>>97554876
>there are aliens

>>97554888
Bro, your Fermi Paradox?

>>97554876
>Aliens can eat people (or the other way around) with no issue
Name 5 examples

>>97554876
Terraforming isn't necessarily infeasible. There's some napkin calculations showing we (humanity right now) could cool down venus with big orbital sails. After all sails are in place venus cools down in roughly a hundred years. There's other problems (pressure, acidity, whatever) but temperature is still a problem we can solve in that case.
Given higher tech levels and knowledge of hundreds of exoplanets it's not impossible a few of them only have problems a futuristic humanity can solve.

>>97554876
Sci-fi fans only care about their genre being seen as different from fantasy, not actually being different from fantasy.

>>97554908
nta I don't know how real or unrealistic it is but I had the idea what if the population just got less and less intelligent, then I realized that was basically the plot of idiocracy

>>97555126
Don't forget the fake-intellectual circle jerking!

>>97554876
>Hard sci-fi" setting
Name some with in print games or at least relevant current media. So not some 50 year old book or the like.

>>97554876
>"hard sci-fi" setting
>FTL
>FTL that solves the problem of relative time

>>97554876
>hard sci-fi
>no FTL or aliens
>just self-replicating space ships measured in solar masses controlled by omnipotent AI powered by quantum singularity decay tossing space folding particles at each other across the universe at relativistic speeds over millions of years
>the protagonist is a woman

For what it's worth, some scientists have argued that if another planet with similar gravity and a similar sun to Earth exists it would have similar biochemistry. Although it sort of falls under the umbrella of biological structuralism, which has been criticized as conflicting with evolutionary theory, maybe.

I love that sci-fi tries way too much to be deep and thought-provoking but ends up shallow as fuck, like Bradbury's stories. No way, you mean TV sucks, censorship is evil, and burning books is bad? Damn that's crazy
Meanwhile you can get actual hard looks into the nature of humanity itself from Lord of the Rings and Earthsea

>>97554876
>Aliens can eat people (or the other way around) with no issue
I see no reason why this would be an issue. An alien creature is not a human, and thus would not necessarily suffer ill effects from consuming human meat. Furthermore, if it's about diseases and whatnot, there's nothing stopping carnivores from having a supercharged immune system to deal with that issue, especially if they're also some form of opportunistic scavenger.
>Planets are terraformed and colonized instead of building space habitats
Terraforming is possible. All the tools we need are here, now, but we need to unite them in such a way that the process takes weeks or months instead of decades or centuries, which is perfectly achievable with how modern tech is progressing.
>Plasma Weapons
Again, we have those. Someone made a real lightsaber. it's not quite 1:1 with what's in star wars, but it is a primitive plasma blade that holds its shape and can cut through steel. We also have directed energy weapons in the form of lasers used for anti-missile defense, and depending on how the plasma is emitted it's entirely plausable to have beam weapons that operate using plasma - that's what a plasma cutter is. You won't be firing bolts mind, you'll be firing what is essentially a plasma flamethrower (well, fire is a plasma anyway but you get the point), you're using a condensed stream of plasma to basically slice through your targets at a distance. The main issue would be power, but we're discovering new ways to more efficiently generate power every year (we might have had fusion power within the decade if the guy who made it didn't commit suicide with two gunshot wounds to the back of the head aka he got suicided by big oil).

>>97554876
>OP makes a thread on /tg/
>It has nothing to do with traditional games
>Not even trying to pretend
>It even has a retarded image

>>97555177
I'm Polish. We had to endure until they literally fucking all died the endless circlejerk of elderly editors going with "Fantasy, the dumb sister of sci-fi" and "Sci-fi is the genre of smart people" to finally have an actual fucking discussion about sci-fi.
Bonus points for being perpetually stuck in the censorship-avoiding mentality, so the only sci-fi they considered good were blatant political and politicised drivel, but with aliens and lasers to "fool" the censors - never fucking mind the censorship ended 37 years ago.
End result: total death of locally made sci-fi, since nobody wanted to be associated with those asshats

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>>97556394
The Communist Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for literature.

The rule of hard sci fi is you get one cheat that doesn't align with reality, ex. FTL, and you spin the other fantastical elements of the setting out from that one caveat. That's the "fi" part.

>>97554876
What is the point of this thread?

>>97554888
Fpbp
>>97554908
Cope

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>>97556431
True

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>>97556431
It actually predates communism. Before WW2, we had a "moral sanitation" government by right-wing nationalists and other nutjobs. And guess what - they were fighting tooth and nail against "pulp and other lesser entertainment". Fucking Tarzan was censored. Commies at least understood that people want to get entertainment, and that it's easier to spot dissidents if they publish their political manifesto, but with aliens and lasers (majority of authors then got either blacklisted for good or coerced to be operatives, writing denounciations on their colleagues). Nationalists were busy destroying fun, because.

>>97556337
>I see no reason why this would be an issue.
Biochemistry dictates that we'll eventually meet a species that will get high from smoking our pubes.

>>97556337
It's not a question of disease and whatnot, but biochemistry and enzymes and receptors actually being able to interface with alien meat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akWzmseCs8Y

>>97554876
somewhere in our own galaxy, aliens are violently arguing that no species would ever be stupid enough to weaponize nuclear fission when they could just live in harmony with the power it provides

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>>97556434
Are there any good settings that do this for giant mechs?

>>97557664

Unironically UC Gundam... until you get to that fucking Unicorn. Then it just goes full retard.

>>97555157
Idiocracy was not a documentary.

>>97556839
Why would aliens strive towards harmony?

>>97555817
Philip K. Dick beats f*ntasy like a red-headed stepchild though

>>97554876
>>There are plasma weapons
We have laser and microwave weapons now; why would plasma weaponry be considered as an impossibility?

>>97555201
What if it's not FTL but you increase the speed of light instead?

>>97557685
UC Gundam isn't hard scifi. It's soft scifi with handwaved bullshit. Newtypes, Gundamanium, Minovsky particles and Minovsky reactors

>>97557818
plasma is super heated ionized gas
so you have the problem right there, its not a solid that holds its shape when it flies to its target
so a "realistic" plasma gun would be the 40k melta-gun, extremely short ranged and fires a stream of energy instead of discrete bolts or globs

a more plausible interpretation of a plasma weapon would be a particle cannon
in which electrons are accelerated to near-lightspeed and then fired at the target
this would resemble a laser beam far more than it does the pop culture depiction of a plasma weapon, though using hydrogen ions (read: a proton) would make the particle beam technically a plasma weapon

>>97556394
>total death of locally made sci-fi
Lies make baby Jacek cry. that's Jacek Dukaj
Remigiusz Mróz might also be upset too.

>>97554876
What game?

>>97554908
easy, the aliens developed at the same pace as humanity and we made first contact at around the same time as the first jump.

>>97555181
a book where you aren't a total cunt

>>97557829
Then you'd still run into all the problems of relativistic space travel, even if we take the premise of being able to increase the speed of light as both possible (maybe?) and practical (exceedingly unlikely) to be done by human machinery that can fit into a single spacecraft

>>97557664
the issue with mechs is that they don't just require one lie, they require several lies
for example, if your lie is power storage, well, now power armor actually does become viable, but giant mechs are still not viable because even if you can power a giant mech, you can also use that same power source for something that isn't a giant mech, and they'll still be more effective at doing what the giant mech wanted to do

you need to overcome the engineering problems, which is a lie, but at the same time you need a lie as to why they are chosen over other large machines, a lie as to why the advances that made mechs possible didn't also make small machines capable of doing what large machines do, a lie why such an advanced society still puts humans into the field etc.

the giant mech is essentially the laser nunchaku of military vehicles

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>>97558235
What about not so giant mechs? Like Scopedog or Landmate sized?

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>>97557664
The only big robo game (or setting) that ever really made sense is Heavy Gear. In the setting humanoid robots exist mainly due to it being a superior motivation system in dense woods, jungle, swamp, mountain, and urban environments. The bigger size accommodates for larger weapons. They can be used in open terrain but that's only if there's no tanks in the area or there is good topography for the gears to hide from the tanks.

I know people will complain but there is such a thing as science speculation that isn't just a hand wave. Technology move forward and improves. As example a WWII gen 0 night vision scope had a 15ish pound backpack battery, modren gen 3 goggles with a 1000 times better performance run on a couple AA's.

>>97558338
that one is a bit harder to estimate, as long as they still serve as augmented infantry rather than competing with military vehicles you could reasonably see a role for them, especially if your military needs to be deployed to hazardous environments

depending on exactly what cities look like they might have a role there, though the one in your picture would be too large to enter most homes and if we're dealing with those, likely too large to function properly in space stations/habitats

definitely don't make the mistake of making a mech that size try to fly or trying to justify using it in space

if you keep their weight and size low enough you could also in theory try to justify their existence by a globally enforced ban on military vehicles over a certain weight, though you do run into the issue even here that your mech needs to be either lighter or more effective than a toyota with a machinegun mounted on the rear, including of course cost of production

>>97558381
>In the setting humanoid robots exist mainly due to it being a superior motivation system in dense woods, jungle, swamp, mountain, and urban environments.
curious though, is there a reason that instead of bipedal machines they don't use quadruped/hexapod machines?
lower profile would be pretty valuable in all those conditions, while still having similar, possibly superior motivation

>>97558338
10-12 foot tall mechs are probably more plausible, since these can be seen more as big power armor rather than walking tanks
they are still on the size where sinking into the ground isnt the same issue and they are still small enough to take advantage of cover

>>97558480
I do wonder though, if they would be used in combat
not necessary because they'd be inefficient in combat but rather that they might be drastically more efficient in logistics than in combat, and as such almost exclusively deployed in their role of maximum efficiency with mech combat mostly restricted to logistical operations being under assault and mechs having situational combat ability

>>97557664
Wire the human nervous system into it as an essential part and make it so whatever the tech is causes violently intense dysmorphia in all but a select portion of the population when the form the figure takes does not reach a psychological threshold of feeling human to the pilot.
I'e if you want to utilize tech that mimics the human hand but at 20+ times the size to its full capability you need a human nervous system inputting the commands, and unless that human feels enough like a human while piloting it to not mentally break down your not getting anywhere.
Hell that way you can even do in stuff like phantom pain for limbs that were only destroyed on the mech, people with intense injuries reduced to ostensibly brains in bots, or people so thoroughly disconnected from their own physical self already that they can sync with weird mech mods Cyberpunk Cyperpsychosis style.

>>97554876

NANOMACHINES, SON.

>>97554876
Kinetic ballistics are a symptom of scarcity mindsets (counting bullets/cost). Plasma weapons imply functional fusion and post-scarcity energy generation. When energy is free, the Proletariat fires the sun at its oppressors.

Hard Sci-Fi inevitably leads to Communism because physics doesn't care about your stock market, chud.

>hard scifi story
>there's lots of freaky sex but it doesn't make me hard

>>97556431

Elves arguing about literature in action.

>>97558390

Consider that a majority of fight might not happen on planets, but on space stations and orbital habitats. Having a platform that can move from surface to zero-g and carry stuff might be useful.

Plasma is a catch-all term for any weapon system that takes several degrees and hard to pronounce words to properly explain. Kind of like how anything dropped from a plane to blow something up is a bomb, whether it spreads napalm, creates an electromagnetic shock wave, penetrates deep bunkers, or glasses a countryside

Superheated gas enveloped in a magnetic bubble?
> Plasma.
Exotic energy powering a linear accelerator?
> Plasma
Space magic teleporting a micro-nuke into your target?
> Plasma

>>97556652
On the other hand the US then had the CIA backed boom of art with no meaning that revived trashy literature and what would become pop art, to drown anything that had anything in particular to say, It even became the academic standard in the west that art by definition can't be any intention besides being an experience in itself, if the author has opinions on his life then it's not true art.

>>97558397
The issue with quadrupeds is the same issue as quad treads. More things to break, less range of motion. The point of the power armor is to act as super heavy infantry, and still have all the tactical benefit of the human form and flexibility. A quadruped has superior motivation but inferior basically everything else. Also, humans know the human form. Humans can’t pilot a centaur like thing and have that be natural.

>>97554876
Space habitats are softer sci-fi than terraforming, at least if there's more than a couple habitats for research/military purposes.

>>97556337
>I see no reason why this would be an issue.
I strongly recommend reading the Rifters trilogy.

>>97557835

Yeah, but the point is that the Mechs aren't in any way better than tanks. Not when you actually look into the setting. Especially the OYW period.
They're only developed by Zeon because they're run by the Zabi's who think weaponizing a load of cargo crane mechs looks cool, and it only needing one person to run helps get around the issues of their vastly smaller population size vs the Federation.
They're only good in space, and only in a post minovsky particle war environment, where their size and shape makes it difficult to rangefind in the heat of a fight. Is that a nearby dude with a bazooka, or a Zaku with a Nuke who is far away?
They're also good for assaulting space colonies as you can neutralise the defenders outside with them and then continue fighting inside the colony.

What they are NOT good against is ground combat on earth. They are super vulnerable to ambush tactics, and legging them with a squadron of Tanks is a perfectly valid way of killing them.
The only reasons Zeon did as well as they did during the OYW on earth was because they literally slammed an O'Neill cylinder into it so fucking hard it almost turned it post-apocalyptic and fucked up the Federation forces hard, and Zeon's R&D were fucking incredible for going from testing to prototype to mass production at genuinely ludicrous speeds.
The only reason why the Feds build the damn things was everybody (But principally Revil) saw Char go nuts at Loum, and decided "Holy shit! I've got to get me some of these!"
That's it. Everyone uses these things because a Hamlet Expy named after a french crooner went on a tear in his salmon pink robot three or thirty three percent times faster than everyone else.

>>97559293
after rewatching 0079 recently, MS are absolutely more powerful than conventional weapons
there were only two times where the zeon forces were defeated by conventional weapons, the big battle at odessa and then jaburo

the first time, theres barely any MS on either side for whatever reason and the camera is focused squarely on the gundams part of the battle and only glimpses into the wider operation, mostly involving land battleships
the battle at jaburo is the only time we explicitly, on-camera, see MS get wrecked by tanks
but this was also a battle that was intended to fail from the get-go, it was just a diversion to allow char to sneak in via the underground river

theres nothing in the show itself to suggest that MS were anything other than what they were said to be, extremely powerful weapons that changed the course of the war

>>97559315

Yeah... but don't forget that the Fed didn't have Mobile Suits of their own until August/September-ish at the earliest and still have somehow kept Zeon from taking South America, Australia and... I think most of Asia and Europe? Clearly conventional forces worked just fine against Zeon forces, even after a large percentage of them got wrecked during Operation British just... shotgunning the planet with scrap metal when the colony broke up over the middle east.
If it hadn't been for that, Zeon would have been bumrushed with a fully prepared and coordinated conventional federation army if they'd even tried to land on earth. As it WAS Revil baiting them into doing it and (sort of) forgoing the use of WMD's was a fucking masterstroke that doomed them into losing the war.

>>97554876
>>Aliens can eat people (or the other way around) with no issue
Okay what the fuck is the issue with this one? Literally the first time I've heard of it.

>>97558760
And now all the people who grew up on that notion are struggling to explain how AI art isn't art.

>>97554888
Alien life in of itself is easy to justify. Making them intelligent within a short distance of earth is where the timeline on a cosmic scale fucks up. And even then you can bullshit in some stuff but that ceases being hard scifi.
Having FTL at all is where the hard scifi ceases.
Plasma weapons are a practicality question instead of a plausibility one, same with terraforming.

>>97559353
Depends on how life forms, it could be that our DNA is what passed the RNA world scramble for a reason and other worlds converge to having the same kind of DNA. But even if that is true you still have countless more questions of what even is edible, most stuff isn't edible for humans. But no stuff is a stretch still. And unpredictable outcomes from eating something is a given for any unknown lands with undiscovered wildlife regardless of genre.

Indefinite life extension and mind-uploading technologies are more feasible than FTL.

>>97559387
Like you can bullshit handwaves for most of the things OP brought up, FTL is the one where you just give up and admit you are using it for plot reasons if you must have it in what is supposed to be hard scifi.
The Expanse having FTL was so fucking funny to see after I was told about how it is such a hard scifi story. Then I watch it and it has glowy alien zombies and beltalowda subplots that drag on for half an eternity.

>>97559403
It is easier to justify aliens with a panspermia related anomaly (all stars from the planetary nebula that the sun was made in had the parts for complex life, formed at the same time and so ran on similar clocks. The hard part is these sister suns are pretty far away usually) than it is to justify FTL.

>>97557716
why do we strive against it

>>97559392
Yeah even in the hardest of Sci-fis I would still find it hard to believe you'd be unable to find anything edible. I could see small issues arising like toxin buildups or inefficiencies in digestion. Hell I could even argue that in a different ecosystem something that's poisonous to most fauna on that planet might be fine for us. If it produces a chemical that is toxic to them but we can digest it just fine? Fuck anything's possible.

>>97559353
I think beyond toxins, disease and chirality stuff, big issue might just be that we're unable to process what they're made of. You can eat cellulose, but you can't process it like some other animals can. Even among things we are able to eat, there's things that can be harmful. Liver is good to eat, but in high amounts can kill you with vitamin A overdose. You can eat a lot of rabbit meat and starve, because it's very lean and provides little nutrients for us. A lot of the stuff we eat today has been engineered over thousands of years to suit us better.

>>97559424
Who decides what's harmonious to everyone?

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>hard scifi setting
>6 year old calls another child a "nigger" within 1 week of knowing them

>>97559445
And in a new ecosystem we'd be basing our knowledge on fuck and all. Early explorers on Earth routinely poisoned themselves despite having similar biochemistry to the locals. An alien biosphere would be orders of magnitude worse. I predict a lot of chemical testing and the more reckless ones dying trying out new things.

>>97559448
More like science fact.

>>97559452
I'm pretty sure the poisonous plants were poisonous even to the locals.

>>97559455
he wasn't even black. he was berber iirc

>>97559459
Poisonous is relative.

>>97559459
Amanitas are commonly eaten by deer and squirrels and almost universally poisonous to humans. I can almost guarantee that anything that's poisonous has something that's specialized in eating it.

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>>97559363
Almost as if that's the point of AI art
To be the next step of that same CIA effort to destroy the ability to express meaning and vision with art. Alienate the creator's intent from the work itself. Drown us in the noise of muzak as part of irreverent forever now neoliberal existence where all future vision is blotched out in favor of an endless quarterly cycle of hallucinated progress.
It reminds me of the way modern cynicism just exists to demoralize and destroy commitment to anything greater, just as the mediascspe is full of faux subversives who just callout and proceed to repeat instead of experimenting in any true capacity. AI art cannot be defeated by repeating the past. That much is clear.

>>97556839
Which aliens? You can't just say aliens, no one knows what you mean. It's like saying somewhere there is a mound of flesh that molds perfectly to you ideal state of being. Maybe, but there's no reason to think we're like unique with this. Cosmically unique by abundance sure but other phenomena like us probably hit the same limits along with also being a tortured produced of mother nature's abusive approach to formulating complex life. Maybe some are as hippie as they come but there's no way it'd be even a a fraction of the sum total of intelligent life. Not because fascists have an evolutionary edge anymore than a person lighting themselves on fire does but because we know from animal behavior that splitting off into packs/hives/schools/herds etc. is pretty damn common. We are ourselves limited by dunbar's number. There is no reason to believe our aggression and incapability to universalize our empathy across even one species is a uniquely human flaw.

>>97559463
Yes, and...?
https://youtu.be/Cx1J2CzNnS8?t=45

>>97559353
On earth, all producers (e.g. plants) function by extracting particular kinds of atoms from chemicals that it commonly encounters in the environment (the bulk of which is absorbed from the air or water) and restructuring them into a relative handful of what might be called the building blocks of life (sugars, amino acids, lipids etc). It then joins and folds those building blocks into the complex chemical structures that allow those organisms to function. Every other form of life on earth takes those complex chemical structures (usually by consuming other life that is composed of them), breaking those structures back down into their base building blocks, and then rebuilding those into different structures.

Importantly, all of this depends on the building blocks of life being more or less universal. If your body can't make use of the building blocks, then you can't derive any nutrition from it, and given that you never evolved to process it to begin with you might also suffer adverse affects from ingesting chemicals that react unexpectedly with your biochemistry (read - get sick or die).

A big open question in xenobiology is whether there are other viable biomolecular pathways available for aliens, or whether the only pathway is the one Earth's life has taken. We don't know whether earth life's chemical composition is because our planet's life is using the best or only viable chemical arrangement, or because life on earth settled on the pathway it did because of pure luck. In other words, there is no guarantee that alien life is made of the same stuff you are, and you can't just eat a bunch of exotic organic molecules and derive useful nutrition from it. Most of it will either do nothing for you or poison the shit out of you.

You can assume that alien life is chemically compatible with earth's, or you can assume that it mostly isn't, but if you are writing a semi-hard science fiction setting then this should at least be addressed.

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>>97555201
>>97555341
>hard scifi can't into FTL
bitch please https://youtu.be/-2c0P2CEU9A
>>97557860
>a "realistic" plasma gun would fires a stream of energy instead of discrete bolts or globs
I love how retarded ILoveScience midwits will confidently repeat that despite ball lightning existing.

>>97559557
Plasmoid globs yeah totally doable but FTL is like you can try for near infinite energy and still not hit the speed of light, you'll watch the universe die as you screen across the cosmos at least so that's neat.

>>97559557
then how do you think that we will be able to contain gas inside a sphere the moment it leaves the gun barrel?
not without some spooky force

>>97559576
Space itself can expand faster than the speed of light.

>>97554977
The issue on an interstellar scale at least is that in getting there STL we necessarily won't rely on planets alone for living space any more. Even intra-system efforts benefitting from homeworld resupply could end with people aving got so good at building and living amidst to maintain orbital infrastructure that terraforming is an afterthought habitation-wise.

Similar argument to >>97558235 really. All the prerequisites for widespread hard SF terraforming make alternatives even more attractive (barring stupid-lucky Gaia worlds).

>>97559265
How did we get to other stars then? "Meat stays earthbound while machines claim the cosmos" is a reasonable alternative but mostly unsatisfying fictionally. Only other that comes to mind is humans cryo'd for somehow unsurvivable STL transit watched over by said machines which seems contrived and ultimately leading to the same picture: humans on planetary backwaters while whatever travels (and so can survive) the void expanding to fill that far greater volume.

>>97555126
Differences of degree rather than essential nature are fine. At the end of the day genre's are ad hoc categories for "other things you might like" anyway.

>>97559447
Moreover civilisation is defined by memetic evolution outrunning our genes as agents of change. Hard to see how a species wouldn't have now-maladaptive instincts hanging around from their equivalent of "plistocene scavenger" past.

>>97559549
Our digestive system is pretty hardy. Outside of potential toxins or prion like effects the worst we'd probably suffer is a nutritional deficiency as it passes through our system without being properly digested.

Though now thinking on it I don't really want to see or experience the bathroom issues the guys eating the alien cuisine that isn't dangerous but won't digest properly.

>>97559452
>And in a new ecosystem we'd be basing our knowledge on fuck and all.

In a new ecosystem you'd realistically have 50+ years of scientific research done before a single person puts a single thing in his mouth.

>>97559588
I think you underestimate how stupid and daring humans are sometimes. There WILL be some idiot that puts the thing in his mouth. Unless your science team is full of straight laced robot men with no interactions with anyone else. (Though lets be honest the possibility is high, don't want to fuck it up.)

>>97559588
We've had thousands of years of research on our planet and still are finding out new things.

>>97559598
There's bacteria on the moon left there by an improperly sterilized probe. >>97559271 and the Expanse's Illus arc might be a taste of what mixing could do. No miscible biochemical warfare, just critters colonizing places we'd rather they didn't exploiting pathways alien life never had to evolve countermeasures for.

Of course as always for the purpose of story anything goes so long as it makes sense on its own terms. The researchers in Children of Ruin are cut off and desperate for instance (albeit with ayys of soft-SF level virulence).

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>>97554876
Flexair is gigakino
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B9C3awB3j4

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>>97556839
This isn't even worst of it.

>>97559325
>worked just fine
If you can call genuinely disastrous casualties fine, then sure I guess. The main reason the Feddies were able to hold out was because they had so much territory and so many men they could throw at the Zakus, while there were relatively few mobile suits that Zeon could field early on. It wasn't until the late stages of the war that Zeon had finally produced enough mobile suits that they could make serious pushes to conquer large sections of Earth, but by that point the Feddies had their own mobile suit squadrons to fight back, and more importantly the RX-78 and Amuro as their ace card.

>>97559753

The issue with Zeon wasn't limited numbers of Mobile Suits, it was limited numbers full stop. They were trying to conquer earth with a population equal to Nigeria. TOTAL population, the actual useable manpower would have been much lower, even with allowing women and children to fight.
It just wasn't ever going to happen no matter what they tried. Honestly, from their perspective, Operation British was the right way to go. They were never going to win with conventional arms, no matter how many wacky wunderwaffen they came up with.
They lost the war the day that Revil hijacked a TV station and convinced the higher ups at the Federation that Zeon was bluffing, and then somehow further compounded that by turning what should have been the Feds signing a total surrender to them into the creation of the Antarctica Treaty, which took away their only real chance to beat the Federation: Warcrimes!

>>97559753
>>97559771
the show doesnt actually mention numbers as the limiting factor
early concept art implied the opposite, most people had moved to space off of earth and so there were more spacenoids than earthlings
zeon being vastly outnumbered seems to be more of a retcon than something the original show intended, to explain how the feddies could lost 1/3rd of their entire fleet to the solar ray and still win the final battle

the feddies werent winning until the gundam came along, they only reached a stalemate after the zekes took almost half the world

>>97559771
There was a victory condition for Zeon if they managed to field enough Zakus to achieve global domination before the Federation could get its shit together, but yeah, they didn't have enough factories, workers, or industrial output in general to pull that off.

>>97559185
at the size of that picture though the human form no longer has benefits though, nor does it have flexibility, for example if a mech that size tried to climb anything it would instead rip off whatever handhold it found

further, more things to break is in this case an advantage, a quadruped mech with a single leg disabled can still make it's way back to base, a biped mech with a single leg disabled is a complete loss, since given the complexity of a biomechanical leg, it would be impossible to do field repairs like one would with threads unless extreme advancements in nanotech were available, which itself brings a whole other host of problems
then here's the further issue that on a bipedal mech you can also break the arms, so a bipedal mech has the same number of points of failure on limbs

as for other superiority in a quadruped form is the ability to mount a 360° turret on top rather than having to hold their weapon in drastically more limited arms, letting them have a far larger field of fire, and far better response times as no matter what, basic physics will make turning a small turret always faster than having to aim a full mech

in terms of survivability, a quadruped form would also be easier to design armor for, which then further compounds the lower profile, especially when it has a built in "drop to the ground" modus which quadruped motivation would allow for

and the idea of humans being unable to pilot a quadruped mech because it's unnatural is fairly silly given that humans manage to pilot much more alien devices such as helicopters perfectly fine

>>97559583
a role for terraforming I could see is one, in a bit of a fit of irony, in a society so advanced (speaking full K2 levels here) it no longer needs planets, but also so advanced they have more than enough spare energy and labor to use planets for vanity projects
and as such, depending on the cultural values of such an advanced society, it could become a long-term project (hard to speed up terraforming after all) to life-seed planets all across their pocket of space

if such a society has drastic life-extension technology (again, still hard scifi, just extreme advanced hard scifi) the nature of such long projects could be a way for this society to address the long term mental health of it's population by creating projects with a far future end goal that none the less sees constant incremental increases towards that goal

>>97554908
Someone's gotta be first. I really can't see any reason it wouldn't be humans.

>>97555201
That's easy, it draws from the actually correct Electric Universe Theory, and not the endlessly held up accepted "science" that literally needs to invent invisible mass to work.

>>97559583
>we necessarily won't rely on planets alone for living space any more
That's "another lie". During heart transplants people are regularly put into "cryo sleep".
Extrapolating current tech we can terraform okay-ish planets using autonomous systems and send frozen settlers when the new planet is "done".

>so good at building and living amidst to maintain orbital infrastructure
Another "lie". We cannot at present solve muscle and bone loss due to low gravity.

>>97559887
Because according to the Drake equation life could've evolved elsewhere millions if not billions of years before it did on earth, giving any intelligent life a massive headstart. The universe should be full of intelligent life. Should. Which is why Fermi posited the question "where is everyone?".

>>97560042
>That's "another lie". During heart transplants people are regularly put into "cryo sleep".
Don't be so disingenuous. Cryosleep as depicted in popular fiction is nothing like putting people in an ice bath for a few hours. If you want someone to be put on ice for 300 years, the only thing you'll get when they thaw is a pile of dead cells.

>>97560059
drake's equation is an incomplete and speculative one, we have no idea what the odds are that life passes various great filters is nor the abundance of potential life-bearing planets in the universe

there is absolutely nothing in the drake equation that would inherently imply, let alone prove, that there should be life elswhere
one of the big things is frankly that we have no good grasp on how common a eukaryote-equivalent is in other biospheres, if it turns out the likelihood of life evolving beyond basic cellular structures without much internal differentiation is vanishingly small, then earth being the first planet with intelligent life on it suddenly becomes exceedingly plausible

>>97554908
Time is relative. FTL travel moves through a relativistically isolated dimension. if the dimension is relativistically isolated from outside, then anyone entering that dimension will all be entering it at the same time.
Hence, in my science fiction setting we made first contact with every civilization that would ever exist all at the same time, and the universe is fucking full.

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>>97560042
There exist ways to make gravity in space you know

>>97560042
>Another "lie". We cannot at present solve muscle and bone loss due to low gravity.
the same level of medical technology required to repair the cellular damage from long term cryosleep would be blatant overkill in fixing muscle and bone loss from low gravity

not to mention that space habitats wouldn't be low gravity, spin-gravity is identical to regular gravity in every way that matters for the human body, same level of consistent single-direction force

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>>97560059
>>97560059
Sure, life evolving somewhere else is likely, but surviving to the space age, much less to sapience or intelligence? Space is actively hostile to the formation of life. If it weren't for the sun being in the correct stage of its life cycle, the planet being at the right stage of its life cycle, the presence of the moon being the perfect size and distance, the presence of Jupiter in the solar system, our location/distance from black holes, pulsars, supernovae and other cosmic dangers, and an uncountable multitude of other variables and factors we wouldn't have made it here. It's not just if life can develop, it's if it can survive long enough to reach space as well. The mathematical factors that line up right now for our existence imply heavily that if we aren't the first, whoever else there is in the universe is probably so inconceivably far away from us in distance or time that they might as well not exist.

>>97560059
>Drake equation
Then again, there's stuff like Levinthal's paradox.
>life could've evolved elsewhere millions if not billions of years before it did on earth
Considering how long there's been life on Earth and how many extinctions there's been, it's not a guarantee of intelligent life.

>>97560120
>>97560123
the issue here is that for a spin gravity habitat to not make every human inside nauseous to the point of being unable to function, it would have to fucking huge- several miles in diameter if not more. So yes, possible, but only through megastructures.

Really just need an epstein drive.

I had an idea for a type of "artificial gravity" that had humans inside a space ship wearing magnetic circlets, shoulderpads, belts, wristlets and anklets that would be under 1G of magnetic pull from the "floor" wherever they were on the ship, the magnetic tiles activating beneath them as they walked around the ship. This would simulate the pressures of gravity, and then make it customizable as well and they could turn it on and off per individual. Anything they wanted to be affected by gravity would just get a little magnetic tag on it. Could have walkable surfaces on all walls and celings too. Would require a massive amount of power, and I don't know how that kind of magnetic field would fuck with a ship's systems or other side effects.

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>>97560151
>Really just need an epstein drive.
Epstein sex drive?

>>97560151
>So yes, possible, but only through megastructures.
yes but those megastructures would still be about 1/1.000.000.000th the cost of terraforming a single planet
not to mention it's actually possible to speed up their construction to the point they're ready within a reasonable timeframe, terraforming a planet nearly always requires either removing or else dumping an immense amount of heat on it which you really can't just get rid of

terraforming Mars would take thousands of years just to wait for it to cool down purely from all the atmosphere and water transported to it

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>>97560168
it'll give you a source of constant thrust if you know what i'm saying
>>97560171
yeah you build the megastructures to house humanity during the terraforming process and to carry human civilization between stars (if you don't have FTL). Space habitats are just one part of a thriving interstellar civilization. Without cryostasis or FTL our best bet of taking humanity to the stars is to use O'Neil cylinders as generation ships- moreso cities and civilizations in their own right flying between the stars rather than just the crew of a ship, even if it's a really big ship.

>>97560182
thing is, at some point you gotta ask yourself why you're even bothering with the terraforming process if you can already hold people comfortable in all luxury in O'Neil cylinders

>>97560171
A concrete block housing costs less than a huge mansion on a private island, but we still have huge mansions on private islands.
>terraforming Mars would take thousands of years
It took about 2000 years to finish the Great Wall of China. Don't think we haven't had millennia spanning projects in the past.

>>97560151
Based off impeccable research of a few google searches 4-5 rpm is good enough for most people and that can be achieved with a relatively small radius, but apparently people can adapt to speeds as high as 9 rpm. 1 rpm is much less demanding and "only" requires a couple hundred meter diameter

>>97560194
>>97560194
>It took about 2000 years to finish the Great Wall of China.
That's a blatant misrepresentation of the process of how the great wall was constructed, most of the modern fortifications we see as the great wall of china were built during the ming dynasty in a period less than 50 years

prior to that there were various fortifications on various chinese borders build during various periods of stability, each of which was functional to the dynasty that ruled it, in it's own capacity

also the space habitat in this case would be the huge mansion on the private island, it would be far more luxurious than the houses built on a terraformed planet

>>97560191
Same reason many people haven't strapped themselves to their autoblow powered VR give-up machine in their closet apartment and goon away on UBI and Doordash. Some people want to make progress, not just settle for what is.

>>97560205
and if you want large diameter, it doesn't have to mean large structure, a twin station setup with both smaller stations connected via a long cable and spun around the center of this cable would give you a massive radius, with a relatively small internal area

and such cables existing would be a virtual requirement anyways since structures like that would require an efficient way to get off of earth so at minimum you'd need a rotating skyhook

>>97560209
>rich people will choose to live in the cheap space stations with all sorts of regulations not to fuck up the whole station rather than the expensive, terraformed planets with all the land and freedom they can have
Ok.

>>97560212
sure but there's realistic limits to how much people are willing to progress, for example, most people never build a 1 billion dollar mansion

>>97560237
>rich people won't want to live in the ultimate gated community where non-rich aren't even allowed to set foot and everything down to the air itself is perfectly tailored to their individual needs

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>>97560191
because humans like planets
being under an open sky, swimming in a natural body of water, forests, trees, fields, mountains, farmlands, etc.

Sure, you can simulate or create a facsimile of these things in a really big space ship, or just cheat and use VR. But people will want to live on a planet, even if it takes generational effort to make it happen. Not to mention ease of resource extraction from planets, and there are advantages to planets that space habitats don't- like a mobile space habitat has a higher probability of experiencing cosmic hazards like gamma ray bursts or a wandering black hole than a planet does.

also, because it's fucking awesome and humans have an insatiable need to do difficult but awesome shit- you can't have hard sci-fi without that human trait.

>>97560205
i would prefer you being correct about this because I want it to be as plausible as possible IRL, though I've seen and read thing about spin gravity and coriolis that imply a huge diameter requirement. Even if it's not as "mega" of a megastructure as I previously implied, any space habitat capable of generating sufficient spin gravity still qualifies as a megastructure by today's standards. Not going to be able to build one without a space elevator or moon base or orbital shipyard, ideally all three.

>>97560194
>>97560209
better examples to point to here would be the great cathedrals of Europe- generations of people worked on those, and some of them were never even completed. Or maybe Roman aqueducts. Humans have engaged and completed generation spanning projects in the past.

>>97560227
tethered spin stations sounds like a good temporary thing in space, but my concern would be the delicate failure point of the tether connection- a micro-meteor at the wrong point at the wrong time could send the two connected stations flying off in opposite directions.

>>97560238
>most people
Most people never sailed across the oceans or went into space.

>>97560248
What happens to "we'll all live on space stations because it's cheaper"?

>>97560258
Two tethers

>>97560238
the quantity of people willing to progress is less important than which people in society want to, and their respective qualities. If all the elites of a society are in agreement about doing space shit, it doesn't matter what the proles think about it. There's going to be someone. You don't need all of society on the same page about space exploration, just a small cadre of the powerful- as evidenced by the fact that the trendy hobby of giga-billionaires in our world is space exploration and the interstellar fate of mankind right now rests in the hands of Elon Musk, Beff Jezos and the T-Mobile guy.

>>97560258
>Not going to be able to build one without a space elevator or moon base or orbital shipyard, ideally all three.
yeh but the technology required to build them is still drastically simpler than what's needed to terraform a planet though, which you could call rather than mega- or giga-, terrastructures

>>97560258
>a micro-meteor at the wrong point at the wrong time could send the two connected stations flying off in opposite directions.
I imagine rather than a single cable it would be sets of redundant cables for exactly that reason, each made out of materials resistant to micro-meteors, which since all of this requires space elevators to exist in the first place, would be fairly common technology to any civilization that would think of building those

>>97560275
Both can be true at the same time, floating hive cities for the proles, fully automated hyper luxury space castles for the rich

>>97560282
even then there's limits though, while the cadre of few ultra-rich could reasonably spearhead space exploration, small bases and space habitats, terraforming a planet is on another level entirely, that's the sort of project that requires significant portions of the global economy dedicated purely to it, and not even those ultra-rich can achieve this

>>97560308
I've always loved this ship desing. It looks very neat.

>>97560318
>terraforming a planet is on another level entirely
Depends entirely how much work needs to be done and how fast. All manner of terraforming operations can be roped in with other space exploration and colonization operations. You know what's easier to make than a giant rotating cylinder in space? A sealed city on a planet. Even if the environment is not hospitable, you got gravity, solid base to build on with local resources to use, etc. And while people live there and expand the city, you can run terraforming operations over generations. Pollute the air with all the greenhouse gasses you can, dump waste water out into the environment, etc.

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>>97560301
>yeh but the technology required to build them is still drastically simpler than what's needed to terraform a planet
I'll concede this point as obviously true.
>single cable it would be sets of redundant cables for exactly that reason, each made out of materials resistant to micro-meteors
I will also concede this point.

I view tethered stations like this as a stepping stone to proper megastructure space habitats, not the technological endpoint. And the tethers are still a failure point that a cylindrical or other shape of habitat doesn't have. Yeah, you build tethered space habitats and ships and such while you are working on building the ONeill cylinders. The space equivalent of throwing up a few yurts or mobile homes while you build an actual settlement or structure.

>>97560318
Point granted. Ideally, space exploration and colonization and everything involved is a collective human effort, governments and all, not just the hobbyhorse of rich assholes with huge egos.
>>97560397
this is a good point too. How much terraforming are we talking about? Do we need to bombard the planet with asteroids or nukes to kick-start tectonic activity? Melt the ice caps with orbital mirrors to oxygenate the atmosphere? Import or export a fuckton of CO2? The range of possible actions required to terraform a rocky planet is pretty wide, some terraforming candidates being more or less inhabitable from their starting point.

>>97560397
>You know what's easier to make than a giant rotating cylinder in space? A sealed city on a planet
Not really no, unless that planet is earth that is, a city sized megastructure can easily get spin gravity without causing nausea so the gravity from the planet already is a non-issue in terms of habitability

local resources is also not true at all, the space habitat has far more local resources in the form of resource-rich asteroids, the hollowing-out of one would even provide the perfect space to build yourself a habitat

and the most important thing overall is, in space you don't need to overcome the planet's gravity well which is an immense advantage for any early exploration

also you're kinda forgetting something in terms of terraforming Mars (the only planet where you can both build a sealed city and can terraform it at the same time), namely that in order to get enough water and atmosphere, you're going to need to bring in a lot of ice from space, the combined heat of which would render Mars uninhabitable

>>97560428
You can augment planet gravity with spin gravity as well, you know.

Developed planets should be Death Stars with fuck-ton of space habitats and battle stations, and siege weapons, and missile stores capable of wrecking any fleet.

>>97560414
there's also another intermediary in between tethered and full ONeill cylinder as a halter station
with 2 much larger halves and a solid central spire which holds the life support and general machinery that can function independently from local spin-gravity and possibly even a set of internal elevators allowing travel between both halves
later you can expand this into full ring stations if need be or like you said, keep it as the equivalent of your yurts or container homes while the big structure is built nearby

the other alternative to incremental construction in space could be to give sufficient spin to a moderately sized asteroid of sufficient uniform shape the rotation remains uniform, then build up habitable sections on the ends with roughly 1G spin gravity while also mining the metal-rich interior which then opens up increasingly more space for habitation effectively turning the asteroid into an ONeil cylinder over time

works particularly well for an asteroid belt outpost since it also acts as a logical logistical node for all nearby resource-rich asteroid mining

>>97560428
>Not really no, unless that planet is earth that is, a city sized megastructure can easily get spin gravity without causing nausea so the gravity from the planet already is a non-issue in terms of habitability
One has to spin (and everything associated with it, such as having to have an equilibrium in the mass, people working on the outside surface being pushed away from it, etc.), the other one doesn't.
>the space habitat has far more local resources in the form of resource-rich asteroids, the hollowing-out of one would even provide the perfect space to build yourself a habitat
That's fine if you want to live in an asteroid belt.
>and the most important thing overall is, in space you don't need to overcome the planet's gravity well which is an immense advantage for any early exploration
Why would you need to overcome the planet's gravity? Where are you going from your luxury gay space commune?
>(the only planet where you can both build a sealed city and can terraform it at the same time)
Venus is also an option. Sure, the surface isn't great, but build floating cities.
>namely that in order to get enough water and atmosphere, you're going to need to bring in a lot of ice from space, the combined heat of which would render Mars uninhabitable
There's plenty of water in the soil of Mars.

>>97560483
>There's plenty of water in the soil of Mars.
not nearly enough for this purpose though, you'll also need to import gigantic amounts of phosphorous
Mars also needs 2 massive space projects to render it inhabitable, it needs a magnetic deflector in L1 to make up for it's lack of magnetic field and it needs several reflectors to increase the amount of solar radiation which hits it

>Where are you going from your luxury gay space commune?
Early cities on Mars won't be self-sufficient and rely on constant imports from Earth

As for Venus, I see no way that it's floating cities wouldn't be purely extreme luxury prestige projects due to the difficulty in making them and how impractical they are

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>>97560323

>>97554876
>"Hard sci-fi" setting
>humans survive interstellar travel

>>97554876
"""Hard""" sci-fi is a complete joke anyway. It doesn't matter how hard you nerdgasm to make your novel (because let's face it, this thread isn't about games) as """hard""" and scientifically accurate, it'll be completely outdated within 10 years for to new research. At that point you'll realize you wrote about space wizard all along and the revelation hopefully drives you to suicide.

>>97560505
>not nearly enough for this purpose though, you'll also need to import gigantic amounts of phosphorous
How submerged do you want the planet to be?
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/elements/article-abstract/2/3/151/137698/Water-at-the-Poles-and-in-Permafrost-Regions-of
>Mars also needs 2 massive space projects to render it inhabitable, it needs a magnetic deflector in L1 to make up for it's lack of magnetic field and it needs several reflectors to increase the amount of solar radiation which hits it
Too bad building giant megastructures in space is so expensive compared to terraforming a planet...
>Early cities on Mars won't be self-sufficient and rely on constant imports from Earth
And the good thing about bringing in stuff is that gravity does all the work for you, the stuff just has to drop, rather than go up. Also, how are you building all those giant space stations without hauling stuff from Earth up into space? If you can build in space without bringing stuff from a planet, you can just as well drop those resources from space onto a planet.
>As for Venus, I see no way that it's floating cities wouldn't be purely extreme luxury prestige projects due to the difficulty in making them and how impractical they are
Venus has a dense atmosphere, floating in it won't be that hard. Even high above the surface you're protected from cosmic radiation, and have almost Earthlike gravity and pressure.

>>97560522
Luv me some radiator fins

>>97560539

Yeah. Go onto the Gutenberg Project and skim through their sci-fi section. All of it's completely invalidated and nonsensical by what we know today. Hell, about half of them insist Ether is real with the same sort of confidence of a hullucinating modern AI.

I like The Expanse universe.

>>97559577
Self-generated magnetic bubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmoid
my dude, these phenomenons have been known to exist for over half a century. I can't believe people still repeat the whole "plasma weapon would be akin to a canon that shoots hot steam" line.

>>97557860
Plasma weapons of the sort depicted in sci-fi are not only possible, they already exist and have for decades. They're called plasma railguns and shoot a discrete plasma projectile, just like sci-fi ones. The most famous example is called MARAUDER and was successfully tested in the '90s. They're not practical weapons, being gigantic fragile things that need a warehouse-sized capacitor array to run, but the principles are not only plausible, they're proven.

>>97561174
me too, anon. Me too.

>>97561692
Mi beratna.

>>97560258
They like planets, sure. They become luxury centres then rather than the main mass of human civilisation. Given the choice between a gradual and expensive terraform project and dozens of habs now humanity will go with "rough and ready" as they expand into the frontier. Those who don't expand slower and so are outscaled by however small that first portion who embrace space living do.

That preference can also change, Homo Sapiens isn't native to Scandinavia but someone from there could well prefer sweeping fjords and heaths to savannah despite the latter being more "natural" to the species. Living in habs for practicality could turn acclimation into fondness (especially if genetic/cybernetic enhancement is involved).

In any case the argument isn't that terraforming can't happen, only that terraformed planets being given pride of place in fiction reflects our taste in stories rather than the liklier reality. Interstellar terraforming implies the tech to make far greater use of space. Just because we can and should build prestige wonders doesn't mean the bulk of civilisation is utilitarian infrastructure.

>>97560576
>Too bad building giant megastructures in space is so expensive compared to terraforming a planet...
How are you coordinating Marsworks without swarming orbital infrastructure across the system? The case for terraforming sans hab-living could be made in Sol but becomes ridiculous when applied across the gulf between stars.

>>97560539
So? Science is pretty much defined by the fact that it routinely overthrows parts of itself. There remains a difference between outright "a wizard did it" and trying to offer an explanation more in keeping with things at they're understood at the time. By your retarded reckoning striving for rl scientific accuracy now is pointless because the present's knowledge is not the futures. If nobody dared to try knowing they'd largely fail then you wouldn't be pawing at your keyboard.

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>>97559586
>Outside of potential toxins

To eat, perchance to die, aye, there's the rub.
E'en in that flesh of earth what death may wait
When worse may sequenced lie in xeno soil.

>>97559580
It is a little stranger than that, it is not like you latch onto the fabric of space and ride it

>>97554888
>I have never seen X outside of my own house, therefore X does not exist outside of my house
It's one thing to suggest flying saucers are currently visiting Earth, but to say the Earth is the only planet in the entire Universe with organic chemistry is idiotic.

>>97555201
That isn't completely unreasonable. There are actual legitimate, sound, peer-reviewed scientific theories that at least seem to indicate that a real warp drive, one that would sidestep relativity, is not only possible but should be practical at some point in our future. We're nowhere close to it yet but if we can finally crack the fusion thing and scale up things that only exist in the lab right now (like antimatter production), it ought to be doable. Interestingly the most recent, and most practical, proposal has a very Star Trek-like nacelle layout as well.

>>97563356
How is it supposed to work?

>>97563606
He is overstating a bit, the papers say that its not physically impossible to build a warp drive that works on space manipulation
But we do not know of a way to produce the purely hypothetical particle needed to manipulate space in the way needed to create the surfboard effect
We also have no idea how it will affect the causality part of things

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>>97562242
>How are you coordinating Marsworks without swarming orbital infrastructure across the system?
Same way you build giant rotating megastructures across the system. I'm not saying we start with terraforming, but that once we start to have the infrastructure to expand into the system, it's not hard to start expanding into terraforming planets as well. As tech advances and production capacity increases, things become cheaper. If you're hauling resources from asteroid belts, how hard is it to add a few megatons of water ice into the haul and drop it off to Mars or Venus along the way?
>The case for terraforming sans hab-living could be made in Sol but becomes ridiculous when applied across the gulf between stars.
I thought the whole argument was for Sol habitation, not interstellar. The whole reason we opted for orbital megastructures over terraforming. We haven't even talked about sending those megastructures to other systems yet. I guess if you can send a self-sufficient structure out into space, we could find planets even more suitable for terraforming. But at the same time those structures would need to be so self-sufficient that they can operate on their own. Many would probably be lost, either due to something critical breaking down with no hope of rescue, or they just keep going, never to return.

>>97559447
Dave.

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>>97563683
Jess disagrees.

>>97563644
The newest round of papers have a new version of the theory that's supposedly much more attainable. It no longer requires the hypothetical particle in question and relies entirely on proven matter, with the primary challenge being the huge amount of energy it would require.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/star-treks-warp-drive-leads-to-new-physics/

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Sci-fi needs more orbital rings.

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>>97563796
Yes, I do want to know more.

>>97560576
do you have an open source version of that article because there is a vast and wide gulf of accessibility between water in substrates and actual ice, it's also nowhere near enough, the 35m thick layer is only possible if you assume that Mars's surface is uniform which it is most decidedly not

but for a proper hydrological cycle you need many times more even than that volume you just mentioned which means importing, which means heating which means long term affair

and no gravity does not do all the work for you, you need to protect more fragile materials which means a lot of extra overhead in the form of containers that can withstand reentry and have a soft landing, and if you're not sending those back up all of those are waste products

gravity also has another issue that you're not addressing, that it will be exceedingly hard for a martial city to produce any kind of economic surplus because anything made on mars needs to be shipped back up out of Mars's gravity well

space habitats don't have this issue and as such can become economically self-sufficient far faster, which is compounded of course by the terraforming of Mars being exceedingly expensive

and of course what you fail to address that any terraforming process of Mars will be inherently destructive to any cities on Mars since we are talking several large impacts just to provide the raw materials to make the terraforming even possible


As for Venus, you're kinda glossing over the fact that it's not just an unbreathable atmosphere, it's an actively toxic atmosphere courtesy of all the hydrogen sulfide, so you need to have every habitat at positive pressure in case of leaks, which would be, in a fit of irony, deadlier than leaks in space, however existing in constant positive pressure has it's own set of issues

and course here's the even bigger issue that even compared to Mars, making Venus economically self-sufficient is an ungodly nightmare, and as such limit to luxury

>>97563841
>gravity also has another issue that you're not addressing, that it will be exceedingly hard for a martial city to produce any kind of economic surplus because anything made on mars needs to be shipped back up out of Mars's gravity well
Why does it need to send anything out? It can produce stuff locally and use it locally. Not all economy is reliant on foreign trade? Those space colonies aren't producing shit without influx of resources from elsewhere, making them just processing plants.
>As for Venus, you're kinda glossing over the fact that it's not just an unbreathable atmosphere, it's an actively toxic atmosphere courtesy of all the hydrogen sulfide
At 50km above the surface, Venus' atmosphere is 96.5% CO2 and 3.5% nitrogen and 1 atmosphere of pressure.
>and course here's the even bigger issue that even compared to Mars, making Venus economically self-sufficient is an ungodly nightmare, and as such limit to luxury
And compared to Mars, Venus has an atmosphere and gravity relative to Earth's, making it much more suitable for colonization.

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>>97563841

We can freeze Venus over the decades with Solar Shades until the atmosphere fails like snow. Then, we can harvest it.

Alternatively, we could use an Solar-Pumped Laser, a pair of mirrors on the Sun's Corona, to work as an Atmospheric Blaster. It would heat the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere to such extreme temperatures (plasma state) that the particles exceed escape velocity.

>>97563841
so you convince rich assholes that there's no bigger luxutry than living in venus so they go kill themselves?

If you want to terraform, you kinda need Dyson swarm capabilities.

>>97563869

Solar shade might sound insane, but the number of solar shades to partially reduce insolation is surprisingly achievable with modern or near-future industrial capacity.

>>97563841
>Mars's gravity well
Which is fraction of Earth's with very little atmosphere.

>>97563905
Why?

>>97563936
>>97563869

For references: It would take about 50 years to cool off Venus enough so you could walk around.

>>97563872
I mean, they're all buying private islands and beachfront properties while knowing full well within 10 years sea levels will rise and swallow them up.

>>97563944

The amount of energy necessary to quickly terraform a planet so it doesn't take thousands of years is insane.

>>97563869
Laser idea seems extremely wasteful. Hell of a thing to see, though.

>>97563957
So, if we just take the long way, we don't need Dyson swarm capabilities.

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>>97563869

The Stellar is an interesting idea but a bit of an overkill. How about this? Lift hydrogen directly from the Sun (via starlift-like mechanisms) and deliver it to Venus. Hydrogen is extremely light and already ionised, so it is easier to lift from the Sun than heavier elements. It could act as a reducing agent, chemically sequestering carbon and lowering greenhouse gases. starlift approach converts energy into raw material, which is more chemically “useful” than just blasting with heat. It could also produce water oceans on Venus, not just atmospheric heating or removal.

>>97563869

We can add infrastructure like orbital rings and space elevators to harvest the fallen atmosphere for useful industrial applications.

Key materials:

CO2 for carbon products: Carbon nanotubes, graphene, fuel, plastics

Oxygen for life support and oxidizers: For propulsion or breathable air

Sulfur compounds for chemical feedstock: Sulfuric acid, fertilizers, industrial chemicals

Atmosphere is partially cooled or chemically modified (hydrogen delivery, CO2 reduction).

Orbital rings capture or process gases before they rise or escape.

Space elevators or tethers transport concentrated material to orbit for industrial use.

This is essentially terraforming + resource extraction simultaneously, making the project economically or industrially self-sustaining.

>>97563841
>do you have an open source version of that article
https://files.catbox.moe/ge9rw9.pdf

>>97564030

A smart long-term terraforming campaign might combine all three:

Comets / Kuiper Belt objects: initial hydrogen and water delivery, cheap and incremental.

Solar hydrogen / starlift: bulk delivery over centuries once Dyson/stellar infrastructure exists.

Jupiter/Saturn skimming: fine-tuning hydrogen supply for massive-scale terraforming or industrial applications.

>>97564041

By converting the atmosphere, you aren't just "fixing" a planet; you are creating the solar system's largest supply of graphene and carbon nanotubes. Venus becomes the "factory floor." You harvest the CO2 to build the hulls of starships and the frames of O'Neill cylinders. The planet pays for its own transformation by being the primary exporter of structural materials to the rest of the Belt.

>>97563955
Yeah bro, just ten more years.
Did you just wake up from a 30 year coma?

>>97560127
>some nigger on 4chan solves Fermi paradox which has stumped generations of astronomists

>>97554888
>Earth is the only planet in the entire universe with life!
Retard

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How come no one really brings up things like augmentations, prosthetics, and the likes within this context?

For me, it's not about ultra-realism but more so the aesthetics and how the society within the story handles these things.

Even when you look at today where there is limited application of BMI and such, good luck if the company that shoved shit inside of you goes under and there is no one to maintain/repair whatever you have or the fact there is no universal standard for augments/prosthetics or rules for how to handle such things.

Another part of it is how they are used and what parts of it get emphasized. While the idea of being able to lift a car is cool, to me, strength enhancement by itself isn't that useful for day to day life unless you are some kind of laborer and machines could fill that role better in most circumstances. I would imagine some kind of brain augments would be the norm as well as their impacts on how society works/functions.

>>97554908
>>97555157
>>97558183
>>97559887
>>97560116
what if the aliens are actually a breakaway civilization of cromagnoids from 100,000 years ago who developed a civilization that was wiped out by nuclear war in India leaving the rest of us behind and spreading into space because were the more retarded humans, then as we advanced into space we meet the ones who were alreadyi n space but now they're fucked up blue chicks with big knockers who try to kill us and there's a whole subplot where science guy is like "hmmmm strange that these aliens are blue but otherwise have big milky titties and their dna is so similar" and then we fuck them after the war is over but then there are other offshoots of aliens who are actually ancient divergent space humans like in stargate but there are no go'anus.

>>97559512
All one has to do to defeat AI art is do nothing, and they will continue producing hideous works that AIfags are too literally stupid to judge.
It's why they always post some trash and are like "I worked so hard on this you guys"

>>97564435

Cybernetics that increase your tolerate higher-G might actually be sought after. So, it is any cybernetics or genetics that increases changes of survival in the vacuum from being more resistant to cancers vs radiation, bone loss due low gravity, and other stuff. Who knows, maybe hibernation or something too.

>>97564435
assuming that the world isnt an extreme ancap world where anything goes, there will almost certainly be limitations on installing laser cannons or chainsaws in your arms

the average person will probably have implants that just let them doomscroll online efficiently or to download porn directly into their eyes

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>>97560127

Most likely it is a combination of several factors. It is even possible that life in the universe is common, but not complex life. For example a great filter could be the Eukaryote cell. Many steps of evolution have happened multiple times again and again. The formation of Eukaryote has only happened once in the entire history of Earth. This could easily be a Great Filter.