Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

[Slick]

Are you asking if theses would work in real life or for a fictional stroy?

For fiction, anything goes of course.

For real life (sorry to be so negative):

Q1: Unfortunately not. Most elements won't fuse to begin with [only those lighter than Fe are even possible], and adding lots of energy tends to make things fly apart whereas fusion requires containment with high temperatures and pressures. So, in short, no.

Q2a: We haven't the foggiest idea on how to manipulate gravity other than moving giant masses around so a gravity field generator is fictional.

Q2b: "Energy" field? Energy is a concept, not a physical thing in itself. It is a quantity which in essence means "the capacity to do work", and since it is not it is not a physical thing, it is meaningless to form it into a shield.

Q3c: This one is the closest to something that we could do. Some "rad" [radiation] is comprised of charged particles and thus can be shielded by a strong magnetic field. The earth is protected from nearly 100% of all cosmic radiation of this type by its magnetic field. There are uncharged kinds of radiation which would be unaffected by a magnetic field. Gamma (or any electro-magnetic) rays, neutrons, neutrinos, are some and there are many more examples. For most of these, some solid shield is required. Neutrinos, for example, are so penetrating that they could penetrate a light-year of lead; but on the positive side, they go right through you and your ship and cause no damage.

Now, of course the argument could be made that right now our understanding of physics is too rudimentary to perform these things and one day in the future we will be able do all these and more. If that's the approach you wanna take, then it falls back on fiction until we actually do figure it out.

As Jean Luc Picard once said: "Things are only impossible until they are not."

Personally, I'd prefer to read a fictional version which is made believable by providing some, but not exacting, detail such that the reader assumes it works by some not-yet-understood-to-earthlings technology. Just enough detail should be used so as to make the reader believe it is more than PFM. Most of the better SciFi writers approach future technology this way. I'd like to read the finished product.

PFM = trade language meaning "Pure F****** Magic"

edit: can you say a-b-c???

[Starhawk]

So a high energy say Graser would more or less tear something apart on contact on a nearly molecular level right? OR would it just cause a massive explosive reaction?

Because I was thinking since I have never really described the I-laser in my stories I could either make it just that a HIGH level laser with nearly 0 energy loss, I could make it a graser or something similar, or I could just make it a highly charged AP stream

Q2a: Well this is assuming a race that knows how to manipulate gravity fields, in fact their FTL travel relies entirely on the field of gravity manipulation as they require a gravity field around the ship when it enters the warp (else wise nasty things happen to the crew), so I was thinking since their ships use GFGs in that sense they may as well generate a grav field around the ship to protect them in combat.

Q2b: I was actually thinking something along the lines of of an Electromagnetic shield or something like a force field except on a larger scale.

Another possibility is something similar to a shield I read about once where the shield "generators" basically used the energy of incoming fire to "recharge" the shield up to a point where it overloaded the unfortunate side effects of this shield system however was that when the shield "failed" it imploded, crushing the ship it's self.

Q2c: Thanks I was figuring a strong Magnetic field to prevent the radiation from killing the crew and at the same time explaining it within reason.


I generally hate PFM tech like "transporters" and "replicators" and a myriad other Star Trek tech (don't even get me started on Lightsabers) because I want to make a tech base that is obviously far more advanced then anything we could understand and build yet not so far out people think "bull crap" the second they read it.

[Slick]

Yeah, I really think the trick is in making it believable to the usually well educated SciFi reader without giving away too much detail that would let the reader realize that it wouldn't work, or would conflict with something else. This is harder than it seems at first. I would think the author should work out "the way things work" conceptually in the universe of his story before writing so that there is a consitency throughout as well as allowing future sequels/installments to pick up the story without having to reinvent all the technology. The story should focus on being a "good story" over the fancy techs. George Lucas once said that essentially if the story isn't good, it won't be saved by special effects. This is probably even more true in written stories over movies.

[Starhawk]

Well realistically are Anti-Proton stream weapons even possible according to physics?

The shields are easy enough to explain since I think I'll just stick to calling them "void shields" and just describe the multi-layered system that it functions on while not necessarily giving away all the hows and whys.

[Slick]

Anti-protons exist. Containing them is very difficult, but again, possible. And since they are charged, they could be accelerated into a beam pretty easily once you solve the containment problem, so yes, they are possible.

[Starhawk]

Thanks slick so from now on my I-lasers are now officially just extremely powerful AP stream weapons