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Not getting the Surya

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Mon, 2010-08-16 21:20
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
So I picked up last month's issue of Analog and some dude had written a story about a Mormon minister trying to convert "swales" living in the sun to Mormonism. Parallel development. How about it? Anyway, I'm not going to comment on anything in this thread at this time, but I have made up my mind on one point: the next convention scenario I write for EP will take place in the Solar Corona, with most of the group playing suryas and salamanders. And for now, that is all I will say. :)
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Mon, 2010-08-16 23:40
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
Buddy of mine and I were just talking about this tonight and he didn't get the suryas either and I was a bit at a loss when trying to defend them. I for one, am very much looking forward to seeing this salamander/surya scenario to see what they can be used for.
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Tue, 2010-08-17 00:11
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
Look at it this way: D&D (particularly in 2nd ed. and earlier) always provided stats for aquatic races. But nobody ever wanted to run a full on aquatic campaign, so while your Aquatic Elf might be able to go up on land for a little, the person in the group playing a Merfolk was screwed. Thanks for providing stats, Dragon Magazine, but nobody wants to make this character. In EP, though, Suryas and their ilk (and I include things like Europan dolphins in this), have two uses, barring doing an entire campaign in their weird hostile environments: 1. You can dip into the exotic environment. The GM can do a short part of a story arc where characters have to sleeve into coronal or undersea morphs to fulfill a given plot objective. Because it's EP, they can be back in their humanoid bodies on Mars a week later (with little harm done if Firewall lets them expense the psychic surgery). 2. You can -start- from the exotic environment. Suryas or Europan dolphins start the campaign in a happy land, then have their wonderful world of swimming around disrupted by the campaign's plot conflicts, forcing them to venture forth into the unpleasant world of gaseous atmosphers, gravity wells, and bidepal morphs to solve their problems. Given this, Suryas are no more weird (or useless) than many of the other exotic, purpose built morphs like Venusian quartz morphs or Reapers.
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J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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Tue, 2010-08-17 10:03
TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
jackgraham wrote:
Look at it this way: D&D (particularly in 2nd ed. and earlier) always provided stats for aquatic races. But nobody ever wanted to run a full on aquatic campaign, so while your Aquatic Elf might be able to go up on land for a little, the person in the group playing a Merfolk was screwed. Thanks for providing stats, Dragon Magazine, but nobody wants to make this character. In EP, though, Suryas and their ilk (and I include things like Europan dolphins in this), have two uses, barring doing an entire campaign in their weird hostile environments: 1. You can dip into the exotic environment. The GM can do a short part of a story arc where characters have to sleeve into coronal or undersea morphs to fulfill a given plot objective. Because it's EP, they can be back in their humanoid bodies on Mars a week later (with little harm done if Firewall lets them expense the psychic surgery). 2. You can -start- from the exotic environment. Suryas or Europan dolphins start the campaign in a happy land, then have their wonderful world of swimming around disrupted by the campaign's plot conflicts, forcing them to venture forth into the unpleasant world of gaseous atmosphers, gravity wells, and bidepal morphs to solve their problems. Given this, Suryas are no more weird (or useless) than many of the other exotic, purpose built morphs like Venusian quartz morphs or Reapers.
Well put.
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Tue, 2010-08-17 15:39
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
Yeah that is! So in essence it's for a change of pace I could definitely see this as a sort of spiritual getaway. "Tired of the everyday? Martian stock market has got you down? Come to the photosphere for an experience unlike any other. The Corona Resort ensure a tranquility and peace of mind that's out of this world."
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Fri, 2010-08-20 02:59
Mandella Mandella's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
I've thought long and hard about the Suryas, and I have to agree that they kinda imply biological technologies rather out of sync with the rest of Eclipse Phase. The conditions in the solar corona makes the term hellish inadequate. Even assuming some sort of near magical electromagnetic shield that can cut out 99.9999999whatever percent of the charged particle radiation, and very very efficient medichines that can repair the hard gamma and x ray emissions, and whatever is supposed to reflect visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths -- there is still the problem of getting rid of the one to three million degree heat that is the solar corona's normal temperature. One to three million degrees. Coming from all around. If anything can stand that it trivializes any other environment in the solar system. What next, Cthonians tunneling through the mantle? But I don't want to dump them out. They are in the player assessable information, and they are going to show up in future adventures and products. What to do? I'm going to make them TITAN artifacts. Or at least one organ, the one that allows the Coronal Survival Trait, will be TITAN tech. This organ somehow remains at a low temperature, no matter what, and can be used as a heat sink for near infinite temperatures. No one knows how, but experiments have suggested that the organ produces a limited Pandora Gate, one that only absorbs radiant energy from its immediate surroundings and transmits it God knows where. No one knows why the TITANS wanted herds of uplifted cetaceans surfing the solar oceans. They don't seem to be contaminated by the Exsurgent Virus, and the morphs can be sleeved into and out of with no ill effects. The organ can even be cloned and installed in other morphs, but it mysteriously ceases to operate outside of the Solar atmosphere. So, for those of us that can't quite stretch our suspension of disbelief around the Suryas, what do you think of that way to keep them in?
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Fri, 2010-08-20 04:03
root root's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
Mandella wrote:
I've thought long and hard about the Suryas, and I have to agree that they kinda imply biological technologies rather out of sync with the rest of Eclipse Phase. The conditions in the solar corona makes the term hellish inadequate. Even assuming some sort of near magical electromagnetic shield that can cut out 99.9999999whatever percent of the charged particle radiation, and very very efficient medichines that can repair the hard gamma and x ray emissions, and whatever is supposed to reflect visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths -- there is still the problem of getting rid of the one to three million degree heat that is the solar corona's normal temperature. One to three million degrees. Coming from all around. If anything can stand that it trivializes any other environment in the solar system. What next, Cthonians tunneling through the mantle? But I don't want to dump them out. They are in the player assessable information, and they are going to show up in future adventures and products. What to do? I'm going to make them TITAN artifacts. Or at least one organ, the one that allows the Coronal Survival Trait, will be TITAN tech. This organ somehow remains at a low temperature, no matter what, and can be used as a heat sink for near infinite temperatures. No one knows how, but experiments have suggested that the organ produces a limited Pandora Gate, one that only absorbs radiant energy from its immediate surroundings and transmits it God knows where. No one knows why the TITANS wanted herds of uplifted cetaceans surfing the solar oceans. They don't seem to be contaminated by the Exsurgent Virus, and the morphs can be sleeved into and out of with no ill effects. The organ can even be cloned and installed in other morphs, but it mysteriously ceases to operate outside of the Solar atmosphere. So, for those of us that can't quite stretch our suspension of disbelief around the Suryas, what do you think of that way to keep them in?
Dear gods. They are TITAN batteries. I actually really dig this bit of handwavium. It fits, and does so elegantly.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 07:23
icekatze icekatze's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
hi hi Well, with the second law of thermodynamics being broken, you've got yourself a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. You could turn Surya into the most fearsome weapons of mass destruction imaginable. I can picture an array of Surya with magic heat sinks, free virtually unlimited energy, melting planets from a safe distance.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 09:34
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
Mandella wrote:
I've thought long and hard about the Suryas, and I have to agree that they kinda imply biological technologies rather out of sync with the rest of Eclipse Phase. The conditions in the solar corona makes the term hellish inadequate. Even assuming some sort of near magical electromagnetic shield that can cut out 99.9999999whatever percent of the charged particle radiation, and very very efficient medichines that can repair the hard gamma and x ray emissions, and whatever is supposed to reflect visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths -- there is still the problem of getting rid of the one to three million degree heat that is the solar corona's normal temperature. One to three million degrees. Coming from all around. If anything can stand that it trivializes any other environment in the solar system. What next, Cthonians tunneling through the mantle?
It isn't about the surya body being able to get rid of that much heat, it's about the surya body being capable of tolerating such temperature levels. If a surya's natural body temperature is around 1-2 million degrees celsius, than it wouldn't be all that surprising for it to survive in an environment of similar heat levels. And why not? Organic life has survived in an already vast range of temperatures, so it makes sense that artificially-designed organic life (combined with nanotechnological assistance) might be tailored to test those very limits. It also makes sense in the context of a genetic design goal: from traveling to the moon to breaking world records, the human race has a natural tendency for doing things solely for the sake of proving it possible. It makes perfect sense to me that genetic engineers would test the limits of their own ingenuity for the sake of proving that they can design life for literally any environment, with solar morphs being the upper limit and ultimate challenge (much like landing on the moon was for our astronauts and space engineers a half-century ago).
Mandella wrote:
But I don't want to dump them out. They are in the player assessable information, and they are going to show up in future adventures and products. What to do? I'm going to make them TITAN artifacts. Or at least one organ, the one that allows the Coronal Survival Trait, will be TITAN tech. This organ somehow remains at a low temperature, no matter what, and can be used as a heat sink for near infinite temperatures. No one knows how, but experiments have suggested that the organ produces a limited Pandora Gate, one that only absorbs radiant energy from its immediate surroundings and transmits it God knows where. No one knows why the TITANS wanted herds of uplifted cetaceans surfing the solar oceans. They don't seem to be contaminated by the Exsurgent Virus, and the morphs can be sleeved into and out of with no ill effects. The organ can even be cloned and installed in other morphs, but it mysteriously ceases to operate outside of the Solar atmosphere. So, for those of us that can't quite stretch our suspension of disbelief around the Suryas, what do you think of that way to keep them in?
I could see that, perhaps. They might also be the first case of reverse-engineered TITAN technology, designed after some exsurgent creature that we used the base structure of (along with cetaceans as a physical model) to create the surya you see today. It may very well be one of the best-guarded secrets of the hypercorps as to the true origins of the technology necessary to create them.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 09:36
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
icekatze wrote:
hi hi Well, with the second law of thermodynamics being broken, you've got yourself a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. You could turn Surya into the most fearsome weapons of mass destruction imaginable. I can picture an array of Surya with magic heat sinks, free virtually unlimited energy, melting planets from a safe distance.
I don't really see how the surya breaks the second law of thermodynamics. Far as I can tell, they are tiny fusion reactors built to metabolize the largest fusion reaction in the solar system... which is fully in-line with the second law.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 11:29
Mandella Mandella's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
@root Thanks! And I was thinking that very same thing.
icekatze wrote:
hi hi Well, with the second law of thermodynamics being broken, you've got yourself a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. You could turn Surya into the most fearsome weapons of mass destruction imaginable. I can picture an array of Surya with magic heat sinks, free virtually unlimited energy, melting planets from a safe distance.
They are not *necessarily* breaking the second law of thermodynamics (although they might be if the TITANs are that badass in your campaign :) ), any more than a refrigerator or air conditioner does. The energy is going somewhere, we just don't know where. But you are certainly right about the second part, if said energy is direct-able. @Decivre Wide range of temperature environments so far means about 120 degrees Celsius tops. We're talking about millions of degrees here. No chemical bond will stay bound at that range. We are in plasma country. But it's clear you have far stronger Suspenders of Disbelief than I, and that is fine. But I have to come up with something as my Pants of Reality are laying around my ankles, and I can't run a campaign like that. (And thank you Howard Taylor of [url=http://www.schlockmercenary.com/]Schlock Mercenary[/url] for that lovely mental image that I will steal for my own use forever.) :)
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Fri, 2010-08-20 14:26
icekatze icekatze's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
hi hi Surya as written are not necessarily perpetual motion machines, but if they have some portion of themselves that always stays the same temperature without regard to any other condition (except being in a very hot place) then they are effectively perpetual motion machines of the second kind. I suppose technically, if they are whisking that heat away to some other place, on a cosmic scale it is not a perpetual motion machine, but in the context of the solar system as a closed system, it effectively is. The temperature gradient between millions of degrees and solid matter temperatures could provide enormous amounts of electrical energy, enough to power a doomsday laser with enough surface area at the very least, and the waste heat from said laser just goes back into more electrical energy! Currently, the substance with the highest melting point is tantalum hafnium carbide (Ta4HfC5), at 4,488 K... at sea level pressure. (and it is radioactive). A substance that can withstand 3,000,000 K in a ultra low pressure environment is a few orders of magnitude more advanced. I would suspect you would need some kind of electron degenerate matter to hold a shape with that kind of temperature.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 15:08
TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
I'm not getting where the energy generation is coming from. From the way I read Suryas, they siphoned off base elements (mainly hydrogen and oxygen) and created a thermal layer of perpetual steam around their bodies. They then had radiation collectors (sort of photosynthesis on steroids) to provide their bodies with energy to keep going. Their actual body shape is what keeps them "swimming" on the Sun's cornea. I will agree it is a LOT of handwavium but at no point are the Surya's collecting any more energy then they are using to sustain themselves (and definitely not enough to power a Death Star).
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Fri, 2010-08-20 16:57
icekatze icekatze's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
hi hi For any and all concerns about where I am getting a perpetual motion machine from, please read post #56.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 17:31
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
Mandella wrote:
@Decivre Wide range of temperature environments so far means about 120 degrees Celsius tops. We're talking about millions of degrees here. No chemical bond will stay bound at that range. We are in plasma country.
Yeah, I have to stop posting late-night. I make some weird claims. I will try to recover my statement from here, though. Fusion reactors today have heat as a serious issue. The biggest problem is that we either have to find a way to siphon off and vent the massive amounts of heat that are produced, or successfully contain them in such a way that they are harmless to the people outside it who wish to get vast amounts of energy. My guess is that heat containment has become a possibility in Eclipse Phase's time, because otherwise spacecraft would have no means of having fusion reactors as a power source (it becomes far harder to vent heat in space). Surya's are fusion reactors that work in the opposite direction, per se... rather than holding a fusion reaction on the inside of a magnetic shield, and trying to contain its heat within, they sit inside of a fusion reaction with a magnetic shield without, trying to keep the heat out. Furthermore, their bodies likely produce a vast amount of energy, the largest majority of which is probably going simply to self-sustenance (venting heat back into the corona, powering the nanomachines that keep their bodies maintained constantly, sustaining their magnetic shielding, maintaining altitude in the sun's corona), with whatever energy remains after that going to physical movement and other aspects of their life.
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Fri, 2010-08-20 21:36
root root's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
root@Not getting the Surya Quick question: What is the definition of the "solar corona"? After quite a bit of searching, I came up with a region that extends 2.5 solar radii (about 1,750,000 km from the previous solar region). Any idea if the extreme limits of the solar corona are more survivable?
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Fri, 2010-08-20 22:24
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Not getting the Surya
root wrote:
root@Not getting the Surya Quick question: What is the definition of the "solar corona"? After quite a bit of searching, I came up with a region that extends 2.5 solar radii (about 1,750,000 km from the previous solar region). Any idea if the extreme limits of the solar corona are more survivable?
The corona is one of the most thin parts of the sun and most hot. However, there is a lower part of the sun which would be a bit more comfortable for suryas: the photosphere. There, the density is a bit thicker, and the temperature is in the thousands, rather than millions (4-6 thousand kelvin, to be more precise). To be honest, I originally thought that the suryas were going to inhabit this region, only to find out that they supposedly use this place as a region to cool off in.
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