Notes and Stuff

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Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

This thread is going to be where I post my notes and any other small nuggets of creativity that I manage to salvage from the recesses of my drug-addled mind.

First of all, I can see myself having a lot of fun with the generators on Seventh Sanctum, so expect a few of my odds and ends to be inspired by the products of those generators.

I'll also use this thread as a dumping ground for any interesting ideas that I find on the internet, in books, and so on and so forth.

Which leads neatly on to my very first note:

Mirror Matter

I recently read a book called Shadowlands: Quest for Mirror Matter in the Universe, which argues for the existance of "Mirror Matter" - matter with a predominantly "right-handed" symmetry, as opposed to "normal" matter which has a predominantly left-handed symmetry. This mirror matter interacts with ordinary matter primarily through gravitational interactions and the "oscillation" of neutrinos into their mirror matter counterparts.

In the book, the author (Dr Robert Foot) claims that the existance of mirror matter can be inferred through the following:

1) Anomalous rotation of galaxies, suggesting a far larger mass than can be detected electromagnetically. Dr Foot hypothesises that this "dark matter" is in fact mirror matter.

2) The large planets that have recently been discovered orbiting very close to their stellar primaries. Dr Foot argues that these are mirror matter planets that have accreted some normal matter due to their gravity, thus explaining why they can occlude their parent stars.

3) The discovery of "exoplanets" or "planemos" - planetary-mass objects that apparantly drift freely through space without a parent star. Dr Foot argues that these are ordinary matter planets orbiting mirror matter stars, which we cannot see because they emit mirror photons which interact only with mirror matter!

Dr Foot also claims that the Tunguska Event (and similar events) was caused by a falling fragment of mirror matter. I highly recommend reading the book for yourself, as it is a truly fascinating work, and Dr Foot himself has an engaging writing style - he is one of the few science writers who has actually made me laugh out loud.

So what implications would mirror matter have for the FFFverse? Well, the first though that occurred to me was that it made the universe a hell of a lot bigger! Instead of the old vision of normal space, that is being populated with light baryonic matter, with a more rarefied universe of baryonic dark matter and MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects), perhaps with the entire setup being ghosted through constantly with weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).

With mirror matter, you get a two-for-one deal, with WIMPs such as neutrinos appearing to constantly wink in and out of existance as they flip from mirror to normal versions. Due to some kind of effect which is detailed in the book but which I cannot remember, every spiral galaxy is accompanied by a spherical halo of mirror matter. In other words, it seems that in the mirror universe, a spiral galaxy is an elliptical galaxy and vice versa.

Of course, these two universes can only interact through the gravitational force and neutrino oscillation. But what if, through sufficient application of handwavium, one could make particles other than neutrinos oscillate, and by extension make the particle content of a macroscopic object (say, a person or a starship...) oscillate also? Then one would be able to do more than simply exchange gravity-wave signals and neutrino transmissions.

Which gives me another idea - as well as the "mirror gates" that easily suggest themselves as ways of travelling between the normal and mirror universes (Additional note: While travel through a mirror gate is a one-way trip, what's to stop you carrying a smaller mirror gate through the original, thus allowing travel back to one's own mirror-side? Setting up a network of mirror gates would not be difficult), perhaps the inhabitants of the mirror universes are already aware of our existance.

The "Mirror Universe" would likely form part of a unified cosmological model for the FFFverse, which is detailed in barebones format below:

Light Baryonic Matter (LBM) Universe - The universe of stars, galaxies and planets with which most of Transhumanity is familiar with.

Dark Baryonic Matter (DBM) Universe - This is the scattered realm of black dwarves, dim red dwarf stars, brown dwarves and other MACHOs. Due to the extreme age of some of the objects in the DBM universe, it is speculated that the BDM universe somehow represents the remnants of an earlier universe.

Mirror Universe - The universe of mirror matter. Speculated to be older and more massive than the LBM and DBM universes combined

Hyperspace - the "flipside" of the the LBM, DBM and Mirror universes, Hyperspace is speculated to have it's own equivalents as well as being divided into "levels", each with different topological and geographical qualities.

The Aether - A collapsed dimension/space with no length, width or breadth but which permeates the cosmos. Allows Stargates, Aetheric signallers and Powercasters to operate.

Extradimensional Space - It was previously thought that the extra spatial dimensions of the universe were represented by Hyperspace, which was isolated from normal space by the collapse of the dimension/space that we know as the Aether. We now know that this view was incomplete, and that there is at least one extra spatial dimension still "attached" to the three spatial dimensions that we are familiar with. This is the realm through which shortcuts between different parts of normal space are possible, such as wormholes, Transpheres and HyperDistortion Drives.

I may expand this model later on.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Ford Prefect »

Ah, mirror matter. A while back, in a discussion for my hard science-fiction universe concept After, In the Dark, someone explained this concept to me. At the very least, this will give your universe a cosmological broadness that few others could match.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Magister Militum »

This is what I love about Final, Final Frontiers; you always manage to make it seem perpetually more epic by the post, and I love that.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Ford Prefect's question in the Computer Types article got me thinking about the science of this universe. It seems to me that there are actually two different kinds of science in the FFFverse; there's normal, every day science and then there's SuperScience! Or in other words, science so advanced that it does stuff that may not even be possible according to our current (21st century) understanding of the universe.

Now, SuperScience! is all fine and dandy, but perhaps it would help if limits were established. I also wonder if it is even possible to establish limits, as the capabilities of Transhumanity as well as the more advanced civilisations have increased by multiple orders of magnitude since the inception of the FFFverse (a lot has changed, hasn't it?).

For instance, I could state that SuperScience!, as powerful as it is, cannot break the laws of thermodynamics. I feel the problem is twofold - firstly, I may have broken my edict in advance; anyone with a better understanding of physics than I have is probably going to find some thermodynamics-breaking technology or process with sufficient rummaging. Secondly, SuperScience! does not play fair. It likes to cheat. For instance, it could get around the thermodynamic limitations imposed upon it by turning our universe from a closed system into an open one by introducing new energy or matter from another universe - in effect, creating matter and energy, and apparantly violating thermodynamics.

This is why I am not sure whether it is even possible to establish limitations on SuperScience!, but I feel it should be investigated, if only to prevent the FFFverse from sliding further into absurdity than it already has done.

True, it's my own fault. I can't help but pick up an interesting concept from physics and run all the way with it. I love the idea of technological mastery of epic scope or being able to utilise the very nether ends of the universe to do things that we barely-evolved monkeys would consider miraculous. But in my defence, it's fun. :mrgreen:
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

I occasionally have had the urge to introduce a new kind of being into the FFFverse, loosely based on Lovecraftian beings but with a non-supernatural bent - such beings would not literally be gods (although they may have god-like powers and abilities) but instead would be aliens with completely inscrutable or seemingly insane motives, access to powerful technology or vast knowledge, and legions of servants, slaves and/or followers. They could be alien warlords who have used a combination of genetic engineering, cyborging, submicrotech implants, and so and so forth to enhance combat prowess and become "gods of war". They could be alien scientists who have altered their minds and bodies in completely unexpected ways (perhaps in an attempt to "better understand" the universe), resulting in a being that is otherwordly and strange even by average alien standards. Or maybe they could represent the degraded remnants of a previously great interstellar civilisation, now just a decadent and wierd rump whose motives cannot be clearly ascertained.

Such beings would for the most part be entirely singular - each one is a one-of-a-kind one-off special - or if not singular, then very small in number and perhaps spread out over a wide volume. I'm giving them the provisional name of Postxenos for the moment.

In a universe ancient as ours (and with suggestions that parts of it may even be older) it should come as no surprise that some especially powerful or potentate xeno individuals would survive the death of their civilisation. What effect would the wearing away of time have an such alien consciousness?
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Re: Notes and Stuff

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NoXion wrote:I occasionally have had the urge to introduce a new kind of being into the FFFverse, loosely based on Lovecraftian beings but with a non-supernatural bent - such beings would not literally be gods (although they may have god-like powers and abilities) but instead would be aliens with completely inscrutable or seemingly insane motives, access to powerful technology or vast knowledge, and legions of servants, slaves and/or followers.
Now that is awesome. Huge potential there.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Ford Prefect »

Isn't that basically the entire concept behind the Starchitects (blarg spelling)? It's hard to imagine there anything being particularly more anchient and inscrutable than they, at least int he concept of FFF.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I'd forgotten about the Starchitects (they even have tentacles and everything...) but if you want a weird godlike entity with inscrutable motivations how about using the intelligent paralell universe someone in the Bad/Silly Ideas thread suggested?
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Force Prefect wrote:Isn't that basically the entire concept behind the Starchitects (blarg spelling)? It's hard to imagine there anything being particularly more anchient and inscrutable than they, at least int he concept of FFF.
The Starchitects (you spelled it right) are also a vigorous and healthy but lofty civilisation, rarely interacting with most other civilisations within Transhumanity's native universe. The postxenos that I'm talking about could actually be considered rather tragic creatures - the civilisation that they belong to has either disappeared or is in crumbs and leftovers barely worthy of the name.
speaker-to-trolls wrote:I'd forgotten about the Starchitects (they even have tentacles and everything...) but if you want a weird godlike entity with inscrutable motivations how about using the intelligent paralell universe someone in the Bad/Silly Ideas thread suggested?
While I had originally envisioned such beings as being natives to our universe, the various levels of Hyperspace, the Aether, the Mirror Universe or perhaps even Extradimensional Space, the ideas of such beings being Extrauniversal in origin or even universes themselves is also intriguing - perhaps such beings could have collective consciousness/hiveminds/groupminds/different aspects/multiple personalities that appear to be individuals to us, or perhaps inhabited by dream-beings that are figments of that universe's imagination.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

"I am the MkIV ver2.0.5.7.b Var:standard-XQP Serial no.225938 Relativistic Heavy Ionisation Cannon (RHIC). You may call me Rick. I am a member of Large Hadron Accelerator (LHA) family of advanced infantry weapons, and in common with them I have a wide variety of user modes, fire modes/patterns and other useful features befitting such a fine example of Transhuman technology, though I say so myself.

If you have acquired me through force or deception of Transhuman individuals, groups, and/or organisations, I am fully willing and able to temporarily or permanently cease function, overheat into a puddle of molten slag, fire at you or your comrades-in-arms, suffer catastrophic failures in desired systems (including but not limited to battery packs/energy feeds, antimatter containment, beam deflection/focusing/collimation, and energy direction and control), or intimidate/decieve you in turn as I see fit. The above scenarios also apply if you attempt to damage or modify me in whole or in part (including hardware, software, virch/holo-systems, forcefield/maniple systems, beam arrays, firing system and all other components, programs/installations, interfaces, and existing features) without my consent.

Now, the interesting stuff. The latest in particle beam collimation technologies means that at rapid fire with the minimum spread settings, I am capable at a distance of 2500 metres of a grouping of less than a centimetre in diameter, assuming that stabilisation and aim-assist systems are activated and at optimal functionality.

I have three primary firing modes - Rapid Pulse, Charged Shot, and Beam Lance. Rapid Pulse mode consists of two sub-modes, Free-Fire and Selected. Free-Fire mode allows me to continue firing pulses for as long as the trigger is activated (externally or through the DNI link as desired by the user) at frequencies ranging from 600rpm to 12000rpm and energy levels ranging from 1 to 500 megajoules. Selected mode allows the user to fire me in bursts of 3 to 3000 at the above mentioned range of firing frequencies and energy levels.

Charged Shot mode allows the user to utilise my internal capacitor array to amplify a single shot's energy level at the expense of firing frequency. Shots can be charged to any energy level between 1 Megajoule to 5000 Megajoules (approximately equivalent to a metric ton of ancient "TNT" chemical-based explosive). Caution: while my hardware is capable of fairly rapid serial operation in this mode without appreciable negative effects or cooling problems, my levels of thermal insulation, despite being among the best in the Known Universe, can sometimes be overcome by such high-energy usage patterns, meaning that unprotected Transhuman Baselines (and species with a similar or lesser range of comfortable temperatures) may experience uncomfortable and even injurious thermal emissions from my hardware. This also has the unfortunate side-effect of making both the the user and I easier to lock on with thermal targeters. I will do the best in the course of my operation with the user to advise, warn and teach the user to get the most out me in a combat situation or other applicable situation, but please be advised that due to various limitations my advice and recommendations are only useful in 99.999% of concievable scenarios.

Beam Lance mode is my most powerful and energy-hungry mode, wherein I emit a continuous stream of high mass-energy particles at relativistic velocities. WARNING: I will temporarily cease function if I think I am getting too hot, depending on the circumstances.

For more information, please interface me with a compatible holosystem or VirchOS."
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Ford Prefect »

Ah, good old talking guns. That was pretty cool, though you could have avoided referring to archaic TNT. In universe, TNT would probably not be common knowledge or atl east in common usage in the far future.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Ford Prefect wrote:Ah, good old talking guns. That was pretty cool, though you could have avoided referring to archaic TNT. In universe, TNT would probably not be common knowledge or atl east in common usage in the far future.
I'm not so sure, myself. I mean, we use the same time measurements as the Babylonians, for chrissakes.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Destructionator »

A big difference is everyone uses time measurements. Only sci-fi geeks and nuclear weapons people regularly use tons of TNT; as far as I know, not even your average military bomb guy actually uses it.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Mobius 1 »

I'd also note a difference between several thousand years (6,000+) and the date of FFF, which is something like one hundred thousand years into the future. Bit of a larger gap, nevermind the fact that days, weeks, and years are instantly rendered null once you leave Earth and use the viewpoint of a different planet in this solar system, let alone the rest of the galaxy and universe.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Ford Prefect »

NoXion wrote:
Ford Prefect wrote:Ah, good old talking guns. That was pretty cool, though you could have avoided referring to archaic TNT. In universe, TNT would probably not be common knowledge or atl east in common usage in the far future.
I'm not so sure, myself. I mean, we use the same time measurements as the Babylonians, for chrissakes.
That's considerably different to using tons of TNT as a measure of weapons yield, despite there being better measures (joules, watts and my favourite, the erg) that don't rely on using a chemical explosive that probably hasn't seen much - if any - use in the past hundred thousand years of human society. it works as a good layman's translation today, because TNT is in wide use and if you say 'three thousand tons of that stuff' you're going to get a suitable whoa out of people. If you said the same thing to someone from a hundred thousand years into the future, they're probably going to look at you and, assuming the language barrier has been overcome, say 'tee-en-tee? What is that?'.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Destructionator »

Ford Prefect wrote:watts
Watts aren't in the same category as tonnes of TNT, joules, or ergs; it is power, those are energy.
and my favourite, the erg)
heheheheheheheheheh

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... its a chocolate bar?

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Electron volts are clearly the best unit of energy though.
it works as a good layman's translation today,
I actually disagree here. I've never seen a TNT explosion, so saying a ton of it is meaningless to me. A better measure if you ask me just might be how much ice (pure ice at the freezing point) it would melt, since that is actually an everyday thing.

Water's latent heat of fusion is about 334 kJ/kg. The density of ice is a wee bit less than 1 gram / cm^3 that we'll use that. A liter is 1000 cubic centimeters, so you have 1 kg / liter of ice. Thus, rounding and such we can say it takes 330 kJ / liter to melt ice.

Now, there we have a useable number and a mundane activity to which we can all relate good for thermal effects rather than thinking of explosions.

If you had a 100 GJ laser, you could say it would melt 300,000 liters of ice, or 300 tons if you prefer a mass number. This gives you a more immediate "wow thats a lot of heat" than saying about the energy of 25 tons of TNT. It even has more layperson meaning than saying 1 x 10^18 ergs! (or 6.2e29 eV for that matter...)
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Ford Prefect »

Destructionator wrote: Watts aren't in the same category as tonnes of TNT, joules, or ergs; it is power, those are energy.
C'mon D, give me some credit. ;)
heheheheheheheheheh
I remember an anime I was fond of, RahXephon, actually quantified the sheer destructive badassitude of one of the most powerful enemy units in scientific notation and ergs. I had to look it up, but after the conversion, the stunned silence and looks of horror of everyone in the conference seemed extremely justified. :lol:
I actually disagree here. I've never seen a TNT explosion, so saying a ton of it is meaningless to me.
Hmm, I suppose you've got a point there. Admittedly, I've never seen many explosions, but when someone says to me 'oh, twelve megatons of TNT', my immediate thought is 'damn, that is a big pile of stuff which is going to explode', rather than the blast effects.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by RRoan »

Ford Prefect wrote:That's considerably different to using tons of TNT as a measure of weapons yield, despite there being better measures (joules, watts and my favourite, the erg) that don't rely on using a chemical explosive that probably hasn't seen much - if any - use in the past hundred thousand years of human society. it works as a good layman's translation today, because TNT is in wide use and if you say 'three thousand tons of that stuff' you're going to get a suitable whoa out of people. If you said the same thing to someone from a hundred thousand years into the future, they're probably going to look at you and, assuming the language barrier has been overcome, say 'tee-en-tee? What is that?'.
To be perfectly fair, the word "ton" (as it applies to weapon yield) is a unit of energy equal to 10^9 calories, which works out to around 4.184 gigajoules. So it's entirely possible that the term could still be in usage, though what the name symbolizes would probably be pretty obscure.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Ford Prefect »

That's quite true, yeah. I just object to the mention of TNT, which just seems a little strange in such an advanced universe.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Someone posted this on Stardestroyer.net, I don't know if it's a full article or only part of one, but what was posted felt so pertinent to Final, Final Frontiers that it sent shivers down my spine:
The most popular belief today is that UFOs are spaceships piloted by aliens from other planets and other solar systems. But another good theory which never gets as much press is that UFOs may, in fact, originate right here on earth. Instead of being Extraterrestrials, UFO aliens might be Ultraterrestrials -- a species that has always been here, which evolved on earth along with homo sapiens, but which represent a species far advanced. These Ultraterrestrials are so superior to us it’s almost impossible for us to comprehend their existence. All we know of them are fleeting glimpses of light in the sky, occasional bizarre encounters between human beings and so-called aliens, and other unexplainable phenomenon. Think of how a group of chimpanzees in the wild perceive human beings. Because their own level of consciousness is limited compared to ours, they cannot comprehend what we humans are beyond being just another kind of animal. A chimp may think of an airplane as some kind of magical, giant bird.

They relate to it with the level of understanding they have about their environment. The speculation of the chimp, at best, is a crude idea about the total truth of an airplane, and the fact that it represents entire levels of consciousness that are so advanced, they are literally invisible to chimp mind. Now think of a human being who encounters a UFO. To us a UFO seems to be some kind of flying, mechanical aircraft -- but the true nature of the UFO may be as different from a spacecraft as a bird is from an airplane. Like the chimp, we just don’t have the advanced levels of consciousness we need to comprehend the true nature of a UFO. As humans, we make the naturally egotistical assumption that we are the species at the top of the heap -- we see ourselves as the peak achievement of evolution. We even make the bold claim that God, the supreme architect of the entire universe, created us in his own image! But it’s not a big leap to consider that we are just another link in a vast chain of species, many which are below us, and some which may be above us.

People who support the Ultraterrestrial theory, such as authors Jacques Vallee and John Keel, point out that supernatural beings seemingly superior to humans have been reported throughout history. In previous eras they were called gods, angels, ogres, fairies, brownies, little people, demons, and more. The Bible is filled with references to supernatural creatures, including giants, “wheels” flying in the sky out of which incredible creatures emerge, and more. But references to flying disks were recorded centuries before the texts of the Bible. Cave drawing dating to 30,000 B.C. depict disks floating around in the sky, remarkably similar to modern UFO photographs. Maverick UFO investigators like Vallee and Keel have pointed out the amazing similarities of modern UFO aliens to that of elves, fairies and the various “little people” famous in the folklore of many cultures. Fairies are known for kidnapping people, the same irritating habit UFO aliens have. People who are abducted report incidents of missing time, a phenomenon very similar to time lapses reported by people taken to and returned from “fairyland.” Fairies, like modern aliens, tend to be diminutive creatures with large magical eyes. Many reports of alien abduction even include “power rods” used to paralyze abductees, just as fairies wield “magic wands.” One of the most interesting comparisons between aliens and fairies is that both are interested in stealing babies.

One of the most common fairy activities is swiping babies from cribs, and sometimes replacing them with a false double, or “changeling” as they are sometimes called. A large part of modern UFO literature involves aliens abducting women, impregnating them, and then later abducting them again, only to remove and take the unborn baby right out of the womb. Clearly, both UFO occupants and fairies have a strong affinity for the baby business. Fairies are closely associated with nature, just as modern aliens also display a certain obsession with environmental issues. One of the most common alien abduction scenarios involves aliens who force people to watch “movies” depicting massive environmental degradation caused by modern human civizilation. The aliens then give them a lecture on environmental issues and let them go. If aliens truly are a superior species from earth and evolved on earth, it would make sense that they would be concerned about another species wrecking the planet. But then you might ask, why don’t the Ultraterrestrials simply step in and “manage” us the same way humans “manage” wildlife, including chimps and other large primates? The Ultraterrestrial theorists answer: “They are!” That’s what all the abduction and experiments are about! Just as human beings capture and tag various species, UFO abductees report experiences of extreme similarity.

Many people report being “tagged” during frightening sessions on a UFO operating table. Some of these “tags” have even been recovered, or show up on MRI exams, and remain unexplained. It’s also possible that Ultraterrestrials comprehend and operate within higher levels of dimension than we experience at the human level. A chimp, for example, does not comprehend the dimension of time like humans can, and a chimp could never understand that time and space are actually two parts of the same dimension, as scientists have discovered. Mathematicians tell us that many additional dimensions of reality exist -- dimensions which only the most brilliant math minds can glimpse through numbers, although they cannot experience them psychologically in any meaningful way. If Ultraterrestrials can exist “above” or “beyond” spacetime, that means they can easily see us, trick us and manipulate our existence, while we can’t see them at all, or only in the most crude manner, or perhaps only when they allow us to see them. Imagine when a bear is shot with a drugged dart from a helicopter hovering above him. Imagine how terrified the bear is of the bizarre flying monster, and the noise and lights that come out of it. Now imagine what the bear thinks of the strange beings that emerge from the flying monster. The strange beings poke and prod him, look inside his mouth, apply a tag to his ear, and then let him go. Why? How can a bear understand or interpret the meaning of this incident on its level of consciousness? It can’t. Human beings are so advanced and superior as to be incomprehensible. Is it so difficult to believe that the ongoing bizarre and seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon of UFOs and their activities are the actions of an earth-born species far advanced and superior to human beings? Just ask a bear or a chimp.
This feels like it could be part of a great story.
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Another day, another public note...

First, some random notes I jotted down about possible religions in the FFFverse:

Matrixism - the belief that the universe is a virtual reality matrix preparing us for a new reality.

Xenodeism - The belief that an alien being created our universe.

Panmechanimism - primitively, the belief that mechanical/non-biological beings came first,or in advanced cases, the belief that super-intelligent AIs are in fact naturally evolved beings and that we are their creations.

Next, a note about the rise of AIs in human/Transhuman society:

Artificial Intelligences appeared in Transhuman society when it reached the late Cybertech level of development, and are now mostly Supertech and Hypertech in sophistication, with frequent spikes into Godtech levels of technological advancement. Some eccentric AIs deliberately head in the opposite direction to this, reducing their Technology Level to Horologitech (T1) and everything in between, occupying bodies made entirely of clockwork, Difference Engine-style mechanical bodies, bodies made entirely out of pre-transistor era electronic components, or bodies consisting of billions and trillions of acres of circuit boards and silicon chips.
AIs of a high Tech Level usually take advantage of small scale technologies to pack as much memory and processing power as possible into their bodies, which can range from a Warsuit's AI core through vehicle and starship AI to habitat and megastructure brains and HDCNs, T-Nodes, J-Nodes, BDCs, DCSNs, S-Nodes, BHCs, Metanodes, O-Nodes and other Computer Types (qv.).
Some Artificial Intelligences use more energy than most civilisations, meaning they can can be given a Civilisation Classification number, such as Type II, Type III, Type IV and so on.
The larger AIs tend to be spread over interstellar distances, and most make use of FTL communications such as dedicated wormhole networks, Tachyonic Comms, Hyperwave Transmissions, Aetheric Signallers and Quantum Entanglement, while an eccentric or old-fashioned minority rely solely on slower-than-light communications such as neutrinos, gravity waves, comms lasers, message boats/pods or data packets, which less eccentric AIs use as secondary/backup methods.

Then, something about different types of universe. Might expand this into an article or incorporate it into a different article.

Catflap Universe - A universe within which the physical laws of that universe prevent travel to other universes. Cosmic Gates cannot open to such universes, and any ships entering with Transuniversal Drives without protective Reality Bubbles will be instantly trapped.

Self-Created Universe - A universe that created itself via quantum uncertainty, resulting a in closed "time-loop" joining a universe's beginning with some point in it's future.

Oscillating Universe - A universe that continually renews itself through a sequence of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

Inflationary Universe - A universe that experiences spurts of accelerated expansion, eventually expiring in a Big Rip or a Big Freeze.

Closed Universe - A universe that expands and contracts once only.

Asymptotic Universe - A universe that expands constantly, slowing all the time but never quite stopping.

Yay, figures! I reckoned these numbers might prove useful one day:

Black hole evaporation energy output: 10,000,000Mt explosive equivalent

Black hole evaporation energy output (variant): 1,000,000,000,000Mt equivalent

1 FOE (ten to the Fifty-One Ergs, unit of supernova strength) = 24 billion Yottatons

Gamma Ray Burster/focused radiation Starburster bomb lower limit: 30 Billion Yottatons (1.25 FOEs)

Gamma Ray Burster/Focused Radiation Starburster Bomb Upper limit: 500 GigaFOEs???

Transhumanity lower population estimate: 1,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1.2 nonillion individuals, not counting virchers)

Transhumanity higher population estimate: 4,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4.8 nonillion individuals, not counting virchers)

Now, a very rough draft outline of the modifications I intend to make to the Starship Weapons section of the General Weapons Technology article.

Starship Weapons:

Laser Cannon/Beamer

Particle Cannon/Beamer

Kinetic Kill Weapons - Cannons, Hypervelocity Weapons (Railguns + Coilguns), Relativistic Weapons (Reflex Cannons)

Missiles - Gun-launched, Swarm Rocket (Cheap, simple rockets with primitive or non-existant guidance systems, produced and fired in great numbers), Warhead/Mini-Missile Bus (AKA Bus Missile?), Hypervelocity Missile, Torpedo, Interplanetary Ballistic Missile. Warheads: None (kinetic impactor) railgun/coilgun, shrapnel burst, bomb-pumped laser, Standard (Nuclear/Metastable Compressed Matter/Antimatter/Total Matter-Energy Conversion), Planet-cracker (Vacuum Warhead), Starburster.

FTL Missiles - Q-Missiles, Warp Torpedos (AKA Warp-torps or Warpedos), Hypermissiles, HyperDistortion Missiles, Transuniversal Missiles (FUCKING RARE!!!).

Droppers - Guided projectiles directed at targets on planetary surfaces, habitats, megastructures and other targets at the bottom of gravity wells. Can have either a warhead that detonates above the target or cause damage through kinetic impact.

Mines

Drone Rack

War Seed

Fusion Cannon

Gravity Laser Cannon

GUT Cannon

Dark Matter Cannon

Stellar Laser/Flares

Starburster Cannon

Universal Cannon


Next, classification of sapient beings. As you might gather from reading, I'm kind of dithering over whether to have this classification system solely applicable to Transhumanity or to have it more generalised. In the final version, there will be more subcategories (the elements in italics) than you see here.

Developmental Categories:

Baseline - A being that is completely naturally evolved, with no artificial alterations

Nearbaseline - A naturally evolved being that is enhanced, but still capable of normal reproduction with baselines of the same species.

Transbeing - A naturally evolved being that has been artificially enhanced or altered to the point where it can no longer normally reproduce with members of it's own species.

Postbeing - A being that has opted to continue living in another form of body (cyborg, mechanoid, virtual etc), or an individual belonging to a group that used to inhabit naturally evolved bodies but is now in virtual/mechanical/other form.


Compositional Categories:

Biorg - A wholly biological being, whether naturally evolved, artificially created or some combination of the two.

Baseline Humans - The original H. sapiens, becoming more and more rare as time passes due to artificial evolution fast outpacing natural evolution's glacial pace.

Nearbaseline Humans - Bridging the gap between Baselines and E-Humans, Nearbaselines commonly posess such enhancements nano-immune systems, environmental adaptations, improvement in intellectual, emotional and physical capabilities, ability to switch off emotions to avoid clouding of judgement, in addition to more culturally or personally specific enhancements.

E-Humans - Abbreviated form of Enhanced Human, these individuals represent the best enhancements possible while still remaining recognisably human. The most advanced E-Humans are not in fact true biorgs but are cyborgs, biomechanoids and Homunculi capable of reproduction and incorporating human genetic material while still closely resembling baseline humans.

A-Human - Abbreviated form of Adapted Human, this form of Transhumanity has been biologically altered to live in environmental conditions that are highly extreme relative to baseline environmental requirements; some A-humans live in such extreme environments that they are completely unable to survive unassisted in baseline-friendly environments, and may even look completely dissimilar to the typical baseline.

Bioborgs - Humans, Uplifts, Xenos and other Biorgs that have been augmented or radically altered with biotechnology. Unlike most cyborgs, the enhancements are capable of reproduction and/or expression in offspring.

Uplift - An originally non-sapient species that has been uplifted to sapience. Modification of original body structure is minimal beyond enhancements enabling better manipulation of technology. Common enhancements include bipedalism, opposable digits, changed body size and enhanced senses in addition to the usual enhancements popular with Transhumanity.

Xenos - Also known as aliens. A number of small and primitive alien civilisations were encountered by Transhumanity during it's initial periods of expansion, and after varying degrees of political, cultural, social and psychological assimilation, the surviving species are considered full members of Transhumanity.

Artificial Life (A-life) - A completely new organism or species, sometimes made from scratch but more usually spliced from dozens to thousands of different Biorgs.

Lazuran - A previously extinct species brought back to life using any combination of recovered genetic material, "rewound" DNA from living descendants, and newly written genetic code designed to produce the closest approximation possible to the revived species. Popular forms of Lazuran include dinosaurs (and other prehistoric Earth species) and aliens.

Hybrids - A combination of different biorg types, including humans, animals, invertebrates, plants, fungi, xenos and others. Combinations of more than two species are known as Chimeras.

Bionoid - The biological equivalent to Mechanoids, and like their mechanical cousins they tend to be made rather than born.


Mechanoid - A being made entirely of mechanical parts.

Androids/Gynoids - built to resemble human males/females. They can range in similarity from merely having two legs, two arms, a head and being vaguely the right shape to being visually indistinguishable from baseline humans.

Drones - Mechanoids with one body that do not resemble humans. This is perhaps the commonest and most varied type of Mechanoid.

Swarmech - These mechanoids have multiple identical body-units active at once, typically ranging in size between insects and rodents. Swarmechs' body-units are almost universally capable of autorepair and self-replication in order to make up for loss and damage.

Fogoid - A cloud of micro/meso/nanobots that constitute a single being.

Goomech - A mechanoid in the form of a sub-microtechnic goo or fluid.

Polyheteromorphic - This type of Mechanoid has multiple different kinds of body under it's control at any one time, from nanites to starships.

Mechosystem/Mechosphere - Just as a biological ecosystem or ecosphere can be considered a single organism, (cf. Gaia hypothesis), so can a unified and integrated collection of interacting mechanical systems be considered a single being, especially if the mechosystem/mechosphere in question has a sapient-level or higher collective intelligence.


Cyborg - A biological being with mechanical and/or other non-biological enhancements and alterations.

Vircher - A being that wholly inhabits Cyberspace or an equivalent virtual reality. Virtuals are distinguished from AIs in being able to inhabit any hardware/software capable of supporting their processing needs.

Biomechanoid - A mechanical being with biological enhancements/alterations.

Hylont - A being that is neither biological nor mechanical; body substrate may be composed of exotic materials such as degenerate matter, electromagnetic/weak/strong/gravitational fields (including electroweak, GUT and Superunified fields), spacetime, hot and cold plasmas, unique forms of Hyperspace matter and energy, Aetheric phenomena, mirror matter, dark matter, energy interactions (including Dark Energy) and others.

Homunculus - A being that is any combination of Biont, Mechanoid, Vircher and Hylont.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Simply put, a sapient computer, structure or software program. There is as much if not more variety within the AI category as there are biological species, including expert systems and agents, sapient starships, sapient objects such as space stations, Habitats, Megastructures, and many others. At the lower end of the size scale, this category merges with Mechanoids. The higher end is similarly blurred, as AIs can approach Cosmoids in terms of scale and intellectual power.

Cosmoid - A sapient universe or a collection of universes that form a single intelligence or groupmind.
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Magister Militum
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by Magister Militum »

How prevelant would all those types of religions be within Transhuman society?
Democratic Socialist | Atheist | Transhumanist | Bright Green Environmentalist | Worldbuilder | IT Professional |


Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
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NoXion
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Magister Militum wrote:How prevelant would all those types of religions be within Transhuman society?
I didn't say they were Transhuman religions ;) Although perhaps Panmechanimism and Matrixism could be found as cultural hangovers in Transhuman communities descended from Seed Ships, depending on whether they were reared by robots or in grew up in a virtual reality, respectively.
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NoXion
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

Draft Timeline for Transhumanity

Here's a brief outline of the history of Transhumanity, beginning with our own era which turned out to be the mere prologue of a greater story. All dates are approximate.


Pre-Singularity Era - 3500CE and earlier

Often mistakenly called the Pre-Spaceflight Era, the latter half of this time was in fact characterised by rapid and extensive colonisation of the Sol System and even some tentative forays into interstellar space, although the fate of these brave first-timers is still unknown even to this day. Surprisingly little has survived of this time, and the popular image of this time is riddled with inconsistencies, anachronisms, myths and legends. Even serious historians of this period have a difficult time discerning fact from fiction.


Sublight Era - 3500CE (0NY) to 25,000NY

The beginning of this Era is marked by the Singularity, the seed from which Transhumanity grew into a mighty Ortree, spreading across the Known Universe. The Sublight Era is considered the first Era of real history (although it is still highly coloured in the popular imagination by folk tales and just-so stories), a period of unparalelled prosperity, peace and development. This was the Golden Age of STL exploration and colonisation, with fleets of Generation Ships, Seed Ships, Virchvessels, and Sleeper Ships plying the virgin stars. It was this Era that saw the birth of such Transhumans as Homo Methusalens, Homo Virtualensis, and Homo Bradychronosis. In the background of all this were the strange and esoteric politics of the AIs - with the anti-biorg and AI supremacist factions crushed and the isolationist AIs fast outpacing the Transhuman colonists, the remainders engaged in furious debate as to where to head next. Some AIs advocated AIcracy, or what most other Transhumans sneeringly referred to as "the silicon fist", but it seems the autonomists won the debate.


Wormhole Era - 25,000NY to 50,000NY

The fact that wormholes have an entire historical epoch named after them is a testament to their effect on Transhuman civilisation, second only to the Singularity itself, which along with the Fang Occupation and the invention of FTL Drives form the handful of Defining Events which shaped the course of macrohistory. While the construction of the first traversible wormhole had immediately obvious implications, the growth of the wormhole network itself was a fairly gradual process due to the need to transport wormholes at STL velocities. Corresponding with the expansion of the wormhole network was the Cyberspace Explosion, the massive and sudden increase in computing power brought about by the fact that macroprocessors and networks were no longer limited by the speed of light. Space travel was of course revolutionised, with small, narrow craft able to fit through wormholes becoming highly popular. During this unfolding revolution in travel, communications and computing power, a number of small (relative to comparitively enormous bulk of Transhuman civilisation) alien civilisations were discovered, and before long they had been culturally and ideologically assimilated into Transhumanity, wearing the label as proudly as any Earth-descended being, AI or Mechanoid.


The Fang Occupation - 50,000NY to 75,000NY

While the Sublight Era was a grand time of peace and prosperity, and the Wormhole Era even more so, this utopian situation was shattered by the invasion and occupation of Transhuman space by the aggressively expansionist Fang Empire. Seemingly the antithesis of everything Transhumanity stood for, the Fang made brutal inroads into Transhuman volumes at a rapid pace, only stalling when they finally realised the immensity of what they were trying to conquer. When this happened, they attempted to consolidate their gains but were driven out by an insurgency supported by the unoccupied territories.


Modern Era - 75,000NY to 100,000NY

Once the Fang threat had been contained, progress could continue. Between the today and the end of the Fang Occupation, when they had been completely driven out of former Transhuman volumes, technological progress soared and exploration of the Universe continued at an even greater pace than before. Transhumanity reached staggering heights of power and prosperity, punctuated by the occasional brushfire war and small-scale crisis. But an aggressive hegemonistic Fang Empire still looms on the doorstep of Transhuman civilisation, and the situation can be called anything but stable. The consensus is that it is only a matter of time before a war of transgalactic scale breaks out between Transhumanity and the Fang Empire.
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NoXion
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Re: Notes and Stuff

Post by NoXion »

A few quotes from some minds that were inspirational to Nova Mundi:

“The history of philosophy is the history of successive and non-identical retreats. Philosophy first tried to discover the ultimate categories of the world; then the absolute categories of reason; while we, as knowledge accumulates, see more and more clearly philosophy’s vulnerability: because every philosopher must regard himself as a model for the entire species, and even for all possible sentient beings. But it is science that is the transcendence of experience, demolishing yesterday’s categories of thought. Yesterday, absolute space-time was overthrown; today, the eternal alternative between the analytic and the synthetic in propositions, or between determinism and randomness, is crumbling. But somehow it has not occurred to any of our philosophers that to deduce, from the pattern of one’s own thoughts, laws that hold for the full set of people, from the Neolithic until the day the suns burn out, might be, to put it mildly, imprudent”

- Stanislaw Lem


“We seem to be young, in a very old Galaxy. We're like kids tiptoeing through a ruined mansion”

- Stephen Baxter, Ark


“The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests”

- Iain M. Banks


"I also believe - and hope - that politics and economics will cease to be as important in the future as they have been in the past; the time will come when most of our present controversies on these matters will seem as trivial, or as meaningless, as the theological debates in which the keenest minds of the Middle Ages dissipated their energies. Politics and economics are concerned with power and wealth, neither of which should be the primary, still less the exclusive, concern of full-grown men"

- HG Wells


"The thought processes of a tribe, a clan, a country or a nation-state are essentially two-dimensional, and the nature of their power depends on the same flatness. Territory is all-important; resources, living-space, lines of communication; all are determined by the nature of the plane (that the plane is in fact a sphere is irrelevant here); that surface, and the fact the species concerned are bound to it during their evolution, determines the mind-set of a ground-living species. The mind-set of an aquatic or avian species is, of course, rather different.
Essentially, the contention is that our currently dominant power systems cannot long survive in space; beyond a certain technological level a degree of anarchy is arguably inevitable and anyway preferable.

To survive in space, ships/habitats must be self-sufficient, or very nearly so; the hold of the state (or the corporation) over them therefore becomes tenuous if the desires of the inhabitants conflict significantly with the requirements of the controlling body. On a planet, enclaves can be surrounded, besieged, attacked; the superior forces of a state or corporation - hereafter referred to as hegemonies - will tend to prevail. In space, a break-away movement will be far more difficult to control, especially if significant parts of it are based on ships or mobile habitats. The hostile nature of the vacuum and the technological complexity of life support mechanisms will make such systems vulnerable to outright attack, but that, of course, would risk the total destruction of the ship/habitat, so denying its future economic contribution to whatever entity was attempting to control it.

Outright destruction of rebellious ships or habitats - pour encouragez les autres - of course remains an option for the controlling power, but all the usual rules of uprising realpolitik still apply, especially that concerning the peculiar dialectic of dissent which - simply stated - dictates that in all but the most dedicatedly repressive hegemonies, if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seems often to baffle the military and political mind. Rebellion, then (once space-going and space-living become commonplace), becomes easier than it might be on the surface of a planet"


- Iain M. Banks, A Few Notes On The Culture


Raymond Passworthy: Oh, God, is there ever to be any age of happiness? Is there never to be any rest?
Oswald Cabal: Rest enough for the individual man - too much, and too soon - and we call it death. But for Man, no rest and no ending. He must go on, conquest beyond conquest. First this little planet with its winds and ways, and then all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time, still he will be beginning.
Passworthy: But... we're such little creatures. Poor humanity's so fragile, so weak. Little... little animals.
Cabal: Little animals. If we're no more than animals, we must snatch each little scrap of happiness and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more than all the other animals do or have done. Is it this? Or that? All the universe? Or nothingness? Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?

- HG Wells, Things To Come


"There are no hard problems, only problems that are hard to a certain level of intelligence. Move the smallest bit upwards, and some problems will suddenly move from “impossible” to “obvious”. Move a substantial degree upwards, and all of them will become obvious. Move a huge distance upwards…"

- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Staring into the Singularity


We were not, as I have said, in any sense childishly superstitious, but scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy. In this case an overwhelming preponderance of evidence from numerous authentic sources pointed to the tenacious existence of certain forces of great power and, so far as the human point of view is concerned, exceptional malignancy.

- H.P. Lovecraft, The Shunned House


“And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star they won’t tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they’re old enough to bear it and when they learn they’ll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed”

- Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality


"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."

- HP Lovecraft, The Necronomicon


Is the difference between the drive to omniversal paramountcy and the process of becoming a universal horror merely a matter of persective? What do you think?
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