Transhuman Space/Avatar

[Cyclone]

Let's suppose an alternate Transhuman Space, where humanity notices the presence of biomarkers on a moon of Alpha Centauri Ab (a gas giant), at some appropriate point in the timeline.

Realistically, this would greatly accelerate interest in extrasolar exploration, given the possibility of life on another planet, relatively "reasonably" close by. Let's say it accelerates the equivalent of Starswarm enough that by 2080, one or more such projects have completed, and the THS powers are aware of the broad outlines of this alien world: it is Pandora, a world dominated by hexapodal life (and the strangely-humanoid Na'vi), with a thicker atmosphere and lower gravity than Earth, though the atmosphere is unbreathable by humans due to the presence of high quantities of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere. These probes also revealed the presence of unobtanium on the planet. Like in the movie's universe, we'll say that unobtanium cannot be produced by human industrial processes available to the THS powers.

Given the presence of an entire alien biosphere as well as an extremely valuable room temperature superconductor on the planet's surface, the planet will naturally be of great interest to all the Earth powers. What happens next?

[Fred Brackin]

Probably China and the TransPacific Alliance destroy each other (and a lot of other stuff) with the Starstream accelerator technology.

Or maybe it's the Red Duncanites who destroy anyone who might inhibit their freedom.

Anyway, "re-enact the movie" is pretty low on everyone's list of things to do.

[Cyclone]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Probably China and the TransPacific Alliance destroy each other (and a lot of other stuff) with the Starstream accelerator technology.

Or maybe it's the Red Duncanites who destroy anyone who might inhibit their freedom.

In general, THS does not appear to assume that access to world destroying weapons lead to the world actually being destroyed, thus, for example, nukes not being used during the Pacific War. So let us continue with that assumption rather than abandoning it in service of functionally dismissing the scenario.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Anyway, "re-enact the movie" is pretty low on everyone's list of things to do.

The movie plot is contrived at best and silly at worst, as the human motivations and methods don't really make much sense. So obviously they will not re-enact the movie. However, I think it's quite reasonable to assume that if we discovered alien life in the neighboring solar system, as well as extremely valuable natural resources, we would go visit them.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

Iar. So let us continue with that assumption rather than abandoning it in service of functionally dismissing the scenario.

I might want to dismiss the scenario. The people of Transhuman Space's Solar System are quite busy creating their own aliens and it's not like they're going to be able to colonize Alpha C's planet.

Even some purely capitalistically motivated types can't make any money off it in a reasonable time frame.

There might be some lunatics who want to conquer the newly discovered thing in the name of their genotype. Or at least plaster their genotype al over it similar to the way dogs treat fire hydrants. Hopefully the token sane people eeping the Starstream Accelerator from being used as a weapon (and it would make a really good weapon) will prevent them from spraying gene-carrying nanites all over the place.

There's also the peculiar question of why this didn't get discovered until 2080. In our timeline we'd be discovering a planet with O2 in its' atmosphere at Alpha C approximately now. It's what the Webb was built for. In TS they'd have discovered 10 years before us.

We also know what they'd do if there was a habitable planet in range. It's called the DarkTree Colonization Fleet and little Tisbeth Sung-Morten (a Camazotz Parahuman) is headed to Darktree so she can fly.

Sorry but a lot of attempts to add something "Big!/New!/Strange!" to the setting run into this. Soembody else as already beat them to the punch. The place is a veritable explosion of looney energy.

[Cyclone]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I might want to dismiss the scenario. The people of Transhuman Space's Solar System are quite busy creating their own aliens and it's not like they're going to be able to colonize Alpha C's planet.

Even some purely capitalistically motivated types can't make any money off it in a reasonable time frame.

There might be some lunatics who want to conquer the newly discovered thing in the name of their genotype. Or at least plaster their genotype al over it similar to the way dogs treat fire hydrants. Hopefully the token sane people eeping the Starstream Accelerator from being used as a weapon (and it would make a really good weapon) will prevent them from spraying gene-carrying nanites all over the place.

There's also the peculiar question of why this didn't get discovered until 2080. In our timeline we'd be discovering a planet with O2 in its' atmosphere at Alpha C approximately now. It's what the Webb was built for. In TS they'd have discovered 10 years before us.

I didn't say that it was discovered in 2080 - I said that their probes arrived in 2080, after there were biomarkers detected! In fact, I specifically said, "this would greatly accelerate interest in extrasolar exploration." If the Starswarm project had actually been followed through on and used to colonize Alpha Centauri, THS humanity would first arrive in Alpha Centauri around 2120-5, with NAI probes. At the canonical present day, THS humanity does not have the meaningful capacity to reach Alpha Centauri.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

We also know what they'd do if there was a habitable planet in range. It's called the DarkTree Colonization Fleet and little Tisbeth Sung-Morten (a Camazotz Parahuman) is headed to Darktree so she can fly.

Sorry but a lot of attempts to add something "Big!/New!/Strange!" to the setting run into this. Soembody else as already beat them to the punch. The place is a veritable explosion of looney energy.

Even assuming Darktree exists in Transhuman Space (and isn't just something for Bio-Tech or further down the timeline), it is probably 61 Virginis, the canonically habitable world, which is more than six times as far from Earth as Alpha Centauri, and definitely well outside of humanity's reach in any reasonable timespan. If humanity sent a Starswarm-style project to 61 Virginis today, then a lightspeed signal sent on arrival would get here around 2162.

Additionally, there is presumably no intelligent life there, whereas we know Pandora has not one, not two, but at least three native intelligent species (Na'vi, tulkun, Eywa).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

Even assuming Darktree exists in Transhuman Space (and isn't just something for Bio-Tech or further down the timeline), it is probably 61 Virginis, the canonically habitable world, which is more than six times as far from Earth as Alpha Centauri, a).

I can't get to most of my books right now but in playtest material there was a Darktree expedition and it wasn't to 61 Virginis. It was to a previously undiscovered dwarf star even closer than Proxima Centauri. Camazotz certainly are canon.

Look, there's no need to be hostile. It's not like I'm calling your first born child ugly. As a GM what you want to have happen, happens. I can only suggest logical problems that should be overcome. I see significant numbers of those to the point that I tend to doubt your statement about greatly increasing interest in extrasolar exploration. Such interest in canon TS is probably already about as high as it can get.

Also, I'm not quite sure what you think "biomarkers" are. An O2 containing atmosphere is already proof of life as we know it.

[Cyclone]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I can't get to most of my books right now but in playtest material there was a Darktree expedition and it wasn't to 61 Virginis. It was to a previously undiscovered dwarf star even closer than Proxima Centauri. Camazotz certainly are canon.

That sounds out-of-scope for what's in Deep Beyond. Xiang 63, a brown dwarf mentioned there, may have subsurface oceans on the moons of its gas giants, but this is unconfirmed. It may have been pared back from playtest materials. Certainly, I'd expect searching "Darktree" in this subforum to find more than this thread if it were in a final product.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I can only suggest logical problems that should be overcome. I see significant numbers of those to the point that I tend to doubt your statement about greatly increasing interest in extrasolar exploration. Such interest in canon TS is probably already about as high as it can get.

Starswarm is the closest thing to an extrasolar design in canon (was meant to go to Xiang 63) and it gets the lights turned off for lack of funding before it's actually fired at the target. THS humanity is far more developed in the solar system than is terribly realistic, but its extrasolar capabilities are basically nonexistent.

Compare how effective humanity was at putting people on the moon the first time (big prestige project, huge government investments on the part of both major powers at the time) to how effective they are at putting people on the moon nowadays (private enterprise only, spending on the margins, kinda known to be pointless). In canon THS, there's nowhere to go and no real reason to go there.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Also, I'm not quite sure what you think "biomarkers" are. An O2 containing atmosphere is already proof of life as we know it.

Yes, that would be an example of a biomarker. We have a candidate gas giant in orbit around Alpha Centauri A as of 2021, though it's unconfirmed and moons are smaller than gas giants. Presumably 2020s-30s is a reasonable IRL timespan to notice it, though THS's own backstory has significantly faster discovery of extrasolar planets of interest. (I tend to just ignore the early THS timeline for the obvious problem that it contradicts observed reality to an extent that the 2100 time does not.)

To be clear, the timeline would be something like:
2010s-30s: Humanity detects Pandora around Polyphemus around Alpha Centauri A. It is fairly clear it has a biosphere based on the presence of O2 and other things noted. This significantly increases interest in extrasolar exploration and expenditure on extrasolar infrastructure.
2080: First probes (probably something like Breakthrough Starshot) make a flyby and examination of Pandora, and find that not only is it a place with life, but a place with intelligent life and natural resources that are valuable to humanity. Probably other successive waves of similar probes from other great powers confirm this data in the short term, since if China sends a probe there's no reason America can't (and they might even beat them there, if they can accelerate their probe enough).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

. It may have been pared back from playtest materials. Certainly, I'd expect searching "Darktree" in this subforum to find more than this thread if it were in a final product.

h).

I wouldn't. There's just much in the books for _everything_ to have caught somebody's attention in the years since this forum was established.

Your "probe" (assuming you mean something beyond Starstream swarms) timeline may have problems. The highest amount of Delta-V i can recall in the setting was a very specialized courier with a bit over 100 miles per second. Spaceships gives a figure of 4000 mps for a 400 hundred year voyage to Alpha C at 0.01 c. Your timeline requires even more Delta-V than that.

Use of the phrase "Moonshot!" doesn't necessarily cover the problem. The ramp up from a V-2 to a Saturn-5 required a little less than a 6x increase in Delta-V most of which came from building _much_ bigger. You need an ikncrease of Delta-V more than 10x that.

[TGLS]

Here are some numbers:

OK, let's say the probes were travelling for about a decade and they accelerated the whole time from Earth to AC. That implies an acceleration of about 0.086 ly/yr^2. Let's say immediately after the probes arrive, a ship is launched with the same kind of acceleration that can also decelerate at 0.02 ly/yr^2 (perhaps using a mag-sail to decelerate). This implies a travel time of about 23 years, or an arrival in 2103.

I dunno how plausible it is to go from starswarm to starship in that short a period of time (the acceleration may be very different, unless the ships are very small or the number of particle accelerators gets ramped up very fast). The trip would also be one-way, unless they ship enough infrastructure to build a lot of particle accelerators over in AC, or perhaps they just send infomorphs back and forth.

Depending on who gets there first, the answer of what happens probably depends on why the ship was sent. Prestige mission probably implies colony, which could easily be entirely space based. Why bother with the gravity well if it's not habitable down at the bottom? If the goal is bioconservation, they might setup weapons to shoot down incoming starships. If the goal is spraying humans and earth life all over the place, we might see terraforming similar to what came in on Mars, which will either kill all the Navi or leave them in a completely unrecognizable world. I don't really see much use in mining, at least in the short term. And even still, surely the rest of AC has unobtainium.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Here are some numbers:

OK, let's say the probes were travelling for about a decade and they accelerated the whole time from Earth to AC. That implies an acceleration of about 0.086 ly/yr^2. .

This is about 43 miles per second per day and you'd use up 5% of your ship's mass in antimatter fuel every 79 days. I don't think you can do this for 10 years even with using multiple stages.

You're also getting about 8x the acceleration Spaceships assumes for putting 5% of ship's mass into an antimatter pion engine.

You're going to need some technological breakthrough in propulsion and fuel and it might not fit in with Transhuman Space's basic desire for hard science. Also of course the capability to build this kind of sustained accel drive would seriously change the numbers for intrasystem ships.