Oh definitely. I'd even say that a stock robo-pet would be more distinctive than a customized one simply because of it's rarity. I mean, how many pet owners spend a small fortune in toys and accessories for their pets.
Imagine street gangs with cyberdogs outfitted with big scary metal teeth and so on, or upper society types who still can't get their hands on a real lizard having an amazing technicolor one that radiates like an RGB.
I want one that looks like the animatroncs from "Five Nights at Freddy's".
Which era of design?
"Original Recipe"
Like reflections in the glass!
well that is simple, you take the existing anamatrotics and age them a bit. A little rust here, some chipped paint there, etc.
the tricky part if finding kids to stuff into those springtraps though
I wonder if Star Wars has droid pets.
Pretty sure B2EMO was a pet by the point he showed up.
Edited by Imca on May 24th 2023 at 10:11:23 AM
Star Wars droids seemed to occupy the same social strata as slaves or pets. Actually, considering that C 3 PO was a servant to a slave, I guess they are pets.
They call me.... Prophet
Socially Droids are pet but functionally they're slaves. they are clearly intelligent beings capable of rational decisions but also entirely subservient.
Apparently they've also attempted to institute a skynet esque uprising, but have failed because of how fucking massive the galaxy far far away is.
So most independent droids just go into business.
A question. Given a planet whose surface temperature and pressure is close enough to Earth's that human colonists still need an oxygen mask but can otherwise walk around outside in ordinary street clothes, would the following be sensible?
- All building entrances, both homes and workplaces, are airlocks with standardized connectors on the inside for refilling oxygen tanks, along with spare masks.
- All of the above undergo mandatory inspections by government authorities several times a year, with stiff fines for those who don't keep everything ready for use in an emergency.
- Denying airlock access to someone in distress is a felony. The inner hatch doesn't have to be unlocked so you aren't required to let complete strangers claiming an emergency into your home, but they ''must' be allowed to at least cycle the airlock and catch their breath while refilling a depleted oxygen tank or calling emergency services.
- Individuals with any kind of physical handicap that hampers mobility are legally forbidden from being outside without an escort, no exceptions. After all, if they get immobilized by, say, a dead battery in a motorized wheelchair or exoskeleton, there's no guarantee anyone will find them before their oxygen runs out.
What kind of atmospheric composition are we talking here? Because an oxygen mask being required might require full body protection either way regardless of temperature or pressure.
Skin doesn’t like anoxic conditions after all and an absence of oxygen might also imply an absence of water in the air. If you think dry skin is bad in the desert on Earth, try it on a planet without water!
Planet is a Goldilocks super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf. No tidal lock, but days are slightly more than twice as long as Earth's. Currently undecided on moons.
Surface gravity is 1.1 g, atmospheric composition is predominantly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with some helium on the side (implying a decent magnetic field). No surface water aside from a few equatorial lakes courtesy of deorbited comets, but these are not expected to be permanent. Might have substantial subsurface water due to the next planet in the system having massive quantities of hydrocarbon ices and other volatiles.
Seasonal dust storms akin to Mars. Good candidate for terraforming, but technology isn't mature enough yet.
Honestly, that scenario is one where you'd probably going for a Domed City. Individual airlocks on buildings is way too many points of failure for comfort. You want to minimize the need for people to have to leave the oxygenated areas as much as possible and they best way to do that is just one big area its safe to move about in that is then subdivided into living and working spaces.
Doesn't have to be a literal dome, a series of interconnected towers or arcologies or something like that would work just as well.
Gonna note here that 1.1g is not enough to hold a helium atmosphere, even against the Sun, never mind a red dwarf, unless we are talking about a planet formed by airgel.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Not a dominant part of the atmosphere. Just enough that the local military garrison used to goof around in their barracks before lights-out snorting canned local atmosphere to talk in a helium voice until they set off the internal environmental sensors' decompression alarm one times too many.
Even if most of the atmosphere isn't helium, the star's X-ray and "hard" UV radiation can still boil the helium component off. Unless the star doesn't spin or something.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
They call me.... Prophet
Yea i'm also going to point out that that many airlocks is not workable. Airlocks are not simple devices, no matter how ubiquitous they are in fiction. The constant stress of pressure cycling makes failure inevitable, and the constant need to pump air in and out is going to put a constant strain on machinery. Failure is a given.
Domed cities are also a terrible idea. Domes are way too hard to build and too complicated.
Not to mention, i think having that many buildings would make things very complicated. that's a lot of life support units. You'd want much bigger buildings with much more centralized heat, water, electricity and air. Less surface to puncture, more efficient use of material. A space base would have more in common with an arcology than a tent camp.
Edited by devak on Oct 19th 2023 at 9:18:15 PM
Lost in Space
Domes aren't inconceivable, although it helps if they're built in lower gravity and atmospheric pressure differentials. The higher the pressure and gravity, the more difficult the engineering problem is to solve.
A far easier solution that will be adopted by most colonists early on in a planet's development is underground construction. That makes sealing your atmosphere in a lot easier, as well as protection against radiation and/or meteorites, depending again on the atmospheric conditions.
Regardless, while you don't want each individual home relying on its own airlock to get in and out of a breathable atmosphere, you do want dwellings to be capable of sealing themselves in case the external containment fails. Also, you wouldn't have scattered, single-family dwellings. That would be an absurd waste of resources. Most people would live in large structures that are easier to maintain and protect.
Edited by Fighteer on Oct 19th 2023 at 4:30:01 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
They call me.... Prophet
It's not that it's inconceivable or anything. We can build domes IRL. It's just that constructing domes is a complex matter. Especially if they have to be actually sealed. Building cubes is far, far simpler.
There's a reason we don't see domes everywhere on earth and the reason is that the construction complexity simply isn't worth it for anything except vanity projects.
I think that it heavily depends on the environment. underground construction is not easy, and the lack of natural light would probably not be ideal. Doable (in fact, i suspect any offworld base would want the equivalent of bomb shelters), but i don't think it's necessarily the only way.
A simpler solution would be essentially pressurized tents. You could create very large volumes of breathable atmosphere and do so quite easily. Easy to build, easy to maintain. Compartmentalizing is quite easy (and the risk of catastrophic damage low). Of course you'd still need actual buildings, but it's vastly easier than massive domes.
Actualy there was a method to make dome buidings quickly and cheaply developed after WWWII, quicker and cheaper then cube buildings actualy....
The problem is actually rather simpler, our world is at this point designed for cubes, the roads are squares, the furniture is squares, every thing that goes inside a building is designed to go against square walls...
So making the actual domes is now easier, but switching every thing else from cube to round just isn't worth it...
You can always use a Geodesic dome as a framework and then hang a double/triple layer of airtight fabric ontop of that. Let's say one layer on the outside and two on the inside. The dome could stand without pressure but pressurizing it would take a lot of stress off the structure and extend it's lifespan. You might even get some natural light through the cloth and structure.
Alternatively, build the cities underground. Compression strengthens domes and you can just hang a sunlamp from the ceiling to help people cope with the claustrophobia.
Underground cities need not be fully underground.
For example have all the roads and most common areas be underground, but most private buildings plus the occasional park will poke above the surface, allowing people to get natural light and cut down on the claustrophobia.
Not every building that pokes above the surface will have a private airlock. If there is economic stratification maybe low income homes are all underground, middle income homes have windows and maybe a small done on their second floor, while rich people can maintain a personal airlock.
Been more than a year for this thread, I'd comment about casting necromancy, but we're a sci-fi thread not a fantasy thread :p
So instead I reanimate with the power of science.
A common civilian tech I don't see talked about a lot is the idea of synthetic pets, electric sheep if you will. The cheap cyberpunk alternative to owning a real pet and all. Naturally since the pet is entirely artificial (if we discount cloning) wouldn't people likely kit out and customize their new friends?