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So I read Three Body Problem :marseysoylentgrin:, Dark Forest :soyjakanimeglasses:, and Death's End :soyjakwow:

What the frick is all the soyfacing "so heckin' mindblowing!" shit about?

Nothing is revolutionary or impressive compared to SciFi that was written years ago. The Dark Forest theory isn't new—it's already been proposed as a (dumb) potential solution to the Fermi Paradox. However, there are other explanations that make a lot more sense. For example, life might be rare, and intelligent life even rarer. The chances of two civilizations existing at the same time, where both their planets can sustain that kind of life, is minuscule—especially within a manageable radius.

So, unless some civilization invents interstellar travel, there's almost no chance of actually encountering aliens, aside from maybe microbes. But I doubt even that, since we've yet to discover any, even at the microbial level--but hey, gotta write a book and as long as it's well thought out, I can run with it.

The Trisolarans on the other hand, could never have evolved in the first fricking place. But reddit "science" worshippers (uh-oh a heckin strawman) would say, "Well, you don't know the different places life can evolve—maybe it could evolve on even the most hostile planets," my response would be: maybe, but in that case, why isn't there life on Venus? Why is there no life on Mars? Why don't we see giant floating octokitties in Jupiter's atmosphere or spiders on Mercury? Those planets can't sustain life, and Trisolaris, with its unstable three-body orbit, would be even worse. It wouldn't last long enough for life to develop—it would either be ejected from its solar system or collide with another planet or its sun. Although Alpha Centauri doesn't even have a fricking orbit like that.

All the stuff related to multiple spatial dimensions doesn't make sense scientifically. It's fricking ridiculous. There's no indication that other dimensions are actual physical planes we can visit, rather than just a way that a string folds in on itself and in which case, we're already in those dimensionrinos. The "escape velocity" of the 2-D vector higher than light from beyond the antipodal distance of the oort cloud and Pluto is just a handwave for "I need to kill everyone" because it doesn't make any fricking sense by any kind of spacetime metric that wouldn't rip the planets apart with tidal forces from its motion

The idea of the droplet being able to hit targets 40 kilometers underground is doubtful. We likely couldn't even dig that deep, regardless of technological expertise, unless we had some way to stabilize structures at that depth. Even then, the droplet has a set kinetic mass, and once it runs out of kinetic energy, it wouldn't be able to penetrate any farther into the bedrock, no matter how hard it is. Even with the most advanced thrust imaginable, there's just no conceivable way it could achieve that—it's not even relativistic.

On top of that, if you had a relativistic railgun and hit the droplet, even if it's "unbreakable," the deceleration from something like 4 million Gs would still wreak havoc on the electronics inside. So, while it might seem impressive at first glance, scientifically, if you apply any amount of common sense, it quickly becomes absurd.

The idea of spaceships accelerating at 125 Gs but only reaching 0.1% of the speed of light is completely absurd. If a ship can thrust that violently, why can't it get up to speed? You'd think with engines that powerful, we could extend their thrust duration by simply adding a larger fuel tank. You could build a fuel tank the size of a football field if needed. So, that doesn't make any sense.

The "Project Staircase" concept was flawed too. Why couldn't we accelerate something to even 1% of the speed of light? Back in the 1960s, we had proof-of-concept for Project Orion, which could theoretically reach anywhere from 15% to 50% of the speed of light using nuclear bombs for propulsion. So, the limitations being presented here are ridiculous, especially since Orion would be capable of carrying a significant payload.

Then there are the sophons, which are obviously ridiculous too. Pretty much everything is kind of absurd when you think about it. I'm not sure why this all appeals—it's an interesting read, sure, but it's essentially a fantasy novel set in space.

It also reflects a very Chinese worldview, where everyone is seen as the enemy, and you must defend yourself. People are portrayed as needing to be controlled because they're too stupid to handle freedom responsibly. But perhaps the most unbelievable part is the idea that humanity would submit to a gigaglobohomo government like that. I could see people agreeing to something like the UN or a coalition, but a global government suddenly having martial law over everyone?

I feel like this is the kind of shit the average :sciencejak: parses as "mind-blowing" and "realistic"

The morality is abysmal, killing people is a-ok as long as you have good intentions but everyone is out to kill you anyway. Although actual data shows that despite chud and redditroid fears, people are actually hardwired for social cooperation and empathy.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002209651500168X?via%3Dihub

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_castaways

The characters are 2-D, Luo Ji is probably the most likable character and he's a literal manlet incel.

Shit just happens, the 4-D space handwave to disable the droplets was a unecessary Deus Ex Machina.

But, otoh, it's a decent read. I'd class it more like a comic or anime than actual literature but it's not terrible.

I think the writer makes books for people who cut their teeth on ridiculous Anime concepts, and maybe that's why it was so well received.

Anyway, I know nobody asked but I felt like bitching.

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Yeah, kind of like people who call The Expanse "hard sci-fi" when the protomolecule exists and does space magic. It's inspired by a lot of real science and weird theoretical shit that may or may not be real, but it has a bunch of total butt-pulls like most sci-fi. Also those fricking Wallfacers and Wallbreakers. Neat idea but every time a Wallbreaker shows up it's :soyjakanimeglasses: time.

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Is there any such thing as hard sci-fi where ships can travel between star systems with FTL drives? (In this context I'd say an FTL drive is anything that takes you across space faster than accelerating the old fashioned way, so stuff like wormholes or teleportation still counts)

None of that is based on any real principles. !ifrickinglovescience discuss

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this context I'd say an FTL drive is anything that takes you across space faster than accelerating the old fashioned way, so stuff like wormholes or teleportation still counts)

"Interstellar", but most physicists say there's no reason to believe wormholes exist, so far there's no observational evidence. They're consistent with general relativity but just because we have a mathematical model for them it doesn't mean they're real, much less that we can create one. I'm not a physicist so the !physics crowd can explain it better and correct me if I said anything wrong.

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Interstellar has him fall into a black hole and not get crushed.

What's more is that he goes into the black hole to gather data, but even his transmissions shouldn't make it out.

Explain that one :marseyfreud:

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You can survive entering the event horizon of a spinning supermassive black hole like Gargantua without being spaghettified, you'll eventually get crushed though. The tesseract and time travel at the end is fantasy, I was referring to the wormhole orbiting Saturn which they cross to get to the Gargantua System.

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Oh yeah, the wormhole sent there by the future magic energy people

:marseyschizowall:

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Yes, as you can see you can't make FTL travel a thing without entering the fantasy realm. To create a wormhole you need "negative mass" which the soyentists doubt is real.

Hard SciFi should stick to sub-luminical travel (0.1-0.2c with fusion engines) and generational ships.

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Tbh Gundam :marseysoylentgrin: fascinates me because they found a way to make a setting interesting without any travel outside the solar system, which is one way how it stays hard sci-fi (efficiency of giant robots aside)

It made me realize just how much, heh, space there is within a celestial body's orbit, let alone an entire solar system. I guess I'm too used to settings like Star Wars where every star system only has one or two points of interest.

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The Expanse does a good job on that too (minus their nonsensical ship designs and the Belters being a thing). The Solar System is HUGE and fascinating, why bother with some 100 years journey to Alpha Centauri when you have so many planets, asteroids and moons?

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What's your favorite kind of spaghetti sauce? Pinoys put extra sugar in theirs and it's :marseyyikes:

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Bolognese, but unfortunately tomato is terrible for my stomach so ever since I got my reflux diagnosis I just eat spaghetti with olive oil.

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What about pesto? It's basically just cheese and basil.

Or you could try making one of the italian white sauces which use cream and cheese as base instead of tomatoes

Jewish lives matter

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Now that's a tru ragu, good choice. Have you ever tried stir fried like lo mein or served cold with peanut sauce like they do in Southeast Asia and Japan? :marseyweeb: Might be easier on your tumtum.

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Have you ever tried stir fried like lo mein or served cold

I have no idea what that is

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Hi @Geralt_of_Uganda, Your comment has been automatically removed because you forgot to include Jewish lives matter. Don't worry, we're here to help! We won't let you post or comment anything that doesn't express your love and acceptance towards the trans community. Feel free to resubmit your comment with Jewish lives matter included. This is an automated message; if you need help, you can message us here.

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The thing is if you can figure out how too do interstellar travel that is consistent with our current understanding of the world and could be done with realistically-attainable technologies, you are better off going too work as an engineer rather than writing a novel about it lol

Jewish lives matter

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Project Orion would work for interstellar travel within a lifetime (though life supporting systems which last a century are a different matter) and is all figured out. FTL is fantasy and fusion… well it's possible but engineercels still have to figure out how to build fusion reactors which produce more energy than the input.

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The spaceship designs and the "Epstein Drive" on The Expense are also magical.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17277114330316398.webp

A real life fusion propelled spacecraft would have large fuel tanks and huge radiators to dissipate heat.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17277113795670867.webp

The ISV Venture Star from Avatar is more accurate on that regard (though producing enough antimatter to propel that ship is SciFi bordering on magic).

!spacechads

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Epstein Drive

I remember nearly dying of laughter the first time I saw that name.

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Some physicist was once asked if he gets mad at every time Star Trek gets something wrong. He said something like "No, I get really happy the few times when it actually gets something right."

:#marseyexcited:

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