I'm building a religion... I'm building it bigger

[dreamwalker]

Hello SFF Chronicles. This is probably my first post in a very long time and I wanted to get your opinions and develop a general FAQ for a universe I'm cooking up.

I'm Valentine Obasuyi, 31, from the UK and I like to make Spaceships.

If you landed on this blog:
the sky union

What would your initial questions be? - I ask so that these answers will be easily available on the site and else where.

I've got an idea of some of these questions but it would be useful to me to see how people fresh to this world react.

Thank you in advanced.

 

[hopewrites]

Doesn't that just take the cake
I'll check it out and get back to you.

 

[Gawian]

*Picks jaw up from the floor*

Those are amazing.

However I did notice that one of your ships is very Trek. I assume you won't be using that in your universe?

Also, I have some questions about your ships in general actually.

Your Morpheus Class Dreadnaught has it's size listed at 4.9 kilometers. However, it only needs 3 people minimum to crew.
Forgive me for saying because I'm not familiar with the workings of your universe-in-progress, but that seems very impractical.
Admittedly, my only comparison is with an Emperor Class Battleship from Warhammer 40k. Those ships are 6km long, but are crewed by thousands.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

However, it only needs 3 people minimum to crew.
Forgive me for saying because I'm not familiar with the workings of your universe-in-progress, but that seems very impractical.

Doesn't seem unreasonable. 3 x 8 hour shifts.
WH40K isn't what I'd call a realistic future!

 

[Gawian]

Doesn't seem unreasonable. 3 x 8 hour shifts.
WH40K isn't what I'd call a realistic future!

I'm not saying it's a realistic future. I do hope to any and every deity that it isn't our future lol.

But I'm saying, 4.9km is a hell of a distance. To have all the maintenance and cleaning and the other gubbins you need on a spaceship done by 3 people across the distance.

Not to mention, if all three are at one end of the ship, and there's a problem at the other end, it's going to take a while to reach it.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

4.9km is a hell of a distance. To have all the maintenance and cleaning and the other gubbins you need on a spaceship done by 3 people across the distance.

C.f. Oil tanker today and size of crew.
It's perfectly feasible.
My stories have 6km to 18km long starships. But most of that needs no maintenance. Most of it is the linear accelerators to speed up the reaction mass plasma of the ion drive. Using up hydrogen in a fusion reaction and chucking out the resultant helium ions is better than chucking out more mass, slower.

 

[Gawian]

C.f. Oil tanker today and size of crew.
It's perfectly feasible.
My stories have 6km to 18km long starships. But most of that needs no maintenance. Most of it is the linear accelerators to speed up the reaction mass plasma of the ion drive. Using up hydrogen in a fusion reaction and chucking out the resultant helium ions is better than chucking out more mass, slower.

4.9km is 3 miles. We don't have 3 mile oil tankers.
When I was younger my school was 3 miles away. Used to take me anywhere upwards of 25 minutes to get there. OK, provided it was school, I wasn't in a rush to get there, but 3 miles is a trek however you look at it.

And you may not mention the maintenance, but think about it. Unless your ships are hollow, they're going to need regular maintenance. Even normal boats today need regular maintenance.

I'm not talking about the heavy duty specialised equipment maintenance. Even the basic systems of a ship need maintenance. Lights. Oxygen. Gravity.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Starships are never in an atmosphere.
Also they have robots. No AI needed.

 

[chrispenycate]

The first thing I noticed was white text against pictures, difficult to read, and small, to get lots of information onto a small surface. If I hadn't been deliberately targeting the site I would have left it there and then. Then there was 'Dyson ring' - the Dyson theory is of a solar receptor which uses the entire energy from its star . either a solt structure or a number of smaller units in ball of string orbits. Certainly, keeping the atmosphere where you want it is a problem, as is not having micrograyity everywhere, and a Niven ringworld is an elegant solution - but it only harvests a tiny fraction of the star's energy. Technopedants can be expected to tear your construction apart…

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Technopedants can be expected to tear your construction apart…

But people like Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Dune and I think Space Opera is one of the more popular SF sub genres.

 

[Gawian]

Starships are never in an atmosphere.
Also they have robots. No AI needed.

The robots must do the maintenance then.
Everything mechanical needs maintenance. Even cars and bikes need a bit of TLC every now and then.
It's impractical if not impossible to have something as complex as a spaceship that needs NO maintenance.

Also, on an unrelated issue, don't robots count as AI? Or are they very basic drone models?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

don't robots count as AI?

Not at all. I've done very nice programming of robots. No AI needed.
Robot pipe cleaners, tank cleaners, vacuum cleaners and grass cutters can work autonomously without AI
As do all the Martian vehicles. Latency is too high for real time control. They are preprogrammed short term tasks.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Even cars and bikes need a bit of TLC every now and then.

Certainly much more than New Horizons, Voyager 1 & 2 etc.
A big thing can simply be bigger and not need any more maintenance or crew than a small thing.
The point of a supertanker, is compared to a small freighter, there isn't really any more crew. It's primitive compared to hypothetical starship and has more wear and tear from the elements.
A nuclear submarine is similar to a spaceship in terms of being cut off from any contact with surface or outside world 6mths to a year (for stealth). I've no idea how much maintenance they need on a tour, but a hypothetical starship could be expected to need much less crew intervention. A big aircraft can in theory not just fly on auto pilot. Automated take off and landings have been done too. The maintenance is between flights.

 

[dreamwalker]

*Picks jaw up from the floor*
However I did notice that one of your ships is very Trek. I assume you won't be using that in your universe?

Correct, I sometimes like to model star trek style ships (*horrible* mashups of JJ-trek and VOY era styles) - sometimes for competitions, sometimes just for fun. The Recalcitrant was actually me learning how to model in C4D (conversion from 3ds Max) - As this is a blog, most things get thrown in there.

Also, I have some questions about your ships in general actually.

Your Morpheus Class Dreadnaught has it's size listed at 4.9 kilometers. However, it only needs 3 people minimum to crew.
Forgive me for saying because I'm not familiar with the workings of your universe-in-progress, but that seems very impractical.
Admittedly, my only comparison is with an Emperor Class Battleship from Warhammer 40k. Those ships are 6km long, but are crewed by thousands.

Good question, stickyed for FAQ (unless any objections) it has a really long and complicated answer full answer that I must craft with detail and thoroughness. Suffice to say, here are some clues. The numbers actually refer not specifically to people, but to personalities. The Morpheus is actually extremely unusual for needing so many crew members at it's optimal configuration. And, for example, how many 'Culture Minds' would you need to pilot a GSV, or Orbital or any craft of any size?

The first thing I noticed was white text against pictures, difficult to read, and small, to get lots of information onto a small surface. If I hadn't been deliberately targeting the site I would have left it there and then.

This is a good point and a UX challenge I've worried about. So far I've darkened the image, added text drop shadow and globally increased font sizes and reduced line lengths for readablity. Is text still too small? Should I just bite the bullet and add a semi transparent background to the text box... Hmmm, just tried it, have a look and let me know if that's an improvement.

Then there was 'Dyson ring' - the Dyson theory is of a solar receptor which uses the entire energy from its star . either a solt structure or a number of smaller units in ball of string orbits. Certainly, keeping the atmosphere where you want it is a problem, as is not having micrograyity everywhere, and a Niven ringworld is an elegant solution - but it only harvests a tiny fraction of the star's energy. Technopedants can be expected to tear your construction apart…

That's perfectly ok. I have thought about these structures a lot. They are too big to be Niven rings (1.5AU or +1100AU in radius) and produce surface gravity the good old fashioned way - using mass. In regards to these structures, what would be the best question or set of questions to ask?

 

[tinkerdan]

I too felt a trek vibe in this not only the ships but words like federation and vulcan.
It felt like a alternated trek universe, maybe not what you were looking to do.

Oh, and the transparency against the graphic with text insert works for me. In fact that was how I'd done the blurb on my book when it had a wraparound graphic.

 

[dreamwalker]

I too felt a trek vibe in this not only the ships but words like federation and vulcan.
It felt like a alternated trek universe, maybe not what you were looking to do.

Oh, and the transparency against the graphic with text insert works for me. In fact that was how I'd done the blurb on my book when it had a wraparound graphic.

Ok, so I've just removed this ship from the list. The site straddled between a personal blog and a single subject site. Hence the ships from a different universe in there.

But, it appears that it was more confusing than useful so I pulled it.

 

[Nick B]

It looks great! My first impression was 'is this a new mmorpg?' it is reminiscent of eve online, infinity etc. I like it a lot. My first question though, would be how much have you written so far?

 

[dreamwalker]

It looks great! My first impression was 'is this a new mmorpg?' it is reminiscent of eve online, infinity etc. I like it a lot. My first question though, would be how much have you written so far?

I've probably gone 10-20k words though 3 or 4 stories or re-writes. Mind, this has been over a period of around 5 years.

 

[Nick B]

I would be very interested in reading some of your work, you are clearly putting a great deal of time and energy into building your universe.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

My first impression was that there were two grammatical errors in the first line and I wouldn't explore further. Harsh, I know - but if a site hasn't been proofread it makes me feel it's not professionally put together. Since the pictures and ideas were awesome, this would be a real pity.

Within this wall beats the heart of an empire, within this radius lays - lies, I assume? the mind of Sol’s youngest child.



This is The Ark; cornerstone of Arkaedian civilisation. It’s - Its continuing construction has consumed thousands of worlds over tens of thousands of years in a project that will one day see it’s - its host star encapsulated - is this the right word? Normally I think of a summary? by a sphere of Iron and Graphite.