Considering transhumanity has the technology to build whales that live in the solar corona, it should be entirely possible. What I envision is is a series of carbon tubes, maybe three on each side, and a storehouse of whatever material solar sails are made of. Once in space, the nanites fabricate the sails along the wing struts. The wings are going to be very thin, on the order of several molecules. So they're fragile but very lightweight. You have some numbers above for aproximate area. I'd just take a totally sci-fi ballpark figure and say the accelleration based on those numbers is .01g or about 4in/(sec^2). This is the number used in GURPS Biotech for their solar sailing bioroids. Then you can add surface area for more velocity. In other words, this is not a quick way to get somewhere but you can't beat it for fuel efficiency. If you want extra accuracy assign that to average Earth orbit and work out the accellerations for other places. Energy decreases to the square of the distance, so at 2AU the accelleration would be 1/4 that. 4 AU it would be 1/16 etc. modified by local gravity pull from any nearby planet or moon. All of that applies only if you're heading directly away from the sun, though. Heading towards or perpendicular would be an entirely different thing, rather similar to terrestrial sailing across or into the wind. Finally, I second the above thought. Its easier to put this on a synthmorph than to build a biomorph that can handle it.

Darkeldar wrote:

Zophiel wrote:

You have some numbers above for aproximate area. I'd just take a totally sci-fi ballpark figure and say the accelleration based on those numbers is .01g or about 4in/(sec^2). This is the number used in GURPS Biotech for their solar sailing bioroids. Then you can add surface area for more velocity. In other words, this is not a quick way to get somewhere but you can't beat it for fuel efficiency.

Thanks for reminding me about the Biotech book. 3rd or 4th edition?

Zophiel wrote:

Finally, I second the above thought. Its easier to put this on a synthmorph than to build a biomorph that can handle it.

Can you please explain? Character concept is someone that wants to go "naked" into the void. Synthmorphs do not carry the same amount of risk, such as it is.

3rd edition, I think, which means its probably in 4th as well. As to the second question, its a simpler matter to build a robot that doesn't need life support in a vacuum than a living being that doesn't. Then again, the coronal whales seem to get along ok so its within the realm of possibility.

An option that might make this more feasible is if it were a synthmorph rather than a biomorph. By doing so, you cut out certain basic needs that might be difficult to sustain in space, like air (food and water can be sustained through nanotechnology). To that end, much more of the morph's mass could be dedicated to it's means of transport, because it only needs enough physical mass to contain its power source, the cyberbrain, and a body that is strong enough to operate in microgravity. You could be looking at a fairly small synthmorph shell with a large sail housing on its back, which might look like some bizarre hunchback in its "walker form", and like some beautiful stellar butterfly in its "spaceflight form".

nick012000 wrote:

I think that'd defeat the point, Decivre. If you're doing this sort of thing in a Synthmorph, you might as well sleeve into a proper space ship. It'd amount to the same thing. Dark Eldar, personally, I'd also add in a Math Boost for orbital calculations and whatnot. The last thing you want to do when flying around in space is miss your target.

Not necessarily. Unlike an actual spaceship, you can put away the sail and now enter the very habitat you flew to. No need to dock your ship, pay any fees, and once you are tired of being at the habitat, you can jump out the nearest airlock and unfurl your sail again. Hell, you can even get a synthetic mask on most of your body, making you look like some little fae creature, to go with your awesome butterfly-esque sail.

Is the problem of air supply really that complicated in a setting where cornucopia machines & lesser fabbers exist? I'm not an expert on the rules or the fluff precisely, but a built-in survival pack including a fabber that can convert CO2 to oxygen (as well as provide waste recycling for other processes) should allow for survivial as long as the power holds out. This is a fascinating idea - I love how this setting kind of warps the idea of reality and possibility by trying to remain as realistic as possible.

Eleazar wrote:

Is the problem of air supply really that complicated in a setting where cornucopia machines & lesser fabbers exist? I'm not an expert on the rules or the fluff precisely, but a built-in survival pack including a fabber that can convert CO2 to oxygen (as well as provide waste recycling for other processes) should allow for survivial as long as the power holds out. This is a fascinating idea - I love how this setting kind of warps the idea of reality and possibility by trying to remain as realistic as possible.

jsnead wrote:

Not actually true. There's mostly no need for longer term life support, but wearable long term life support exists for specialized applications and will be found in the Gatecrashing book. I'm fairly certain that you could implant the entire rig in a well designed biomorph, or failing that, a pod. Likely, a pod would be your best choice for a Void Dancer analog.

Nanofabricators work on a molecular level, which actually makes them incapable of converting carbon dioxide to oxygen. Eventually you will either need a boost to your supply, or you'll need a true oxygen recycler. To that end, the smallest system in the book that provides indefinite air is the hard suit, and I doubt that you can make such a system any smaller. Chances are that such a morph would be travelling at even slower speeds as well; A hard suit is looking at around 300 thousand kilometers per day spent traveling, so a void dancer is likely looking at far more while relying solely on solar sails. A person with such a morph would have to be a very patient person.

nick012000 wrote:

Umm... Decivre? Nanoassemblers can convert CO2 into O2 and some leftover C quite easily, which would likely be used as a component of your food-assembler's feedstock.

I was pretty sure that nanoassemblers work exclusively on the molecular, not atomic level. Otherwise, they are significantly more potent than thought originally, and can even do things like convert rusted metals into breathable oxygen and usable iron. Besides, it wouldn't make sense with certain things like vacsuits, which can perpetually provide food and water through nano-recycling, but have a limited air supply. Granted, remember that CO[sub]2[/sub] converters exist today, and do not require nanotechnology. However, the only way that they can be rendered perpetual is through technology the essentially produces a miniature biosphere. Such things are common on stations today, will be common on ships in the future, and by EPs time, will be able to fit in vehicles as small as the hard suit.

jsnead wrote:

This is not true - nanofabricators can create all manner of biological compounds, including growing a steak, blood, or a designer eyeball, so they can definitely split CO2.

They require the organic material to work with before they can produce these things, however. Food is essentially just a mashed-up combination of various proteins, carbohydrates and other necessary goodies in combination. Flavor is based on those combinations. By taking already existing materials and combining them into objects on the molecular level, you can produce what is, in effect, steak. The same is true for an eyeball... there is no need to manipulate matter on anything lower than the molecular level to produce these things. That's more in the realm of femto-technology. Once you gain the ability to manipulate things on the submolecular scale, things get hectic. Certain aspects of the Eclipse Phase universe fall apart if humans have access to the technology, such as the fact that we have yet to fully convert Venus's atmosphere to breathable material (which would simply require submolecularly altering the carbon dioxide into carbon ash and oxygen).

jsnead wrote:

As I mentioned before, I simply don't buy a personal solar sail as a useful form of transport unless you like taking many years to go from Luna to Mars. If someone does something like a void dancer, a plasma sail is a vastly superior option.

Even a plasma sail is looking to be a significantly worse choice in comparison to a plasma or fusion drive. It's only feasible for good speed at very large sizes, and a morph simply wouldn't be big enough to house that much plasma while still containing... I don't know, organs... unless it was bigger than a space whale.

nick012000 wrote:

No, they don't. They just need CHON.

And again, if that's the level of technology that people in Eclipse Phase have, so many things make so little sense. For instance, the terraforming of Venus is supposedly opposed by Morningstar Constellation because of how disruptive the assumed means of doing so would be. If nanotechnology is so capable, hives could literally tear the atmosphere down to carbon ash and oxygen, and terraforming wouldn't be disruptive at all. It's obvious that nanotechnology is capable of reproducing allotropic bonds, but true molecular bonds would simply not make sense for the limitations it seems to have.

I had the impression that Venus would corrode most "nano machines" with its acidic & toxic atmosphere. Even though trans-humanity may have Santa Claus fabbers, micro & nano -technology, Those machines could be the "squeamish" or "infants" barely reaching their type criteria. EP the (non Titan tech) nano tech, might not be "true" (nano sized) nano machines, Instead its its bacteria sized (micro sized). Still capable of alter certain molecules even on the atomic level -thus called nanomachines (molecular altering machines). I have all types of machines "squeamish" of what structures & materials they function on.

Decivre wrote:

Carbon dioxide is only about 50% denser than air. If aerostats are able to float on the top of the Venusian atmosphere, then they'd be able to continue to float in a terraformed atmosphere, albeit at a much lower altitude. Besides, I think it was more explicit that the terraformation process was disruptive because of the options chosen (massive cometary bombardment and the construction of a sun shade to cool the atmosphere). The latter option would not be necessary with the formation of an atmosphere with significantly less carbon dioxide (and a high concentration of ozone on its upper layer).

The aerostat's lifting gas is oxygen. Read the System Gazetteer entry on Octavia & Venus for an example ( http://www.firewall-darkcast.com/wiki/system-gazeteer#Octavia ). Another thing that I simply assumed without question was that a planetary atmosphere is immense. The volume of gases that would need to be converted must be staggering, and when the setting's nanotech requires constant replenishment even in relatively benign environments, I just assumed it was reasonable that any sort of atmospheric conversion would be a long term project on the order of decades, maybe not even practical in an acidic Venusian atmosphere. Anyway, that's how I choose to look at the setting - there is certainly room for interpretation.

Decivre wrote:

I have no doubt that a limited mastery of molecular structure has been achieved. If nanofabricators can produce diamond, then they have at least the means of producing allotropic bonds. However, not all molecules are created equal. Full mastery over molecular structure means much more capability for altering substances than the books imply exist.

The books seem to imply quite a bit, to me. I assumed that the limitation of Cornucopia Machines is that they cannot change one element to another (i.e. no Pb to Au). Since the books make no mention of limitations to certain forms of molecular bonds versus another, I think it's reasonable to suggest that there's no evidence to support that sort of cut-off line. Either one would have to assume that molecular bonds are off-limits to current nanofabrication tech, or that they can in fact manipulate matter on the molecular scale. This is consistent with the book's descriptions of how metal-rich asteroids are needed in areas low on metal, and volatiles need to be obtained from the outer system. The so-called organic compounds are not necessarily useful to life, but they do contain things like Carbon & Hydrogen that can be broken down and reassembled into new, more useful molecules. I guess my point is that the book in no way makes it [i]necessary[/i] that nanofabrication be unable to manipulate molecular bonds, but that it seems the huge variety of their construction abilities combined with the laissez-faire attitude towards the materials needed for construction, thereby implying (to me) that Cornucopia Machine's capabilities are indeed quite vast, limited only by the difficulty in obtaining the necessary elements (hence the use of trace *elements* as vital components in potentially dangerous blueprints). Really though, read the opening paragraph on Nanotechnology in the Gear section of the rulebook (p326) - it specifically states that nanotech is the manipulation of matter on the atomic scale & that the machines can build things "from the molecular level up". That is essentially the impression I got throughout the book, and it informs my view of the setting. And I would like to bashfully apologize to the OP for continuing this rather off-topic discussion - I promise I have said my piece on the matter for this thread at least, although I am certainly interested in both ideas (indeed, it might be better to say I am interested in virtually everything about this setting).

Eleazar wrote:

The aerostat's lifting gas is oxygen. Read the System Gazetteer entry on Octavia & Venus for an example ( http://www.firewall-darkcast.com/wiki/system-gazeteer#Octavia ). Another thing that I simply assumed without question was that a planetary atmosphere is immense. The volume of gases that would need to be converted must be staggering, and when the setting's nanotech requires constant replenishment even in relatively benign environments, I just assumed it was reasonable that any sort of atmospheric conversion would be a long term project on the order of decades, maybe not even practical in an acidic Venusian atmosphere. Anyway, that's how I choose to look at the setting - there is certainly room for interpretation.

jsnead wrote:

Using nanotech to transform an entire atmosphere is a massive of CO2 to process. Remember that humans in EP don't have self-replicating nanotech, so the quantities involved are ludicrous compared to the available industrial capability. Also, there's still the cometary bombardment, since Venus is exceedingly hydrogen poor. Cometary bombardment and aerostats mix very poorly.

That might be the problem, then. Oxygen is denser than air, so the aerostats would likely plummet if that is the case. Even so, early starts on terraforming could occur without little problem. Carbon dioxide is likely to settle the lowest, so such projects could at least alter the upper atmosphere without making them crash on the planet. However, it seems as though such things have not occurred at all. I suppose we'll learn more in later book releases. As for self-replicating nanotech, there would be no need. Nanobot hives installed on the bottoms of Venusian blimps would be capable of converting the atmosphere from the top down at a relatively quick pace, while replenishing and recharging the nanobots produced by it. Not only would it produce oxygen necessary to inhabit the planet, but give them reserves of carbon which could be used in diamond production, or even as material for more nanobots depending on their makeup.

Eleazar wrote:

The books seem to imply quite a bit, to me. I assumed that the limitation of Cornucopia Machines is that they cannot change one element to another (i.e. no Pb to Au). Since the books make no mention of limitations to certain forms of molecular bonds versus another, I think it's reasonable to suggest that there's no evidence to support that sort of cut-off line. Either one would have to assume that molecular bonds are off-limits to current nanofabrication tech, or that they can in fact manipulate matter on the molecular scale. This is consistent with the book's descriptions of how metal-rich asteroids are needed in areas low on metal, and volatiles need to be obtained from the outer system. The so-called organic compounds are not necessarily useful to life, but they do contain things like Carbon & Hydrogen that can be broken down and reassembled into new, more useful molecules. I guess my point is that the book in no way makes it [i]necessary[/i] that nanofabrication be unable to manipulate molecular bonds, but that it seems the huge variety of their construction abilities combined with the laissez-faire attitude towards the materials needed for construction, thereby implying (to me) that Cornucopia Machine's capabilities are indeed quite vast, limited only by the difficulty in obtaining the necessary elements (hence the use of trace *elements* as vital components in potentially dangerous blueprints). Really though, read the opening paragraph on Nanotechnology in the Gear section of the rulebook (p326) - it specifically states that nanotech is the manipulation of matter on the atomic scale & that the machines can build things "from the molecular level up". That is essentially the impression I got throughout the book, and it informs my view of the setting.

Perhaps you are correct. I suppose that makes the femtotechnology that TITANs are capable of that much more ferocious, since it could then theoretically convert atoms into any other atom, allowing them to produce literally anything from any matter whatsoever. Though in this regard it seems to me that human technology should be farther along if nanotech has achieved this level of manipulation.

jsnead wrote:

Decivre wrote:

Carbon dioxide is only about 50% denser than air. If aerostats are able to float on the top of the Venusian atmosphere, then they'd be able to continue to float in a terraformed atmosphere, albeit at a much lower altitude. Besides, I think it was more explicit that the terraformation process was disruptive because of the options chosen (massive cometary bombardment and the construction of a sun shade to cool the atmosphere). The latter option would not be necessary with the formation of an atmosphere with significantly less carbon dioxide (and a high concentration of ozone on its upper layer).

Using nanotech to transform an entire atmosphere is a massive of CO2 to process. Remember that humans in EP don't have self-replicating nanotech, so the quantities involved are ludicrous compared to the available industrial capability. Also, there's still the cometary bombardment, since Venus is exceedingly hydrogen poor. Cometary bombardment and aerostats mix very poorly.

Transhumanity does have self-replicating nanotech. Grey Goo is infact trivially easy to create with a General or Specialized Protean Nanohive. You just make a protean nanoswarm that makes more protean nanoswarms that make more protean nanoswarms... Sure, each swarm will only survive for about a week, but that's enough for 42 replications each.