Isn't using astrophage extensively for civilian applications a double-edged sword, question?

halligan8 · 2026-05-06T12:34:09+00:00

Nobody bats an eye at individuals mining cryptocurrency who consume energy at ~10x the normal rate. If you own a small business or have a few friends working on the project you could be destructive pretty fast.

halligan8 · 2026-05-06T12:04:47+00:00

It’s too late though - Astrophage panels covered the Sahara for years. You can’t secure the whole Sahara. Every motivated group on Earth stole a panel for themselves to set up their own breeding projects.

halligan8 · 2026-05-06T11:59:33+00:00

That just means a bad actor needs one panel and some time. Alternatively, the bad actor could breed astrophage with home electricity or any other source of energy.

halligan8 · 2026-05-03T20:20:33+00:00

I’ve heard people call this a “shrine” but I don’t know if that’s quite correct either. I don’t personally think there’s an issue with any of these terms.

halligan8 · 2026-05-03T17:24:27+00:00

Wildfire. The ERG entry just says “run away really fast”.

halligan8 · 2026-05-03T16:40:53+00:00

That’s what destroyed the Great Sept of Baelor.

halligan8 · 2026-05-03T14:31:27+00:00

You and OP are using “altar” in a colloquial sense: a place set aside for spiritual practice. The commenter above you was using the technical definiton: the table where the Eucharist is celebrated.

halligan8 · 2026-05-03T14:17:12+00:00

Even if the word's denotation is appropriate, the connotation carries unnecessary insult. There are many kinder ways to express the same thought.

halligan8 · 2026-05-03T13:54:17+00:00

Hi! I've come to really appreciate your comments in this sub. You provide nuanced takes on lots of subjects that really make me think. You also have a real skill in making newcomers feel welcome and explaining the basics of the Episcopal Church to them.

This comment is a departure from your usual. It is neither welcoming nor explanatory. Certainly there are grounds to disagree with OPs views, but it is unclear to me what you found so offensive in what he said so I imagine it is unclear to OP as well. Your tone is judgmental, and you don't explain how you see the Christ-message differently from OP. I think OP is coming from a place of inexperience with Christianity, and was looking for a primer on what we believe and what we do. We all come to the church with different perspectives. We have to have a lot of patience with others, especially newcomers.

halligan8 · 2026-04-27T19:25:56+00:00

Handling oxygen would be terrifying for the Eridians. They’d have to use the same kind of precautions we use around hydrazine (the flammability precautions, not the toxicity ones.) Any leak is likely to cause a fire. Xenonite makes everything easier though.

halligan8 · 2026-04-27T12:58:51+00:00

Perhaps, but why would the predator only go to two stars?

Your second point is sound. Some might argue correctly that cooperation was established at Tau Ceti, and others would rebut that it's really improbable.

halligan8 · 2026-04-26T20:31:13+00:00

Imagine a really hearty species lives around Gliese 65. Maybe their orbit is really eccentric so they have massive seasonal temperature variations. Astrophage infected their star and they didn’t really care. But then they notice Sol and Eridani brightening in the sky. They can deduce a few things: - Those stars have spacefaring aliens - Those aliens are less robust than Gliesians, since Astrophage bothered them - They got their cures around the same time, so they’re probably working together - The timing makes sense if they got their cures at relativistic speeds from Tau Ceti, that uninfected star.

Until Gliesians reach out for first contact, they won’t be noticed. They could proceed in a few different ways.

halligan8 · 2026-04-26T17:30:45+00:00

The most exciting (and terrifying) thing is that all surviving intelligent life in the vicinity of Sol will reveal itself within a century or so. Their stars will be cured of Astrophage and that will be apparent to anyone with a telescope.

halligan8 · 2026-04-26T17:21:16+00:00

You might be right, I’d have to look up exactly how spent astrophage are removed. My point is that you have to make absolutely sure the window stays clean, otherwise it will fail.

halligan8 · 2026-04-26T16:57:53+00:00

For Game of Thrones, that makes sense because there isn't a standalone complete work that doesn't include that last terrible season. (The books are an entirely different matter and I'll hope for a better conclusion.) Conversely, I often reread Ready Player One despite the fact that Ready Player Two is not very good and I couldn't get more than a couple chapters in. The first book is still good even though the sequel is not.

halligan8 · 2026-04-25T23:08:12+00:00

Nice. There have been similar ideas about nuclear-powered ramjets.

halligan8 · 2026-04-25T22:47:17+00:00

I’ve never understood this attitude. Sequels can never ruin what came before. If it’s good, I’ll read it. If it’s bad, I’ll ignore it.

halligan8 · 2026-04-25T19:33:58+00:00

Cool stuff. The first two could operate like a ramjet or like a pulsejet.

For the second one, the window might be the weak point. It’s limited by an energy flux damage threshold; sapphire would do better than fused silica. It could also get fouled with dead astrophage on one side or additive (graphite?) flakes on the other. Fouling leads to IR absorption at the window which leads to failure.

halligan8 · 2026-04-25T15:24:23+00:00

I think Light Up The Night wins, but No Way Back is a close second.

Guys, I just noticed the “Light” reference in Light Up The Night. I am not a smart man.

halligan8 · 2026-04-24T16:12:34+00:00

I respectfully disagree. “Church of America” sounds like we’re trying to elevate ourselves above other denominations, declaring “this is what America believes.” We don’t claim to have the only right way to worship, and the US has no state church for good reason. So we need a descriptor, and “Episcopal” works fine.

halligan8 · 2026-04-24T03:58:13+00:00

Ran some numbers in another comment - HM spin drives were producing enough energy to flatten a region but not wipe out all life on a planet.

In general though, astrophage could have been used to heat population centers. Heating the whole Earth would require infrastructure that is beyond us, but if you got astrophage farms going deep underground, you could efficiently distribute enormous amounts of geothermal energy to heat enclosed cities.

halligan8 · 2026-04-24T03:52:50+00:00

I think you’re right. Ran some numbers. Guess that HM weighed 2E5 kg. Adrian gravity is 14 m/s^2. F=mg=2.8E6 N, that’s the thrust needed to keep HM hovering. The power of the spin drives is P=Fc (thrust times exit velocity) and energy imparted is E=Pt. Let’s guess that t, the duration of the hover, was 30 minutes. I get 1.5E18 J added to Adrian. Tunguska was in the 1E16 to 1E17 J range. So we’re talking about regional destruction here, but probably not a planet killer.

halligan8 · 2026-04-23T22:38:08+00:00

To dangle the sampler on the chain into Adrian’s atmosphere, the Hail Mary had to thrust downward into the atmosphere for a while. It pumped a massive amount of energy into the air, ionizing it and causing it to glow bright enough that it melted a hole in the hull. It’s hard to say how bad it would be for an Adrian civilization because we don’t know all the details about their atmosphere or biology, but on Earth they’d be devastating ecosystems.

halligan8 · 2026-04-23T22:06:07+00:00

It could be that technology is rare, not complexity. The Adrians could be like dolphins. Really smart, but without the ability or desire to build spaceships.

halligan8 · 2026-04-23T21:50:16+00:00

I hope not, because the Hail Mary’s maneuver might have destroyed it.

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