Are my Ideas too Wanked out?

[Darth Ruinus]

If this belongs in another thread and needs to be moved, please move.

Ok, I am playing around with the idea of writing some kind of short sci-fi story or whatevers and I was thinking "Maybe some of my ideas are too wanked out" so maybe I can get some info on what you guys think?

Size of my empire: Decided to call my empire the Infinite, they control 1 entire universe (the story takes place in a universe they are invading)

Infinite homeworld:
I cant decide between these 3 scenarios
A) Their homeworld has been converted into a complete war machine, complete with engines (to move the planet if need be) and the entire populace of their homeplanet is covered with massive shields, war factories, troop barracks, planetary defense guns etc etc
B) they moved their homeplanet to the center of their original galaxy
C) they build an ultra massive behemoth (spell?) structure that covers most of their galaxy, that is much like A (it has galactic defense guns etc etc)

Infinite founding race:
Post-humans, after a war on Earth against their original transhuman ancestors

FTL travel:
Jump drives

army technology:
the infantry unit has replaced every other form of ground combat
they have power armor suits (think Spartans mixed with the MI) and their higher ranking soldier elite have limited time distortion tech

fleet power:
their main ships are around the size of the Executor-class ships, 1 ship is assigned to each star system (since they can literally travel the whole universe with their jump drive, mobilization speed is incredibly fast)

time distortion tech:
their soldier elite has special time distortion dealies, that can allow the manipulation of time (limited use, since the time manipulation requires "charges") they are immune to time stop since they have a special energy running through their armor
i dont know how time dilation works, i cant decide between these versions
A) the time charge stops time everywhere
B) the charge simply slows down time
C) the charge creates a "field" the closer to the time equipment user you get, the more the passage of time is slowed, the farther away, time is normal

even writing it down makes me think i went to far
seem to ridiculous even to me

but still

i remember hearing (somewhere on this forum) about a sci-fi battle in some book where there were like 5.5 trillion vs 3.9 trillion (forgot the actual numbers, but i remember the word trillion in there)

anyways too wanked out?
not enough wankage?

any ideas or suggestions?

[Stark]

Too wanked out for what? If you can write a good story in that pile of jism, then it's fine.

Frankly, I think you need to put more thought in - they control a whole universe but fly their planet around? Why? Main ships Executor size? All this and time travel?

[Enforcer Talen]

Fortress worlds are Star Wars level, I would think - look at the DeathStar.

Moving the planet to the center of the galaxy - what does it gain them?

Fortress Galaxies. . . why? Are you guarding all the empty space between stars, or did your colonizers put something there? Consider Darth Wong's essay on why Dyson Spheres would be incredibly difficult to create, and then put that on a galactic scale.

Army tech - never underestimate tanks and artillery - or come up with a reason why they would go away.

Fleets - why only one ship? It cant be everywhere in the system at once.

Suggestions: use more sentence structure =p Other then that, just try to figure out the motivations for the wank; ie, why do you need a galaxy sized warship?

[ColonialAdmiral]

If you can come up with some kind of enemy that would actually be a threat to the "Infinants", then I would read it. And also, are they invading another universe?
The only wanked out part I really see...Is the time Manipulation stuff. Whats the point if you can just go back and fix your mistakes right as they happen?

[Stark]

And scale. On a universal scale, ships like Executor are laughably small, and even fortifying galaxies is a tiny, tiny effort. Look up how many stars are in a galaxy, and how many galaxies in just the observable universe. Being 'universe level' you really do need appreciate the scale, or it'll just come off like 'some virgin threw all the lamest shit he could think of into an incoherent mess that doesn't make sense'.

[Enforcer Talen]

I would say do some readings on the galaxy level - SW, War40k - and then realize how small it is compared to Culture or (I presume) the Daleks.

Then build from there

[Darth Ruinus]

shit ok

some explaining

they cant TRAVEL in time, they can only slow it down and only for a SMALL while


oh the galaxy structure thing

its not a big shell over the galaxy, its a sold "building" that encompasses the whole galaxy, and used the stars and black holes and whatevers as energy sources

they have more than 1 ship in their fleet, but they have 1 ship assigned to guard each star system, since if it needs backup, ships can arrive almost instantly

yes they invade other universes

and their enemies are other universe superpowers (havent come up with a name for the enemies yet)

thanks so far for the criticisms

thanks

[Stark]

No, still no sentence structure. Downwardly assessing age estimates.

Have you thought about why any of this makes sense? If they're attacking other universes interdimensionally, what's the point of fortress galaxies? Why is there no information about culture or government? Who are these people and why do we care, etc?

ET - I think the Daleks only controlled several galaxies. They did accidentally DESTROY the universe once, though.

[avatarxprime]

And scale. On a universal scale, ships like Executor are laughably small, and even fortifying galaxies is a tiny, tiny effort. Look up how many stars are in a galaxy, and how many galaxies in just the observable universe. Being 'universe level' you really do need appreciate the scale, or it'll just come off like 'some virgin threw all the lamest shit he could think of into an incoherent mess that doesn't make sense'.

I don't think ship size really matters, it's more about the numbers. Remember what Lexx taught us, a sufficient number of manufacturing arms can implode the universe

fleet power:
their main ships are around the size of the Executor-class ships, 1 ship is assigned to each star system (since they can literally travel the whole universe with their jump drive, mobilization speed is incredibly fast)

As others have pointed out, why? One ship per sector is just too small unless they are ridiculously powerful and have absurd ranges and can strike within those ranges in real time. Otherwise any enemy can just out manuever them by virtue of being in multiple places at once, while the one ship must handle each threat and then leave. This also leaves whole systems without a fleet presence in the face of a mass counter invasion. If it's just a bad idea, unless as I stated previously, absurd range and power.

Infinite homeworld:
I cant decide between these 3 scenarios
A) Their homeworld has been converted into a complete war machine, complete with engines (to move the planet if need be) and the entire populace of their homeplanet is covered with massive shields, war factories, troop barracks, planetary defense guns etc etc
B) they moved their homeplanet to the center of their original galaxy
C) they build an ultra massive behemoth (spell?) structure that covers most of their galaxy, that is much like A (it has galactic defense guns etc etc)

Why would a universe occupying/controlling force even care about their home planet? Are they really that nostalgic? Just drop the idea. If they are some uber-militant group that managed to gain total dominance over their own universe and are now trying to branch out and conquer other universes, just make it a fluid society. Any central power is just some massive command and control ship, or a central-governmental fleet.

Don't sweat the tech level stuff all that much, just try and think through how and why it's used in-universe, what purpose does it serve and does it make the story interesting. Maybe you should post what the universe being invaded is like too, what are their capabilities? To paraphrase Stark, if you can write a good story, then who cares.

[Stark]

I don't think ship size really matters, it's more about the numbers. Remember what Lexx taught us, a sufficient number of manufacturing arms can implode the universe

As you say it's role that matters - but if he's fighting other universes, he'd need rapid-response units of overwhelming force. If he has the tech to fortify a galaxy with a PHYSICAL STRUCTURE and drive planets, 17km ships are probably not top of the line. Fine for patrol, but there'd need to be a reason why there aren't 10,000km battleships or whatnot.

And yes, his 17km ships would need to be far, far less significant than grains of sand. I don't think he really understands what 'one ship per system for EVERY STAR IN THE UNIVERSE' really entails.

[avatarxprime]

I don't think ship size really matters, it's more about the numbers. Remember what Lexx taught us, a sufficient number of manufacturing arms can implode the universe

As you say it's role that matters - but if he's fighting other universes, he'd need rapid-response units of overwhelming force. If he has the tech to fortify a galaxy with a PHYSICAL STRUCTURE and drive planets, 17km ships are probably not top of the line. Fine for patrol, but there'd need to be a reason why there aren't 10,000km battleships or whatnot.

And yes, his 17km ships would need to be far, far less significant than grains of sand. I don't think he really understands what 'one ship per system for EVERY STAR IN THE UNIVERSE' really entails.

Agreed, he needs something far more impressive than an Executor sized ship as a basic defense ship if his tech level is at the point where galaxy level structures are being constructed. I don't think reading Star Wars or even the Culture is gonna cut it at this point. He needs to read comic books for a semi-appropriate sense of scale. I mean even Galactus only has a ship the size of a star system.

[Teleros]

Their homeworld has been converted into a complete war machine, complete with engines (to move the planet if need be) and the entire populace of their homeplanet is covered with massive shields, war factories, troop barracks, planetary defense guns etc etc

There are probably more efficient means of moving all that war material around. As a means of showing off though, it's not bad.

they moved their homeplanet to the center of their original galaxy

Again, why?

they build an ultra massive behemoth (spell?) structure that covers most of their galaxy, that is much like A (it has galactic defense guns etc etc)

Leaving aside the silly amounts of material needed, what's the point?

the infantry unit has replaced every other form of ground combat
they have power armor suits (think Spartans mixed with the MI)

I'd still say there'd be a use for, say tanks (or their equivalent, ie heavily armoured units suited to blitzkrieg tactics etc): there's usually a good reason why something falls out of favour after all.

i remember hearing (somewhere on this forum) about a sci-fi battle in some book where there were like 5.5 trillion vs 3.9 trillion (forgot the actual numbers, but i remember the word trillion in there)

Probably the Lensman series.

anyways too wanked out?
not enough wankage?

To be honest I think the important thing is what you do with the story, as opposed to how fantastic the technology or background is. Take the Firefly, Star Wars and Xeelee universes: very different levels of technology and whatnot, but it's the storytelling that really matters.

I think when doing this sort of thing, you have to do two things: firstly, ask yourself why - all the time. Why enclose a galaxy in a structure? Why phase out tanks etc and just keep infantry? The second thing, is think of as many consequences as possible. What about maintaining the galaxy-enclosing structure (eg if a planetar punches a hole in it)? Can a jump drive to bypass said structure and appear within the galaxy? What sort of unobtainium materials would be required - and are they used elsewhere?

[Darth Ruinus]

Stark wrote:
"And yes, his 17km ships would need to be far, far less significant than grains of sand. I don't think he really understands what 'one ship per system for EVERY STAR IN THE UNIVERSE' really entails. "

Ill be the first to admit it, I dont. Ok, one of the big massive problems I hear is "Why would a power that controls the universe have such small ships?"

Ok, would this make more sense? The Infinite controls 1 Galaxy Base (the one that engulfs the entire galaxy) and 4 other normal galaxies (the normal ones have scaled down galaxy bases, they are only the inner part of the galaxy)


Oh the story (I haven't had much time to think about this one, so it may not be final) the Infinite goes and attacks this Alliance that controls around 6 or 7 galaxies, and they lose. The alliance never even heard of humanity before (when you control that many galaxies its not uncommon to have undocumented races under your control) so when the Infinite expeditionary force is destroyed, they assume their beachead is their homeplanet, the rest of the Alliance then assimilates the humans into their control. Skip to a couple of decades later, and the humans in Alliance territory are mistreated because they are viewed as evil hicks (or like Nazis, due to some atrocities they commited during the initial invasion)

This is as far as I got when I was thinking about this idea, since I just started thinking about this yesterday. After this tho, the main thing is like humans are mistreated, the main gist is like how most germans felt like when they lost WWII and found out what horrible shit their government commited, and kinda like the racism that America felt towards non-whites.

[Patrick Degan]

I'm having a lot of trouble with the idea of a structure large enough to encompass an entire galaxy. For a start, you couldn't get enough material to build it even if you dismantled every planet within that galaxy for the project. Just the volume of space we're talking about here is enough to make this unworkable. Pushing entire planets through space would entail enormous energy expenditure but would not be entirely unfeasible in principle. Infinintely more so that Fortress Galaxia.

Besides which, no physical defence would be adequate against creatures able to shift themselves interdimensionally between universes.

[Starglider]

Frankly, I think you need to put more thought in - they control a whole universe but fly their planet around? Why? Main ships Executor size? All this and time travel?

IMHO 'they control the whole universe' sci-fi does not work and ends up looking stupid. The human mind has a hard enough time envisioning a genuine galactic scale, thus all the SW EU minimalism crap - people just can't handle it. No one can really get their head around universal scale stuff; the very best you can really do is Xeelee-verse style humans seeing hints of a big picture they're not really part of. 'Universe-spanning human empire' comes out like the later Dune books - idiotic. Unless you're writing stories just as a wrapper for your pet cosmology concepts (which Baxter and Egan do to some extent) a universal scale gets you nothing story-wise that a galactic scale does not and is much harder to maintain plausibility and coherence in.

[Enforcer Talen]

Yeah, its often easier to just run with the HGTTG style of the universe:

"Space is big. No, bigger then that. . ."

[Big Orange]

Some of my rubbish ideas for the Infinite Empire:

* Galaxy Bases are galaxy spirals installed with colossal engine units that are the size of star clusters and tied into the very fabric of the Universe, making the galaxy spirals mobile. Every star is used as a power source and there is a hyperstructure built around every galaxy spiral's central black hole (which is the Galaxy Bases' central power source, Multiverse drive and gigacomputer).

* The Infinite's fleet is made up of mobile black holes, mobile suns (all enclosed by smaller hyperstrutures) and larger independent hypersructures of solid matter several light years across.

* Infinite ground units are called War Cubes - solid cubes of matter that are the size of a hundred floored skyscraper and tied into the fabric of the Universe on a fundamental level, with the potential to churn out an infinite number of war drones (of Culture level combat ability), matter and anti-matter (War Cubes can also travel through time, space and the Multiverse).

*FAP* *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* *FAP*-*SPLAT*

[RedImperator]

If this belongs in another thread and needs to be moved, please move.

Ok, I am playing around with the idea of writing some kind of short sci-fi story or whatevers and I was thinking "Maybe some of my ideas are too wanked out" so maybe I can get some info on what you guys think?

I think it's telling that you're more concerned about the RAR POWAR LEVEL of the story universe than you are about plot and characters. You've given no hint whatsoever what kind of story you plan on writing, which would go a long way towards answering the question in the thread title. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be ridiculously wanked out if it weren't satire; more than a few Tom Clancy novels are ridiculously wanked out and they're ostensibly set on modern Earth with modern Earth technology.

Size of my empire: Decided to call my empire the Infinite, they control 1 entire universe (the story takes place in a universe they are invading)

This is--how shall I put it kindly?--very silly. A species which controls an entire universe can be made to work if the writer has enough skill (or, as mentioned above, it's a comedy, in which case all bets are off). Bluntly, however, you don't have enough skill. The fundamental problem here is that you don't seem to understand the scale of the universe at all. The organizational challenges of maintaining political control over an entire universe are completely beyond the abilities of any structure that bears any resemblance to a modern or historical human polity. Considering that all human organizational structures are created (or evolve) under the assumption that the polity is finite, I doubt any kind of hierarchical authority structure could control an entire universe.

Then there is the practical problem of actually bringing an entire universe under political control before that universe's heat death renders the entire exercise moot (in actuality, long before the heat death, proton decay and the end of stellar formation will make the universe uninhabitable). Even if your starships are capable of traveling at arbitrary speed, the actual process of conquest is not infinitely fast, and so long before the universe is conquered, every star has slipped off the main sequence. And that will be the M type red dwarfs--brighter stars like the sun will be long dead by then.

Infinite homeworld:
I cant decide between these 3 scenarios
A) Their homeworld has been converted into a complete war machine, complete with engines (to move the planet if need be) and the entire populace of their homeplanet is covered with massive shields, war factories, troop barracks, planetary defense guns etc etc

Just having a homeworld is silly at this scale. You couldn't fit the imperial bureaucracy on a single planet. Never mind the idea that a single planet could contain a measurable, let alone appreciable, portion of their industrial capacity.

B) they moved their homeplanet to the center of their original galaxy

So it could...fall into a supermassive black hole after getting sterilized by searing radiation?

I find myself consistently boggled by people who want to write science fiction without even elementary knowledge of science. I can understand not fully grasping relativity or orbital mechanics or the more counter-intuitive implications of advanced technology, but this is basic astronomy. An afternoon perusing the astronomy books n the children's section of the local public library could have eliminated this possibility in your mind.

C) they build an ultra massive behemoth (spell?) structure that covers most of their galaxy, that is much like A (it has galactic defense guns etc etc)

Where would the material for this come from? What material could possibly survive the mechanical and gravitational stresses of englobing an entire galaxy? What's the point of the whole exercise?

Infinite founding race:
Post-humans, after a war on Earth against their original transhuman ancestors

Quite apart from any other difficulties, you face a real problem if you plan on using transhumans as characters. Either they're going to be difficult to understand, and therefore write, or they're going to be indistinguishable from humans.

FTL travel:
Jump drives

No particular objections. Jump drives are no more scientifically objectionable than most other sci-fi FTL schemes.

army technology:
the infantry unit has replaced every other form of ground combat
they have power armor suits (think Spartans mixed with the MI) and their higher ranking soldier elite have limited time distortion tech

This ties into the problem I mentioned above: if they have to send an army to the surface to conquer a planet, then a planetary conquest will take time, and they don't have an infinite amount of time to conquer the universe. If they somehow do rule the universe, it's not possible for them to have conquered it planet-by-planet like the US Marines advancing across the Pacific.

Unlike the others in this thread, I have no objection to removing tanks and artillery. At these scales, heavy ground combat just won't happen. Either you will have space superiority and therefore can bombard the enemy at will and send in the infantry to mop up, or you do not have space superiority and you would be a fool to invade. In fact, even bombardment is superfluous. There is absolutely nothing a single planet could have that would make it worth the expense of conquering by force of arms. The fleet arrives in the system, and the locals either unconditionally surrender or the planet is demolished.

Actually, while we're on this subject, why do planets matter at all except as raw materials? Why bother conquering and garrisoning one? You control the entire universe; a single planet, a single system, a single galaxy, a single supercluster is not a threat. This is what I mean about having no sense of scale. You're thinking about planets and ground armies with a polity that can englobe galaxies. This is a civilization to which individual planets will be less significant than individual grains of sand are to us. If they want to manage planets, they will use the wanked out uber-equivalent of bulldozers and front end loaders, not armies.

fleet power:
their main ships are around the size of the Executor-class ships, 1 ship is assigned to each star system (since they can literally travel the whole universe with their jump drive, mobilization speed is incredibly fast)

Unlike most of the others, I have no objection to starships a "mere" 17km long. It's rather refreshing compared to the rest of this wank, actually. It does not follow that because you control a huge area, your ships therefore should be much larger; by this logic, since the United States is ~10 times larger than Japan, the largest US carrier in WWII should have been 10 times larger than the largest Japanese carrier. The ships should be large enough to do the job and no larger.

On the other hand, why you bother assigning them to individual star systems is beyond me. On this scale, star systems don't matter.

time distortion tech:
their soldier elite has special time distortion dealies, that can allow the manipulation of time (limited use, since the time manipulation requires "charges") they are immune to time stop since they have a special energy running through their armor

Oh Jesus.

i dont know how time dilation works,

That's dreadfully obvious.

i cant decide between these versions
A) the time charge stops time everywhere

No. Just no. On more levels than I care to explain, or have time to this afternoon.

B) the charge simply slows down time

If applied to the entire universe, see above. If applied only to the soldier, see below.

C) the charge creates a "field" the closer to the time equipment user you get, the more the passage of time is slowed, the farther away, time is normal

You can slow down time two ways: traveling very fast, or hanging around in a very intense gravity field. Unfortunately for you, the idea of traveling very fast, or being in a very intense gravity field, yet not experiencing time dilation because of a magic energy field in your pants is so absurd it's beyond laughable.

I don't understand why you didn't simply make the soldiers faster. That at least would make the idea slightly less ludicrous. "Their perception of time speeds up, and their bodies temporarily gain the speed and strength needed to move at very high speeds". No actual screwing around with time required.

even writing it down makes me think i went to far
seem to ridiculous even to me

Your instincts are correct, unless you're writing a parody of bad science fiction.

but still

i remember hearing (somewhere on this forum) about a sci-fi battle in some book where there were like 5.5 trillion vs 3.9 trillion (forgot the actual numbers, but i remember the word trillion in there)

Even those numbers are small compared to the entire universe.

anyways too wanked out?
not enough wankage?

any ideas or suggestions?

Read science and good science fiction before you start writing bad science fiction.

[Big Orange]

RedImperator, do you think my set of ideas for a Universe controlling empire are adequate? I assume a faction so powerful would wield raw military through moving raw matter, super probes and whole galaxies (not unlike the Xeelee). And why would such a race be human like (unless they're like Time Lords)?

[Ace Pace]

RedImperator, do you think my set of ideas for a Universe controlling empire are adequate? I assume a faction so powerful would wield raw military through moving raw matter, super probes and whole galaxies (not unlike the Xeelee). And why would such a race be human like (unless they're like Time Lords)?

Any single species with the power to control a universe would have no need for raw military power, nor would it be organised as any sort of goverment as we understand today.

[Hugh]

About the whole time distortion thing, let me point out just one paradox: if "the time charge stops time everywhere", what happens when two troopers engage their time charges at the same time? It will happen a lot, you know, since they're literally everywhere.

One more issue that wasn't pointed out (I suppose it's minor compared to everything else): can you imagine the gravitational effects of a galaxy-spanning hyperstructure? Think of the Moon and its effects on Earth. Now multiply this by... oh, I don't know, a billion billions? Even if everything is built in interstellar space, this can't be good for all those star systems.

I just started thinking about this yesterday.

It shows Go think about it some more. And then some more.

[RedImperator]

RedImperator, do you think my set of ideas for a Universe controlling empire are adequate? I assume a faction so powerful would wield raw military through moving raw matter, super probes and whole galaxies (not unlike the Xeelee). And why would such a race be human like (unless they're like Time Lords)?

I think your initial assessment of "fap fap fap SPLAT" was accurate.

The way I conceive a universe-spanning civilization, you only need two things: arbitrarily fast transport and arbitrarily powerful weapons. It is simply impossible to achieve direct political control of the entire universe. So controlling the universe would mean that you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want without any effective opposition. Rather like the Xeelee or the Photino Birds, actually.

One more issue that wasn't pointed out (I suppose it's minor compared to everything else): can you imagine the gravitational effects of a galaxy-spanning hyperstructure? Think of the Moon and its effects on Earth. Now multiply this by... oh, I don't know, a billion billions? Even if everything is built in interstellar space, this can't be good for all those star systems.

Actually, inside the structure, the gravitational pull from any part is counterbalanced by the gravitational pull of the rest of it (assuming the structure is spherical). However, since we're on the topic of gravity, there would be nothing to stabilize it, so gravitational perturbations from other galaxies would, without some kind of active station keeping, eventually send it off course.

Assuming the damnfool thing doesn't just self-destruct under its own mass or the mechanical stresses involved in holding it together.

[Hugh]

Actually, inside the structure, the gravitational pull from any part is counterbalanced by the gravitational pull of the rest of it (assuming the structure is spherical).

Right. I should have thought about it some more In any event, there are good reasons why our universe is shaped the way it is, with lots of spheroids spinning around other spheroids and so on. The laws of physics, I think they're called.

Which, by the way, gives me an idea: this whole concept might work - with very good writing! - if it was set in a fantasy universe with arbitrary laws. You know, with playful god-like beings and whatnot. Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think your initial assessment of "fap fap fap SPLAT" was accurate.

The way I conceive a universe-spanning civilization, you only need two things: arbitrarily fast transport and arbitrarily powerful weapons. It is simply impossible to achieve direct political control of the entire universe. So controlling the universe would mean that you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want without any effective opposition. Rather like the Xeelee or the Photino Birds, actually.

The only realistic way I can envision such a large entity is along the same lines as the Greenfly in Reynolds' work. Being limited to STL given FTL is impossible without Novikov self-consistency cutting you out of space-time, means billions of years expanding as von Neumann machines until all space is essentially uniformly made from such machines. Eating the universe is somewhat different to ruling a universal empire, however.

[Darth Ruinus]

Yupe, upon rereading what I typed, this is impossible. So what I did was, instead of the Universe, they control 1 galaxy, and have small bases in a few other galaxies.
The Galaxy Base thingy, I replaced those with big mobile stations called Monoliths. They dont have a homeplanet anymore, just a really really big spaceship that serves as the capital. Still have jump drives, and the Time deal is gone, instead, they just have really advanced power armor, but no time deal at all anymore. Someone a while ago said that the infantry could never replace tanks and artillery, even with power armor. I was sorta basing my idea for the infantry like the MI in Starship Troopers.

I already posted something about the story in an earlier post.

Thanks for making me get rid of those stupid ideas.