Proginoskes Wrote:Hmm... 999 nines of purity (that is, impurities are no more than one part in 10^999). Lenses and mirrors that bend/reflect every incident photon, absorbing none. Materials with impossible properties, like semiconductors with exactly-tuned bandgaps and high-efficiency fluorescent materials with matching emission spectra (this combination, especially if the semiconductor has high carrier mobility, would allow for solar cells many times more efficient than current state of the art).
Yeah, something like that would be light/graysci material under this particular regime. Super-high-efficiency photovoltaics were one of the things I was thinking of as an example of lightsci.
(As for South Is Rising, that one's pretty much kaput. I impulse-posted without having a good idea of where I was going aside from "hilarity ensues," and while you can get away with that in worldbuilding... not so much in an actual story. So it withered from lack of direction. Sic transit gloria mundi.)
HRogge Wrote:If the Fen manage to keep a (slight?) edge on handwavium based tech it could work...
You seem to be a little hung up on political/economic dominance, like the Fen must be kings of the solar system or else it's all for nothing. Things are different here.
In the mainline the Fen control the solar system, but they're largely considered irrelevant on Earth, at best tabloid fodder and at worst a nebulous boogeyman for the paranoid. Here, the Fen don't control the solar system (they've got claims on big chunks, but actual control is limited to places like Callisto, Titan, Oberon and Triton) but they are very relevant on Earth. Fen 'culture' is a big thing downstairs, it's not some shunned subculture that exists to be poked at on an episode of CSI, it's trendy. There are scenesters who wear "authentic" gatecrasher jackets with patches and insignia. Nerdy kids have posters of Stella Via or the Port Lowell domes on their walls and dream of being the next Callie MacDonald. Japanese fashion districts look to Luna and the sky-habitats of Venus for inspiration. Martian punk folk is the next big thing on Billboard. These things are important, they matter more than how many ships or guns or lines drawn on a map there are.
Here, the Fen are pretty obviously on the political edge, and that probably won't change until the TITANs wake and eat Earth. But they've got one huge advantage that the mainline Fen don't have: the respect and interest of the 'Danelaw.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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