Bruce sez:
}1. At what (AI) intelligence level do robots become Imperial citizens?
} This leads you off into splinter groups for the freedom of toasters and
} the end of slavery for all machines 8-}.
"What is the point in buying a toaster with artificial intelligence if
you don't like toast?!" -- A Toaster (Red Dwarf)
> To those who say that the players could destroy an entire planet with
> anti-matter, I gotta point out that a crew in a scoutship could destroy
> an entire planet with a cargo hold of pebbles. (Accelerate to 1/10 speed
> of light {18 days @ 2G's} and drop the rocks on the planet. @ speeds
> like that, a 10 gram pebble has the kinetic energy equivalent of a 1
> kiloton atomic bomb.)
}There seems to be this conception in SF that if you take a tennis ball of
}Anti-Matter and merge it with a tennis ball of normal matter then both
}immediately destroy each other in a slugfest of radiation and energy. I
}don't think that would be the case. The moment the first anti-atom and
}normal-atom came in contact there would be a hugh amount of energy released
}and the two objects would be flung apart. The trick is to maintain the
}contact. In a total vacum in 1G gravity if you dropped an Anti-Matter
}tennis ball on a normal-matter floor it would bounce (an awful lot) and
}release hugh amounts of energy with each bounce.
True. *IN* a vacuum. In an atmosphere you have what Martin the
Martian would call an Earthshattering Kaboom.
}Secondly, all those pebbles just burnt up in my planetary atmosphere like
}small meteors do so Your Scout ship isn't as deadly as you thought 8-}.
Think about it: 1 cubic centimeter of lead would have the equivalent
energy of a 1.3 kiloton bomb. One cubic meter would have the equivalent
energy of a 1.3 GIGAton bomb. A standard shipping container (2 'tons')
would have the equivalent energy of a 35.1 *GIGAton* bomb! Now it may
release all that energy in the atmosphere, but the impact crater will
still be about the size of Lake Michigan.
2G Scott