Low hanging fruit for this would be the "how to rebuild civilization after a cataclysm." But IMO most of them are fictionalized "this is what I think you would need" picture books, instead of hard science on how you fabricate water filters or how you separate mixed gases into useable pure gasses (I.E. Oxygen and acetylene for welding).

Good science fiction is more fun than fact, but the best science fiction is where the fun is based on facts & imagining where we can take known science in the future.

So as much as I enjoy proud warrior alien races like the Klingons, after watching this video by the Templin Institute I agree with their conclusion that proud warrior races like them are doomed to fail because of the following reasons:

1. They place too much emphasis on combat prowess and skill, over developing new technologies.
2. Their code(s) of honor is less about limiting carnage and combat pragmatism, and more about personal glory.
3. Most of them have governments that are too decentralized to reign in the numerous Houses, Clans, tribes or whatnot. In order for any civilization to work it needs internal unity. And for that to happen they need a coherent national identity that can create solidarity across diverse groups of people, a strong political order that can address internal divisions, and a belief in the state's institutions.
4. They neglect civilian or other non-military components of their economy which often leaves them ill-suited against civilizations/nations/states that utilize industrial-era warfare which relies heavily on civilian industries and expertise.

However, they do point out that found way a proud warrior alien race can survive is by evolving into a martial state run by a proud "solider" race.

According to them the tenets of a martial state are:

1. Immense influence placed within a military industrial complex that can drastically affect public policy.
2. Earlier traditions, practices and ceremonies considered useful are adopted, exploited and modified to support the aims of the state.
3. A centralized government that exerts unrivaled authority across its constituent parts.
4. Civilian institutions include paramilitary elements, designed to ease the transition between peacetime and wartime.

In summary a martial state, places less emphasis on training people to be warriors and more emphasis on soldiers, their code of honor is more about discipline and less about personal glory, and they have a strong central government that is more willing to utilize and develop new technologies, and creating, developing, and supporting an the necessary industrial and scientific infrastructure that is capable of backing up the military.

So with that said are there any good science fiction stories that feature or are about alien martial state(s)? Right now the only example I can think of is the Turian Hierarchy from Mass Effect.

Note: For any works involving martial states and pacifists groups/cultures, please avoid stories that make the latter look obstructive, cowardly, obnoxious, stupid, or naive (Ex: Stargate, Star Wars). Instead, either focus on stories where the pacifists are the good guys and the alien martial states are the bad guys, or focus on stories where the pacifists help the martial states in other ways besides becoming soldiers. I know that last one sounds paradoxical, but I have discovered evidence that during the World Wars countless pacifists like Desmond Doss and John Weir Foote served in the war as medics and chaplains and saved countless lives through their acts of heroism. Others joined alternative services like becoming factory workers, firefighters, hospital workers, sappers, and even test subjects either out of patriotism, out of a moral duty to defeat fascism, or just to show people they weren't lightweights.

Sources:

British Pacifists in WW1

American Pacifists in WW2

Great Pacifists Part 1

Great Pacifists Part 2

Badass Pacifists

Cosmogenesis is my new series on Wattpad. It's about an elite multi-species empire made up mostly of scientists who do things like experiment with toy universes, build planets from scratch, and play with stars.

Link to the story: https://www.wattpad.com/story/371005075-cosmogenesis

https://preview.redd.it/srgs9u994c4e1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8729663fe2da3a4f3fa581ef692da54466ffaeb

Over the decades of comic book publications involving Superman, we can see that it is very unlikely that Superman could store solar energy within himself to a greater magnitude than humans.

Taking into account the cosmic feats he has performed and still performs, he would have to store so much energy that the energy density of his body would bend space-time or lead to the destruction of the ground he walks on or the chair he sits on when he is Clark Kent.

Furthermore, two of his weaknesses, the electromagnetic radiation of green kryptonite and the red sun, begin to take effect the moment they come into contact with Superman, meaning there is no significant residual or emergency solar energy reserve in Superman's body, otherwise the effect of these weaknesses would not be immediate.

The conclusion that can be reached from this observation is that Superman's powers arise from an exotic and remote instantaneous link to photons, in wave or corpuscular format, coming from stars of a certain stellar classification.

I'm thinking so, it's not a barrier to be overcome, rather it is just bending space and sending the energy/ projectiles in another direction, so unless the weapon can somehow bypass the curved space and thus penetrate it, no direct weapon could hurt/damage whatever the shield is protecting. I mean if a shield does this, then, yes not even all the energy in the universe could "penetrate" it.

I’m trying to find the title for a sci-fi short story where humanity becomes uploaded digitally, and then people start merging their consciousness together. Eventually, entire planets merge to try to survive longer until the heat death of the universe. A part of the story involves how these merged entities struggle to communicate with each other because they become separated by vast distances in space. The entities are trying to stay connected/communicate to stay alive longer, and fight each other to stay alive.

It’s similar to Asimov’s The Last Question and has themes like Greg Egan’s Diaspora, but it’s neither of those. I think it was a short story rather than a novel.

Anyone remember this story?

When you open your eyes, you are no longer you. I mean, yes, you are still you, but you are also an officer of the 28d century United World Army. Along with you, 30,000 real people are lying in NeoVR pods around the world. You are all about to be connected to this massive simulation called "The Sound of War".

The moment you put on your headset and goggles, you will find yourself in a massive theater of war. You are part of a 900,000-strong army - but most of them are soldiers led by quantum AI. You and the other real players are the officers who manage the cogs of this giant machine.

A different rank shines on each of your shoulders. Some are tactical line commanders, some are intelligence officers, some are logistics coordinators. And here is the most exciting part: Victory is not just about winning the battle. Each officer has his own mission - to break through enemy lines and capture a strategic point.

This is not just a war simulation, it is also a chess game. Your every move, your every decision may clash with the plans of other officers. Maybe while you are advancing to take that hill, another officer wants to give it to the enemy and set a bigger trap. Who will win? Whose strategy will prevail?

And of course, if, in the midst of this complex web of tasks, you achieve your objective AND win the war... Then you will prove that you are a true strategic genius.

This is no simple game - this is an unprecedented strategic symphony of 30,000 real minds and hundreds of thousands of AI units. And here's the best part: with every connection you'll face a completely different scenario, different objectives and different challenges.

Are you ready? Put on your glasses and take a deep breath. Because this time you won't just be watching, you'll be at the heart of this epic battle.

Been working on a series of stories about people making their way in a world following a revolution and radical restructuring of government and society. Would love to read some novels or stories that deal with similar themes!

Certainly not within my lifetime. At the 19th century some people believed they had most of the answers. Dreams of a clockwork universe, where if you had complete knowledge of the present, you could accurately predict the future. But then in the beginning of the 20th century came relativity and quantum mechanics.

And with the standard model, people again started dreaming of a final theory, or a theory of everything. But the understanding of the cosmos was incomplete, as GR and QM are incompatible. GR fails in the quantum realm, and at the scale of the galaxy. So they invented dark matter, to save GR. GR is wildly successful in other realms, and both SR and GR are used by scientists to make useful predictions.

So let's assume there's dark matter. Then we don't know much of the universe. And we also don't know dark energy. As soon as we learn something new, we learn of something that we don't know.

I don't think a theory of everything is possible, or in our interests. We just have limited models of the world. Human life, which is an adaptive complex system, in the universe, does not have the capacity to understand the whole universe, of which it is only a small part. An end to physics, would mean an end to scientific discovery in physics - and thats not in our interests. We have very successful quantum mechanics, but that does not mean it is a final theory.

I was told that physics is constant over space and time. But recently I have read that it may not be true. I don't have a good enough memory or knowledge to understand this. Are the laws of nature, and fundamental constants, the same everywhere and everywhen? What about in a black hole? What about in other universes in the multiverse? If things can change, then we will forever be catching up in our understanding.

Please forgive me for my ignorance of science and physics. Please feel free to add your opinion, and correct any misleading statements.

Published in 1964 and I read it sometime between 1968-1974. Hachette Book Group sells a Kindle version for $2.99 that I just purchased. I'm delighted to see Hachette publishing this because they are a highly reputable publishing house and I'm certain Knapp's heirs will receive royalties.

Adams defined diplomacy by something along the line of distinguishing "you kill my brother, or you kill your brother and blame it on me"

I cannot find the original and I'm not finding it in the text of the HHG2TG - it could be from the BBC radio performance or one of the non-HHG2TG novels.

TIA

From all the movie scenarios how do you all think the world is going to kick the bucket!

Where do you draw the line between science fiction and fantasy?