03-20-2020, 10:02 PM
Hi There - Welcome to OA!
Future developments described in OA come from a variety of sources, such as:
a) Articles, papers, and essays written by various people, many of them scientists and engineers, some not - produced over the last 50+ years or so and including new articles or other resources published recently. These are published in various places and different members of the OA project have been aware of them and decided to create articles about them for OA.
b) Ideas presented by members of the OA project - some of whom are scientists and engineers, some of whom are not. Some of these are entirely original, some are based on ideas the member may have seen elsewhere, some are based on ideas they first saw in OA and combined with other ideas. When non-scientists/engineer members present ideas the members with a more scientific/engineering background (or greater general knowledge of the concepts involved) will usually help with the necessary math or making sure the concept will work based on physics as we know it.
Megastructures are built using self-replicating machines that mine materials from the local star system (and sometimes the local star), convert those materials into the required structural elements and create the megastructure. Because of the base technologies used in the setting, most structures are created in a process that looks more like 'growing' the structure than connecting chunks and components together the way we build things now in real like (RL).
As the Astronomer says, OA assumes that physics as we currently understand it in the real world pretty much continues as is. This is one of the fundamental rules of the OA setting and the OA project. As we currently understand physics in the real world it is impossible for anything to go faster than light as a matter of physical law. So therefore it is impossible to surpass the speed of light.
I will defer to The Astronomer on this one since this is an area of interest and expertise for him and because I have not been closely following the recent ongoing changes to this part of the project that he mentions.
This does reflect an important element of OA however - that we run on volunteer labor and most work on the project is done by those who have an interest in a particular part of it. While we do have a leadership structure of sorts, it doesn't generally dictate what gets worked on nor do we operate like a business where employees are assigned to update or expand different parts of the EG on a scheduled basis or the like. People work on whatever they feel like working on mostly.
When OA started in 2000 there were very few real planets and systems known to exist. As such most of the planets and systems in the setting were imagined by the members of the time and since then. More recently the number of extrasolar planets and systems discovered in the real world has exploded, expanding far faster than we could ever hope to keep up.
In addition, OA does not seek to provide a detailed description of every star system within the area of space that we say civilization has expanded to as that would simply be impossible, even if we had 10x the resources and members we currently have. Similarly, we simply do not have the resources or the interest among our members to create new entries on the website for every new star system (currently over 4000) discovered in real life. There is also the issue that if we simply listed them and did nothing else, we would quickly end up with a rather boring list with little description about what each system is like in the future that OA imagines.
As real planetary systems have been discovered, we have updated relevant articles about those systems if they were already included in the EG. Sometimes one or more members will be inspired by the announced discovery of a real planetary system to create a new article about it in the EG. But the amount of time spent on this is up to the individual members.
Hope this helps and once again - Welcome to OA!
Todd
(03-20-2020, 08:31 PM)QuantumJack1 Wrote: 1, How are the future development of science and technology be figured out in the OA universe? I wonder how the megastructures are built and why the light speed is still impossible to surpass.
Future developments described in OA come from a variety of sources, such as:
a) Articles, papers, and essays written by various people, many of them scientists and engineers, some not - produced over the last 50+ years or so and including new articles or other resources published recently. These are published in various places and different members of the OA project have been aware of them and decided to create articles about them for OA.
b) Ideas presented by members of the OA project - some of whom are scientists and engineers, some of whom are not. Some of these are entirely original, some are based on ideas the member may have seen elsewhere, some are based on ideas they first saw in OA and combined with other ideas. When non-scientists/engineer members present ideas the members with a more scientific/engineering background (or greater general knowledge of the concepts involved) will usually help with the necessary math or making sure the concept will work based on physics as we know it.
Megastructures are built using self-replicating machines that mine materials from the local star system (and sometimes the local star), convert those materials into the required structural elements and create the megastructure. Because of the base technologies used in the setting, most structures are created in a process that looks more like 'growing' the structure than connecting chunks and components together the way we build things now in real like (RL).
As the Astronomer says, OA assumes that physics as we currently understand it in the real world pretty much continues as is. This is one of the fundamental rules of the OA setting and the OA project. As we currently understand physics in the real world it is impossible for anything to go faster than light as a matter of physical law. So therefore it is impossible to surpass the speed of light.
(03-20-2020, 08:31 PM)QuantumJack1 Wrote: 2, How the NoLWoCS is designed to classify the planets? To what degree is this classification scientific? I think the classification should be most scientific as possible and have some real examples for every class.
I will defer to The Astronomer on this one since this is an area of interest and expertise for him and because I have not been closely following the recent ongoing changes to this part of the project that he mentions.
This does reflect an important element of OA however - that we run on volunteer labor and most work on the project is done by those who have an interest in a particular part of it. While we do have a leadership structure of sorts, it doesn't generally dictate what gets worked on nor do we operate like a business where employees are assigned to update or expand different parts of the EG on a scheduled basis or the like. People work on whatever they feel like working on mostly.
(03-20-2020, 08:31 PM)QuantumJack1 Wrote: 3, Why there are few real planets and systems? Adding more features to confirmed planetary systems could be better.
When OA started in 2000 there were very few real planets and systems known to exist. As such most of the planets and systems in the setting were imagined by the members of the time and since then. More recently the number of extrasolar planets and systems discovered in the real world has exploded, expanding far faster than we could ever hope to keep up.
In addition, OA does not seek to provide a detailed description of every star system within the area of space that we say civilization has expanded to as that would simply be impossible, even if we had 10x the resources and members we currently have. Similarly, we simply do not have the resources or the interest among our members to create new entries on the website for every new star system (currently over 4000) discovered in real life. There is also the issue that if we simply listed them and did nothing else, we would quickly end up with a rather boring list with little description about what each system is like in the future that OA imagines.
As real planetary systems have been discovered, we have updated relevant articles about those systems if they were already included in the EG. Sometimes one or more members will be inspired by the announced discovery of a real planetary system to create a new article about it in the EG. But the amount of time spent on this is up to the individual members.
Hope this helps and once again - Welcome to OA!
Todd