Fictional moments

I have read a gazzillion books and have noticed that invariably the human race is portrayed as the weaker in confrontations with alien life forms.

Now even though they are no longer "human" I'd like to see a book/books written where the humans have the same attributes as the vampires in the twilight series meeting some aliens.

The reason for the post? What book characters would you like seen combined in a book series?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I don't really want to see any character archetypes mashed up, really. HOWEVER, I DO want a SciFi book where we make contact with an alien race and find out we're not only the more advanced race ... but the first sentient species in the universe.

It'd be a nice twist and allow many ideas to be explored without falling back on the old, "someone else always knows better than you, silly humans" routine.

I guess if I had to choose something ... I wouldn't mind seeing Harry Potter mixed with Dexter Morgan :3

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well, I wasn't really after the Edward character going into space and whipping alien butt. Just the attributes. IE, strong, needs no breathing, can see in dark, etc.

I've also found it a bit odd that most books, even in the far future still use projectile weaponry.

It just seems like many books are stuck in a rut for ideas and we're always weak sacks of skin that puncture easily. :/

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Projectile weaponry still makes the most sense. Unless the weapons are plasma based or something, it's just not going to be much more effective.

The main issue with science fiction books is a lot of them are nonsense. It'd be really nice to see more of the books that use actual science theory in their weapon/ship/world design.

Sadly, most of the ones that do are also ultra boring, 2001 withstanding.

It's just disappointing, because there's a lot of really bizarre and amazing possibilities in the universe, confirmed to be possible through mathematics, that amazing stories could be crafted around ... but everyone feels that dog fights in space are more fun.

I don't get it. There's ten million books/movies/comics/games that don't depict a lot of this stuff correctly ... but maybe 1000 that do. It's very disappointing.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

The best sci-fi books ever written are along the lines of humans being the most advanced race, in fact they were the only sentient race in the galaxy.
That would the Galactic Empire and Robot series by Issac Asimov.
There were many good books out there dealing with those scenerios, unfortunately alot are out of print.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Must read books if you haven't yet.

Rama series.
Foundation series.
Pip and Flinx series.
Anything D&D Darksun
Ice rigger series
More later...

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The best things in life, aren't things.

D&D DragonLance series is excellent too. I happened to be lucky and get first editions signed by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis @ GenCon in Milwaukee.

Read the Rama books, A good read also is Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen mixes magic and tech very well.
Bolo series (out of print)
Berserker series (out of print)

E.E. Knights Vampire Earth series
Anything by Larry Niven

My favorite books right now are Warhammer 40k. Especially the Horus Heresy series.

And if you like fantasy books with a humorous twist you can't beat Glen Cook's Garrett P.I. series

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Although I love talking books and could do it endlessly, its a bit off topic.

Ain't nobody want a certain book type written?

Hell, I'd settle for book explanations. In Star Trek, if the transporters keep a record of your previous beam out to prevent you from bringing bugs/germs back, why doesn't it notice you got a bullet in you and remove it all the while putting the tissue back where its supposed to be in pristine condition? You are after all in particle form.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Maybe you answered your own question there. A bullet isn't an organic form and the transporter doesn't see it as such thus it isn't removed. Possibly your your pattern is rewritten with each transport and the previous is used only as a basic template for removing organics brought back with you.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

I still don't understand why people arrive damaged though. If they were healthy when they beamed down, the computer should note the discrepancies and repair the flesh. Since your body is in flux at the time it should be simple to remove all the damage done by a foreign object.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Maybe the damage isn't visible to the transporter, unless it's major damage say an arm blown off.
There it may have the original pattern but not the abilility to repair it since that material is gone. That point being said if it sees the material in the pattern it also doesn't know that there was an injury so it just puts you together the way you are transporting back, injury and all.
Say you cut your finger, and all the flesh is there it's just cut. The transporter sees that everything is there and transports you back, thing is the way I see it, it doesn't know a cut from a pair of underwear so it doesn't fix it.
If you lost blood it may see that's it's missing but it can't make blood from nothing so you come back minus the blood.

I hope I made sense because I just confused myself to no end.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

It's because of bureaucracy. The transpor systems aren't in any way connected to the medical bay. AND, In almost all Star Trek outside ... Voyager ... there is practically no AI medical assistance. Everything is done by a physical doctor.

HOWEVER, realistically. If you had a transporter system (i.e. We had a solution that actually dematerialized you and rematerialized you, not just copied you) we, as humans, would interconnect it to all diagnostic systems. To be perfectly honest, we'd use it for all repair on the human body.

It's much easier and safer to practice on a non-live representation of something, then implement those details once you've ran simulations while the person is, basically, suspended, than actually doing exams or operations in real-time.

Not to mention, a transporter needs to analyze and scan every single atom and their relation to each other. That means at the very least it'd be the most accurate medical device available.

Now ... if you'd actually want a computer operating on you ... I'm not entirely sure about that. But enhancing the abilities of the physician would be absolutely beneficial and entirely within the realm of the technology they present.

The only thing that bugs me about Star Trek ... and Star Wars for that matter is ... the technology doesn't evolve fast enough. Star Wars especially. We're suppose to believe the SAME technology that only superficially looks different has been used for over 1000 years!? Give me a break!

Technology grows MUCH faster than that, and it's exponential. So, in the case of Star Trek, the technology in The Next Generation should actually be about 12 generations more advanced ... and it's not, things only look different and act moderately differently.

I can understand things like ..... starship propulsion, that makes sense that it wouldn't change very much over time, but transporters, phasers, tricorders, etc. The device getting a touch screen and a new sound effect set would NOT be the only change.

Anyway, I have a better question, why are there no seat belts? I mean ... you make something with gravity and large spaces with chairs ... it moves ... seems like you might need to sit tight every once in awhile.

And according to Star Trek, the ships have needed seat belts for hundreds of years.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

searches for LIKE button on Adam's post

Its rare but sometimes you nail it bud.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yes, unfortunately in both those universes, books and movies, the time line and tech is all messed up.
The theory on alot of the tech is great and all but the application is not sound. Until it is actually developed you can't say how it really works or would work.

Basically if you used the transporter as a medical device also, my theory would be that we'd be immortal. You would have a pattern saved so every time you use it you would revert back to that original pattern. Thus perpetual youth.
This isn't possible though due to our bodies changing even over minutes or seconds of time. The body rejuvenates cells, absorbs or even removes them from time to time.
The body also heals itself so how does a transporter know how these cells have operated since the last beaming. In theory it could kill you if it does something your body is trying to do itself.

As far as seat belts go....NO WAY! We wouldn't have all those great leaning and stumbling around the bridge scenes.

My pet peeve is the fact in books and movies is that they get their ass kicked all the time, but come up with some hairbrained idea to get out of it. If it was that easy to come up with the idea it would already have been thought of before.
I would rather see them take their lumps and move on.... you can't always win every battle or situation.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

There's actually some science behind immortality ... at least due to natural aging. Aging happens because of the cell cycle. If you could control the cell cycle (which we can) but on the scale of ... your whole body, you's essentially be able to stop aging. Since, our aging is due to cells replicating then dying. When they split they're a little bit weaker. At least that's what we've observed.

So far tests on mice and such have been promising.

I don't think things like that are really thinking that far ahead, to be honest.

I mean ... really. Things like ... manipulating black holes, anti-matter, and dark matter ... is thinking that far ahead.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Probably not but I would say we are still at least that far away from actually doing something with the science.
Getting back to the transporter thingie, my guess would be behind the tech in Star Trek is your pattern is read, before each time you transport, thus if you get injured you come back with it.
I don't know the capacity of future computers but I would think the storage for a crew that large to store everyone's pattern would be astronomical to say the least. The billions of cells and atom count....well.
I would think flushing old data would be more economical. Just a theory.

Well considering we found (yet to be proved) that certain neutrons travel faster than light, we may have more problems to consider. Fact is I believe faster than light travel will be a technology we haven't even thought of yet. If it's actually faster than light travel.
Time dilation is something I don't think we can solve, also traveling through black holes is right out. Wormholes are still conjecture at this time. Maybe some type of dimensional travel, or null space travel (tearing a hole in reality and traveling through it).

Every form of travel written in books or on the screen is good sci-fi but bad science at this point.

Bottom line our great-great-great-great grandchildren may see it, but we can only dream of that day.

One more thing to think about is why don't they ever float around when they lose power, the artificial gravity should go off too. Only saw it one time in "Undiscovered Country" I would imagine that would be a power hog on any back up system. Besides you lose that everyone would be mashed to a pulp due to inertia.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

It would have to be a quantum computer, bare minimum.

There's just too much data for a traditional machine regardless of how fast you make it.

The two biggest offenses in most sci fi is their ignorance of kinematics ... which, for all intensive purposes is to save money and make things "exciting" I mean ... if ships moved like they do in space, how would you have dog fights? Sure there's sounds in space, there's lots of vacuum to vibrate around.

Anyway it's because of money, at least it was. Now ... it's because it's sci fi staple. Even super serious shows like Battlestar Galactica ignored how gravity works.

So, they ignore kinematics, entirely. And they also never really give a reasonable power source. A lot of Sci Fi likes using crystals of some sort, Star Wars has crystals in the light sabers, and Star Trek uses crystals for their ship energy. But this makes no sense as crystals don't store energy like that.

It's not that we COULDN'T make an energy source as abundant or anything ... it's just their explanations make no sense.

The only modern sci fi show I've seen that actually gave an answer for these things that was somewhat legit was Defying Gravity and it got canned. They had some magnetized junk. So there wasn't actually artificial gravity at all.

I know it's sort of strange ... but, Avatar is actually one of the most scientifically accurate sci fi flicks of recent memory. The gimmick is the giant blue people, but based on the initial "these are the things we have" stuff ... everything really does follow known physics, which is very awesome.

Sadly, the plot was very traditional (sequels should be much better in that department, I think)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I would like to hear their theory in media about what future computers are comprised of, since silicon is reaching it's limits as a viable source of cpu's and memory.

Something organic is probably in our future and opens all kinds of possiblities for AI to become a reality.

Crystals I think would be a better conduit for transmitting power and info rather than an actual source of storage and power.

I certainly agree about kinematics, it's really impossible for vessels to manuever
like they show on tv or the movies. Babylon 5 is a good example, with the fighters on the show.

For entertainments sake I'd take an explaination of a solar sail or ramjet to collects hydrogen or photons as a back up power source. At least that's a feasible explaination.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Personally, I think the next step in computers will incorporate a combination of rumors and flatulence. Both travel faster than lightspeed.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

That technology already exists in the here and now , at least where I work.
I see and hear a lot of that data at work.... it's in a folder
called bull shit.
I think the hard drives they use are a brand called Bosses Rectum. The transfer rates are instantaneous.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Actually ... the other week, at CERN ... they successfully sent a neutrino faster than the speed of light. Which is mind blowing.

They want to put in more accurate equipment and redo the experiment by 2014 to confirm the results.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20961-fasterthanlight-neutrino-claim-bolstered.html

As for power storage for electricity, one of the biggest recent breakthroughs have been this sort of new wonder material, carbon nano-tubes. They're grown by bonding carbon to itself, effectively making the strongest substance we know of.

All strong substances get their strength from Carbon. But it has a lot of interesting properties, some of which are already being used. The first is, if you grew a lot of these tubes and wove them together, you can make a fabric that's about as heavy as an ultra light loose knit cotton cloth. (where you can see through the fabric and the air can push it around). It's VERY light.

And ... it's stronger than Kevlar. It can stop bullets and knives. The military is having MIT (I think that's where the material originated from) build more to do testing in this realm.

But it does something else that's interesting. It's molecular structure is akin to metals. So, it's actually magnetic too. As a result, it can be turned into a battery. The cool thing is, the molecular bonds are so tiny and tight (which is where it gets its strength) that if you had a carbon nano-tube battery ... you could store about 50 Mega Watts into something the size of 3 or so D batteries.

Which is ... amazing.

The main issue currently is power generation. And even this isn't limited by technology, but rather greed.

We have many solutions, like using Fusion reactors to boil water and push steam turbines MUCH like how nuclear reactors work, but they only produce an 1/8th of the radioactive waste, which is only harmful if swallowed (not just touched) and only has a half life of 12 years ... as opposed to 250. It's also cheaper, safer, and can be used in existing power plants.

Fusion of course is ... the power source of the future. The main issue scientists have is getting the power onto the grid ... fusion, basically, produces plasma ... but turning that into electricity, is nearly impossible. This system solves that. You lose quite a bit of the energy being outputted ... but it's still A LOT more than we current make ... even from nuclear power.

And I don't think we're going to develop a better power source than a miniature sun, regardless if we use pure energy or electricity or whatever.

Ok, so ... another thing .. Silicon ... is not ... exactly ... the processor. The components are put ONTO silicon. The silicon itself is just a piece of board to mount everything. Currently everything is built using various types of transistors.

However, very recently (2009?) a memristor was successfully built and worked ... which people have been trying to do since the 1940s. (Every component has some sort of opposite, the memristor is the resistors opposite)

And ... THAT is a game changer. There's only theory based behind how it could function in a circuit, but it could potentially affect things greatly.

Like the jump from vacuum tubes to transistors. Refacing how technology looks and acts.

It's important to remember that this isn't really ... about size, but efficiency. In terms of size we can already build nano-scale transistors and even nano-scaled engines (literally), those will continue to get smaller, as they get smaller computers will get faster.

A quantum computer works with atoms. The core is not electricity.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.