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Where did all the starships go?

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Re: Where did all the starships go?

#351

Post by chasil »

int_19h wrote: post #254
chasil wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three Body Problem in the book set the alien world in Alpha Centari, which is not a three body system. Even a cursory analysis at the time of writing would have ruled out Alpha Centari. It was shockingly bad research.

Never mind that; how about sentient (AI) protons?

The Sophons are actually more believable. Much has been discovered since the first book was written, and that was actually a very good guess.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-co...

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#352

Post by stavros »

tialaramex wrote: post #8
thomasguide wrote: post #4

FYI, this is about the titles of these books, not the textual content of the books themselves. The implication of the article is that sci-fi is losing relative standing to fantasy, but another interpretation is that science fiction titles have become more abstract and less literal over time.

Yeah, I think at most very literal titles would be a stylistic phase. Even "The Martian" is more a play on words than just a literal title for what it's about. Taking favourite novels which are within arm's reach: Sure "Rainbows End" is Science Fiction which doesn't involve space travel etc. but "Incandescence" is also SF but that's deeply about space travel. Banks' "Whit" and "Surface Detail" are both sat here. One…

Wait, what's the play on words in The Martian?

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#354

Post by int_19h »

chasil wrote: post #351
int_19h wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never mind that; how about sentient (AI) protons?

The Sophons are actually more believable. Much has been discovered since the first book was written, and that was actually a very good guess. https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-co...

I don't see how. Yes, protons are made out of quarks. No, this doesn't mean that you can "roll out" proton "like a sheet", and then "etch a circuit" (!!!) on it, quantum or otherwise.

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#355

Post by int_19h »

pfdietz wrote: post #337
int_19h wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early SF would be a couple decades before Lem.

Or more. The War of the Worlds was published half a century before Lem's first novel. And arguably SF goes back farther than that. Jules Verne in 1864. Frankenstein was published in 1818.

Yeah, I'm deliberately sticking to the time period when SF was recognized as a genre in its own right, distinct from others. Otherwise we might have to go back a few centuries, depending on one's definition of sci-fi!

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#356

Post by ted_dunning »

chasil wrote: post #15
delichon wrote: post #7

The starships left with the optimism. In the 50s there was a greater demand for stories with an unconstrained vision of the future where growth and expansion amount to flourishing. Later generations that lived in the excesses of growth saw it as the source of an intensifying dystopia. They stood athwart history and demanded decelleration. Star Trek lost ground to Terminator, Foundation to Neuromancer. Escaping sidewa…

Also, we've realized the scientific reality that traveling faster than light is likely impossible, and the vast distances to other habitable planets would mean tens of thousands of years of travel even with the most efficient technology. Interstellar space is also hostile to life, and any life present at the destination will not use the same DNA coding for protein (if gene expression even works that way). We also do…

This is a very strange argument.

Are you seriously saying that people realizing that FTL travel is impossible makes people more interested in stories about magic?!?

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#358

Post by andrewflnr »

onraglanroad wrote: post #314
andrewflnr wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ok, we just need to put them on the moon or somewhere else with lighter gravity.

Less gravity has its own issues. Nothing can fly on the moon :)

Obviously you put them under a big dome. That's the easy part.

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#359

Post by spaceoperareadr »

alexitorg wrote: post #180

Here are a few ideas trends that are affecting this: -Publishing is getting less profitable so there are less books being published by the big companies. -Publishing companies are grow 70-80% woman and are choosing female preferred books -Most published fiction readers are female (I'm not sure what came first women reading more books or publishes publishing less male friendly books) -Romance is the biggest genre fict…

ISFDB has tens of thousands of self-published books listed. Since it's a volunteer project, and since specific self-published books are not necessarily easy to find if you don't know the title or the author name, they only get added when an editor there runs across them somewhere. And if something isn't listed there, you can always create an account and add publications yourself.

Re: Where did all the starships go?

#360

Post by fouc »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #248
PaulHoule wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With D-D fusion it might be possible to "live off the land" between the stars which probably have numerous interstellar objects of various sizes between them with a much larger cumulative mass than planets orbiting stars -- and it may be possible to completely disassemble those kind of bodies which are much richer overall in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen than terrestrial planets. A species with that kind of c…

A true spaceborne civilization, assuming anti-gravity isn't in there bag of tricks, probably wouldn't bother with the gravity well planets.

I feel like for this reason we should be focused on colonizing asteroids rather than the moon or mars. We can do various tricks to get artificial gravity via centrifugal force. For example if the asteroid is solid enough, we can consider putting it into a spin. If it's not solid enough, we can consider laying a track around the circumference and/or boring a tunnel around the circumference and essentially having the habitat(s) constantly rotating around the asteroid.
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