at the edge of the system slaved to a set of lasers would prove adequate to defeat the threat of getting hit. You see something coming in at relativistic speed, you laser the side of it, and the thrust knocks it a few degrees off and it misses your planet. At those speeds, it's not going to be able to correct its course, and it won't be able to evade.

It's a lot of space to build a suitable sensor net over, but that's what a Von Neumann factory swarm sitting in your local asteroid feild is for.
I'm sorry, what?

There is FTL travel in the setting. It is an Imperial monopoly, however, because the same technology, indeed, the same drive, that can transport ships between planets will ignite a cataclysmic thermonuclear reaction if activated inside an atmosphere. As in, the world is dead. All life erased and the planet is uninhabitable for a very long time.

Compared to that, relativistic projectiles are only moderately dangerous.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:32 PM   #35
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I'm dead certain that it wasn't. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neu...al_constructor
Hmm. I was thinking of the Von Neumann Probe.

[quote]
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I'm sorry, what?

There is FTL travel in the setting. It is an Imperial monopoly, however, because the same technology, indeed, the same drive, that can transport ships between planets will ignite a cataclysmic thermonuclear reaction if activated inside an atmosphere. As in, the world is dead. All life erased and the planet is uninhabitable for a very long time.

Compared to that, relativistic projectiles are only moderately dangerous.
EDIT: Hmm. Sounds survivable, with properly designed (armored, and possibly underground or underwater) arcologies. Or, you know, not building on planets, and going for asteroid or space habitats, or arcologies on airless planets. Or mandating that all spacecraft stardrives be hardwired not to activate within the atmosphere, with anti-tamper measures that'll destroy the drive if an attempt at bypassing them is made.

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Old 08-13-2009, 08:39 PM   #36
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Default Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy

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So, only relativistic STL, then?
No, there is FTL which does about 1,000 c. Switching on an FTL engine in a planetary atmosphere is dangerous: Earth and one populous colony were wiped out by this effect, resulting in tens of billions of premature deaths.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:42 PM   #37
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Hmm. I was thinking of the Von Neumann Probe.
Fair enough, but I think there are all sorts of possible problems with the idea, and I don't want such things in my setting because they are unsuitable to the genre of adventures I want to run. Hence, there are none. nanotech is biotech, and far the most prominent examples of self-reproducing machines are living things.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:43 PM   #38
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Default Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy

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EDIT: Hmm. Sounds survivable, with properly designed (armored, and possibly underground or underwater) arcologies. Or, you know, not building on planets, and going for asteroid or space habitats, or arcologies on airless planets. Or mandating that all spacecraft stardrives be hardwired not to activate within the atmosphere, with anti-tamper measures that'll destroy the drive if an attempt at bypassing them is made.
Is it really your contention that all humans would prefer to live in nuclear bunkers rather than control WMD technology?

And pardon me if I'm cynical, but I wouldn't trust nukes on the free market, even with anti-tamper switches on them.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:49 PM   #39
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Is it really your contention that all humans would prefer to live in nuclear bunkers rather than control WMD technology?
I think that if you build it, they will come. If you make it really nice, they'll beat your door down and pay lots of money. If you exploit panic and fashion to make it trendy, you'll make truckloads of money.

Combine with the usefulness of FTL technology, and a society that goes for lightly-regulated FTL with safety measures will outcompete one that centrally controls FTL the same way the USA outcompeted the USSR.

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And pardon me if I'm cynical, but I wouldn't trust nukes on the free market, even with anti-tamper switches on them.
I would. Of course, I'm also planning on starting a company to build Orion-drive rockets once I finish university, so my response is perhaps predictable.
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Old 08-13-2009, 08:54 PM   #40
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Of course, I'm also planning on starting a company to build Orion-drive rockets once I finish university, so my response is perhaps predictable.
Excuse me while I try and find my spleen. It appears to have vacated my body during all that laughter that overcame me after I read this sentence.
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