I think we forgot to ask this
James Nicoll
Given a crewed ship* with the mission duration of a nuclear
sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough delta vee than
landing and taking off (not to mention matching velocity with
the target system), where would you want to go?
www.stellar-database.com may be useful.
* Uncrewed probes seem likely to have useful ranges many times higher
than crewed ships. Voyager is, what, 30 years old? And since the
FTL speed could be double or more for ships you never need to slow
down, they might reach as far as 3000 ly before crapping out. That
might include as many as a quarter of a billion stars.
Actually, there's a second question: where would you send
the long range uncrewed probes?
** There seem to be ways to squeeze more zoom out but slowing down
could be a problem.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
rja.ca...@excite.com
James Nicoll wrote:
> During the discussion of the Heimian FTL drive last month:
>
> Given a crewed ship* with the mission duration of a nuclear
> sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough delta vee than
> landing and taking off (not to mention matching velocity with
> the target system), where would you want to go?
>
> www.stellar-database.com may be useful.
I wonder how many of us are actually qualfied to play... but do you
have in mind colonisation, scientific study, or tourism?
Lessee... 50 C gets us to Proxima in about a month, and so on. I guess
that just about works for a pleasure cruise, if the shipboard
entertainments are good enough in between. But you kind of want to get
your feet on the ground when you arrive in port - or in orbit.
> * Uncrewed probes seem likely to have useful ranges many times higher
> than crewed ships. Voyager is, what, 30 years old? And since the
> FTL speed could be double or more for ships you never need to slow
> down, they might reach as far as 3000 ly before crapping out. That
> might include as many as a quarter of a billion stars.
>
> Actually, there's a second question: where would you send
> the long range uncrewed probes?
Can we make the centre of the galaxy? There's interesting stuff
happening there.
If the ship doesn't come home, how does it report back?
Nyrath
> Given a crewed ship* with the mission duration of a nuclear
> sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough delta vee than
> landing and taking off (not to mention matching velocity with
> the target system), where would you want to go?
>
> www.stellar-database.com may be useful.
Even more useful is Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull's
HabCat database, available at
http://www.projectrho.com/smap06.html
This is a list of about 17,000 stars selected from the
Hipparcos catalog that are likely to possess human
habitable planets, according to lots of criteria
that I don't pretend to understand.
http://www.projectrho.com/HabCat.pdf (PDF file)
They recently released a list of their top
five HabCat stars that SETI should listen
to, and the top five stars close to Sol
that astronomers should try to image the
planets.
http://www.adastragames.com/news.cgi?msgid=500
The limit is trying to determine what
the average mission duration of a nuclear sub is.
Their duration is basically limited only by the
food stores and the moral of the crew.
With a CELSS, food is unlimited.
Non-nuclear subs had a limit of about 45 days,
which would only get you about six light years.
Charlie Stross
as <rja.ca...@excite.com> declared:
>> * Uncrewed probes seem likely to have useful ranges many times higher
>> than crewed ships. Voyager is, what, 30 years old? And since the
>> FTL speed could be double or more for ships you never need to slow
>> down, they might reach as far as 3000 ly before crapping out. That
>> might include as many as a quarter of a billion stars.
>>
>> Actually, there's a second question: where would you send
>> the long range uncrewed probes?
>
> Can we make the centre of the galaxy? There's interesting stuff
> happening there.
I think that's a "no". We're about 30,000 ly out -- at 100c, your
unmanned probe is going to take a century to get there (and another
century to come back with some useful information, unless it's packing
some sort of ansible).
We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free life
expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
-- Charlie
James Nicoll
rja.ca...@excite.com <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> During the discussion of the Heimian FTL drive last month:
>>
>> Given a crewed ship* with the mission duration of a nuclear
>> sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough delta vee than
>> landing and taking off (not to mention matching velocity with
>> the target system), where would you want to go?
>>
>> www.stellar-database.com may be useful.
>
>I wonder how many of us are actually qualfied to play... but do you
>have in mind colonisation, scientific study, or tourism?
I think it's more interesting to leave it open, to see
what criteria people come up with on their own.
>Lessee... 50 C gets us to Proxima in about a month, and so on. I guess
>that just about works for a pleasure cruise, if the shipboard
>entertainments are good enough in between. But you kind of want to get
>your feet on the ground when you arrive in port - or in orbit.
Proxima is an interesting star, because it's a flare star.
Every once in a while, it unloads about 4x10^21 watts in x-rays
long enough to release 1.5x10^25 joules in total. ISTR it takes
about 200 Joules to deliver an LD50 lethal dose of radiation, so
assuming a human has about a square meter of surface area, this
would kill about half the people exposed in a ship 77 million
km from the star. A hypothetical habitable planet would be about
a million kilometers from Proxima.
An atmosphere like ours would block the x-rays but I think
ships would want serious shielding.
>> * Uncrewed probes seem likely to have useful ranges many times higher
>> than crewed ships. Voyager is, what, 30 years old? And since the
>> FTL speed could be double or more for ships you never need to slow
>> down, they might reach as far as 3000 ly before crapping out. That
>> might include as many as a quarter of a billion stars.
>>
>> Actually, there's a second question: where would you send
>> the long range uncrewed probes?
>
>Can we make the centre of the galaxy? There's interesting stuff
>happening there.
Even if we use Van Maanen's Star and an Oberth manuever,
plus doubling the speed because the probe will never slow down,
the best speed we could hit might be something like 245 C. The
center of the galaxy is about 30,000 ly or over a century. I'd say
no chance.
The disk is only 5000 ly thick: a few decades would get
the probe well about it, with a less impeded view of the center.
Actually, if we could find a quiet neutron star, they have
escape velocities of about half the speed of light. If you built
a very durable probe and did a 2000 km/s Oberth down where the
V(esc) was 100,000 km/s, you should get a delta vee of 20,000 km/s
and that translates into 1000 C. That gets you to the center in
a generation and a half.
Unfortunately, the nearest known neutron star is
RX J185635-3754, which is about 200 light years away (or
four years at 50 C). The good news is that it is headed this
way at a good clip.The bad news is that the environment
near a neutron star may be excessively interesting.
>If the ship doesn't come home, how does it report back?
>
I have a weak chain of logic to think EMR has to propagate
in hyperspace, because if it doesn't, anyone travelling there has
more serious problems than not being able to phone home. If it
does, it should enjoy the same x15,000 multiplier other speeds
do.
James Nicoll
about the same mass as the Sun, a bit dimmer and more metal rich and
it's about 30 ly away. It is one of the systems that was going to
be targetted by the Terrestrial Planet Finder before that program
was cancelled.
It also appears to be much younger than the sun and
a superflare star, occasionally given to increasing its
luminousity by a factor of about a thousand for some hours.
This would probably be fairly hard on any Earthlike worlds,
although on the plus side, a world that young might not have
an ozone layer to destroy and oceans may go a long way to
buffering the temperature extremes.
A superflare could resurface ice-moons as far from
Kappa Ceti as Jupiter is from the sun.
James Nicoll
if you park a ship at the L2 point for an Earthlike world orbiting
Proxima, it will be in shadow.
Anthony Nance
Nyrath <nyr...@projectrho.com.INVALID> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> Given a crewed ship* with the mission duration of a nuclear
>> sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough delta vee than
>> landing and taking off (not to mention matching velocity with
>> the target system), where would you want to go?
>>
>> www.stellar-database.com may be useful.
>
>Even more useful is Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull's
>HabCat database, available at
>http://www.projectrho.com/smap06.html
>This is a list of about 17,000 stars selected from the
>Hipparcos catalog that are likely to possess human
>habitable planets, according to lots of criteria
>that I don't pretend to understand.
>http://www.projectrho.com/HabCat.pdf (PDF file)
>
>They recently released a list of their top
>five HabCat stars that SETI should listen
>to, and the top five stars close to Sol
>that astronomers should try to image the
>planets.
>http://www.adastragames.com/news.cgi?msgid=500
Yep - and on the topic of that last paragraph, here's a related
press release that showed up on sci.space.news on Feb 20, 2006:
< http://socrates.math.ohio-state.edu/~nance/starcandidates.html >
Tony
P.S. Please let me know if I'm violating some type of protocol
by putting this press release on the web.
> <snip the rest>
Keith F. Lynch
> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Phillip SanMiguel
> Here's an interesting candidate: Kappa Ceti (HD 20630). It's
> about the same mass as the Sun, a bit dimmer and more metal rich and
> it's about 30 ly away. It is one of the systems that was going to
> be targetted by the Terrestrial Planet Finder before that program
> was cancelled.
>
> It also appears to be much younger than the sun and
> a superflare star, occasionally given to increasing its
> luminousity by a factor of about a thousand for some hours.
> This would probably be fairly hard on any Earthlike worlds,
> although on the plus side, a world that young might not have
> an ozone layer to destroy and oceans may go a long way to
> buffering the temperature extremes.
>
> A superflare could resurface ice-moons as far from
> Kappa Ceti as Jupiter is from the sun.
>
Why are you picking such violent destinations? Why not a nice trip to a
planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A or B? If B, then would you see A as a disk?
John F. Eldredge
wrote:
>Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
>> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
>
>If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
>and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
>circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
Yes, of all the various mechanical traps that movies and
fantasy/adventure novels feature, counterweighted trapdoors seem the
only type that would really be reliable after the passage of
centuries. Precocked crossbows or dart throwers would likely either
have the bow break from metal fatigue or rot, or have the molecules in
the bow shift alignment over time so that the bow was no longer really
under tension. Self-resetting spikes that come out of the wall, then
retract, beg the question about where the motive power is coming from
for the resetting of the trap.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
David Johnston
<jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>On 28 Feb 2006 20:40:51 -0500, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
>>> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
>>
>>If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
>>and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
>>circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
>
>Yes, of all the various mechanical traps that movies and
>fantasy/adventure novels feature, counterweighted trapdoors seem the
>only type that would really be reliable after the passage of
>centuries.
For an RPG I came with a pyramidal tomb filled with traps just so I
could have an NPC explain how pyramid power kept the traps in working
order.
Joseph Michael Bay
>Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
>> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
>If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
>and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
>circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
See, that's the role of the Immortal Guardian of Artifact X. It's
a thankless job, because the point of it is keeping the Artifact
secret, plus it's boring, because 90% of what you do is routine
trap maintenance, oiling stone pivots, feeding hundreds of snakes,
cleaning out hundreds of pounds of snake poop, that sort of thing.
Then, centuries later, some kid with a hat shows up and everything
gets melted or destroyed by an earthquake or something.
--
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of sXXXch, Joe
.. or the right of the people peaceably to XXXemble, and to Bay
peXXXion the government for a redress of grievances." Stanford
-- from the First Amendment to the US ConsXXXution University
rja.ca...@excite.com
John F. Eldredge wrote:
> On 28 Feb 2006 20:40:51 -0500, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
> >> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
> >> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
> >
> >If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
> >and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
> >circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
>
> Yes, of all the various mechanical traps that movies and
> fantasy/adventure novels feature, counterweighted trapdoors seem the
> only type that would really be reliable after the passage of
> centuries. Precocked crossbows or dart throwers would likely either
> have the bow break from metal fatigue or rot, or have the molecules in
> the bow shift alignment over time so that the bow was no longer really
> under tension. Self-resetting spikes that come out of the wall, then
> retract, beg the question about where the motive power is coming from
> for the resetting of the trap.
Water power seems a plausible sustainable resource.
For the rest, try bribing some of the less ethical members of the
nearby trIbe of bloodthirsty cannibals (a delicate operation obviously)
to find out who may really be maintaining the equipment at the holy
site.
Who knows, there may still be projects in this line that were set up by
Oliver North and other guys like that, and accountants at the Pentagon
haven't found out to this day where the money goes each year.
Yes, there's an upside to being a member of a black ops project that
everyone forgot about - you can draw a salary and not do any actual
work. You probably don't even pay tax.
Of course if IRS notices your assets don't match your declared income
then they'll take a close interest, and that's why you invest in an
underground complex with antique sawblades and dart throwers et cetera.
The home theatre and bar are in the secret room that the
archaeologists /don't/ find. And if you chase them out fast enough
then they don't notice how much of the furniture is plastic or
papier-mache, either. (Including and "gold" or "jewelled" artifacts.)
Tribal decor consultants for this sort of operation are in Yellow
Pages, discretion assured.
James Nicoll
I didn't actually pick Proxima, so it's really "destination",
not plural.
What's the point of going somewhere if it's just like home?
kaw...@gmail.com
>sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough delta vee than
>landing and taking off (not to mention matching velocity with
>the target system), where would you want to go?
Hmmm, well, I would take the list of known planetary systems, apply the
'Traveling Sales Problem' and if the total trip time is not to
excessive, I'm mainly interested in doing fly by, unless there is
something that I can land on.
Just my $0.02
Space Cadet
Iain King
Joseph Michael Bay wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
> >Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
> >> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
> >> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
>
> >If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
> >and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
> >circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
>
> See, that's the role of the Immortal Guardian of Artifact X. It's
> a thankless job, because the point of it is keeping the Artifact
> secret, plus it's boring, because 90% of what you do is routine
> trap maintenance, oiling stone pivots, feeding hundreds of snakes,
> cleaning out hundreds of pounds of snake poop, that sort of thing.
>
> Then, centuries later, some kid with a hat shows up and everything
> gets melted or destroyed by an earthquake or something.
>
and think about the [J|I]ehova trap. How do you replace fake tiles?
Do you get danger money?
Iain
John Schilling
says...
>On 28 Feb 2006 20:40:51 -0500, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>wrote:
>>Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
>>> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
>>If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
>>and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
>>circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
>Yes, of all the various mechanical traps that movies and
>fantasy/adventure novels feature, counterweighted trapdoors seem the
>only type that would really be reliable after the passage of
>centuries. Precocked crossbows or dart throwers would likely either
>have the bow break from metal fatigue or rot, or have the molecules in
>the bow shift alignment over time so that the bow was no longer really
>under tension.
Steel, so long as you don't push strain or temperature too close to the
material limits, is remarkably good at not doing this. So much so that
I can't do a BOTE calculation on how long a spring-steel crossbow could
hold tension; none of the references I can find bother to mention the
low-temperature creep rate for steels.
Rust, might be a concern, as would lubrication of the trigger mechanism,
dust or crud accumulation in same, etc, but it might be workable. The
requirement for steel puts a lower bound on the trapmaking technology;
you aren't going to find these things in Egyptian pyramids. Or if you
do, you'll have to blame the Atlanteans.
>Self-resetting spikes that come out of the wall, then retract, beg the
>question about where the motive power is coming from for the resetting
>of the trap.
By tradition, these things are all underground, so hydraulics is an option.
Surface water above, and there's likely to be a subterranean river or the
like for drainage, so you can get useful work by feeding one to the other.
Again, the mechanisms are the hard part, not the power source.
Oh, and if there *isn't* an underground river or whatnot for drainage, we
have to ask why the Dungeon(tm) isn't long since flooded. Even deserts
get *some* rain, and as any homeowner knows, it takes effort to keep rain
water from finding its way into the cellar.
Which brings up my second-favorite, behind the counterweighted trapdoor,
Ancient Booby Trap from my GMing days: the reservoir set to flood the whole
labyrinth when the Larcenous Adventurers remove the treasure from its proper
repose. Nice thing about this one is, it's *slow*, so there's lots of
dramatic potential. Oh, and the LAs will be able to move a lot faster if
they abandon the treasure...
Hard to arrange this one to reset for the next group of suckers, er, heroes.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
hal
> Given a crewed ship* with the mission duration of a
> nuclear sub, a reliable FTL** speed of 50 C and enough
> delta vee than landing and taking off (not to mention
> matching velocity with the target system), where would
> you want to go?
>
> many times higher than crewed ships. Voyager is, what,
> 30 years old? And since the FTL speed could be double
> or more for ships you never need to slow down, they
> might reach as far as 3000 ly before crapping out.
The Milky way is about 3,000 ly in thick, so I'd send an unmanned probe
perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy. That should allow much
better astronomical observations of the center of the Milky Way.
Wayne Throop
:: fantasy/adventure novels feature, counterweighted trapdoors seem the
:: only type that would really be reliable after the passage of
:: centuries. Precocked crossbows or dart throwers would likely either
:: have the bow break from metal fatigue or rot, or have the molecules
:: in the bow shift alignment over time so that the bow was no longer
:: really under tension.
: Steel, so long as you don't push strain or temperature too close to the
: material limits, is remarkably good at not doing this. [...]
: Rust, might be a concern, as would lubrication of the trigger
: mechanism, dust or crud accumulation in same, etc, but it might be
: workable. The requirement for steel puts a lower bound on the
: trapmaking technology; you aren't going to find these things in
: Egyptian pyramids.
That's an interesting puzzle. Let's say you want to have a long-storage
one-shot projectile booby trap, using egyptian technology. And a
trebuchet is out, for whatever reason. How to do it? The only one I've
come up with is pneumatic, and while I'm not sure it'd work, I'm also
not sure it wouldn't.
Consider a large-ish cylinder with an N-ton piston, which when tripped,
falls, providing pressure to a whole series of blow-darts set into tubes
in the walls. There are, of course, lots of practical problems, but
I think it might be made to work. The ramp-up of pressure would not
be sudden, so maybe the biggest problem (maybe; there's plenty others
if this one is easy) would be letting the pressure ramp up before
applying it to the launch tubes. Hm. Pug the end of the launch tubes
with something that'd fail at predictable pressures, something pottery-ish,
or ceramic-ish. Hm. Ponder, ponder.
Anyways, some possibilities for interesting drama as you can have the
explorers hear the piston drop long enough before the projectiles fire
to give time for those "uh-oh" reaction shots movies are so fond of
sticking in here and there.
Of course... then you have to wonder why they didn't just drop
the piston on the explorers. Oh well, it's always something.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
rja.ca...@excite.com
Can't you reload automatically like some movie submarine torpedo tubes?
Maybe have the natives living on the hill "sacrifice" a totem pole down
into the armoury once a year...
...come to think, if you aren't expecting your civilisation to go bust,
then "you" /are/ the "natives", right?
Jordan
> If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails, and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built. <
Indeed -- this is one of the weirder cliches of pulp fiction that has
become generally accepted in popular culture -- that precisely-machined
deathtraps based on tension devices could continue to function after
being left for centuries or millennia untended. Practically every
movie, and many science-fiction books, assume this -- compare with the
reality of what archaeologists find of ancient mechanical devices,
which are usually heaps of corrosion that require intensive, careful
cleaning and the interpolation of vanished parts before their functions
can even be deduced and working replicas constructed!
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Jordan
>
Yes, of all the various mechanical traps that movies and
fantasy/adventure novels feature, counterweighted trapdoors seem the
only type that would really be reliable after the passage of
centuries. Precocked crossbows or dart throwers would likely either
have the bow break from metal fatigue or rot, or have the molecules in
the bow shift alignment over time so that the bow was no longer really
under tension. Self-resetting spikes that come out of the wall, then
retract, beg the question about where the motive power is coming from
for the resetting of the trap.
>
There was a really cool, and gigantic, weight-triggered deathtrap in
the movie version of _Hellboy_. However, the trap was less than a
century old, and there was an active cult devoted to tending the Evil
Secret Catacombs in which it had been set, so this didn't violate my
Willing Suspension of Disbelief. I do tend to wonder just _what_ the
trap was set _for_, since killing Hellboy himself was the _last_ thing
that the Evil Cultists wanted, but it was massively overengineered for
the purpose of killing ordinary human beings.
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Jordan
that continued to work for centuries after they were set; some may
still be functional. But they are _very simple_ booby traps; they're
based on the principle of having a piece of masonry hold up the ceiling
and decorating said piece of masonry so that it looks as if there are
really valuable objects behind them. When the Tomb Robbers come, they
break through the support member and the ceiling falls in on them.
Archaeologists have sometimes found the skeletons of ancient tomb
robbers caught by just such traps.
Archaeologists themselves are very careful about how they dig, in
general, so this is rarely much of a hazard to their own operations.
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
DimensionDude
Hmm...how about a plunger at the bottom of the cylinder that the piston
could hit, opening a slide valve. That way, the piston could fall X
distance to build up pressure before release. Once the valve is open the
plunger could break away so it wouldn't limit the piston's travel.
I think that graphite (if available) would be a suitable lubricant for the
piston. It wouldn't oxidize and become gummy like oil, grease or animal
fat. The piston would have to be somewhat thick so it wouldn't try to cock
sideways and get hung up partway down (I've had this problem with close-
tolerance parts. Imagine having to drive a ball bearing into a housing.
When said housing is turned upside down, the bearing falls out. Can you
just slide it back in? Nope. Gotta drive it in again and hold onto it
when you turn the housing over.).
>
> Anyways, some possibilities for interesting drama as you can have the
> explorers hear the piston drop long enough before the projectiles fire
> to give time for those "uh-oh" reaction shots movies are so fond of
> sticking in here and there.
>
> Of course... then you have to wonder why they didn't just drop
> the piston on the explorers. Oh well, it's always something.
Because then the Intrepid Explorers (tm) could simply look up and see the
piston and say "we'd better not stand under that."
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
It wouldn't have to be a piston in a graphite-tight shaft. A fairly round
rock in a tube would do. Think of the DC Metro pulling into a station.
The seal is nowhere near airtight but you can still easily feel the
breeze. Of course you would have to overbuild it to cope with the leakage,
but did you think death-traps were going to be easy? (And of course if
you actually want to _test_ the trap, you have to figure a way to get
the rock back out of the hole..)
Ted
rja.ca...@excite.com
I suppose you could make your ceiling decor look like it's pistons all
over.
If you're Antonio Prohias' (did I get that right?) SPY VS. SPY, you
could set a death trap inside a fake death trap. Last seen advertising
soda, I think, and I believe the guy died a few years back...
rja.ca...@excite.com
There's a pretty neat one in a book by James Follett, but I think it
has the advantage of environmental controls. In fact, on reflection it
does.
In fact it has a library of computer terminals inside, and
self-repairing housekeeping robots, and a super computer brain to look
after it.
The book is _Earthsearch II_, second of two or more (it's complicated)
about a suspended-animation / generation-ship crew whose home planet
goes missing, although the story is ambiguous about whether their
"Earth" is ours - they find another planet to settle on instead, and in
this book they have rather a pointless Noah's Ark episode, suggesting
that Mr. Follett had a touch of Hogan's Disease then, if not since.
Be that as it may, "their" Earth has endured half a million years while
they were in time dilation, but not well. The point of the search was
that the planet is missing from its home solar system; it was moved due
to dangerous instability of its home star. One of the artificial suns
used during the journey plotted to take over government - a theme of
these books is that artificial intelligences usually turn into control
freaks. And, now at home in a new system, but devastated by war and/or
ecological deprivation, the planet has a few thousands of human
inhabitants in a primitive single settlement at the base of an
extraordinarily large pyramid, with a massive door that can't be
opened.
It turns out that the pyramid is a treasure house of technology
intentionally to re-educate the population and revive the planet, but
its constructors decided to allow in only people who had regained a
certain amout of technical sophsitication by themselves. So this is
how the door works: it contains a radioactive source which warms it, so
it expands and wedges itself in the doorway. You need to invent
refrigeration so that you can cool the door down, and maybe X-ray
machinery so you can see that this is what it is. And then you just
push the door and it swings open on a counterweight.
I suppose if civilisation takes too long to start up, then the
radioactive source is used up and the door opens anyway. That, I
suppose, is the reason they didn't just make the door slightly too
large in the first place, and then cool it down so that they could fit
it into the hole.
And I suppose that using refrigerant doesn't really help with the state
of the planet's environment...
Phillip SanMiguel
alien races. Say nearly capable of building radios. You could meet them,
hang out for a while. Then, after you get bored, take off. Of course
you'd nova bomb Alpha Centauri A on the way out. Because, hey, otherwise
what the point?
Juho Julkunen
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
> >Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
> >> We know very little about building machines with maintenance-free
> >> life expectancies > mean human life expectancy.
>
> >If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails,
> >and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw
> >circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.
>
> See, that's the role of the Immortal Guardian of Artifact X. It's
> a thankless job, because the point of it is keeping the Artifact
> secret, plus it's boring, because 90% of what you do is routine
> trap maintenance, oiling stone pivots, feeding hundreds of snakes,
> cleaning out hundreds of pounds of snake poop, that sort of thing.
>
> Then, centuries later, some kid with a hat shows up and everything
> gets melted or destroyed by an earthquake or something.
Heh. In the Last Crusade computer game, after our hero departs the
temple, we get a last comment from the knight: "Now where did I leave
my broom?"
--
JTJ | http://www.kolumbus.fi/j.julkunen/
Law must retain useful ways to break with traditional forms because
nothing is more certain than that the forms of law remain when all
justice is gone.
--Gowachin aphorism
Mark Jeffcoat
>
> and think about the [J|I]ehova trap. How do you replace fake tiles?
> Do you get danger money?
>
To build the [J|I]ehova trap, you also need the super-power
of predicting how alphabets will change in the future, in
order to plant deceptive fakes. It escapes me right at this
moment how to use this power for profit or world-domination,
but I'm sure I could do better than a slightly evolved version
of the sticks-and-leaves-covering-the-hole trap.
--
Mark Jeffcoat
Austin, TX
Iain King
I thought that was the point? That the word was spelt accordingly for
when it was constructed, and that Indy screwed up by forgetting that?
Iain
Keith F. Lynch
> Consider a large-ish cylinder with an N-ton piston, which when
> tripped, falls, providing pressure to a whole series of blow-darts
> set into tubes in the walls. There are, of course, lots of
> practical problems, but I think it might be made to work. The
> ramp-up of pressure would not be sudden, so maybe the biggest
> problem (maybe; there's plenty others if this one is easy) would be
> letting the pressure ramp up before applying it to the launch tubes.
> Hm. Pug the end of the launch tubes with something that'd fail at
> predictable pressures, something pottery-ish, or ceramic-ish.
Sounds like a real crackpot idea to me.
William December Starr
"rja.ca...@excite.com" <rja.ca...@excite.com> said:
> The book is _Earthsearch II_, second of two or more (it's
> complicated)
Could you try to explain it please? Looking in Abebooks for
Linkname: Abebooks Search Results - james follett and earthsearch
URL: <http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=james+follett&tn=earthsearch>
returns listings for:
EARTHSEARCH (BBC Books; hc 1980, pb 1981)
EARTHSEARCH II DEATH SHIP (BBC Books, 1982)
EARTHSEARCH III - MINDWARP 1 (Big Finish Productions)
EARTHSEARCH III - MINDWARP 2 (Big Finish Productions)
MINDWARP: CHAPTER THREE (EARTHSEARCH) (Big Finish Productions; 2003)
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
rja.ca...@excite.com
Yeah. It's not so much complicated as obscure... try
http://www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk/Earthsearch%20archive%20links.htm
EARTHSEARCH was a radio drama in ten half hours, then a novelisation -
I think it's that way round. It starts with the ship's two self-aware
computers (ANGELs) disagreeing with the captain's decision and taking
action...
EARTHSEARCH II was a sequel series and then another book.
I think MINDWARP, which I haven't heard, is a prequel set in the same
universe, but apparently not with the same characters. It's evidently
an independently produced audio drama.
And Follett said he had more ideas, but then ideas are the smaller part
of the job...
The BBC recordings have been repeated, most recently on BBC 7 which is
mostly for playing archive programmes if repeat rights can be secured.
Come to think, they've also played some DOCTOR WHO stories made by Big
Finish. So maybe...
Keith F. Lynch
> So this is how the door works: it contains a radioactive source
> which warms it, so it expands and wedges itself in the doorway. You
> need to invent refrigeration so that you can cool the door down, and
> maybe X-ray machinery so you can see that this is what it is. And
> then you just push the door and it swings open on a counterweight.
I would imagine than ten out of ten developing civiilizations, long
before they develop refrigerants, would simply smash the door, or
tunnel around it.
rja.ca...@excite.com
Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> rja.ca...@excite.com <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> > So this is how the door works: it contains a radioactive source
> > which warms it, so it expands and wedges itself in the doorway. You
> > need to invent refrigeration so that you can cool the door down, and
> > maybe X-ray machinery so you can see that this is what it is. And
> > then you just push the door and it swings open on a counterweight.
>
> I would imagine than ten out of ten developing civiilizations, long
> before they develop refrigerants, would simply smash the door, or
> tunnel around it.
Oh, I forgot to mention it's made of scrith. Well, of something tough.
John Schilling
>rja.ca...@excite.com <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>> So this is how the door works: it contains a radioactive source
>> which warms it, so it expands and wedges itself in the doorway. You
>> need to invent refrigeration so that you can cool the door down, and
>> maybe X-ray machinery so you can see that this is what it is. And
>> then you just push the door and it swings open on a counterweight.
>I would imagine than ten out of ten developing civiilizations, long
>before they develop refrigerants, would simply smash the door, or
>tunnel around it.
ObSF: Timothy Zahn's "Backlash Mission", with spoilers...
Aliens conquerd Earth, and it's nascent interstellar civilization, twenty
years earlier. There is still resistance, but it doesn't ammount to much.
Except, that is, for the Blackcollars - bioengineered superwarriors from
before the war, who can blend in among the civilian population until it
comes time to wreak nigh-unstoppable havoc with whatever improvised weapons
are at hand.
The usual trope, treated with more than the usual respect.
In particular, it's been twenty years, and the Blackcollars have made
themselves a major nuisance, rather than the Liberators of Humanity.
And they're getting old, and they don't have the drugs to make any
more like themselves.
There may be a cache of said drugs buried under Cheyenne mountain, but
during the war the human defenders of same locked the doors and pulled
a Masada. Not just steel blast doors, but a gauntlet of automatic
deathtraps along every tunnel, to keep out alien invaders and human
thieves alike. Why, even Indiana Jones would have lost his hat in
that tunnel. And any plan where you lose your hat...
OK, we've got an Impregnable Fortress and Unstoppable Superwarriors, you
know the drill. Except, the superwarriors show up, make contact with
the local, mundane resistance, and, well, do the math. It's been *twenty
years*, the locals weren't going to just dig a new tunnel?
Keith F. Lynch
> OK, we've got an Impregnable Fortress and Unstoppable Superwarriors,
> you know the drill. Except, the superwarriors show up, make contact
> with the local, mundane resistance, and, well, do the math. It's
> been *twenty years*, the locals weren't going to just dig a new
> tunnel?
Unless the locals believed there was some great trasure in the
fortress, why would they take the trouble to dig a tunnel through
perhaps a quarter mile of solid granite? If this is after the fall
of civilization, and they have nothing but hand tools made of low
grade iron, this is *really hard work*.
Lee Modesitt
> Which brings up my second-favorite, behind the counterweighted trapdoor,
> Ancient Booby Trap from my GMing days: the reservoir set to flood the whole
> labyrinth when the Larcenous Adventurers remove the treasure from its proper
> repose. Nice thing about this one is, it's *slow*, so there's lots of
> dramatic potential. Oh, and the LAs will be able to move a lot faster if
> they abandon the treasure...
>
Reminds me of *Eternity Road* by Jack McDevitt. Also, wasn't this one
of the supposed effects of the original money pit on Oak Island?
Spoilers follow!
The underwater library scene at the end strained my WSOD. I found it
difficult to believe that wadded up cloth and paper would provide an
adequate seal.
darsy
>Reminds me of *Eternity Road* by Jack McDevitt. Also, wasn't this one
>of the supposed effects of the original money pit on Oak Island?
Aren't Jack McDevitt books just a bit, well, crap in general.
"Infinity Beach" for example is one of the worst books I've ever
read[1].
I guess I should temper the above comment with the observation that I
don't tend to like /any/ modern-ish US SF.
[1] in it's favour, at least it didn't make it into the (still in
single figures) list of books I didn't manage to finish.
--
d.
Mark Jeffcoat
> "Lee Modesitt" <lex...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Reminds me of *Eternity Road* by Jack McDevitt. Also, wasn't this one
> >of the supposed effects of the original money pit on Oak Island?
>
> Aren't Jack McDevitt books just a bit, well, crap in general.
>
He seems to me to be one of those polarizing authors. I've
read two of his books, and they left absolutely no impression
on me. Maybe I've actually read three. I have a close friend
who figures McDevitt is the best science fiction author whose
ever set his hands on the keyboard.
On the other hand, he hardly ever comes up here. Maybe that
means "pleasant but forgettable" is the winner.
darsy
>darsy <da...@sticky.co.uk> writes:
>
>> "Lee Modesitt" <lex...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Reminds me of *Eternity Road* by Jack McDevitt. Also, wasn't this one
>> >of the supposed effects of the original money pit on Oak Island?
>>
>> Aren't Jack McDevitt books just a bit, well, crap in general.
>>
>He seems to me to be one of those polarizing authors. I've
I'm pretty sure I've read three, but I can only remember the names of
two, and only the plotline of one of those.
>read two of his books, and they left absolutely no impression
>on me. Maybe I've actually read three. I have a close friend
>who figures McDevitt is the best science fiction author whose
>ever set his hands on the keyboard.
everyone's entitled to an opinion.
Except adults reading Harry Potter on public transport. Those people
should be horse-whipped and forced to read Haruki Murakami novels
until their eyes bleed.
>On the other hand, he hardly ever comes up here. Maybe that
>means "pleasant but forgettable" is the winner.
well, I'll let you away with that summary, if we can include "a bit
tedious" as well.
--
d.
John Schilling
>John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>> OK, we've got an Impregnable Fortress and Unstoppable Superwarriors,
>> you know the drill. Except, the superwarriors show up, make contact
>> with the local, mundane resistance, and, well, do the math. It's
>> been *twenty years*, the locals weren't going to just dig a new
>> tunnel?
>Unless the locals believed there was some great trasure in the
>fortress, why would they take the trouble to dig a tunnel through
>perhaps a quarter mile of solid granite? If this is after the fall
>of civilization, and they have nothing but hand tools made of low
>grade iron, this is *really hard work*.
It's after the conquest of Earth, not the fall of civilization, so
the hand tools were high-grade steel.
And, hello, last unconquered fortress on conquered Earth? Why, I
can't *imagine* why anyone would imagine there would be anything
valuable in there...
The exact nature of the valuable stuff, would be a spoiler. Nobody
gets quite what they expected.
Sea Wasp
>
> The exact nature of the valuable stuff, would be a spoiler. Nobody
> gets quite what they expected.
>
Obviously, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution!
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Sea Wasp
> John Schilling wrote:
>
>
>>Which brings up my second-favorite, behind the counterweighted trapdoor,
>>Ancient Booby Trap from my GMing days: the reservoir set to flood the whole
>>labyrinth when the Larcenous Adventurers remove the treasure from its proper
>>repose. Nice thing about this one is, it's *slow*, so there's lots of
>>dramatic potential. Oh, and the LAs will be able to move a lot faster if
>>they abandon the treasure...
>>
>
>
> Reminds me of *Eternity Road* by Jack McDevitt. Also, wasn't this one
> of the supposed effects of the original money pit on Oak Island?
And utterly useless against any reasonably competent Larcenous
Adventurers (ones with decent amounts of experience, anyway).
Jordan Abel
But where'd the J come from, is the point.
rja.ca...@excite.com
Maybe you fill out with reject tiles that don't even necessarily look
like letters... does that make sense?
rja.ca...@excite.com
Maybe you fill out with reject tiles that don't even necessarily look
John Elliott
: Jordan Abel wrote:
:> But where'd the J come from, is the point.
: Maybe you fill out with reject tiles that don't even necessarily look
: like letters... does that make sense?
The tiles nearest the entrance are the ones most likely to get broken, so
they were probably replaced by the knight every so often. He must have kept
up with changes in the alphabet over the years.
--
John Elliott
rja.ca...@excite.com
Oh, yeah, that would be right. If I took up a post like his, I'd want
magazine subscriptions.
So he's got a kiln in the maintenance department as well?
rja.ca...@excite.com
Oh, yeah, that would be right. If I took up a post like his, I'd want
Keith F. Lynch
> Lee Modesitt wrote:
>> Also, wasn't this one of the supposed effects of the original
>> money pit on Oak Island?
> And utterly useless against any reasonably competent Larcenous
> Adventurers (ones with decent amounts of experience, anyway).
Then why is the money still in the money pit on Oak Island?
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>
>>Lee Modesitt wrote:
>>
>>>Also, wasn't this one of the supposed effects of the original
>>>money pit on Oak Island?
>>
>
>>And utterly useless against any reasonably competent Larcenous
>>Adventurers (ones with decent amounts of experience, anyway).
>
>
> Then why is the money still in the money pit on Oak Island?
Because no competent, experienced Larcenous Adventurers have tried.
Any decent 8th level party could loot that place. Not even any
monsters, and you call that a TRAP? Tomb of Horrors, now, THAT had traps.