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Another piece was a science-fiction story about exploring an undiscovered tropical region of Antarctica. It imagines the Nimrod’s party making their way into th
by walterbell 3y ago
Another piece was a science-fiction story about exploring an undiscovered tropical region of Antarctica. It imagines the Nimrod’s party making their way into the strange land of Bathybia, 22,000 feet below sea level. They used rafts made of giant, man-sized mushrooms to travel down rivers into a red jungle, encountering giant ticks, alcoholic algae, and huge carnivorous versions of microscopic Antarctic rotifers.
A few years earlier, the German science-fiction author Kurd Lasswitz published the novel "Two Planets", about a Martian colony at the North Pole. It would influence a young Werner von Braun, who would later guide the US space program, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39571588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39571588
More recently, J. Michael Straczynski, creator of "Babylon 5", participated in the writers room for the 2021 movie "Godzilla vs Kong",
> Apex CEO Walter Simmons recruits former Monarch scientist and Hollow Earth theorist Nathan Lind to guide a search for a power source into the Hollow Earth, the Titans' homeworld. Lind is hesitant as his brother died in an expedition to the Hollow Earth due to a strong reverse-gravitational effect. He agrees when Walter reveals that Apex has developed HEAVs, specialized craft able to withstand the gravity field. Lind convinces Andrews to let Kong guide them via an outpost in Antarctica. Lind, Andrews, and an Apex team led by Walter's daughter Maia board a barge escorted by the US Navy, carrying a sedated and restrained Kong.
- jerf 3y ago"specialized craft able to withstand the gravity field" I've been noticing an uptick in this in the past few years, where a "gravity field" is treated as just another scifi technobabble word that the authors don't understand at all. Which is weird, because gravity is a plain English word, not particularly hoity-toity or "fancy", so it is really becoming another touchstone to me of bad writing. "Oh no! We're experiencing high amounts of gravitometric interference!" You mean you're currently pinned to the floor because you now weigh thousands of pounds and you're struggling to draw breath, if not simply turned to jelly by all the forces? "No, I mean our screens are flickering on and off and there's some flashy sparks shooting out of the walls! We're totally fine, though. It's just our mission at stake!" My dear sir, are you sure you don't perhaps have electromagnetic interference there? Can I interest you in perhaps some technobabble word with no real world referent, like "high degree of subspace inelasticity" or "the ansible field is experiencing a random stellar burst" or "the baryons are inebriated again"? "Oh no! It's definitely a gravity field! Says so right here in the script." Well, then, scrape your fellow adventure's jellified remains off of the floor and carry on, I guess.
- vundercind 3y agoI just assume they've discovered some things we don't know yet. I mean, they usually have gravity-creating and gravity-neutralizing devices, so they must have learned some stuff about it that we don't know. Maybe we haven't even figured out how to "see" the sort of field they're talking about. How would it, perhaps, interact with equipment that may include gravity-manipulating components for all sorts of purposes? > electromagnetic interference "Electromagnetic? LOL. You mean you're being struck by lightning? Or some little bits of rock are doing kinda funny things? Because that's what electricity and magnetism are, and only those things, and they're separate."
- noman-land 3y agoMy friend, if you've studied the literature you'd know that gravimetric interference affects the structural integrity of the ship's hull by warping spacetime and thereby applying sheering forces that can only be sufficiently mitigated by activating external shielding. If you encounter a Class Y phenomenon without being fully prepared, it could definitely cause enough lateral sheering force to damage equipment and even cause coupling relays to come out of alignment and emit sparks.
- salad-tycoon 3y agoIf you haven’t read it, you may enjoy Red Shirts a book about the lives of extras from sci fi shows. https://www.amazon.com/Redshirts-John-Scalzi-audiobook/dp/B0088U1CCO/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=14KZ96AI1ITED&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-VjYMQZv6Iey5P5PiXN3AXcJ-qLWzP-OCOhsFOxpS3fB0mN1b9ruGzlwu2YgteIioxdFQylYfaUeVG--FI1M5nGbm7K4Tzu3lC2EvVEZbDFWh4REoKlTCn1LICQnYUGkZfh5zO6TUmPnSGZ_M0zdCEL7JlJM-j6eq5MyJF9WINU.O0Pg47inmecC7tb-Zi-66op1lSj9b6USCJE_Qp-DXAE&dib_tag=se&keywords=red+shirt+book+scalzi&qid=1710070029&sprefix=red+shirt+book%2Caps%2C219&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Redshirts-John-Scalzi-audiobook/dp/B0...
- noman-land 3y agoThe audio book is narrated by Wil Wheaton!
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- nyanpasu64 3y agoBut isn't there a net zero gravitational force within a spherical shell?
- saagarjha 3y agoCalculus? In my science fiction? Who would’ve thought.
- alexey-salmin 3y agoWell then a craft should be able to withstand it, they're not wrong.