Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

penny wrote:Although not written in stone, an RD's wedge is probably stronger than a single tractor beam. However, is it stronger than the collective distortion in a certain area of space caused by the tractors working in tandem?

Do you have any evidence for a collective distortion in space other than the tractor beams themselves?

Jonathan_S wrote:And why bother using something so insanely short ranged when SD weigh grasers can shred a ship from nearly 500,000 km away?

I'm thinking that the use of a graser -- definitely the size and posited 3-second duration of fire -- would be much more visible than the destruction of the RD caused by it "running into a brick wall."

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Although not written in stone, an RD's wedge is probably stronger than a single tractor beam. However, is it stronger than the collective distortion in a certain area of space caused by the tractors working in tandem?

Do you have any evidence for a collective distortion in space other than the tractor beams themselves?

Nope, just as the tractors, this is me projecting again.

In fact, the notion itself that a tractor even causes an area of intense gravity is itself a "projection" and admittedly I'm not sure textev supports it.

I'd also like to reiterate my suggestion that an LD might be able to radiate waste heat into hyper space along the axis of the beam emitted from the tractor by some possible symbiotic relationship between the physical variables of gravity, heat and energy. Posited from the fact that the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is obviously solved in the HV.

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penny wrote:I'd also like to reiterate my suggestion that an LD might be able to radiate waste heat into hyper space along the axis of the beam emitted from the tractor by some possible symbiotic relationship between the physical variables of gravity, heat and energy. Posited from the fact that it is obvious the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is obviously solved in the HV.

I can't rule it out, because this is sci-fi after all. If RFC rules it, so it shall be.

But the fact is that the Ghosts and Sharks couldn't radiate heat into hyperspace. As the Sharks are the testbeds and scale models for the Lenny Dets, the fact that they didn't have this system is strong indication the LDs won't either. Remember that there were already a handful of LDs in construction around the Darius Prime station, so if the technology had been available at the time of their design, it should have been available for a Shark.

It would have been retrofitted into at least one Shark to prove the concept. And if that concept had worked, that particular ship would have been used in Oyster Bay.

I can't rule it out for certain. For one thing, the ship that was doing the technology trials might have been unavailable for Oyster Bay precisely because it was doing the trials. Or it may have been only perfected since OB was launched. For this technology to be incorporated into ships-in-construction, the Lenny Dets would need to be delayed even further, though that may itself not be a problem depending on how long until Darius is found.

But I don't think it will come to pass. RFC has already said he gave too many advantages to the MAlign, so making the ships even more stealthy with virtually no chinks is unlikely to be in his plans. The fact that he explicitly told us that waste heat was a problem during Oyster Bay is another Chekhov's gun.

I'm going further and saying that, due to square-cube law, the fact that the ship has massively more internal volume and power production, it will have much more trouble radiating heat than a much smaller Shark or Ghost.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:I'd also like to reiterate my suggestion that an LD might be able to radiate waste heat into hyper space along the axis of the beam emitted from the tractor by some possible symbiotic relationship between the physical variables of gravity, heat and energy. Posited from the fact that it is obvious the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is obviously solved in the HV.

I can't rule it out, because this is sci-fi after all. If RFC rules it, so it shall be.

But the fact is that the Ghosts and Sharks couldn't radiate heat into hyperspace. As the Sharks are the testbeds and scale models for the Lenny Dets, the fact that they didn't have this system is strong indication the LDs won't either. Remember that there were already a handful of LDs in construction around the Darius Prime station, so if the technology had been available at the time of their design, it should have been available for a Shark.

It would have been retrofitted into at least one Shark to prove the concept. And if that concept had worked, that particular ship would have been used in Oyster Bay.

I can't rule it out for certain. For one thing, the ship that was doing the technology trials might have been unavailable for Oyster Bay precisely because it was doing the trials. Or it may have been only perfected since OB was launched. For this technology to be incorporated into ships-in-construction, the Lenny Dets would need to be delayed even further, though that may itself not be a problem depending on how long until Darius is found.

But I don't think it will come to pass. RFC has already said he gave too many advantages to the MAlign, so making the ships even more stealthy with virtually no chinks is unlikely to be in his plans. The fact that he explicitly told us that waste heat was a problem during Oyster Bay is another Chekhov's gun.

I'm going further and saying that, due to square-cube law, the fact that the ship has massively more internal volume and power production, it will have much more trouble radiating heat than a much smaller Shark or Ghost.

Having fielded that objection before, I suggested that the advantage might only be available to the LD because of its oversized and more powerful tractor; and of course because of some requirement or threshold before the symbiotic relationship will take effect.

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Jonathan_S wrote:And why bother using something so insanely short ranged when SD weigh grasers can shred a ship from nearly 500,000 km away?

penny wrote:I'm thinking that the use of a graser -- definitely the size and posited 3-second duration of fire -- would be much more visible than the destruction of the RD caused by it "running into a brick wall."

Since both involve large amounts of matter being converted into incandescent gas, I do not know how to compare the visibilities. In the case of the 3 second graser that incudes the destruction of the graser and its surroundings.

However just a beam in space is only visible if there atoms to be excited in its path.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And why bother using something so insanely short ranged when SD weigh grasers can shred a ship from nearly 500,000 km away?

penny wrote:I'm thinking that the use of a graser -- definitely the size and posited 3-second duration of fire -- would be much more visible than the destruction of the RD caused by it "running into a brick wall."

Since both involve large amounts of matter being converted into incandescent gas, I do not know how to compare the visibilities. In the case of the 3 second graser that incudes the destruction of the graser and its surroundings.

However just a beam in space is only visible if there atoms to be excited in its path.

I only mentioned it because the appropriate characters involved in The New Tuscany Incident(?) said that there was no detected energy weapon that caused the destruction of the space station; Giselle? IINM.

Jonathan_S wrote:And why bother using something so insanely short ranged when SD weigh grasers can shred a ship from nearly 500,000 km away?

penny wrote:I'm thinking that the use of a graser -- definitely the size and posited 3-second duration of fire -- would be much more visible than the destruction of the RD caused by it "running into a brick wall."

tlb wrote:Since both involve large amounts of matter being converted into incandescent gas, I do not know how to compare the visibilities. In the case of the 3 second graser that incudes the destruction of the graser and its surroundings.

However just a beam in space is only visible if there atoms to be excited in its path.

penny wrote:I only mentioned it because the appropriate characters involved in The New Tuscany Incident(?) said that there was no detected energy weapon that caused the destruction of the space station; Giselle? IINM.

That is because the explosion of the space station Giselle was the result of an internal nuclear device, not a beam weapon. From Storm from the Shadows:

Chapter 41 wrote:Josef Byng was watching the visual display, not the tactical plot, at the moment Giselle blew up. The sudden eruption of light and fury that wiped away the forty-two thousand men and women aboard the space station took him totally by surprise. The view screen polarized instantly, protecting his eyes from the blinding flash, but it was so close, so powerful that he flinched back from it involuntarily.

"Sir!" Captain Aberu half-shouted. "Sir! The New Tuscan space station's just blown up!"

"The Manties!" Byng snapped, and whipped around to punch a priority key on his com. Captain Warden Mizawa, Jean Bart's commanding officer, appeared on his display almost instantly.

"Case Yellow, Captain! The Manties have just—"

"Sir, I know the station's been destroyed," the captain said, speaking quickly and urgently, "but it was definitely a nuclear explosion—a contact explosion; CIC sets the yield at at least two hundred kilotons—and not an energy weapon. But we didn't pick up any missile trace, so—"

"Goddamn it, I just gave you a fucking order, Captain!" Byng snarled, absolutely infuriated that a mere Frontier Fleet captain would dare to interrupt him with arguments at a moment like this. "I don't care what you did or didn't pick up! We're sitting here bare-assed naked, without even sidewalls, and just who the hell else d'you think would have done something like this?"

"But, Sir, it couldn't've been a missile if we didn't detec—"

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I can't rule it out, because this is sci-fi after all. If RFC rules it, so it shall be.

But the fact is that the Ghosts and Sharks couldn't radiate heat into hyperspace. As the Sharks are the testbeds and scale models for the Lenny Dets, the fact that they didn't have this system is strong indication the LDs won't either. Remember that there were already a handful of LDs in construction around the Darius Prime station, so if the technology had been available at the time of their design, it should have been available for a Shark.

I think it's actually more telling that we're told of the waste heat vulnerability in respect to a Ghost.

The Ghosts were designed and built after the Sharks, and were designed for maximum possible stealthiness -- even more-so than the larger ships -- because they're the scouts that have to sneak in to gather the necessary strategic targeting data. They don't have the option of hanging back and playing long-range sniper like the Sharks and Lenny Dets do. So if the MAlign had had a way to dump the Ghost's waste heat into hyper and improve their stealthiness I've zero doubt they would have used it. But, as you note, they didn't.

That doesn't preclude RFC giving them this tech later on; but I agree they didn't have it when the ships for OB were built.

penny wrote:Having fielded that objection before, I suggested that the advantage might only be available to the LD because of its oversized and more powerful tractor; and of course because of some requirement or threshold before the symbiotic relationship will take effect.

.

I'll note that there's nothing in the books that say the LD's have more powerful spider emitters (tractors) than the Sharks or Ghosts do. They almost certainly have more emitters (they are larger after all) -- but not necessarily more powerful ones.

The Spider drive seems to be along the line of 'many hand make light work' as we know that too few (such as on a "practical weapon" means low acceleration. So it seems logical that if you need to do more work (bigger ship) you'd add more 'hand' (emitters) rather than necessarily making each one stronger.

Again, doesn't rule out the possibility that Lenny Dets are more stealthy. But the Ghosts have the highest need for stealth and if there was tech that could make them stealthier I'd expect to see it shot up on them first.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I only mentioned it because the appropriate characters involved in The New Tuscany Incident(?) said that there was no detected energy weapon that caused the destruction of the space station; Giselle? IINM.

That is because the explosion of the space station Giselle was the result of an internal nuclear device, not a beam weapon.

I think it's more specifically relevant that the SLN flagship's CIC was making their determination based on recognizing the weapons signature of a contact nuclear explosion; rather than making it on eliminating the possibility of energy weapons fire.

If, instead, they'd said 'it's couldn't be the Manties, we saw no missile nor any energy weapons fire' then Penny might have a stronger case. Phrased that way it would be clear that the SLN CIC was confident they would have seen energy fire and ruled the Manties out on lack of that evidence. (And thus support Penny's belief that energy weapons fire is more traceable than spider emitter tractors)

But as actually written they don't seem to have even needed to consider energy weapons fire. They saw a nuclear explosion and so whether or not energy fire might be detectable was moot; they already knew it wasn't caused by energy fire.

So this incident actually provides no evidence one way or the other for how stealthy graser fire might be.