Fanfic Helpdesk: Technical and Scientific Help for Writers

[Sage of Mirrors]

For the Dorado-

I meant... The Ancients themselves built at least two city-ships, right? Atlantis, and the city-ship we saw underground in "The Tower." What if the Ancients had another city-ship called the Dorado that was gold in color? Earth was their home planet after leaving their galaxy, right? I was thinking that they could've built more city-ships that we haven't seen, and the bio-Asurans either used that city-ship called the Dorado during their exploration, or built their own and named it after another city-ship that the Ancients built that has since been destroyed/lost. I'd go for the 'built their own and named it after another' explanation myself, if the idea itself is plausible.

[Keeper]

i'm skeptical, but i can't say it's impossible.

do you know the story of the prodigal son? if so - consider the ancients as the father, humans as the son who left home, and asura as the son who stayed home. loves his daddy, who loves him too, but too jealous of the other son (humans.)

so, while humans have now inherited atlantis, asura want to destroy it. they build in memory, because it is the design philosophy they were built with, but i suspect they'd determine their own names.

linguistically, i don't believe mexican is tied to latin, but i really don't know. however if the asurans use language, it's likely to be ancient, human (english like everyone else it seems) and machine code. with no ancients around they don't need to hide anything, and their tech is mostly compatible it seems with ancient tech (aside from being built with less need for interfacing other components like mckay's tablet - but replis can interface directly when needed.)



using http://www.translation-guide.com/fre...glish&to=Latin i tried getting from english to latin:

gold = aurum

Golden City = Rutilus Urbs
(City of Gold was translating as Urbs of Aurum, which doesn't seem right.)

latin being a derivative of ancient, therefore (in-show; creatively ancient would be the derivative) it seems... difficult to reconcile an ancient ship with a mexican city.



on the colour scheme - both city-ships we've seen (antlantis and the tower) were pretty much the same. so was the asuran one, for that matter. any ancient ship we've seen was white/sterile, or (in hibernation areas) more black.* gold... especially that much, can look a bit tacky (to me) and ancient aesthetics seem such that they might not have been fond of it themselves.



this is my opinion though, and i could be very wrong in any of what i'm saying. it's also your story, not mine, so you make the decision - if you can write it that it makes sense, at least for you, it isn't for me to judge





*destiny is much darker, but it was expected to be uninhabited for a long time. it was also designed to be much more rugged than any other known ship... and we don't know how bright it would be if things were actually working.

[Feast of the Muse]

Ok ladies and gentlemen, I have a good one for you. This is prompted by the 1st episode of S4 Sanctuary, Tempus. There is a theory involved with time travel that says the timeline will right itself over time, so if you mess with the timeline a little bit, it won't take long for things to correct themselves (like a singular destiny kind of thing). As opposed to the theory that if you step on a butterfly you change whether or not dinosaurs are alive in 1950, ala Ray Bradbury. What are these theories called? A google search keeps landing me on physics of time travel, instead of the theories of influence. Help?

[iiradned]

Ok ladies and gentlemen, I have a good one for you. This is prompted by the 1st episode of S4 Sanctuary, Tempus. There is a theory involved with time travel that says the timeline will right itself over time, so if you mess with the timeline a little bit, it won't take long for things to correct themselves (like a singular destiny kind of thing). As opposed to the theory that if you step on a butterfly you change whether or not dinosaurs are alive in 1950, ala Ray Bradbury. What are these theories called? A google search keeps landing me on physics of time travel, instead of the theories of influence. Help?

Google is landing you in the right places. The most common term for this is the Grandfather Paradox. A time traveler arrives in the past and somehow kills one of his grandfathers before either of his parents were born. If the grandfather is dead, the time-traveler's parent was never born. And if that parent was never born, the time traveler was never born. So how the time traveler arrive in the past.

There are two schools of thought regarding this paradox.

The first is the Many-worlds interpretation which states that when a someone travels to the past the very act of arriving in the past creates a separate but parallel timeline. The time traveler can still kill his or her grandfather, but since there is a new timeline, the time traveler is not affected. After all it is NOT the time traveler's own past that is affected.

The alternate school is called the Copenhagen interpretation.

[Skydiver]

There is another theory that the further back you go, the less of an effect you have. Kill some dinosaurs, who cares?
Kill a pharaoh and history is likely to just have a few different names.
Kill hitler and things change more.
Kill bush and things change even more.
Etc

Of course, is the amount of change really more? Or just more noticible?

[Sealurk]

I'm writing a chase sequence that has a major, plot-dictated setpiece take place in a military data centre/server room/mainframe. The current version has the character being chased triggering the fire suppression system in order to cover his escape, force the pursuer to evacuate the room by the nearest exit (back the way he came) and/or otherwise impede or delay the pursuer.

Annoyingly (from a writer's perspective!) most modern total flooding fire suppression agents are surprisingly safe for human exposure.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this one detail, but which modern fire suppression materials that are appropriate for such a facility and system do actually pose enough of an immediate health risk to force somebody out of such a room? Carbon dioxide, halons, FM200, argon or other?

[Womble]

I'm writing a chase sequence that has a major, plot-dictated setpiece take place in a military data centre/server room/mainframe. The current version has the character being chased triggering the fire suppression system in order to cover his escape, force the pursuer to evacuate the room by the nearest exit (back the way he came) and/or otherwise impede or delay the pursuer.

Annoyingly (from a writer's perspective!) most modern total flooding fire suppression agents are surprisingly safe for human exposure.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this one detail, but which modern fire suppression materials that are appropriate for such a facility and system do actually pose enough of an immediate health risk to force somebody out of such a room? Carbon dioxide, halons, FM200, argon or other?

In a room full of electrical equipment? Water.

[WraithRichard]

I'm writing a chase sequence that has a major, plot-dictated setpiece take place in a military data centre/server room/mainframe. The current version has the character being chased triggering the fire suppression system in order to cover his escape, force the pursuer to evacuate the room by the nearest exit (back the way he came) and/or otherwise impede or delay the pursuer.

Annoyingly (from a writer's perspective!) most modern total flooding fire suppression agents are surprisingly safe for human exposure.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this one detail, but which modern fire suppression materials that are appropriate for such a facility and system do actually pose enough of an immediate health risk to force somebody out of such a room? Carbon dioxide, halons, FM200, argon or other?

Where are they? I know the fire suppression stuff was pretty deadly to humans on Atlantis.

[Choo1701]

I'm writing a chase sequence that has a major, plot-dictated setpiece take place in a military data centre/server room/mainframe. The current version has the character being chased triggering the fire suppression system in order to cover his escape, force the pursuer to evacuate the room by the nearest exit (back the way he came) and/or otherwise impede or delay the pursuer.

Annoyingly (from a writer's perspective!) most modern total flooding fire suppression agents are surprisingly safe for human exposure.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this one detail, but which modern fire suppression materials that are appropriate for such a facility and system do actually pose enough of an immediate health risk to force somebody out of such a room? Carbon dioxide, halons, FM200, argon or other?

Well if the Fire Suppression stuff isn't working, why not the idea on its head, have the character turn the system off and then start a (small and controllable) fire, forcing the purser back?

[SF_and_Coffee]

I'm writing a chase sequence that has a major, plot-dictated setpiece take place in a military data centre/server room/mainframe. The current version has the character being chased triggering the fire suppression system in order to cover his escape, force the pursuer to evacuate the room by the nearest exit (back the way he came) and/or otherwise impede or delay the pursuer.

Annoyingly (from a writer's perspective!) most modern total flooding fire suppression agents are surprisingly safe for human exposure.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this one detail, but which modern fire suppression materials that are appropriate for such a facility and system do actually pose enough of an immediate health risk to force somebody out of such a room? Carbon dioxide, halons, FM200, argon or other?

In a room full of electrical equipment? Water.

Except, of course, that a water-based system would be unlikely to have been put in place for such a room...

[SF_and_Coffee]

There is another theory that the further back you go, the less of an effect you have. Kill some dinosaurs, who cares?

Well, if you read Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder, there's also the idea that killing something that far back could have a measurable effect.

[Sealurk]

Except, of course, that a water-based system would be unlikely to have been put in place for such a room...

To be fair, a few minutes research suggests they routinely are fitted with water, partly in order to comply with local regulations and partly because such rooms should have an Emergency Power Off button/function that makes the whole water/electricity thing a moot point.

I may have to rewrite this scene by the sounds of it.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Hmmmm.... seems to me that fitting one with a water system would only force a choice between losing one's equipment to fire or to water damage, which is why I expected another method to be in place.

[Feast of the Muse]

There are systems that basically take all of the oxygen out of the room, but anyone who can hold their breath across the pool would have no trouble with it. Perhaps the system could malfunction and keep the oxygen bound up?

Or what about the system in Angels & Demons that kept all the old books under the Vatican from falling apart. That was just oxygen restriction plain and simple.


ETA: Ana I have to admit as one who puts keyboards in the dishwasher, it isn't unusual to have sprinklers in room full of computers. However, what comes out is not always water!

[SF_and_Coffee]

OMG, look who showed up!

Welcome back!