Advanced Technologies

Writing Technology

Technology is a thing we would encourage people to play with freely, but as a hard-ish science setting, it is preferable that any technology or superscience that is invented or displayed does not break the established rules of the universe.

Impossible Technology

First to describe a number of things technology cannot accomplish in the Hayven Celestia universe: while such means are only theoretically impossible, they have been studied for millennia by, at minimum, krakun scientists, but haven't resulted in additional breakthroughs, so any violations require significant justification, because otherwise these technologies are considered setting-breaking.

• FTL travel or communication, except by means of gates. Even with space-folding, it is impossible to pass the lightspeed barrier to any practical degree, either through relativistic means or otherwise. The only way around this is via wormhole gates that allow instantaneous travel, which must be constructed with both ends in place first.
• Planetside wormhole gates. Wormhole gates cannot be built planetside without creating a host of problems, and so require construction in space. They also have a minimum diameter of 500m and are very easy to detect.
• Other methods of instantaneous teleportation besides gates.
• Total mind control devices. The brain of (most) any intelligent, sapient creature cannot be hacked with any reliability. This means it is impossible to perform "clean brainwashing" where the subject will obey all orders without question.
• Brain uploading. There is no way to reliably copy the brain of any individual beyond superficial skimming (aka no brain uploading to computers or other wetware), and computerized augmentations for the brain (should they exist) are very limited in ability.
• Time travel... at least of the easy jump-into-a-machine-and-go-into-the-past variety. Time travel can be used so long as it's implementation as technology is extremely limited and the canon timeline is not altered in any significant way.
• Interplanetary crossbreeding. Sorry, it's just too silly. See Genetic Engineering if you would like the closest approximation of this.
• Universal translators. There is no easy, automated way to translate one language to another seamlessly and on the fly. Characters need to learn the languages of one another, use an intermediary language, or otherwise speak through a translator.
• Food replicators. There are no known manufacturing methods that can create food from stray particles any more easily than growing it would involve.
• Air-tight force fields. There is no consistent, sustaining energy field that on its own can stave off a vacuum.

High Drawback Technology

These are technologies that (without severe restrictions) cost more than the benefits they provide.

• Robots. Universal robots are absolutely valid to include, but the more sophisticated they are the more expensive their upkeep is. In almost all cases, a biological laborer is going to be much more cost-effective.
• Mechas, while easily constructible, are not practical instruments of war. Most mecha that would be used are going to look like power loaders as best.
• Brain-in-a-Jar. This is technically possible and within the means of someone relatively well-off. It's also considered a terrible fate. The brain can be fed simulated sensations but it is a very delicate process. Some species take to it easier than others--krakun can be preserved for a rather long time like this.
• Translation software. I'm noting this here because, in part for story reasons, automatic translations are rarely considered "good enough". They can be used in a pinch, but in general each species' language, having evolved on different planets entirely, are considered to be so different from another's that automatic translation cannot readily make up for the difference without an AI being involved. As such, automated translation can usually only give a rough estimate as to the topic of a conversation and rarely the details.
  • (conjecture: Automatic translation may be more useful between a single given species's multiple languages, as they would be considered to be much more related.)

Standard Technology

These are technologies that may have benefits that justify the costs (though the costs are still gonna be weighty).

• Cybernetics with the asterisk that cybernetics are less preferred compared to cloning. They are useful in cases where the cybernetic replacement needs to do something beyond its natural capabilities (such as cybernetic lungs) but they aren't capable of granting superpowers. Someone with a cybernetic arm isn't gonna be super strong when an actual punch using the whole arm would tear it from its socket.
• AI. Artificial Intelligences are very advanced, to the degree they can think and reason on par with biological life, but have limitations in their scope. In some cultures, these are considered to be living beings. The main downsides, and the reason that krakun began a system of slavery as an alternative for menial tasks, are threefold:
  • AI can be just as willful as living beings, acting on their own and disregarding their intended programming--and an AI, being superintelligent, can become a very powerful threat if it decides its masters are not worth serving.
  • If programmed in such a way as to mitigate its willfulness, AI have a bad habit of going insane. A powerfully intelligent AI may be more controllable if placed inside of a sandbox with its inputs limited, but if the AI breaks out of that sandbox it can experience an existential crisis, or worse.
  • If programmed in such a way as to mitigate its intelligence, AIs can be hacked with relative ease--all it takes is another, smarter, faster AI (or a very skilled hacker) to do the job. While this doesn't mean lesser AI serve no purpose, they generally cannot be given control of or access to critical systems without risk of opening up those systems to quick sabotage by altering an AI's allegiance.
  • Krakun, as a rule, shun the use of AI.
• Brainwashing devices. While the brain cannot be directly controlled it can certainly be heavily influenced. Devices can easily adjust the hormonal state of the brain and body and cause pain/pleasure in response to stimuli, or sometimes just thoughts. While common, these devices clearly cause a great deal of stress and can't be used en masse reliably.
• Cloning. Note that cloning in HC does not duplicate the mind of the individual in question, only their body. This is very useful for medical technologies, but is in general going to be less effective than standard breeding for labor forces.
• Brain transplants. A brain can be transplanted to a cloned body, but this only refreshes the body and not the individual's age. A healthier body can possibly help someone reach the listed maximum age for their species, but due to various factors the brain will still eventually break down irreparably. For obvious reasons, brain transplants between species is not viable.
• Quick healing. Possible to dunk someone in a tank of blue goop and get them repaired much faster than normal, but rather expensive. Some more modest tech can be used to speed up healing though--for instance, medicine can cut the amount of time needed to heal a broken bone in half.
• Genetic Engineering. There are clear limitations to this--for instance, in krakun society in general, genetic engineering is ubiquitous, and almost all krakun have maximal health, intelligence, and longevity, which means they've hit the upper limit of how much more they can squeeze from this tech without changing their nature of being. There is probably no amount of genetic engineering that'd make anyone more powerful than a krakun.
• Powered shields, including personal shields. The main drawback is that these devices are extremely power-hungry. Without toting around a generator, a personal shield will only last a few seconds, and has a maximum amount of force it can resist. Even planetary shields can't stop something with sufficient mass and momentum in its tracks.
• Cloaking devices, including personal cloaks. These can render something invisible or overwrite it with a convincing holographic image. However, there is no cloaking tech that can defeat all known methods of detection, and its usefulness in space combat is going to be limited.

Low Drawback Technology

These are technologies that more than make up for the cost of implementation (assuming the cost can be met).

• Anti-Gravity and other forms of gravity manipulation. Antigrav devices, while expensive, are very common and used in all sorts of things esp for safety reasons. Space elevators are helped significantly by the inclusion of antigrav.
• Perfect seal helmets and rebreathers. I'm gonna include this one here because it is probably, in a strict hard sci-fi sense, very unlikely. Helmets and rebreathers can be made both fully sealed and fully comfortable for the wearer without needing any additional suiting, and can be put on and taken off relatively easily. This allows species who have partial compatibility with other atmospheres to move freely in them without all-concealing suits.
• Medical foam. First aid supplement. Can plug wounds anywhere between small cuts and large gaping holes without causing toxic shock, allows for natural healing to take over or can be used as a stop-gap before assessment and repair by professionals. Application is dry and sets within moments, it flexes with skin and excess material sweeps away easily.
• Gates. Gates use large wormholes to connect two specifically defined points in space, with one gate at each end. The wormhole's "frequency" factors into them connecting to one another across the galaxy. Gates can change their frequencies to find other endpoints.
• Vat-Grown Meat. While considered not the best it is a fairly straightforward process and a highly useful method to make meat at scale.

Weapons

This list is of course not exclusive and you can invent weapons of varying practicality. Weapons listed are generally going to be considered more-or-less practical for their purposes--obviously, characters can wield swords and it still be cool but it's not gonna be the most effective option.

Handheld weapons

• Plasma guns lob a volley of ultra-heated material. Can come in a wide variety of ammunition types.
• Glass guns, like plasma guns but with a lower thermal maximum for safer use aboard starships.
• Coil guns shoot flechettes at an extremely high velocity. Great for killing in open fields, very bad for ship interiors.
• Laser guns shoot directed light energy. Note: without something to reflect off of, lasers are near-instantaneous and invisible. If you want something visible, use plasma. Laser guns are the most viable weapon for silenced attacking. Downside is that laser weapons often include a charge time to approach killing power.
• Taser guns fire a bolt that injects a pre-determined amount of electricity into the target. Largely non-lethal.
• Pip guns flood a target's nerve endings with an excruciating amount of pain; leaves no damage or other marks.
• Sonic guns fire a directed shockwave burst. Also usually safe to use aboard ships, most useful at very close range.
• Ballistic guns are your normal bullet launching weapon propelled via chemical means. You are totally allowed to use non sci-fi weapons in your sci-fi. In this case, chemically launched bullets still have the advantage of being self-contained ammunition instead of relying on the gun's own integrity to work. Some improvements over modern ballistic guns may include:
  • Caseless bullets (no casing to eject)
  • Minimized recoil
  • Powder-free chemicals (no powder burns)
  • Multi-size barrels (can take ammunition in a range of sizes)
  • Built-in silencing (Note that chemical explosions are never going to be all THAT silent, but they can minimize the amount of noise transferred to the user at the very least)

Ship weapons

• Laser cannons are short-range weapons--light disperses over space and loses effective power quickly.
• Plasma cannons are medium-range weapons.
• Rail guns are long-range weapons. Note they can't get matter that close to lightspeed, so while a railgun can be very damaging it is far from planet-exploding amounts of power.
• Missile launchers are long-range weapons with the potential of much larger payloads, but they are also the slowest option and easiest to intercept.

The Trinity

None of the trinity technologies are unique to the trinity; however, krakun engineers have discovered multiple ways to implement these technologies, and in in the case of the trinity, make them completely dependent on one another. Since in the trinity, every device must work simultaneously in order to work at all, all gate ships utilize trinity technology in order to make it impossible for their operators to escape.

Gate

Gates use large wormholes to connect two specifically defined points in space, with one gate at each end. The wormhole's "frequency" factors into them connecting to one another across the galaxy. Both gates must be powered and operational, otherwise the wormhole evaporates. Do not touch the sides and do not get caught in the middle of a wormhole during shutdown.

Recycler

Recylcers are very common in the galaxy, though krakun recyclers are perhaps the most efficient, able to dissolve nearly any material to atoms or molecules. The atoms or molecules are then fed into outflow collectors, which can then be used to reconstitute any number of materials. Do not enter the chamber while it is operational.

Drive

Drives use space-folding technology to move without gaining velocity/acceleration or running into problems of relativistic speed. However, the effective speed at which this can be accomplished is still well below c--something like .96c is the fastest that drives can operate, and since the ships do not gain real acceleration from drive hopping, this ceiling is due to the frequency that the hops can be performed.