The RDA can't do physics

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Of corse it's possible, in principle, in 2011, but that wasn't what I said. I said it wasn't viable. We have no idea how to build an interstellar spacecraft in any serious detail. We don't know what sort of obstacles you encounter at signifigant fractions of the speed of light.

Yes, we do. We've had the knowledge for several decades. We know the hazards (radiation, and particles). We know the theory of a method for propelling it - indeed, if slowly was acceptable, then both ion engines and fission rockets are possible today.

I was using Dr. Who as an example of how to write stupid things believably.

I was using Star Trek as an example of how to write implausible but possible things believably.

"That episode was badly written?" You're really going to have to explain what you mean if you want me to believe that GQ is not a parody.

Personally, I would say a parody is something like all those crap films like 'Epic Movie' and 'Scary Movie' etc. Galaxy Guest points out the differences between scifi and reality, but does not go about it by bashing scifi.

There's a trope for what I'm talking about.

That's not a normal parody. You've shown clear dislike for Avatar all this thread.

Yes, and unlike Avatar's sketchiness, (since yes, AFAIK, it doesn't outright contradict itself) it gets away with it, because "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." The tone of the work is paramount here, and Avatar is serious enough that we are set up to expect this to be a "real" world.

YET AGAIN: It does that. It is realistic. It doesn't go 'it does stuff' because that is a stupid point and the mark of inferior writing in the vein of Dr Who or Star Wars. Avatar doesn't try to explain everything in the actual work like Star Trek, which arguably works for it, particularly since it's so limited in time, but it's there for people who are interested. If it wasn't there, you'd be complaining far more.

"How do the Heisenburg compensators work?" "Very well, thank you."
You call that an explanation?

Considering the principle they deal with, an unknown method actually DOES make them work

How so? The tsaheylu's existence is a questionable thing, but it's use isn't.

Problematic in that trolls would jump to conclusions instantly on seeing anything humans couldn't do, which of course turned out to be completely true

No, I mean what has happened so far in private business, which space travel didn't count as until very recently.

If engineers did have the say you seem to believe, spacecraft wouldn't even have windows.

The robots are for mining. They should, as the contract presumably says, only shoot back when shot at, if then.

That was still supposed to be without causing disruption, even if it wasn't followed. Openly using some kind of attack robot for that would not have gone down well on Earth.

The computer controlling a 3D fabrication engine is hardly going to be a "basic circuit."

Compare that to a modern CPU process.

You need less humans. You need less resources for those less humans. The electronics you need can be delivered by the thousand in the mass budget of a human.

...and the humans who have to be there? The support staff for those humans? The security for those humans?
The RDA are TRYING to keep a somewhat positive image here. Sending robots isn't going to do that.

Charging speed is almost completely irrelavent. The important components of an electrolaser are total charge stored and discharge speed, since those are what come into play when the weapon is actually fired. I don't care if I have to stick my weapon in the charger overnight if the result lets me fire 100 times inside a minute. (even if that empties the battery.)

Charging speed is discharge speed: capacitors need to charge. the battery is a completely separate issue here. Are you intentionally trying t misunderstand how a capacitor does.

Your ridiculous spess mehren lazor fantasy would need a LOT of power. That increases the size and complexity of the batteries. Using a smaller one would both reduce capacity, and discharge rate. Lower discharge rate makes the weapon far weaker and/or having a longer interval between shots.

"Experimental," 100+ years after its invention?

...and where it still haven't been used in a real application, then yes.

3. So... does the RDA have a private army? Because governments have this thing about "monopoly of force."
4. What massive infrastructure do you need for a battery that you don't already have for a bulldozer? An I'm looking for maintenance, not cost. I'd be surprised if capacitors and laser diodes would be damaged at all in the firing process.
5. ...at the moment. Who knows what's going to happen in 140 years of consumer technology?

3. Exactly, they don't. For that reason, your fantasy lasers are out of the question.
4. They have a limited life.
5. That's like saying that aircraft have been around for over 100 years so by now, anyone should able to build a 747 (and no, the 'kit car'-type light aircraft you can buy do not count).

Just isolate everything from electrical contact with the aircraft's body. (And possibly put some wire mesh in the windshield.) Done.

See my point about how all you need to do is penetrate that and you have your effective weapon.

How can they be impractical to use on Pandora? "Ammo" is functionally infinite, there's very little maintenance required, and even a thanator's armour doesn't save it. Magnetic interference is physically hogwash.

For lasers maybe, but not for the real extant weapons, which are electromagnet based. Either way, yet again as you seem to be too obtuse to understand this, they can not being advanced military hardware there. (Also, energy is not infinite on Pandora).

There's no need for anything more complex than a spoon. You use more advanced devices because they make the job easier.

No, because that's useless against an 'angtsik.

But you still have (non-Avatar-driving) humans running around outside. That's inefficient.

It's less so to give them all avatars, particularly if, as some people have suggested, not everyone is genetically compatible*.

*non-canon speculation.

2. Ditto. You ship one pack of microchips, everything else is manufactured on base.

Manufactured with what? Things do not suddenly appear there.

3. ...When did I mention attacking anyone? The robots are there to mine primarily.

...because random robots appearing everywhere is so non-hostile, right?

I don't see how the many conflicting, shifting and ill-defined goals involved in international politics have anything to do with the RDA. They know what they're doing, and they know what the constraints are.

Originally Posted by Human No More

It was an example of your own logic, of course it doesn't work in real terms.

This thread

1. The film shows they are there for unobtanium and nothing else.
2. Computer modelling and hypothesizing.
3. Yes. Deal with it. Fundamentally, they're both modelling problems.
4. Economics. See elsewhere.
5. It's a lot of energy in astronomical terms. You don't seem to be getting that bit.

1. Get off wikipedia.
2. Could YOU predict the structure just from knowing it's a room temperature superconductor and without any other information? Thought not
3. Reverse engineering a material's structure from A SINGLE PROPERTY is not the same thing. That's like CSI-style removing a person from a photo and seeing who was standing behind them, or retrieving an image of a person's head from 4 pixels: pure bull****.
4. Again: There is no data on economics. You're using 2011 ones, which is like saying nuclear power is impossible because there wasn't enough refined uranium in the world in 1945.
5. So's Earth's present day power consumption, with only a small percentage of ~7bn people using a majority - now, what about a large majority of ~12bn? Of course there will be pressure to increase capacity apace.

1. Rates increasing doesn't help you fuel an ISV in a reasonable time. You want this to launch within the decade, right?

WTF. How does the rate of power generation increasing not increase available energy for an ISV? That is one of the stupidest things you have said.

If you're patient, you could start terraforming Mars by smashing heavy things into the ice caps. That takes a pittance compared to shifting stuff to A. Centauri.

...Then you have temporarily liquid water which will refreeze (and actually, a lowered temperature from dust disturbance). It's going to take a lot more than that.

...hence, there's no reason for it to have evolved like that.

There is if it's based around symbiosis, as it is. Derp.

Yeah, but it's entirely plausible that it's simply impossible to construct the skyscraper without materials of a certain strength. Square-cube law and all.

Ah, so you're another of these people who don't understand what the sqauyre cube law actually is. That explains a lot.
It's why there are no human-sized (or even cat-sized) insects, because they couldn't exchange gas quickly enough. That's why larger animals have circulatory and respiratory systems, as well as a skeleton. The square cube law does NOT say 'everything must be X size'.