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[Jackrabbit]

Actually, it is. It's just that most implausible things are just VERY implausible. Such as, all air molecules in your room suddenly move into one corner. Possible, yet VERY implausible. Or missiles that turn into sperm whales.

Best anti-missile system EVER.

[Baughn]

Sure, but we were talking about such things as nanotech armor that automatically repairs itself, or whatnot.

Implausible, yet certainly going to happen at some point unless it turns out to be a bad idea.

[Siquo]

Implausible is good. Impossible is something else. Automatically self-repairing armor is just not going to happen. Self repairing armor containing glue-capsules that instantly fill and glue the armor if it breaks already exists, but the armor will never reach its original state using self-repair.

Strength is in numbers. Who needs repairs when you've got 200 spares?

[RedWarrior0]

Depends on where the fighting is:
-For trans/inter galactic, Halo Arrays combined with some kind of protection, like the Ark
-For all other space combat, LR antimatter missiles with the antimatter contained by magnetics (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OldSchoolDogfighting)
-Closer quarters would be decided by some kind of highly moblie armor/superinfantry- SPARTANs from Halo, Wolverines and Zone Troopers from C&C come to mind, though both would be augmented for versatility. Giant mechs would be epic fail though. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumongousMecha)
-Then of course, are the weapons of ubervirus/nanobots/Tiberium variety

[Baughn]

Implausible is good. Impossible is something else. Automatically self-repairing armor is just not going to happen. Self repairing armor containing glue-capsules that instantly fill and glue the armor if it breaks already exists, but the armor will never reach its original state using self-repair.

Why not? What do you think our skin is?

Strength is in numbers. Who needs repairs when you've got 200 spares?

Sure, so you make the armor out of micron-sized blocks, and have the neighbours of damaged ones swap them out for spare blocks. Then add an onboard nanofactory to build more.. or don't, more likely; you've probably got a support train for that sort of stuff.

[dibujante]

Implausible is good. Impossible is something else. Automatically self-repairing armor is just not going to happen. Self repairing armor containing glue-capsules that instantly fill and glue the armor if it breaks already exists, but the armor will never reach its original state using self-repair.

Why not? What do you think our skin is?

I'm going to jump into this thread without any clue what's going on and suggest that androids of any sort are impractical because the human organism is already a self-replicating, self-repairing machine capable of fueling itself on a wide range of organics and possessed of a strong AI. Building the same thing out of non-replicating, non-repairing metal alloys dependent on large amounts of electricity and possessed of a weak AI seems impractical, and there is no guarantee that the human machine is not the apex of android efficiency.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It may be the apex of efficiency, but for all its advantages it has one minor drawback - having it damaged HURTS! An android of any kind could guzzle up electricity by the gigawatt, and still be practical - provided it can take more punishment than a human body of equal size and versatility.

[Virex]

That's not the main reason (though it helps). The problem with humans is that they're pretty much always the same. When desinging androids, we don't aim to replicate humans (though it'd be a good excersise), but instead we aim to build something that's at least as good as a human, but not human. A human could never survive in outer space, but an android build for outer space would combine the survivability of a space ship with the intelect of a human.

[LegoLord]

That wouldn't necessarily help in space; any combustible needs something to react with, oxygen being the easiest choice to produce, and the types of nuclear power require too large an area.  The only remaining possibility would be something similar to the new phone battery that takes energy from ambient radio waves (a new Nokia phone, I think), which could be difficult to produce at necessary levels.

It may be the apex of efficiency, but for all its advantages it has one minor drawback - having it damaged HURTS! An android of any kind could guzzle up electricity by the gigawatt, and still be practical - provided it can take more punishment than a human body of equal size and versatility.

Though that's a good point; weapons aren't designed around efficiency, they're designed to do their jobs as best they can, which excessive attempts to increase efficiency can ruin.

That's why my weapon wins

[Baughn]

Anyway, I can absolutely guarantee that human biology is not the end-all of humanoid form.

We're "designed" by evolution, which can only optimize for local maxima. Intelligences can search for global maxima instead, and there are quite a few of those around to search for. I'd name some, but I've already done that in previous posts.

[Sowelu]

I missed the gray goo thing, but I want to highly recommend the book "Blood Music" for a very disturbing sci-fi take on gray goo as regards biology.

[Virex]

That wouldn't necessarily help in space; any combustible needs something to react with, oxygen being the easiest choice to produce, and the types of nuclear power require too large an area.  The only remaining possibility would be something similar to the new phone battery that takes energy from ambient radio waves (a new Nokia phone, I think), which could be difficult to produce at necessary levels.

Nuclear Bateries don't quite need a lot of space and you can always mount some solar pannels for a quick fix. It's outer space, size doesn't quite matter as much as it does on earth

[Sowelu]

Me love you long space-time.


There's no such thing as free energy, there's always entropy. To answer the next question if we can ever reverse entropy: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

There's also the Von Neumann machine, grey goo that travels through space, eating planets to make more of itself. Perfect suicide, if you ask me.

Although I've already read that story, you're my new best friend on the forum.

[Fist_Of_Armok]

I had this debate on another site once; one side claimed "teams of supersoldiers" and the other side said "cruise missiles."

I haven't a clue which. I personally think (read: hope) God'll get bored, punch the laws of physics in the balls, and make giant robots possible.

[RedWarrior0]

I'm in the group that thinks both supersoldiers and cruise missiles would be great (depending on situation). Of course, if you can make ANYTHING, I would make a material along the lines of our Hidden Fun Material, then build a giant mech from that. Sorry God, I got there first.