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[Grimlocke]

I'd say that a virus targeting a specific gene might be possible, but likely wont be much use for anything.

DNA spends nearly all of its time being neatly folded up, only to be partly unfolded when being read or when its cell duplicates. For the virus target a specific bit of DNA, it would have to fool a cell into reading a particular bit of DNA and making some RNA from it (thus having already infected it), and only start using the cell to make more of the virus for certain results.

Fooling these parts of a cell is already what viruses are good at, which is why I wouldn't rule out the possibility.

The actual practicality is a lot more questionable though. Lots of traits you might want to target are not actually bound to one or a few genes, but specific combinations of lots and lots of genes. And most traits (such as 'American citizen' or 'Won't stop shooting back at us') have no relation with genetics whatsoever.

The only purpose I can see for it some some ethnically-targeted terrorism, or perhaps some sort of easily distributed way of flagging specific genes in people (using a non-lethal virus).

...

Hmmm perhaps it could be used to hide a back-door in genetically engineered super soldiers. Hide a bit of seemingly random junk-DNA, which is going be quite easy to hide since there is a LOT of junk DNA in the human genome, then engineer a virus that looks for that specific gene.

[GiglameshDespair]

Keep in mind some races are less vulnerable to certain diseases than others, mainly the diseases that were local to the place they live.
Most Africans have the duffy-negative antigen, while most non-Africans have the duffy-positive antigen. Duffy-negative populations are more resistant to malaria.

It's hardly going to lead to a ethnic group X-only disease, but race does have an effect.

[Sheb]

Well, killing specific family? Like target some specific sequences on the Y chromosomes where they have a SNPs and kill the whole male line?

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Wait what if you infected the people you wanted to keep alive with a virus that makes you produce a specific person then have another virus (the weapon) attack/infect people who don't produce said protein? It is that complete and total nonsense and I should just shut up?

[PTTG??]

I was just thinking, if a spaceship were to go near-light speed and head right for you, it would be very difficult to see it coming before it would be right on top of you. (ignoring for a moment the annoying temporal funkiness that might cause)

In fact, the moment your enemies travel at light speed or faster it would be very stupid to try and detect an enemy by sight. It would be like listening for incoming bullets. Things going faster than light that move toward you would not be visible until they already passed you (or hit you)...

If wormholes turn out to be of no practical use, then communication would for the first time since the invention of the fire signal be limited to how fast someone can carry it around.

This is also where my understanding of these matter kind of falters. Does light always move at the same speed, regardless of speed of its source? If it doesn't then moving at exactly one C would cause the ship to leave a trail of light that stands still... That doesn't sounds right at all.

...

I can see why somewhat FTL detection and communication is needed for writing remotely entertaining space battles.

C is a constant. If you're going faster than the speed of light, then modern physicists are very wrong. If you're going at .999 C, the extra energy that would "speed up" the light instead shifts the frequency up, like the doppler effect. A wormhole or other space-distorting thing frees you from a lot of that since you aren't "moving" in a real sense.

[Tack]

Indeed. Also iirc once you hit that point of speed your objective time should be slowed to a crawl.
Which would probably make the other person's job even harder.

[TheDarkStar]

Indeed. Also iirc once you hit that point of speed your objective time should be slowed to a crawl.
Which would probably make the other person's job even harder.

No, your perceived time never changes. Odd things still happen - as you get closer to the speed of light, everyone else moves slower (from your perspective) and distances begin to get shorter along your direction of movement.

[Tuxfanturnip]

If you had some sort of straight-up FTL drive, weird things would happen to causality. You emit light forward... backwards in time, so you see the light being absorbed by your light source, from behind. I guess it would be left behind, traveling through you?
While we're discussing FTL, would an Alcubierre drive/similar spacetime structure create a "sonic boom" of gravitational waves, as it's moving a field source through a wave carrying medium faster than the waves' speed?

[Tack]

Once you hit that point of speed your objective time should be slowed to a crawl.

No, your perceived time never changes.

I believe you're thinking I meant Subjective time.

[Culise]

I'm a bit curious, though, what even is your "objective" time?  Rest time?  I was under the impression that one of the big things about relativity is that there is no such thing as a universal referential frame, since there's no such thing as a universal rest frame; motion is always measured with respect to some external referent.  The only thing there is is a subjective frame as perceived by the, in this case, individual traveling at relativistic speeds.  The closest you can get is some inertial reference frame.

[Amperzand]

If you had some sort of straight-up FTL drive, weird things would happen to causality. You emit light forward... backwards in time, so you see the light being absorbed by your light source, from behind. I guess it would be left behind, traveling through you?
While we're discussing FTL, would an Alcubierre drive/similar spacetime structure create a "sonic boom" of gravitational waves, as it's moving a field source through a wave carrying medium faster than the waves' speed?

That would make sense. I ended up discussing something similar to this at college a few weeks ago, very interesting.

An additional feature of Alcubierre drives is that they catch things in front of the field, and keep them there, accelerated to considerable speed. A major hazard when using such a spacecraft would be the high-relativisting, likely nuclear "Bow Wave" built up from the imperfect vacuum that is the universe.

[Tuxfanturnip]

...high-relativisting, likely nuclear "Bow Wave" built up from the imperfect vacuum that is the universe.

In the setting I've mentioned in this thread, the limiting factor on FTL range, beyond fuel costs, is how much radiation shielding you can afford to pack on to the front and how many months you want to spend cruising in from a safe distance.

[Amperzand]

Yep.

The one properly considered starship design I've heard of, Project Daedalus, had massive beryllium plate at the front, both for radiation shielding and simply to deal with the occasional bits of relativistic sand.

[Tack]

I'm a bit curious, though, what even is your "objective" time?  Rest time?  I was under the impression that one of the big things about relativity is that there is no such thing as a universal referential frame, since there's no such thing as a universal rest frame; motion is always measured with respect to some external referent.  The only thing there is is a subjective frame as perceived by the, in this case, individual traveling at relativistic speeds.  The closest you can get is some inertial reference frame.

I dunno, when I think objective time, I think of some nameless observer looking down on a topographical... re: chronographical map from above, seeing all the ripples and bends in spacetime.

[i2amroy]

...high-relativisting, likely nuclear "Bow Wave" built up from the imperfect vacuum that is the universe.

In the setting I've mentioned in this thread, the limiting factor on FTL range, beyond fuel costs, is how much radiation shielding you can afford to pack on to the front and how many months you want to spend cruising in from a safe distance.

It might be worthwhile to note that, as I understand it, due to the essentially infinite curvature of space the objects inside the spacecraft running an Alcubierre drive are actually totally safe from that bow wave that they create, since the particles can only be thrown forwards, not backwards. It's whatever that happens to be sitting directly in front of them when they finally come to a stop that gets annihilated by the wave that suddenly is unleashed.