Well of Souls Forums

The device is mesmerised by the Umiak, and eager to obey any possible wishes. Sounds much like Golim ... Possibly the Historians know more about the relationship of strong telepaths and being strongly influenced by nearby telepaths. Possibly I am trying too hard to see something.... And I should sto...

The Historians are interested in an equalised play. They gave weapons to the Loroi, and telepathic technology to the Umiak... (The Historians are already explicitly mentioned in this part.) But something is mentioned: a "base creature"... Did the Umiak capture a Loroi-baby, raised and "brain washed"...

So, we need to make transport much more expensive, so that goods are produced where they are consumed, unless the costs of the product makes the cost of transport a viable option. Today, the cost of transport is close to negligible, the time delay transport includes is more a limiting factor than th...

Why do you use stone for weight? Why do people try to use kilograms for weight despite the appropriate unit being newtons? If you buy a kg of helium, you're going to ask the seller why it's so light. huh? kg is a unit of mass (not weight). N (Newton) is a unit of force applied. Oh, you meant kg-for...

Yes, but the German pound has changed its meaning to mean half a kilogram [1], and the "Zentner" is even worse, as the Germans mostly understand 100 pound (100x500g = 50kg), whereas in Switzerland and Austria the "Zentner" is the (metric)"Zentner" (100x1kg = 100kg), so to differentiate, the Germans ...

In some parts of Chine, the average income has increased to levels which make the investment into robots more than feasible (if they earn half of our wages, a robot is cheaper). The businesses start moving within China to regions with a lower average income, but missing infrastructure is an issue th...

Yeah, the conclusion we drew from a previous passage. Telepaths are good for in-combat intelligence gathering. And intelligence gathering works faster if there are no limits on what you're allowed to do. :( The best solution is still now knowing the answer they seek, but they might still torture you...

The USA has switched at least unofficially. Actually, I believe that the switch was official (back in the 50s, 60s, something like that). The unofficial switch was the one that didn't happen. Metrication (or metrification) is the process of introducing the International System of Units (or SI), com...

In the current situation, where the Loroi look like the lesser evil (although it is not up to Alex to decide that, and the truth of everything he saw and witnessed may be questionable), it may be advantageous to have the Loroi know the general direction, so that they can watch for possible attacks o...

It's more a psychological issue. How would you feel being on a spaceship that has started to accelerate away from earth, and you're still nowhere near Jupiter after some years? You would have preferred to stay those years on Earth. Compared to the total mission cost, the extra start of a chaser ship...

The amount of fuel will make the non-FTL interstellar ship so massive, that the acceleration will be near non-existant when it still has enough fuel to brake with 1 g when the ship has reached one of our closest neighbours. And I don't know how to parse the bit about acceleration being near nonexis...

For long travel distances, if no FTL shortcut is found, photon drives will be the only viable solution. But they have a terrible low output, but by far the best propulsion/energy ratio. Fusion is supposed to be decent if we can ever get a net-positive fusion reactor. There's also the old Orion Driv...

I like it. It transports very much the fear of what these two combatants are doing to each other, and the felt danger of the Humans when interfering in this. Yet the need to get the diplomatic mission and knowledge gathering forward is present. It felt very intense to me. (But then I just heard an e...

One would have to be extremely close to the sun in order for solar wind to have a significant impact on the drive plume of a ship. At 1 AU, the pressure is measured in nanopascals. And the particles which actually make a drive plume visible are extremely tiny and light. As any tail of a comet will ...

For long travel distances, if no FTL shortcut is found, photon drives will be the only viable solution. But they have a terrible low output, but by far the best propulsion/energy ratio. For combat-like situation, chemical rockets will remain important. Not as efficient, but high output density, thus...

You do know that a drive plume is a very bad indicator of speed, or acceleration? A drive plume tells you only something if you already know the speed. If you're fast, even a low output from your engine will give a long drive plume. If you're slow, the drive plume will be short, no matter how strong...

I think Beryl may unconsciously be flirting, thereis a male, and even a large male, right next to her! While her conscious thoughts may decline anything, he subconscious may have been tricked.... And the dissection table: right when I read "very interested to learn" I was afraid of their actions pos...

And where they might have much better tools to check for any traps or trickery than a battle ship in the field...

So we moved another 5 lightyears away.... And the journey has just begun.

This machine makes me curious.

I feel like it is an empty, (clone)-grown brain with telepathic abilities, and not actually a machine.


Access to sensors? Sensory deprivation makes you want to have access to sensory signals, you get addicted to sensory input fast...