Return-Path: Date: Tue, 05 Mar 1996 10:36:46 NZST From: "Phil Scadden, Scadden Research" To: maelstrom@csnet.net Subject: RE: NET SF: Ground work [960304-1] >Like I said it's possible, but until I get the time to do it, it's a moot >point (BTW, you don't need AutoCAD LT, just MS Works to display the file >with embedded pictures - I understand MS Works is standard on alot of new >PCs - but for those who don't have it, you'll have to settle for separate >text files and image files). Not wildly enthused at assuming everyone has windows let alone Works. If you want to make the assumption, then perhaps should use my Mapnote freeware where you can combine maps, iamge and text. By itself it doesnt read Autocad, but if DXF files sent to me, I can convert. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Scadden, Scadden Research 55 Buick St, Petone, Lower Hutt New Zealand ph (04) 568-7190, fax (04) 569 5016 ---- Return-Path: Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:11:35 -0700 X-Sender: hwkwnd@johnny.poky.srv.net To: maelstrom@csnet.net From: hwkwnd@poky.srv.net (Alan D Kohler) Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960304-1] >> BTW, I've been contemplating using AutoCAD LT and works to make a descritive >> essay on Q-drive physics. Anyone with MS Works would be able to view >Me not have MS Works... It might be an idea to HTMLise Nah - I'll use notepad or write to chop of the control characters, making it your basic text file, but if you want to HTMLize it, have a blast. >> It is true that most people don't like change, >> and trying to just ship a bunch of people out to Alpha Centaure to form a >> colony "just to see if it works" isn't going to appeal to most people. >> So a good reason will be needed to start colonization. > >What's 'most' people? 99%? That still leaves 50 million odd people who >do. If there were places for colonists on a new world, you'd have >difficulty restricting numbers, rather than making them up. >However expensive q-drive ships are, within a hundred years it will >become economical to ship out millions of colonists to distant stars. >Remember, if we're having a hard SF universe, then we need to obey a >few simple technological rules. Namely, technology doesn't stand still. >As soon as the first q-drive has been built, people will be spending a >_lot_ of time and money into building cheaper and better ones. True, but we have to keep this in perspective. 50 Million is a LOT of people, and even today, it would be a major economic expenditure to ship the many people across the ocean, if it could even be done in a credible period of time. Just look at "DESERT STORM" - I don't have exact figures, but it was much less than 50 million people. From what I understand, the navy had significant problems shipping that many army divisions over there. But I will try to take this into account by increasing the size of the "upstart colonies" over time to take into account the increasing ease of transporting colonists - and the fact other worlds than earth will become overpopulated over time and have a significant amount of volunteers to be colonists for the new worlds. Say colonies follow my initial model of 10000 per decade for 50 years, increasing by a factor of 5 for every 100 years later that the colony is established - thus 100 years after new colonization starts, upstart colonies will start with 50000 per decade for 50 years. Colony ships will probably not be sent to a world after 50 of establishment, since at this point local population growth outstrips the size of the colony ships, and immigration other than colony ships would be a minor factor in population growth (a little fiddling with the numbers will reveal this). >There's always my favourite form of space drive - Orion! Basically, >take a big metal plate, and explode nukes behind it. The thrust on >the plate caues acceleration, and the delicate parts of the space >craft, on the other side of the plate, are protected. Sounds like the daedelus drive - or "thermonuclear pulse drive" - which is basically uses a ring of lasers to ignites pellets behind the ship that contain He-3 and H-2, causing multiple small thermonuclear pulses. I've always thought of this as a STL starship drive, but I suppose advanced versions of it would be able to be used for about any shi needing a reaction drive. >There are also anti-matter drives (anti-matter will be cheaply >available in the time periods we seem to be using. More expensive >than fusion or solar, but a high energy density will be critical >for fast space drives. A few solar powered anti-matter production >facilities close to the sun should do the trick...) I've always thought that anti-matter would be a nigh unacheivable technology, considering the extremely small amounts of it we are able to produce today. But then again technology typically exceeds our expectations, but I would still like to use it - if we decide to use it - as a relatively new technology. One thing that broke me of the notion of antimatter as a vialbe wource of power is the notion of "wilderness refueling". Antimatter would have to be made in huge particle accelertor facilities, but hydrogen can be had in copious quantities in just about any star system - from which dueterium or tritium can be extracted, or eventually, fusion power plants/drives may be developed that work on H-1. >> >Recent population studies have suggested that it is not that likely >> >that Earth's population will ever double again. >> Can you cite some sources, I could work these into my model. The whole >> issue of population pressure is just damned inconvenient, as I picture any >> world with more than 20-50 billion or so as being a lot like larry niven's >> earth in the known space stories >Taken from "New Scientist", 17th February 1996: > >[with lots of editing] (Article snipped) Well, there's a few thing wrong using this kind of model for new colonies - most of them (lacking major technological setbacks) will probably have more monolithic technology, unlike modern day Earth, in which some nations have much less widespread availability of medical technology. However, the article mentions other factors that come into play: starvation and social factors. Accordingly, I think that I will make a "max equilibrium population", which will depend primarily on available land mass, hostility of environment, and technology level. Once the population goes beyond, say, 10% of this figure, it begins to follow an exponential decay curve approaching the equilibrium value. >On the idea of governments: > >Having more than one human government is very logical. Probably the >space around Earth (core worlds, for lack of a better term) is controlled >by the main corporate/guild structure, while some of the outer areas are >in loose confederacies or totally independent. A lot of this would be >determined by when the primary governmental structure was established. >If it happened hundreds of years ago, then any "reunification wars" or >such will have happened long ago. If the primary government has been >formed recently, then they will still be attempting to assert control >over the others on a regular basis. Sounds like a good basic model- not overly complicated, but lots of room for story development. >Someone said that the chlorine breathers do not have to be our allies. I >totally agree. I just made them our allies in the model because someone >(I don't remember who) Me - I still do - or like I mentioned, not nescesarily allies, but peacfully co-existing. > said that they liked that idea. The point about >finding the wreck in our system naturally leading to alien control of >surrounding space is well taken, but if the wreck is not in our system, >and we don't have FTL travel yet, then how are we supposed to ever find it? Someone else beat me to the puch here - STL travel to nearby stars that results in finding the derilicts. These would help maintain that suspension of disbelief for me, at least. I don't know how well the rest of you know the astronomical subculture, but if we assume that reaction drives are the only way to get around STL, someone on earth would see it if anywhere nearby - fusion drives would be able to be seen across the system. More to follow... Alan D Kohler AKA Hawkwind hwkwnd@poky.srv.net "Asps. Very dangerous. You go first." Sala to Indy in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" "As I got hit by a car there was a message for me; As I went through the windshield, I noticed something; Subliminal" They Might Be Giants "Subliminal" ---- Return-Path: Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:19:33 -0700 X-Sender: hwkwnd@johnny.poky.srv.net To: maelstrom@csnet.net From: hwkwnd@poky.srv.net (Alan D Kohler) Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960304-2] >>I agree with Alan that reaction drives are probably the way to go. The >>upside of this is that everyone accepts reaction drives. The downside is >>that everyone uses them. > >Any other alternates? (Orion and Ant-matter are two...) Dean drives - basically reactionless drives, basically unplausible. Solar sails - good intrasystem drives (no fuel to buy or scoop) but probably not on starships - not very fast. >We could have found it in another star system that was reached by STL like >Alan (?) Yep - > said. Obviously, STL is slow to get to the nearest star systems, >but I think in the beginning, us Earthlings are going to travel STL at >first. It's a logical step. Plus, it aleast gives humans more time to >develop vessels for space travel and then they would just have to figure the >rest of the logistics on coming across a Q-driven vessel. BTW, thanks for the near star list - I was coming up with very little useful information - and too much, at the same time! There is a catalougue of stars within 25 parsecs, but it lacks most of the information we need. Skymap was looking like the best resource, but that would have taken forever to weed through- it's about 151 megabytes of stellar data! Alan D Kohler AKA Hawkwind hwkwnd@poky.srv.net "Asps. Very dangerous. You go first." Sala to Indy in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" "As I got hit by a car there was a message for me; As I went through the windshield, I noticed something; Subliminal" They Might Be Giants "Subliminal" ---- -- maelstrom@csnet.net First off, I would like to apologize for not sending out digests these past couple of days. I've been extremely busy with a lot of paper work for the Paralympics and I've also been computer shopping this past weekend. I'm really sorry about the delay... Anyway, here's what I have for this digest - ---- Return-Path: Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:24:59 -0700 X-Sender: hwkwnd@johnny.poky.srv.net To: maelstrom@csnet.net From: hwkwnd@poky.srv.net (Alan D Kohler) Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960307-1] (My previous post on population) >But I will try to take this into account by increasing the size of the >"upstart colonies" over time to take into account the increasing ease of >transporting colonists - and the fact other worlds than earth will become >overpopulated over time and have a significant amount of volunteers to be >colonists for the new worlds. Say colonies follow my initial model of 10000 >per decade for 50 years, increasing by a factor of 5 for every 100 years >later that the colony is established - thus 100 years after new colonization >starts, upstart colonies will start with 50000 per decade for 50 years. >Colony ships will probably not be sent to a world after 50 of establishment, >since at this point local population growth outstrips the size of the colony >ships, and immigration other than colony ships would be a minor factor in >population growth (a little fiddling with the numbers will reveal this). BTW, on the "population saturation" thing, I just got my Discover magazine yesterday, the was an article called "Ten myths of population" - it has some interesting observations - some of them off the mark IMHO, but it does make some good observations toconsider, for those interested in taking a look. >>There's always my favourite form of space drive - Orion! Basically, >>take a big metal plate, and explode nukes behind it. The thrust on >>the plate caues acceleration, and the delicate parts of the space >>craft, on the other side of the plate, are protected. > >Sounds like the daedelus drive - or "thermonuclear pulse drive" - which is >basically uses a ring of lasers to ignites pellets behind the ship that >contain He-3 and H-2, causing multiple small thermonuclear pulses. I've >always thought of this as a STL starship drive, but I suppose advanced >versions of it would be able to be used for about any shi needing a reaction >drive. Well, I found out the basic difference between "Orion" and "Daedelus" - orion is fission, daedelus is fusion. I also think daedelus is a little more executable - it relies on having thousands of small pellets as fuel, vice "One quarter of a million nuclear bombs" - ouch. Also, daedelus assumes the thrust can be directed with superconducting magnets, vice a simple plate to bounce explosions off of. Anyway, the place I found this info- and a lot more - is a page called "The School of Starship Design" that I stumbled on to totally by accident. Take a look - its got good graphics and descriptions that a layman can understand. It's at: http://sunsite.unc.edu/lunar/sdhp.html Later all - keep goin - we're off to a great start. Alan D Kohler AKA Hawkwind hwkwnd@poky.srv.net "Asps. Very dangerous. You go first." Sala to Indy in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" "As I got hit by a car there was a message for me; As I went through the windshield, I noticed something; Subliminal" They Might Be Giants "Subliminal" ---- Return-Path: Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 10:26:56 -0600 (CST) From: Thorne Aaron W X-Sender: awt851s@nic.smsu.edu To: maelstrom@csnet.net Subject: NET SF: even more random thoughts... First of all, the reason I didn't like the STL travel to the other planet to find the derelict starship is because of the time involved. The closest star to Sol is around 3ly away, right? That means that it would take the ship around 4 years to get there. Once in the system, how would the ship be found? Long-range scanners picking up metal in open space? How long would that take? It would take another 3 or so years for the message to get back to earth. Would the derelict have to be transfered back to the Sol system to be broken down for reverse-engineering? It just takes so long... Also, do we have any kind of agreement on what kind of planet generation system we will use when we get to that point? I am very partial to the system given in the Journeyman game. it's not long, but it is very good for a "hard" sci-fi setting, mainly because of the results. Humans as a species are not tolerant of much variances in our ecology, and planets similar to earth will not be common. We must remember that most systems will not have planets that can support human life without technological assistance. If colonies are formed on these worlds anyway, that will put a limit on their population growth, and probably on their maximum size. - Aaron Thorne ---- Return-Path: To: maelstrom@csnet.net From: Samuel Penn Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960307-1] Reply-To: sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk References: <9603071502.AC13019@mhv.net> Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 18:48:57 GMT Organization: Somewhere in Aldershot Another point regarding the q-drive: if we're assuming it works best near a large mass, then why can't it be used from a planet's surface? Okay, so even if we say that range achievable from the surface of an Earth-like world is limited, this can still gives us effectively a teleport device. Is this sort of effect wanted? Or are we going to want to make sure that the q-drive can't be used in this way? -- Be seeing you, Sam. ---- Return-Path: To: maelstrom@csnet.net From: Samuel Penn Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960307-1] Reply-To: sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk References: <9603071502.AC13019@mhv.net> Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 18:25:40 GMT Organization: Somewhere in Aldershot In message <9603071502.AC13019@mhv.net> you wrote: > Return-Path: > Date: Tue, 05 Mar 1996 10:36:46 NZST > From: "Phil Scadden, Scadden Research" > To: maelstrom@csnet.net > Subject: RE: NET SF: Ground work [960304-1] > > Not wildly enthused at assuming everyone has windows let alone Works. Or even (Intel) PCs... We're not all followers of Bill Gates :) > From: hwkwnd@poky.srv.net (Alan D Kohler) > Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960304-1] > > >Me not have MS Works... It might be an idea to HTMLise > > Nah - I'll use notepad or write to chop of the control characters, making it > your basic text file, but if you want to HTMLize it, have a blast. Plain text is fine by me. > >What's 'most' people? 99%? That still leaves 50 million odd people who > >do. If there were places for colonists on a new world, you'd have > >difficulty restricting numbers, rather than making them up. > > True, but we have to keep this in perspective. 50 Million is a LOT of > people, and even today, it would be a major economic expenditure to ship the > many people across the ocean, if it could even be done in a credible period > of time. Just look at "DESERT STORM" - I don't have exact figures, but it > was much less than 50 million people. From what I understand, the navy had > significant problems shipping that many army divisions over there. Remember that those army divisions probably included vehicle support as well as troops. In the time scales we're talking about (a couple of hundred years into the future), cryo-freeze will allow us to pack lots of colonists into a small volume, with no worries about carrying supplies, and automated factories can take care of building whatever we need at the other end, maybe even dismantling parts of the ship. It may make sense to have the drive of the ship seperable from the living quarters. At the destination, the living quarters detatch and once everyone has disembarked, can be dismantled and used for raw materials. This (depending on the exact workings of the drive) may allow for a faster return journey for the drive sections. > But I will try to take this into account by increasing the size of the > "upstart colonies" over time to take into account the increasing ease of > transporting colonists - and the fact other worlds than earth will become > overpopulated over time and have a significant amount of volunteers to be > colonists for the new worlds. Sounds reasonable. > >There's always my favourite form of space drive - Orion! Basically, > >take a big metal plate, and explode nukes behind it. The thrust on > >the plate caues acceleration, and the delicate parts of the space > >craft, on the other side of the plate, are protected. > > Sounds like the daedelus drive - or "thermonuclear pulse drive" - which is > basically uses a ring of lasers to ignites pellets behind the ship that > contain He-3 and H-2, causing multiple small thermonuclear pulses. I've > always thought of this as a STL starship drive, but I suppose advanced > versions of it would be able to be used for about any shi needing a reaction > drive. Both are STL, since _any_ reaction drive is going to be STL (unless you use some other widget to get around relativity). I believe Daedelus ignites the pellets inside the drive, using them to heat the fuel. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get hold of any details on Daedelus beyond the very basic. > I've always thought that anti-matter would be a nigh unacheivable > technology, considering the extremely small amounts of it we are able to > produce today. But then again technology typically exceeds our > expectations, but I would still like to use it - if we decide to use it - as > a relatively new technology. Apparantly, anti-matter production is increasing by a factor of ten every two years. Since this info was gleaned from a big discussion on rec.arts.sf.science a couple of years ago though, I'm not too sure of the validity of it. Considering they're now able to make whole atoms of anti-matter (rather than just single particles), it does seem things are improving. > One thing that broke me of the notion of antimatter as a vialbe wource of > power is the notion of "wilderness refueling". Antimatter would have to be > made in huge particle accelertor facilities, but hydrogen can be had in > copious quantities in just about any star system - from which dueterium or > tritium can be extracted, or eventually, fusion power plants/drives may be > developed that work on H-1. It's worse. Since no process is 100% efficient, any energy used to make anti-matter won't provide enough anti-matter to match the amount of energy originally expended, so anti-matter will always be more expensive than fusion, solar or chemical power. OTOH, anti-matter is _very_ energy dense. Which means far less mass on a spacecraft being wasted carrying around fuel and propellant. Which means cheaper, faster and better spacecraft. Overall, anti-matter drives are better, assuming engineering difficulties can be surmounted. btw, one idea I had for anti-matter production facilities was huge particle accelerators orbiting as close as possible to the sun. Large solar panels can then be used to power the facility, giving very cheap anti-matter. > >>I agree with Alan that reaction drives are probably the way to go. The > >>upside of this is that everyone accepts reaction drives. The downside is > >>that everyone uses them. > > > >Any other alternates? (Orion and Ant-matter are two...) > > Dean drives - basically reactionless drives, basically unplausible. Solar > sails - good intrasystem drives (no fuel to buy or scoop) but probably not > on starships - not very fast. But put a big laser behind the solar sail, and use that as the light source, and you can get half-decent accelerations. Destinations will tend to be limited though. -- Be seeing you, Sam. ---- One more final comment... For those of you who have been "inactive", if you would like to discuss something that has not been brought up or that you're interested in, bring it up. The discussions do not have to all be around STL travel, Q-travel, and governments/corporations/guilds. Until next time, James -- maelstrom@csnet.net >All I really have currently of my own creation is a spreadsheet for >microsoft works that calculates population growth for a colony given a >certain initial colony size (or, how I have it set up now, a certain amount >of colonists arive every 10 years for a period of 100 years.) Okay, basically what you had when we were first working on Net SF. [snip] >I am leaning towards a system whereby you roll up (or decide) a worlds >"physical characteristics" and then, from that, find a "habitability rating" >for the world. Then, based on that and the amount of time the world has >been colonized, you find the population and how well developed the world is. >It makes a lot more sense to me that way. I agree. Also, another resource which I will be getting soon is a book called _World-Building_ by S. Gillet. ISBN#:0898797071 I have heard it's a very good book for SF writers or SF game designers. The book covers techniques and concepts that begin with the design of the star system to the life forms and possibly their cultures. I will probably try to get it when I get out to college since it's a text book. It's not expensive like most text books. I think it will help both with our design ideas and the world generation mechanics. >As far as Q-drive discussion goes, it might be a good idea if I go back and >cobble together the notes I had in the old digest and put it together with >my new thoughts. What I'll do is send you a email or textfile that refers >to the figures, which I'll send you in a different file (postscript). I look forward to seeing them. [snip] >Peizo crystals are crystals that contract when exposed to an electric >current and emit an electric charge when pressure is applied to them. > >If we were to make a ceramic material that utilizes this property to the >extreme, we may have the basis for a new material technology. Materials >tend to have their limits, and one can only come up with materials so tough >before applying a given amount of energy to it will destroy it. But now if >we make a hypothetical "peizo-ceramic" that disipates the kinetic energy >from a blow as electricity, you have made a quantum leap in materials >science. It is quite likely that such a material, if it existed, would be >used to make items that must undergo tremendous physical stress e.g. >starship hulls and personal armor. This material would be extremely helpful in the development of the Q-drive. If you remember, we talked about how some smaller vessels will have more difficulty traveling faster using the Q-drive since they were more fragile and could not be protected as well since the hulls would be too heavy for the smaller ships. I then mentioned that there would be advances that would allow the smaller ships to q-jump further. Well, the "peizo-ceramic" material would allow it. Perhaps when the Q-drive was first developed, the peizo-ceramic technology was still very basic. Going by that, the hulls for smaller ships could not withstand all the energy required for entering Q-space, nor the force exerted on them while in Q-space. With the improvements of p-c, this problem becomes less of one. We can discuss this some more when I see your docs on the Q-drive. >While that in and of itself would be an incredible technology, the real >breakthrough would be a similar material that converts the molecular kinetic >energy (i.e. heat) of the material directly into electrical power. As you >may or may not be aware current fission reactor (and presumably, fusion >reactors) utilize a coolant system (usually water or liquid sodium or >lithium) to transfer heat to a water system, which becomes high energy steam >that powers a turbine generator which produces elecricity. While this works >well enough it is exremely bulky, and not too practical for spacecraft. Nor practical on a very wide-spread use. >Now if you replace the cooling system with a heat-to-elecricity converting >material, you no longer need turbine genrators or massive cooling systems. >Your power plant can all be put in to a small, self contained unit. Also, the power plant in many ways can keep itself going using some of the electricity converted from the heat. >Gravitics: > >Though this was another cliche I had avoided for some time, gravitic >technology makes too many things damn convenient to explain away in a "far >future" SF game. > >I sort of have come to the assumption that gravitic technology would be a >forebearer to the q-drive. I had made the assumtion that powerful >electro-magnetic feild would create the "bubble" that allowed a ship to >transverse into Q-space. The fact is that poweful gravitic feilds would >probably be required, too. I agree also, but I'm not one to know too much about the interaction of electro-magnetic and gravitic fields. >As someone mentioned in the old digests, it would take several orders more >energy than mankind cuold ever hope to muster before we could make a feild >in which distinctions between various forces would blur. But there is a >possible shortcut. I think I said it, but I'm not sure... Doesn't matter. [snip] >As you may know, the strong and weak nuclear forces are very strong compared >to gravity, but act over only a very short distance. His claim (and what >I'm subsuming - it's the only explaination that I've ever heard for >anti-gravity that sounds even marginally plausible) is that there are >certain super-heavy elements that have very large nuclei that go beyond the >limit of the "strong nuclear force". While theoretically such elements >could be stable, he suggests such elements are the key to anti-gravity. > >As you may be aware, when various heavy elements are bombarded with various >subatomic particles, the undergo reactions - of which fission is only one. >Other things that can happen is the stimulated release of alpha, beta, or >gamma radiation. >His suggestion is when such reactions occur in the super-heavy elememnts (he >claims element 115), one of the radiations that can get released to to the >large nucleus is gravitons - theoretical carriers of gravity waves. >Purportedy, one can manipulate these reactions to set up interference >patterns with other gravity waves similar to the way radio waves hav >interference patterns. > >Ok, assuming these theories are correct for the purposes of our anti-grav >technology, this is where we begin to embellish to work it into the game >background. The basis of anti-grav technology is super-heavy elements. We >can artificially create it (at extreme expense), or we can find it in >supernova remnants - a small amount is created in supernovas, let's say. >When created, lets assume that a large portion of these super-heavy elements >are unstable and decay into much smaller, less useful elements. But a small >portion of the isotopes created are relatively stable and can be used in a >"regenerative reaction" over a longer period of time. Even isotopes that are not stable, but have very long half-lifes than they should be able to be used also. Granted, they are not as valuable as having stable ones, but if you need some when you're low, you can get by. >What does this mean to the game? Well, anything but the stable isotopes >that came from a supernova explosion decayed away thousands of years ago. >While most ships that use gravitics use man-made superheavy elements, their >supply of superheavy elements is constantly decaying, giving it a limited >lifespan. However, if someone found deposits of naturally developed >superheavy elements, it would almost be a pure, stable isotope, thus much >more valuable. Now we have an additional plot motivator, a natural resource >that would have most major interstellar governments (or in our case, >megacorporations) drooling over a substantial find of it! A resources of these super-heavy elements could cause war, piracy, tariffs, and so on. They're quite valuable for *anybody* to want. >Gravitics Applications- >The first and most obvious use of this technology is anti-gravitic >propulsion on a worlds surface. The vehicles would be smoother and quicker drives. One question, what kind of environmental factors could this affect? :) >The second is as a component of the Q-drives feild. Also, it can be used by the Q-sling. >A third is an inertial compensator - if you have a large, powerful drive >like a fusion rocket, perhaps a feild permeating the ship ensures that all >atoms of the ship are uniformly accelerated, allowing people and equipment >to be accelerated and not even notice it. Even more of a concern, to keep their atoms and molecules from coming apart going in and out of Q-space. >Another - possibly recent - application is a reactionless thruster. If one >can project feilds of gravity or anti gravity short distances into space, >perhaps you can plop a gravitic feild in front of the ship and a >anti-gravitic one behind the ship - presto - reactionless drive! >Another I'm considering is a weapon - which I may discuss more about later; >this one's getting a little long and I have to go soon. When you first mentioned gravitics, I thought of a reactionless thruster. My second thought was usage on space stations. It can allow people to walk around the station without "floating away". >I have some ideas on fusion technology and weaponry, too, but it'll keep >'till tomorrow. I just thought I'd run some of these by you and see if you >think they're too hoaky or if I'm going too far justifying the technology. Too hoaky? Well, if you mean do they push SF far? Yes, definitely. Within reason, I think they are. The next time I write, I will have more ideas over many areas. My problem is I have to do some of my last minute packing. :) If you don't get back to me by late tonight (Sunday), send emails and possible files to my new email address at arendt@uiuc.edu and I will get back to you as soon as I get hooked up out there which won't be long since at times I can't "live without my 'puter". Not that bad, but you know what I mean. Anyway, hopefully I'll hear from you soon. Until then... James arendt@uiuc.edu -- maelstrom@csnet.net