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[TractionEra]

Let me start out with SPOILER ALERT (These texts effects feel really under used IMO). I'm talking about the latter part of Extras.




Now that that's out of the way. Does anyone else find the depiction of the state of space flight confusing (and even contradictory) in the books? What I mean is, throughout the first three books we are constantly reminded that special materials exist for use in space and we are told that they communicate using communication satellites, yet we are made to believe that breaking the bonds of gravity using rocket propulsion is virtually unheard of after the Rusties's war and are told that the use of mag-lev technology to do so is extremely rare in Extras.

So, are they just piggy-backing off Rusty left-overs or what? I was wondering this constantly, but I'm at the end of Extras and still without answers. I apologize in advance if this was explained and I just missed it.

[Straif]

Piggy backing probably. No one really wants to go to space though cause they're all brainwashed mercykill worthy fucktards so...yeah, they don't cover it very well.

[TractionEra]

I wouldn't ask if he hadn't blatantly used the word "orbital" in describing the material. It bothers me that they'd have a material for the express purpose of going into space yet don't go into space. Dangling the possibility of space travel in my sci-fi in front of my face like that is just rude.

Honestly, I feel like it may have been an idea he never got around to using in the Trilogy and changed his mind on in Extras.

[Straif]

You say that as if its a surprise. Then again Extras is five years post-Specials.

[TractionEra]

I didn't read them until now. For all I knew they were written consecutively.

[TractionEra]

I can't look for the quote as I do not have a copy on hand, but I remember that the facility housing the Rusty old-tech in Tally's city was described as being made from some sort of orbital material. Suborbitals refers to aircraft more than likely.

(Science is about broadening all horizons. And space travel has done more than put a man on the moon and a robot on Mars. Lots of Earthly good has come of it.)

[TractionEra]

Yeah, I kind of honed in on that one. I've literally been waiting for the smallest mention of regular space travel by a city. Extras was not what I wanted at all.

(Well, it doesn't matter what we do to the Earth, because in a few billion years the Sun will expand into a Red Giant, effectively killing all life on Earth whether or not Humans do anything between now and then. Space travel is literally the only way for anything on Earth to survive that. Personally, I just want to establish a research station on Europa. Not personally, but I want to make the firecracker.)

[TractionEra]

I like Extras. I was just sad that the Nosferatu monkeys were the only one flying to space.

(Yes, but on the grand scale we're not even a blip on the radar. It'd be nice if we could fix the problems of the world, but if science never expanded past fixing immediate problems face by the populace, we might still believe in heliocentric theory and might never have glimpsed the Challenger Deep. Convincing everyone not to drive SUV's and reduce their carbon footprint shouldn't hamper scientific research in non-utilitarian fields.)

[TractionEra]

A type of vampire that came to be when some film makers couldn't acquire the rights to Dracula. http://tinyurl.com/as8abea

(Either we're very unique, or we are not. Either way, the chances of humanity existing in a recognizable form in 7.6 billion years is a long shot at best. I think we should preserve the present ecology in a comfortably habitable state, but I also can't look at the stars without wanting to explore what's up there.)

[TractionEra]

That's what I imagine Extras look like, just with monkey feet.

[Well, according to sci-fi, it's getting time for humans to stop building out and start building up (without using hover struts). We're such adaptable little bastards that we'd probably sit on our thumbs until the sun was on our doorstep. Frogs in a pot.]

[TractionEra]

Yeah, I get that. Their surge is really weird even for space-faring people. I wonder if they modified their bones and muscles to counteract the loss of density and muscle mass that occurs from long-term stays in low gravity.

[Straif]

There's no mention of it in the books...

[Straif]

URHG!

[Straif]

Yeah, not a fan of it myself.

[TractionEra]

That's actually a possible outcome. In the short term, Sayshal surge could counteract the effects, but they'd have to find a way to have a hereditary muscle strength and bone density mod.

I liked Wall-E before they went aboard the ship. I loved the robo-romance part.