Lets talk space colonies, what do you think of them and sci-fi that have them? If you use them what type are they? O'Neill Cylinders? Ringworlds? Are they located on lagrangian points or somewhere else?I wonder how you can do something interesting with them or build conflict around them in a story without rehashing Gundam beat for beat.
>>98388323I've never figured out how to do sci-fi space colonies; they always turn out to be fantasy space colonies.
>>98389204some fantasy in your sci-fi is a cool thing
>>98389366Yesterday, I wanted to go to the store and get an apple pie, so I walked to my backyard wrestling ring, where a dragon with boxing gloves was waiting. I took to the opposite side, pushed myself into the turnbuckle as far as it would stretch, then launched myself into the dragon as it grinned and posed for the camera; my pecs a veritable hammer against his fragile jaw.From there, I was propelled above the jetstream, hurtling at hypersonic speeds. But this didn't stop me from contending with the hordes of giant flies armed with hellfire missiles. As I danced a sky dance through the Itano Circus, I smashed the flies to bits, individually and systematically and began dropping altitude.I fell below the flies' patrol flight, and while falling the drag began taking its toll on my forward momentum. I tried to salvage as much as I could, elbow and knee dropping the marching kobolds and goblins that I could, but soon enough, my flight could no longer be sustained, and I belly-flopped, skidding for another few yards.But, once I stood to my feet, I dusted myself off, and found myself in front of the store. Then I bought an apple pie, took it home, then ate it.What's the point?Only the last part of that story could happen, but didn't happen, plausible fiction. The rest is sheer fantasy, given the numerous violations of laws of physics and creatures that don't exist; it couldn't happen.But according to your logic, the entire thing could have happened, because you think fantasy aspects in a work doesn't make that work one of fantasy.Protip: if something happens in a work that's impossible or improbable, that work is automatically one of fantasy; plausibility goes out the window.Mindless "but muh literature an muh pulp" spouting doesn't change that.
>>98389521For some reason I thought you were riffing on "A True Story" by Lucian of Samosata.
>>98388323Burying the colony inside an asteroid is preferable, but not always practical. Asteroids big enough to put a colony cylinder are rare and dragging one to where you want is hard. O'Neill cylinders never really solves the balancing issue with the mirrors. Cylinders themselves are fine, tho.
>>98388323>>98388334>>98388348I love O'Neill cylinders and the old school artworks of them.Admittedly I would imagine these all to be more like cities where the plant life is kept in botanical districts and most of the stuff for these mobile space colonies are devoted to mini asteroids to extract them and break them down to the atomic level to make matter that is necessary for the colony's survival as they travel to their destination or continue to orbit their destination they reached.The Dyson Sphere is also a big thing I like.
>>98389521What the fuck are you saying, ESL?
Had an idea for a mech story once that's probably closer to Five Star Stories than Gundam. A feudal society where each colony is a landhold headed by a member of a knightly social class who operates some kind of mech to defend it. The mechs are partly organic in the vein of Evangelion or Dunbine and created from the DNA of their house's founder, therefore only members of the noble family that owns them can link with them.
>>98405192
>>98389521That is a convoluted and clumsy way of making a bad point that's based on an obvious and, frankly, quite ridiculous misreading of the post you're replying to. Do better in the future, anon.
How do fuck do Rings work?Do you have to drive a planet's diameter to go work every day? Are you stuck in your own section with no direct interaction? Isn't it a huge waste of resources when you could do a colony?On the other hand I understand that O'Neill cylinders make no sense and I still love them.
>>98405203>misreadingIf something fantastical happens in a work, how is that work anything but a work of fantasy, then?
>>98388323Over the years I've come to the idea that building a space station over actively trying to terraform a planet.I've also liked the idea of combining the two where you have a partially buried dome going to a massive network for work and industrial use connecting to the living area above the planet via a massive space elevator. which I think would be the ultimate setup with the option to disconnect from the planet if needed.
>>98405267Science fiction is a broad genre that has always included a variety of works ranging from fairly realistic hard scifi to what's essentially fantasy with technological aesthetics. Anon said that having a bit of fantasy in your scifi is fine, and that's absolutely true in the sense that having a bit of fantasy doesn't mean a work of fiction doesn't fit in with the other scifi stories anymore. The core of your misreading is in this complete non sequitur, though:>But according to your logic, the entire thing could have happened, because you think fantasy aspects in a work doesn't make that work one of fantasy
>>98405266You don't hop on a plane to go to work in a different country so why would it be any different? I suppose as a way of dealing with that depends on how far away the ring walls are. You could put some kind of high speed rail system to go between set points or just take some kind of space craft to cross the radius of the ring
>>98405298Don't feed the troll.
>>98405266Not sure if you're joking, but I'll bite.The cylinder works by rotating around its axis, pushing things outwards (into the internal walls) via centrifugal force. I believe you know this, which is why the O'Neill Cylinder is a compltely viable project even in real life.Now, its dimensions and such can change, you don't have to cross the equator or anything of that sort to get to some place. Maybe workplaces are a few degrees away from the residential areas... Idk why you'd even assume people would have to drive that long.
What would be a good population size for a "private" space station? I very much buy into the idea that people would try to create their own countries so a space station seems like a good way of going about it as well as creating a situation where you could buy one because the previous owners failed spectacularly.
>>98405691The largest micronation, the Principality of Aigues-Mortes, has 312 people, just as a reference. You'd have to think WHY they want to have their own country and what they intend to do with it. Take Rapture or Columbia from Bioshock for example; communities that separated to live in their own belief systems.
>>98405691Depends on the degree of connection with the outside world. Could honestly be just half a dozen guys with your NASA equivalent of support on surface.
>>98395494>the balancing issue with the mirrorsis that different from the precession problem which is nominally fixed by just having to counter-rotating colonies together?if not the obvious answer would be windowless colonies but I have honestly never understood how those work and how exactly sunlight gets "funneled" into the axial light fixture
>>98405720>>98405738In my conception of the idea the phailon musks and jeff bozos of the world couldn't just "buy" their own personal O'Neil cylinder and call it a day as it would require a massive amount of man power to upkeep it so you are essentially buying a small small city.That being said, this would cause groups of people to pool their resources for their own station forcing them to share it which is something I would apply to any planet that has a chance to host life on it. The idea of a single group having exclusive access to something like a space station or a planet is cool for some aesthetics but personally irks my sci-fi autism.
>>98405287terraforming a planet would probably take over 1000 years, assuming that human technology could overcome any technical or engineering issue but without assuming that we could add mass to a planet (ie. comet-bombardment to seed a planet with water to speed up the process)so people would have to live in either domed or underground colonies or orbiting space stations for a length of time roughly equal to the gap between us and william the conqueror
>>98406243I actually like the idea of a massive underground city/facility especially if its broken up by domed sections which I imagine would be massive public areas or primo real estate for the very wealthy.That and having a planet actively being terraformed seems like a good forever business and I have this funny thought that one of the business incentives would be that as long as you and your family ( and descendents) keep working for the company you can inheret land or something when the work is declared done.
>>98405691Depends. At what point is this in the level of space access? If it's common then hundreds to thousands is reasonable; more if they're established for a while or if there's big movements and for whatever reason governmetns aren't """protecting""" them.
>>98405611the o neill cylinder was thought up with the limits of mid-20th century technology, steel and aluminumthough with hindsight, it seems like they lowballed the cost and expense needed to build megastructures in zero-G, the ISS is tiny in comparison to the colonies seen in gundam but was incredibly difficult and expensivethe cost compounded by it wouldnt be impossible with 21st century technology, the limiting factor being the extreme time and expense to develop construction techniques and resource extraction from first principlesthe process has been compared to building the empire state building with medieval technologytechnically possible, but would basically require an impossible level of command and control over the entire population to force them into public works that would eclipse what was needed to build the pyramidshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB8vk8Zrwak
>>98406283Which is precisely why we need to settle on the moon and start turning regolith into steel and other products.
>>98406268as interesting as it is for a clan of people to dedicate generations upon generations towards a goal that transcends each and every one of their lives that wont benefit any of the currently living members it would also require some serious setting considerations for people to consider this setup to be better than any alternativelike, every other planet in the solar system would have to be so absurdly wrecked or crowded for anyone to even remotely consider signing away 200 generations of their bloodline for a chance at a better life at some unspecified time in the futurewe can also rule out cheap and easy FTL, or FTL at all, for people to have to put all their eggs in the terraforming basket instead of just warping away somewhere nicer
>>98406221Well scifi means science fiction. Some aspects are not going to be 100% realistic, and that's something we have to deal with. Perhaps in the future labor is automated so that lowers the costs?
>>98406445Who said anything about realism? I just think it would make for a tighter story when you reduce the scale of the setting from an endless galaxy to a few, big locations like a planet or space station and makes for more interesting drama where different groups have to compromise and share a space and all the issues that come with it.
>>98406462a space colony pretty much solves the "entire planet consists of a single city where everything occurs" by having everyone just live in the equivalent of a single city doubly true if its a relatively small space station design like a stanford-torus design with only about 10,000 people (a small town)in relation to TTRPGs, this provides a narrative reason for keeping the list of NPCs the players have to interact with to a reasonable minimumthough this can also be accomplished by just having a planet be inhospitable and so theres only a single city on the surface
>>98406476That why I was emphasizing the idea of shrinking the area you have to deal with. Take Eclipse Phase for example. You have all these different locations where you have everything from underwater cities of people sleeving into various morphs designed for it to fucking sun whales but Mars is big enough to house every kind of rep faction that doesn't require a whole one-off location that seems more like a fun factoid then an actual location to fuck around in.Not only that, from a game perspective, like you said, you don't have to create a million different NPCs for the players to interact with and you have a stable environment for them to invest in giving them a place they can go back to and put their stuff inbetween sessions
>>98406505you can basically just do "keep on the borderlands but in space" the keep is essentially just a small space station and the borderlands is the nearby planetso the station is the sole bastion of civilization and the planet below is an untamed wilderness teeming with space pirates and deadly alien wildlifethe caves of chaos are a space pirate hideout where they launch raids from
>>98406598That's why I enjoy the Reef from Destiny. It's just a collection various asteroids lashed together to create a lawless western while the space elves live in various space stations around it to hide their actual home that acts as a gateway to their homeland.All that to say I agree with what you are saying
>>98389204>>98389366You should flip the script and set your next fantasy game in a world with magic O'Neill cylinders.
>>98406663Since learning about the Bernal Spheres I like the idea of a giant sphere with a sun like object in the middle of it.
Have a Stars Without Number campaign going that involves a corpo mining complex sitting on a pre scream under city now overrun with mutants. Basic OSR adventure loop. Adventurers go in, loot comes out. Used Citadel and cess for the underground map and free maps online for dungeons locations.
>>98388323I love O'Neill cylinders so much man, every sci-fi setting I make has them in it. And I've been wanting to run a game of cyberpunk set in one since there are a bunch in that setting, though I can't seem to think of many cool missions that would utilize the unique locale
>>98406917Terrorists or spies infiltrating a private corporate city or an international space station? Perhaps killing a diplomat in a peace mission or kidnapping a mogul on an exotic vacation?
>>98406917Think of the golden opportunities being in space creates. You can have a daring space walk to infiltrate a zero g lab where some kind of high tech mcguffin is being stored. You could have to traverse the bowls of a space station to escape capture or exfiltrate someone who was kidnapped or maybe be part of a team to try and reclaim a private space station that is under a security lockdown.
>>98406917Megacorp collapses, legal clusterfuck leaves ownership of orbital colony ambiguous, immediately gets filled with squatters and bam, you game is now set on Kowloon orbital city.
>>98406663Any world with O'Neill cylinders is automatically fantasy, regardless of any magic involved.
>>98410911any world that isnt "today" is fantasy, because its definitionally not our world
>>98410911Elaborate
>>98410920NTA, but presumably they mean that the level of technology required to build an oneil cylinder is so advanced that its a fantasy world already
>>98405298How does the rest of the world plausibly work under the pretense that something that shouldn't exist does? That's the essence of what I said, since you're incapable of reading.And if something is fantastical at its core, it is fantasy. A wheel is a wheel; there's no need to make a new wheel and call it a fleem when it does all the same things a wheel does.Mindless "but muh literature an muh pulp" spouting doesn't change that.
>>98410926Weren't they first envisioned to be able to be built with the materials they had in the 70s?
>>98410920Fantasy is the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.
>>98410935It's my fantasy that this thread doesn't devolve in to autistic arguing about defining science fiction and fantasy for 200 posts before further devolving in to calling each other trannies. Should I go photograph all the dumb spaceships and stuff off my DAW sci fi collection covers and dump them instead?
>>98405287I've tried explaining that to people many times and most of them still have their souls held down by gravity
>>98410935people are just suddenly incapable of understanding colloquial definitions onlinewhen people say fantasy, they dont mean any fantastic world, they usuallly imply a world with knights, castles, and dragons9/10 people do not include star trek in fantasy even when star trek is definitionally fantasyfantasy would be a less-useful term if it did include ray guns and would make things more confusing and not lesshence the use of speculative fiction as the umbrella term for fantasy and sci-fi
>>98410931only in the sense that the materials needed to build it existed in the 70seven with modern technology, the falcon heavy can lift ~60 metric tons of payload into space but uses up 1000 metric tons of fuel to get that stuff into spaceso it is "possible" in the sense that if we devoted all of our time and resources into building one, we couldbut it would be the most ludicrously expensive endeavor in all of human history and it wouldnt answer the question of "why build it?", because its almost always easier to fix our planet than it is to build a new home
>>98388323>Lets talk space colonies, what do you think of them and sci-fi that have them?My cool space colony post is that they're lots of fun to make & write, and even more fun to manage in rtseses and colony sims, but they're not terribly fun for tabletop players. If you're really sci-fiing around you'll most likely end up going back and forth between a dozen places, whether it's Cowboy Bebop or Star Wars style, which means players will most likely only get familiar with "ports". Granted, spend too much time on a planet and the campaign devolves into cyberpunk or fantasy.
What is it about scifi threads that bring the bitter muh realism fags out of the woodwork?
>>98414789Different genres trigger different forms of autism and sci-fi definitely appeals to the very technical form of autism which is fine but the challenge is taming that autism for the sake of a good story.
>>98410911Congratulations retard, you just worked your way backwards into understanding the definition of science fiction. Pat yourself on the back.
The problem is always materials, handwaveium
>>98420016the greater bottleneck is getting them into space and then assembling itit would be just within the realm of possibility for steel and aluminum to make a multi-kilometer structurebut we have no real way to move them into a lagrange point with our current rocket technology and would run out of rocket fuel trying to do with current chemical-powered enginesand we have no knowledge of zero-G construction techniques and would have to develop it from scratch
>>98420016Materials, reliable orbital exit and re-entry (space elevator) to make deep space construction even remotely feasible outside of small scale modules like the ISS, radiation shielding, FTL (unless you plan to build it in Earth orbit like a bozo), resource mining tech (presumably from asteroids) and deep space manufacturing tech (good luck running a factory in space that can produce your miracle materials in abundance enough to construct and repair your space habitat), etc. etc. Materials honestly are the least important part of the problem.
>>98420043>radiation shieldinga depth of material is enough to keep radiation resistance to tolerable levelsmost hypothetical designs would have the soil and water on the "ground" of the space colony to act as radiation shieldingwe dont have a good idea of how thick it should be, but several meters of soil, water, and the hull of the colony itself should be able to absorb most space radiation by itself before dedicated shieldingits probably on the "feasible" end of the engineering problems all things considered
Realismfag is a mistaken title because they're more genetically similar to pyramid conspiracy theorists than anything else. Their entire function is to sit around whining whenever someone thinks humans could ever do anything because actually, anything cool is impossible and we'll never make it unless magic does it for us. These niggas were sitting around telling people the phone was going nowhere and radiowaves are useless and people will die from the speed if they travel on a train.
