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Post by redsycorax on Jan 9, 2024 2:56:27 GMT
A black dwarf is the end of stellar evolution in the case of stars very much like our Sun- G class main sequence yellow suns. 500 million years or so in the future, our Sun will begin to expand into a red giant, probably consuming Mercury and Venus and perhaps Earth due to increasingly strong nuclear fusion reactions that will cause its prodigal expansion. After too much fusion has occurred, there will then be a helium flash, the Sun will shed its outer layers and then lapse back past a second main sequence phase but ultimately decline into a white dwarf, at which point Earth (if it still exists) will freeze over. After about fourteen billion to one quadrillion (!!!) years, the Sun will lose the last of its residual energy altogether and become a black dwarf body. Given this is far older that the estimated current lifespan of our universe, such stars do not yet exist, so we cannot observe such bodies at present. So, what happens if Superman (or Supergirl, or someone else with Kryptonian and Daxamite class abilities) emerges into the vicinity of a black dwarf star billions of years from now? They derive their abilities from G class main sequence yellow star ultra-solar radiation, which black dwarf suns no longer emit. My guess is that their abilities gradually phase out due to lack of exposure to ultra-solar radiation unless they get to any surviving main sequence yellow suns in that future... unless it is so far in the future that there is no further stellar development because there is no free-floating gas or interstellar debris is left. Granted, red dwarf suns would continue to exist, until they become blue dwarves and then white dwarves. I suspect that there may be a possible contingency there- let's say that there are stasis shielded yellow main sequence stars still in existence, or else (perhaps more likely) ultra-solar storage batteries secreted in the vicinities of such bodies so that Superman et al could undertake 'recharging' of their abilities, which would enable them to travel back in time to a more convivial environment. Which raises some questions about the safety and survival of such devices. I can imagine Darkseid, Luthor, Brainiac or some of Superman's more powerful opponents planning for this contingency. They might even be able to send Superman et al there involuntarily through the use of technology or their own natural capabilities. It might be possible for Darkseid, Brainiac or others to travel forward in time to sabotage these ultra-solar energy reservoirs and provide Superman (or others) with no ability to escape back to the relative past/our present- or they might be immortal and survive that far into the future. So what do Superman (or others) do then? Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dwarf
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Post by dans on Jan 9, 2024 16:47:34 GMT
so how will Superman and other immortals survive the heat death of the universe? Somebody (Larry Niven?) wrote a story about a similar concept, in which a living star accelerated other stars to relativistic speeds to slow their aging processes, so when the universe eventually devolves into a uniform mix of chaotic particles there would still be young stars around.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 9, 2024 18:13:39 GMT
so how will Superman and other immortals survive the heat death of the universe? Somebody (Larry Niven?) wrote a story about a similar concept, in which a living star accelerated other stars to relativistic speeds to slow their aging processes, so when the universe eventually devolves into a uniform mix of chaotic particles there would still be young stars around. We know Superman will die in the 21st century, if for no other reason than the fact that he has no problem time-traveling to the future without becoming a ghost
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 9, 2024 23:35:29 GMT
Which may well be the case, but that doesn't preclude someone like Brainiac, Darkseid or any similarly capable supervillain throwing him far, far ahead in time to a point where there are no G class main sequence stars or free floating interstellar gas and debris left in the cosmos, when even red dwarves have transitioned into blue, white and then black dwarves themselves. Theoretically, some residual star formation would still occur in the event of neutron star or black dwarf collision, but given the immensity of space, such events would be few and far between and after a while, there wouldn't be any more such events. Hence my idea about there being ultra-solar batteries secreted in those remote future enivronments so that any Kryptonian, Daxamite or other metasapient dependent on them for their abilities can 'recharge' themselves so that they can get back to the present day cosmos. I might write such a story myself, but I'm still in the process of tracking down theoretical modelling or fiction related to black dwarves because I'm a stickler for that sort of thing.
And I'm a fan of those High Silver Age stories in which Superman ends up in future environments where Earth's sun has gone red itself and he has to battle arduous local environments on the abandoned, desolate Earth to get somewhere where he can get back home. Although mostly such stories don't have scientific accuracy in mind- Earth's sun won't start expanding into a red giant for five hundred million years and most of the red sun future stories are only set a few thousand or million years in the future. It'd be interesting to write a story where current scientific knowledge or extrapolations related to that knowledge are taken into account.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jan 10, 2024 1:44:33 GMT
And I'm a fan of those High Silver Age stories in which Superman ends up in future environments where Earth's sun has gone red itself and he has to battle arduous local environments on the abandoned, desolate Earth to get somewhere where he can get back home. Yeah, same. My favorites are the ones from the late 60s/early 70s Superman stories, particularly the one in which he goes so far into the future that he ends up in the distant past. I believe he ended up splitting the Earth itself in that story for some life-giving reason. I'd like to write something like those stories someday.
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Post by jonclark on Jan 10, 2024 6:42:01 GMT
so how will Superman and other immortals survive the heat death of the universe? Somebody (Larry Niven?) wrote a story about a similar concept, in which a living star accelerated other stars to relativistic speeds to slow their aging processes, so when the universe eventually devolves into a uniform mix of chaotic particles there would still be young stars around. We know Superman will die in the 21st century, if for no other reason than the fact that he has no problem time-traveling to the future without becoming a ghost Technically with his memory Superman could easily remember that he had previously travelled to Tuesday January 13, 2150 and stayed for several days. So on January 12, 2150 he would either leave the Earth-One universe for that length of time or travel forward until the point his earlier self returned home. At least I think the ghost issue was limited to one universe. Not sure if we ever saw if anyone could travel back in time on another Earth to avoid the paradox of "being in two places at the same time"
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Post by dans on Jan 10, 2024 14:08:40 GMT
Hence my idea about there being ultra-solar batteries secreted in those remote future enivronments so that any Kryptonian, Daxamite or other metasapient dependent on them for their abilities can 'recharge' themselves so that they can get back to the present day cosmos. It's a BIG universe and still getting bigger. How many of these batteries are going to be build - and how will a time-stranded being find one of them? And, reach them from wherever they happen to be. It would probably require a googleplex of these devices to be useful to a time-stranded being, and who will make all of them and then distribute them?
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 10, 2024 21:01:49 GMT
Excellent point, Dan, especially if the indefinite expansion of the universe theory is the valid one- otherwise there'll be a big rip, big crunch and another big bang at some point if and when the universe reaches its maximum point of expansion, if there is one. Perhaps the batteries have an anomalous presence sensor that receives translight impressions that someone has just entered its remote future universe and they teleport to the side of the being that will potentially require their help when their ultra-solar radiation charge runs out. I can envisage someone (LSH's Brainiac 5?) manufacturing them en masse and then transporting them to the distant future so Superman, Supergirl, Mon-El et al don't get stranded there due to malfeasance from Brainiac 1, Darkseid, Drax, the Time Trapper, et al. Or perhaps they're stored in a steady state pocket universe and they teleport into our own when the translight motion sensors are activated by an anomalous presence in remote future space?
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Post by dans on Jan 11, 2024 11:10:51 GMT
I suppose an answer is, 'how long does it take in an area of space without yellow sun radiation, for a Kryptonian's powers to diminish beyond the point where s/he loses the ability to break the time barrier?' If it takes longer than, say, an hour, then don't even worry about it. Seems like way too much effort to me...
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 12, 2024 2:19:15 GMT
Ah, but how much ultra-solar radiation would long duration time travel consume, though?
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 12, 2024 2:21:09 GMT
How much ultra-solar radiation would long duration time travel to remote deep time eat up, though?
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Post by dans on Jan 12, 2024 11:12:40 GMT
an interesting point - are their powers recharged when they are time-travelling or does that cut them off from the source? I aways wondered how they can travel through space well away from any yellow star and keep their powers, and the explanation was that all of space was filled with yellow sun radiation - and yet they lose their powers under a red sun. Are there yellow sun radiation blocking force fields around all the red sun systems? The yellow radiation in the Rao system is likely just as strong as it is a light year from Rao... yet a light year away, Superman is safe...
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 12, 2024 22:28:01 GMT
Well, if Rao is a red dwarf, it's possible that therefore the intensity of its solar radiation is somewhat less than a larger G class main sequence yellow star like our sun, and therefore, its heliopause is smaller than that of our own sun, which therefore means that one has to get relatively close to Rao to lose one's protective ultra-solar radiation effects. However, there's a fish hook in this implication, which is that due to their diminished solar output compared to main sequence stars, red dwarves will be around long after our own sun and other G class main sequence stars have exhausted their fusion reactions and will dominate the later phases of the universe- before they metamorphose into blue and then white dwarves themselves. Which does raise an interesting question- what happens when Kryptonians, Daxamites et al cross that particular temporal phase of cosmic history. Or is it the case that they have protective clothing, or that being dimensionally displaced in the timestream protects them from the effects of lost ultra-solar radiation? Or is that the reason we haven't seen Superman, Supergirl, Mon-El et al go that far uptime?
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Post by dans on Jan 13, 2024 0:38:14 GMT
I guess the assumption is that when red star radiation is powerful enough, it blocks yellow star radiation locally, but in a free space region, far from any star, the ambient yellow star radiation is powerful enough to enable super powers. The red stuff must actually invade the body and actively push out the yellow stuff...
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Post by jonclark on Jan 13, 2024 7:11:09 GMT
I guess the assumption is that when red star radiation is powerful enough, it blocks yellow star radiation locally, but in a free space region, far from any star, the ambient yellow star radiation is powerful enough to enable super powers. The red stuff must actually invade the body and actively push out the yellow stuff... I've seen theories that specualted Kryptonians are actually naturally what we would call "superhuman" and that they were moved to a red sun system to weaken them. That Krypton was more of a way of imprisoning them (and Daxam the same for Daxamites). Sort of like having werewolves put on a planet with no moon0 it won't kill them but it will keep them from exhibiting any lycanthrope abilities since there is no full moon to trigger the change. Not syre the theory works in most established continuities but it does seem to fit the ways the powers/depowwering works,
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