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A neutron star is one of the strangest settings that you can have for a space adventure story. a team stranded on one could experience many wonderful things.
perhaps the best is that the gravity is so strong that light falls perceptibly. The actors would have to be equipped with phony anti gravity
devices, and a major subplot might be people trying to remove said device from each other as anything not protected would melt into a silvery heap. The surface of the star would not nessecarily be hot; it could be a very old star which has cooled, but remains ultimately high pressure. It would be very shiny and smooth and hard like an indestructible mirror. It would be very small, also, perhaps only a mile across, thus trapping the actors close to each other so they would have to work out their issues in a ray-gun fight where the light is twisted by the outrageous gravity field.
Neutron Star
http://www.amazon.c...103-6383432-9995846
Very, very baked. [DrBob, May 29 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Dragon's Egg
http://www.amazon.c...dos/ASIN/034543529X
by Robert L. Forward. Novel set above and on a neutron star. [wiml, May 29 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]
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Not a rant, but not an HB idea, either. |
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Larry Niven has a story called Neutron Star. The story line isn't quite like what you have here, but you might like it (in fact, he has a number of stories which involve neutron stars, so you might want to read all his stuff). |
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One more thing (and the more knowledgeable amongst us can correct me if I'm wrong): I'm pretty sure the tidal gravity forces on the surface would be sufficient to either squish you or rip you apart, anti-gravity or no. |
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//tidal gravity forces on the surface would be sufficient to either squish you or rip you apart, anti-gravity or no.// |
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would you like to re-think that, phoenix? suspending disbelief for a moment, anti-gravity would mean no tidal gravity forces (if it were truly anti-gravity rather than some sort of balancing force).. |
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More interesting would be what it might do to the "star" - probably cause closer portions of it to free themselves as atoms, possibly with huge energies. |
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I am sorry if this is not appropriate. I thought it was an idea (perhaps an incomplete idea) for a futuristic movie. And of course, this would have to be some kind of gravity equivalent of a gaussian surface the people would be wearing. |
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"would you like to re-think that, phoenix?"
Not really. I guess in SciFi anything goes. I just tossed my comment in as an afterthought. |
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[adeps] We have a number of writers and aspiring writers around. I'm sure some of them would be interested in mulling any ideas you might have. |
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Dragon's Egg (see link) is another classic story using the neutron star setting. |
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Neutron stars are just about the most interesting
astrophysical phenomenon in the universe. The surface of
a neutron star is thought to be high density crustals of
crystalline iron, if you weren't aware. |
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As well as high gravity (and gravitational gradients), they
posses an unimaginable magnetic field - about ten
thousand billion times that of the Earth. Pulsars (rapidly
spinning neutron stars) spin so fast that the magnetic field
lines cannot causally "keep up" outside of a narrow cone
centred around the poles. The energy density of this field
is actually about the same as the equivalent matter
density of water - and so the inertial effect is as if the
neutron star were spinning inside a large body of water. |
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Unless this is only for one episode, I'm pretty sure that a uniform crystalline ball of stuff would get boring quickly. Varying terrain is more exciting. Even the setting in Tron wasn't bad, though the body suits looked stupid. |
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