6 Easy Ways to Make Exploration Deeper and More Rewarding

[Surly_Badger]

It really is a let down, and what brings it down isn't a lack of bands (whether brass or mariachi), its having to wander over to the offices of Universal Cartographics and spend hours turning it all in. Sure it was worse when it was a one system-per-click, but by the Maker I hope they do something to make this go faster!

Well, I was talking to a coder who's great grandpa used to work for UC back in the day; apparently the code for selling exploration data was written nearly 350 years ago and is running under a compatibility box on the mainframes!! I gather it was developed at a time when an expert serious hardcore explorer might explore 10 or 15 systems a year; it's just totally not designed for nowadays where - with our superior gear and cojones - we can explore thousands in a good couple weeks. It's one of those "if it's not borked, don't fix it!" deals.

I agree that it's past time for UC to update its systems!!! I'm sure they've got mumble mumble database compatibility mumble mumble code mumble issues but - seriously - COBOL, in 3301AD? Gah!

I have no opionon on the orifice of choice for probing those tiny little lifeforms, but having probes to shoot down to a planet or through the atmosphere would be a great addition.

Of course our ships would have to be very aggressively sterilized before we could return to anyplace. Imagine if someone brought home a space herpes or something (OK, that's a test. How many of you can tell me what that's from?)

I always figured the aliens weren't specifically trying to probe for anuses. They are probably going, "what's THAT!?" and "OK high amplitude vibrations are emitted from this end... what comes out this end? There's a hole. Hello? (inserts probe and looks into the hole) Is it storage space for something? Perhaps their young....?"

 

[iain666]

I always figured the aliens weren't specifically trying to probe for anuses. They are probably going, "what's THAT!?" and "OK high amplitude vibrations are emitted from this end... what comes out this end? There's a hole. Hello? (inserts probe and looks into the hole) Is it storage space for something? Perhaps their young....?"

I suppose they could be photosynthesising or absorb and excrete directly through a skin like organ, but I reckon most complex animals are likely to be, just like us, essentially a tube where you put stuff in one end, extract nutrients on the way through and drop the rest out the other end with all the bells and whistles like arms and brains just evolved enhancements to the getting-stuff-and-shoving-it-in-the-first-hole mechanism.

 

[TruffleSnout]

but - seriously - COBOL, in 3301AD? Gah!

Nah, all COBOL use was outlawed after the great y2.7k debacle. It was replaced predominantly by MicroIntel Visual Basic 68.

 

[Surly_Badger]

I suppose they could be photosynthesising or absorb and excrete directly through a skin like organ

Let's not limit ourselves based on Earth life. There could be critters that exude through a skin-like covering. Or perhaps, like corporations do nowadays, they divide off pieces of themselves with less desirable metabolites and let them fall off. Or imagine it as a defense mechanism against predators: your body secretes all your poop in a large sac-like organ on your back and when someone tries to bite you, you let them get a big mouthful of it... Or maybe a creature turns it into armor (a poop shell!) and periodically molts. Some organisms (explicity mentioned in the exploration data) live on radiation differential, like Thermococcus Gammatolerans. I don't believe Tardigrades poop; I think their metabolisms are so minimal that they literally don't have to give a ...

Speaking of Tardigrades: that's one reason I think planetary exploration opens some interesting cans of worms for ED. How would humanity handle people landing on planets then bringing back the equivalent of Tardigrades from another plant and tracking them all over stations when they land? (BTW: NASA screwed up containment on one of the rovers sent to Mars and may have exported some Earth life. Tardigrades would do just fine on Mars...)

Edit: infectious pathogenic life-forms would be another great way for FD to make exploration more dangerous. If you land on a planet that has life, and don't remember to decontaminate properly by flying through a gamma burster, when you try to land at a station they blow you to pieces and shove the wreckage of your ship toward a star to incinerate it. Remember: anything that can live on a human is a pathogen!!! Be the first explorer to bring back SKAUDE AA-A H277 eyebrow mites and infect all of humanity!!!

What would happen to humanity if someone brought back a life-form that liked to eat polyvinyl chloride? Larry Niven's Ringworld books explore this (Pak civilization being brought down when the Puppeteers release a bacterium that eats superconductor... nom, nom, nom...)

 

[Fen Harel]

I always figured the aliens weren't specifically trying to probe for anuses. They are probably going, "what's THAT!?" and "OK high amplitude vibrations are emitted from this end... what comes out this end? There's a hole. Hello? (inserts probe and looks into the hole) Is it storage space for something? Perhaps their young....?"

The reasons why aliens probe in this general direction has already been answered by Sir Patrick Stewart in an episode of the documentary series Robot Chicken.

 

[iain666]

Tardigrades do have an anus, so I'd guess there's some minimal excretion, although I suppose it could be vestigial. However slow your metabolism there's going to be left overs and by products. Thermococcus still need to absorb nutrients from the environment, they're not getting by solely on radiation differential, although may be using that to provide energy. Unless you're somehow condensing energy into matter as part of a metabolic process (which seems unlikely), or you're a being of pure energy (which may be possible), then growth and reproduction will entail some absorption of matter from your environment in some fashion.

So there's always going to be ingestion and excretion somehow, and any alien species able to travel interstellar distances and covertly observe earth will work out what the other hole is for. It's not like most animals hide it, 15 minutes watching a herd of cattle should make it apparent.

If a alien life evolved a pattern other than multicellularity for complex life then that might decrease the chances of excretory products being channelled internally to a central venting point.

 

[AsukaZ]

...
Larry Niven's Ringworld books explore this (Pak civilization being brought down when the Puppeteers release a bacterium that eats superconductor... nom, nom, nom...)

According to canon the Thargoids were defeated by a mycoid virus engineered by INRA that eats much of their biologically based technology.

This leads me to think if humanity ever did encounter a technically advanced xenophobic species it won't be pew-pew in space it would be 'What's this new deadly disease that's sprung up ?" or indeed "Where did this new microbe that eats plastic come from ?". We may not even know we have come under attack or even that our attackers even exist until much of our technology or population has been destroyed.

This concept of 'Honourable warfare' we've come up with may be viewed by alien invaders as quaint at best or foolish at worst, why waste resources on attack fleets and storm troopers when when a couple of cannisters dropped surreptitiously from orbit can do the job just as well ?

Just to be clear I'm not advocating the use of biological or chemical weapons in modern warfare, If we must have wars at least them be 'honourable' in that sense, even if I consider the term 'Honourable warfare' to be an oxymoron in itself. Just that a hostile alien species may not share our ideas of 'honour'.

 

[Varrag]

I agree with pretty much everything in OP.