XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science   
   From: JRStern@foobar.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:05:58 -0600, Doc O'Leary   
    wrote:   
      
   >In article ,   
   > Greg Goss  wrote:   
   >   
   >> Modern North Americans just cannot fathom the scale of a horse-based   
   >> society.   
   >   
   >s/horse-based/sustainable   
   >   
   >And, sadly, the problem isn't just limited to North American.  The   
   >majority of sci-fi hand waves abundant energy into the future, but the   
   >reality is that, so far, that appears to be the hardest hurdle we have   
   >facing us.   
      
   It is hard, even (!) fusion has proved way more difficult than   
   anticipated and maybe we'd better assume that ground-based fusion (as   
   opposed to gathering the fusion power of the sun) will never be a   
   practical fuel source.   
      
   But then, what choice does scifi have, the energy to move a starship   
   around at sub-light speeds, the unknown energy required to move it at   
   super-light speeds, and you have to store it all in a couple of D-cell   
   containers? Y'know, in the real universe it may just never happen that   
   way, and what are we gonna do, burn all the old scifi stories?   
      
   I therefore salute how Stargate uses ZPM's - except that I doubt that   
   should a ZPM exist it could be zapped around through the stargate, as   
   the ZPM is usually portrayed as holding a lot of energy, not just   
   being a clever device to access it from another dimension or whatever.   
   Well whatever, just a quibble I sometimes have when watching.   
      
   J.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)