The RDA can't do physics

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

So what does a cell do? What do enzymes do?

What relevance do they have to a difference in scale? An enzyme and associated proteins are huge compared to the scale you were until recently talking about.

IOW, the date is arbitrary. Terminator has sentient AI by 2010, Aliens doesn't by some multi-thousand-year date in the future.

Exactly. Thank you for disproving your own point.

1/10,000 error rate? Really? That high? And what makes you think more communication lines produces interference?

No, a higher particle count per line would since the majority would not adopt the desired state. Stop being intentionally obtuse.

...And can't data be infinitely parallelised? I know you end up with skewing your packets, and your cost multiplies per parallel line, but I wouldn't have thought either of these would be an issue in these particular circumstances.

It is still 3 bits/hour. That means the average latency is still 20 minutes even if you had 10,000,000 of them (which actually would be prohibitively expensive).

...Parts? Parts? Parts, as an additional expense, when you're building them all on-site? (And the ones you can't build on-site you ship in such large quantity you only need one ship) R&D is an issue, but it's a one-time cost. You can have this set-up going for centuries on one R&D investment.

you're still multiplying the on-world presence needed, as well as, as I mentioned before, abandoning all pretence of following the contract.

I don't see how robots/humans makes any difference to their activities when they actually get there, or even their PR. Or are we assuming, technology == pollution == bad?

No, the fact that there is no communication and therefore none of the cooperation that there was meant to be - you know, the entire reason avatars were started in the first place.

Maybe a tenth as many humans would be needed? And I still don't know what "pretence" we're maintaining, since AFAIK, it wasn't at all suggested that the RDA was not there for the money.

Why else are they there then?
Also, great way to move the goalposts again
If humans ARE required. there is no conceivable reason not to use manual operations where possible on a world which impeded electronic operation and has an atmosphere that also causes increased maintenance requirements. Any kind of self-maintenance by robots would be limited in scope to known and programmed procedures, and without the marines, there would be no defence at all.

So bring that equipment to start with. You then save oodles and oodles of energy on all subsequent launches.

They did.
Now you've resorted to restating what actually happened in defence of some 'robots lololol' point?

We can do energy. Breaking a given substance down into component atoms isn't difficult. ...Well, it is difficult, but you know what I mean. We can do it, since we've got very reliable power sources.[/quote]
...and reproducing the conditions during a the formation of a star and associated solar system on a macroscopic scale?

TBH, you don't need generalized nanotech at that point. You just need an unobtanium synthesis process, and at worst, this will be nanotechnological build-from-scratch. Most likely, it'd be simpler for any RL molecule.

Then why were you going on about 'use nanotech'?

The majority of high-value compounds were discovered less than 80 years ago, e.g. the entire plastics and semiconductor industries. You seem to be willfully ignoring the economics involved in "Is it economical to build a process to do X?" In the case of unobtanium, this is, seemingly, always "Yes." (Since the alternative is literally astronomical energy investment.) It isn't guaranteed in any other material.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that knowledge of unobtainium's existence is less than 80 years old in any case, and that there are siple structures that today can not be reproduced which, while doing so would not prove economical, it would be a huge advancement in the related technology - no pure research turns a profit in the theoretical or development stage.

Assume every single one of the 20 billion humans living on Earth uses the current per-capita maximum of 898.62GJ/year. That adds up to about half of the power you need for your one-way starship. The RDA does not rule the world, or have 100% efficient generators.

...so the maximum energy use is not going to increase, particularly not in a world without any usable farmland and an almost lack of natural light?