In Hoc Signo

@TheDemonLord (cont.) Were someone to do something similar in the modern era, secular academia would have a roughly similar response (minus the house arrest and with a lot more public shaming.)

@TheDemonLord Relative to your comment about Galileo, the Church did not oppose Galileo because he was a heliocentrist; quite the opposite, it had explicitly endorsed his project to compare the different astronomical systems (incl. heliocentrism). They opposed him because (a) he went out of his way to insult the Church and (b) he presented heliocentrism in a doctrinaire style, skipping hypothesis and testing and going straight to presenting it as Scientific Fact™. While this later turned out to be the case, it was unproven at the time.

@TheDemonLord Science started as an attempt to better understand God by examining His creation. As Hume et al. have pointed out, the modern understanding that there is a constant and intelligible underlying order to the universe is neither obvious nor necessarily true without the Judeo-Christian assumption of a rational and personal God.

@Trioxidane Indeed. While this is just headcanon, it's always been my impression that the Discworld dwarves did use magic to enhance their creations, just more "in the background" than the flashy pyrotechnics or headology of wizards or witches.

I see someone's been reading Discworld.

Who is going through and systematically downvoting all the answers?

@Trish Huh? I wasn't discussing gender at all.

@AlexP True, they're usually the same person. I was just noting that "executioner" and "torturer" are different roles.

Executioners don't try to extract information; they just kill people who have already been questioned and sentenced. Perhaps you're thinking of torturers?

@AlexP What would happen if you allowed the engine to run without a load?

@Seallussus Thank you for clarifying that. The way your question is worded, it appeared to me that you were asking for how to make them relevant. I guess I need to edit my answer...

I am editing to change the name to be a bit less verbose. If I have missed your intent, please revert the edit.

It appears that you have some spots where your wording is affirming stuff when you appear to be meaning the opposite. For example, "I love Warhammer 40K to death. But they do their own things to justify infantry, and honestly I think they work." I could be wrong, but it appears to me that what you're actually trying to say is "I love 40K to death, but they do their own things to justify infantry, which I think don't work." With your permission, I would like to edit to fix them. Alternatively, if you would prefer, I can also go through and resolve the ambiguity in the other direction.

@ilkkachu I actually personally think that the third book was extremely good. That being said, I would agree that in general the series declined as it went on.

It's the Infinite Improbability Drive.

"they are radicals and believe in their superiority over everything" You are describing Daleks to a T. Which, of course, raises the question: "Why would they conquer us instead of just Exterminating everybody?"

@Luaan Actually, you do see shuttlecraft in the original series. They just didn't appear all that often.

This is the kind of answer that deserves bounties.

Reminds me of Battle: Los Angeles