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.

What are the best novels that explore sexual orientation change?

I'm writing a book right now about the first conscious AI but I don't know that much about computers. There is a scene in the book where the main character is testing different things to see if it alters the AI's subjective experience. After one test, the AI describes their surroundings as being, let's say, bigger or more vast. Doesn't really matter how it changes. I don't want to get too deep into hard sci fi but I want a little real world science that could plausibly explain why this might happen. Whether that be RAM, storage space, processing power.

Any ideas?

• incubation, zoo, great silence, great filter, all rolled in one

• call it "parasite X"

• X tinkers with species' evolution and provides with advanced technology to speed their evolution as it sees fit

• X manipulates species' institutions over thousands of years, as long as it takes, really, according to its wants

• X pits species against each other (spacefaring vs planetbound, interstellar empire vs interstellar empire)

• all advanced civs at, say, Tier 2 are tested by X; failure = assimilation and extinction, or deevolution to primitives on one planet; success = haha don't tell anyone else or we'll finish the job

• previous advanced civ ruled 6 billion planets, tested by X, failed, fought civil war before being reduced to 10,000 cavemen on one world

• X can be killed by ... ?

Any possible flaws with this idea?

what would be the most powerful weapon? throwing black holes at someone? creating pocket universes and then transporting those someplace before having the pocket universe fold in on itself? etc

EDIT: NO TIME TRAVEL AND WORKING ONLY WITH OUR 3 DIMENSIONS

Ok, so i`ve been working on a super hard sci fi setting/Strategy/barmy builder/untit designer/ttrpg board game.

Its all hard sci fi, excet for the ftl of cause.

I arrived at the point of ground vehecles, and started questioning, if walkers are worth it.

There is some terrain were wheels and tracks fail and a drone or helicopter might be to expensive or to small to carry the equipment it needs. Walkers would be for urban combat, swamps, mountains etc.

Though they would be more expensive, less efficient and have a smaller top speed.

What do you think?

Also, where would you draw the line betwen Walker and powered exo skeleton? (wixh are defenitly a thing in the setting)

So (techno-babble incoming) it turns out that certain sound frequencies can cause subatomic particles to spontaneously rearrange themselves into more ordered forms, and it happens that those sounds can be generated by the human voice as well as by many other aliens. This phenomenon was briefly observed in the Middle Ages but was rejected as magic or witchcraft by early scientists and so has never been developed.

Now I just wrote a sci-fi short about this subject on my reddit feed, but as far as Nickola tesla's 369 equation along with his ideal of Resonance, frequency, & energy, all combined together into a hollowed out tetrahedron shaped construct made of hollowed bars, do you think if one was made large enough, possibly the size of a man, do you think it will grant the ability to cross space or dimensional timelines for that matter?

I'm talking about Saturn's moon, Titan. Now the most prominent problems I've found are the freezing cold temperatures and lack of oxygen. While this story does take place close to the sun's red giant phase (an untimely + accelerated one), I doubt there'd be enough heat for an inhabitable surface. Also, does it help that it will be just a temporary settlement without humanity having to deal with its worsening conditions when the sun becomes a white dwarf?

Obviously any explanation would be unrealistic and/or a stretch, but you get what I mean.

I'd love to hear from fellow thinkers about ways to introduce complexity at an atomic level. Basically complex artificial structures at an atomic level. Initially it might seem like a problem that resembles that of nanobots and artificial creations that operate on cellular levels, simply a matter of limitations but it is really a different question.

Can we create something, artificially or biologically (though at a certain tech level there is no distinction), which is a complex structure that is smaller than the its components? A machine that can fit within an atom, systems with moving parts that are no larger than a molecule, something that operates on an atomic scale with laws of quantum physics and has real world applications?

My two ideas for how this can be achieved is 4D technology, essentially dividing the structure within slices of 3D worlds and the other is using sub atomic particles as substitutes for the structure. Would love to hear more ideas.

So a few years, Issac Arthur made this video stating that a galactic police force will either be a) bounty hunters or b) AI policemen but he was a little sparse on details on what they would look like or how they would operate.

Would anyone like to postulate what interstellar law enforcement might look like?

In my opinion this isn't a topic that's deeply discussed in science fiction, but does anyone have idea what organized crime in an Interstellar society might look like? And how will interstellar governments curtail it?

Now here are a few ideas:

I know the popular answers are usually space piracy, and illegal salvage but I don't think these activities will be as widespread as they are depicted in works like Star Wars and Firefly. Mainly because I think governments will regulate who can pilot spaceships with FTL drives or ships that are powered by a source that is quite dangerous (Ex: nuclear reactor, antimatter, black hole etc.) to avoid having these potential WMD from falling into the wrong hands. And even if they managed to steal a ship, they would have a hard time managing the upkeep of the ship and their crew. Now if they were organized as some sort of pirate republic/confederation, like the Crimson Fleet from Starfield, that shares all the resources that they "acquire" then maybe they stand a chance.

Now smuggling might be another possibility but not in the way that you think. Instead of having their own ship, it is more likely smugglers will operate in the same manner as real life smugglers do. They will disguise themselves as passengers or crewmembers of a ship trying to get contraband past customs.

Drug trafficking might still occur, although things might get more complicated as we encounter other lifeforms. Since aliens have different biochemistries than us, it's possible that human drugs (both legal and illegal) won't have the same affect on them as it does on us. Of course, if alien catnip comes into play its possible that traffickers might try to make it rich by smuggling out products that are mundane to us but are narcotic to them (sour milk [Alien Nation], cat food [District 9]) and vice versa.

Illegal gambling is definitely a strong possibility. While I don't imagine criminals will build a space station to operate as an illegal casino I can imagine them setting up underground bloodsports and races on colonies and space stations and have the gamblers make their bets on a darknet gambling site.

However, I'm unsure what law enforcement would look like in space. I know Isaac Arthur made a video about this stating that space colonists will establish court systems and security forces to enforce the law on a planetary level, but I don't know what law enforcement will look like on a galactic level.

From the book "Time: A Traveler's Guide":

"Chronon Theory of Time

So far we've been treating time as a continuous stream, but some physicists subscribe to the "chronon theory of time." In this theory, time is not continuous but made up of tiny particles jammed together like pearls on a necklace. The shortest time interval is the time for a quantum event (such as an electron slipping from an outer to an inner shell of an atom) to take place. Theoretically, such a time interval does not have a definite duration, but has only an approximate, unmeasurable size. The smallest definite time interval is the chronon, or one million million million millionth of a second. This is the time it takes light to cross the smallest interval of space known to exist. In this theory, even though time may be discontinuous, we still perceive it to be smooth, just as we perceive movies to be smooth even though they are composed of a sequence of rapidly placed discrete frames. If the chronon theory is valid, then between each fundamental time interval there could be imperceptible gaps in which the basic units of time belonging to other universes could fit. According to chronon theory there might be an infinite series of real, solid universes stuck into the probability gaps between the quantum events of our own. If you are watching television peacefully in bed, there could be a mighty, bubbling river pouring through the time slices of an alternate universe."

***

I'm surprised this concept has not been used in science fiction novels or movies yet (at least not that I'm aware of). How could this be used in a story? If we see time as an endless series of separate stills, some scientists could find a way for humans to jump from one still to another, either backward or forward. By some mistake some time travelers ends up between two stills, and suddenly find themselves in a new universe. Not a different timeline, but a separate independent universe with its own history.

Of course, if this was real, they would probably end up in some empty void between the stars, but in fiction they usually end up on another world (or one could use some convincing pseudoscience to explain why this happens).