Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

[Krulle]

Then you need to time the gathering of the ressources with the incoming stuff, so that the mining groups don't get hit.
And you need to transport everything over to the manufacturing sites.
(And those you want to keep away from the impact zones, so they don't get accidentally hit, nor damaged due to impact marsquakes.)

Plus, in an environment like Mars, where most colonial stuff will likely be excarvated into the gound, creating artifical marsquakes all the time might not be smart when needing to keep the habitat bubbles airtight.

[Arioch]

I'm sure the MARS environmentalists would scream bloody murder... but why not just pick a designated resource drop site on the martian surface and just let the rocks fall... you want to mine?

Even in a thin atmosphere like Mars, a certain amount of the meteor vaporizes during entry, and then on impact even more will vaporize, and what chunks there are will either be buried or thrown over a wide area, and then you'll have to go hunting for them. Maybe if your resource is incredibly cheap you won't mind losing 80-90% of it in the process, but there's an upper limit to how big an asteroid you can drop on a planet without doing dinosaur-killer level ecological damage (throwing up sun-obscuring clouds of ejecta and possibly triggering catastrophic vulcanism), so if you're looking to collect large amounts of metal, this doesn't seem like a good way.

[danuis]

The Bella had a crew around 160ish, right? Are these inflated numbers due to the special mission or very close to operating numbers? Why such a large number of crew in the first place - e.g, how low can a crew go?

[Arioch]

The Bella had a crew around 160ish, right? Are these inflated numbers due to the special mission or very close to operating numbers? Why such a large number of crew in the first place - e.g, how low can a crew go?

No, the Bellarmine's crew was 80, which is normal for the class.

[GeoModder]

Appearantly space can be found for extra crewmembers, since the Yorktown version comes with 95 crew.
I assume those extras are necessary for the added weapons.

[folti]

Appearantly space can be found for extra crewmembers, since the Yorktown version comes with 95 crew.
I assume those extras are necessary for the added weapons.

Per the Insider, it lacks the extended fuel tanks of the original Bennet, which'd give you a bit of space for extra berthing and storage/magazines, along with the extra armor it got.

[GeoModder]

Appearantly space can be found for extra crewmembers, since the Yorktown version comes with 95 crew.
I assume those extras are necessary for the added weapons.

Per the Insider, it lacks the extended fuel tanks of the original Bennet, which'd give you a bit of space for extra berthing and storage/magazines, along with the extra armor it got.

Imagine that, sleeping between explosive fuel tanks!
I reckon part of the existing storage space was converted to crew quarters, and the fuel tanks converted to (weapons)storage.

[folti]

Appearantly space can be found for extra crewmembers, since the Yorktown version comes with 95 crew.
I assume those extras are necessary for the added weapons.

Per the Insider, it lacks the extended fuel tanks of the original Bennet, which'd give you a bit of space for extra berthing and storage/magazines, along with the extra armor it got.

Imagine that, sleeping between explosive fuel tanks!
I reckon part of the existing storage space was converted to crew quarters, and the fuel tanks converted to (weapons)storage.

Depends on the amount of reshuffling done with all the new gear added, some existing gear being replaced by newer models (which could go from being smaller/lighter for similar performance to more powerful and more bulky), and some other design quirks, like maybe the original design had some empty, or half filled-in compartments reserved for future refits like this.

Or it's the usual case of wartime refits, they deleted some comfort enhancing rooms/compartments, as the new ships are not intended to spend as much time away from base on a single patrol as the old ones did.

[danuis]

The Bella had a crew around 160ish, right? Are these inflated numbers due to the special mission or very close to operating numbers? Why such a large number of crew in the first place - e.g, how low can a crew go?

No, the Bellarmine's crew was 80, which is normal for the class.

Whoops, my bad, how did that extra one get in there.

Related to this, earlier it was mentioned the Bella had prima-fide Diplomatic staff onboard; were they like, UN reps, TCA only? Did they have any protocol and plans in mind?

[Arioch]

The Bella had a crew around 160ish, right? Are these inflated numbers due to the special mission or very close to operating numbers? Why such a large number of crew in the first place - e.g, how low can a crew go?

No, the Bellarmine's crew was 80, which is normal for the class.

Whoops, my bad, how did that extra one get in there.

Perhaps you thought Alex was saying there were 80 unaccounted for (which is the question Tempo asked), which would have put the total at 137.

Related to this, earlier it was mentioned the Bella had prima-fide Diplomatic staff onboard; were they like, UN reps, TCA only? Did they have any protocol and plans in mind?

There was a team of diplomatic specialists on board, drawn from a variety of sources, but Captain Hamilton was in overall command of the diplomatic mission. The TCA folks have watched enough Star Trek to know that you can't have diplomats trying to override the captain's authority in a crisis situation.

I'm sure they drew up all kind of potential scenarios and planned accordingly, but they had so little information (not even knowing which side they'd be talking to) that they knew any such plan would not survive contact with the enemy, so to speak.

[Mr.Tucker]

So... the Orgus mentioned that the Loroi were telepathic. Did they also mention that some Loroi were telekinetic?

[Arioch]

So... the Orgus mentioned that the Loroi were telepathic. Did they also mention that some Loroi were telekinetic?

I think it's unlikely that the Orgus refugees had any detailed knowledge of what specific psionic abilities the Loroi had or how common they were.

[Werra]

Who is Alex favourite commander from history?

[Arioch]

Who is Alex favourite commander from history?

Julius Caesar.

[Daegondrake]

Is the terran plasma lance similar to the loroi pulse cannon ?

[Arioch]

Is the terran plasma lance similar to the loroi pulse cannon ?

SpoilerShow

It's sort of a middle ground between a pulse cannon and a plasma focus.

[RedDwarfIV]

Are the Terrans building a Dyson swarm, or would that get in the way of the standard sci-fi trope of most people living on planets?

[Arioch]

Are the Terrans building a Dyson swarm, or would that get in the way of the standard sci-fi trope of most people living on planets?

I'm not sure what the one thing has to do with the other... but I think in order to have an actual need for a large percentage of a star's energy output, you have to have a level of superscience which would probably offer much more efficient ways to convert mass into energy.

So, no.

[RedDwarfIV]

Are the Terrans building a Dyson swarm, or would that get in the way of the standard sci-fi trope of most people living on planets?

I'm not sure what the one thing has to do with the other... but I think in order to have an actual need for a large percentage of a star's energy output, you have to have a level of superscience which would probably offer much more efficient ways to convert mass into energy.

So, no.

Ah, maybe I've just been watching too many Isaac Arthur videos.

Dyson swarms don't just have to be power collection, they can be habitats too. They're also scalable, so you can have a small one, to collect a small percentage of a star's energy output.

And hey, the Terrans may have a lower tech level, but when you've got access to a huge amount of energy, you can afford to brute force things. Things like antimatter production. Not as good as Taimat, but could maybe get Terran ships useful acceleration. (I'm aware that the story is not about the Terrans sailing in to save the day, but I do like thinking about how they could do that.)

[asaenvolk]

A common issue with many a Sci-fiction series when dealing with a "we want it to be in the future and humans have future tech, but we want the aliens to be more advanced than the humans", is that humans then often don't have advancements that we will likely have even in the near future.

I am not saying a Dyson Swarm is one of those techs, but realistically it should be within the tech level of the humans in the setting. The thing about such a Swarm is that it doesn't need to start out all encompassing, it starts very very small and builds over time.

The one that kind of surprises me, is the lack of implanted human neural interfaces.