Orions Arm claims to be website dedicated to give an idea of what the future might look like based on real science. However it is actualy pseudo-science masquerading as science fact. The creators have certainly read too many Culture books. They confuse science fiction with science fact.

So what do you think about this site ?

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I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.

the worst offenses are their explanations of their GUT drives, and the physics smaller then atoms. But other then that, it's actually pretty hard science.

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Sì! Abbiamo un' anima! Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot.

You forgot the FTL warp bubble sensor. It is funny seeing as how they bash sci-fi for having FTL drive but themselves use FTL technology.

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I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.

I thought that they made it clear that all they had made was a sci-fi setting.

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"Hi there, would you like to have a cookie?"

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I think this clear things up.



They claim hard science, plausible technology and realistic cultural development. Obviously they ignore this when writting the technology pages.

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I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.

As I was writting the previous post I struck a gold mine. This is http://www.orionsarm.com/intro/vs.html their view the Star Trek vs Star Wars debate.

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I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.

I take it these are the sort of people who denounce Star Wars or space opera as possessing "laughable" or "imaginary" science yet dress up their own inventions and disguise it as Hard SF? I always considered that intellectual snobbery ...

Am I wrong in regards to this site? I've only perused it to a limited degree.

The premise behind that one is that its only impossible to make macroscopic warp drives, because while the physics works out the energy requirement is far too high. But small particles can be propelled by such 'drives' because their small size brings the energy requirements down to realistic levels.

In other words, they dress up their own bad science. Orion's Arm has some nice stories, but the snobbery is a turnoff. Most authors simply admit to having bad science and try not to dwell on it(Avoiding the Infodump, so to speak), but when you claim you don't have it, and have it anyway.. Yea.

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They don't realize that the energy requirement problem for lightspeed travel is independent of the size of an object, and applies equally to a single electron as it does to a planet?

Did I inturprate that correctly? At the end they think that if their race or group magically entered either SW or ST where forcefields and such a possible, then their group or race would be able to make them too?

A gold mine indeed.

Describing Darkstar's website:


As for the rest of the site, yeah, it does smack of hypocrisy. There's nothing wrong with space fantasy at all, just as there is nothing wrong with hard SF. I myself am working on a gritty SF universe, but in order to do what I want to do with it, I need a few "magic" techs like FTL and such. The key is internal consistancy and lack of infodumps. Beyond that, most people don't really care.

Dr. Wong?

Just further goes to show how well they were paying attention to actual site content.

Perhaps you could provide a few examples of this pseudo-science? And keep in mind that it is impossible to create a sci-fi setting without a certain amount of 'handwaveium'. What Orion's Arm is trying to do is keep this to a minimum, i.e. no humanoid aliens, FTL drives etc.



Actually, FTL warp bubbles aren't mentioned. Warp bubbles, yes, but not FTL warp bubbles. And FTL drives are a big no-no, macroscopic or otherwise.



That they obviously only skimmed through Mr. Wong's and RSA's websites has no bearing on whether Orion's Arm technology is psuedo-science or not.

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Supreme Ninja Hacker Mage Lord of the Internet | Evil Satanic Atheist
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There is no such thing as FTL warp-bubbles regardless. The thing to realize is that general relativity does not prohibit faster than light travel per se. The only requirement is that at every point the ship travels inside its own light cone. In Minkowski space, that is equivalent to traveling below light speed (by any interpretation), but in general relativity it means that the only requirement that at every point the ship's speed is locally slower than light. A warp bubble can be exploited to make the ship get from A to B faster than light would, even though at any point in its journey the ship travels slower than light with respect to its immediate surroundings. The `FTL warp-bubble' vs `non-FTL warp-bubble' distinction is absolutely meaningless. If you can make warp bubbles at all, you can send things faster than light.

Mike, I didn't know you had a Doctorate.

You should put that on your entry-page:

"Doctors everywhere say Star Wars beats Star Trek. Just Ask Dr. Wong."

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Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker

He doesn't.

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I especially like how they ignore basic suspension of disbelief at the bottom when stating that rival universes would be transported to theirs where 'their FTL drives won't work'.

Priceless.

I support that we start calling my Dr. Wong from now on!

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Sì! Abbiamo un' anima! Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot.

Doctor of what though...proctology?

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How'd I know that'd come up sooner or later...

Update: Warp bubbles come from the time when Orion's Arm wasn't stritly hard science. Today this concept have been scrapped and there are no 'warp bubbles', FTL or otherwise.

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Supreme Ninja Hacker Mage Lord of the Internet | Evil Satanic Atheist
[img=left]http://www.geocities.com/johnny_nanonic/sig/sig.gif[/img] The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m sec sec.

Aren't they currently worshipping wormholes as the ideal and perfect hard-scifi means of getting around?

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Remember: If you're here on a work visa, pointing out you do not get minimum wage can get you deported!

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Dr. Michael Wong, Doctor of Proctological Sexuality!

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Sì! Abbiamo un' anima! Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot.