Re:Moons of all the planets in our solar system
by fzort on Monday July 01, 2019 @08:53AM
(#20324750)
> If an entire Sci-fi continuity were limited to just Sol and Alpha Centauri, this by itself would constitute an inexhaustible number of potential settings.
"Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross is a good one (unfortunately he had to do away with humans to keep the space opera physically realistic).
Re:Moons of all the planets in our solar system
by stcredzero on Monday July 01, 2019 @12:47PM
(#20327199)
Mostly humans with radiation repair nanomachines and shielding could do just fine, I think. (Saying more would spoil Saturn's Children.) Humans commanding autonomous drones should figure more into Sci-fi. "Away teams" of drones in real life space fleets should be more prominent. Instead of a transporter shifting bodies, we could have the shifting of points of view through VR teleoperation. (Which is really what a transporter was for in the original Star Trek series: Changing locations with minimal production expense.)
If an entire Sci-fi continuity were limited to just Sol and Alpha Centauri, this by itself would constitute an inexhaustible number of potential settings. In addition to planets, moons, asteroids, dwarf planets, Oort cloud and Kuiper belt class objects, there could also be space stations numbering in the tens of millions. Such a setting could use known physics, yet be incredibly vast. The Expanse is going in this direction, but doesn't go that far, and doesn't stick to known physics. (Though it remains closer to it than almost all Sci-fi continuities out there.)