Seasteading, a topic popular in futurist and libertarian circles, is simply the construction of settlements on the high seas capable of sustaining permanent populations. While floating cities dominate futuristic concepts of high-seas settlement, there are many other kinds of communities that would benefit from seafaring, … Continue readingCollege Ships: A Pathway to Seasteading
Much ink, digital and otherwise, is spilled among both real-life historians and fictional worldbuilders on the rise and fall of civilizations, but somewhat less ink is spent on drilling down to the basics of civilization, namely the resource base. This includes things such as building … Continue readingAn Alternate History of Cascadia
Although humans are Earth’s only sapient species, the range of intelligence among animals is quite diverse. For a long time many assumed primates, the clade closest to humans, outclassed all others in intelligence. Now, however, it is much more widely known that several other species … Continue readingWorldbuilding Avian Intelligence
When worldbuilding a science fiction or especially space opera setting, spaceships, starships, and the like are almost inevitably of great importance. In a visual medium the look of the ships can communicate a lot, the contrast between Padmé Amidala’s garage and Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon … Continue readingThe Shapes of Spaceships
Adamas Nemesis is now on Mastodon! You can follow this website’s Mastodon posts at social.adamasnemesis.com/@adamasnemesis. You might be asking “What is Mastodon? What is the Fediverse?” In my previous post on the decentralized web, I pointed out that the Fediverse is a group of social … Continue readingI Joined the Fediverse
Ever since the limitations of rockets were widely recognized, most prominently the fact that fuel requirements increase wildly as payload mass scales up, there has been perennial interest in “non-rocket space launch” technology. Most of this interest has been in the specific context of launching … Continue readingTo Orbit by Space Gun
In the previous post on colonizing the Oort cloud, I pointed out that with sufficiently cheap transportation technology any place within range will be inhabited to some extent by recreational-touristic populations or populations that deliberately seek out isolation. This outermost part of the solar system … Continue readingThe Sun as Gravitational Lens: A Breakthrough Technology?
Once mankind’s footprint has touched worlds across the solar system, what will be the last frontier? In the solar system of the near future, colonization will almost certainly spread outward from near-Earth space. The planets and settings closest to Earth will be settled first: Mars, … Continue readingColonizing the Oort Cloud: The Final Frontier of the Solar System
When writing any story, whether your characters can receive communication in time during a critical moment often makes or breaks a story. What makes or breaks this element of a plot is the kind of communication technology that is available in the setting. The setting … Continue readingWorldbuilding Communications with Smoke, Mirrors, and Analog Computers
What if the world had no oil? As modern civilization’s primary energy source, its absence would profoundly affect our way of life, opening up fascinating possibilities for worldbuilding very different yet plausible speculative fiction settings, including science fiction and alternate history. In this post we … Continue readingIndustrialization in a World Without Oil