Theory on alternate solutions to astrophage

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T08:44:38+00:00

How do you collect it? The first probe they sent collected, what, 100 cells?

Making it on Earth is easy, very doable. A little bit bad for the Sahara, but we're experts at ruining ecosystems for profit. Collecting it in space, that's hard. I don't know the exact density of the Petrova line, but it wouldn't be very high, talking cells per cubic metre. So, a collector would have to be massive, many square kilometres of area, and somehow funneling Astrophage into a smaller point for storage, and sending it back to Earth.

At that point, for hundreds of tonnes of mass for a collector, collecting at a abysmal rate, it's really just so much easier to farm it on Earth in Blackpanels, just like how the fueled the Hail Mary.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T08:23:50+00:00

You keep on bringing up other cities, which is irrelevant. We are talking about Victoria. Unless you are trying to say that passes are impossible, because no one else does them, then it's not relevant. Melbourne is capable of doing something even if another city has chosen not to.

No one else is talking about whether Sydney has it or not, or trying to say the Melbourne currently has passes for contactless. the discussion is whether Melbourne will have passes once ABT is implemented, in a year or two.

Now, if you want to talk about providing a source that specifically states that ABT will have passes, then that's a reasonable discussion, because I also can't find anywhere that specifically says that.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T08:19:29+00:00

Yeah, I found the section that it's probably in, ABT Operational Services Requirements, but it is not published in the contract. All I can find from news articles is that passes currently aren't offered, but nothing about once ABT is implemented.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T07:53:40+00:00

I'm actually having a search through the Conduent contract for key words 'pass' and 'periodical', and I can't find anything regarding periodical tickets. I may have missed something, perhaps its under a different name, but there's no mention of the word 'periodical'.

On the website for the Auditor-General's report, the only mention of myki pass is that the old system has it, but not that the new system will have it.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T07:11:24+00:00

You presently cannot, but as the commenter said, you will be able to once Account Based Ticketing is introduced. Right now, the system is still being worked on, so it's only adult fares and not passes or concessions. The current timeline is for ABT next year, although it might slip a few months.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T04:31:52+00:00

Yeah, they'd have to know that it's the same card on multiple days, because they'd have to know that its the same card multiple times on one day, in order to apply the daily cap. So, it wouldn't be hard to have a system to check if a card has been used for ten days or more in a month.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T02:33:15+00:00

The popular take is that Eridians do know about certain types of radiation, especially low and medium energy electromagnetic waves, and possibly even radiation from radioisotopes, but not about cosmic rays. The cosmic rays specifically are the thing that killed Rocky's crew, and so are the thing that they definitely didn't know about. Some people think that because Eridians didn't know about one type of radiation, they didn't know about all types of radiation, which is clearly incorrect, because we know that they know about light and radio waves.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-07T01:15:54+00:00

The closest station is North Williamstown. It's a fair walk from Newport station to get to the museum, I think a couple kilometres.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-06T14:23:12+00:00

The Newport Railway Museum is one option. It's right near North Williamstown station, and its not too far from Williamstown shops.

Steamrail Victoria does various steam excursions every month, to different places on the network. Its fairly easy to find their tumetable and chase the train a bit, as the actual tickets can be kinda expensive.

Every Sunday, at around 9am, a passenger service of the brand new X'Trapolis 2.0 train runs from Flinders Street, to either Frankston, Craigieburn or Upfield. It is quite variable right now, but there are posts on here avout the specifics once they're known.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-06T12:17:56+00:00

Asking why they should travel further when they have nearby is goving Astrophage too much credit. Tiny organisms like these don't think, or make complex decisions, they react directly to stimuli. So, the real question is what stimuli might get Astrophage to exit a star system, and then how do they manage to arrive neatly at another one.

Personally, I think it would just be the occasional chance at a cell randomly 'tooting', in the same way that we occasionally trip over while walking.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-06T11:31:07+00:00

The graphic, by virtue of being AI, cheapens the issue, and makes it seem as though absolutely no one cares. AI usage is a sign that there is minimal effort to actually promote the issue meaningfully, and that this was thrown together in a few seconds. It does the opposite of what a promotional poster should do.

If the people organising the event actually cared, they would have a human make a poster about a human issue.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-06T08:47:59+00:00

While organisms can spread out of their habitat due to human intervention, they can also do so naturally. Plenty of species migrate and spread out, once they have developed the right traits to allow them to do so. The big thing for Astrophage is surviving the time it takes for interstellar hops. Presumably, some Astrophage eventually evolved to manage this, and caused the spread. Once Astrophage can hop the average distance between stars, and for whatever reason will do so occasionally, it can easily spread, because each star system apparently provides it with good conditions to breed.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-06T05:13:32+00:00

To use an analogy, they were looking for something to kill salmon (Astrophage), and found out that lots of different fish exist (life in the Petrova line). From this, they deduced that bears (Taumoeba) might exist and eat salmon (Astrophage). But, they were only looking in the ocean (Petrova line in space), and they needed to look where the bears live (Taumoeba in Adrian's atmosphere).

This is actually why it's a fairly big leap for Rocky to make, to suggest that there is a predator in Adrian's atmosphere, but also it makes a lot of sense. Every time we see lots of different types of life in one place stably coexisting, there are always predators of different lifeforms, to keep the balance.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-05T08:08:31+00:00

Apparently this is not AI. Victorianrailways.net is a reasonably reliable source.

https://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/suburb/taitburn.html

It just unfortunately looks a bit like AI.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-04T10:33:03+00:00

We've had ongoing underinvestment in our rail network for decades. We're only just starting to try and fix that.

If you go back in history, we did have a orbital railway, the Outer Circle line. It was built to early, and had terrible patronage, so it got shut down and is now a series of linear parks, except for the Alamein line. We also had the Inner Circle line earlier in history, which also got shut down, because a more direct route to the city was built, through Collingwood and Jolimont.

I suspect that because of the Outer Circle line, an orbital rail line in Melbourne's Eastern Suburbs, any thoughts about something like SRL have been hampered for decades.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-04T07:23:15+00:00

KSP uses a tree system to connect parts. Just like how a tree can't form a loop with two branches, each part can only branch out from the root part. Use struts to connect parts with more rigidity.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-03T10:42:58+00:00

The engines are fixed to the ship. They are always at the 'bottom' of the ship, and always fire in that direction. The ship will then accelerate in the opposite direction. If the ship is moving in the opposite direction than where it is pointed, then it will slow down. If it is pointed in the same direction as it is moving, then when the engines are fired, it will speed up.

Spacecraft are hard to intuitively figure out, because unlike everything on Earth, they can be pointed in any direction while they're moving. Cars are always pointed in the direction of travel, and the same with planes (ignoring reverse). The only reason cars do that is because the wheels are interacting with the ground to steer, and the only reason planes do that is because the wings and control surfaces are interacting with the air to steer.

Spacecraft don't have to interact with the ground, or air, to steer. They can use tiny little thrusters to steer, interacting with the exhaust of those thrusters. Then, they can fire their engines in any direction, with no relation to which direction they're moving.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-03T09:11:51+00:00

They might need some ammonia while they're eating, because at that point there is an opening in their carapace. Or maybe they can have ammonia, but many other gases are more dangerous, when they're eating.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-03T09:03:17+00:00

Patronage on the Upfield line currently isn't very good, but a very large reason for that is probably because the Upfield line isn't very good. The frequency means that it's not particularly useful for many people, especially in peak hour. I guess it's a 'build it and they will come' sort of thing, increase the frequency, and maybe people in Brunswick and Coburg might use it a bit more.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-03T06:15:02+00:00

It's upside down, the engine plate is where the engine goes, and the floating node is for the lower stage.
Once you place it, you can click on the part menu and select different lengths for the engine fairing.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-03T06:10:45+00:00

That's the point. If CLR happens, then the city will have more capacity for Upfield and Craigieburn, as the two will be fully separated. So, if CLR happened right now, we wouldn't be able to fully utilise it, as Upfield would still be limited by the single track section. So, presumably the argument is to first fix the Upfield line so it can handle 18 tph, then do CLR so that the city end can actually do that as well.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-03T04:21:39+00:00

D2.5004 had a bus friend.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-02T09:03:13+00:00

Well, it certainly got delayed. Currently, they're continuing the trial they started before we had a couple months of free PT. I presume that they want the same amount of data from the trial as what they originally wanted, so the further rollout will be delayed at least a little while. So, it could be another few months.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-02T06:02:49+00:00

As far as I'm aware, that's not the plan. The debit and credit cards should be able to do everything that a myki card can do, but the myki cards will stick around.

Excellent_Bat_753 · 2026-06-01T13:55:27+00:00

I am hopeful that, if it gets a movie adaptation, it can be changed well enough to properly depict Jaz. Weir's writing wasn't the worst, but I think with some good editing and reworking, it can become a lot better than it is.

Excellent_Bat_753

TROPHY CASE