The Pinkness of the Unicorn, and Other Stories

The Invisible Pink Unicorn; Image via Wikipedia
Dear Readers,


   There's been quite a lot on my mind with regards to Science, experimentation, and philosophy of thought.  You can blame a couple of people I've run into around your time stream lately, who have gotten me into discussions of hypothesis testing and what makes knowledge "knowable."
   
   This post is mostly provoked by discussions of theism vs. atheism, but that question is one that I'm unwilling to settle for you.  Suffice it to say that in the time streams where there are gods or godlike beings who directly interfere with the affairs of the less powerful, I find this to be somewhat unprofessional behavior on their part.
  
   At any rate, the notion of a deity is fascinating from a Philosophy of Science perspective.  Science relies on the ability to formulate, and then test, certain hypotheses, which then allow the formulation of further hypotheses and more experiments.  By this method we have learned to push the boundaries of sentient knowledge of the universe.

Sexual Selection: Bells, Whistles, and Running Away

Image via WikipediaDear Readers,



I found this in some old notes from a past, time-normal me.  Thought you might enjoy it, if you're looking for something to read on a slow Sunday.  I was less reserved in my wording back then.

It concerns the difference between Sexual Selection (where evolution is driven by arbitrary things that males or females happen to find attractive) vs. Natural Selection (where the selected traits are determined by their ability to help you survive the environment around you).


A classic example of Sexual Selection would be birdsong.  Females are attracted to the songs of male birds, but to sing is actually quite risky for the male as it alerts predators to their location.  Your scientists think it to have evolved because it helps the males get noticed, which has a slight net benefit over how much it helps them get eaten.


Text below the cut.

   Always,

   Dr. John Skylar
   Chairman   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople

Warfare in Space, Part 3

Image via Wikipedia
Dear Readers,


   This is the third and final in my series on space warfare.  It has been an exciting ride, between conventional warfare in space and inertia-negated warfare, but it's time to bring it to a close with my third and final assumption, one that occurs in many of the time streams I study:


One or both of the belligerents have invented a means of traveling faster than the speed of light.

  I do not mean a vehicle that moves between points A and B while passing all the points in between, because that's going to be lead to all kinds of causality violations.  Rather, I am talking about devices that utilize either teleportation or wormholes to transfer a craft between one point in space and another in faster time than it would take for light to travel between those two points.  Ideally, the transfer would be instant.

   So, how does that affect warfare in space?

Warfare in Space, Part 2

Image via Wikipedia
Dear Readers,

  I have taken it upon myself to write a short series on warfare in space, given some attention that topic's gotten lately around the Internet.  The first in this series dealt with warfare using technology contemporaneous to you, and this second piece will operate under a different assumption.  The third, and final post in the series, will show up later in the week.

   Let's take the technology a little further into the imagination in this post.  Last time, we were bounded by the nasty problem of inertia.  Objects in motion prefer to stay that way, in the same direction, and that ruled out the kind of combat that is seen in movies like Star Wars.

   But what if you could eliminate inertia?  Would that mean we start to see X-wings that swoop down over vast battleships?  Today's assumption: A device has been invented that allows you to negate the inertia of a space vehicle.   You'd be surprised what that assumption does for the overall layout of the space battlefield.

Warfare in Space

Image via Wikipedia
Dear Readers,

   I think that in the future, the direction of this blog will be less oriented towards provision of primary sources, and more to the discussion of relevant topics in futurism, alternate realities (to yours), and alternate histories.

   That's not to say that I will stop sharing my research with you, but in this format I can share more possibilities with you at once, freed from the restrictions of a primary source.

   Therefore, today I want to discuss how warfare will change when the primary arena of combat changes to be outer space.  There are a variety of different options, which all depend on how the societies in question have advanced their technologies.

   The spacecraft that you are used to are incredibly simple.  They are unable to withstand the wide variety of attacks that your militaries have come up with, and certainly would not be able to stand up to more advanced weaponry.  Let's not dress it up: space warfare in your time stream is a neglected area of research.

   Really, I find that kind of refreshing.  Wars in space are nasty things, and it is good that so far your society has managed to keep space a peaceful zone of international collaboration and economic competition.  However, I do not believe that even your contemporaries expect that situation to continue forever, especially as more private interests enter the space arena.  This article should provide you with some idea of what space combat will and won't look like, given a few assumptions.

   Just so that we're all being realistic: space warfare is not going to look like STAR WARS.  The action depicted in STAR WARS, probably your most memorable imagining of space combat, is also woefully ignorant of what space is actually like.  No matter what assumptions are made, I can't find a time stream wherein space combat resembles World War II-era naval air combat.  In no small part because there isn't any air resistance in space, so the long, banking turns you see in such films are wholly unnecessary.
  
  There are, however, a few different frameworks for space combat.  Each has a prerequisite technology associated with it, so I'll go through one by one, in a series of posts.