- Joined
- Jun 22, 2008
- Messages
- 6,368
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
Orion's Arm is Space Opera shoehorned into Hard SF and overdosed on transhumanism.
It does have a lot of interesting (if farfetched) physics concepts in it though. The so-called "void drive", basically an Alcubierre drive, is pretty accurate when it comes to what the Alcubierre concept seems to be limited to- namely, needing absurdly advanced infrastructure and not being able to exceed c.
Some of the other interesting concepts are ships that use warp bubbles for propulsion, but ride outside the bubbles, being pushed (or pulled) along with them.
Another, more "conventional" concept is a drive system which uses magnetic monopoles to convert matter to gamma rays; these gamma rays are then reflected by some sort of... stuff (supposedly a material made of magnetic monopoles, that is a perfect reflector), creating a highly efficient rocket propulsion system. It's kinda like using antimatter, except you don't need antimatter, just normal (abundant and cheap) matter, to be converted by the monoples. Such a spacecraft could, for example, be an interstellar ramjet, sucking up hydrogen from the interstellar medium and converting it to energy.
Generally though, this stuff tends to be farfetched to varying degrees, advanced technology or not. But... but... but... this kind of engine that converts any old matter to photons and then reflects them perfectly... darn it, that is a spaceship fanboy's dream...
The speculative biology of OA is pretty poor though, mostly it's just an attempt to have organisms that are as "alien" as possible, without regard to evolutionary laws or chemical/biological limitations.
The best speculative biology project I've seen is probably Snaiad, by a guy who goes by the 'pen name' Nemo Ramjet. Sadly the full Snaiad webpage has been down for some time, but some of his art can be seen at his DeviantArt gallery. Another speculative world I would recommend is Nereus, by Evan Black. The art is perhaps somewhat more stylised, but the evolutionary concepts follow along some of the same lines.
Another project I would recommend is Furaha by Gert van Dijk, which has apparently been around for around two decades, though not much information is available online. Nevertheless, the site has some interesting details in it, primarily several studies on the movement of different organisms. The Furaha blog is also very interesting, where the writer goes in depth about strange organisms, speculative concepts, and the plausbilities (and mostly implausibilities) of many different fictional organisms.
It does have a lot of interesting (if farfetched) physics concepts in it though. The so-called "void drive", basically an Alcubierre drive, is pretty accurate when it comes to what the Alcubierre concept seems to be limited to- namely, needing absurdly advanced infrastructure and not being able to exceed c.
Some of the other interesting concepts are ships that use warp bubbles for propulsion, but ride outside the bubbles, being pushed (or pulled) along with them.
Another, more "conventional" concept is a drive system which uses magnetic monopoles to convert matter to gamma rays; these gamma rays are then reflected by some sort of... stuff (supposedly a material made of magnetic monopoles, that is a perfect reflector), creating a highly efficient rocket propulsion system. It's kinda like using antimatter, except you don't need antimatter, just normal (abundant and cheap) matter, to be converted by the monoples. Such a spacecraft could, for example, be an interstellar ramjet, sucking up hydrogen from the interstellar medium and converting it to energy.
Generally though, this stuff tends to be farfetched to varying degrees, advanced technology or not. But... but... but... this kind of engine that converts any old matter to photons and then reflects them perfectly... darn it, that is a spaceship fanboy's dream...
The speculative biology of OA is pretty poor though, mostly it's just an attempt to have organisms that are as "alien" as possible, without regard to evolutionary laws or chemical/biological limitations.
The best speculative biology project I've seen is probably Snaiad, by a guy who goes by the 'pen name' Nemo Ramjet. Sadly the full Snaiad webpage has been down for some time, but some of his art can be seen at his DeviantArt gallery. Another speculative world I would recommend is Nereus, by Evan Black. The art is perhaps somewhat more stylised, but the evolutionary concepts follow along some of the same lines.
Another project I would recommend is Furaha by Gert van Dijk, which has apparently been around for around two decades, though not much information is available online. Nevertheless, the site has some interesting details in it, primarily several studies on the movement of different organisms. The Furaha blog is also very interesting, where the writer goes in depth about strange organisms, speculative concepts, and the plausbilities (and mostly implausibilities) of many different fictional organisms.
Last edited: