SciFi story idea: WE are the Pakled. We became a space-faring menace only because of a momentary lapse in judgement from a visiting warp-capable species. That's all it took.
"We need your computer things ... to make more Bitcoin."
Currently reading HItchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to the little one and two chapters in it’s a hit. Never laughed so hard during stories. Can’t recommend it enough. #books#scifi#kidsbooks
Intriguing analysis of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy and its central flaw.
From M. Keith Booker’s Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964 (2001) #scifi#sciencefiction#Marxism#history
It was a great surprise to everyone when an unassuming Australian physicist worked out the equations that permitted faster-than-light travel.
It was an even greater surprise to find that the engineering required to build a device to implement the theory was found to be almost trivial. It was not even particularly expensive - a typical EV car cost more than an FTL drive unit.
In accordance with things coming in threes, there was one final surprise: Organic life could not survive the process.
It only cost the lives of five astronauts - and several dozen test animals.
Once this was proven, enthusiasm for the FTL projects around the globe dropped dramatically. But some did continue. One of the more interesting aspects of the mathematics was that the process did not involve any sort of acceleration. The device simply created a field that linked two points in space. Increasing the energy just increased the size of the object transferred.
All you had to do was define the relative coordinates of the origin and the destination.
The first probe sent further than across a room vanished. So did the next three. On a hunch, the engineering team of the fifth probe fitted a powerful transmitter, and sent it on its way. Again, the return program appeared to fail.
And then, a few minutes later, the NASA Deep Space Network reported receiving a beacon message from the probe - just inside the orbit of the moon. The probe had been gone 30 minutes.
Astronomers quickly worked out what was wrong - it was not a problem with the probe, it was because the Earth, and the Solar System had moved.
Having worked out that problem, the next probe was retrieved successfully. And then sent on the first real mission: to a point outside the Milky Way to image our home galaxy.
The probe dutifully returned several hours later, to a point far enough away to not fall to Earth, but close enough to transmit the data it had gathered. The image of the galaxy was all that the designers had hoped for.
The radio transmissions were less expected. Hundreds of them, very high powered, but all structurally the same. And only able to be picked up outside of the radio noise and gas clouds within a galaxy.
When decoded they all basically said the same thing, in many different ways.
Just now getting to Rebel Moon Part 2. Movie has some weird ass cinematic choices. I'm only 30 minutes in and so far I've watched about 10 minutes of people collecting grain and drinking water. Scythefi?
Also did second unit forget how to focus a lens or...half this movie looks like it has vaseline all over it.
Mars Express is a futuristic detective story about the autonomy of synthetic beings — which is to say, it’s the latest in a long line of sci-fi influenced by Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner. But while its premise may be familiar, the movie makes up for it with style and energy. The debut feature from director Jérémie...
The third chapter of Stardust: Labyrinth is out! After the tense situation from Ch.2 is resolved, the heroes finally reach the ruins. What they find inside, and what they have to do, is not quite what they expected. This will be an... interesting mission.
Mars Express is a smart and stylish addition to the sci-fi noir canon (www.theverge.com)
Mars Express is a futuristic detective story about the autonomy of synthetic beings — which is to say, it’s the latest in a long line of sci-fi influenced by Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner. But while its premise may be familiar, the movie makes up for it with style and energy. The debut feature from director Jérémie...