Attack of the Ankle-Biters - Replacment player needed.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Explain why the shields could block mental force, then. (hell, explain why they could block -any- force, aside from maybe electromagnetic)

What I can get from his comments is that the shields aren't blocking the mental energy, but the physical force being manifested by the mental energy. And in a limited way this does make some sense. For example, if I were trying to argue Fyron's point for him I would suggest the following:

Geoschmo speaking for Fyron based on his comments...The telekinesis weapon can simply be thought of as another type of energy beam weapon. Where normally you have a gun using some physical process to generate a physical stream of anti-protons or phased polarons, you have a living sentient being using mental enrgy to generate a stream of some kind of damaging force. The force that actually is created is not mental energy, it's created by mental energy, and thus shuld be blocked by shields. Unless the force is being created with some shield skipping properties, such as phased polarons, and that is not implicitly stated.

Now, the glaring hole in the logic of the above statement is that the physical force being created from mental energy has to start somewhere. If we assume it starts from the point of the being with the mental energy, then reasonably as Fyron says it would be blocked by shields. However if this were the case it would also reasonably be blocked by the inner hull of the ship the being is sitting in and punch a hole in it equivalent to it's destructive force on teh way out. Your ship would take as much damage as the enemies, and your psychics would be vented into space every time they used their powers. The three ways to get around this are to say that
1. The psychic is strapped to the hull.
2. The telekinetic projector component that is installed on the ship is some kind of special material that allows physical forces to pass through it without damaging it, but only in one direction. (out)
3. The mental force does not actually create the physical force at the point of the psychic, but at some other point along the target line between the psychic and teh target.

Fyron either believes 2, or 3 and makes the assumption that the point the mental energy creates the physical force is outside of the targets shielding. Or he believes some other process is at work that I have not considered and he has yet to explain it to us.

If he believes 3 he has not explained why it is unreasonable to assume the mental energy cretaes the physical force at the point of the target, underneath the tragets shielding.

Geoschmo

[oleg]

But why we assune you are trying to directly push enemy ship ? Psycic can arguable focus on the bulet or a handfull of anti protons and accelerate them toward enemy ! The reason may be the short range of telekinetic power. It can easily go down witha distance.

[Fyron]

Oleg's point about mental powers being limited in range is quite valid...

Name := Telekinetic Projector I
Description := Projects a battering ram of telekinetic force against its target.

Lets see... projects a battering ram of telekinetic force... This means that the projector projects the force, not some sort of mentalic wave that moves to the ship which projects the force. Force is most certainly stopped by the shields, as evidenced by most other weapons.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Oleg's point about mental powers being limited in range is quite valid...

It sort of is - again, you're discussing theoretical technology based on something that is currently commonly considered imaginary. The question of "is it valid, or not?" depends on which piece of fiction one looks at. For some, it is; for others, it isn't.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Name := Telekinetic Projector I
Description := Projects a battering ram of telekinetic force against its target.

Lets see... projects a battering ram of telekinetic force... This means that the projector projects the force, not some sort of mentalic wave that moves to the ship which projects the force. Force is most certainly stopped by the shields, as evidenced by most other weapons.

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At worst, that just means he needs to change the description for his mod. However, it doesn't say where the battering ram starts. Unless shields hug the hull perfectly, there's no particular reason why the force can't form inside the target's shields to batter at the hull.

[Fyron]

The projector projects the battering ram. It obviously starts at the projector.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
The projector projects the battering ram. It obviously starts at the projector.

Not at all - a projecter, pretty much by definition, produces something at a distant locale.

[Fyron]

No. It produces it immediately, and projects it to a distant locale. A movie projector creates the patterns of light and then projects those patterns accross the intervening space to the screen. It does not create the patterns of light at the screen. This can be seen by moving something in the way, which blocks the path of the light, and so it does not appear on the screen.