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Tangentially related, I had a ttrpg setting once where the deep lore was that fantastical metals like mythril and orichalcum did fall on the periodic table; they were particular isotopes of normal elements which attracted/manifested particles of magic, which radically changed their material properties.
Element Zero! The mass effect! And of course it’s magenta — the color that doesn’t physically exist and is our brain throwing an error.
Speaking of no analog on the periodic table. Scientists did spectrographic analysis on the suspected “dark matter ring” around a number of galaxies (you know, the theorized extra ring of invisible matter that allows galaxies to rotate at the speed they do, which is impossible with observed data). A scan of dozens of galaxies revealed spectral lines that are previously unknown! Exciting stuff.
Dark matter is "dark" because it doesn't interact with electromagnetic energy. It doesn't absorb light (which would produce absorption lines in spectra) or emit light (which would produce emission lines in spectra). The spectrographic analysis of dark matter rings appears to be looking for photons (units of electromagnetic energy) that might be decay (annihilation, breakdown) products of dark matter, specifically high-energy gamma rays.
Nitpick: we think dark matter doesn't interact with electromagnetism. A few theories predict that it's just garden-variety dark.
Most of those still don't predict it to produce spectral lines, though, since they mostly talk about non-atomic, exotic forms of mass, like strangelets or tiny black holes.
The Alien Technology he's talking about is a representation of their combined members knowledge so it exceeds that of each contributing race by some degree. And how much of that technology is secret even to the member race? Or too complex for many of the aliens to fully understand?
Yes. Exactly what I meant by that. "Everybody knows" what an integrated circuit is, but only a select few could make one for a specific purpose, or even use one without the associated hardware to just plug it in.
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The Alliance space stretches for an impressive 16 thousand light years along the longest axis and contains approximately 12 billion star systems. Despite that, 99.99% of those star systems haven't been explored even by an automatic mapping drone yet, and the borders of the Alliance space are defined mostly by the reach of spaceships from the nearest colony or space station, and in general are purely informative.
Comments (17)
very easy to describe everything you don't know as "anomalous"
I wonder if that jar is human-built, or if it was taken from the ship and human stickers slapped on it.
It's a human one. Perhaps I went a little too far with the design. =D
There's an upper limit to how anomalous it can be, then, if you can store it in materials we can make (and transparent ones at that).
Is it just an unknown element or chemistry, or actual exotic matter?
Scientists are still on the fence about this one. It looks like it is made out of atoms, but it refuses to behave like atoms do.
Interesting. Our scientists, or their scientists?
Tangentially related, I had a ttrpg setting once where the deep lore was that fantastical metals like mythril and orichalcum did fall on the periodic table; they were particular isotopes of normal elements which attracted/manifested particles of magic, which radically changed their material properties.
Element Zero! The mass effect! And of course it’s magenta — the color that doesn’t physically exist and is our brain throwing an error.
Speaking of no analog on the periodic table. Scientists did spectrographic analysis on the suspected “dark matter ring” around a number of galaxies (you know, the theorized extra ring of invisible matter that allows galaxies to rotate at the speed they do, which is impossible with observed data). A scan of dozens of galaxies revealed spectral lines that are previously unknown! Exciting stuff.
Dark matter is "dark" because it doesn't interact with electromagnetic energy. It doesn't absorb light (which would produce absorption lines in spectra) or emit light (which would produce emission lines in spectra). The spectrographic analysis of dark matter rings appears to be looking for photons (units of electromagnetic energy) that might be decay (annihilation, breakdown) products of dark matter, specifically high-energy gamma rays.
Nitpick: we think dark matter doesn't interact with electromagnetism. A few theories predict that it's just garden-variety dark.
Most of those still don't predict it to produce spectral lines, though, since they mostly talk about non-atomic, exotic forms of mass, like strangelets or tiny black holes.
collected samples of [a substance]
which [have] been only [theorized] to be possible
or if you prefer British spelling,
which [have] been only [theorised] to be possible
or even more alternately,
which [have] been only [theoretical or highly experimental]
The Alien Technology he's talking about is a representation of their combined members knowledge so it exceeds that of each contributing race by some degree. And how much of that technology is secret even to the member race? Or too complex for many of the aliens to fully understand?
Our earthly technology is already mostly too complex for non-specialists to know how it works. futuristic tech will be even worse.
Yes. Exactly what I meant by that. "Everybody knows" what an integrated circuit is, but only a select few could make one for a specific purpose, or even use one without the associated hardware to just plug it in.
Ooh, this sounds like a fresh MacGuffin!
Makes me think of Elerium-115.
This is likely that "hephrene" that Zane mentioned detecting in Jupiter.
They'll probably use whatever they can to push the feelings in the right direction.