From the Begining New Chapter Added (9/12/06)

[Starhawk]

El_Phil said:
Your right that doesn't work with physics, not even a little bit. It's the kind of stuff a star trek engineer would be proud to spout. Still that is the advantage of writing your own stuff, you can just make things up.

Tech will change and new things will be found out, but to paraphrase Scotty 'You canna change the laws of physics!" that reasoning on why solid shot wont work is so fundamentally wrong it's painful. So the work to counter KE doesn't stress the generators, but the energy release when a beam hits does stress them. To counter the KE of the sold shot you will need at least the same amount of energy, "Energy can neither be created or destroyed" and so on.

Take an 18" naval shell (say 1,500lb or ~700kg), accelerate to 0.1c. The shell now has a KE of 350PetaJoules. All that energy hits the shields and something has to happen to it, that is a fundamental law of the universe.


Or you just don't bother with explaining it and take the answer used about how Trek inertial dampers work, 'Perfectly well thank you.'

Okay so there's no saying an energy weapon couldn't effectively create a fusion explosion when it meets a solid object or is there in physics?

Well to correct ol' Scotty you can change the laws of physics lol because we know about diddly crap about physics we just like assuming we know everything about it I mean 100 years ago they "knew everything about physics" and now we look back at a lot of that and laugh (or so I hear) so in 2,000 years God only knows what "physics" will mean to an engineer.

Now take a 18' naval shell which requires something to propel it to 0.1c and you might as well remove the magazine that you would need to place there WITH the reactor the coolant and blah blah and just have the energy it's self, saves space

Also think about the shield thing like this:
A bullet proof vest can stop a bullet but not a knife, a knife goes streight through it like butter.

Now a shield grid= bullet proof vest and the energy beam is the knife

The bullet needs to survive the impact to actually do any kinetic damage, if it gets vaporized the second it contacts the shield than it's not much good is it?

Now if you'd like to say something about the shields being a small bubble of subspace being "impossible" well howso? Who says that there won't eventually be a tech that lets you create a small pocket of subspace around a ship?

Let's face it you can't explain future tech easily or to necessarily fit our logic anymore then we could explain a jet fighter to someone from the 13th century (assuming they didn't burn you for witch craft before you got the chance to say "Yo" of course) It's simply a matter of what is possible NOW and what may be we just don't know.

Reminds me of what that one dude said about "Any technology advanced enough is indistuingishable from magic" or something like that.

I mean no offense here El_Phil but care to explain how you "know" all this is not ever going to be possible and I'll think about changing my tech a different way or not explaining it at all, in the meantime though my tech is from a totally different LEVEL of science so I can explain it however I want because unless someone from 2,000 years in the future parks himself in my living room and tells me what they actually have I can only play a guessing game here

[edit] OH and energy weapon= lightspeed weapon meaning no chance to physically intercept said object.

Bullet at c fractional is still not lightspeed and you come up with a computer advanced enough you can send your own c fractional counter weapon back at it.

That basically means not only would you be adding a magazine to your ship which is not necessary you'd be giving your enemy an additional layer of defense against your weapons and whats the point in that?

[El_Phil]

You think you can stab a knife through a sheet of kevlar? Good luck to you there matey. You can stick a knife through the gaps between the plates of kevlar certainly, but not through the bullet proof slabs.

How do you vaporise the slug? Now you could just use 'handwavium', I've got no problem with that, its soft sci-fi and also you to get on with the story.

If you want to explain it you've got to say what happens to all the KE of the slug. It cannot vanish, and you've got to put some energy into vaporising the slug, thus chuck enough material at it and you'll overload the shields.

Everything we have ever seen, at every level, in every field from quantum physics through to cooking to parallel dimensions and black holes supports 'Energy can neither be created or destroyed.' It's fundamnetal, from comet orbits to falling out of a plane, everything obeys this. That's why I can say those shields will never work as you say, they will be vulnerable to slugs. You cannot just wave away all that energy.

[Starhawk]

Well you could say that since the KE is a non continuous energy force your shields will simply absorb it or shrug it off while a sustained energy beam would prevent the shields from simply absorbing it as it is still "pushing" against the shield.

As far as "chucking enough material" that would require a high rate of sustained fire which would mean BIGGER magazines and a still interceptable weapon, with an energy stream you still need that high rate of fire but not more material to chuck.

Besides a bullet is wasteful as it requires raw material and mass while an energy beam in a sense requires raw material (i.e power and in the case of chemical lasers the chemicals) it does not have any mass and so is far cheaper and more efficient then loading up a ship with tens of thousands of rounds of 18' shells.

Oh and BTW bullet proof vests DO NOT stop knives which is a problem US police have had for years and why the British designed a specialty vest specifically to stop knives. Saw it on a history channel and discovery channel show so I can't point out a web site if your going to bring that up.

To try and explain it the way the guy on the show did a knife actually has more "force" behind it in that once a bullet hits and it's energy is spread out across the vest thats it your done but a knife continues to apply that force and bullet proof armor is designed for that. Or something to that effect.


I never said the shield destroys or creates energy there is a difference between absorbing energy for a limited time and "creating energy" it's just that when two energies mix you can have a "surge" which is basically what I was trying to say with the burn through.

[edit] Oh and how do I vaporize the slug, high speed object hitting imovable object (i.e the shield) kind of like throwing a glass bottle at a wall except at .c fractional speeds that glass bottle would vanish[/edit].

[El_Phil]

These magazines aren't big. Use DU at 19kg/m3 you need a 0.3m3 slug at 0.1c to equal your biggest turrets total 5 second output. That's not alot of space in anyones book, not given the size of the ships.

An energy beam is far more wasteful, radiation losses, blooming and dozens more reasons. Of course as you've hand waved all that away I suppose that isn't a factor.

Here's what I think you mean about shields, your reactors generating at xKW, but the shields charge up, giving a total strength of 3 times x KW or whatever the charge up factor is. In that case surely the slug is more dangerous, all its power is concentrated in one burst, the turrets spread their power out over several seconds.

However given that your first and last paragraphs contradict each other I'm not sure what you do mean.

[Starhawk]

Well the first paragraph deals with what i mean about the Kinetic energy not the slug it's self The kinetic energy is still there even after the slug is not (at least I think that's what you told me).

The last paragraph deals with the slug it's self which would pretty well vanish once it hit that shield no matter.

Now I have a question for you regarding the whole math, how do we KNOW what an object the size you described would do at C fractional speeds unless we've been able to propel an object C fractional and I just don't remember hearing about it lol.

Seriously though do scientists just "round up" from speeds we know about or do they pull it out of the air?

That's like the theory that if you press your hand against a table for a million years your hand and the table will merge, well considering neither your hand nor that table would possibly be there for a million years where did they get that from?



As far as energy loss goes assuming you get energy weapons I'm sure you'd know how to minimize energy loss (i.e focusing lenses and who knows what else) so assuming your hitting someone with 2 TW of power FOR 5 seconds (after whatever minimal energy loss you get) as opposed to hitting it with like 5 TW of power for about half a second.

Oh and I was trying to think of an analagy comparing the shield to the bullet with that brick wall bit not saying the shield is the literal equivilent of a brick wall because if you do that a marshmellow travelling at C fracionals would punch through it easily.

Their shields basically work in this sense (let me try to explain it as best I can) a split second energy burst wouldn't effect the overall stability of the shield, while a "drilling" sort of enery would.

My shields are actually inspired by the Langston fields form the Empire of Man series so I guess I could just flat out use the langston physics instead of trying to use my own lol

Langston fields worked where kinetic weapons were useless because the second it contacted the shield it slowed down so much that there was practically no kinetic force at all so they used fusion torpedoes and lasers a lot.

But they still had to open "ports" to launch torpedoes or fire missiles because the field worked both ways.

[El_Phil]

In which case Langston fields sound equally shaky, you've got to bleed off a hell of alot of KE to bleed off. If you want to use it go ahead, but don't say you can explain it. Or accept your going soft sci-fi. There's nothing wrong with that route.

The particles of the slugs have the KE, you can't seperate the two, the energy doesn't just float around after you vaporise the slug. You slow it down, wonderfull, that takes energy, you through in several very fast slugs at the same time and you can't produce enough power to slow them all down.

Behaviour of a fractional c body, well as I can walk at a fraction of c there's your answer.
Seriously though random atmospheric particles and cosmic rays travel at ridiculously high fractions of c, where Einstinean physics, not Newtonian, apply. Hence I've only suggested 0.1c, above that it's stops being 0.5mv2 and gets more complex.

The table merging is from the depths of quantum mechanics, which is a horrendous field I try and avoid. Consider quantum tunneling: You are trapped behind a barrier, say a prison wall. You could exist either side of that wall, but you lack the energy to get through the wall. However quantum tunneling says there is a chance you could just appear the other side of the barrier.

Of course that is epically unlikely, but possible. You can demonstrate quantum tunneling, (particles not people ) and so test assumptions and constants. It's proveable, demonstratable and repeatable. And mind bendingly complex.

[Starhawk]

Well actually I'll stick to my shields and accept I am going soft sci-fi in that field because I don't want to rip of Pournelle since i like his work and it seems wrong to rip off people who's work you like they did inspire me though since aside from the Harrington (gravity fields) it's the most unique shields I've heard of in sci-fi.

Although I know I won't be able to explain the "exact" physics of how the shields work since they defy our current knowledge of physics I'll explain just generally how they work (non physics department)

Hey look at it this way though as far as my beams that can create a mini fusion explosion that is actually possible I think I'm not sure though.

And you think I am going "soft" sci-fi there is a series involving some group called "The Culture" where they shoot freakin black holes at each other as standard weapons (I mean real full fledged black holes not mini black holes). Or so I've been told, it all sounds a bit strange to me.

Same thing with this group called the 5th Imperium (don't know where it's from just heard about them on the spacebattles forums) where the average ship is the size of a planet and where they shoot unbeleivably outlandish weapons at one another.

[El_Phil]

"The Culture" novels are Ian Banks, who does hard sci-fi. Just because it's super uber powerful, doesn't make it soft sci-fi. You can, with enough power, do almost anything. Throw in very, very advanced AI and some more power and there are few limits. But that's the point, there are limits. Things that still cannot be done, at all.

It's the lack of hand waving and magical components or elements (dilithium crystals for instance ) and the consistency that determine hard or soft sci-fi.


For your story, a throw away line about how projectiles don't work (or work really badly) on the shields and don't pursue it, unless it's relavent to the plot/story. If projectiles work or not should only be mentioned if your main charcters (or minor ) meet an enemy who uses them.

I remember an Asimov book, one of the Laws of Robotics ones, which was awful for that. Plot and other points needed to be established, but it was done by characters telling each other what they already knew. Not all the time, but it wasn't good. However the ideas were new and interesting enough that it didn't matter.

In fact Dr A. is a good example, how the robots work just isn't discussed, unless the story needs it. Even then theres no (or little) extra detail, its distracting.

[Starhawk]

Hey I don't use "dylithium crytals" or anything that "hand wavy"

For that matter I didn't put any "throw away lines" about projectiles in my story just telling you .

And for the most part I haven't mentioned anything "totally" unrealistic except maybe the shields but that's just subjective so you can't really just label mine "soft sci-fi" because you disagree with the one little bit about my shields and then turn around and say black holes being slung at people is 'hard' as that has to violate a whole lot more areas of physics then mine heh.

[Starhawk]

Just for those wondering here is the Status of the Icaran Empire and the United Mantis Kingdom:

Icara:

Systems controlled: 85 (lets call it 82 as there are presently at least three systems totally engulfed in riots)

Planets: 676
Sphereworlds: 5

Population: 919.1 billion

Resources: 29.3 million

Research Points; 634.6k

Intelligence points: 818k

Tech Levels: 360

Units: 11475

Bases: 104

Ships: 1315


Icaran Military Breakdown:
1st Fleet
1 Battlemoon
2 Flag Monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
1 Picket ship
2 Repair ships
1 Minesweeper
Total Crew: 1,250,900

2nd Fleet
1 Battlemoon
2 Flag Monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
2 Repair ships
1 Minesweeper
Total Crew: 1,250,900

3rd Fleet
1 Battlemoon
2 Flag Monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
2 Repair ships
1 Minesweeper
Total Crew: 1,250,900

5th Fleet
1 Battlemoon
2 Flag Monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
2 Repair Ships
1 Minesweeper
Total Crew: 1,250,900

6th Fleet
1 Battlemoon
2 Flag Monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
2 Repair ships
1 Minesweeper
1 Picket ship
Total Crew: 1,250,900

7th Fleet
1 Battlemoon
2 Flag monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
2 Repair ships
1 Minesweeper
Total Crew: 1,250,900

Home Fleet:
2 Battlemoons
6 Flag Monitors
149 Super Dreadnoughts
2 Repair ships
1 Minesweeper
Total Crew: 1,610,900

(note I only included fully formed fleets minus their ground assualt units as I have not yet assigned troop support to the reforming fleets)


Mantis UK:

Systems: 110
Planets: 888 (1 sphereworld)
Population: 342.5 billion
Ships: 515
Bases: 32
Units 23115