Creature Contest: "Unidentified Dark Matter Object"

[2guncohen]

Intelligence Conclusions about the Unidentified Dark Matter Object.





1. Introduction about the background

In all the myths of star faring civilizations, you will find the vague flashes of scientific Mysteries or a Religious Mythology of a unknown living entity who hides in the Dark Matter of the universe. This vague little freak references are also found in all the old story's of extinct Level 3* civilisations. *See Kardashev scale , Earth 1964

The First Solid Terran Scientifical proof was found during the excavations on the lost planet Zion under the efforts Of the Pan-Human Heritage Foundation.

With the discovery of the planet they found in the ruins of the capital of Zion data-banks who where confirmed to date during the the Years preluding the disappearance of the Great Emperor Fred of the Zion Empire**. ** See history about the saga of the" the legend of the Seeker".

Photo taken of excavation site



It seems the data was originating from the daring space exploration of the Science explorer vessel 'Lazy Sal'.
The Historical Data archaeologists concluded that the data was misplaced on purpose under a hidden directory "I am Predator" ..
(See Hypotheses of John Malkovics about "I am Predator Fred" )


Thanks to the data collected similarities where discovered in the extrapolations of incomplete recovered data of extinct Level 3 civilizations. They finally made sense and we were able to show results this all pointed to a Unknown hostile force.


To avoid speculation or wide panic the Xeno-Intelligence Agency censored all data and took it under the Federation Space security act.

The X-IA did no longer saw the "Unidentified Dark Matter Object" as a myth.

It also explained the growing tendency in the outer rim.

*** Last laser communication from the Deep Space Intelligence Ship Pegasus before it disappeared with its 2500 men crew when doing a reckon mission beyond the outer rim in dark space. = Begin transmission : SOS SOS ... unknown ..My god... Dark...matter..Object. Pegasus ... Came from nowhere ... screams ... end transmission.

Picture: Graphical Simulation of the sensorial information of the Unidentified Dark Matter Object who followed the 'Lazy Sal' for 8 Light years.


All Simulations based on facts show a trend that it is growing in tendency from the outer Rim and moving to the inner rim and the big populated centers.



2. What we think the creature is based on the myths.

A creature Who migrates from beyond the outer rim to the galactic core to suck all life from a galaxy
to lay eggs at the galactic core and then migrate to the next galaxy.


3. What we think it looks like.

'Lazy Sal' data makes us believe it is some sort of Semitransparent gelatinous creature with highly extensible tentacles.

Artistical presentation.



4. what it does.

We speculate It migrates very very slowly to the Galactic core When the civilisations are small.

Once the civilisations grew larger on the scale of the "Kardashev scale" then they arrive in flocks.
civilizations works like a shining beacon who lures uncountable numbers of this creatures.


5. Anything special about it:

Hidden in the fold of space ( lets call it Cloaked ) from beyond the outer rim it gets lured by civilization.
It sense feels a reckon ship it follows it for some distance and then again it hibernates till it re-discover a unsuspecting ship.
After a long crawl it ends up in a populated system.


The destruction happens in a cycle: Ones it gets in a Star system it hides itself and stays invisible for years/decades. Once it feels itself confident it will do a sudden attack on the smallest ship in the system and works itself up in the "food" chain". the speed of the attacks will grow with each kill and the size of the creature + attack frequency.

The Xeno-Inteligence Agency sees the Food chain theory like this : It works itself up from small miner ships to escort ships ectra to mining stations, then to least populated planet/moon ectra..

Once everything is extinct it goes again in the same migrating pattern to the following system. With its end in the galactic core.



End report

The story continuous: 50 years later …

The end of Morbo


2GunCohen

[tjhkkr]

I like this... this one is sort of frightening...
Your story is good...
And the picure is cool

[Facedrop]

I like this creature as well. The back story is great, and I can see this creature as being more of an interesting challenge then the usual creature.

[J HG T]

Sounds like really sneaky git. Could be problematic in bigger games. Still, nice idea and great backstory.

[Kayoz]

Sadly, science is stomping and pooping on the "dark matter" idea:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14948730

[Data]

great idea, I love it

[2guncohen]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

Sadly, science is stomping and pooping on the "dark matter" idea:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14948730

Luckily we can invent whatever we want in Fiction [:D]

[J HG T]

ORIGINAL: 2guncohen

Luckily we can invent whatever we want in Fiction [:D]

One of the many reasons why I love Science FICTION! [:)]

[Data]

And we can stomp and poop ourselves too....as strange as that might sound [:)]

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: Data
And we can stomp and poop ourselves too....as strange as that might sound [:)]

Spoken like a man who has a baby somewhere in his life... [:D][:D][:D]

[Data]

Amen to that, brother [:)]

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: J HG T

ORIGINAL: 2guncohen
Luckily we can invent whatever we want in Fiction [:D]

One of the many reasons why I love Science FICTION! [:)]

The best sci-fi, imo, takes conventional science and makes guesses at where it might go. That's what differs Arthur C Clark and Peter Hamilton (firmly anchored in reality) from the likes of L Ron Hubbard (Battlefield Earth, Scientology and other works of trashy sci-fi).

"whatever we want" - sure, if you want 60-foot Easter Bunnies marauding through your empire, and Elvis clones being the genetic basis for your Space Marines. Let's make it so the suns are orbiting around the planets - a return to the pre-Galileo view of the universe. Hey, anything goes, right?

[J HG T]

And that's why SciFi is divided to several sub-genres, Kayoz. Space opera and hard science fiction are the first ones to come to mind, and personally I love them both. Variety is the spice of life.
DW's more of a space opera where you can take certain liberties compared to hard scifi when creating your alternative universe.
From what I've understood, you are leaning more toward hard science fiction, Kayoz. Nothing wrong with that. Just keep in mind that other people don't always share your point of view.

[Data]

Wise words from our fayean friend. My hat is down to you, J.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

Sadly, science is stomping and pooping on the "dark matter" idea:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14948730

Good example of a conventional media exaggeration. [:'(]

You cannot stomp and poop on a theory which explains several different physical facts, beginning with the
rotational velocity of galaxies, continuing to the current structure of our universe on a macroscopic level, and ending
with explaining why the cosmic background radiation looks the way it does, just by pointing out that the theory shows some inconsistencies
when measuring the density of dwarf galaxies (which could have several other explanations except disproving DM).

Contrary to that, MOND, and a couple of other theories around, are only able to make some very specific accurate predictions
about galaxy rotation by modifying (or even disproving) well funded existing theories including the theory of gravity and the theory
of general relativity, quite a tough task in itself, without explaining anything else. [;)].

DM makes a wide range of, up to now, confirmed predictions, scaling up to the texture of the CMBR, and comes out accurate, which is about the best feat a theory can have.

Personally I don´t like the name. "Dark Matter" is simply to mythological to not to draw weird assumptions. But
it is the best model to explain the current shape and motion of the universe around, and not by a small margin.


2GunCohen, I like the idea!

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

DM makes a wide range of, up to now, confirmed predictions, scaling up to the texture of the CMBR, and comes out accurate, which is about the best feat a theory can have.

In the words of Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." - and despite DM working fairly well to fudge the answers, it has no experimental data to back it up. You might as well replace DM with "grumpkins", and you'd have as much proof. That's the way science works, unfortunately - no proof, you got bupkis.

Let's step back to Copernicus and his "concentric circles" theory. It worked quite well in the calculations, given the accuracy of observations available to them at the time and the understanding of our solar system. That did not, however, make him right. DM is in the same boat - it may work well on paper, but there's no evidence to support it (as there's no evidence to support concentric circles) - so despite how well it may look on paper, that doesn't make it RIGHT.

That's how science works - proof, experimentation and and reproducible experiments confirming the theory. DM has NONE of those. No experimental proof to show it exists, no real theory as to what it is (stuff with mass, but that we can't detect, can't measure, can't quantify - why not just call it "god"?)

DM has had a big hole shot in it's torso. Maybe it'll prove not to be fatal to the theory - or more likely, it'll be consigned to the boom closet that hold concentric circles, ether, the turtle and so many others.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

In the words of Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." - and despite DM working fairly well to fudge the answers, it has no experimental data to back it up. You might as well replace DM with "grumpkins", and you'd have as much proof. That's the way science works, unfortunately - no proof, you got bupkis.

Right you are, but you definitely are misunderstanding the level of developement here. We are, technologically, on the lower end of the ladder where
confirmation of DM predictions are possible. But we already do have a sufficiently developed theory to make predictions and perform rough comparisions to empirical data.
Up to now these comparisions yield positive results on many different scales.

The DM theory is successful because it was developed to tackle a single issue: The fact that the center of galaxies rotate too fast if only gravitational forces of baryonic matter
was involved.

Now, the really interesting part is: You can already model several other effects this theory has on our universe, and the results are stunning.
Not only does it explain the winding up of galaxy centers (the reason for the theories developement), it also enables us:
- to simulate the clustering of galaxies so that it matches reality close to perfect
- to explain gravitational lensing in galaxy clusters and relative motions in those clusters
- to explain fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background as has been measured by extremely accurate methods

And this is pretty neat for a theory which initially should adress a very specific issue.

Let's step back to Copernicus and his "concentric circles" theory. It worked quite well in the calculations, given the accuracy of observations available to them at the time and the understanding of our solar system. That did not, however, make him right. DM is in the same boat - it may work well on paper, but there's no evidence to support it (as there's no evidence to support concentric circles) - so despite how well it may look on paper, that doesn't make it RIGHT.

That's how science works - proof, experimentation and and reproducible experiments confirming the theory. DM has NONE of those. No experimental proof to show it exists, no real theory as to what it is (stuff with mass, but that we can't detect, can't measure, can't quantify - why not just call it "god"?)

If its ok with you I will just skip the Copernicus part because its rather polemic.

Admittedly, we have not up to now been able to prove the existence of a single WIMP (or particle DM is predicted to consist of). If you want to call it god, please feel free to
do so.
You would probably have called the Neutrino god as well? It was predicted as a byproduct of radioactive beta decay by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930. It was also predicted that it would be very hard to
identify because it was predicted to have extremely low mass and be electroneutral. In this specific case it took nearly 25 years to find traces of its existence.
Have patience young Jedi... [;)]

Fact is, there are many nice predictions the DM theory makes which would come in VERY handy in current understanding of our universe.
And don´t forget, it explains something which is hard to explain otherwise: The fact that galaxies rotate faster at the center than they should
as long as current theories without addional DM are involved.
There are other theories which are able to do the same. But: none of them explain anything else, and all of them have severe problems to be brought in
line with existing, extremely reliable, and often confirmed theories, like relativity or the current gravitational models. And there are no other alternatives in sight.

And galaxies DO rotate faster than they should...
Makes you think, no?

DM has had a big hole shot in it's torso. Maybe it'll prove not to be fatal to the theory - or more likely, it'll be consigned to the boom closet that hold concentric circles, ether, the turtle and so many others.

Is it just me or is that statement more likely to be from a politician than from a scientist? [;)]

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

- to simulate the clustering of galaxies so that it matches reality close to perfect
- to explain gravitational lensing in galaxy clusters and relative motions in those clusters
- to explain fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background as has been measured by extremely accurate methods

And this is pretty neat for a theory which initially should adress a very specific issue.

The desirability of a theory is not in any way an indication of its correctness. It may neatly explain things - but as I said - science requires PROOF. There is none. The old "aether" was a great theory for explaining things, but that didn't make it right. That's my problem with the Dark Matter theory - it requires that the reader take a "leap of faith", such that they accept there's something there - despite the fact that we can't detect it, can't measure it, can't prove it - why? Because otherwise our theories don't work....

Hold on... maybe... our theories are wrong, and this is nothing more than a giant kludge to the equation? Hrmm.. walks like a duck, quacks like a duck....

Dark matter - we can't see it, we can't measure it, we can't observe its effects indirectly. It has properties not seen in anything else - super-liquid, super-.... well, its properties depend on whomever you ask. Perfect liquid, it's hot, it's cold - it's whatever it has to be to make the numbers fit.

We've been wrong before. That's how science advances. We see something, or don't see something, and go out looking for an explanation. Dark matter, as a theory, is contrary to this in that we're fudging our equations to fit the observed behaviour instead of questioning our theories. You call this a "polemic argument", but I call it "learning from our mistakes" - in the past when we've tried to make up increasingly convoluted theories to explain phenomena, those theories have turned out consistently to be WRONG. Maybe DM is real and will beat the odds. But the experience of science has been that we need to re-examine our theories, not make sh*t up to make our theories fit.

Actually, I'm not sure how it's a "polemic argument" - I'm not trying to establish my personal superiority, nor am I trying to assert that "I'm right because you're wrong". My position is simply that the whole DM argument is inconsistent with all the lessons (those lessons which taught us the importance of experimentation and revisiting disproved theories) scientific investigation has taught us. Hey, maybe it's a lucky guess, and you'll bend over tomorrow and pick some dark matter out of your shoe. But I rather doubt it. It's convenient, it works great if we put whatever "dark matter" number we need to make our equations match the observations. We've been down this path repeatedly throughout history. The back of the giant turtle. Aether. Concentric circles. How many times do we have to go down this path, wasting our time and resources? Aether, concentric circles - how well did those work out for us?

Hey, maybe someone WILL prove "dark matter". He'll win a Nobel Prize. Or maybe it'll be the guy who works out how our theories are wrong.

Admittedly, we have not up to now been able to prove the existence of a single WIMP (or particle DM is predicted to consist of). If you want to call it god, please feel free to do so.

We haven't been able to detect the FSM yet - so according to you, it's a perfectly acceptable theory? I can explain lots of things by attributing them to FSM - but that doesn't necessarily make FSM real.

WTF you on about, anyhow? WIMPs are theorized based on our understanding of how things work. Scientists didn't just make them up because their equations didn't work.

No thanks, I haven't seen anything in nature to indicate that a "god particle" even exists. The universe may very well be an onion with an infinite number of layers, for which another is revealed every time we pull one back. If that's the way the universe is, then that's how it is - no amount of wishing for it to be different will change that.

[J HG T]

YES! My favourite show is on again!
And my condolences to 2guncohen that his thread turned into yet another internet war. 

[LoBaron]

Kayoz, it is really ok if your opinion differs from mine, this is why discussions exist.
Only I have never seen a reason to believe a statement like "If I cannot see it, its not there" makes any
sense in the realm of physics. It is very often wrong.

Maybe splitting things up into small packages helps you understand why the DM exists and works better than any alternative:

Fact: Galaxy centers rotate faster by a a large factor than they should, as long as you take gravity and baryonic matter into account.

So, something in our simulations is wrong. It has to be because what we simulate differs from reality.


Now, there are only two different sides of the equatation that can be wrong, both are pretty tough to swallow:

- either our understanding of and how we model the force of gravity is wrong when masses interact at certain distances:

This could be the case, noone is denying it. But it will be extremely difficult to prove given that in 100% of all other scenarios
except rotational velocity of galaxies, our current modelling turns out correct.
Thats extremely weird, usually something proven time and time again turns out to be correct, you are right, it could still be wrong,
but then a lot of people were, including Newton and Einstein, and both have been confirmed over and over again.

- or, there simply is more matter in the center of galaxies than the baryonic matter we can easily see.

It has to interact with baryonic matter through the force of gravity to influence rotational velocities, it has to be electroneutral and
it has to be unable to interact with photons. These properties are all properties needed to create the basic idea of matter consisting
of WIMPS.

There are only the two above explanations possible. Noone denies that the first explanation could be possible, but it is cornered by decades
of experiments supporting the PoV that the theory of gravity and general relativity turns out to be correct modellings of our universe.
This is why chances are way better that the DM theory will turn out correct, even without taking the other confirmed predictions into
account that have been made by DM models so far.



J HG T:
I am just trying to explain something which is obviousely difficult to grasp if you are not used to it. DM physics is relatively new, and there is still not
enough literature around to simply say "go read this or that book". But the basics should be easy enough to understand though, that a bit of logic is
usually enough to see the reason behind the model.
In general, debates on physics turn out to be extremely interesting, as long as they stay within the realm of logic.

Is there something I am missing?