Why the book series "A Fire Upon the Deep" relates well to Rimworld lore.

[top_hat_tomato]

The "A fire Upon the Deep" book series (especially #2 in the series, A Deepness In the Sky) shares much of the following lore with Rimworld,

• Slower than light speed (few exceptions)
• The main characters get stranded and have to start over in technology
• A major protagonist is an AI
• Cryostasis
• Main goal is to escape the planet
• Transcendents (called 'powers' in the books)
• A distinction between rimworlds and Glitterworlds (core worlds in the book)
• Marbles/Planets completely destroyed by conflict
• Planets are very secluded

But now the few things different from Rimworld

• (a few) aliens
• Distinct Galaxy zones

Here are some depictions in the book with a bit of text explaining them.


The milky way is split up into these different zones. Some unexplained limitations prevent high-level intelligence in the 'unthinking depths', with human-level intelligence in the 'slow zone' and the ability for super-human intelligence (complex AI) in the 'beyond.



A blimp in the third book.


It's a good book series if you haven't already read it. You can read a bit of the first book for free (and legally) under the 'open preview tab' here : http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77711.A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep

[sadpickle]

I love big bombastic space opera. RimWorld draws a lot of inspiration from other sci-fi series and books. I suspect Tynan is quite the reader. I will also recommend a sci-fi novel with some similarities to RimWorld.

Aliens in sci-fi always bugs me a little. I mean, they're so common. Even my favorite sci-fi war novel of all time, The Forever War, has an alien race as the (alleged) belligerents in a war against humankind. In that novel, there is no FTL and no cryostasis, but there are powerful thrusters, that can get a warship up to max speed (sub-lightspeed) within months. The crew, being squishy, has to use increasingly exotic methods of isolating themselves from the tremendous g-forces these ships can create.

Since they're all traveling close to lightspeed, relativity kicks in, which is the most fascinating part of the novel for me: the logistics of waging a war that lasts potentially centuries, with ships returning from missions that lasted a few years, only to find 70 years has passed on Earth. And as the boundries of the war expand further from Earth, and the ships get faster, the relativistic effects increase...

Also interesting is due to a peculiar invention, neolithic methods of fighting suddenly become relevant in a world of power armor and finger lasers. So there's a lot of low-tech warfare stuff that reminds me heavily of RimWorld.

[top_hat_tomato]

Even my favorite sci-fi war novel of all time, The Forever War

I've heard quite a lot about that book. I guess I'll have to read it now 

[Bozobub]

I dunno if I would refer to "A Fire Upon The Deep" as space opera, per se.  "Good" and "Evil", for example, are often not clear-cut at all, unlike most space opera I can think of.

Any quibbles aside, however, yeah, this was a great series. And "The Forever War" was also quite good, although the "not-quite-sequel" second book was...odd.

If you like "A Fire Upon the Deep" and/or "The Forever War", I'll confidently bet  you'll love Vernor Vinge's "Across Realtime" series, starting with "The Peace War" =D .  The series also presents a very interesting take on some conundrums inherent in the math behind the the Alcubierre drive — although it's mostly not about FTL travel — as well as even more mindbending stuff.

[Shurp]

Has anyone written a book employing an Alcubierre subway? 

"A spaceship appropriately located with respect to the bubble trajectory could then choose to enter the bubble, rather like a passenger catching a passing trolley car, and thus make the superluminal journey."

And for some strange reason I am suddenly reminded of Bugs Bunny tunneling underground, popping his head up, and saying, "Hey, this ain't Albuquerque!"