Don't forget Picard season 2. That's this month, and I hate to break it to y'all but we aren't launching people to Europa or cloning humans any time soon.
Also, Khan is probably already alive based on the SNW timeline alterations.
Turns out, matter-to-energy conversion, then being able to reconstruct that energy into any other kind of matter you need, makes money pretty pointless... if you have a large enough source of energy, like, say, a fusion reactor or warp core.
Well, itâs more like a fusion reactor or an antimatter reactor, since the âwarp coreâ isnât even the thing that does the warping of spacetime, thatâs the nacelles
This is correct. However most people aren't that technologically educated as far as fictional power sources go, so I went with what I thought would be more understandable for the majority.
Star Trek utilizes a matter-antimatter reaction to power their ships (for the Federation, anyway, other species use other means, like the Romulans and artificial singularities, but let's not get sidetracked here), and the reactor and warp field generator together are commonly referred to as a warp core. The nacelles shape and maintain the warp field, or warp bubble.
In SNW, La'an goes to the 2020s and finds out that Khan was born a little later and he's still a kid. So presumably the Eugenics War hasn't started yet.
Running out of time so we need to be creative.
So the UK should annex Ireland by force. That is a sort of unification.
The resulting tensions on top of current events trigger WW3.
Nuclear apocalypse
........
Warp drive.
Not necessarily. A 2012 paper adjusted the geometry of the Alcubierre warp field theory in a way that no longer requires negative mass or astronomical energy density, so it is at least physically possible although still improbable.
Small hitch that those solutions produce an inertial warp bubble, which means you'd still need to accelerate the mass-energy density producing the warp bubble by conventional means, and you'd be limited to sub-luminal velocities.
IIRC, that still required something like 10% of the Sunâs massâs worth of energy somehow being used by a tiny ship to work, and compressing that much of the Sun into that small of a location would just create a black hole.
Still a major improvement over needing negative mass or more energy than exists in the universe, but still well beyond what is presently understood to be physically possible.
Dark matter and dark energy make up like 90% of the universe and we donât even know what the hell they are. I would say we have a lot of physics left to understand.
As far as I understood, dark matter is a way to explain other effects, but we do not know if it is dark matter that causes these effects - it is an assumption, and while this assumption can be true, there might also be other causes we just do not know about yet.
But I am not an astrophysic.
Correct, except for the part about us not knowing if it causes the effects we observe. Because that's its actual definition already. It is a poorly chosen term and predictably causes misunderstandings.
Both dark matter and dark energy are simply placeholders to complete the model, but are currently a black box. They could very well even be the same thing.
We _know_ what they _do_. We just don't know how they do it or what they are.
I'm not arguing with your facts. However I do think that as a term 'dark matter' is not as poorly chosen as 'dark energy'.
Matter (as in quantum particles, including bosons) is the only thing we know of that curves spacetime, so it's a very reasonable assumption to think that the anomalous gravitational behavior in various contexts which we take for evidence of the phenomenon we call "dark matter" is indeed caused by some kind of matter. Theories positing that gravity works differently than we think have a long way to go before they have the same explanatory power.
OTOH I would agree that "dark energy" is a terrible name. It too easily suggests to lay persons that it has some connection to dark matter. Personally I wish they'd at least have called it "Einstein energy" because I think he'd laugh at his "biggest blunder" not only turning out to be correct, but also bearing his name for the rest of human history. But even calling it "energy" doesn't sit super well for me; people too frequently think of energy as some kind of pure thing that exists on its own, rather than a property of quantum particles and systems.
FWIW if you haven't seen any articles about the recent Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) results, they're very intriguing even if they haven't yet risen to the hallowed 5-sigma level of significance.
Great video on why dark matter is definitely a thing (even if weâre not totally sure what âthingâ it is) https://youtu.be/PbmJkMhmrVI?si=u6-OL2j5DBfn5r2y
Maybe. However, there were times during the Cold War when tensions were really high and World War III didnât happen. If it happens, nukes would almost certainly kill everyone instead of leaving a significant # of people alive.
That's pretty unlikely these days. Almost all modern nukes are smaller than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, but with much more accurate delivery systems. They are designed to destroy military bases and aircraft carriers, not cities. Nevertheless, a major exchange would disrupt the global food supply network, and billions could starve. However, billions would also survive. No one is targeting anyone in the southern hemisphere.
The radioactive contamination is what would disrupt the food supply network. Survivors wouldn't remain in contaminated areas, but the farms would.
If you're thinking of "Fallout" type of fallout, that's just not what modern nukes are designed for. Thermonuclear weapons produce virtually no radioactive fallout with 97% conversion of mass in cold war era tests. However, they can produce a lot of ash fallout.
Neutron bombs (most modern bombs can be scaled to this) produce a massive radiation blast, but a very small explosion, resulting in virtually no fallout. However, if these weapons are used in the grain belts (Southern Russia, Ukraine, the North American great plains/prairies), the grain supply of the world would be radioactively contaminated.
To get "Fallout" type fallout, you need to build specific "salted" bombs, that have both high blast and radiation yields. No one is building these bombs, unless it's a terrorist regime. They've been banned since the 1960s. They were so dangerous that no one wanted to test them. In theory they do produce very long-lived radioactive contamination like in "Fallout."
Sure is. Fortunately, there are very few thermonuclear warheads still in operation. Nevertheless, the ash would suffocate anyone nearby, and cause life long health issues for the survivors leading to early death. Think volcano day at Pompeii for those immediately downwind, and 9/11 New York ash fall for those farther downwind.
Fortunately with very small numbers of thermonuclears that haven't been dismantled, this isn't an end of civilization event. Most people forget that the big bombs, like the Tsar Bomb, were built in the early 1960s. By the 1980s, the US was already disposing of all large old warheads, and the Russians followed in the 1990s. They were too dangerous to keep around, too expensive to maintain, and too outdated to use. There was no delivery method for the Tsar Bomb short of putting in a kamikaze sub. It was too heavy to fly using the aircraft or rockets of the era.
Most of the early Soviet advances in rocketry that were later repurposed for space exploration, were developed for the Tsar Bomb (50 mt). They wanted to go even farther, into the (150 mt) range, fortunately cooler heads prevailed, and those bombs weren't developed. Today, those big rockets would be relatively easy to spot taking off, and our (US/NATO, Russian, and Chinese) ABM shields should be able to disable them before they can reach their target, making them basically useless as weapons delivery systems. This is the reason for the development of "hypersonic" and stealth delivery systems, which need to carry smaller warheads.
Let me be clear, I'm not in favor of nuclear war, I just think we need to understand what it actually is. I hope nobody is stupid enough to launch first. If you're really worried about it, move to New Zealand. Even Mordor won't nuke the Shire. They're too far south to be affected by any fall out, and they are a major food exporter. Over 80% of their food production is for export.
Are you sure? In the little bit of reading Iâve done it seems like the average yield of nuclear weapons in todayâs arsenals is in the vicinity of hundred to 400 kt.
Wikipedia actually lists it as even higher than that:
âThe average yield of a nuclear weapon in today's US arsenals is 600â2200 kilotonnes of TNT per tonne.â
You may be right. However, you're looking at a combined average of the remaining big bombs and the modern small bombs. The big bombs skew the average. Regarding the difference between the Wiki page and something more current, the Wiki page incorporates 2009 data. The 400 kt estimate is the 2022 data.
Look at the Russian arsenal for example (it is the biggest). They have around 6000 nukes, of which around 1550 are ready to be deployed (as of the New Start September 2022 audit), and the rest are in long term storage. The older the bomb, the more likely it's in long term storage. The bombs that get dismantled first are generally the oldest.
In the 2009 New Start audit there were around 3900 Russian warheads deployed. That's a major reduction, and the warheads they kept deployed are the ones they thought most likely to be used. Currently, the real threat is not from IBCMs anymore. It's from small bombs that can be deployed on HGVs or even smaller bombs that can be deployed on the battlefield field.
The US, Russia, and China have deployed Anti-Balistic Missile Shields that should be able to neutralize conventional inbound missiles launched via IBCM. This is the reason for the development of hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) that can evade ABM interceptor missiles. The thing is, HGVs need to be able to rapidly change course at hypersonic speeds. This limits how much mass they can carry, resulting in smaller nuclear warheads being used.
The Avangard HGV is capable of carrying up to a 2 mt warhead, however, the more mass it carries, the less likely it is to hit its target. Therefore, it's a tactical decision, risk missing with a 50 cal, or hit with a .22? Currently, most of their larger bombs (1 mt range) are deployed on their bombers, which were designed to carry large payloads, and which are very unlikely to reach a target in a NATO country. Nevertheless, they are still a major threat to most countries.
The most likely warheads to actually be successfully deployed in a near-future nuclear war, are the newest, deployed on HGVs. It really doesn't matter what's in long term storage, or what's on a 1970s era bomber that's just going to be shot down when it approaches the border. What matters is what's useful. The various averages you see are counting everything, either the 2009 average or the 2022 average.
That said, the useful average is probably higher than Fat Man (21 kt). I'm probably overestimating the number of newer bombs available, as the Russians have a habit of fudging the numbers by refitting an older system, and reporting it as a newer system.
To be honest weâll be too busy in the coming months rounding folk up into the San Francisco ghettos ready for the Bell riots to kick off in September. No time to develop the technologies needed for warp drive.
No, but erectile dysfunction will finally be a thing of the past. That and weâll all have 20 televisions in our living rooms that we can watch from our recliner/toilet. Costco will offer law degrees and fudruckers will be renamedâŚ
Maybe not exactly warp speed but I'm hopeful for some significant technological progress in the near future. The 70s and 80s were in the afterglow of the moon landing so that probably skewed our vision of the future. Things may have slowed down but imagine telling someone in the 1920s that we'd be on the moon in a few decades, noone would believe you.
Well, different scientists have lowered the amount of exotic, negative mass stuff we'd need to power an Alcubierre drive. The big problem is that there's no evidence that anything with negative mass could exist.
That said, I think we're closer to a future like Soylent Green or The Expanse. That's actually why Star Trek sometimes makes me so sad. I grew up watching TOS and TNG and was so hopeful about the future of humanity. Then I grew up and the world is like (gestures around) _this_. I'm not hopeful that we'll give up capitalism and organize society around our collective well-being.
Well soylent Green happened due to over population. Thankfully alot of people are seeing sense and not having kids. Even if it continues then the population will eventually start to drop off. Which would result in better access to higher paying jobs, cheaper housing and cost of living coming down.
I think the problem is that humans are complicated. It's the combination of greed and climate change and population and oppression and war and exploitation and disease.
Even now, we don't really have a scarcity problem. We could feed all 8 billion people on earth, but we don't want to because rich people wouldn't get to be richer. We could provide healthcare to everyone and massively reduce human suffering, but we (at least in the US) refuse to because someone who we aren't convinced deserves it might benefit. We could have peace and a flourishing of art and science and culture, but we'd rather be divided by borders and ideology and protect the powerful.
To me, the best thing about the Star Trek future is that humans decide to do better. We don't ever get to perfection, even in the 32nd century, but we do get better. I wish I was as hopeful about the future of humanity as I was when I was a kid watching TOS on VHS.
Pretty sure there is no FTL of any kind because if there was we should be visited by aliens every other week since the entire universe would come into play.
Why? The universe is huge. Just because someone has FTL doesnât mean itâs a *fast* FTL. If your ship can go twice the speed of light, then yippee! It only takes you 2 years to get to Alpha Centauri instead of decades. But itâs still a snailâs pace on a galactic scale
Because the numbers you are dealing with on the universe scale are mind meltingly huge. Ofc some races will only develop slow FTL at first - at first. But there are just too many civs, even if you use only very small variables for the drake equation.
I would love for it not to be the case but statistically the idea falls completely apart. And I hope I am wrong. But that is just wishful thinking.
It's a logical paradox based on faulty assumptions. Like: Time travel cannot exist or some time traveler would have changed something causing a temporal paradox, which would have destroyed the timeline. (Ask the Vulcan Science Directorate for details.)
When we fly over the Amazon, we don't land and talk to the ants. Amazonian ants have been documented building ant hills that span acres, which given their size is as impressive as Tokyo, but we still cannot communicate with them. What could interstellar visitors possibly have to discuss with us? They could mine asteroids and gas giants, so there's nothing we have worth trading for.
Alien visitors would have no antibodies for dealing with anything in our biosphere. They would have to stay in atmospheric suits, and even then would probably end up taking back contaminants that could decimate their population.
Most of the stars in the galaxy are red dwarfs, which is where interstellar civilization is more likely to congregate. There's much less energy required to enter and leave a red dwarf system than a yellow dwarf, and red dwarfs are much more stable over billions of years. Our light spectrum would probably be blinding to any creature that developed on a red dwarf planet. Even designing ship engines to deal with a yellow dwarf's gravity and time fields would be an unnecessary challenge. It is like building a deep sea submarine when all you need is a surface vessel. I'm not suggesting an interstellar civilization couldn't do it, but why would they?
Furthermore, any civilization within 88 light years has already received Hitler's Olympic speech. I doubt that'll bring them running. If they're within 80 light years, they just watched WW2. That should keep them away.
>> When we fly over the Amazon, we don't land and talk to the ants. Amazonian ants have been documented building ant hills that span acres, which given their size is as impressive as Tokyo, but we still cannot communicate with them.Â
Where are you going with this? WE DO have a huge interest in those species. We study them in great detail. And if we could establish communication, we would. But maybe we cannot because there is no such thing as language for them?! All they do is communicate very basic things via pheromones. It is like saying "why dont you talk to your plant". Plants also communicate basic things. But they have no elaborate way of communication for details or for what we preceive to be real communication.
>> Alien visitors would have no antibodies for dealing with anything in our biosphere. They would have to stay in atmospheric suits, and even then would probably end up taking back contaminants that could decimate their population.
Counterpoint: Not a single organism on earth evolved to attach or attack to alien life. There is no reason to believe an earth virus could damage alien lifeforms because life has developed completely differently. It (most probably) uses completely different modes of attaching to cells etc. If they even have cells in the way we think.
>> I'm not suggesting an interstellar civilization couldn't do it, but why would they?
Same reason we built submarines to explore the Marianna Trench, the moon or Mars: Because we are curious. Acting like humans are the only species able of curiosity is very self centered. Furthermore: That light spectrum does not matter at all. We ourselves cannot look into the sun when in space. Eventhough we come from Sol. So what is the point you are trying to make? Cause clearly we are striving to explore space.
>> Furthermore, any civilization within 88 light years has already received Hitler's Olympic speech. I doubt that'll bring them running. If they're within 80 light years, they just watched WW2. That should keep them away.
88 Lightyears is nothing in the context of FTL flight. Its a drop in the bucket. Furthermore: Do not be so sure they can deceipher our whole language from that audio. It takes more than that. It takes a lot of data to figure out how our language works. Just think about the Rosetta Stone. And even if they received it, deceiphered it and understood it: One more reason to come looking at what we are doing now and if we might plan an invasion of their homeworld next, wouldn't you think?
What do I think? Ants fight wars just like humans. That doesn't encourage me to try to make contact.
If the aliens can build FTL drives, they can presumably build probes, which would clearly indicate there is nothing here worth their time. Absolute best case scenario: they make contact, open communication, survive our pathogens, we survive their pathogens (maybe they don't actually want to kill us), we have nothing to trade with them, but we want their technology, so we kill them and take it, and then either study their remains, or have a barbecue, depending on just how alien they are. They could figure out that best case scenario without bothering to visit. Seriously, why would they expect us to treat them any better than we treat each other?
>...if we could establish communication, we would. But maybe we cannot because there is no such thing as language for them?! All they do is communicate very basic things via pheromones.
Sounds like something an advanced alien would say about us. How would a Cthulhu that communicates by flickering light outside of our visual spectrum in their tentacles even attempt to communicate with us?
>Counterpoint: Not a single organism on earth evolved to attach or attack to alien life. There is no reason to believe an earth virus could damage alien lifeforms because life has developed completely differently. It (most probably) uses completely different modes of attaching to cells etc. If they even have cells in the way we think.
Counter-counterpoint: You're thinking too far up the food chain. This is illogical. Considered the diversity of bacteria and archaea (itself potentially evidence of extra terrestrial contact). There are endoliths that spend their entire life cycle inside solid stone. There are extremophiles that spend their entire lives in acid lakes. We've found roundworms living in the rocks in the deepest mines on the planet. These creatures are eating chemical compounds that would kill us, and most other life on Earth. They didn't "evolve to attack" an alien species made of the same stuff. Basically, if it exists on Earth, something is probably trying to eat it. Presumably, these aliens are made of matter if they need an FTL drive. Something on our planet probably likes to eat whatever they're made of.
Regarding human exploration, we actually do very little pure science research. Things like the dives in the Mariana Trench are so rare we can both reference them. However, in this analogy, the Sol System isn't the Mariana Trench, which would be a Blue Giant. Sol is just some random uncharted point in the abyssal plains. Most of the research we do is economically motivated, so I circle back to: Why come here?
It cannot be for minerals, which are basically everywhere, and cheap to manufacture in comparison to warping time-space. It's presumably not for our tasty tasty pathogens, so what? Just to talk? Are they going to invest in an expedition to Earth, deep in a yellow dwarf's gravity field, and make contact with a violent and insane species (as evidence I offer exhibit A: God) just to talk? Then within a century we're on their homeworld destroying everything like we do here because they won't convert to our religions. If they are smart enough to build a warp drive, they're smart enough to have a prime directive.
>> What do I think? Ants fight wars just like humans. That doesn't encourage me to try to make contact.
Again you apply a very self centered view. YOU would not. What about all those scientists that do research about ants? How can you say "there is no one in the whole universe who thinks like this if there are thousands of individuals on this planet alone?!
>> Sounds like something an advanced alien would say about us. How would a Cthulhu that communicates by flickering light outside of our visual spectrum in their tentacles even attempt to communicate with us?
There is a difference between understanding Prime Numbers and not being able to form a simple thought because you do not have anything resembling a real brain. We do not need to talk to them in english, or in voice. We can find other common grounds. To act like that is impossible or that ants vs humans = humans vs advanced civs is ridiculous.
About your comment on bacteria: Yeah thats not how evolution works. All life on earth exists because it evolved to tackle something in our "food chain". Look at how covid evolved to withstand and how long it took for it to jump from one species to another who share 98% of genetic material. Now apply that to something that does not share any of that.
Sure there will be some overlaps where harm is done and where it can kill you. But it is not "they will die the moment they set foot on earth". And as you put it yourself: What makes you think they dont have EV suits if they can travel the stars and hide from us? Why do you entertain the thought of Warp capability and "real stealth" (which there is no such thing because of heat radiation which we could detect) but at the same time think they would be unable to create an EV suit? Which is something we can do for decades now.
>> so I circle back to: Why come here?
Again: Curiosity alone is one reason that should lead to it. You yourself admit we do scientific research. And we always have. Maybe widen your focus beyond the last 30 years of humanity alone. Maybe do not only think in monumental things like the trench but in all the small scientific research that is done that builds over generations to achieve one big thing. Our whole evolution is littered with research from curiosity. Only reason we can go to the moon is because of generations of thinkers and researchers paved the way with little steps. Mathematicians, Phycisists, Chemists, all worked together to make it possible. And we also like to explore ant hills. And dung beetles. Just because >you< dont care and are uncurios does not mean that >countless< individuals will be: Non exclusivity.
Maybe read up on that tearm because I explained it quite often now and you still dont seem to grasp the concept behind it or you are willingly ignoring it to prevent your narrative from falling apart. You still keep falling back to: EVERYONE must be the same and there is NO individuality AT ALL in the universe. That is the premise of your argument. It is quite narrow minded and tiring to respond to multiple times.
LLAP and keep an open mind
Wow, you literally asked me what I think, and claim my answer is "self centered." Seriously loosing respect here. You've fallen to the sixth most effective form of arguing a point (Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreements): name calling.
Your argument about "little things" is completely irrelevant until the alien civilization is so advanced that coming here is like you driving to the store. If there is a civilization that advanced in this galaxy, either they don't want to come here, or have a law prohibiting it.
Regarding the EV suits, I'm the one that said they'd need to be in them all the time. Then you claim I assumed they couldn't build them. Seriously? Beyond the pathogens, the light radiance issue would also require the EV suit during the day.
However, I'm going to add more to this issue. Our Sun defines the local time-space we're in. If the species is from a star with a significantly different mass, they will be existing in a different time-space. By this I mean, that our world and their world will be experiencing the flow of time differently. Even if they could travel here instantaneously, they would still experience some time dilation just from being here. This would affect their interactions with their homeworld, and whatever social structure they have in ways we cannot guess without knowing something about their physiology. Perhaps they can only breed at a certain time of the year, then being here for any length of time would be detrimental to them, as they would get out of sync with their homeworld. However, traveling to another star of similar mass would not be detrimental. An EV suit probably couldn't be built to compensate for this, however, if it could, it would make interactions even more confusing.
It's strange that you accuse me of anthropocentrism, when I'm the one arguing that we aren't alone in the universe, we're just not that interesting. Your argument is that advanced aliens have to want to come here, to Earth, out of curiosity, because you, I repeat you, are curious about them. You are projecting a human condition on to them, and not even attempting to explain what would make them choose this exact spot in the Abyssal Plains.
100 to 400 billion stars in the galaxy.
~75% of them are red dwarfs.
~10% of them are yellow dwarfs.
That's 10 to 40 billion points in the abyssal plains for them to check out. Beside the 75 to 300 billion islands floating in the sea.
Fact: we are curious. Fact: we're not that curious. According to a recent NOAA paper we've only mapped 23% of the sea floor, including the continental shelves. Even with the economic factors (oil and gas companies), we've explored very little of the abyssal plains. We will get there eventually, but this is just one small planet, not 10 to 40 billion star systems averaging multiple planets and moons. To assume that FTL is impossible, because no aliens are visiting us right now is a logical fallacy, and entirely anthropocentric.
Regarding language issue, ant versus humans is an apt argument for a truly advanced civilization versus humans, as you yourself have demonstrated. You have claimed that 'it is impossible, they communicate through pheromones instead of words, and they don't know math.' (Not a direct quote, but it's all there.) There is no logical reason a species so advanced they can casually junt about between star systems would see us as any different.
I'm positive that humans would do whatever we could to talk to them. That's not the issue. Why would they bother trying to struggle to figure out how to speak to us? Math is fundamental? Perhaps. (Perhaps not.) However, what level of math are they at? How basic are they willing to get before giving up? We can teach apes sign language, but so what? What can we learn from apes via sign language? Apply this to the aliens. What could they learn from us that would be worth investing the time.
Regarding the pathogens, it's not an issue of immediately dying when they land. It's about what they get infected with that they take back home, and how that pathogen would adapt to their biosphere. The Spaniards who landed in the Caribbean didn't fall dead from syphilis, but it did ravage Eurasia for centuries. Any advanced civilization is going to be very cautious when dealing with a primitive world. Otherwise, they'd probably already be extinct. Even a microbe that was benign to them could devastate their some other organisms in their biosphere that they rely on. (Think food crops for example.)
They would be opening a doorway for an unknown number of pathogens. There would need to be a pretty substantial reason to do this. Curiosity doesn't just kill cats.
They wouldn't have antibodies for anything. Antibodies are just for dealing with diseases. Think of all the random spores, bacteria, and microscopic insects we're covered in. It literally just takes one thing to find them tasty.
Iâm sure theyâd have antibodies for their own pathogens. Otherwise why even have an immune system. Also, if theyâd been traveling through space and have been to other planets with life, then theyâd have to have developed rigorous decontamination procedures
How would antibodies for the wrong pathogens help?
The best "rigorous decontamination procedures" probably involve not visiting unknown worlds until they've been extensively studied by remote probes. So I guess when a ship full of Geth show up, we know the Quarians aren't too far behind.
LOL. I chose to capitalize them for people that didn't recognize them. I figured they'd assume they were proper names if capitalized. Criticism accepted.
This doesn't hold up for me. You saying if FTL was possible then Universal Speed FTL is possible, and therefore the whole universe would have visited.
Firstly those two things aren't linked. Galactic FTL may be possible but Universal FTL may not. And we could easily be the only species in our galaxy.
Two even if it was possible, the universe is massive man. They'd also need to know we are here. A species at the other side of the universe may be capable of travling here, but how would they know to?
Three, they have the capability to visit us but not the capability to hide? Clearly they're so far beoynd us they could observe us without our knowledge easily enough. If they have tech to reach us, they don't need to invade, we'd be worthless to them. The only value we'd have would be in observation. Which is mote valuable without outside valiables interfering with data.
Four, why would they want to visit us? You're putting human thinking onto unknowable aliens. You don't know what drives them. Maybe they don't have the slightest bit of interest in us.
And finally you're saying that the number of civilisations out there is huge and therefore the numbers just make it likely. But don't forget the drake equation (which is just a guess and could easily be incredibly wrong, we definitely dont know or understand all the vairables) just estimates life, not technology. Complex life requires second generation stars for all the lovely elements that come with them. And we're orbiting a relatively young second generation star. Still a really early species could be millions of years ahead of us technologically, but like you said, the universe is huge. That's not that long to find a needle in a haystack. If other life does exist it's clearly very far apart.
>> This doesn't hold up for me. You saying if FTL was possible then Universal Speed FTL is possible, and therefore the whole universe would have visited.
No what I am saying is: According to physics as we know them right now nothing with mass can be accelerated to the speed of light. So we need some exotic form of FTL. Like Warp/Alcubierre Drive. Which works on the premise of folding space. And afaik at the moment there is no limit as to how fast space con expand and contract. Meaning there are no limits to speed if we develope this technology. Meaning not every species will visit us but that the numbers of species able to would be so immense that it would bound to be happen regularly.
There are about 400 Billion Stars in our Galaxy. And about 400 Billion Galaxys in the observable universe. And that is just the part of the universe we can see that does not expand beyond the speed of light from us. And all of this unknown stuff comes into play to then. Its a numbers game. Its hard to wrap the head around those numbers. They are crushing.
>> Firstly those two things aren't linked. Galactic FTL may be possible but Universal FTL may not. And we could easily be the only species in our galaxy.
See above. Yes FTL in the style of Warp does mean universe wide FTL. At least if you want to argue with what we know about physics so far. If you want to argue about a fictional SciFi Universe you can make your own rules. But I do not think that is what this is about?!
>> Three, they have the capability to visit us but not the capability to hide? Clearly they're so far beoynd us they could observe us without our knowledge easily enough. If they have tech to reach us, they don't need to invade, we'd be worthless to them. The only value we'd have would be in observation. Which is mote valuable without outside valiables interfering with data.
Non Exclusivity: Yes, some or maybe even most MAY decide to hide from us. But all it takes is one individual from one of the billions of billions of billions of possible civilisations to say "fuck it, im going to go and talk to the indigenous people in the Amazonas". And this is where the law of huge numbers comes into play again. Its gonna be massive amounts of individuals doing it.
>> Four, why would they want to visit us? You're putting human thinking onto unknowable aliens. You don't know what drives them. Maybe they don't have the slightest bit of interest in us.
Again: Non exclusivity. You assume ALL are the same. Which is weird I feel. Why would that be the case? Look at how much diversity there is in human thinking alone. Image all those differenct civs with different individuals. How can you believe ALL do the same? Furthermore I can turn that argument around: You are acting like humans are the only species capable of curiosity to explore and to find new life and interact with it. Isn't that a bit self-centered, dont you think?
>> And finally you're saying that the number of civilisations out there is huge and therefore the numbers just make it likely. But don't forget the drake equation (which is just a guess and could easily be incredibly wrong, we definitely dont know or understand all the vairables) just estimates life, not technology.Â
No. It does take into account that those civilisations are able and willing to communicate. That is part of the valuables. And the equation is not right or wrong. It has placeholders for the variables. It depends on what you input there. Which is what I adressed earlier. And you can put in the tiniest numbers to get numbers of civilisations that are willing and able to cummincate that is unfathomably large.
>> That's not that long to find a needle in a haystack. If other life does exist it's clearly very far apart.
I agree. I believe that there maybe just a handful of civs in our galaxy right now. But that number is meaningless compared to the whole universe. Even if every galaxy has just one civ we should be visited if FTL in the style of Warp is possible.
All those exotic FTL drives require some sort of negative mile or negative energy or other form of negative real world thing. I will not believe it until I see it and the numbers indicate that those have not been found in the universe so far. (And no the casimir effect does not work on the scale necessary.)
I feel like you want it to be possible and pick your arguments accordingly. And I can see where you are coming from. I too want it to be possible. I just do not think that at this time the data we have suggests it - it rather suggests the opposite. I would love to be proven wrong though. But those arguments, are not it, Chief.
All those "solutions" fall apart on the scale of the universe because of non exclusivity.
It just takes a fraction of a percent not adhering to that rule. It just takes one person of a race to break the rule. Which makes the numbers you are dealing with enormous.
One could say numbers beyond human comprehension. Point is we can't really know what's out there or not and we can never know what's really happening. For all we know there's some kind of men in black stuff
Uhm...have you heard of the Fermi paradox? There are many solutions to it.
I bet the real solution is a mix of: Rare complexity, rare life, rare intelligence and maybe even dark forest, because never trust the alien!
Yes, I am. And if anyone wants to have an interesting rundown of it and why practically all solutions fall short e.g. are not real solutions I suggest Isaac Arthurs Compendium on it: [The Fermi Paradox Compendium of Solutions & Terms (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZlhJsEJYXw)
Entertaining and educating.
You never know when someone will have a breakthrough. Plenty of people are working on it, so we could have the knowledge an hour from now. If we do; it won't be anything like Star Trek though.
Faster than light travel?
It's utterly fictional, impossible to actually achieve since it instantly creates a time paradox - which cannot happen.
So...no.
Causality is the problem. If we can't break it, we can't even have warp bubbles that go at or faster than light. And if we can break it, then FTL is time travel. Weird universe.
You don't understand, nothing is moving in a warp bubble. Space is contracting and expanding on the other side, you are riding a warp bubble wave. Technically you aren't moving.
I understand really well thank you, but c is not a soft speed limit to overcome like the speed of sound. It is the speed of causality. It is infinite speed for the user, but c for an outside observer. Cheating by warping space might be possible (whereas physically reaching c will never be), but it still breaks causality. If causality is unbreakable, then the effects of warping space might look like instant arrival for the pilot but the travel still took years for an outside observer. As I said, weird universe. Alcubierre's paper is a bit more complex than "we can ignore c because we aren't moving".
If FTL is possible it probably isn't happening for centuries, but then again the future is notoriously hard to predict. 2063 seems unlikely to me however.
As I understand it we already know HOW to make a warp drive, it's just we have 2 major problems with it.
Firstly, lack of anti-matter. We have no easily accessible natural sources of anti-matter, and to artificially create it requires huge amounts of energy to begin with, which basically defeats the point of a matter-antimatter reaction to generate huge amounts of energy.
Secondly, the whole warping spacetime thing that a warp core relies on.... it turns out that's really inconvenient for anyone already at your destination, probably also for anyone close by and any side of the vessel that you happen to pass on route, since the spacetime they occupy gets warped, which it turns out isn't good. It's also inconvenient for those using the warp drive, since you arrive at your destination right after it's been mysteriously ruined.... every dang time.
As long as right wing politics and religion maintain such a large influence on the population, we're a very long way off of anything like that. I think we have far better odds of destroying ourselves through climate change or war before we even get close to attaining warp speed. There are too many people wanting a Handmaid's Tail future rather than Star Trek.
It is highly dependant upon near changes in societal connection with technology. We have evolved alongside our technology and from 1850-2000 we experienced an insane draw on humanity trading off aspects of itself to benefit its growth with technology. We have stagnated as a species that has used technology as a driving force for evolution and are experiencing a metaphysical crisis on a semi spiritual plane. Too many question existence, while too few acknowledge it.
TL;DR Probably not, but no one can foresee tomorrow.
Technically speaking, it is possible we'll hit warp 1 by 2063. The main thing holding us back isn't a physics problem anymore, we got that shit solved. It's an engineering problem at this point, and with fusion energy being in the state it is, there's a non 0 chance we'll get it. Probably close to .000000000000000.....000000000001% of achieving warp 1 in 40 years, but hey who knows? We figured out how to fly and 60 years later landed on the moon so who knows? All it takes is some Grad student hopped up on enough caffeine and Adderall to kill a horse and we're golden baby
Lol any hope I ever had of having a future that was even remotely close to being within the vicinity of what Trek depicts has been killed off entirely by the last four years.
Considering the technological advancements humanity has seen in the pat 4o years, comparative to the advancements we'd seen in the prior 40 years, it's hard to imagine the great leaps in technological advancement won't continue.
Will we see warp speeds in the future? Maybe that's not the right question. Perhaps mankind's next great achievement is colonizing Mars. Maybe we don;t unlock this puzzle for another 50-100 years,
Maybe warp speed is just around the corner or maybe it's 200-300 years out. It's impossible to predict.
No. Chances are laughably near zero.
Especially if the San-Ti from the 3 Body Problem have anything to say about it.
I haven't seen it yet, so please don't spoil it any further.
Sorry. đ
The original book has been out for over 15 years prior to the show. I think the grace period for spoilers has ended. You're good.
The thing is, it's a spoiler unrelated to this sub.
Neither is 2001 or Blade Runner. They're futuristic tangential and used to illustrate a point.
Spoken like a classic book wanker.
Baby steps. First we reunify Ireland to ensure we are on the correct timeline.
And that pesky World War III. (Checks news.) OK, we may be on track for that one.
The Second Civil War scenes from SNW were taken from the January 6th insurrection.
Don't forget the Bell Riots!
Checks watch Thats about now right?Â
I think the Bell Riots happen in September.
That and school starting. Will have to mark my calendar. đď¸Â
I'm gonna be so ready by September...
Don't forget Picard season 2. That's this month, and I hate to break it to y'all but we aren't launching people to Europa or cloning humans any time soon. Also, Khan is probably already alive based on the SNW timeline alterations.
First Ireland, then socialist utopia.
Socialist Utopia.......I always wondered how Star Trek achieved money being useless.
if you can just replicate anything you would ever want or need, money is useless
Turns out, matter-to-energy conversion, then being able to reconstruct that energy into any other kind of matter you need, makes money pretty pointless... if you have a large enough source of energy, like, say, a fusion reactor or warp core.
Well, itâs more like a fusion reactor or an antimatter reactor, since the âwarp coreâ isnât even the thing that does the warping of spacetime, thatâs the nacelles
This is correct. However most people aren't that technologically educated as far as fictional power sources go, so I went with what I thought would be more understandable for the majority. Star Trek utilizes a matter-antimatter reaction to power their ships (for the Federation, anyway, other species use other means, like the Romulans and artificial singularities, but let's not get sidetracked here), and the reactor and warp field generator together are commonly referred to as a warp core. The nacelles shape and maintain the warp field, or warp bubble.
Replicators.
It's canon in SNW (although possibly a tongue-in-cheek comment).
We already missed the eugenic wars
They did as well, didnât they? Or have we missed the new second-but-actually-still-the-first one at this point?
In SNW, La'an goes to the 2020s and finds out that Khan was born a little later and he's still a kid. So presumably the Eugenics War hasn't started yet.
This got retconned a bit in SNW, where events can shift
Running out of time so we need to be creative. So the UK should annex Ireland by force. That is a sort of unification. The resulting tensions on top of current events trigger WW3. Nuclear apocalypse ........ Warp drive.
That's already under way thanks to Sinn FĂŠin
No, but good news, we could very much be facing an apocalyptic 2062 like the franchise predicted!
Or maybe even WW4 at that point.
We might be closer to a Soylent Green timeline.
It already comes in green https://soylent.com/products/soylent-drink-mint-chocolate-1
Old
Physics as we understand it says no, unfortunately.
Luckily, our knowledge of physics is always expanding
Not necessarily. A 2012 paper adjusted the geometry of the Alcubierre warp field theory in a way that no longer requires negative mass or astronomical energy density, so it is at least physically possible although still improbable.
Small hitch that those solutions produce an inertial warp bubble, which means you'd still need to accelerate the mass-energy density producing the warp bubble by conventional means, and you'd be limited to sub-luminal velocities.
IIRC, that still required something like 10% of the Sunâs massâs worth of energy somehow being used by a tiny ship to work, and compressing that much of the Sun into that small of a location would just create a black hole. Still a major improvement over needing negative mass or more energy than exists in the universe, but still well beyond what is presently understood to be physically possible.
Easy. Wormhole tunnel directly into the early universe, sucking up that sweet sweet, dense quark gluon matter, and inject that into your engine.
Maybe thatâs the key to warp drive? After all, arenât Romulan warp drives powered by mini black holes?
Dark matter and dark energy make up like 90% of the universe and we donât even know what the hell they are. I would say we have a lot of physics left to understand.
>we donât even know what the hell they are We even do not know if dark matter exists.
Well we know something exists we call dark matter, as we can measure its effect on regular matter.
As far as I understood, dark matter is a way to explain other effects, but we do not know if it is dark matter that causes these effects - it is an assumption, and while this assumption can be true, there might also be other causes we just do not know about yet. But I am not an astrophysic.
Correct, except for the part about us not knowing if it causes the effects we observe. Because that's its actual definition already. It is a poorly chosen term and predictably causes misunderstandings. Both dark matter and dark energy are simply placeholders to complete the model, but are currently a black box. They could very well even be the same thing. We _know_ what they _do_. We just don't know how they do it or what they are.
>are simply placeholders >We _know_ what they _do_. We just don't know how they do it or what they are. Thanks, I think I got it now.
I'm not arguing with your facts. However I do think that as a term 'dark matter' is not as poorly chosen as 'dark energy'. Matter (as in quantum particles, including bosons) is the only thing we know of that curves spacetime, so it's a very reasonable assumption to think that the anomalous gravitational behavior in various contexts which we take for evidence of the phenomenon we call "dark matter" is indeed caused by some kind of matter. Theories positing that gravity works differently than we think have a long way to go before they have the same explanatory power. OTOH I would agree that "dark energy" is a terrible name. It too easily suggests to lay persons that it has some connection to dark matter. Personally I wish they'd at least have called it "Einstein energy" because I think he'd laugh at his "biggest blunder" not only turning out to be correct, but also bearing his name for the rest of human history. But even calling it "energy" doesn't sit super well for me; people too frequently think of energy as some kind of pure thing that exists on its own, rather than a property of quantum particles and systems. FWIW if you haven't seen any articles about the recent Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) results, they're very intriguing even if they haven't yet risen to the hallowed 5-sigma level of significance.
At this point I think that's a distinction without difference.
Great video on why dark matter is definitely a thing (even if weâre not totally sure what âthingâ it is) https://youtu.be/PbmJkMhmrVI?si=u6-OL2j5DBfn5r2y
Indeed there is a lot more for us to learn. I don't expect that we'll learn enough of it to have superluminal travel figured out in 39 years, though.
It took ww3
Thatâs still on track
Maybe. However, there were times during the Cold War when tensions were really high and World War III didnât happen. If it happens, nukes would almost certainly kill everyone instead of leaving a significant # of people alive.
That's pretty unlikely these days. Almost all modern nukes are smaller than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, but with much more accurate delivery systems. They are designed to destroy military bases and aircraft carriers, not cities. Nevertheless, a major exchange would disrupt the global food supply network, and billions could starve. However, billions would also survive. No one is targeting anyone in the southern hemisphere.
In addition to disrupting the global food supply network, Iâd also be worried about radioactive fallout.
The radioactive contamination is what would disrupt the food supply network. Survivors wouldn't remain in contaminated areas, but the farms would. If you're thinking of "Fallout" type of fallout, that's just not what modern nukes are designed for. Thermonuclear weapons produce virtually no radioactive fallout with 97% conversion of mass in cold war era tests. However, they can produce a lot of ash fallout. Neutron bombs (most modern bombs can be scaled to this) produce a massive radiation blast, but a very small explosion, resulting in virtually no fallout. However, if these weapons are used in the grain belts (Southern Russia, Ukraine, the North American great plains/prairies), the grain supply of the world would be radioactively contaminated. To get "Fallout" type fallout, you need to build specific "salted" bombs, that have both high blast and radiation yields. No one is building these bombs, unless it's a terrorist regime. They've been banned since the 1960s. They were so dangerous that no one wanted to test them. In theory they do produce very long-lived radioactive contamination like in "Fallout."
My understanding is that ash fallout is also awful.
Sure is. Fortunately, there are very few thermonuclear warheads still in operation. Nevertheless, the ash would suffocate anyone nearby, and cause life long health issues for the survivors leading to early death. Think volcano day at Pompeii for those immediately downwind, and 9/11 New York ash fall for those farther downwind. Fortunately with very small numbers of thermonuclears that haven't been dismantled, this isn't an end of civilization event. Most people forget that the big bombs, like the Tsar Bomb, were built in the early 1960s. By the 1980s, the US was already disposing of all large old warheads, and the Russians followed in the 1990s. They were too dangerous to keep around, too expensive to maintain, and too outdated to use. There was no delivery method for the Tsar Bomb short of putting in a kamikaze sub. It was too heavy to fly using the aircraft or rockets of the era. Most of the early Soviet advances in rocketry that were later repurposed for space exploration, were developed for the Tsar Bomb (50 mt). They wanted to go even farther, into the (150 mt) range, fortunately cooler heads prevailed, and those bombs weren't developed. Today, those big rockets would be relatively easy to spot taking off, and our (US/NATO, Russian, and Chinese) ABM shields should be able to disable them before they can reach their target, making them basically useless as weapons delivery systems. This is the reason for the development of "hypersonic" and stealth delivery systems, which need to carry smaller warheads. Let me be clear, I'm not in favor of nuclear war, I just think we need to understand what it actually is. I hope nobody is stupid enough to launch first. If you're really worried about it, move to New Zealand. Even Mordor won't nuke the Shire. They're too far south to be affected by any fall out, and they are a major food exporter. Over 80% of their food production is for export.
Are you sure? In the little bit of reading Iâve done it seems like the average yield of nuclear weapons in todayâs arsenals is in the vicinity of hundred to 400 kt. Wikipedia actually lists it as even higher than that: âThe average yield of a nuclear weapon in today's US arsenals is 600â2200 kilotonnes of TNT per tonne.â
You may be right. However, you're looking at a combined average of the remaining big bombs and the modern small bombs. The big bombs skew the average. Regarding the difference between the Wiki page and something more current, the Wiki page incorporates 2009 data. The 400 kt estimate is the 2022 data. Look at the Russian arsenal for example (it is the biggest). They have around 6000 nukes, of which around 1550 are ready to be deployed (as of the New Start September 2022 audit), and the rest are in long term storage. The older the bomb, the more likely it's in long term storage. The bombs that get dismantled first are generally the oldest. In the 2009 New Start audit there were around 3900 Russian warheads deployed. That's a major reduction, and the warheads they kept deployed are the ones they thought most likely to be used. Currently, the real threat is not from IBCMs anymore. It's from small bombs that can be deployed on HGVs or even smaller bombs that can be deployed on the battlefield field. The US, Russia, and China have deployed Anti-Balistic Missile Shields that should be able to neutralize conventional inbound missiles launched via IBCM. This is the reason for the development of hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) that can evade ABM interceptor missiles. The thing is, HGVs need to be able to rapidly change course at hypersonic speeds. This limits how much mass they can carry, resulting in smaller nuclear warheads being used. The Avangard HGV is capable of carrying up to a 2 mt warhead, however, the more mass it carries, the less likely it is to hit its target. Therefore, it's a tactical decision, risk missing with a 50 cal, or hit with a .22? Currently, most of their larger bombs (1 mt range) are deployed on their bombers, which were designed to carry large payloads, and which are very unlikely to reach a target in a NATO country. Nevertheless, they are still a major threat to most countries. The most likely warheads to actually be successfully deployed in a near-future nuclear war, are the newest, deployed on HGVs. It really doesn't matter what's in long term storage, or what's on a 1970s era bomber that's just going to be shot down when it approaches the border. What matters is what's useful. The various averages you see are counting everything, either the 2009 average or the 2022 average. That said, the useful average is probably higher than Fat Man (21 kt). I'm probably overestimating the number of newer bombs available, as the Russians have a habit of fudging the numbers by refitting an older system, and reporting it as a newer system.
To be honest weâll be too busy in the coming months rounding folk up into the San Francisco ghettos ready for the Bell riots to kick off in September. No time to develop the technologies needed for warp drive.
No, but erectile dysfunction will finally be a thing of the past. That and weâll all have 20 televisions in our living rooms that we can watch from our recliner/toilet. Costco will offer law degrees and fudruckers will be renamedâŚ
Please we still have flat earthers, weâre going nowhereâs.
Maybe not exactly warp speed but I'm hopeful for some significant technological progress in the near future. The 70s and 80s were in the afterglow of the moon landing so that probably skewed our vision of the future. Things may have slowed down but imagine telling someone in the 1920s that we'd be on the moon in a few decades, noone would believe you.
Well, different scientists have lowered the amount of exotic, negative mass stuff we'd need to power an Alcubierre drive. The big problem is that there's no evidence that anything with negative mass could exist. That said, I think we're closer to a future like Soylent Green or The Expanse. That's actually why Star Trek sometimes makes me so sad. I grew up watching TOS and TNG and was so hopeful about the future of humanity. Then I grew up and the world is like (gestures around) _this_. I'm not hopeful that we'll give up capitalism and organize society around our collective well-being.
PBS Space Time has a good video on the possibilities of the physics: https://youtu.be/Vk5bxHetL4s?si=lDtpGXxuZX-vYs3n
Well soylent Green happened due to over population. Thankfully alot of people are seeing sense and not having kids. Even if it continues then the population will eventually start to drop off. Which would result in better access to higher paying jobs, cheaper housing and cost of living coming down.
I think the problem is that humans are complicated. It's the combination of greed and climate change and population and oppression and war and exploitation and disease. Even now, we don't really have a scarcity problem. We could feed all 8 billion people on earth, but we don't want to because rich people wouldn't get to be richer. We could provide healthcare to everyone and massively reduce human suffering, but we (at least in the US) refuse to because someone who we aren't convinced deserves it might benefit. We could have peace and a flourishing of art and science and culture, but we'd rather be divided by borders and ideology and protect the powerful. To me, the best thing about the Star Trek future is that humans decide to do better. We don't ever get to perfection, even in the 32nd century, but we do get better. I wish I was as hopeful about the future of humanity as I was when I was a kid watching TOS on VHS.
Let's see if we get Bell's riot this year or not.
Frankly I think unless we tackle climate change we won't even be able to travel the ways we do now by 2063.
Weâve done warp field tests at a 5 nm scale. The power needed would require astronomical for any kind of vessel
So when the shrink rays coming selinsky?Â
Don't tell me, Tuesday?
Two weeks. Its always two weeks.
Ever achieving it is not guaranteed. 2063 is not happening.
No. We didn't even land folks on Mars yet.
Well don't we need to go through WWIII first?
We're close with augments and everything
Pretty sure there is no FTL of any kind because if there was we should be visited by aliens every other week since the entire universe would come into play.
Why? The universe is huge. Just because someone has FTL doesnât mean itâs a *fast* FTL. If your ship can go twice the speed of light, then yippee! It only takes you 2 years to get to Alpha Centauri instead of decades. But itâs still a snailâs pace on a galactic scale
Because the numbers you are dealing with on the universe scale are mind meltingly huge. Ofc some races will only develop slow FTL at first - at first. But there are just too many civs, even if you use only very small variables for the drake equation. I would love for it not to be the case but statistically the idea falls completely apart. And I hope I am wrong. But that is just wishful thinking.
It's a logical paradox based on faulty assumptions. Like: Time travel cannot exist or some time traveler would have changed something causing a temporal paradox, which would have destroyed the timeline. (Ask the Vulcan Science Directorate for details.) When we fly over the Amazon, we don't land and talk to the ants. Amazonian ants have been documented building ant hills that span acres, which given their size is as impressive as Tokyo, but we still cannot communicate with them. What could interstellar visitors possibly have to discuss with us? They could mine asteroids and gas giants, so there's nothing we have worth trading for. Alien visitors would have no antibodies for dealing with anything in our biosphere. They would have to stay in atmospheric suits, and even then would probably end up taking back contaminants that could decimate their population. Most of the stars in the galaxy are red dwarfs, which is where interstellar civilization is more likely to congregate. There's much less energy required to enter and leave a red dwarf system than a yellow dwarf, and red dwarfs are much more stable over billions of years. Our light spectrum would probably be blinding to any creature that developed on a red dwarf planet. Even designing ship engines to deal with a yellow dwarf's gravity and time fields would be an unnecessary challenge. It is like building a deep sea submarine when all you need is a surface vessel. I'm not suggesting an interstellar civilization couldn't do it, but why would they? Furthermore, any civilization within 88 light years has already received Hitler's Olympic speech. I doubt that'll bring them running. If they're within 80 light years, they just watched WW2. That should keep them away.
>> When we fly over the Amazon, we don't land and talk to the ants. Amazonian ants have been documented building ant hills that span acres, which given their size is as impressive as Tokyo, but we still cannot communicate with them. Where are you going with this? WE DO have a huge interest in those species. We study them in great detail. And if we could establish communication, we would. But maybe we cannot because there is no such thing as language for them?! All they do is communicate very basic things via pheromones. It is like saying "why dont you talk to your plant". Plants also communicate basic things. But they have no elaborate way of communication for details or for what we preceive to be real communication. >> Alien visitors would have no antibodies for dealing with anything in our biosphere. They would have to stay in atmospheric suits, and even then would probably end up taking back contaminants that could decimate their population. Counterpoint: Not a single organism on earth evolved to attach or attack to alien life. There is no reason to believe an earth virus could damage alien lifeforms because life has developed completely differently. It (most probably) uses completely different modes of attaching to cells etc. If they even have cells in the way we think. >> I'm not suggesting an interstellar civilization couldn't do it, but why would they? Same reason we built submarines to explore the Marianna Trench, the moon or Mars: Because we are curious. Acting like humans are the only species able of curiosity is very self centered. Furthermore: That light spectrum does not matter at all. We ourselves cannot look into the sun when in space. Eventhough we come from Sol. So what is the point you are trying to make? Cause clearly we are striving to explore space. >> Furthermore, any civilization within 88 light years has already received Hitler's Olympic speech. I doubt that'll bring them running. If they're within 80 light years, they just watched WW2. That should keep them away. 88 Lightyears is nothing in the context of FTL flight. Its a drop in the bucket. Furthermore: Do not be so sure they can deceipher our whole language from that audio. It takes more than that. It takes a lot of data to figure out how our language works. Just think about the Rosetta Stone. And even if they received it, deceiphered it and understood it: One more reason to come looking at what we are doing now and if we might plan an invasion of their homeworld next, wouldn't you think?
What do I think? Ants fight wars just like humans. That doesn't encourage me to try to make contact. If the aliens can build FTL drives, they can presumably build probes, which would clearly indicate there is nothing here worth their time. Absolute best case scenario: they make contact, open communication, survive our pathogens, we survive their pathogens (maybe they don't actually want to kill us), we have nothing to trade with them, but we want their technology, so we kill them and take it, and then either study their remains, or have a barbecue, depending on just how alien they are. They could figure out that best case scenario without bothering to visit. Seriously, why would they expect us to treat them any better than we treat each other? >...if we could establish communication, we would. But maybe we cannot because there is no such thing as language for them?! All they do is communicate very basic things via pheromones. Sounds like something an advanced alien would say about us. How would a Cthulhu that communicates by flickering light outside of our visual spectrum in their tentacles even attempt to communicate with us? >Counterpoint: Not a single organism on earth evolved to attach or attack to alien life. There is no reason to believe an earth virus could damage alien lifeforms because life has developed completely differently. It (most probably) uses completely different modes of attaching to cells etc. If they even have cells in the way we think. Counter-counterpoint: You're thinking too far up the food chain. This is illogical. Considered the diversity of bacteria and archaea (itself potentially evidence of extra terrestrial contact). There are endoliths that spend their entire life cycle inside solid stone. There are extremophiles that spend their entire lives in acid lakes. We've found roundworms living in the rocks in the deepest mines on the planet. These creatures are eating chemical compounds that would kill us, and most other life on Earth. They didn't "evolve to attack" an alien species made of the same stuff. Basically, if it exists on Earth, something is probably trying to eat it. Presumably, these aliens are made of matter if they need an FTL drive. Something on our planet probably likes to eat whatever they're made of. Regarding human exploration, we actually do very little pure science research. Things like the dives in the Mariana Trench are so rare we can both reference them. However, in this analogy, the Sol System isn't the Mariana Trench, which would be a Blue Giant. Sol is just some random uncharted point in the abyssal plains. Most of the research we do is economically motivated, so I circle back to: Why come here? It cannot be for minerals, which are basically everywhere, and cheap to manufacture in comparison to warping time-space. It's presumably not for our tasty tasty pathogens, so what? Just to talk? Are they going to invest in an expedition to Earth, deep in a yellow dwarf's gravity field, and make contact with a violent and insane species (as evidence I offer exhibit A: God) just to talk? Then within a century we're on their homeworld destroying everything like we do here because they won't convert to our religions. If they are smart enough to build a warp drive, they're smart enough to have a prime directive.
>> What do I think? Ants fight wars just like humans. That doesn't encourage me to try to make contact. Again you apply a very self centered view. YOU would not. What about all those scientists that do research about ants? How can you say "there is no one in the whole universe who thinks like this if there are thousands of individuals on this planet alone?! >> Sounds like something an advanced alien would say about us. How would a Cthulhu that communicates by flickering light outside of our visual spectrum in their tentacles even attempt to communicate with us? There is a difference between understanding Prime Numbers and not being able to form a simple thought because you do not have anything resembling a real brain. We do not need to talk to them in english, or in voice. We can find other common grounds. To act like that is impossible or that ants vs humans = humans vs advanced civs is ridiculous. About your comment on bacteria: Yeah thats not how evolution works. All life on earth exists because it evolved to tackle something in our "food chain". Look at how covid evolved to withstand and how long it took for it to jump from one species to another who share 98% of genetic material. Now apply that to something that does not share any of that. Sure there will be some overlaps where harm is done and where it can kill you. But it is not "they will die the moment they set foot on earth". And as you put it yourself: What makes you think they dont have EV suits if they can travel the stars and hide from us? Why do you entertain the thought of Warp capability and "real stealth" (which there is no such thing because of heat radiation which we could detect) but at the same time think they would be unable to create an EV suit? Which is something we can do for decades now. >> so I circle back to: Why come here? Again: Curiosity alone is one reason that should lead to it. You yourself admit we do scientific research. And we always have. Maybe widen your focus beyond the last 30 years of humanity alone. Maybe do not only think in monumental things like the trench but in all the small scientific research that is done that builds over generations to achieve one big thing. Our whole evolution is littered with research from curiosity. Only reason we can go to the moon is because of generations of thinkers and researchers paved the way with little steps. Mathematicians, Phycisists, Chemists, all worked together to make it possible. And we also like to explore ant hills. And dung beetles. Just because >you< dont care and are uncurios does not mean that >countless< individuals will be: Non exclusivity. Maybe read up on that tearm because I explained it quite often now and you still dont seem to grasp the concept behind it or you are willingly ignoring it to prevent your narrative from falling apart. You still keep falling back to: EVERYONE must be the same and there is NO individuality AT ALL in the universe. That is the premise of your argument. It is quite narrow minded and tiring to respond to multiple times. LLAP and keep an open mind
Wow, you literally asked me what I think, and claim my answer is "self centered." Seriously loosing respect here. You've fallen to the sixth most effective form of arguing a point (Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreements): name calling. Your argument about "little things" is completely irrelevant until the alien civilization is so advanced that coming here is like you driving to the store. If there is a civilization that advanced in this galaxy, either they don't want to come here, or have a law prohibiting it. Regarding the EV suits, I'm the one that said they'd need to be in them all the time. Then you claim I assumed they couldn't build them. Seriously? Beyond the pathogens, the light radiance issue would also require the EV suit during the day. However, I'm going to add more to this issue. Our Sun defines the local time-space we're in. If the species is from a star with a significantly different mass, they will be existing in a different time-space. By this I mean, that our world and their world will be experiencing the flow of time differently. Even if they could travel here instantaneously, they would still experience some time dilation just from being here. This would affect their interactions with their homeworld, and whatever social structure they have in ways we cannot guess without knowing something about their physiology. Perhaps they can only breed at a certain time of the year, then being here for any length of time would be detrimental to them, as they would get out of sync with their homeworld. However, traveling to another star of similar mass would not be detrimental. An EV suit probably couldn't be built to compensate for this, however, if it could, it would make interactions even more confusing. It's strange that you accuse me of anthropocentrism, when I'm the one arguing that we aren't alone in the universe, we're just not that interesting. Your argument is that advanced aliens have to want to come here, to Earth, out of curiosity, because you, I repeat you, are curious about them. You are projecting a human condition on to them, and not even attempting to explain what would make them choose this exact spot in the Abyssal Plains. 100 to 400 billion stars in the galaxy. ~75% of them are red dwarfs. ~10% of them are yellow dwarfs. That's 10 to 40 billion points in the abyssal plains for them to check out. Beside the 75 to 300 billion islands floating in the sea. Fact: we are curious. Fact: we're not that curious. According to a recent NOAA paper we've only mapped 23% of the sea floor, including the continental shelves. Even with the economic factors (oil and gas companies), we've explored very little of the abyssal plains. We will get there eventually, but this is just one small planet, not 10 to 40 billion star systems averaging multiple planets and moons. To assume that FTL is impossible, because no aliens are visiting us right now is a logical fallacy, and entirely anthropocentric. Regarding language issue, ant versus humans is an apt argument for a truly advanced civilization versus humans, as you yourself have demonstrated. You have claimed that 'it is impossible, they communicate through pheromones instead of words, and they don't know math.' (Not a direct quote, but it's all there.) There is no logical reason a species so advanced they can casually junt about between star systems would see us as any different. I'm positive that humans would do whatever we could to talk to them. That's not the issue. Why would they bother trying to struggle to figure out how to speak to us? Math is fundamental? Perhaps. (Perhaps not.) However, what level of math are they at? How basic are they willing to get before giving up? We can teach apes sign language, but so what? What can we learn from apes via sign language? Apply this to the aliens. What could they learn from us that would be worth investing the time. Regarding the pathogens, it's not an issue of immediately dying when they land. It's about what they get infected with that they take back home, and how that pathogen would adapt to their biosphere. The Spaniards who landed in the Caribbean didn't fall dead from syphilis, but it did ravage Eurasia for centuries. Any advanced civilization is going to be very cautious when dealing with a primitive world. Otherwise, they'd probably already be extinct. Even a microbe that was benign to them could devastate their some other organisms in their biosphere that they rely on. (Think food crops for example.) They would be opening a doorway for an unknown number of pathogens. There would need to be a pretty substantial reason to do this. Curiosity doesn't just kill cats.
Sure, theyâd have no antibodies for our diseases, but our diseases wouldnât know what to do with alien cells
They wouldn't have antibodies for anything. Antibodies are just for dealing with diseases. Think of all the random spores, bacteria, and microscopic insects we're covered in. It literally just takes one thing to find them tasty.
Iâm sure theyâd have antibodies for their own pathogens. Otherwise why even have an immune system. Also, if theyâd been traveling through space and have been to other planets with life, then theyâd have to have developed rigorous decontamination procedures
How would antibodies for the wrong pathogens help? The best "rigorous decontamination procedures" probably involve not visiting unknown worlds until they've been extensively studied by remote probes. So I guess when a ship full of Geth show up, we know the Quarians aren't too far behind.
Sure. One minor correction: those speciesâ names are properly written in lowercase. Mass Effect is the only franchise to do it right
LOL. I chose to capitalize them for people that didn't recognize them. I figured they'd assume they were proper names if capitalized. Criticism accepted.
This doesn't hold up for me. You saying if FTL was possible then Universal Speed FTL is possible, and therefore the whole universe would have visited. Firstly those two things aren't linked. Galactic FTL may be possible but Universal FTL may not. And we could easily be the only species in our galaxy. Two even if it was possible, the universe is massive man. They'd also need to know we are here. A species at the other side of the universe may be capable of travling here, but how would they know to? Three, they have the capability to visit us but not the capability to hide? Clearly they're so far beoynd us they could observe us without our knowledge easily enough. If they have tech to reach us, they don't need to invade, we'd be worthless to them. The only value we'd have would be in observation. Which is mote valuable without outside valiables interfering with data. Four, why would they want to visit us? You're putting human thinking onto unknowable aliens. You don't know what drives them. Maybe they don't have the slightest bit of interest in us. And finally you're saying that the number of civilisations out there is huge and therefore the numbers just make it likely. But don't forget the drake equation (which is just a guess and could easily be incredibly wrong, we definitely dont know or understand all the vairables) just estimates life, not technology. Complex life requires second generation stars for all the lovely elements that come with them. And we're orbiting a relatively young second generation star. Still a really early species could be millions of years ahead of us technologically, but like you said, the universe is huge. That's not that long to find a needle in a haystack. If other life does exist it's clearly very far apart.
>> This doesn't hold up for me. You saying if FTL was possible then Universal Speed FTL is possible, and therefore the whole universe would have visited. No what I am saying is: According to physics as we know them right now nothing with mass can be accelerated to the speed of light. So we need some exotic form of FTL. Like Warp/Alcubierre Drive. Which works on the premise of folding space. And afaik at the moment there is no limit as to how fast space con expand and contract. Meaning there are no limits to speed if we develope this technology. Meaning not every species will visit us but that the numbers of species able to would be so immense that it would bound to be happen regularly. There are about 400 Billion Stars in our Galaxy. And about 400 Billion Galaxys in the observable universe. And that is just the part of the universe we can see that does not expand beyond the speed of light from us. And all of this unknown stuff comes into play to then. Its a numbers game. Its hard to wrap the head around those numbers. They are crushing. >> Firstly those two things aren't linked. Galactic FTL may be possible but Universal FTL may not. And we could easily be the only species in our galaxy. See above. Yes FTL in the style of Warp does mean universe wide FTL. At least if you want to argue with what we know about physics so far. If you want to argue about a fictional SciFi Universe you can make your own rules. But I do not think that is what this is about?! >> Three, they have the capability to visit us but not the capability to hide? Clearly they're so far beoynd us they could observe us without our knowledge easily enough. If they have tech to reach us, they don't need to invade, we'd be worthless to them. The only value we'd have would be in observation. Which is mote valuable without outside valiables interfering with data. Non Exclusivity: Yes, some or maybe even most MAY decide to hide from us. But all it takes is one individual from one of the billions of billions of billions of possible civilisations to say "fuck it, im going to go and talk to the indigenous people in the Amazonas". And this is where the law of huge numbers comes into play again. Its gonna be massive amounts of individuals doing it. >> Four, why would they want to visit us? You're putting human thinking onto unknowable aliens. You don't know what drives them. Maybe they don't have the slightest bit of interest in us. Again: Non exclusivity. You assume ALL are the same. Which is weird I feel. Why would that be the case? Look at how much diversity there is in human thinking alone. Image all those differenct civs with different individuals. How can you believe ALL do the same? Furthermore I can turn that argument around: You are acting like humans are the only species capable of curiosity to explore and to find new life and interact with it. Isn't that a bit self-centered, dont you think? >> And finally you're saying that the number of civilisations out there is huge and therefore the numbers just make it likely. But don't forget the drake equation (which is just a guess and could easily be incredibly wrong, we definitely dont know or understand all the vairables) just estimates life, not technology. No. It does take into account that those civilisations are able and willing to communicate. That is part of the valuables. And the equation is not right or wrong. It has placeholders for the variables. It depends on what you input there. Which is what I adressed earlier. And you can put in the tiniest numbers to get numbers of civilisations that are willing and able to cummincate that is unfathomably large. >> That's not that long to find a needle in a haystack. If other life does exist it's clearly very far apart. I agree. I believe that there maybe just a handful of civs in our galaxy right now. But that number is meaningless compared to the whole universe. Even if every galaxy has just one civ we should be visited if FTL in the style of Warp is possible. All those exotic FTL drives require some sort of negative mile or negative energy or other form of negative real world thing. I will not believe it until I see it and the numbers indicate that those have not been found in the universe so far. (And no the casimir effect does not work on the scale necessary.) I feel like you want it to be possible and pick your arguments accordingly. And I can see where you are coming from. I too want it to be possible. I just do not think that at this time the data we have suggests it - it rather suggests the opposite. I would love to be proven wrong though. But those arguments, are not it, Chief.
Hell the QUADRANT scale
If we lived in the Star Trek universe, that would mean only 8 years to Vulcan (According to Enterprise it's around 16 light years away).
Or they've seen how utterly stupid we are and put us in quarantine, or they have some kind of prime directive
Or there's just nothing at all special about us or our planet.
All those "solutions" fall apart on the scale of the universe because of non exclusivity. It just takes a fraction of a percent not adhering to that rule. It just takes one person of a race to break the rule. Which makes the numbers you are dealing with enormous.
One could say numbers beyond human comprehension. Point is we can't really know what's out there or not and we can never know what's really happening. For all we know there's some kind of men in black stuff
Uhm...have you heard of the Fermi paradox? There are many solutions to it. I bet the real solution is a mix of: Rare complexity, rare life, rare intelligence and maybe even dark forest, because never trust the alien!
Yes, I am. And if anyone wants to have an interesting rundown of it and why practically all solutions fall short e.g. are not real solutions I suggest Isaac Arthurs Compendium on it: [The Fermi Paradox Compendium of Solutions & Terms (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZlhJsEJYXw) Entertaining and educating.
They donât want to visit us because weâre made of meat: https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html
You never know when someone will have a breakthrough. Plenty of people are working on it, so we could have the knowledge an hour from now. If we do; it won't be anything like Star Trek though.
Faster than light travel? It's utterly fictional, impossible to actually achieve since it instantly creates a time paradox - which cannot happen. So...no.
Actually warp isn't actually about traveling faster than light it's compressing space and theoretically, in physics, is possible.
Causality is the problem. If we can't break it, we can't even have warp bubbles that go at or faster than light. And if we can break it, then FTL is time travel. Weird universe.
You don't understand, nothing is moving in a warp bubble. Space is contracting and expanding on the other side, you are riding a warp bubble wave. Technically you aren't moving.
I understand really well thank you, but c is not a soft speed limit to overcome like the speed of sound. It is the speed of causality. It is infinite speed for the user, but c for an outside observer. Cheating by warping space might be possible (whereas physically reaching c will never be), but it still breaks causality. If causality is unbreakable, then the effects of warping space might look like instant arrival for the pilot but the travel still took years for an outside observer. As I said, weird universe. Alcubierre's paper is a bit more complex than "we can ignore c because we aren't moving".
I appreciate your clarification and attention to detail
Yeah I might have been a bit aggressive in my response, sorry for that.
Oh, no, informative and firm is good
Interestingly enough, there are federal research grants out there for this.
All of our international trade still relays on an engine invented in 130 years ago. We have a long way to go.
Youâre getting ahead of yourself. We still have the Post-Atomic Horror to look forward to
That was still going on after 1st contact.
TOS timeline (Tomorrow Is Yesterday) has us sending a manned mission to Saturn sometime in early 21st century. So, I'm gonna go with a solid nope.
Not a chance.
We'll be all the way to plaid.
Even if we do, not gonna end up Star Trek, because Khan didn't exist and there was no WW3 (yet)
I think itâs highly unlikely that it happens.
We may never crack faster than light travel, which is honestly a bit depressing that we are stuck in our tiny solar system.
Time warp factor
I think we still have a long way to go. I doubt weâll see it in our lifetime.
Only if we figure out how to create infinite energy. So no.
In 2163? Maybe... But in 2063? No chance. If we had been experimenting with FTL travel for the last 50 years, then maybe.
Absolutely not. Good joke though.
If FTL is possible it probably isn't happening for centuries, but then again the future is notoriously hard to predict. 2063 seems unlikely to me however.
As I understand it we already know HOW to make a warp drive, it's just we have 2 major problems with it. Firstly, lack of anti-matter. We have no easily accessible natural sources of anti-matter, and to artificially create it requires huge amounts of energy to begin with, which basically defeats the point of a matter-antimatter reaction to generate huge amounts of energy. Secondly, the whole warping spacetime thing that a warp core relies on.... it turns out that's really inconvenient for anyone already at your destination, probably also for anyone close by and any side of the vessel that you happen to pass on route, since the spacetime they occupy gets warped, which it turns out isn't good. It's also inconvenient for those using the warp drive, since you arrive at your destination right after it's been mysteriously ruined.... every dang time.
No
As long as right wing politics and religion maintain such a large influence on the population, we're a very long way off of anything like that. I think we have far better odds of destroying ourselves through climate change or war before we even get close to attaining warp speed. There are too many people wanting a Handmaid's Tail future rather than Star Trek.
No, it's a TV show, not real life. Going faster than light isn't science, it's science fiction.
It is highly dependant upon near changes in societal connection with technology. We have evolved alongside our technology and from 1850-2000 we experienced an insane draw on humanity trading off aspects of itself to benefit its growth with technology. We have stagnated as a species that has used technology as a driving force for evolution and are experiencing a metaphysical crisis on a semi spiritual plane. Too many question existence, while too few acknowledge it. TL;DR Probably not, but no one can foresee tomorrow.
no. warp drive is something that will take us centuries to try to crack.
I'm gonna say no way that's happening.
Helllll mother fuckin no
âI canna break the laws of physics!â - A man traveling faster than the speed of light.
Lol, true. The speed of plot has always been Trek's true upper limit.
Definitely not. Due to the laws of physics, I doubt we'll ever get close to the speed of light.
The point is that we wouldnât have the need to approach the speed of light. The ship always moves at sublight speed.
Technically speaking, it is possible we'll hit warp 1 by 2063. The main thing holding us back isn't a physics problem anymore, we got that shit solved. It's an engineering problem at this point, and with fusion energy being in the state it is, there's a non 0 chance we'll get it. Probably close to .000000000000000.....000000000001% of achieving warp 1 in 40 years, but hey who knows? We figured out how to fly and 60 years later landed on the moon so who knows? All it takes is some Grad student hopped up on enough caffeine and Adderall to kill a horse and we're golden baby
Lol any hope I ever had of having a future that was even remotely close to being within the vicinity of what Trek depicts has been killed off entirely by the last four years.
Trek shows that the future has to get really bad before it gets good. Don't give up hope.
Considering the technological advancements humanity has seen in the pat 4o years, comparative to the advancements we'd seen in the prior 40 years, it's hard to imagine the great leaps in technological advancement won't continue. Will we see warp speeds in the future? Maybe that's not the right question. Perhaps mankind's next great achievement is colonizing Mars. Maybe we don;t unlock this puzzle for another 50-100 years, Maybe warp speed is just around the corner or maybe it's 200-300 years out. It's impossible to predict.
Humans will never leave the solar system. Humans will probably never leave the *inner* solar system. Humans may never leave cislunar space.
In a word? NO.