christopher.boote
SOC-12
Err, there IS a disconnect at the large mass (galaxy) level, currently explained by dark matter/dark energy/give-us-more-money-for-research-onium
The ultimate weapon
- Thread starter Carlobrand
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Err, there IS a disconnect at the large mass (galaxy) level, currently explained by dark matter/dark energy/give-us-more-money-for-research-onium
DangerousThing
SOC-13
I will read the paper. But the abstract alone screams bad science, but that could be a mistake. Unfortunately I can't follow the math; I left that behind quite a while ago.
As for quantum physicists, I think just understanding those equations takes up so much of their brain that they can no longer interact with normal people.
And yes, I do understand that gravity is the weakest of the three forces, but it is stronger at a distance than the other two.
christopher.boote
SOC-12
I will read the paper. But the abstract alone screams bad science, but that could be a mistake. Unfortunately I can't follow the math; I left that behind quite a while ago.
As for quantum physicists, I think just understanding those equations takes up so much of their brain that they can no longer interact with normal people.
And yes, I do understand that gravity is the weakest of the three forces, but it is stronger at a distance than the other two.
It's quite possible that the bolded word is supererogatory...
You don't need to rely on any kind of specialist sensors at all. Why? Because friction with interstellar and interplanetary dust will be broadcasting its location.
Every time the ship hits a piece of interstellar dust at that sort of speed, it will produce a significant energy release. If we take the Pioneer data out at the system edge of one 50 micron speck of dust every 25,000 cubic metres (a cube just under 30m on a side) its pretty obvious that the ship (depending on its cross section) will be intersecting hundreds of thousands of relatively modest sized grains per second.
Assuming only 0.5c and it only intersects a mere 250,000 50u specks per second, with each spec releasing only 14 Joules, we're up to a net energy release of 3.5 million Joules per second. I'm somewhat doubtful the portion absorbed by the shielding and the mass of the ship could be radiated off in time to prevent thermal meltdown. A bit like the last HTV-2 test flight.
Even with some magic heatsink, once we reach higher fractions of c and the gradual increase of dust density and mass as you get further in system, the amount of energy released with each impact will grow dramatically; to the point where every few of those impacts (per second) is going to be releasing light from radio to gamma waves.
Of course my math may be slightly off... But quite literally that killer ship will be screaming its presence across the spectrum days before it even gets close to the world its intended to hit.
Assuming of course the ship doesn't simply slag itself within hours from accumulated heat and abrasion, it'd provide the defenders plenty of time to plot and seed its final approach cone with enough sand clouds or other ordnance to utterly obliterate the vessel.
Every time the ship hits a piece of interstellar dust at that sort of speed, it will produce a significant energy release. If we take the Pioneer data out at the system edge of one 50 micron speck of dust every 25,000 cubic metres (a cube just under 30m on a side) its pretty obvious that the ship (depending on its cross section) will be intersecting hundreds of thousands of relatively modest sized grains per second.
Assuming only 0.5c and it only intersects a mere 250,000 50u specks per second, with each spec releasing only 14 Joules, we're up to a net energy release of 3.5 million Joules per second. I'm somewhat doubtful the portion absorbed by the shielding and the mass of the ship could be radiated off in time to prevent thermal meltdown. A bit like the last HTV-2 test flight.
Even with some magic heatsink, once we reach higher fractions of c and the gradual increase of dust density and mass as you get further in system, the amount of energy released with each impact will grow dramatically; to the point where every few of those impacts (per second) is going to be releasing light from radio to gamma waves.
Of course my math may be slightly off... But quite literally that killer ship will be screaming its presence across the spectrum days before it even gets close to the world its intended to hit.
Assuming of course the ship doesn't simply slag itself within hours from accumulated heat and abrasion, it'd provide the defenders plenty of time to plot and seed its final approach cone with enough sand clouds or other ordnance to utterly obliterate the vessel.
Cool. There is your limit to m drive velocity, thus no near c objects. It's not what the drives are capable of but what the hull is capable of.
O
Omnivore
Guest
Yeah too bad space is 2d and we're stuck with coming in through all the junk in the ecliptic plane... oh wait....:rofl:
Well of course it is! Just look at this well-crafted map that came with the game.
I understand there were some rather odd stars that were emitting matter in near-C jets.
O
Omnivore
Guest
My apologies for getting a bit snarky with the previous post, just this thread is now going in circles. Dust density has been addressed a few times though lack of hard data for any but a few spots in our solar system makes it impossible to come to a conclusion. Obviously it varies with different regions of space.
I previously addressed the dust issue in 3 posts in this thread, on page 3, page 5, and page 10. Then there is Whipsnade's excellent suggestion for using it as a soft limit on page 10.
Finally, passive detection at light speed limited sensors does you no good once the RKV has reached a significant portion of light speed due to sensor lag. And yes this has been pointed out about a hundred times already in this thread.
Pardon me but I get a bit cranky when late coming posters can't be bothered to read the previous posts.:frankie:
I previously addressed the dust issue in 3 posts in this thread, on page 3, page 5, and page 10. Then there is Whipsnade's excellent suggestion for using it as a soft limit on page 10.
Finally, passive detection at light speed limited sensors does you no good once the RKV has reached a significant portion of light speed due to sensor lag. And yes this has been pointed out about a hundred times already in this thread.
Pardon me but I get a bit cranky when late coming posters can't be bothered to read the previous posts.:frankie:
My guess is that there is some limit to velocity, even using ionizing radiation and a magnetic field to clear a path; as the velocity increases, even a collision with a hydrogen atom could be a catastrophic event.
edit: Whipsnade said the same as I said earlier.
edit: Whipsnade said the same as I said earlier.
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Considering that there is no evidence of any such near c object, nor of one ever impacting a planetary body, nor of anybody even addressing fundamental issues.
Considering that there is no evidence of trans-c objects either, and that we discuss trans-c issues on a regular basis, and that we are a bunch of gamers of varied backgrounds doing our best to discuss these issues within the limits of the science available to us, and that even the experts with the best available computers don't necessarily agree on the answers, I think we're doing pretty well - and he's correct, we're tending to go in circles.
Perhaps if you'd like to bring some of the fundamental issues to the fore, we might consider exploring a new avenue of discussion.
I'm afraid most log enduring threads have a tendency to go in circles at one moment or another, more so as some posters tend to entrench in their positions. I guess this is quite a natural derive in the forums.
And I must admit I somtimes have posted in threads only having skim-read them, mostly if they have 170 plus posts, some of them quite long, and my time is limited.
As a not so newcomer to this thread (my first post on it is #7), I don't think this has been resloved, though it has been addressed and some worthy suggestions have been done, as you say. The problem is still there, and most of those suggestions will not fully solve the problem of space dust/hidrogen/whatever it be you can find in the so called vaccum.
O
Omnivore
Guest
It hasn't been resolved, nor can it be, until we have hard data on density and size of dust in various regions of space. It cannot be reasonably assumed that the density of dust in the plane of the ecliptic is uniform, neither can it be reasonably assumed that it is any indicator of dust density outside of that region except perhaps as an upper bound.
Whatever the upper bound is in a given region of space, it is highly probable that defenses such as whipple shields, droplet shields, ionization and deflection, etc will allow a closer approach to that upper bound than a bare hull. So there are really two upper bounds to speed in a region of x dust density, one with, the other without, exceptional protection measures.
The other point does not regard dust at all. Light speed lag in the detection of near-c objects is a significant factor in any targeting of said object. This is why a FTL detection mechanism would have a very high value in defense.
This entire discussion has, to me at least, made two distinct points very clear:
1) There are some people who believe relativistic bombardment to be impossible or easy to defend against in the real world - I'm not one of them.
2) There are a variety of ways of excluding the possibility of relativistic bombardment in both the OTU and YTU, if you choose to do so.
The first point is purple/green, but the second point is, I think, valuable to creating a consistent universe (and keeping your more extreme players in line!).
I have. Two distinct issues in previous posts.
This discussion is like someone positing their automobile can go 200mph, without knowing their tires are only rated at 124mph.
If there happens to be a shield, it is contrary to all logic that it would work at all velocities, as the energy of the impact would rise with velocity, quid pro quo.
Jump as well is not above c, it is outside einsteinian space.
O
Omnivore
Guest
Misunderstanding then since ionization/thermal heating/etc does nothing to help the defender against an accelerating relativistic object *unless* gravitic propulsion is being used - but that has already been ruled out in the OTU because of the 1000D limit. Any reasonable reaction drive plume will have an energy signature far in excess of any hull effects.
Exotic FTL sensors would be of use for targeting purposes against an evading object with a relativistic vector. Passive sensors operating at light speed can only tell you where the object was at a past time depending upon range, with a relativistic target the sensor data is far outdated by the time it is received.
There was an earlier debate about just how complex the targeting became and whether or not at some point an inbound relativistic object has its possible trajectories so narrowed that targeting is realistically possible. I hold, that for a world sized target, this is not the case - that is the constraints on the trajectory are still too loose to reduce the targeting problem to manageable levels.
In my opinion, in Traveller, the optimal defense would be to detect an inbound before it accelerated to relativistic speeds. That is a bit of a problem because of the combination of light speed lag on the sensors and microjump response time by a would be interceptor.
This started as an exercise in countering a terrorist attack: a lone Ine Givar extremist smacking a scout into Regina at a humble 0.01c in an effort to strike back for the defeat of his organization on Efate. That's mushroomed into a very enjoyable - and occasionally a bit heated - discussion about near-c kinetic kill vehicles and whether the properties of space would permit such objects, to which the answer seems to be a solid, "insufficient data."
I don't know that there's a need to "resolve" anything in this forum. We're dealing with science fiction: speculation, the realm of the possible at the frontiers of available knowledge - and it's pretty clear we're at the frontiers of available knowledge on this subject. The discussions are valuable in helping game masters form their own ideas about what's possible, what they're willing to allow, and what arguments they can use to refuse if they choose to refuse. That's really the best that can be accomplished here since the forum is primarily intended to support the game.
It's clear we can do a whopping lot of damage with even a little speed (my plans took me only 1/50th as far as some of the ideas here), but there may be some distant upper limit - and some rather interesting ways to extend that limit. Most of that is likely to be irrelevant to your players - they might conceivably take a stab at running a ship up to 0.01c out of pure player cussedness, but they're not likely to have the resources to contrive something like a 0.5c mirved planet-killer with a droplet shield. That enters the gamemaster's realm, taking its place alongside pocket universes and sentient planet-eating death-ships as the stuff you do to make a more exciting story and elicit the occasional "O wow" out of your players.
When it comes down to it, there are a lot of ways to kill a planet, or at least the people on it. The Darrians gave us that flare thingie. Somewhere out there is mention of tailored plagues. And, for the old-fashioned, a spray of good-ol' 100mt cobalt-lined nukes ought to be more than adequate to make the place unlivable for a few years. Most of what stops these things in the Traveller universe are the same things that have stopped us Terrans from using nukes for the past 6+ decades: nobody's ever felt threatened enough or angry enough to go to such lengths. By the same reasoning, those items will be as irrelevant to the average player as a tactical nuke is to the average mountain climber - unless you as game master create an entertaining story that makes it relevant.
I don't know that there's a need to "resolve" anything in this forum. We're dealing with science fiction: speculation, the realm of the possible at the frontiers of available knowledge - and it's pretty clear we're at the frontiers of available knowledge on this subject. The discussions are valuable in helping game masters form their own ideas about what's possible, what they're willing to allow, and what arguments they can use to refuse if they choose to refuse. That's really the best that can be accomplished here since the forum is primarily intended to support the game.
It's clear we can do a whopping lot of damage with even a little speed (my plans took me only 1/50th as far as some of the ideas here), but there may be some distant upper limit - and some rather interesting ways to extend that limit. Most of that is likely to be irrelevant to your players - they might conceivably take a stab at running a ship up to 0.01c out of pure player cussedness, but they're not likely to have the resources to contrive something like a 0.5c mirved planet-killer with a droplet shield. That enters the gamemaster's realm, taking its place alongside pocket universes and sentient planet-eating death-ships as the stuff you do to make a more exciting story and elicit the occasional "O wow" out of your players.
When it comes down to it, there are a lot of ways to kill a planet, or at least the people on it. The Darrians gave us that flare thingie. Somewhere out there is mention of tailored plagues. And, for the old-fashioned, a spray of good-ol' 100mt cobalt-lined nukes ought to be more than adequate to make the place unlivable for a few years. Most of what stops these things in the Traveller universe are the same things that have stopped us Terrans from using nukes for the past 6+ decades: nobody's ever felt threatened enough or angry enough to go to such lengths. By the same reasoning, those items will be as irrelevant to the average player as a tactical nuke is to the average mountain climber - unless you as game master create an entertaining story that makes it relevant.
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