(Part 2) Top products from r/Stellaris

> they were solved by the threat of mutually assured destruction.

That most certainly explains why we didn't go to war with the Soviet Union, but the MAD theory doesn't explain why countries became democratic (and wealthier as a result) overtime. MAD was also aimed at countries with huge arsenals, of which non-nuclear countries are excluded (in other words - rest of the world). MAD isn't a driving factor in foreign policies currently.

>Not all of the countries we overthrew were authoritarian communists, Chile's only crime was democratically electing a marxist president

Right, and it would most certainly be a negative implication of the United States to purposefully install authoritarian yes-men in its pursuit for world domination, but that wasn't the case. There's important context you're omitting. For one, the United States feared Marxist governments (even democratically elected ones) would gravitate towards authoritarian systems, so it is better to have a friendly authoritarian country than a hostile Marxist one. It's a rational choice and still in line with Democratic Peace theory. Fidel Castro used democracy as a rallying cry until he got control of the state. Later, the Cuban missile crisis happened and America was fearful the Soviet Union had nukes so close to the United States. To this day Cuba is still authoritarian.

As for Chile? It is one of the best and most developed countries in Latin America. Pinochet would eventually cave into pressures from the people and the United States to create a democracy. You gotta remember, America wasn't thinking in "nows" only, they were in it for the long game. You can dispute it could have happened differently or America overstepped, but you cannot make the argument it is not in line with the Democratic Peace theory.

South Korea had a similar path. The United States wasn't about to jeopardize its geopolitical strategy and cause havoc while the country is turbulent in democratization. It kept the authoritarian regime in power. By the time the Soviet Union crashed South Korea was well on its way to democratization.

> I think of what America did in West Germany post WW2

Heavily occupy and change its politics until we knew it was a proper democracy? Indeed, but thinking every single country will be like that, or that America has the resources to occupy and democratize every single country is a foolish pipe dream; if not colonialism. America did what it had to with the resources it had to make tough decisions it'll be criticized for regardless of the outcome. The world isn't perfect. You don't just wave a wand and pray countries will become democracies. There's nuance, context, difficulties, opponents. You gotta create norms, you gotta create laws, institutions - it's a very difficult process. And I'm not arguing America was perfect. Vietnam was most certainly botched - but that isn't a good example disproving American's commitment to the Democratic Peace theory.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't believe you have a grasp of proper context behind US foreign policy. I recommend you buy and read this book It uses first hand documents (relating to foreign politics of the United States) from history in chronological order to explain what politicians, people, or even opponents of the United States thought when they made decisions. It includes letters, speeches, political cartoons and goes into detail explaining, for example, why America planted authoritarians in countries like Greece or Chile. It's all very much in line with the Democratic Peace theory (or Democratic Crusaders in stellaris). Nothing you've said so far suggested at US being an imperialistic hegemony. Even opponents of American policy (the only people who really call America an imperialist country) admit it's trade at best and doesn't get to actual imperialism of land grabs and such (which is what Stellaris imperialist hegemony is really about).

Is it? Looks blue to me as well. I have an uncommon form of color blindness, however, so my hue differentiation ability is screwy in the blue/purple areas as well as some of the reds.

For example, we have some of these Ziploc cups from when our kids were younger. (I'd post a link to Ziploc instead but they seem to be discontinued now.) Anyhow, my family assures me these are blue but to my eyes they are a deep purple color.

Oddly, it wasn't even until only a relative few years ago that this made me realize that I even am color blind! Tritanomaly, the form I have, is pretty rare so it's very rarely diagnosed at all. My opthamologist, who finally formally diagnosed it, says it's at most something under 0.5% of the population. The main issue with coming up with a good number is apparently it's so rarely diagnosed at all and often only late in life that the numbers we have now make it something like 0.008% of the total population. Since they know it's rarely diagnosed, they're pretty sure it's at least somewhat higher than that.

Still, since it rarely affects folks in any meaningful way it's just not likely to get noted in screening. The normal color blindness charts just don't work well for this since there's some variation among even those diagnosed. (Tritanomaly has a mutation in one of the cone cells as opposed to missing it entirely which would be tritanopia.)

Weird, huh?

• Alastair Reynolds tends to yield polarized reactions, but I enjoyed House of Suns. Granted, there isn't much in the way of alien life, but it has the "destructive faction in the galaxy" sort of feel.
  
  
• Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton, as mentioned by another commenter. If you can get used to the author's wordy prose, it's a pretty cool story and creative setting involving humanity's expansion across the stars and eventual encounter with an alien race.
  
  
• Also seconding the Babylon 5 TV series recommendation by another commenter. A galaxy filled with various alien races, with their own inter-empire political histories and wars. After all of that gets set up, a mysterious threat looms over every civilization, and...well you'll just have to watch, haha.
  
  
• I know you weren't asking about video games, but I highly recommend the Mass Effect series. One of the best threat-of-extinction space opera stories of our time, in my opinion (a lot of people hated the ending, but I thought it was fine, so YMMV).
  
  
• Star Wars. Of course.
  
  
• If you're okay with amateur fiction, go to /r/HFY and sort by top/all-time. Have fun.

You may like JF dubeau's Life Engineered, similar concept, was pretty fun for a fresh Author.

This concept was actually a really big interest of mine in my graduate career (though specifically as it related to the Roman Empire). Peter Turchin has written some good and approachable books on how political instability rises as populations approach their maximum possible density.

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His first book on the subject that reads very nicely: https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Rise-Fall-Empires/dp/0452288193

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A short (though fairly jargon-y) article on these effects on Roman instability: http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_SDEAS_2005a.pdf

This is essentially the scenario that takes place in one of my favorite sci-fi novels ever, Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. Would definitely recommend people check it out, it's considered a classic.

Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

"The gods are a starship crew who subdued a colony world; developed godlike--though often machine-enhanced--powers during successive lifetimes of mind transfer to new, cloned bodies; and now lord it over descendants of the ship's mere passengers. Their tyranny is opposed by retired god Sam, who mocks the Celestial City, introduces Buddhism to subvert Hindu dogma, allies himself with the planet's native "demons" against Heaven, fights pyrotechnic battles with bizarre troops and weapons, plays dirty with politics and poison, and dies horribly but won't stay dead. It's a huge, lumbering, magical story, told largely in flashback, full of wonderfully ornate language (and one unforgivable pun) that builds up the luminous myth of trickster Sam, Lord of Light. Essential SF reading."

And if you enjoyed The Expanse, novelwise I could recommend some of the Elite books. Similar aesthetics in terms of a "used" looking universe, and the struggle of independent pilots trying to make a living among the stars.

Specifically, Wanted or Reclamation are two stories I'd recommend.

Series of books by Jack Campbell. They are excellent and you should read them!

https://www.amazon.com/Dauntless-Lost-Fleet-Book-1/dp/0441014186

• Arrakis system = Dune
  
• Belgium system; Towel event = The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  
• Citizen Service civic = Starship Troopers
  
• Outside Context achievement = In the Balance
  
• Strategic Coordination Center = Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
  
• Abandoned space ship event = Event Horizon which rather is the book TO the movie. So while technically also in book form, maybe not really counting.
  
• Every major patch is named after a SciFi author, which points to a lot of SciFi books.
  
• Hawking blackhole is rather a homage for a great man that died, but technically we could also point to many of his space related books ;)
  
• Covfefe system on the other hand, is a pun regarding Trump. Technically some person could see that linked to the totally unrelated book published under his name. I can't believe he actually could have written that himself.
  
  
  Probably a few more I just can't remember. I played with so many event mods, it is hard to pinpoint which actually is just the vanilla game.

This desktop seems old. Your graphics card ever so slightly falls short of minimum requirements. Whether or not it has 1 GB of VRAM or 2GB's of VRAM could make a difference. 2 GB of RAM also meets minimum requirements. What kills your chances of playing the game on minimum settings is your Pentium processor.

If you want to play the game on minimum to low settings I would look at upgrading to an Intel Core 2 quad processor on the LGA 775 socket. I would recommend this but finding a good deal will be difficult. While you're at it getting another stick or two of RAM that is the same as your current RAM wouldn't hurt either. At that point if you want to play above low to minimum settings upgrade the graphics card if it can run the game at all.

At this point though you might need a new power supply. Upgrading almost everything in an old desktop will get expensive, so you might as well just get a new desktop unless you really want to stick to your current one. The least expensive option would be a CPU upgrade, then playing the game on a low resolution at low or very low settings.

There was actually a novel along those lines: https://www.amazon.com/First-Cycle-H-Beam-Piper/dp/0441239196

If you have a hunger for this kind of thing there is an old book called Diamond Star

https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Star-Saga-Skolian-Empire/dp/1416591605

It features an empathic human subspecies who run an empire that looks like a regular megacorp from the outside, but is a sadistic total slave state on the inside. The book is about a prince who runs away to become a rock star on earth.

I think I found it. Here's a Wikipedia link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation/Doctor_Who:_Assimilation2) and an Amazon link (https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Generation-Doctor-Assimilation/dp/1613774036).

What we need is a Star Trek mod and Doctor Who mod that are compatible with each other so we can have chaotic events like this happen.

Why just a mod for Stellaris; why not something universal that will work for every game, Netflix, etc?
May I present, the time keeping monitor augment ^^^^Also ^^^^known ^^^^as ^^^^a ^^^^digital ^^^^alarm ^^^^clock.
Been using one for years, right next to my TV (couch gamers represent); time rarely gets away from me.

and many organisms do in fact have multiple well-defined genders, even vertebrates; scientists discover more all the time now that people are more willing to look past the male/female paradigm (and I'm speaking as a biologist).

A book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Evolutions-Rainbow-Diversity-Gender-Sexuality/dp/0520260120

It's just called "Thrawn"

10/10

Thrawn

Check out Pandora's Star.

I can't claim complete merit for the idea; I first came across the term in this book

> Was it clear, that I oppose this smugness?

Yes. I intended to amplify your point, not try to contradict it.

> Also I don't understand the defensive posture he puts himself in.

I think he's in this defensive posture because, as an American in Germany, he's constantly involved in stupid arguments with ill-informed members of the middle-class telling him, a US lawyer, about US law etc.

He wrote a book about the death penalty so I'm pretty sure he's well-acquainted with the short comings of his own country.