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Alderson Disk
An Alderson disk (named after Dan Alderson, its originator) is a hypothetical artificial astronomy, astronomical megastructure, like Larry Niven's Ringworld and the Dyson sphere. The disk is a giant :wikt:platter, platter with a thickness of several thousand miles. The Sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk. The outer perimeter of an Alderson disk would be roughly equivalent to the orbit of Mars or Jupiter. According to the proposal, a sufficiently large disk would have more mass than its Sun. The hole would be surrounded by a thousand-mile-high wall to prevent the atmosphere from drifting into the Sun. The outer rim would not require a wall. The mechanical stress (physics), stresses within the disc would be far beyond what any known material can stand, thus relegating such a structure to the realm of exploratory engineering until materials and construction science become sufficiently advanced. Building a megastructure of this magnitude would require an amount of materia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Hole In Space
A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''English alphabet#Letter names, a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, ''English articles, a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest know ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torg
''Torg'' is a cinematic cross-genre tabletop role-playing game created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek, with art by Daniel Horne. It was first published by West End Games (WEG) in 1990. Game resolution uses a single twenty-sided die, ''drama cards'' and a logarithmic results table, which later formed the basis for WEG's 1992 sci-fi RPG '' Shatterzone'' and 1994 universal RPG '' Masterbook''. WEG produced over fifty supplements, novels and comics for the first edition. A revised and expanded core rule book was produced in 2005, with a single adventure. After WEG closed in 2010, ''Torg'' was sold to Ulisses Spiele, who, after a successful crowdfunding campaign, published a new edition called ''Torg: Eternity'' in 2018. Overview ''Torg'' takes place in a near future setting, known officially as "the near now". At the starting point in the game setting, Earth has been subjected to an inter-dimensional invasion by a series of "High Lords", who have changed the natural laws of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West End Games
West End Games (WEG) was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York City, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Its product lines included ''Star Wars'', ''Paranoia'', '' Torg'', ''DC Universe'', and '' Junta''. History Scott Palter received a JD from Stanford in 1972 and joined the New York State Bar before he began work at the family firm, Bucci Imports. Drawing on this financial connection, Palter was able to found West End Games, named after the bar in which the meeting that finalized its founding occurred: the West End Bar near Columbia University. Initially a producer of board wargames, In 1983, Palter hired Ken Rolston, Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan as game designers, and WEG's focus turned away from traditional wargames. Costikyan's 1983 game '' Bug-Eyed Monsters'' brought WEG into the science-fiction and fantasy genres. Then Costikyan and Goldberg brought Palter a manuscript fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World-building
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology, and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages (often called ''conlangs'') for the world. The world could encompass different planets spanning vast distances of space or be limited in scope to a single small village. Worldbuilding exists in novels, tabletop role-playing games, and visual media such as films, video games, and comics. Prior to 1900, most worldbuilding was conducted by novelists, who could leave imagination of the fictional setting in part to the reader. Some authors of fiction set multiple works in the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orion's Arm
Orion's Arm (also called the Orion's Arm Universe Project, OAUP, or simply OA) is a multi-authored online hard science fiction world-building project, first established in 2000 by M. Alan Kazlev, Donna Malcolm Hirsekorn, Bernd Helfert and Anders Sandberg and further co-authored by many people since. Anyone can contribute articles, stories, artwork, or music to the website. A large mailing list exists, in which members debate aspects of the world they are creating, discussing additions, modifications, issues arising, and work to be done. A computer game and a tabletop role-playing game are being developed by the community, within the OA milieu. There is an ezine for Orion's Arm fiction, art, and commentary, called ''Voices: Future Tense'', add-ons for the Celestia program to displaying Orion's Arm planets, spacecraft and other objects, and additional transhumanist flavored SF illustrations. The first published Orion's Arm book, a collection of five novellas set within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic (paranormal)
Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is the application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed in the belief that they can manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces. It is a category into which have been placed various beliefs and practices sometimes considered separate from both religion and science. Connotations have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history. Within Western culture, magic has been linked to ideas of the Other, foreignness, and primitivism; indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference" and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also commonly attributed it to marginalised groups of people. Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), a British occultist, defined " magick" as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will", adding a 'k' to distinguish c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technology
Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as Kitchen utensil, utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life. Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistory, followed by the control of fire—which in turn contributed to the Brain size, growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Pleistocene, Ice Age, according to the cooking hypothesis. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malibu Comics
Malibu Comics Entertainment, Inc. (launched as Malibu Graphics) was an American comic book publisher active in the late 1980s and early 1990s, best known for its Ultraverse line of superhero titles. Notable titles published by Malibu included ''The Men in Black (comics), The Men in Black'', ''Ultraforce'', and ''Night Man (character), Night Man''. The company's headquarters was in Calabasas, California. Malibu was initially publisher of record for Image Comics from 1992 to 1993. The company's other imprints included Adventure Publications, Adventure, Aircel Comics, Aircel and Eternity Comics, Eternity. Malibu also owned a small software development company that designed video games in the early to mid-1990s called Malibu Interactive. History Origins Malibu Comics was launched in 1986 as Malibu Graphics by Dave Olbrich and Tom Mason (comics), Tom Mason with the private financing of Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, who was operating a comic book distribution company (Sunrise Distribution ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sword And Sorcery
Sword and sorcery (S&S), or heroic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of Romance (love), romance, Magic (fantasy), magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. The genre originated from the early-1930s works of Robert E. Howard. While there is a chance example from 1953, Fritz Leiber re-coined the term "sword and sorcery" in the 6 April 1961 issue of the fantasy fanzine ''Ancalagon'', to describe Howard and the stories that were influenced by his works. In parallel with "sword and sorcery", the term "heroic fantasy" is used, although it is a more loosely defined genre. Sword and sorcery tales eschew overarching themes of "good vs evil" in favor of situational conflicts that often pit morally gray characters against one another to enrich themselves, or to defy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gothic Fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative to mean medieval and barbaric, which itself originated from Gothic architecture and in turn the Goths. The first work to be labelled as Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel ''The Castle of Otranto'', later subtitled ''A Gothic Story''. Subsequent 18th-century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Beckford (novelist), William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis, Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, with Romantic works by poets, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron. Novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works as well. Gothic aesthetics continued to be used throughout the early Victorian li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, Parallel universes in fiction, parallel universes, and extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances. Science fiction is related to fantasy (together abbreviated wikt:SF&F, SF&F), Horror fiction, horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many #Subgenres, subgenres. The genre's precise Definitions of science fiction, definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include hard science fiction, ''hard'' science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, ''soft'' science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
