Spoilers! Loose threads

Joat42 wrote:Are you proposing that they build...lead balloons?

The Mythbusters proved that you can fly lead balloons...

And they did that without countergrav.

We don't know that any of the OG's machines soak up radiation. We do know that nanites soak up radiation. So, if they still exist as nanites, any radiation "black holes" are likely populations of OGs. Assuming that humanity is following the OG technological development pathway, they likely adopted the energy syphon from phase space that humanity just managed.

If they do soak up energy, I doubt they would soak up enough to be obvious. They would soak up enough to be indistinguishable from the ambient levels of radiation.

PeterZ wrote:If they do soak up energy, I doubt they would soak up enough to be obvious. They would soak up enough to be indistinguishable from the ambient levels of radiation.

There's only so much ambient energy that can be used, even under noon sunlight. Just absorbing from the environment might be enough to sustain a nanite cloud keeping the form of a person, but I doubt it's enough for machinery that does useful things.

The lab likely consumes a lot more energy (if active) but it's also probably shielded. They probably have better power sources too and you don't have to get fancy with phase space: a simple geothermal sink could suffice. And like the Dvorak farm, they probably spread the thermal output over such a large area that it's indistinguishable from background emissions.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Human rate of development: we know it's the highest ever recorded, but why is it? Is it a natural occurrence? Or were we tinkered with? If so, by whom? And if not, the Law of Averages says there will be others who could approach or surpass our record, so are we going to meet them?

Do we actually know that? Humanity has a very fast rate of development compared to a whole bunch of herbivores, but do we know much about the carnivores? They normally develop technologies that can destroy them and do so--it's unlikely the Hegemony observed them often enough to see what the rate of advancement is.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We have evolved from hunter-gatherers to farmers and herders. And unlike Vlad, this fifth race would have evolved into nanites gradually. They'd have benefited from the precursor technologies too.

Disagree--you don't "evolve" into nanites. If the fifth race became nanites it is because of a deliberate ascension, not evolution. Thus it could have been basically instant. They developed nanite tech and then decided as a race to move to nanite forms.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Do we actually know that? Humanity has a very fast rate of development compared to a whole bunch of herbivores, but do we know much about the carnivores? They normally develop technologies that can destroy them and do so--it's unlikely the Hegemony observed them often enough to see what the rate of advancement is.

I don't remember the exact text, but I got the impression that we are the fastest, even including carnivores that blew themselves up, after studying the records in the database.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We have evolved from hunter-gatherers to farmers and herders. And unlike Vlad, this fifth race would have evolved into nanites gradually. They'd have benefited from the precursor technologies too.

Disagree--you don't "evolve" into nanites. If the fifth race became nanites it is because of a deliberate ascension, not evolution. Thus it could have been basically instant. They developed nanite tech and then decided as a race to move to nanite forms.

Oh, sure. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was a natural occurrence!

What I meant was that the transition is gradual. You begin by having nanobots in your bloodstream to help fighting viruses and infections, then repair damage. From there, you can go to boosting mental and physical strength, regrowing limbs. After the point where you can use them to change shape at will, you realise that you're basically the sum of nanites anyway.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:Do we actually know that? Humanity has a very fast rate of development compared to a whole bunch of herbivores, but do we know much about the carnivores? They normally develop technologies that can destroy them and do so--it's unlikely the Hegemony observed them often enough to see what the rate of advancement is.

I don't remember the exact text, but I got the impression that we are the fastest, even including carnivores that blew themselves up, after studying the records in the database.

Wasn't an impression, it stated it flatly in the first book. Humanity wasn't just a little faster, we were way out ahead of what anyone had ever done.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:Do we actually know that? Humanity has a very fast rate of development compared to a whole bunch of herbivores, but do we know much about the carnivores? They normally develop technologies that can destroy them and do so--it's unlikely the Hegemony observed them often enough to see what the rate of advancement is.

I don't remember the exact text, but I got the impression that we are the fastest, even including carnivores that blew themselves up, after studying the records in the database.

Isilith wrote:Wasn't an impression, it stated it flatly in the first book. Humanity wasn't just a little faster, we were way out ahead of what anyone had ever done.

Based on the information that was available to the Shongairi that's true, but we have no way of knowing what else has been redacted from the GH encyclopedia like the 5th race was.

Joat42 wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Wasn't an impression, it stated it flatly in the first book. Humanity wasn't just a little faster, we were way out ahead of what anyone had ever done.

Based on the information that was available to the Shongairi that's true, but we have no way of knowing what else has been redacted from the GH encyclopedia like the 5th race was.

I'm also questioning how much the Shongairi knew--the surveys are obviously very infrequent, how much will they know about the evolution rate of a race that destroys itself.