u/Human-Question6210

From what I remember, that one word (probably spelled wrong) is the only lyric. I'm too awkward to record anything, but it went something like:

Bum. "Waaayo." Bum-bum bum, "Waaayo."

There was more than one voice, masculine.

It might be in Swahili? I'm quite sure my primary school had some sort of partnering with a school in Tanzania if that helps; we heard it in assembly while someone from there taught us (back in the mid 2000s).

I'm working on a fictional brown dwarf system which hosts complex life (I know that is a subject in itself). The BD itself (Everlasting Song, or EL) is a T4 V with a surface temperature of 1000K, having cooled down over ~6 billion years from ~3200K, based on this chart:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolutionary-tracks-for-low-mass-stars-brown-dwarfs-and-planetary-mass-objects-showing_fig1_331888410

Currently I'm trying to refine the composition of its many, many rings. It has an extensive system which reaches out to the outer habitable zone (~0.02175 AU/~3 million km). This system has been maintained, for almost as long as the BD has existed, by the orbit there of a super-earth where life began.

I've looked at multiple articles on the subject of my question, but none of them seemed to cover an older BD, and there was (unsurprisingly) a lot of language I didn't understand. It seems like hydrocarbons are abundant in inner rings, and that the ring structure overall "flares" (presumably toward the ends?) more than a high-mass star, but that's about all I got.

First question: What minerals would dominate this ring system, and where? I think volatile elements should be at the outer limits, and the inner edge should probably be silicon or something like that?
Second question: How do I determine the inner boundary of a ring system?

For some insight on the life aspect, you can see my last question. Basically, spaceborne life, maybe unlikely but (I dare to say) hopefully not impossible.

/uo I found a sub (40kOrkScience) which is basically my orkposting one but much bigger, and it's renewed my interest in doing a few WAAAGHs on other subs, but I don't want to be seen "brigading". What's the right way to do this?

/ro YA GET MOAR DAKKA!

What will come first: fusion, antimatter, beamriders, maybe even magsails or solar sails? Maybe something else? Which design would be cheapest?

I'm an agnostic white Englishman (I know I keep saying it but I feel I always should say it for context). I always want to talk to people about their culture, but I'm often too shy or afraid that I'll be drawing attention to them which they'd rather not have. That last part is bad enough given the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, and now with the Nowak situation, I'm worried that even if I try to go with the usual "sat sri akaal", a Sikh might think I'm going to harass them. Is it better to wait a while for everything to calm down first? This goes for visiting a Gurdwara too.

I've been working on my brown dwarf system some more lately. Large dense rings are regulated by a variety of small moons, and kept from coalescing by the ~9m ice dwarf/superearth where the native life began. The whole system is 5 - 6 billion years old, and life has generally been moving inward as the BD cools down (currently at ~1300K).

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I have made a few different categories of life so far, and despite the implied simplicity, I'm stuck on the "sails", which are mainly filter-feeding behemoths who use enormous spines to generate a magnetic field, which is propelled by the BD's equivalent of solar wind. These magsail creatures spend most of their time hibernating on a highly eccentric orbit, and only wake when they detect food, whether in the inner rings, or around the superearth, or even further than that. The largest of them are colonial organisms, which should hopefully allow enough intelligence for a sufficient understanding of orbital mechanics whilst being absolutely huge.

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So: how big can they get? How big can any organism get without the constraints of surface gravity? I know about the square cube law. Could they not just use their spines, some large fins, and other substructures to help radiate heat?

Hello sangat ji!

I'm a white Englishman and I got interested in Indian culture a few years ago. After learning about Hinduism (or Sanatan Dharma?) for a while, I decided to look into the other faiths from that region, and I decided on Sikhi(sm?). I know a few things now: mostly the history (the Gurus, the Mughals, the British Raj...), though I'm aware there are some contentious parts, especially around the 20th century. I regularly find words which I don't know, even a few in English (despite my family having lived here for a thousand-ish years).

Is it too soon to try reading the Sri Guru Granth Sahib? What should I know before I start? I know there are various English translations, including those mentioned in the pinned comments for this sub, and I think the one on srigranth.org seems good, or the PDFs from gurbaniwisdom.com .

EDIT: I don't need my squiddy friends to be blistering fast, but they should be able to make some timely course corrections between moonlets so they can avoid any predators coming their way.

(Hard sci-fi question)

Alright, immediately, I know I'm tempting things with the title. I have a habit of injecting science into everything I like, and my latest victim is a sci-fi Westmarch game I've been part of for a while. One of the races is your classic spaceborne cephalopods. I know the subject of spaceborne life is its own thing, and adding sapience to that is an even bigger stretch, so if necessary, consider this *mostly* hard sci-fi.

Brief background: the squids (in my headcanon) began their existence as floating microorganisms in the atmosphere of a super-earth, and then as with the other life in their system, they gradually migrated further up to avoid predators, make better use of the brown dwarf's energy, etcetera, in an analogue to the emergence of life onto land on Earth. They now inhabit the dense rings (maintained by their homeworld's orbit) of said brown dwarf, and in what is almost certainly the biggest stretch of possibility, they consume exclusively rock and minerals.

Treat all the above as background if you wish. If the odds of a lithophagic sapient aren't as low as I think (no disrespect to the creators, who definitely did not intend on a hard science setting), please let me know!

My question is this: how could these creatures (who in early adulthood are the size of a small car) get around between moonlets? I've considered chemical propulsion but I don't know if the "fuel"-to-mass ratio would be worth it. I've considered mag-sails, which are probably best for far smaller life. I've lately considered that they might use an organic ion thruster or two (dozen) but I have no idea how much electricity one space squid could produce.

EDIT: Please don't think this is meant to be a "Haha Americans stoopid" sort of post. I really do just want to know.

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In the past few years, as a Briton, I've had a slight interest in our island's western subnation. It takes up a good third of the land, it has beautiful sights, and it has a rather unique flag, and yet we don't really hear anything about it. Is there a Welsh diaspora of any significant size in the States? what can you tell me about Wales without googling (or duckduckgoing)?

ROIT, ME NAME IZ ZOGWART DA PROPPA 'ARRRD GEEZ. I IZ SIKK OF DEEZ ZOGGIN' WIZZUDZEZ. ME AN' DA BOYZ JUST WANNA DO A LITTUL RAMPAYJIN' AN' DEEZ PROONY OLD GITZ JUST TELLYPORT US AWAY, OR DEY KAST GREEN TER GREY (AN ORK KANT BE GREY, DATZ AN ABOMMYNAYSHUN AGENST NAYCHUR OR SUMMING).

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HOW DO YER KRUMP A BEGGAR WOT KAN TURN YER TEEF TER SKWIGZ (LIKE SKWIGZ JUST NOT IN ME GUMZ) OR MAYK YA SHOOTAH SHOOT PLASTIK DUKKS?? I'Z PROPPA SIKK UV IT. I 'ATE WIZZUDZ, SIMPUL AZ.