Ten Things That Annoy Me in Science Fiction
James Nicoll
value.
2: The singularity used as the secular End of Days.
3: Inconsistent application of technology without reasons why it is
applied so unevenly [A] This goes double for technology that should be
universal but is not applied on Earth. Note that implied reasons are OK.
4: Inexcusably stupid science. Stars move. Lasers cannot be used as
radiators. If you skim (or as we like to call it, "aerobrake in") a gas
giant's atmosphere, you still need to pay the delta vee for each kg lofted
to orbit. Don't get me started on space-straws. You cannot use reflected
light to warm something up hotter than the light source you are using.
And so on.
5: The embrace of ignorance as a social good (This pops up more as a meta
than in stories [B] but it's the rallying cry of thousands who I assume
were forced to read Thomas Hardy in high school). I call this the "For
fucks sake, the New Wave was over and done with before most people reading
this LJ were born!" principle.
6: The unconsidered use of ideas that may have made sense 50 years ago
or which perhaps never made sense at all but sounded good at the time.
7: Any mention of Zheng He. I know, it's a pity such an interesting
individual has to be sequested for the moment but right now SFnal
discussions of him almost always end up Bad Touch SF.
8: Speaking of real Bad Touche SF, creepy sexual politics without any
apparent awareness of how creepy the creepy sexual politics are.
9: The joyful embrace of highly restricted human rights (and if you
waterboard a variety of SF authors on this subject, you will see that
this is not a right-left thing. It probably ties into 1).
10: Scale errors, like stories where humanity settles the literally
dozens of stars in the Milky Way or where the author provides a handwave
for the Fermi Paradox that works for a period of thousands of years but
not the billions of years it needs to work for.
A: Earth for example has quite a range of technological kits in common use
but there are reasons why it works like this here.
B: Although there is the fact that when authors like MacDonald or Williams
dip their toes in the pool of regions outside the core Anglosphere, this
stands out because it is unusual. Comments like
"This system (Pohl and Kornbluth used to write) has evident virtues, together
with some defects. For istance, as in Wolfbane [...] you may get a brilliant
analysis of the Oriental life pattern, developed and projected onto a future
civilization on this continent (1500 calories a day: slouching gait,
politeness, minuscule sub-arts-- Water Watching, Clouds and Odors, Sky
Viewing...people named Tropile and Boyne, in towns called Wheeling,
Altoona and Gary, walking through an elaborate life-long ritual, purely
and simply because their diet permit nothing better) [...]."
are probably not as dated as I'd like to think they are.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Michael Grosberg
> 2: The singularity used as the secular End of Days.
What kind of end days do you mean? Are you referring to the rapture of
the nerds where we'll be bodily lifted into VR heaven, or do you
dislike the doomsday prophesies that claim we're all gonna die
painfully when the new machine race awakens?
If it's the first - when (or how often) has this been done in written
SF? I know the idea has its pop-sci proponents but its SFnal
treatment, to the best of my knowledge, has been bleaker than what the
Kurzweils of the world predict, if only because an Eden with no
conflict doesn't make an interesting story.
James Nicoll
Unfortunately the example that comes to mind first is not out
yet and I try not to discuss book I hated before they are out (The
book in question had most of the things I hate, which is what prompted
the list).
There's CUSP, where the Singularity is seen as inevitable and
something everyone (except the spear-carriers, who are massacred in their
billions to show that this is a grimandgritty world) has to plan to exploit
as best they can. CUSP is the book where people can gain superpowers from
having superheated plasma forced into their head rather than just having
their brains cooked like an egg.
Dorothy J Heydt
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>3: Inconsistent application of technology without reasons why it is
>applied so unevenly [A] This goes double for technology that should be
>universal but is not applied on Earth. Note that implied reasons are OK.
I don't recall any implied reasons for Turtledove's premise in
"The Road Not Taken": that every primitive culture in near space
develops the spacedrive when it's still in the blunderbuss-and-
chamberpot stage, *escept* humans. Pure chance, IIRC. And yet
that's a pretty darned good story.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Dorothy J Heydt
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <f5a96c4b-c761-4714...@c58g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Sep 6, 8:25 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>> 2: The singularity used as the secular End of Days.
>>
>>What kind of end days do you mean? Are you referring to the rapture of
>>the nerds where we'll be bodily lifted into VR heaven, or do you
>>dislike the doomsday prophesies that claim we're all gonna die
>>painfully when the new machine race awakens?
>>
>>If it's the first - when (or how often) has this been done in written
>>SF? I know the idea has its pop-sci proponents but its SFnal
>>treatment, to the best of my knowledge, has been bleaker than what the
>>Kurzweils of the world predict, if only because an Eden with no
>>conflict doesn't make an interesting story.
>
> Unfortunately the example that comes to mind first is not out
>yet and I try not to discuss book I hated before they are out (The
>book in question had most of the things I hate, which is what prompted
>the list).
Oh, dear. Will you identify it, please, when you're allowed to?
> There's CUSP, where the Singularity is seen as inevitable and
>something everyone (except the spear-carriers, who are massacred in their
>billions to show that this is a grimandgritty world) has to plan to exploit
>as best they can. CUSP is the book where people can gain superpowers from
>having superheated plasma forced into their head rather than just having
>their brains cooked like an egg.
Ouch. I'll pass, thanks.
James Nicoll
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <g9ui1k$2jj$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <f5a96c4b-c761-4714...@c58g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>>Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On Sep 6, 8:25 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2: The singularity used as the secular End of Days.
>>>
>>>What kind of end days do you mean? Are you referring to the rapture of
>>>the nerds where we'll be bodily lifted into VR heaven, or do you
>>>dislike the doomsday prophesies that claim we're all gonna die
>>>painfully when the new machine race awakens?
>>>
>>>If it's the first - when (or how often) has this been done in written
>>>SF? I know the idea has its pop-sci proponents but its SFnal
>>>treatment, to the best of my knowledge, has been bleaker than what the
>>>Kurzweils of the world predict, if only because an Eden with no
>>>conflict doesn't make an interesting story.
>>
>> Unfortunately the example that comes to mind first is not out
>>yet and I try not to discuss book I hated before they are out (The
>>book in question had most of the things I hate, which is what prompted
>>the list).
>
>Oh, dear. Will you identify it, please, when you're allowed to?
It'll at least get mentioned in my year-end round up.
James Nicoll
producing a low-probability outcome does not bother me.
That universe does have stupendous Fermi Paradox problem unless
there's a reason why all the technological species popped up in over the
span of only a few thousand years [1].
1: My verion of the Tenchi universe has the Dimensionals fiddling with the
galaxy so that most of the planets produce human(oids) close enough to
interbreed at pretty much the same time. I never worked out why they
did this but civilized apes have to have worked out better than the
previous cycle in that universe, the Galactic Prehistoric Meowmeow
Paleozoic Era, which sounds like it might have involved intelligent
cats.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> There's CUSP, where the Singularity is seen as inevitable and
> something everyone (except the spear-carriers, who are massacred in their
> billions to show that this is a grimandgritty world) has to plan to exploit
> as best they can. CUSP is the book where people can gain superpowers from
> having superheated plasma forced into their head rather than just having
> their brains cooked like an egg.
And this is any worse than many of the other classic ways of gaining
superpowers like being exposed to enough gamma radiation to vaporize
your chromosomes, overdoses of cosmic rays, etc.?
Oh, wait. You mean this is a REGULAR book, not a comic book?
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
David Johnston
people. (The cynical and corrupt Grand Inquisitor is named
Clintaaahn!).
2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
3. Utopias. I especially hate the ones where the abandonment of
money solves our social problems, but I'm not real fond of the
libertarian utopias either.
4. Universes in which humans are uniquely wicked. And that
especially includes ones in which our aptitude for violence is unique.
5. Fans and creators who make a big deal about the hardness of
science fiction despite the severe limitations that puts on what you
can reasonably do and who reject one thing for its lack of hardness
and instead substitute something even softer.
6. Nanotechnology that ignores just how limited the power supply of a
machine that small would have to be. If you're going to have magic,
then have magic. Don't pretend it's engineering.
7. Taking it for granted that an AI is going to be more capable than
a human in all ways.
8. Treating doves as not merely wrong but wicked en masse. The same
is true of hawks of course, but I don't see a lot of that because
there's milsf but there's almost no diplomasf
9. Atheistic worlds. By which I don't mean worlds that have no gods,
but (human) worlds that have no theists. Highly improbable.
10. Failure to understand that space is not an ocean and the worlds
not fixed islands within it. To take an example from a rather good
book, there's that Space JAG series where the first novel's pretext
actually required the planets of the solar system to be stationary so
it would make some sense to patrol a specific patch of space to
intercept all the ships travelling through it.
James Nicoll
since I ran into a good example: cynical contempt for the reader on the
part of the author.
Andrew Plotkin
overly-educated kind of twelve that you're thinking of, either.
2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
the characters he plays.
3: This speculative-science gimmick that you saw in a magazine is so
cool that you have to make it a central macguffin of your novel. With
all the characters standing around asking "What is that thing? I've
never seen anything like it!" until the sheet is pulled away and you
can stick in your expository lecture. Bonus points if you lifted the
gimmick from an existing SF novel which I've read.
4: The moment that I realize that your bullshit sciencey doubletalk is
in the book not because it makes the story work, but because you
seriously believe it. This goes double for your explanation of why
<accepted scientific theory> is false.
5: Gross stuff. I realize this is a personal reaction, but I am 100%
done with Neal Asher. (Even if he hadn't already hit the #2 criterion
above.)
Nothing else is coming to mind, so I'll stop at half a decade.
Note that I am *not* listing "Things that I roll my eyes at but don't
really care as long as the story is fun." Many of the items listed by
people in this thread fall into that category for me. Human societies
remaining static for ten thousand years with no explanation? Whatever.
Time travel doesn't make sense? Dude, surprise! Pick a set of special
effects and get on with the story. The more pedantic you get about
time-travel logic, the duller your story gets, until you disappear
into what I like to call the "Timemaster event horizon". (Robert L.
Forward, 1992; a reading experience much like watching paint dry on a
row of limp marionettes. Forever.)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
Sig repository offline for update...
Joseph Nebus
>3. Utopias. I especially hate the ones where the abandonment of
>money solves our social problems, but I'm not real fond of the
>libertarian utopias either.
I actually like, with admittedly a touch of irony but also some
sincere appreciation, stories that are little tours of a not-actually-
plausible utopia. There's something I can't explain but that I find
endearing in the construction of a hefty story featuring explanations of
how the electric telescope and the twin-tracked monorail made all the
difference.
Hm. It seems to me, without actually thinking about it too
much, that there's a bit of shortage of stories about utopian colonies
which reflect the way actual utopian colonies work out --- a couple of
idealistic and modestly well-off people get together, found a little
township, go off trying to build a new society but mostly just be left
alone, discover six years down the line that everyone in the small
town they're just outside of thinks they're all about the polygamy and
atheism but they're good for the tourist dollars from the big city, the
big financial backers drift off into other pursuits, and the whole place
collapses after eleven years because it turns out they haven't quite got
the fire departments of utopia worked out exactly. I may be unfairly
oversimplifying the actual course of these things.
>5. Fans and creators who make a big deal about the hardness of
>science fiction despite the severe limitations that puts on what you
>can reasonably do and who reject one thing for its lack of hardness
>and instead substitute something even softer.
Hoo yeah. I was on the brink of a flame war once for my
position that actual science content doesn't really matter much to the
readers, editors, and writers of science fiction. This deeply offended
a person who writes Star Trek novels. (Admittedly, I haven't read that
person's novels so far as I remember; perhaps they are more careful
about keeping the science credible than usual.)
>10. Failure to understand that space is not an ocean and the worlds
>not fixed islands within it. To take an example from a rather good
>book, there's that Space JAG series where the first novel's pretext
>actually required the planets of the solar system to be stationary so
>it would make some sense to patrol a specific patch of space to
>intercept all the ships travelling through it.
That situation might be salvageable in the right circumstances.
For example, a patrol fleet around Jupiter would do pretty well, for
modern or currently-plausible rockets, in blockading Earth access to
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But when you get into interstellar
flight things like Jupiter's unique advantages become a lot less
worth mentioning.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Damien Sullivan
>1: My verion of the Tenchi universe has the Dimensionals fiddling with the
Tenchi Muyo?
-xx- Damien X-)
Spiros Bousbouras
> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
Are you saying that planets without climate zones
are impossible or you just don't like them ?
David Cowie
films which display those defects?
This request is for everyone, not just James.
Spiros Bousbouras
> Could people listing SF annoyances give a few examples of books or
> films which display those defects?
And also mention how the specific annoyance is displayed in the
work. With a lot of what I've read in the thread so far I'm unclear
what it is people are talking about.
Jaimie Vandenbergh
Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones. This is
a larger version of being annoyed by "It was raining on Mongo that
morning".
Cheers - Jaimie
--
Ford carried on counting quietly. This is about the most aggressive thing
you can do to a computer, the equivalent of going up to a human being and
saying "Blood... blood... blood... blood..." -- Douglas Adams
Dorothy J Heydt
David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>1. People using science fiction as a way to insult contemporary
>people. (The cynical and corrupt Grand Inquisitor is named
>Clintaaahn!).
Ages so *very* quickly. Works only if very very subtle and makes
sense even without the topical references. E.g., _Jade Darcy and
the Zen Pirates_: the character whose long native name shortens
to Millhouse fails in his political coup and is replaced by the
virtuous character whose name shortens to Peaches. "Their
party's reputation is ruined, they have lost all their
credibility, their leader will never hold any important office
again; isn't that enough?" "No. But it will have to do."
>
>2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
Well, there's Io ....
>
>9. Atheistic worlds. By which I don't mean worlds that have no gods,
>but (human) worlds that have no theists. Highly improbable.
Pern, e.g.
Dorothy J Heydt
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
>2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
>glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
>Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
>the characters he plays.
_When Worlds Collide_, e.g.
>
>4: The moment that I realize that your bullshit sciencey doubletalk is
>in the book not because it makes the story work, but because you
>seriously believe it. This goes double for your explanation of why
><accepted scientific theory> is false.
Andrew, do you remember the guy, Isaac somebody, who posted a
while back wanting a *solid*scientific* justification for a system
where the sun went around the earth? Of course, he also wanted
it to have been created by God about four thousand years ago and some
other bizarre stuff, but he really really wanted us to revise the
laws of orbital mechanics so that the sun could go around the
earth....
>
>5: Gross stuff. I realize this is a personal reaction, but I am 100%
>done with Neal Asher. (Even if he hadn't already hit the #2 criterion
>above.)
Sibling!
Default User
> 1: My verion of the Tenchi universe has the Dimensionals fiddling
> with the galaxy so that most of the planets produce human(oids) close
> enough to interbreed at pretty much the same time. I never worked out
> why they did this
Maybe they like to watch.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article <g9up2s$jnu$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> 2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
>> glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
>> Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
>> the characters he plays.
>
> _When Worlds Collide_, e.g.
Huh? There were a lot of perfectly nice people in that book.
Offhand I can't think of any book published in that era where you
COULD have people (as protagonists) reaching the level of assholery
which can be found in some modern novels.
>> 5: Gross stuff. I realize this is a personal reaction, but I am 100%
>> done with Neal Asher. (Even if he hadn't already hit the #2 criterion
>> above.)
>
> Sibling!
>
I probably have a somewhat higher threshold than you do, but I share
the same attitude. You don't have to detail the torture or the rotting
bodies on the battlefield or whatever; with a reasonably subtle hand you
can let me know how horrid things are and not force me to look at them
in detail.
Dorothy J Heydt
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>
>>10. Failure to understand that space is not an ocean and the worlds
>>not fixed islands within it. To take an example from a rather good
>>book, there's that Space JAG series where the first novel's pretext
>>actually required the planets of the solar system to be stationary so
>>it would make some sense to patrol a specific patch of space to
>>intercept all the ships travelling through it.
>
> That situation might be salvageable in the right circumstances.
>For example, a patrol fleet around Jupiter would do pretty well, for
>modern or currently-plausible rockets, in blockading Earth access to
>Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But when you get into interstellar
>flight things like Jupiter's unique advantages become a lot less
>worth mentioning.
Or if you have a spacedrive that makes use of wormholes or
transfer points or something: having your fleet camp the exit points
could be very productive.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> James Nicoll wrote:
>
>
>> 1: My verion of the Tenchi universe has the Dimensionals fiddling
>> with the galaxy so that most of the planets produce human(oids) close
>> enough to interbreed at pretty much the same time. I never worked out
>> why they did this
>
> Maybe they like to watch.
>
I don't remember who, but somebody once described how they ran an RPG
fitting the Tenchi characters into the Amberverse.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <g9up2s$jnu$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>> 2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
>>> glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
>>> Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
>>> the characters he plays.
>>
>> _When Worlds Collide_, e.g.
>
> Huh? There were a lot of perfectly nice people in that book.
>
> Offhand I can't think of any book published in that era where you
> COULD have people (as protagonists) reaching the level of assholery
> which can be found in some modern novels.
Enlarging on this, Vin Diesel's (and similar movie/book works')
characters make Gully Foyle look like Captain America.
Spiros Bousbouras
wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>
> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> >> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
> >Are you saying that planets without climate zones
> >are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>
> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
Why ?
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
A classic strategy in many a jumpgate-associated RPG or strategy combat
game.
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 6 Sep, 22:38, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
>wrote:
>> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>>
>> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>> >> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>>
>> >Are you saying that planets without climate zones
>> >are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>>
>> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>
>Why ?
Unless you are talking about humans dwelling in protected habitats and
being nitpicky with my phrasing above, I'd be interested in your
description of how a planet that includes a temperate climate that
humans can reasonably happily wander around outdoors in could not
include cooler climates towards the poles, or a warmer climate towards
the equator, or indeed both like Earth does.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"I clipped your toenails while you slept.
So I could make them part of my COLLECTION."
-- Pintsize, questionable content #730
Wayne Throop
: Enlarging on this, Vin Diesel's (and similar movie/book works')
Hm. The Iron Giant? Triple-X? The Pacifier?
Richard Riddick is my name,
Furia is my nation,
My attitude is poor enough
To cause the cops frustration.
"I *live* for this stuff!" --- Xander Cage
"Superman..." --- The Iron Giant
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Stewart Robert Hinsley
orbit stars that apparently bright when seen from Earth, rather than be
close to each other. (For example, having three colonies at Sirius,
Procyon and Rigel.) A minor example would be Cherryh's Hydrus Reach.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley
Dorothy J Heydt
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <g9up2s$jnu$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>> 2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
>>> glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
>>> Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
>>> the characters he plays.
>>
>> _When Worlds Collide_, e.g.
>
> Huh? There were a lot of perfectly nice people in that book.
Oh yes. But so far as I am able to determine, Philip Wylie got
Edwin Balmer to invent a world-shattering catastrophe *so that*
he (Wylie) could show as many people as possible acting as
dreadfully as possible. This becomes more plausible the more of
Wylie's work you've read.
Dorothy J Heydt
Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 6 Sep, 22:38, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
>wrote:
>> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>>
>> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>> >> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>>
>> >Are you saying that planets without climate zones
>> >are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>>
>> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>
>Why ?
Well, preferably they would, and those climate zones would
include several that humans can walk around in comfortably
without special equipment. If the planetary environment is so
inimical to human life that you need to protect your biosphere
from it within heavy-duty containment, why live on the planet at
all? Put a station around it and avoid having to transport
anything out of its gravity well.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>9. Atheistic worlds. By which I don't mean worlds that have no gods,
>but (human) worlds that have no theists. Highly improbable.
Of course, just not mentioning religion doesn't mean the world is
atheistic.
Howard Brazee
prey on them?
Spiros Bousbouras
wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 15:03:18 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>
> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 6 Sep, 22:38, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
> >wrote:
> >> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>
> >> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> >> >> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
> >> >Are you saying that planets without climate zones
> >> >are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>
> >> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>
> >Why ?
>
> Unless you are talking about humans dwelling in protected habitats and
> being nitpicky with my phrasing above, I'd be interested in your
> description of how a planet that includes a temperate climate that
> humans can reasonably happily wander around outdoors in could not
> include cooler climates towards the poles, or a warmer climate towards
> the equator, or indeed both like Earth does.
Me ? It's you who's making the claim , don't you think it's
you who should justify it ? I'm not saying that it's
definitely possible not to have climate zones , I'm saying I
don't see why not. For example a planet who's axis of
rotation is perpendicular to the ecliptic. The poles might
be getting less sunlight but wouldn't the atmosphere or the
sea transfer the heat ? It's you who must justify that no
set-up of atmosphere , sea and whatever else affects the
climate can possibly result in similar temperatures
everywhere.
I'm crossposting this on rec.arts.sf.science since it is a
scientific question.
Dorothy J Heydt
True. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But even
Earth-human atheists talk about God if only to refute him. I
mentioned McCaffrey's Pern a while bag. Some vague talk about a
Great Egg and a few cusswords, that's all they've got. But they
have no highfalutin' scientific cosmology to replace it, either.
No origin stories of either variety. Humans, and the Pernese are
supposed to be descendants of Earth-humans, just don't talk like
that.
Spiros Bousbouras
wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 15:03:18 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>
> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 6 Sep, 22:38, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
> >wrote:
> >> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>
> >> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> >> >> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
> >> >Are you saying that planets without climate zones
> >> >are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>
> >> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>
> >Why ?
>
> Unless you are talking about humans dwelling in protected habitats and
> being nitpicky with my phrasing above, I'd be interested in your
> description of how a planet that includes a temperate climate that
> humans can reasonably happily wander around outdoors in could not
> include cooler climates towards the poles, or a warmer climate towards
> the equator, or indeed both like Earth does.
Me ? It's you who's making the claim , don't you think it's
Howard Brazee
<jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>>> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>>
>>Why ?
>
>Unless you are talking about humans dwelling in protected habitats and
>being nitpicky with my phrasing above, I'd be interested in your
>description of how a planet that includes a temperate climate that
>humans can reasonably happily wander around outdoors in could not
>include cooler climates towards the poles, or a warmer climate towards
>the equator, or indeed both like Earth does.
Of course, people might live in a very small part of the planet - as
in Mt. LookAtThat.
Spiros Bousbouras
> In article <6fbd413e-370b-42e1-971a-dc77bb6c3...@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
> Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On 6 Sep, 22:38, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
> >wrote:
> >> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>
> >> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> >> >> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
> >> >Are you saying that planets without climate zones
> >> >are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>
> >> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>
> >Why ?
>
> Well, preferably they would, and those climate zones would
> include several that humans can walk around in comfortably
> without special equipment. If the planetary environment is so
> inimical to human life that you need to protect your biosphere
> from it within heavy-duty containment, why live on the planet at
> all?
Mining , scientific research , you like the gravity , some
natural formation gives you safety , etc. But anyway as
I say in a different post I don't see why it would be
impossible to have all over the planet temperatures a
human finds comfortable.
David Johnston
wrote:
>1. People using science fiction as a way to insult contemporary
>people. (The cynical and corrupt Grand Inquisitor is named
>Clintaaahn!).
Eagle Against the Stars, Armageddon Reef
>
>2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
Star Wars, Dune,
>
>3. Utopias. I especially hate the ones where the abandonment of
>money solves our social problems, but I'm not real fond of the
>libertarian utopias either.
Star Trek TNG, Wardove
>
>4. Universes in which humans are uniquely wicked. And that
>especially includes ones in which our aptitude for violence is unique.
You know, those ones where the Confederation of Wusses have to bring
Earthmen in to save their butts. Also C.S. Lewis's stuff.
>
>5. Fans and creators who make a big deal about the hardness of
>science fiction despite the severe limitations that puts on what you
>can reasonably do and who reject one thing for its lack of hardness
>and instead substitute something even softer.
Firefly
>
>6. Nanotechnology that ignores just how limited the power supply of a
>machine that small would have to be. If you're going to have magic,
>then have magic. Don't pretend it's engineering.
The Practice Effect, Kris Longknife
>
>7. Taking it for granted that an AI is going to be more capable than
>a human in all ways.
Star Trek TNG
>
>8. Treating doves as not merely wrong but wicked en masse. The same
>is true of hawks of course, but I don't see a lot of that because
>there's milsf but there's almost no diplomasf
Honor Harrington.
>
>9. Atheistic worlds. By which I don't mean worlds that have no gods,
>but (human) worlds that have no theists. Highly improbable.
Pern
David Johnston
wrote:
Not an issue with Pern. We got to see that world in sufficient depth
to assure that they really had no religion.
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
>On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:10:53 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
Indeed so - a single human hospitable are with its own uniform
climate. That doesn't stop the rest of the planet from having multiple
climates, just stops anyone caring much!
The only ways I can construct to have one uniform climate over an
entire (normal ball-shaped rocky) planet would be to
1) have an extremely cunning array of orbital mirrors that refactored
the inbound sunlight to be uniform per unit of area over the whole
day-side planet;
2) have the planet as a lone wanderer without a sun. And that uniform
climate isn't very hospitable to humans.
Orbital plates, ringworlds, dyson shells and the like can have all the
uniform climate they want.
The difference (for Spiros' benefit) is the variation of the angle of
incidence of sunlight over a sphere. A single square meter of sunbeam
will illuminate a square meter at the equator, or a dozen square
meters near the pole. The difference in insolation per unit area
creates climate bands.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
Thank you for your input. Now, if you have something substantive to
bring to the discussion, kindly do. Otherwise, isn't there an
eternal flamefest that would peter out if you won't keep feeding it?
-- Cosmin Corbea, r.a.b
David Johnston
<spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Because planets are spherical. There's no way to position one so that
it gets the same insolation in every location. Of course a discworld
or a ringworld would be another matter.
For example a planet who's axis of
>rotation is perpendicular to the ecliptic.
What do you think the temperature would be like on the side of the
planet that never gets any sunlight?
The poles might
>be getting less sunlight but wouldn't the atmosphere or the
>sea transfer the heat ?
Air and water isn't perfectly conductive.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:g9uue2$jaq$1...@registered.motzarella.org:
I'll make an exception for that for stories where, for instance,
the details of horrible death in battle is the point, like, well,
most of David Drake's stuff. If it's well written enough.
--
Terry Austin
"There's no law west of the internet."
- Nick Stump
Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
John F. Eldredge
If you are going to have a more-or-less uniform temperature all over the
planet, you are also going to have to posit some heat source in the polar
regions in addition to the sun, or else some mechanism that cools the
tropics. I think that one can safely predict that any planet will have
climate zones; there just isn't a guarantee that any of those climate
zones will be shirt-sleeve-habitable. Of course, if the planet in
question is sufficiently far out from its star, the range of climate
choices may range from frozen to deep-frozen.
--
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
John F. Eldredge
Heat transfer happens here on earth, but it isn't 100% efficient, hence
we don't have uniform temperatures. In a planet with the axis of
rotation perpendicular to the ecliptic (meaning that the equator would be
on the same plane as the ecliptic), you wouldn't have as much seasonal
variation in temperature, since the only variation would be produced by
how elliptical the orbit was. You would still get cooler temperatures as
you approached the poles, as there would be less sunlight striking a
given area of surface than there would be in the tropics.
Spiros Bousbouras
Every part of the planet would get some light. In case one
(or both) of us is misunderstanding the terminology I'm
talking about a planet where the plane of the equator is
parallel to the plain of rotation around the star.
> The poles might
>
> >be getting less sunlight but wouldn't the atmosphere or the
> >sea transfer the heat ?
>
> Air and water isn't perfectly conductive.
In a fluid the main mechanism for heat transfer is
convection not conduction. Whatever the mechanism it doesn't
have to be perfect (what would perfect mean anyway?) to
prevent the temperature variations from being too big.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:56:40 GMT, David Johnston <da...@block.net>
>wrote:
>
>>1. People using science fiction as a way to insult contemporary
>>people. (The cynical and corrupt Grand Inquisitor is named
>>Clintaaahn!).
>
>Eagle Against the Stars, Armageddon Reef
And another Weber, in the Harrington series, where the slimeball
is "Guillermo Rodham," IIRC. (I had a Google hit suggesting it
was _Echoes of Honor_, but neither my browser nor my memory are
working at a reasonable speed at the moment.)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Dimensional Traveler
> David Johnston <da...@block.net> writes:
>
>> 10. Failure to understand that space is not an ocean and the worlds
>> not fixed islands within it. To take an example from a rather good
>> book, there's that Space JAG series where the first novel's pretext
>> actually required the planets of the solar system to be stationary so
>> it would make some sense to patrol a specific patch of space to
>> intercept all the ships travelling through it.
>
> For example, a patrol fleet around Jupiter would do pretty well, for
> modern or currently-plausible rockets, in blockading Earth access to
> Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But when you get into
> interstellar flight things like Jupiter's unique advantages become a
> lot less worth mentioning.
I think you just committed a variation of #10. Just because Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune and Pluto are farther from the sun than Earth is does _NOT_ mean
that getting from Earth to them requires a ship to fly past Jupiter. Being
"around Jupiter" does NOT automatically cover the entirety of Jupiter's
orbit.
--
"What Kind of perv rememembers the scenes where she's clothed???"
Anim8rFSK, 8/23/08
John F. Eldredge
> Thieve's guilds. Why would the powerful allow an organization to prey
> on them?
Why do the powerful in our real-life societies allow organized crime to
prey upon them? (A) they try to suppress the criminals, (B) some of the
powerful have links to organized crime, so that it is mostly the lower-
and-mid-level criminals who are prosecuted, (C) the powerful make the
laws, so that street crime (done mostly by the poor) has a higher
certainty of punishment than white-collar crime (done mostly by the
middle and upper classes). The powerful people who get caught in
criminal activities can also afford a better grade of lawyers.
There is also the approach used by Havelock Vetinari in Ankh-Mopork: the
Thieves' Guild is a regulated industry, with home-owners paying what
amounts to insurance payments to the Thieves' Guild to ensure that there
won't be more than the specified number of burglaries and other crimes.
Taki Kogoma
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
> Thieve's guilds. Why would the powerful allow an organization to
> prey on them?
Well, when you make the Guild responsible for all the crime in the
city, complete with quotas and so on...
Gym "Now, gentlemen, if the crime rate exceeds the reasonable value I've
laid out for you, the murder rate will go up considerably within
your personal vicinity..." Quirk
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
Andrew Plotkin
> Joseph Nebus wrote:
> > David Johnston <da...@block.net> writes:
> >
> >> 10. Failure to understand that space is not an ocean and the worlds
> >> not fixed islands within it. To take an example from a rather good
> >> book, there's that Space JAG series where the first novel's pretext
> >> actually required the planets of the solar system to be stationary so
> >> it would make some sense to patrol a specific patch of space to
> >> intercept all the ships travelling through it.
> >
> > That situation might be salvageable in the right circumstances.
> > For example, a patrol fleet around Jupiter would do pretty well, for
> > modern or currently-plausible rockets, in blockading Earth access to
> > Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But when you get into
> > interstellar flight things like Jupiter's unique advantages become a
> > lot less worth mentioning.
>
> I think you just committed a variation of #10. Just because Saturn, Uranus,
> Neptune and Pluto are farther from the sun than Earth is does _NOT_ mean
> that getting from Earth to them requires a ship to fly past Jupiter.
You are forgetting that to get to those outer planets (or farther),
with current rockets, we have to use gravity slingshot maneuvers. :)
Patrol Jupiter and you've got a bottleneck.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
Sig repository offline for update...
John F. Eldredge
>
> 4: Inexcusably stupid science. Stars move. Lasers cannot be used as
> radiators. If you skim (or as we like to call it, "aerobrake in") a gas
> giant's atmosphere, you still need to pay the delta vee for each kg
> lofted to orbit. Don't get me started on space-straws. You cannot use
> reflected light to warm something up hotter than the light source you
> are using. And so on.
>
One form of this is writers who forget the meaning of light speed. For
example, in one novel I read recently, it is a major plot point that one
species uses ships that travel through real space at slower-than-light
speeds, whereas the other races use ships that jump from wormhole to
wormhole, effectively traveling faster than light. At one point, it is
mentioned that the slower-than-light ships are half a light year away,
and will arrive in three months (meaning that they are traveling at twice
the speed of light).
Wayne Throop
::: Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com>
::: I don't see why not.
::: For example a planet who's axis of rotation is perpendicular
::: to the ecliptic.
And why would that make the climate identical at all locations?
Is it your claim that earth only has varying climate because it has
an axial tilt? That would be incorrect.
::: The poles might be getting less sunlight but wouldn't the atmosphere
::: or the sea transfer the heat ?
Some of it. But we're presuming breathable air and ordinary water
(since this is a human-shirt-sleve-environnment planet). They simply
won't convect enough heat to avoid climate zones. We know this,
because... we've *seen* a planet with such air and water, and it doesn't.
And even if the heat was somehow distributed evenly by convection, the
strength of the winds doing the convecting would (at the very least)
make for noticeably distinct regions, weather/climate-wise.
: Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com>
: In a fluid the main mechanism for heat transfer is convection not
: conduction. Whatever the mechanism it doesn't have to be perfect
: (what would perfect mean anyway?) to prevent the temperature
: variations from being too big.
Now you're changing the goalposts, from "will not have climate zones"
to "the variation won't be too large". And even "the variation won't
be too large" seems very unlikely.
Basically, if you've got
1) a spherical, rocky planet with
2) human-shirtsleves water and air and
3) insolation from one direction
then you're going to get climate regions. You could suppose there's a
megaengineering project to build mirrors to equalize the insolation,
but then you might as welll be talking about any other megaengineered
environment, like a ringworld. Meaning, you're no longer really
discussing "a planet" in the usual sense.
Christopher Henrich
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <g0g5c49triaoaoim7...@4ax.com>,
> David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
> >1. People using science fiction as a way to insult contemporary
> >people. (The cynical and corrupt Grand Inquisitor is named
> >Clintaaahn!).
>
> Ages so *very* quickly. Works only if very very subtle and makes
> sense even without the topical references. E.g., _Jade Darcy and
> the Zen Pirates_: the character whose long native name shortens
> to Millhouse fails in his political coup and is replaced by the
> virtuous character whose name shortens to Peaches.
Not River-Crossing?
> "Their
> party's reputation is ruined, they have lost all their
> credibility, their leader will never hold any important office
> again; isn't that enough?" "No. But it will have to do."
> >
> >2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
> Well, there's Io ....
> >
> >9. Atheistic worlds. By which I don't mean worlds that have no gods,
> >but (human) worlds that have no theists. Highly improbable.
>
> Pern, e.g.
>
>
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Vallejo, California
> djh...@kithrup.com
--
Christopher J. Henrich
chen...@monmouth.com
htp://www.mathinteract.com
Spiros Bousbouras
> :::: Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones.
>
> ::: Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com>
> ::: I don't see why not.
> ::: For example a planet who's axis of rotation is perpendicular
> ::: to the ecliptic.
>
> And why would that make the climate identical at all locations?
> Is it your claim that earth only has varying climate because it has
> an axial tilt? That would be incorrect.
No I'm not making any such claim. It's the other side
(including you) who's making the claims , I'm simply asking
the questions.
>
> ::: The poles might be getting less sunlight but wouldn't the atmosphere
> ::: or the sea transfer the heat ?
>
> Some of it. But we're presuming breathable air and ordinary water
> (since this is a human-shirt-sleve-environnment planet). They simply
> won't convect enough heat to avoid climate zones. We know this,
> because... we've *seen* a planet with such air and water, and it doesn't.
So your reasoning is that because it doesn't happen on Earth
then it cannot happen on any other planet , yes ?
> And even if the heat was somehow distributed evenly by convection, the
> strength of the winds doing the convecting would (at the very least)
> make for noticeably distinct regions, weather/climate-wise.
See ? That's a claim.
> : Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com>
> : In a fluid the main mechanism for heat transfer is convection not
> : conduction. Whatever the mechanism it doesn't have to be perfect
> : (what would perfect mean anyway?) to prevent the temperature
> : variations from being too big.
>
> Now you're changing the goalposts, from "will not have climate zones"
> to "the variation won't be too large". And even "the variation won't
> be too large" seems very unlikely.
No I'm not changing the goalposts. When here on Earth we say
that a place has for example tropical climate we certainly
don't mean that the temperature is constant. So "no climate
zones" doesn't imply constant temperature.
> Basically, if you've got
>
> 1) a spherical, rocky planet with
> 2) human-shirtsleves water and air and
> 3) insolation from one direction
>
> then you're going to get climate regions.
I note that 3) is a new constraint which is not implied by
what has been said so far in the thread. But even with that
constraint and even if we add the additional constraint that
there are no other sources of heat (like hot springs say)
apart from a single star I'm still not convinced that there
will be large variations of temperature.
Katie Schwarz
>>
>>2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
>Star Wars, Dune,
Dune? It was only habitable around the pole, if I remember
correctly. I'm sure Herbert wouldn't have overlooked that.
Now, Star Wars is a "raining on Mongo" universe. They've got a desert
planet, jungle planet, city planet, ocean planet. It's part of the
retro-ness.
Are there any stories on planets that don't have an axial tilt
and so don't have seasons? We know that Barrayar has an axial
tilt very similar to Earth's, from the "Camp Permafrost" segment.
I wonder how common that really is, and how likely it really is
to find a planet that's indistinguishable from Earth in gravity
*and* that similar in climate, length of day, and length of year.
Spiros Bousbouras
> David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> >>2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>
> >Star Wars, Dune,
>
> Dune? It was only habitable around the pole, if I remember
> correctly. I'm sure Herbert wouldn't have overlooked that.
>
> Now, Star Wars is a "raining on Mongo" universe. They've got a desert
> planet, jungle planet, city planet, ocean planet. It's part of the
> retro-ness.
I just did a Google search and found the following tidbit:
In one of the Hyperion books, there's a sentence
along the lines of "It was night on <planet>, but
<character> knew it was day on other planets".
Is this true ?
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article <g9uue2$jaq$1...@registered.motzarella.org>,
> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> In article <g9up2s$jnu$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>>> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>>> 2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
>>>> glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
>>>> Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
>>>> the characters he plays.
>>> _When Worlds Collide_, e.g.
>> Huh? There were a lot of perfectly nice people in that book.
>
> Edwin Balmer to invent a world-shattering catastrophe *so that*
> he (Wylie) could show as many people as possible acting as
> dreadfully as possible.
Well, if that was the case, he failed miserably, since there were
plenty of people NOT acting as dreadfully as possible in that book.
Modern authors do this kind of stuff much better (e.g., much worse) than
anything they could have managed.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Wayne Throop
: So your reasoning is that because it doesn't happen on Earth
: then it cannot happen on any other planet , yes ?
No. My reasoning is that in theory, air and water won't convect
enough heat, and we have a practical example that bears this out.
: No I'm not changing the goalposts.
So it's your contention that "has no climate zones" is the same
thing as "humans can manage to live comfortably outdoors everywhere"
are the same thing. Riiiiiiiight. Suuuuure they are.
: So "no climate zones" doesn't imply constant temperature.
Nobody said it did. So that would be a "straw man" on your part.
: I note that 3) is a new constraint
In multi-star systems, golilocks orbits aren't stable. So, no, it's
not a new constraint. It's all part of what it means to discuss the
natural environment provided by "a planet".
: I'm still not convinced that there will be large variations of
: temperature.
How large? And is it only "temperature" that goes into "climate" in your
opinion? Further, since per upthread we're discussing single-climate
planets in SF, like "the ice planet of hoth" or "the desert planet of
tatoine" or "the forest moon of endor", we might easily agree that "the
hot-springs-heated-by-internal-sources-that-just-offset-insolation-for-
some-reason-and-having-a-single-ecosystem planet of notalotasense"
is OK, but the ones that purport to be otherwise ordinary, aren't OK.
Howard Brazee
<spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>No I'm not changing the goalposts. When here on Earth we say
>that a place has for example tropical climate we certainly
>don't mean that the temperature is constant. So "no climate
>zones" doesn't imply constant temperature.
Note that mountains, oceans, and deserts also influence climate.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>> Thieve's guilds. Why would the powerful allow an organization to prey
>> on them?
>
>Why do the powerful in our real-life societies allow organized crime to
>prey upon them? (A) they try to suppress the criminals, (B) some of the
>powerful have links to organized crime, so that it is mostly the lower-
>and-mid-level criminals who are prosecuted, (C) the powerful make the
>laws, so that street crime (done mostly by the poor) has a higher
>certainty of punishment than white-collar crime (done mostly by the
>middle and upper classes). The powerful people who get caught in
>criminal activities can also afford a better grade of lawyers.
>
>There is also the approach used by Havelock Vetinari in Ankh-Mopork: the
>Thieves' Guild is a regulated industry, with home-owners paying what
>amounts to insurance payments to the Thieves' Guild to ensure that there
>won't be more than the specified number of burglaries and other crimes.
First, the crime syndicates prey on the poor. Second, they do not
license them. When they start preying on the powerful, the powerful
fight back. Notice how rare it is to kidnap the powerful for ransom
anymore.
Wayne Throop
:: Star Wars, Dune,
: k...@socrates.Berkeley.EDU (Katie Schwarz)
: Dune? It was only habitable around the pole, if I remember
: correctly. I'm sure Herbert wouldn't have overlooked that.
Well, at the very least iirc, there was the climate inside
the barrier mountains, and that outside, which were fairly
distinct (well... I suppose the main thing was, no worms,
but still).
Howard Brazee
(Katie Schwarz) wrote:
>Are there any stories on planets that don't have an axial tilt
>and so don't have seasons?
We have something similar - Nightside City comes to mind.
il...@rcn.com
> > prey on them?
>
> Well, when you make the Guild responsible for all the crime in the
> city, complete with quotas and so on...
>
> Gym "Now, gentlemen, if the crime rate exceeds the reasonable value I've
> laid out for you, the murder rate will go up considerably within
> your personal vicinity..." Quirk
Which is not unlike how mafias operate in real world. Wasn't there a
joke at one point that Providence, RI is the only city in the world
where you must ask permission (from local Don) to steal a car? Except
that such arrangement never lasts very long.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 01:55:09 +0000 (UTC), k...@socrates.Berkeley.EDU
I think (I'd have to dig out twenty-year-old fanfold computer
print-outs to be sure) that Epimetheus does have a very slight axial
tilt, something like 0.8 degrees. Not enough to matter, though.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The ninth issue of the Hugo-nominated webzine Helix
is now at http://www.helixsf.com
James Nicoll
Damien Sullivan <pho...@ofb.net> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>1: My verion of the Tenchi universe has the Dimensionals fiddling with the
>
>Tenchi Muyo?
>
Yes.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
James Nicoll
>overly-educated kind of twelve that you're thinking of, either.
>
>2: Everyone is an asshole. The point of the book turns out to be to
>glory in how much of an asshole the protagonist is. Just because Vin
>Diesel looks good on the screen doesn't mean you have to aspire to be
>the characters he plays.
Except maybe in MULTIFACIAL and STRAYS, neither of which
I've seen. I think the first is about a mixed-race actor who has
trouble getting roles on account of how confusing his ethnicity
is for casting directors and the second is about a gang leader
looking for redemption, which sure doesn't sound like the guys
in XXX or PITCH BLACK.
James Nicoll
But Jupiter is a source of free delta vee. In some propulsion
regimes, traffic that can go by Jupiter will and by blockading Jupiter
you make getting to the outer planets more expensive either in terms
of delta vee or time.
Carl Dershem
news:g9ueeo$qn9$1...@panix1.panix.com:
> 5: The embrace of ignorance as a social good (This pops up more as a
> meta than in stories [B] but it's the rallying cry of thousands who I
> assume were forced to read Thomas Hardy in high school). I call this
> the "For fucks sake, the New Wave was over and done with before most
> people reading this LJ were born!" principle.
>
> 6: The unconsidered use of ideas that may have made sense 50 years ago
> or which perhaps never made sense at all but sounded good at the time.
As long as you will allow the inclusion of those things (which, alas,
appear to be a part of human nature), without necessarily embracing them, I
can't argue.
:(
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
James Nicoll
Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
><spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>
>>are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>
>a larger version of being annoyed by "It was raining on Mongo that
>morning".
>
I could see situations where they do but it doesn't matter
to the locals. For example, a world with a world ocean and one small
continent (Although it will have to be smaller than Australia and
geographically bland) or maybe the one temperate peninsula on an
slushball world.
David Johnston
<spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
But we already know that in spite of the convection, the arctic and
the antarctic are cold.
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:40:29 -0600, Howard Brazee wrote:
>
>> Thieve's guilds. Why would the powerful allow an organization to prey
>> on them?
>
>Why do the powerful in our real-life societies allow organized crime to
>prey upon them?
They don't. In real-life societies, organised crime provides the
powerful with access to banned commodities and services. They prey on
the not powerful.
Damien Neil
> 1: My verion of the Tenchi universe has the Dimensionals fiddling with the
> interbreed at pretty much the same time. I never worked out why they
> did this but civilized apes have to have worked out better than the
> previous cycle in that universe, the Galactic Prehistoric Meowmeow
> Paleozoic Era, which sounds like it might have involved intelligent
> cats.
Presumably, they did it because they were tired of feeding the
intelligent cats. Not to mention cleaning out the litterboxes.
Either that, or they're trying to create a market on which to unload
their petabytes of pictures of intelligent cats doing cute things to the
accompaniment of a misspelled caption.
- Damien
David DeLaney
>The only ways I can construct to have one uniform climate over an
>entire (normal ball-shaped rocky) planet would be to
>
>1) have an extremely cunning array of orbital mirrors that refactored
>the inbound sunlight to be uniform per unit of area over the whole
>day-side planet;
>2) have the planet as a lone wanderer without a sun. And that uniform
>climate isn't very hospitable to humans.
>
>Orbital plates, ringworlds, dyson shells and the like can have all the
>uniform climate they want.
And then there's the Trenco solution, even though Doc Smith got its actual
effects about as incorrect as possible...
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
John Schilling
wrote:
>In article <c1u5c4196nj3h4sca...@newsposting.sessile.org>,
>Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>>On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>><spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>>> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>>>Are you saying that planets without climate zones
>>>are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>>Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones. This is
>>a larger version of being annoyed by "It was raining on Mongo that
>>morning".
> I could see situations where they do but it doesn't matter
>to the locals. For example, a world with a world ocean and one small
>continent (Although it will have to be smaller than Australia and
>geographically bland) or maybe the one temperate peninsula on an
>slushball world.
Or, e.g. Arrakis, where only the wettest and most frigid polar
region is even remotely habitable.
This one doesn't really bother me so much, because it isn't really
all that implausible and the authors who do it usually don't go
into enough detail to rule out the plausible explanations. If it
turns out that habitable planets are very, very rare in the universe,
and that looks like the way to bet, then it's most likely that planets
where only the most extreme (by that planet's standards) environments
are habitable are going to rather outnumber actual Earthlike worlds.
Ways an author can screw this up:
Say or strongly imply that most of the surface is habitable
Give the planet a population of many billions, not in arcologies
Make the "one climate/biome" temperate forest/grassland or the like
Putting the barely-habitable frigid zone at the poles, or the reverse
Say or strongly imply that >>1% of stars have habitable worlds
Generally, an excess of detail and getting it wrong
--
*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 *
*John.S...@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Kay Shapero
>
> There's CUSP, where the Singularity is seen as inevitable and
> something everyone (except the spear-carriers, who are massacred in their
> billions to show that this is a grimandgritty world) has to plan to exploit
> as best they can. CUSP is the book where people can gain superpowers from
> having superheated plasma forced into their head rather than just having
> their brains cooked like an egg.
>
Sounds like Marvel Radiation, actually... (Snerk)
--
Kay Shapero
Signature munged - to email me use kay at domain of my website, below.
http://www.kayshapero.net
David DeLaney
>Are there any stories on planets that don't have an axial tilt
>and so don't have seasons? We know that Barrayar has an axial
>tilt very similar to Earth's, from the "Camp Permafrost" segment.
>I wonder how common that really is, and how likely it really is
>to find a planet that's indistinguishable from Earth in gravity
>*and* that similar in climate, length of day, and length of year.
Well, there's that one ... McAndrew (Sheffield)? ... story about the rogue
planet with no rotation that turns out to have been a VERY poor choice to
make a landing on. With massive light-show demonstrations of spherical
harmonics, etc. But I sense that's not quite what you're looking for.
Hmmm. I think Chalker's Lilith (Four Lords of the Diamond) was supposed to
be pretty much the same climate all over - but there alien space nanobats
were enforcing it, so that also doesn't fit right.
David DeLaney
>Either that, or they're trying to create a market on which to unload
>their petabytes of pictures of intelligent cats doing cute things to the
>accompaniment of a misspelled caption.
...future historians are SOOOOO going to hate having to sift through the
collected archives of the Internet.
Dave "rationality went WHERE?" DeLaney
Mark_R...@hotmail.com
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
> > There's CUSP, where the Singularity is seen as inevitable and
> > something everyone (except the spear-carriers, who are massacred in their
> > billions to show that this is a grimandgritty world) has to plan to exploit
> > as best they can. CUSP is the book where people can gain superpowers from
> > having superheated plasma forced into their head rather than just having
> > their brains cooked like an egg.
>
> superpowers like being exposed to enough gamma radiation to vaporize
> your chromosomes, overdoses of cosmic rays, etc.?
>
> Oh, wait. You mean this is a REGULAR book, not a comic book?
That reminds me of the panel in a What's New with Phil & Dixie bit on
superheroes where someone is subjected to all of the classic ways
simultaneously and all that is left is a pile of ash.
I seem to remember somebody (Peter David?) retconning Banner as having
been a mutant due to his father's work and the gamma bomb just
provided the activating force. Perhaps he was borrowing from DC's
metagene concept.
Kay Shapero
> >
> >9. Atheistic worlds. By which I don't mean worlds that have no gods,
> >but (human) worlds that have no theists. Highly improbable.
>
> Pern, e.g.
>
And which furthermore manages to maintain the same society for thousands
of years, then suddenly starts firing off innovations in all directions
with no more trouble than a few grumpy sticks in the mud.
Dimensional Traveler
Is there enough mass in the Trojan asteroids for slingshotting?
--
"What Kind of perv rememembers the scenes where she's clothed???"
Anim8rFSK, 8/23/08
Kay Shapero
>
> True. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But even
> Earth-human atheists talk about God if only to refute him. I
> mentioned McCaffrey's Pern a while bag. Some vague talk about a
> Great Egg and a few cusswords, that's all they've got. But they
> have no highfalutin' scientific cosmology to replace it, either.
> No origin stories of either variety. Humans, and the Pernese are
> supposed to be descendants of Earth-humans, just don't talk like
> that.
IIRC, McCaffrey's specifically stated that there are no religions on
Pern. That none have evolved in the five or more thousand years they've
been there may be related to the fact that the society seems to have
formed in the first hundred and never varied thereafter. And then
suddenly hit a trigger point and gone all innovative. Well, we know the
dragons were preprogrammed to slowly develop to a certain size and
intelligence; maybe the "humans" are as genetically modified as the
dragons, and have the same sort of programming...
Dimensional Traveler
> In article
> <c1u5c4196nj3h4sca...@newsposting.sessile.org>, Jaimie
> Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:07:59 -0700 (PDT), Spiros Bousbouras
>> <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6 Sep, 20:56, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>>> 2. Planets which don't have climate zones.
>>>
>>> Are you saying that planets without climate zones
>>> are impossible or you just don't like them ?
>>
>> Planets that humans could dwell on *will* have climate zones. This is
>> a larger version of being annoyed by "It was raining on Mongo that
>> morning".
>>
> I could see situations where they do but it doesn't matter
> to the locals. For example, a world with a world ocean and one small
> continent (Although it will have to be smaller than Australia and
> geographically bland) or maybe the one temperate peninsula on an
> slushball world.
Even in those cases the _planet_ has multiple climates even if all the land
surface is located in only one of them.
Kay Shapero
> 4: Inexcusably stupid science. Stars move. Lasers cannot be used as
> radiators. If you skim (or as we like to call it, "aerobrake in") a gas
> giant's atmosphere, you still need to pay the delta vee for each kg lofted
> to orbit. Don't get me started on space-straws. You cannot use reflected
> light to warm something up hotter than the light source you are using.
> And so on.
>
Well, I recently stopped reading the SF works of an author who, halfway
through a book revealed that his references to the "immense cold of
interplanetary space" were meant literally, not metaphorically. :(
Dimensional Traveler
> On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:22:59 -0700, Damien Neil <ne...@misago.org>
> wrote:
>> Either that, or they're trying to create a market on which to unload
>> their petabytes of pictures of intelligent cats doing cute things to
>> the accompaniment of a misspelled caption.
>
> ...future historians are SOOOOO going to hate having to sift through
> the collected archives of the Internet.
>
> Dave "rationality went WHERE?" DeLaney
That would seem to be assuming that humans have ever at any point in time
been rational....
David Johnston
<spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ::: The poles might be getting less sunlight but wouldn't the atmosphere
>> ::: or the sea transfer the heat ?
>>
>> Some of it. But we're presuming breathable air and ordinary water
>> (since this is a human-shirt-sleve-environnment planet). They simply
>> won't convect enough heat to avoid climate zones. We know this,
>> because... we've *seen* a planet with such air and water, and it doesn't.
>
>So your reasoning is that because it doesn't happen on Earth
>then it cannot happen on any other planet , yes ?
Yes. If it doesn't happen on Earth then it cannot happen on any other
planet, because there are no non-round planets. Therefore the reason
why it happens on Earth applies to all the others.
But even with that
>constraint and even if we add the additional constraint that
>there are no other sources of heat (like hot springs say)
>apart from a single star I'm still not convinced that there
>will be large variations of temperature.
<shrug> The subject is climate not temperature.
Bryan Derksen
> That reminds me of the panel in a What's New with Phil & Dixie bit on
> superheroes where someone is subjected to all of the classic ways
> simultaneously and all that is left is a pile of ash.
There was a thread on one of these newsgroups a long time back where
someone listed off a bunch of hypothetical 'super'heroes that resulted
from the usual methods. One that always stuck with me was "Just A Pile
Of Little Cubes Lad", because it makes me wonder what particular power
trigger _that_ one was. :)
Dorothy J Heydt
Kay Shapero <k...@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>In article <g9ueeo$qn9$1...@panix1.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com says...
>
>> 4: Inexcusably stupid science. Stars move. Lasers cannot be used as
>> radiators. If you skim (or as we like to call it, "aerobrake in") a gas
>> giant's atmosphere, you still need to pay the delta vee for each kg lofted
>> to orbit. Don't get me started on space-straws. You cannot use reflected
>> light to warm something up hotter than the light source you are using.
>> And so on.
>>
>
>Well, I recently stopped reading the SF works of an author who, halfway
>through a book revealed that his references to the "immense cold of
>interplanetary space" were meant literally, not metaphorically. :(
Ransom: "I thought space was always dark and cold."
Weston: "Forgotten the sun?"
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Dorothy J Heydt
Damien Sullivan
>I note that 3) is a new constraint which is not implied by
>what has been said so far in the thread. But even with that
>constraint and even if we add the additional constraint that
>there are no other sources of heat (like hot springs say)
>apart from a single star I'm still not convinced that there
>will be large variations of temperature.
Humidity is also a big part of climate; William Hyde, a climatologist,
said jungle+desert planets (like much of Earth's history, arctic climate
is recent) was more plausible than jungle or desert planets. Something
about Hadley cells, and runaway greenhouse effects with a high-humidity
everywhere planet.
And you've got the effects of mountains, and proximity to oceans, and
which direction the latitudinal winds blow and how that interacts with
the oceans.
And the angle of sunlight on a non-tilt planet. Climate uniformity
doesn't make sense... which doesn't mean the range has to be exactly
what we see on Earth.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>> On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:22:59 -0700, Damien Neil <ne...@misago.org>
>> wrote:
>>> Either that, or they're trying to create a market on which to unload
>>> their petabytes of pictures of intelligent cats doing cute things to
>>> the accompaniment of a misspelled caption.
>>
>> ...future historians are SOOOOO going to hate having to sift through
>> the collected archives of the Internet.
Many authors have posited the Internet somehow waking up, possibly
feeding into "the Singularity". Let us now imagine the AI god arising
from 4chan.
-xx- Damien X-)
* actually 4chan + freerepublic + Democratic Underground + wikipedia +
Livejournal + fanfiction...
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)
[...]
> 8. Treating doves as not merely wrong but wicked en masse. The same
> is true of hawks of course, but I don't see a lot of that because
> there's milsf but there's almost no diplomasf
Done right diplomasf could work well. With cleaver counterplays and
spy drama ontop.
[...]
> 10. Failure to understand that space is not an ocean and the worlds
> not fixed islands within it. To take an example from a rather good
> book, there's that Space JAG series where the first novel's pretext
> actually required the planets of the solar system to be stationary so
> it would make some sense to patrol a specific patch of space to
> intercept all the ships travelling through it.
This could work with planets that orbit. Diffrent orbits have
diffrent fuel requirements, so if you know when a ship has left a
planit, and its desternation you can sort of guess where it should be
at any point in time. Though I don't expect that you would be able to
petrol that intercet point (which would be constantly moving) for all
possable times.
Damien Sullivan
>True. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But even
>Earth-human atheists talk about God if only to refute him. I
That's a function of how many religious people the atheists have to run
across and how aggressive the religious are. Spontaneous collections of
atheists (not a deliberate atheist society, but a bunch of geeks who
happen to be non-religious) even in the US, who don't pay close
attention to US politics, don't go around spontaneously refuting God.
>mentioned McCaffrey's Pern a while bag. Some vague talk about a
>Great Egg and a few cusswords, that's all they've got. But they
>have no highfalutin' scientific cosmology to replace it, either.
>No origin stories of either variety. Humans, and the Pernese are
Which is pretty implausible given that they would have come with such a
cosmology and there's no good reason for them to have lost their
origins, that I recall. So if it were more plausible, it'd be more
plausible...
They did have superstitions. "Oh no, they're wearing green!"
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:56:40 GMT, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>> 8. Treating doves as not merely wrong but wicked en masse. The same
>> is true of hawks of course, but I don't see a lot of that because
>> there's milsf but there's almost no diplomasf
>
>Done right diplomasf could work well. With cleaver counterplays and
>spy drama ontop.
Retief?
-xx- Damien X-)
DJensen
> I'm crossposting this on rec.arts.sf.science since it is a
> scientific question.
There must be some combination of star type, star-planet distance,
orbit shape, planet size, inclination, speed of rotation, natural
satellite(s), atmospheric density and thickness, surface gravity, sea/
land ratio, sea/land distribution, sea depth, configuration and height
of mountains, volcanism, greenhouse effect, biosphere, albedo, et
cetera et cetera et cetera that results in a habitable planet with the
same climate from pole to pole.
(For the sake of argument I'm assuming habitable moons are being
excluded as they aren't 'planets', thank you IAU, but other unique
variables would be considered in those cases.)
We should also be aware that a climate can have a wide range of
temperature highs and lows and weather patterns over the course of the
year. It reaches the low 40s here in the summer and we can get two
metres of snow in a day in the winter, but it's still the same
climate. It would be cheating to say 40 at the equator and 2 metres of
snow at the poles, year round, counts as a global climate, but if the
planet were to cycle through those ranges more or less equally over
the course of the year, but not necessarily simultaneously from one
pole to the other, it would count. There are also distinct climates
that are for all intents and purposes the same -- it might rain a lot
more in one than the other, but you'll dress the same in Humid
Continental and Marine West Cost, or Sub Tropical Wet and Sub Tropical
Wet & Dry.
--
DJensen
GSV Three Minds in a Can
person David DeLaney <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> said
>On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:22:59 -0700, Damien Neil <ne...@misago.org> wrote:
>>Either that, or they're trying to create a market on which to unload
>>their petabytes of pictures of intelligent cats doing cute things to the
>>accompaniment of a misspelled caption.
>
>...future historians are SOOOOO going to hate having to sift through the
>collected archives of the Internet.
That's what (semi) Intelligent computers will be for. Until that form of
slavery is outlawed, by the (very) Intelligent computers ..
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
12,541 Km walked. 2,442 Km PROWs surveyed. 44.0% complete.
David Johnston
> That situation might be salvageable in the right circumstances.
>For example, a patrol fleet around Jupiter would do pretty well, for
>modern or currently-plausible rockets, in blockading Earth access to
>Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But when you get into interstellar
>flight things like Jupiter's unique advantages become a lot less
>worth mentioning.
They were nowhere near any object and interstellar travel didn't
exist. Also of course when you have those kind of delta-v issues, you
ain't gonna be pulling over passing vessels like a space traffic cop.
Joseph Nebus
>Many authors have posited the Internet somehow waking up, possibly
>feeding into "the Singularity". Let us now imagine the AI god arising
>from 4chan.
>-xx- Damien X-)
>* actually 4chan + freerepublic + Democratic Underground + wikipedia +
>Livejournal + fanfiction...
Hm. That might force me to revise my joke for bloggers about
``That 10-question quiz about `Which Impractical Plan By The Legion Of
Doom To Take Over The World Are You?' isn't going to take itself, you
know.''
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gene
@reader1.panix.com:
> CUSP is the book where people can gain superpowers from
> having superheated plasma forced into their head rather than just having
* their brains cooked like an egg.
Gamma rays are known to work, so why not superheated plasma?
Wayne Throop
: There must be some combination of star type, star-planet distance,
: orbit shape, planet size, inclination, speed of rotation, natural
: satellite(s), atmospheric density and thickness, surface gravity, sea/
: land ratio, sea/land distribution, sea depth, configuration and height
: of mountains, volcanism, greenhouse effect, biosphere, albedo, et
: cetera et cetera et cetera that results in a habitable planet with the
: same climate from pole to pole.
Why "must" there be? Is this the same sort of "must" that the
Prince Who Was A Thousand used to find a planet where the atmosphere
was completely surrounded by water, so that fish swam in the sky?
Or where the blind Norns forged the Star Wand? One of those
"in an infinite universe, there must be an instance of every physically
possible thing"?
'Cause short of that sort of "must", I disagree that it must be so.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw