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Titanian extrasolar missions?

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Mon, 2012-11-05 20:27
#1
rfmcdonald rfmcdonald's picture
Titanian extrasolar missions?
The Titanian Commonwealth is the only Solar System polity that's mounting extrasolar expeditions not through gatecrashing but the hard way, via real-space stardrives. [i]Rimward[/i] describes the expedition of the [i]Crystal Wind[/i], en route to Barnard's Star, at present 4000 AU from Sol, with six light years' distance and eight hundred more years to go. The [i]Crystal Wind[/i] is slated to be the third ship to arrive in its expedition, homesteaders and Von Neumanns arriving at some point before. Isn't there also another expedition, though, the [i]Aubade[/i] to Proxima Centauri, described in the core sourcebook? From the description the probe seems to be much more quicker than the [i]Crystal Wind[/i], expected to cross the four and a quarter light years to Sol's nearest neighbour in a mere 25 years. Maybe the [i]Aubade[/i] is the equivalent of one of those homesteader probes; maybe there's an actual discrepancy; maybe there's another explanation. Thoughts?
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Tue, 2012-11-06 14:13
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
I think that for authors of
I think that for authors of EP who want to keep things a bit realistically, close extrasolar destinations are a problem. Currently we know little about them but the pace of discoveries is very fast, and it could be that in next year the state of our knowledge could change. Hence the hesitation to give more details. What did surprise me in Rimward was that not only probes were sent but a full scale colonization ship with 8000 colonists-I didn't imagine EP civilization to work on such scale.For me Rimward stepped up the level of technology a lot. It will be interesting to think what propulsion methods Crystal Wind uses. As to Bernard's Star-one problem the colonists face is that 800 years is very, very long. And the technology in EP changes so fast, that it is likely somebody after them will be faster and arrive before them. Unless they count on either Posthumanity collapse or modifying their engines during the flight based on data transmitted from their original backers. By the time of EP our civilization should have the means to not only locate most of our neighbor planetary systems but image them as well(even today we can imagine technically feasible methods of imagining continents on Earth-like planets)-something that will radically change many assumptions about our universe.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Wed, 2012-11-07 19:51
rfmcdonald rfmcdonald's picture
The closest extrasolar
The closest extrasolar destination described is one reached by gatecrashing, the moon Chrysaor orbiting one of the hot Jupiters in the 55 Cancri system. The Titanians really do seem to be going all out for Barnard's Star. Perhaps the Barnard and Proxima missions are proof of concept for missions to other stars? The problem with starships making multi-generational trips is that the engines that make large ships travelling at relatively slow speed possible would also be able to launch less massive but substantially faster ships. (Unless there are good physical reasons for low speeds, interstellar debris and the like, placing a speed limit.)
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Thu, 2012-11-08 00:03
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Extrasolar Angel wrote:What
Extrasolar Angel wrote:
What did surprise me in Rimward was that not only probes were sent but a full scale colonization ship with 8000 colonists-I didn't imagine EP civilization to work on such scale.For me Rimward stepped up the level of technology a lot. It will be interesting to think what propulsion methods Crystal Wind uses.
I'll point out that the corebook has an anarchist cooking up quite massive black holes in her habitat module, given that the narrator of the piece mentions that he'd get his stack tossed into one if he egonapped people.
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Thu, 2012-11-08 03:16
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
nick012000 wrote:I'll point
nick012000 wrote:
I'll point out that the corebook has an anarchist cooking up quite massive black holes in her habitat module, given that the narrator of the piece mentions that he'd get his stack tossed into one if he egonapped people.
Assuming the speaker was not lying or just misunderstanding what the good doctor was working on: "Please, comrade Kurz, these are *acoustical* black holes! They exist in dilute Einstein-Bose condensates and cannot suck in anybody. Please haul your miscreant over to Jim's lab, he got a really nasty plasma that could handle it!"
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Extropian
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Fri, 2012-11-09 20:05
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
It's nice to think what
It's nice to think what civilization would Bernard's Star develop after three waves of colonization I have some brief concepts: -Patron Mothers-descendants of the Von Neumann probe, bizarre feudal society of sentient machines, where loyal and skilled followers are rewarded by increased intelligence and self-awareness by the Patron Mother which constructed them. Currently driven by religion that demands protection of the World Egg-name that they have given to the only habitable planet in the system with its own biosphere. Their gatherings orbit the planet and control most of the inner system. Patron Mothers are too busy dealing with their own social plays to pay attention to the others, although some of the ones who have been rejected from the Court of Ascendancy have lately been thinking if those strange fleshy things from beyond couldn't be a tool of revenge. -Gestalt Collective-infomorph society, that on the way to Bernard's Star eventually abandoned real world to virtual existence, currently plotting to transform the system into computronium construct, although without any real probability of succeeding. Dwell in orbital structures of Vodnik, a Neptun like planet surrounded by many moons and located far far away from the inner system.Not without some minor opposing factions, including rumored splinter exsurgent fragment somewhere within their virtual matrix... -Inheritors-after 20 years so journey the Crystal Wind lost communication with Sol which was never regained. Despite efforts only brief, intense and garbled radio transmissions were received after arrival. Currently divided into several factions, opposing micro-states and organizations. Immensely frustrated that they get to Cytherea and its biosphere. Located mostly in Outer Oort System, although expeditions have reached inner system as well, and some more radical factions have fled to Vodnik moons. A bit worried about triggering response in Von Neumann's and infomorphs(who barely can communicate with transhumanity nowadays)
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Mon, 2012-11-12 20:58
Oroborous Oroborous's picture
I highly recommend watching
I highly recommend watching Pandorum. Would make a pretty good EP story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandorum
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Oroborous
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Fri, 2012-11-16 18:46
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
This is one of my favorite
This is one of my favorite locations for interstellar expeditions http://www.solstation.com/stars3/xi-sco5.htm Five Sol type stars located closely to each other, with numerous chances for habitable worlds there. A real prime estate in our stellar neighbourhood. The only problem is distance of over 90 light years, but the prize is quite promising, several worlds very close to each other.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Fri, 2012-11-16 22:01
valen valen's picture
That's some seriously
That's some seriously concentrated awesome
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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/aa_userbar.jpg[/img]
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