Article Ideas

A list of articles to be written for Galactic Library.

Life

(Article) Fermi Paradox

List proposed solutions
Apes vs. angels
Discuss Drake Equation, and ranges of its values

(Article) First-Contact

Discuss possible scenarios: signals, probes, generation ship, FTL ship, wormhole, weapon strike, ...
Discuss possible intentions:
trade (crosslink): culture, history, tech, tourism
attack: first-strike (crosslink dark forest), extermination
exploitation: colonization, mining rights, resources
neutral vs. friendly vs. hostile, and which might be likely for which scenarios
(the gray areas in-between; e.g. resources can be traded, colonies can be exchanged, first-strikes can be misunderstandings)
Note: split?

Society / Culture / Economics

(Article) Alien Societies Discuss the types of societies that can form, including those opened via non-human intelligence (e.g. hive minds, telepathy, nomadic belters, etc. Discuss the way biology shapes, but does not dictate, society. Sociology-for-SF-Writers (much of current Intelligent Aliens article goes here) Discuss development of societies. Discuss the impact of technologies. Tool Use, Socialization & Communications Margaret Meade's "The first sign of civilization is a healed broken leg" quote (Article) Three-Generation Rule (Article) Interstellar Governments What Does An Interstellar Government Do? Unified Foreign Policy Protection of Trade Military Monopoly Impartial Court System Guarantee of Sophont Rights Governments Have Interests, But Not Friends Interstellar Empires Justification: Communication Speed vs. Delegated Local Decision-Making (Traditional SF argument) Failure Mode: Corruption, Hereditary Political Power Has Problems. Failure Mode: Uncaring Imperial Bureaucracy. Rising Empire vs Declining Empire vs The Long Night Literary Benefit: Makes it much easier to lump authority in with a small group of protagonists! Interstellar Representative Governments Justification: People who make it to Interstellar Space are going to be 'reasonable' about respecting differences. Failure Mode: Constantly running for elections results in schisms. Failure Mode: Vulnerable to extremists. Failure Mode: Uncaring Federation Bureaucracy Rising New Government vs Mature Government vs Agglomerating Multiple Governments Into A Single State Literary Benefit: Makes it (somewhat) easier to say one side comes from a morally superior society (Article) Piracy Piracy is a Cost/Benefit Analysis for Both Sides Requirements: Confined trade route with valuable goods Requirements: Place to Sell Your Stuff Success Is Self Limiting: If you get good at this, you invite competition. If you're *very* successful, the Navy shows up. Literary Benefit: Charlie Stross's Take on Pirates Literary Benefit: Pirates are a stand-in for Honorable Barbarians/Honorable Individualists/Plucky Resistance Fighters (Article) Kardashev Scale (Category) Intelligence, Transhumanism, and Posthumanism (Article) The nature of intelligence (Article) Pattern Identity Theory (Article) Consciousness and Philosophy of Mind sentience vs. sapience biological definition of life "sophont" (Article) Uploading (Article) Biological / Computer Interface (Article) Machine Intelligence and AI computronium (Article) Vingian Technological Singularity (Article) Biological requirements for intelligence General Intelligence, how you get it and what it's good for (Category) (Exo-)Biology (Article) Exotic biochemistry Amino Acid Chirality, the 3:1 Right to Left handed ratio in Molecular Gas Clouds Left-handed DNA, other information-carrying molecules Arsenic, Silicon, etc. -based life Non-water life [@KuroKitten is working on this] (Article) Alien Bodies Body plans (symmetric, radial, distributed) Biomechanics Abilities (healing, flying, walking, etc.) Intelligence (crosslink) psychology (Article) Natural Selection (or better, link to Wikipedia) (or just incorporate into Evolution & Ecology) (Article) Evolution and Ecology crosslink life inception the one crazy trick that let life go multicellular crosslink to natural selection (or make Natural Selection go here) Explain in particular how biospheres "shape" what the creatures look like over time Natural selection leaves a lot of undocumented patch notes / why human birth canals and sinuses are kludgy hacks, other human biology kludgy hacks. What kludgy hacks do your alien species have? (List possible ones to spark thought/discussion) (Article) Life Inception abiogenesis Panspermia and other dubious but common concepts how to get an infestation of life (Category) Habitability (Article) Terraforming Note: BizzaroLand has requested to be allocated this topic crosslink shell world (Article) Locations Kracc is working on this universe (constants, etc.), planets, moons, artificial habitats crosslinks to astronomy and worldbuilding Astronomy and Cosmology (Category) Planets and Moons (Article) Our Solar System orbital elements of *everything* in one easy-to-copy-table crosslink orbital mechanics / orbital elements (Article) Planets and Dwarf / Minor Planets formation taxonomy crosslink to SF examples (Article) Moons and Asteroids (Article) Comets (Article) Habitability Habitable zone Tidal locking The Debatable Importance of Plate Tectonics Habitable Worlds Are Only Habitable For Limited Periods of (Geological) Time (Article) Stars stellar evolution white dwarf / Chandrasekhar limit, black dwarf HR Diagram, sizes, colors Metallicity, population I, II, III binary (P type, S type) crosslink to blackbody spectrum crosslink to Stefan–Boltzmann Law (Article) Galaxies Galaxies are Inconveniently Large (so are spiral arms!) types of galaxies, the types of their stars, and the implications for civilizations crosslink to black holes / quasars (Article) Black Holes (Astronomy) quasars, accretion disks, x-ray emitters crosslink: physics / black hole physics (Article) Interplanetary / Interstellar Medium (ISM) ions, atoms, molecules dust local bubble (Article) Other Objects neutron stars / Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, brown dwarf, pulsars, nebulae crosslink to black holes (Article) Dark Matter and Dark energy (Article) Elemental Abundance and Nucleosynthesis Where Do Radioactive Elements Come From Physics and Engineering (Article) Blackbody Spectrum (Article) Stefan–Boltzmann Law explanation, implications, and calculator (Article) Diffraction written by lwcamp crosslink lasers (Article) Crash Course in Special Relativity analogy of apparent size being a function of distance (Article) Crash Course in Quantum Mechanics Demystifying the bankrupt term "wave-particle duality" Schrödinger's cat zero-point energy (Article) Gravity The Gravity/General Relativity/Quantum Mechanics "known unknowns" -- the lack of a unified theory of both. (Goes somewhere else?) (Article) Thermodynamics entropy (Article) Black Holes (Physics) types of spacetime solutions (rotation, charge) calculator of properties crosslink: black holes in astronomy (Article) Nanotechnology crosslink trans-/post-humanism (Category) Speculative, Handwavium, and Fictional (Category Article) Metric Engineering gravity engineering: direct or gravitoelectromagnetic artificial black holes, kugelblitz crosslink wormholes crosslink antigravity (Article) Wormholes Types of wormhole Causality attacks Note: split? (Article) Warp Drives crosslink metric engineering (Article) Minkowski Cones, Causality Violations & How To Work Around Them (Article) Computation On Closed Timelike Curves (Minsky paper) (Article) Teleportation (Article) Stable Superheavy Elements (Article) Magnetic Monopoles Magmatter (Article) Antigravity (Article) Psionics (Article) Cognitohazards (Article) Winterblaster (Category) Rocketry and Aerospace Physics (Article) Delta-v (Δv) (Article) Specific Impulse (Article) Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation optimal solutions for energy budget tyranny of (Article) Supersonic / Hypersonic Aerodynamics (Article) How A (Thermal) Rocket Engine Works action / reaction convergent / divergent nozzle accelerates choked flow (Article) Staging SSTOs and spaceplanes calculator for mission profile delta-v optimization (Article) Launching Verne gun crosslink various trans-orbital structures (Category) Orbital Mechanics [crosslink to navigation / astrogation] (Article) Literary Taxonomy Sails, low thrust, high thrust, planetary takeoff -- general overview meant for SF writers. Links to stuff below. (Article) Orbits and Keplerian Orbital Elements Kepler's equation (Article) N-body Problem (Article) Lagrange Points (Article) Maneuvering patched conics change-of-plane maneuver continuous thrust maneuvers vs. impulsive maneuvers constant-thrust vs. constant-acceleration crosslink various orbital maneuvers (Article) Hohmann Transfer (Article) Spiral Trajectories (Article) Bielliptic Transfer (Article) Brachistochrone Maneuver (Article) Orbital Rendezvous orbit phasing Clohessy–Wiltshire equations docking (Article) Special Orbits horseshoe, geostationary, geosynchronous, LEO, GEO, Molniya orbit, etc. black hole orbits, ISCO, photon sphere, etc. escape velocity, hyperbolic, parabolic orbits (Article) Gravity Assists and Oberth Effect (Article) Advanced Topics Perturbations, relativistic corrections, precession dynamic instability and low-energy transfers crosslink orbital rings and dyson spheres crosslink special orbits (Category) Nuclear Physics

(Article) Radiation Basics of radiation physics Radiation safety/shielding Radiation detection (Article) Fission Basics of fission physics Fission fuels Basic reactor design (Article) Fusion Basics of fusion/plasma physics Fusion fuels Basic reactor design (Article) Antimatter Basics of antimatter physics Reactor vs bomb Secondary reactions with antimatter (Article) Reactors and Power Types of fission reactors and trade space Types of fusion reactors and trade space Potential types of antimatter reactors Mixed reactor technologies (i.e. ADSR, fission/fusion hybrid, etc)

Conflict (Article) Military Science basics—enlisted vs. officers, organization, specialization, mission, sociology, etc. (Article) Logistics (Article) Infantry Tactics (Article) Armor Winged_One is interested in writing this sloped, layered (Article) Sidearms (Article) Operating Environments Shape Vehicles (overview, links to more detailed articles) Winged_One is interested in working on this Power Plant Requirements & Logistical Complexity (Why we have nuclear submarines, but not nuclear destroyers or tanks) tanks, submarines, airplanes Note: should probably split (Article) Stealth in Space Limitations of the naval model and cut-and-dry proclamations Contrast detection, localization, identification Detection of waste heat crosslink to Hydrogen Steamer (worked concept) crosslink to Stefan–Boltzmann Law (Article) Information Warfare FTL - uncharted systems or civilized ones that share data? If you are on your own in an empty system, you need to act very differently than a charted, populated one What data is shared with you if any is, for that matter? Navigational? General purpose? Where’s the military? They might be hiding! cryptography crosslink to stealth (Article) Space Warships (Article) Space Fighters (Article) Missiles guidance payloads - crosslink to nukes, possibly kinetics crosslink to rocketry economics of (how expendable is the drive? implications of? how much should a missile cost as a fraction of its target? -etc) types surface-to-orbit ship-to-ship (Article) Nukes casaba howitzer, SNAKs Types of nukes Damage mechanisms of nukes (Category) Kinetics (Article?) (General Ballistics?) homing vs dumb kinetics (crosslink to missiles/guidance) damage mechanisms (Article) Railguns (Article) Coilguns (Article) Traditional (Explosive-Powered) (Article) Macron Accelerators (Dustguns) (Category) Lasers [crosslinks to diffraction] (Article) General Laser Stuff Damage mechanisms Sensor frying Thermal shock Crosslink to sloping (Article) Traditional Excited-Medium Laser (Article) Excimer Lasers (Article) Fiber Lasers (Article) Diode Laser (Article) Free-Electron Lasers (Article) Bomb-Pumped Lasers (Article) Chemical Lasers (Category) Particle Beams (Article) Ultra-Relativistic Electron Beam (UREB) [also should discuss neutrons, protons, other subatomic, ions, etc.]

(Article) Neutralized Ion Beam (Article) Point Defense (Article) Shields (UNCATEGORIZED) Infrastructure attack on wormholes, Visser collapse Spacecraft and Infrastructure (Article) Spacecraft Types Megastructures Science / exploration ships Warships Civilian ships Colonization Landers / Shuttles Tugs / Maintenance Drones (Category) Megastructures (Article) Alderson Disk (Article) Dyson Swarms, Bubbles, and Spheres Bubble (statites), Swarms (satellites), Spheres (closed shell) dynamic stability Also Matrioshka brain (concentric Dyson spheres used for machine intelligence) (Article) Stellar Engine moving stars (Shkadov Thruster), extracting energy, starlifting, etc. (Article) Orbital Ring Ring around a planet, often with all matter in orbit dynamically unstable (Article) Bishop Rings (also "Halo", "Orbital"—a ring habitat larger than a space station, but not as large as a whole orbit) crosslink to rings, ringworlds (Category Article) Ringworlds Bishop Rings Banks Orbitals Bearingworlds (Article) Niven Ring: dynamic instability crosslink to Bishop rings, ring habitats (Article) Topopolis (Category) Habitats (Article) Freefall Stations basic space stations, like the ISS, where stuff is in freefall (Article) Ring Stations Stanford Torus (particular design) crosslink to Bishop Rings, Ringworlds for larger scale (Article) O'Neill and McKendree Cylinder Stations O'Neill and McKendree were particular designs crosslink to Niven Ring / Topopolis citation: Rendezvous With Rama (Article) Hollowed-Out Asteroids Why the trope of hollowing out and spinning up an asteroid for a quick-and-dirty-just-add-water habitat probably wouldn’t work IRL (but remember, we're trying to let authors have their way, just as realistically as possible) crosslink terraforming / shellworld (Article) Bernal Spheres and Shell Worlds Gravity Balloons (hollowed or constructed body as shellworld) Shell World (putting a bubble around an airless rock and filling with atmosphere) crosslink hollowed-out asteroids (UNCATEGORIZED) Planetary Carousels Rotating tapered conical habitats anchored to the surface of low-gravity worlds to provide artificially higher gravity. (Category) Trans-Orbital Structures (Article) Skyhooks and Rotovators smaller-scale demonstrations in atmosphere momentum-exchange tether challenges (Article) Space Elevator (Article) Space Fountain

(Tshhmon) is working on this

(Article) Launch Loop (Lofstrom Loop)

(Tshhmon) is working on this

(Category) Spacecraft Design (Article) Sensors Types: Radar / LIDAR / microwave IR Visual XRay, Gamma Neutron Gravitic Exotic / handwavium (tachyon, psychic, etc.) What ship types need which sensors? What do you look for, and why? Other ships navigating with nuclear drives - neutrons, gammas Rocks that would ruin your day - radar Other ships coasting along - radar, IR Your destination - radar Stars used for navigation - vis, IR Enforced safety distances so you don’t repeat the Kzinti lesson (or eat EBs and nuclear warheads) What can you rely on others to provide for you? E.g. a civilian ship doesn't need neutron detectors, and can rely on orbital control to plot safe FTL jump points. Tech level crosslink to stealth Note: can split (Article) Food, Water, and Other Vitals hydroponics, etc., crosslink to farming recycling element balance cold sleep/low passage market forces may make passenger transport an entirely different class of ship from cargo transport (trains, airplanes, semi-trucks) (Article) Life Support Breathing mix types (normal air, low pressure O2, liquid breathing etc) and atmosphere recycling. food and water, crosslink to para-terraforming (Category) Propulsion [Insert rocketguy's taxonomy here too] (Article) Photon Rocket Highscore is working on this. (Article) GCNTR zerraspace is working on this needs gas reactor coverage and sweeping? (Article) Solar Sail Lucas is working on this (Article) Hydrolox article is live (Article) Ion engine article is live (Category) Faster Than Light (FTL) Travel (Article) Warp Drive crosslink Warp Drive (Article) Jump Drive Tunnel drive crosslink teleportation (Article) Stargates and Wormholes crosslink to wormholes (Article) Torchships (Article) Radiators and Heat Sinks: Heat Management (Article) Power Generation solar, nuclear, rtg SMES crossref nuclear physics maybe split this (Article) Gravity thrust gravity, spin gravity, handwavium (Article) Miscellaneous Systems Control, Engineering, Astrogation, Sensor, Communication, Sickbay, Emergency, etc. crosslink to misc. military systems (Article) Whipple Shields (Article) Reaction Control System (RCS) Should mention why they outcompeted flywheels/gyros/reaction wheels, which show up in old SF Use case for high ISP drives in the real world that classic SF didn't anticipate! (Article) Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design Living and Working in Space crosslink to Three Generation Rule (Article) Odd Things About Living In Zero G (eyesight, spine straightening, muscle degradation, astronauts lose fingernails, going to the bathroom, exertion to stand still) (Article) Cities and Colonies Arcologies (Article) Spaceports crosslink launch (Article) Spacesuits and EVA (Article) Producing Food Packed rations hydroponics, aeroponics, aquaponics, etc. matter fabricators (Article) Timekeeping imallett is working on this one crosslink to wormhole topics (Article) Mining and In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Interplanetary / Interstellar Travel (Article) Generation Ships (Article) Lighthuggers (Article) Starwisps (Article) Navigation / Astrogation delta-v maps / calculators Worldbuilding and Writing (Article) Universebuilding (Article) The Physical World TL;DR for realistic stars and planets (lots of crosslinks to astronomy) planetary modeling, climate, biomes Note: should probably split (Article) MacGuffinite (Article) Writing a Compelling Plot (Article) Writing Compelling Characters (Article) Writing Techniques show; don't tell, treknobabble foreshadowing, chekhov's gun, red herring see also Wikipedia "list of narrative techniques" revision, copy-editing, editing, proofreading TV tropes: embrace for ideas or subvert for interest (Article) Overcoming Writer's Block sit down and write already asimov: every day, revise and publish something you drafted last year tools: deletes text if you leave idle too long (Article) Future History trends/extrapolation, modeling (Category) Lazy and Bad Tropes (Article) Reactionless Drives Em-drive (Article) Naval Metaphor (Article) Implications of Time Travel (Article) Intelligent Aliens (Biology & Sociology Intersect To Make Interesting Blind Spots) Note: Article exists (Article) Thinking Through Implications in Worldbuilding Examples, Resources, and Commentary (Article) Oddball Planets In Old SF (Article) The Golden Age of Sci-Fi (Article) History of Rocketry (Article) Worked Example: Hard-SF Torchship (Article) Hard Science-Fiction on the Internet Social: ToughSF Discord, Atomic Rockets Blogs: ToughSF Games: KSP, CoaDE, ΔV: Rings of Saturn, Tabletop Games: Attack Vector: Tactical, Squadron Strike, assorted RPGs TV: Planetes, The Expanse Film: Gravity, The Martian (Category) Authors [articles for the typical suspects, redirect pages to anyone who's also a user here] (Link) Nanofiction Subsite -> fiction.galacticlibrary.net

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