Tabby's Star (Dyson Sphere, Alien SETI Eclipse?) Flickering Again

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by danshawen, May 30, 2017.

  1. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    I finished Ringworld
    I liked it.
    I think I liked Speaker-to-Animals best. I like the fact how his species relay so much on their instincts and how he Always holds himself back to analyse the bigger picture . I didn't like Louis. Louis whould have accepted the mission no matter what because he was bored giving him that new space ship makes him look more amiable. He really needed someone like Nessus bi polar (brave and cowardly) In fact I suspect him to be a sociopath. It would explain his interactions. Let's take this inept person (teela brown) with us yust because we have sex at the time. Find a more skilled sex partner in prill okay teela you might go live your life on this place that has tried to murder you several times in a month afther seeing what the lonelisness did to prill. Her friends is a smart savage that is seeking the end of the arc (it's a ring but from their point of view it could be a arc). Better not tell him even tough he seems sensibleand could do good. What's the point Louis doesn't care and it's a convenient method to get rid of teela afther finding a better savage sex partner (prill). Prill learning english in less then a month casually mentiones that it was here race that invented a medicine far superiour that louis anti aging drugs and some super powerful wire that lands on the planet. Not to mention has years of experience in manipulating and juryrigging the ring world material that can protect them against the big bad and knows where the equipment is that can make more. Hehehe Louis doest care she's a barbararic trained as a whore, who must have little skills. But she can tag along.
    I like Prill she's a little off at the start because of years of isolation but all she really wants is to return to civilisation. I suspect she's more or less trolling and using Louis to get the hell out of their back to civilisation and as a protection against Nessus. It basicly works tough. And she's the real gift of the story as she knows all the great inmortality drugs and she knows where the material is to make the ringworld material that can protect against the explosion coming from the center of the universe.
    Nessus is weird he is completly alian he knows what he does whith the tasp is wrong and he only uses it when he is in danger. Their might be be a logic on him using the tool against prill because at first it did save his life and I can following his logic using it again against her during sex so. So she would be conditioned to obey them for sexual pleasure in stead of the tasp with is like herooin shots. I see it's logic but I don't agree with it. You see that she's fully aware of what's happening and tries to seek protecting from the forced drugs. Altough afther making it clear. That they could talk it over it Mutual interest in stead of forcing he pleasure centers into obeying Louis does do the rare thing and actually helps Prill altough it could very well have been a excuse to lash out.
    Teela brown is the reader. She's a blank wall that's their to explain things to the reader. I don't really buy into the luck of teela brown. She ends up on a world that wan't to kill her with some guy she met a couple of months ago. That has a semi religious quest that she knows doesn't exist.

    From my point of view:
    what happens with Nessus? I suspect he will eventually be revived?
    Prill's probably doing okay she knows all the interesting places on the ringworld. Where they made the ringfloor material where their jury rigged mess was to walk trough it. The police station also was here house she proibably had a lot of the anti aging drug to sell and equipment to find the other engineers from the space ship. SHe could return to honor their vow. That if one of them found civilization they would return to reque the others.
    Speaker to animal probably get his ship and by that his name. He didn't die so it will end up good for him. His race will probably return to the ringworld to discover it's hidden secrets and speaker to animal anticipating humans will probably return as a envoy
    Louis probably returns home quicly grows tired of Prill. He does his thing expect a hero's return and then grow bored again 30 years later.
    Nessus god knows what his race wanted. They can't settle the ringworld and they won't try. The ringworld proves dangerous and doesn't really hold anything that the puppeteers value exept for the ringfloor material. Sill it's worth having and if not themself the will send a envoy to claim the technology. I suspect They all return except for Louis wu. Louis wu doesn't care
     
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  3. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    There are, IIRC, five books in this series. Answers to most of your questions are spoilers. The series is an E ride, have fun. And don't try to outsmart Mr. Niven. It rarely works.

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  5. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    The ringworld engineers? I can pick it up on wednesday actually.
    You do have to agree if the premise of the novel is to survive the glactic core explosion. The ringworld with it's ringfloor material is the answer. Of this prill is a character that knows where the (broken down) equipment to build this material is. And even if her part in jury rigging the equipment to manipulate the material in minimal she made a vow to save the other surviving engineers. That gives her valuable intel. She's the deus ex machina that is never used in the story. Then theirs the second tier wonders like the better anti aging drugs and the super strong thread. Unfortunatly Louis doesn't care. I can't imagen him being the main character in the next novel he simply doesn't care abouth the world or it's characters. He simply wonders if it can entertain him for a moment if he can eat it or fuck it. And it's a shame because it's a wonderful world. Still the ringworld itself is the actual main character and I do wonder abouth Prill and the other engineears and speaker to animals even the puppeteers are probably up to something (I love hown alien they are).
    Teela brown on the other hand looking for the boddem of the arc might also be interesting albight a sad story like waiting for godot where one of the 2 waiting has read the book and knows the ending, but then the ending never comes because of the anti aging drugs. So it goes on and on whilst they briefly remember the flash of the galactic core explosion happaning at one point and then continues going on and on
     
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  7. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    Have you seen the YouTube channel of Isaac arthur he makes some interesting comments on anything on the mega structure scale
     
  8. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Ask you're self if Prill is a Engineer.
     
  9. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Well said!

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    (Although he did kinda grow a conscience and saved the world.)
     
  10. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    Probably assuming the engineers are a single species.
    -In either case she was born on the ringworld
    -She worked for the ringworld the starship in most definitly of the ringworld
    -She fixed the police station restored it emergency power supply and made it fly again. meaning she knows how power generation works and has a far better understanding abouth it then the other -people running around. If not a enginear in race then certainly in profession.
    -Longlevity drugs that are better then those for humans.
    -She together with 40 of her (presumed) species jury rigged a device that made the ringworld material permeable. She specificly states that the the did not had the proper components. So she together with 40 managed to do the equivalent of fixing a broken cellphone with radio parts. This demands a certain knowledge of the basics on the ringfloor material, the broken machine and the surrounding avaible material
    -at one point she tells Louis that her people did make the thread material that makes the shadow blocks
    - She vowed that if any of them found help. They would came and save the others.
    In short she is not a female version of the hairy variant. Meaning their are multiple species but she and her people seem capable enough to have invented and build the ringworld. That said even if she wasn't a engineer she would definitly be high enough on the food chain to know who where, what there history was and how to obtain their technology and where to find it.
     
  11. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    arguably.
    Speaker to animals deliberatly saves his world by neglecting to tell his species on how the puppeteers medled with their species to make them more docile. Knowing it would result in a war with the puppeteers would kill them all.
    Speaker to animals moving for the best of his species decides not to steal the ship. Because he knows it would result in a war that this time the KZin would win. But he believes it would yust result in the kzin forgetting their hard learned lessons and spreading rapidly until they find a other stronger enemy that would stop them starting everything over.

    How exactly did louis save the world? He was bored and got offered tech if he went along. Anyway he saved the earth from thread that was 20 000 years away. A good deal sure and altruistic but I doubt he would have done it if he wasn't bored tough.
     
  12. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Much similar to what I was thinking. At one point, that is.

    I wish I'd never read it, so I could read it again for the first time.
     
  13. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Louis went because of an unusual thing going on in the first book. He goes to almost great enough length to not go a second time.
     
  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    2nd book.
    He saved the Ringworld when Teela Brown couldn't.
    5 for the sake of 95.
     
  15. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    Actually going to get the book on Friday night. Looking forward to it. I can't comment on things I haven't read yet. I did finish the first novel tough. I enjoyed it. It's good that he did a good thing maybe he has grown as a character I'll see. From the first novel I couldn't imagen him returning to the ringworld voluntairly. Still he's friends with the kzins ambasador that knows the location of the ringworld Prill who knows her way on the ringworld and teela brown who currently lives on the ringworld.
    Teela's supossed to be Lucky tough I wonder how that plays out
    5 for the sake of 95 that sounds as obscure as "the luck of teela brown".
    I hope to finish it in 10 days.
     
  16. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    You should get a laugh out of the intro to the 2nd one. Niven gets spanked at a SciFiCon.
     
  17. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    the ringworld itself probably?
    Afther watching a YouTube series of isaac arthur on Matrioshka brain I imagend something similar to the ringworld basicly humanity first develops a whole series of O neil cilinders these are all in orbit around the sun tether would be used to hold them in place. Later solar panel material would be used resulting in a black ribbon that would be puntured Thousand if not million of times each holding a cilinder with it's own biotope. Each cilinder would be smaller then a planet but could have a independent gravity and atmosphere. You could walk to the edge on one hand and asusming a circumference of 8km it would rotate at 0,47 meters/sec or 198 meter/sec (calc) versus nivens 1200000 meter/s for his ringworld. Worlds with a weaker gravity would be sloweroffcourse these cilinders use some sort of bearing that slows them down and produces heat. The cilinders would be speed up using the energy production in the ribbon. Add the heat of bearings would be together with the heat of the sun support a matrioshka brain. So not only would this ring have a larger surface area then the earth and perhaps even a galaxy wide empire. It would also have virtual landscapes that is far greater then that. Advantages would be that it's more compartialized any on hole could simply destroy one habitat and their will be millions. They all in orbit so there is that if the ringworld snaps it peaces will escape the solar system. If one of the cylinders snaps there are only a couple directions the debris can go that can impact each other perhaps making them magnetic and repulsing each other could eject the pieces safly into space.
    But I'm no engineer theirs probably something wrong with it That I do not know.
     
  18. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Students from MIT(?) etc. were marching in the halls of the hotel that was hosting the CON and chanting "The Ringworld is unstable" at the top of their tipsy lungs. Niven took note.

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  19. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    And I don't think the spanker was Fuzzy Pink!*

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    This whole gen of Sci-Fi writers are notoriously incestuous in their references. They make in-jokes about each and themselves in their stories all the time.

    Have you read Niven's The Flying Sorcerers? You'll get a kick out of it.

    *obscure Niven reference
     
  20. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Bought fresh from the news stand. In Bangkok. Remember the cover...
     
  21. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    Yust finished the ringworld engineers. I liked it. He has a weird way of writing I get the 5 for 95 now. But it does make you wonder Louis Wu is trying to save the ringworld and quit early on he notices a repair crew placing bussard ramjet engines on the rim. Why didn't he say hi? These are technological capable people understanding the problem and having massive amound of equipment. He couldn't have helped but he would have met teela.
    Also the 5 for 95 should be abouth area not abouth people. Why place the bussard ramjet engines in a average densily populated area instead of near the dessert of fist of god or one of the great oceans. Also the ... solar activity it is to get greater amound of hydrogen whilst hot needle of inquiry has 2 probes with deuterium filters and a stepping plate like transporter deuterium is a type of hydrogen. And Oceans have a greater mass density then solar wind. This would probably work even better. Then the existing plan. then again teela made a stepping stone. So if fuel was the problem?
    Also Chmeee can (assumable) procreate with his cousins with no problem whilst Louis wu can not, even tough he has a much greater variarity to choose from and has tried a absurd amount of times.

    The ringworld It looks like it was made by the pak but they protect their own. Niven states that a pak that looses his pak will either stop eating and die or look for a abstracter goal. It's safe to assume that thepak who build the ringworld all lost their pak. If they hadn't they would have protected their pak. But the pak knows that assuming they are the Pinnacle of evolution they are also a dead end instincts force them to attack any devient smell. The species can't evolve (the assumed reason why the pak eventually left the ringworld underscores this [virus]). Breeding seems to be a major theme with Niven. Teela was bred for luck Chmeee was bred to more nicer, their women where bred for lower intilligence. But teela's luck ran out, CHmeee probably ends ruling ringworlds earth and their women specificly bred to become different are basicly the only species that can still breed cross species.

    It looks like the ringworld was build by the pak specifically to incorperate creating other species. And like teela fighting on the 2 sides the pak might have left voluntarily. So that evolution could happen.

    That's what I take out of it

    Also Louis had considerably nicer intentions then the last novel
     
  22. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Buckle up, it's going to get bumpy now.
     
  23. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Correct me if I'm wrong, but he noticed they had been trying to and were long gone.

    Who says it wasn't?
    The world is likely fairly evenly distributed with peoples.

    Louis didn't have the choice or the means. As for the Engineers, well, who knows what their plan was.

    I think your plan may be off by quite a few orders of magnitude. They're trying to move something the size of the inner solar system, and the mass of Jupiter.

    Right So now go read Protector.

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    It is my second favorite book of all time.
     

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