Trash!
Shaenon: Page three of Trash! Because I can, that’s why.
Channing: I’ve always had a soft spot for deep space outposts and repair stations. It’s hard to get anything interesting to happen there, though, which is why you need to quickly send your principals off on a ship somewhere or have a stable wormhole located right nearby or both.
Discussion (19) ¬
Nice – just keep in mind that there is a ton of air pressure per square foot at one atmosphere …
Making the Darien out of glass and sending it through an asteroid belt is how the HFC achieved their “least unexpectedly flammable” rating.
Kvar must be local dialect for “has incredible gravity generators”.
The Star Trek IV “transparent aluminum” is one option for the windows, So is Adar “aliglass” (more of a transparent saphhire)(Ringo’s looking-glass novels).
PLUS – in some of the more exotic SF texts, the station has some sort of ultra-massive counterweight – usually associated with the power generation. Remember that ALL matter has gravity – and its ranged using the inverse cube, so this could be a mushroom-top for a skyscraper balanced on a black hole/neutronium power generator/fusion candle.
Fusion candles are explained in the notes section here: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-08-03
(TUNE: “Tea For Two” Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar)
You can do
A simple chore,
‘Cause you’re Class Two
And not Class Four
Your folks and you,
Just like before
Today!
We’re rating your test score,
‘Cause we want the best for
Our people in space here …
We’re finding a place, dear,
Where you best can fit in …
We swear we’re not kiddin’
You, ‘kay?
Akuba, when the Darien
Heads off again, you’ll stay here then!
We can’t depend
On you, my friend!
The end!
So don’t go staring at the ship!
You won’t go heading on that trip!
No more Class Four,
It’s just Class Two
For you!
Channing: Have you read _Ethan of Athos_ by Lois McMaster Bujold? Most of action takes place on a deep space outpost that is a transfer station between ‘wormholes’.
Tetra Valent: Is there reason the bits of the station that have been shown are inconsistent with it being a rotating space station with a *very* large diameter?
No, but it sounds interesting! I’ll have to check it out.
I believe the first and last panels of this strip pretty much preclude the station being a large rotating station. The direction of gravity and the emptiness “beneath” the floor would pretty much require this scene to be set at the rim… which would make docking that space ship a mighty dicey proposition.
By the way, does the ship look a lot like a motor home, or is it just me?
The way the shuttlecraft (I’m assuming that’s what the boxy van-shaped thing is) docks to the main structure, is asking for worlds of hurt if that’s a big rotating space station. With strong enough materials and good enough automated docking systems a clever designer might make it work, but that’s a lot of trouble and risk just to save passengers an elevator ride to the hub.
And I second the recommendation of “Ethan of Athos”. Being stuck on a space station forecloses some opportunities for adventure, but opens others – I seem to recall an entire chapter on the troubles of disposing of an inconvenient body. Plus, it makes it easy to force a relationship on incompatible partners, and the delightfully non-cliched relationship between the Athosian and the gorgeous space-babe was worth a book in its own right. “Rather unusual request”, indeed.
I third the Ethan of Athos recommendation. Though really, anything by Bujold is good. For another fun one involving a space installation, see Falling Free, where a race of humans was engineered with arms in place of legs for better adaptation to no-gravity environments. And then, artificial gravity was perfected…
Modessit’s “Gravity Dreams” has a good bit on station design if I recall – the MC spends time on one as a worker, then later visits as a pilot.
Some sort of ‘field effect’ not quite magnetic boots used in that if memory serves. Low G – not Zero.
What is everybody reading anyway?
Last two months: Brust, Bujold, Hoyt, Ringo, Weber, Lackey, Modessit, Flint, Correa, Jordan/Sanderson (finished final WOT book last night). Probably about 45 books total. This list completely excludes my webcomic, manga, and collected webcomics.
Assorted 16xx by Flint & Co. (catching up on Grantville Gazette #37), Weber, Butcher, Lackey, Bujold, more Flint, Drake, Piper, Pournelle (Jennifer, but set in the Trans-Coal Sack sector), Turtledove, Gilliland, Lackey Flint & Freer. Hoping for another novel by the Professors Foglio soon, and no that isn’t veering into my webcomics reading…
C. J. Cherryh has some great stories that take place on stations. The big saga is Downbelow Station but almost all of her SF work has some station action.
I’ve always liked the Sector General books by James White, which dealt with the day-to-day operations of a space station/hospital. I only got to read three or four of them and I’d love to find the rest.
Kvar is Esperanto for “Four.” Does this have something to do with the fact that this ship is shaped like a box – four walls, not counting the front and back?
Thanks for the translation. The gray ship looks like a supply shuttle. We saw the Kvarship Darien 2 weeks ago – it is not at all box shaped. I would guess that the “four” refers to the fact that the Darien is staffed entirely with Class Four citizens.
Maybe because the crew are all Class Four?