The Dawn Star and Chihiro

Louis R wrote:A methane-breather, of course, would probably think we're insanely picky

Louis R wrote:1. Those sorts of numbers are actually typical of Himself's style of space opera [I may have had some influence on the public discussion of the 'siphon effect' of Honorverse impeller drives when I and others posted calculations showing that each of 8th Fleet's ships would have had to fuse its entire mass in hydrogen to make the approach to Barnett on internal power. Probably not, of course, since he knows what we're like and would have realised the ammunition he was handing us with that description], which is one reason authors bury them in the bushes: avoids the accusations of implausibility from people who figure that if we can do it, it can't be done. You have to remember that _both_ sides have those power levels to play with, though, so it comes out pretty even in the end.

2. Not planetary-formation theory per se: while the very first stars to form in a galaxy would not have had any planets, because there wasn't yet anything to make them from - and do indeed seem to have formed by slightly different mechanisms for the same reason, it's thought that later generations formed in essentially the same way that we see in operation today. And planets appear to fall out the bottom of the blender almost automatically. However, the oldest of them have very low metallicities as a rule, which means that there wouldn't have been very _much_ material to make planets from and the planets that did form would be [this is my speculation, BTW] tiny and/or ice balls, rather like very large comets. The stars of the galactic halo are precisely those old, low-Z stars, meaning that the ones still shining are small very-late K or M dwarves with planets that are either warm and _very_ dry or dimly-lit and cold. Neither condition is as exclusive of life as some have assumed, but any life is going to be built around biochemistries that aren't as dependent on atoms heavier than iron - or between neon and iron, for that matter - as ours is. We won't be looking to settle, or even hide, out there because from our point of view there are _no_ resources to exploit. A methane-breather, of course, would probably think we're insanely picky

isaac_newton wrote:
that sort of puts some perspective on the problem involved in detecting a stealth ship in such an orbit - these far out orbits might be much better than hiding in a near asteroid type path.

Kael Posavatz wrote:

isaac_newton wrote:
that sort of puts some perspective on the problem involved in detecting a stealth ship in such an orbit - these far out orbits might be much better than hiding in a near asteroid type path.

Except if the thing you are hiding is supposed to be a tech-booster, it is easier to build a vehicle capable of generating a zero/zero intercept with an object in a floating rockpile that is nearby compared to a rockpile that is way the hell and gone. And by the time your (space) refugees are looking for the tech-booster, you want to get it into their hands as quickly as possible so that they can start preparing themselves for the very existential threat out there.

Randomiser wrote:RFC has, absolutely definitively, said that, "The Hamilcar is gone."

evilauthor wrote:

Randomiser wrote:RFC has, absolutely definitively, said that, "The Hamilcar is gone."

Of course, "gone" at bottom just means "not present", not "can never come back".

Kael Posavatz wrote:The Hamilcar is gone. But we already know that at least one of the Pei's had gone off-script once (or a hundred-something times, depending on how you count). Has there been a definitive statement that there isn't a, um...third string on that bow somewhere?

isaac_newton wrote:

Louis R wrote:1. Those sorts of numbers are actually typical of Himself's style of space opera [I may have had some influence on the public discussion of the 'siphon effect' of Honorverse impeller drives when I and others posted calculations showing that each of 8th Fleet's ships would have had to fuse its entire mass in hydrogen to make the approach to Barnett on internal power. Probably not, of course, since he knows what we're like and would have realised the ammunition he was handing us with that description], which is one reason authors bury them in the bushes: avoids the accusations of implausibility from people who figure that if we can do it, it can't be done. You have to remember that _both_ sides have those power levels to play with, though, so it comes out pretty even in the end.

2. Not planetary-formation theory per se: while the very first stars to form in a galaxy would not have had any planets, because there wasn't yet anything to make them from - and do indeed seem to have formed by slightly different mechanisms for the same reason, it's thought that later generations formed in essentially the same way that we see in operation today. And planets appear to fall out the bottom of the blender almost automatically. However, the oldest of them have very low metallicities as a rule, which means that there wouldn't have been very _much_ material to make planets from and the planets that did form would be [this is my speculation, BTW] tiny and/or ice balls, rather like very large comets. The stars of the galactic halo are precisely those old, low-Z stars, meaning that the ones still shining are small very-late K or M dwarves with planets that are either warm and _very_ dry or dimly-lit and cold. Neither condition is as exclusive of life as some have assumed, but any life is going to be built around biochemistries that aren't as dependent on atoms heavier than iron - or between neon and iron, for that matter - as ours is. We won't be looking to settle, or even hide, out there because from our point of view there are _no_ resources to exploit. A methane-breather, of course, would probably think we're insanely picky

yet more cogent explanations - thanks

I guess that our planet hunters have not yet 'reached out' as far as the halo in their searches - I'm assuming that they are working from the nearest stars out...

On the energy levels - I guess it was more a gut feeling that the descriptions in OAR especially of the early days just didn't seem to tie up with the energy levels for planet moving - sort of like comparing the start of the Lensman series with the stuff at the end - if Himself will pardon the comparison!!