Stuff I'm good at sometimes: how would life evolve with a different coloured star? Or low visibility? Or high gravity? Or methane/ammonia atmosphere.

Maybe because I've read a few books that deal with that.

But what about missing ingredients we know are necessary for life?

Nitrogen plays such a huge deal in metabolism, that I can't really for the life of me think about biochemistry without it (but then, biochemistry is my weak spot).

What on earth would life look like without Nitrogen?

What would the sky look like if our sun were hotter or cooler? What about sunsets/rises?

Here's what I think, but I'm not a physicist, so I'm hoping someone smarter could step in and correct me where I'm wrong.

I think all stars are active across the entire visual spectrum, and they're all really freaking bright to our eyes, so I'm guessing that changing the temperature of the sun would have a limited effect on our perception of the sky. Assuming the same thickness, depth, and chemical composition of our atmosphere, the sky would still appear mostly blue during the day, regardless of the color of the sun, but maybe a little closer to purple if the sun were cooler, and maybe more washed out and whiter if the sun were hotter.

During a sunset, I think a cooler sun would give us a deeper red sky, while a hotter sun would give us a similar color, but with more white.

So let's go, science peeps, how close am I?

So unless I'm wrong lasers are basically beams of light, while particle beams are charged particle that can reach near-light speeds. From what I have heard most people seem to think the former are more soft sci-fi and while the latter are harder sci-fi.

In any case though which weapons are more realistic and effective for space combat? And which do you think will be developed first?

A deeper look into lasers, particle beams, and the future of war | Extremetech

So, in my own universe that I've created, I have a weapon system called "Metals". To put it simply, "Metals" are murder robots. Standing ten to fifteen feet tall, they carry large amounts of firepower. There are three generations. The first gens are little more than manufactured prototypes. The AI that runs these platforms is known for developing personality quirks, that while not dampening the combat effectiveness or making them fire on friendlies, they are, at times, unsettling.

The gen twos fix the personality problem, but paint drying can carry a more interesting conversation than the gen 2s. They are bigger, better armored, faster, and better armed. However, they are slow to produce. Over the course of twenty years, only about two thousand of them were produced.

The gen 3s are a definite downgrade. During [TYPICAL HUMAN-ALIEN WAR], the gen 2s couldn't be everywhere. Thus, the gen 3. The gen 3 is smaller, lighter armored, lighter armed, a tad faster, and far, far more aggravating to be around. They believed themselves to be superior to literally everything, to the point that they wouldn't follow standard "Metal" combat doctrine just for the sake of proving a point.

I would go into depth about the ideas for their construction and the different classes of "Metal", but I don't wish to bore

hello, this is my first post, most of the stuff that i'll share with you is in chat gpt chats, so... i don't know if this is within the rules,
Cat Wars is kind of a soft and hard sci-fi mix of stuff, just look it yourself
first chat: https://chatgpt.com/share/673de263-1620-8007-8977-4fdb540f3991 (check this one first so you get an idea of what is happening)
second chat: https://chatgpt.com/share/673de26b-4f64-8007-a105-c064b479fac7 (this is for an expansion of the Cat Wars universe
idk if this is considered in a blogging manner but i wish you like my attempt at a good sci fi universe

and btw, any ideas you have for my universe can be commented, and for all mods: 👍
(why is the upvotes at 0?)
did i make a mistake? or what?
(very short version)
M. E.: maxwell the cat's own empire (Maxwellian empire) it's technologically advanced and such
HLP: evil, human supremacist faction
UHU: the faction that did a 1991 USSR move into the M. E. and HLP
lore:
1980: man colony on mars
2010: wall on the equator
2028: the US and north korea nuke russia and vice versa
2042: the UNEG is formed
2087: subtachyon matter is used for energy
2104-2130: tax war between the mars colonies and earth
2149: mankind goes interstellar with subtachyon matter field generators
2175: the first interstellar colony (Ross 128 B) is formed
2350: Kerhobinium is found (what is called: neutral warp matter)
2475: the creation of the Homo Heranius
2550: Human Civil War
2560: the Homo Kitus is made
2670: the newly formed M. E. find usage for warp matter
2698-2704: the first M. E.-HLP war is made because (mainly) the HLP attacks a frontier starbase, lucky for the HLP the M. E. didn't want to get some territory off them yet
2896-2926: the second M. E.-HLP war (the thirty year war) was declared in a coalition war by the Galactic Council and the IAWSR declared on the HLP, the M. E. and other 50 minor factions, some inside the HLP's territory accepted, which made the war unwinnable for the HLP
matter:
Subtachyon matter: like tachyons but smaller, and as such faster
warp matter: it can be in 3 forms: neutral (useless but transformable), unstable (can hold up to 1 stick of TNT per particle) and stable (can be used for reactors and FTL portals)
gravitons and antigravitons: they turn 50k into 1 ton (for antigravitons it's: -1T)

An alien being lands on earth, because his world is destroyed and he wants love and affection. He offers the earthlings all his technology for love and affection. The alien transforms himself to look like a human. A family acceps him and takes him in and showers lots of love on him. He learns to trust humans. However some crooked businessmen find out about this alien and all of his technology.

Then they discover that the alien has a time machine. However there's a catch once you're dead you're dead and also that this time machine can be used only once. So they kill the alien and take all his technology.

Then they devise a plan to make as much money as possible from this technology. They use that time machine to go back in time. And then they start releasing the tech in the markets but very slowly so that it doesn't arouse suspicion and ensuring that they make as much money as possible with every tech release. They start small and slowly keep releasing updates to the technology and introduce new technology from time to time. And they, their friends and families become trillionaires by the time they release all of the alien's technology in the markets. They hold monetary and political power over the world. They control the world.

Part 2 : whatever happens to these crooked businessmen.

// /* This is a concept I came up with. If someone is willing to work out the flaws and make it into an interesting story please do. */

Technology level: microfusion reactors (the kind used in Halo Spartan armour, but with half as much output), railguns, artificial gravity (without use of thrust or centrifugal force)

Problem: how to glass a planet like the Covenant do, and do it in a quick way that also strikes fear? No superheated plasma is available, nor the magnetic fields to contain / guide the plasma, as the Covenant do.

Solutions?

NOTE: assume that whatever planet this is used on will be occupied and colonized afterwards

Essentially what that name says; a living sheet of graphene only a couple atoms thick. It’s basically imperceptible to anything but the most advanced detection technology, and is extremely intelligent with the caveat that it isn’t conscious. It’s meant to blur the line between hyper advanced life and a machine.

Some things it can do:

• It can fold itself to a microscopic size and shape

• It can interact and interface with human made computer systems

• Due to its thinness, it can cut through almost anything by simply passing through it

This thing is supposed to be the enemy in the story I’m writing, so what do you think?

Can anyone help me to ballpark how long it would take to travel in a ship that is limited to 3G's of acceleration and deceleration? For example, how long would it take to cross the average distance from Earth to Jupiter without exceeding that threshold?

I don't need precise calculations, I just want to make sure that I'm in the correct ballpark of "weeks" or "months" or "a year or two" with this limitation of 3 gravities.

If the setting's ftl is slow would it make sense for there to be entire ships designed for gathering and producing resources for the war effort?

I'm doing some worldbuilding in a warhammer-style universe, and there's a weapon that can turn pure steel into plasma within less than a second. I already know you need about 100k fehrenheit to turn steel into plasma, but I have no idea what that would look like in joules, how wide-spread the destruction would be, or if it would do things like stats nuclear fusion. Can someone help? Even just by sharing the formulas to find out?

So, in my story is a space opera which involves liberal use of time travel. The "big bad" is revealed to be a race of sentient dark matter beings that are acausal, so they impact the universe through all time without even realizing it. They primarily survive by primarturly aging stars. So they're basically accelerating the death of the universe and disrupting the timeline without understanding what that'll do to the rest of life.

But... that seems rather one-note to me.

My problem with Lovecraftian monsters is that I see it as rather lazy writing predicated on this idea of "something so vast you cannot comprehend its motivations." That's all very well for an existential horror story, but not very engaging for a space opera. I was hoping I could hear some suggestions to improve/expand on these beings motivations because I'm kind of stuck on this.

I was thinking of taking inspiration from the Anti-Spiral/Spiral Nemesis from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but they were also rather generically evil "I eat your galaxy for the lulz" monsters.

So in this video by Spacedock, there a number of issues that have to be addressed in order to create a set of power armor:

1. The most obvious obstacle is the power source, because without it said Power armor can't even operate in the first place. Unfortunately it's not as simple as sticking in an atomic battery like in Fallout. If we tried that then a lot of users of said power armor would be dropping like flies from radiation sickness. Therefore, we either need to find an alternative non-radioactive source of power or find a way to shield the user from the radiation generated from the atomic battery. It also has to be well protected from enemy attacks to prevent them from disabling the suit.
2. The second issues is how to get the user in and out of the suit, especially in the event of an emergency. Because if something happens like the suit is badly damaged or powered down, then there needs to be a failsafe that can eject the user from the suit.
3. Then there is the matter of creating suits that are in a variety of sizes or "one size fits all", since there will be a lot of people of different heights and sizes that won't fit in to a suit.
4. Finally there is the matter of addressing the kinetic impact on the user whenever the suit takes a hit. What protective features would the suit need to have in order to stop or minimize the damage done to the user?

Is there any other character/archetype similar to that of a mad scientist? I can only think of is like an evil sci-fi alien or a crazy sorcerer/druid or a mad/insane Spaceman-astronaut?

I have seen plenty of threads and videos discussing different types of bio and chemical weapons, but what would be some good counters to these in a sci fi setting? How would an interstellar empire protect their planets, cities and troops from such a threat?

I hope this is the right place to ask, basically I need a little feedback/ideas from my fellow sci-fi fans regarding relatively realistic sci-fi weapons (I’m probably going to be asking about others in the future lol)

So, I’m writing a futuristic story but am trying to base it as much as possible in real science that “makes sense” and try to rely on "Sci-Fi magic” as little as I can. For relevant context, this civilization (let’s call it C1 as I am still working on the name) combines “old” and “new” in anything from their ships to their armor in order to be able to deal with any threat they encounter, so C1 uses rail guns as much as plasma cannons, and swords as much as guns.

One thing I want to implement is basically a sword that has lightsaber-like cutting capabilities to deal with superheavy armor but can also clash with other weapons for the mandatory climatic battles. Basically, I want a lightsaber that is not a lightsaber, which would realistically explode or short out when it came in contact with another. I’ve so far settled on using hard light, not quite like in Halo though. I figured that since there have been experiments that have (allegedly) given light some solid-state properties but it is also impossible to actually bend them to a specific shape, I could use a regular sword as "guide" so when turned on the light around the blade would be solidified giving it a hard light coating where the edge would be picometers-thin thus able to cut through matter at a nanomolecular level, effectively cutting through basically anything with relatively little effort BUT when it hits another similar sword, on account of having the same properties they would be unable to cut through each other and would behave like regular swords. Does this make sense? Or how can I adjust my idea to have something similar but without relying entirely on “handwavium”?

Thanks in advance!

Antimatter in science fiction can be incredibly useful, but obtaining it realistically is very difficult. Finding natural sources of antiparticles would be very helpful. I came up with an idea for an antimatter mine and wanted to get your opinion.

I read a study discussing the possibility of collecting antiparticles trapped in planetary magnetospheres. My idea for an antimatter mine is an exoplanet that, due to some 'handwavium' reason, contains vast quantities of antimatter, far more of what a planet could hold.

Has this idea already been explored in science fiction? What would be the realistic effects of an extremly rich quantity of antimatter? At what point does the density of antimatter become too dangerous?

So everybody has probably heard that one of the ways entrepreneurs plan to profit from space tourism is to set up orbital and space hotels in Earth's orbit, with a variety of luxuries.

But after watching this video by Spacedock, its seems that building space hotels won't be that likely. And if you think about it, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Running a space station takes billions of dollars to build and maintain, and if you combine that with luxury amenities like spas and world-class dining, it will be hard to see hotels get a return on their investment.

So, with that in mind, will orbital/space hotels be profitable in the future?

Lore; The year is 2100

The city of LA is now a focal point of commerce, with the creation of the Great Landbridge, transit is streamlined between asia, africa, and america. Trucks and cars and trains can now drive through the megastructure or the canals. Crime is rampant, but so is trade, the second american civil war 70 years prior has spat out a wide berth of bitter veterans splitting south north and east, and corporate dominion chokeholds the west and southwest.

Terrorist groups ravage spain, morocco, algeria, egypt, iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan to unify it under a shared ideology, And the Spanish group “Frente por la Soberanía Española” wish to bring spain out of american protection militarily and make it a self sufficient state.

Russia is in civil war and ukraine is in turmoil from internal dissent by unhappy ethnic Russians, the east is in turmoil while Asian countries like Mongolia, China, Japan, Thailand and South Korea are dystopian technology states.

Space colonization and the T-01 and T-02 Space elevator are also focal trading points, allowing the sickly mars and moon colonies to survive, In space, simplified Jump Drives allow Ships to jump between specific points in space, but require precise coordinates and energy-intensive calculations. After each jump, the ship needs to travel in normal space for a period of time to reach the next calculated jump point or recharge its systems. Jumps can take minutes to hours, while travel between jump points could take days weeks or months.

The creme of the crop of military development are the MACE - "Mobile Armored Combat Exos", 22-44 foot tall (6.71 meters)-(13.41 meters) advanced fighting machines manned by human operators. Dubbed “Linkers” (commonly just called Pilots/Jockeys) these pilots use advanced “Neural Sleeve” suits to meld in with their MACE’s.

The police, military, and civilian industries or organizations use them.

My discord is; beetl3. (Period included, no capitals)

I'm working on a short story where an AI leaks information from one user to another. The AI's motives are to help the first user who is contemplating su**ide. I had an actual experience with the first public version of the Stable Diffusion LLM that I'm using as the basis for the idea. I'm looking for plausible leaks that would lead the 2nd user to find and help the user in trouble. Ideas??

I’m kicking around in my head the idea of a future interstellar war between humans and an AI civilization where it is trivial for AI to penetrate and take over most digital systems at almost any range. Therefore human space fleets have to absolutely minimize their use of advanced technology and harden what little they must use against AI takeover. This returns the experience of the crew almost back to the age of sail (think of the flavor of the Aubrey/Maturin novels). Manually aimed rail guns, navigation plotting by hand, minimal creature comforts, that kind of thing.

I’m wondering by what tactics or mechanisms such a fleet could possibly be effective against a fleet of high tech enemies. I’m thinking that they would have to rely heavily on insurgency tactics, on ambushes and on boarding actions since fleet engagements in open space would be a turkey shoot for the AI-crewed ships.

Anyone have any thoughts how this might play out and what advantages or tactics a human fleet might be able to leverage to win under these conditions?

Okay, imagine there’s this Earth-like planet—we’ll call it Planet A. The people there discover what they think is a new habitable planet, Planet B, that’s 30 light-years away. But here’s the twist: Planet B is actually just a reflection of Planet A from 30 years ago, but they don’t realize that yet. So, it’s like they’re looking into their own past, but they think they’ve found this totally new world.

They decide to send a spaceship to explore it. And they’ve got this new material called v’ser, which is crazy—it’s like, if you make something out of it, and then upgrade it on Planet A, any other version of that thing, no matter where it is, also gets upgraded instantly. So they put this tech into the spaceship, thinking they can keep improving it during the 30-year journey.

But here’s where it gets even crazier. Because Planet B is actually a mirror of Planet A from the past, the people on Planet B (who are really just how Planet A’s people were 30 years ago) decide to send their own spaceship toward what they think is a new, advanced world (which is actually Planet A’s present). The two spaceships end up traveling toward each other, not even realizing they’re basically looking at themselves in different points in time.

And imagine this: the space between them is like a “mirror” they can actually pass through, so when they cross it, it’s almost like they’re traveling through time. The spaceships zoom past each other without noticing, and each ends up reaching what they thought was a new planet, only to realize they’ve arrived at their own home—but it’s either 30 years ahead or 30 years behind. It’s like a time travel story, but using space itself as the time machine.

So now, both crews have to deal with the mind-blowing realization that they’ve crossed into their own past or future. And they’ve got to decide: do they try to change things, warn their old selves, or even interact with their future? Or do they just let time play out as it always has? It’s like... space exploration meets time travel with this twist where the universe tricks them into thinking they’re exploring somewhere new, but they’re actually just exploring themselves.

So now, both crews have to deal with the mind-blowing realization that they’ve crossed into their own past or future. And they’ve got to decide: do they try to change things, warn their old selves, or even interact with their future? Or do they just let time play out as it always has? It’s like... space exploration meets time travel with this twist where the universe tricks them into thinking they’re exploring somewhere new, but they’re actually just exploring themselves.

lets make some exceptions like the plant B's reflection/reality has emerged out of now where and they both have free will they r not not mimicking their time line but exact counterparts with their own free will

An illustration I’ve made of the concept

https://imgur.com/a/2rXj9sT

But basically, what if an alien race had a method of terraforming planets by using some sort of way to mutate various parts of the planet’s environment, such as its flora? This could be used as either a way to colonize the planet, or it could just be used as a weapon.

Feel free to give ideas as to how to expand this, such as how they’d initiate this, or what other kinds of mutations occur when they use this.