Babylon 5 Mod

[Loser]

Originally posted by jimbob:
...with a -999% to hit on their hulls, this should be pretty rare, right?

Seekers will still hit 100%, no?

[Suicide Junkie]

True. We could have a 0-reload, 1 range PD cannon to instantly smash any seekers that get too close.
"High energy boundary effects disrupt missiles".

[Timstone]

Well this conversation about energy and unknown lifeforms is very interseting, but since we've never encountered such a race before, let alone ANY alien, we are just guessing in the dark. But I have one addition to make.

Quote from SJ:
Its like waves on water... if you have a wave from a boat coming and you throw pebbles into the water, the waves pass though each other, and both waves continue as if the other weren't there.
Up to the point where you start making splashes, of course.

NO, NO, NO!! The waves don't just pass through eachother, they interact with eachother. The wave that goes from left to right gives A PART of it's kinetic energy over to the wave from right to left and vice versa. This energy creates another wave on the "back" of the other wave. They just seem to be passing through each other. EVERYTHING that has only the tiniest bit of energy in it interacts with it's environment. Except when the particles involved have such a high velocity or such a high mass (density) or a neutral charge (chemicaly inert or simply no electrons of protons (or their antimatter counterparts)).

Well we're dwelling of the subject of the matter (oh no, I said matter, hehe...). So what will be the best solution for our problem? I still think the Walkers must have the -999% to hit bonus on their armor and the Mindriders something else, but I don't know what.

Oh, the Vorlons, the Walkers, the Triad and the Mindriders are all energy beings. The Triad were energy beings from the beginning. The other three "just" evolved into beings of energy.

[Fyron]

The Shadows are energy beings too.

[Timstone]

Nope, in the serie they are beings of flesh (??) and blood (??). Also in the B5 Wars books they are not described as beings of energy. They do radiate a dark energy that drives mortal beings mad or at least makes them feel uncomfortable.

Edit: typo's.

[ August 14, 2003, 10:49: Message edited by: Timstone ]

[grumbler]

The Shadows are beings of light, just as the Vorlons are. This is explicitely stated in Invoking Darkness, the third Technomage book (page 9, in which the death of Kosh is described from his POV). The carapaces are just encounter suits, like Kosh's. And JMS has stated that the Technomage series is canon.

[Timstone]

Okay, okay, I yield. Stupid thing that the B5 Wars books never mentioned that the Shadows use encountersuits too. Ah well, doesn't matter. Thanks for the info guys and sorry if I've made you a bit angry (Imperator??).

[jimbob]

Okay, but the thing that matters isn't whether or not the race is made of energy... but whether or not their ships are made of matter or energy. Some whisp of energy floating around in space isn't gonna waste my dreadnought, but a complete ship - coherent or no - is very likely to do some damage to my beloved fleet. So what races have energy based ships?

[Suicide Junkie]

While the waves are in contact, they add linearly, and after they separate again they still have their original form. One wave isn't affected by the other.

But that aside, it seems all our ancients can be described as energy beings that still use regular (physical) ships.
So the question remains what do to for the rare ancient species. (Mindriders, Torvalus)
We can pretty much ignore their physical form, but What is special about their Ships/Technology?

[Timstone]

Sorry I have to continue with this, but I think this is one of the things I've been trained to do (hey, I'm an engineer, what can I say?!).

Quote from SJ:
While the waves are in contact, they add linearly, and after they separate again they still have their original form. One wave isn't affected by the other.

Add linearly? What do they add and what do you mean with linearly? What do you think happens when a slightly larger wave impacts with a smaller wave? Don't you think that the smaller wave has a minor effect on the larger wave? The waves don't pass through eachother and they certainly effect eachother.
Ever heard of ball lightning? It's more or less the same thing. The ball lightning (the stuff that makes up the ball isn't important, only the energy contens of the ball) can pass through stuff, like bricks, concrete, metal plates, even lead. It accomplishes this by the generated microwaves. The microwaves have a high energy contens so they can go through most stuff (provided it isn't too thick). When the waves hit the wall, some of them go through and some of them don't. The waves that go through always get a little scattered, this leaves the other side of the wall with the same rimples of microwaves as the waves in the water. On the places where the microwaves touch eachother (a peak so to speak) another ball lightning will come into live. Not every peak creates a new ball. Only the ones with high enough energy. It takes more than one of those peaks to create a ball lightning of the same size it was before it hit the wall.

I used this piece of knowledge to show that the waves in water behave excatly like the waves in the water. I hope I didnt sound cocky, angry or otherwise a bit idiotic. It was not my intension to do that.

Back to the races.

Walkers:
Travellers, they have been to each corner of the galaxy and back again. They also travel to different dimensions (except Thirdspace, hehe...). They use powerful sensors (EM) as their weapons.
Kirishiac:
Warriors, they tried to take over the galaxy and were almost succesful (they were stopped (ultimately) by the Walkers). They are the undisputed masters of gravimetric tech.
Torvalus:
Spies, they are the most secretive spieces ever. Mostly busy with gathering intelligence or gambling. They field the most advanced lasers and best cloaking tech.
Triad:
Actually consisting of three seperate beings (all that is left from their race in our galaxy), Order, Neutrality and Chaos. When they agree to work together thay are the Triad Combined. They can make automatons with simple thought and use advanced plasma weapons to defend themselfs (Combined). Order uses light bases weaponery (prism's and the like), Neutrality uses matter based weapons and Chaos uses a mix of plasma, matter and light.
Mindriders:
Beings of pure thought. They run constantly experiments with lesser races (young races). Their ships are just hollow gathering places. One group of beings steers the craft another controls the weapons yet another protects the ship etc. They use thought to defend them selfs.
Vorlons and Shadows:
I don't think I need to tell you guys and girls much about these dudes.

None of the Ancients use ships that consiste entirely of pure energy. They all use "matter" for the construction of their vessels. I think their armor must reflect the general thought of the race.

So the Shadows must have mostly organic armor with a high damage dissipation.
The Vorlons more or less the same but with a shield instead of damage dissipation.
The Torvalus must have a high cloaking rate.
The Kirishiac must have almost indestructable armor (constructed with many rads).
The Walkers must have a high to hit penalty for they can phase in and out another dimension (so can the rest of the Ancients, but they excel in it).
The Mindriders must have a high to hit penalty and some sort of shield (combo between Walkers and Vorlons).
The Triad must have strong armor and adamage dissipation (combo between Shadow and Kirishiac).

I hope these answers are of help. I hope you guys have some original ideas yourself, coz I'm no creative person, I just mention the first things that pop up in my mind 9and what I read in the B5 Wars books).
Cheerio!

Edit: Typo's! Many more left, I know...

[ August 14, 2003, 18:22: Message edited by: Timstone ]