Page 85

[TheUnforsaken]

Technological generations are a pretty fluid term, really. Today we have 5th Generation fighters and 7th Generation game consoles...and I don't recall hearing of people playing Pong in 1900.

And while I wouldn't expect to see purely human designed/built ships able to go toe-to-toe with Loroi/Umiak equivalents for a few decades I disagree that humans couldn't provide any benefit at all. It all depends, really, on how compatible Loroi tech is to human tech, and on how much industry the Loroi can spare.

Ideally, the next generation of human warships would consist mostly of carrier and missile/torpedo armed capital ships, using Loroi built (but human piloted) fighters and Loroi built missiles (from what I've seen the missiles appear to be self guiding ie. they don't need an advanced ship-based sensor system to guide them to their target). And lighter Point Defense ships to protect the capships from Umiak barrages. Even better if they can figure out how to bolt-on a Loroi shield system to those ships. Put these ships in a system defense role, where their dodgy engines aren't such a handicap, and they could allow the Loroi to free up their ships to do what they do best...raid.

In the meantime, Alex has his hands full

My 2 cents.

[Rosen_Ritter_1]

I could see humankind acting as auxiliaries, which is to say, filling spaces on ships. The problem is whether the Loroi would need that; I kind of doubt they have the industry to crank out a bunch of new ships or to hand out obsolete ones, and they're pretty paranoid about handing out tech to people they don't trust.

Loroi starships are already pretty light on crew. Plus there's the whole fact of integrating extremely uncanny aliens into the crew who don't share any of your warriors view points.



With regards to Human tech advancement. One particular reason I'm a bit dubious about the idea we're really not that far behind the Loroi (even accounting for human culture being friendlier to tech advancement) is predominantly because there's a pretty big gap between demonstrated human and Loroi/Umiak tech. Think about it. a 2.2 by 2 kilometer Umiak TTK ultra heavy with it's 18G acceleration can outrun a human torpedo accelerating at 12 G's. Then there's the other weapons disparities.



This doesn't really come off as the kind off as the kind of tech disparity that the humans were naturally going to overcome any time soon. Like the Loroi/Umiak reaction drives, they seem to be based on entirely different technology than the Terrans. Technology that doesn't look like human engineers and scientists have even contemplated building any time soon.

Technological generations are a pretty fluid term, really. Today we have 5th Generation fighters and 7th Generation game consoles...and I don't recall hearing of people playing Pong in 1900.

And while I wouldn't expect to see purely human designed/built ships able to go toe-to-toe with Loroi/Umiak equivalents for a few decades I disagree that humans couldn't provide any benefit at all. It all depends, really, on how compatible Loroi tech is to human tech, and on how much industry the Loroi can spare.

Ideally, the next generation of human warships would consist mostly of carrier and missile/torpedo armed capital ships, using Loroi built (but human piloted) fighters and Loroi built missiles (from what I've seen the missiles appear to be self guiding ie. they don't need an advanced ship-based sensor system to guide them to their target). And lighter Point Defense ships to protect the capships from Umiak barrages. Even better if they can figure out how to bolt-on a Loroi shield system to those ships. Put these ships in a system defense role, where their dodgy engines aren't such a handicap, and they could allow the Loroi to free up their ships to do what they do best...raid.

Not sure that's very economical. Outsider verse torpedo's bassically are equipped with starship drives. So this isn't exactly a cheap solution. Only the Umiak really have the industrial capacity to use missle boats en mass. I don't think human ships supplied torpedos by the Loroi would fair very well in long range missle warfare with an Umiak fleet. For the Loroi, I might just be more economical to build more ships for themselves than throw missiles and small fighter craft at the humans.

[BattleRaptor]

I know its a web comic.. but it makes no sense at all that Terran ships would fire such massive rounds.

Half the weight double the speed and you still have double the energy.
Pluss double the effective range.

Need to stop making midnight posts...
Edited to be correct.

[dfacto]

I have to agree, 200 Kg for a railgun round seems ludicrously large. There's going to be a problem with storing rounds that large in a ship. That's a lot of extra weight if you assume they have more than ten shots. Then again this isn't real life, so you can wave off weight for artistic license. After all the Loroi have huge amounts of useless crap on their ships (like super spacious command decks and corridors) and they don't seem to be slowed much.

Also I assume you reduce your maximal muzzle velocity by increasing round size. I'm not well versed in electrical engineering, but I have a hunch that the relationship between mass and electrical energy required to accelerate it to a given speed isn't linear (as with rocket fuel and ship speed). For anyone who may know, is that true?

[Aygar]

It wouldn't matter anyway if the Loroi gave humanity access to all their military technology, we only have six colonies, nowhere near enough industrial capacity to build a war machine of any consequence. If anything resources, industrial capability and logistics are the biggest concern for the Loroi atm as the Umiak can churn out ships like Catholics multiply.

This is something that appears to have been overlooked in this argument.

Humanity has 6 colonized worlds in 4 systems, of those worlds only 2 of which could be considered heavily industrialized (Earth, Mars). The other 4 worlds are not yet self-sufficient and depend on Earth and Mars for their finished goods needs.

The Loroi have 50 inhabited systems with at least one inhabited planet each. The Loroi Union controls several hundred systems.

If we assume that Earth and Mars will have a similar productive output as a single Loroi system (which they wouldn't be. 1. Earth and Mars are not on a full war economy, 2. Earth and Mars must supply the other 4 worlds), and that the Loroi only produce in their own systems (Which they won't, they will be pulling parts and assemblies from all of the union member worlds). The addition of humanity to the war effort would be a paltry 2% increase in production capability (and begs the question, why are the Loroi using Humanity to produce war goods when they aren't using their allies production as well).

If instead assume that all worlds in the Loroi Union are fully committed to the war effort and assume a minimum 200 systems for several hundred. Then addition of humanity to the Loroi Union results in 0.5% increase in total production.

Humanity does not currently have the infrastructure to meaningfully affect the outcome of the War. Also additional infrastructure will require significant amounts of time to create, probably 50 to 100 years or more.

--Aygar

[osmium]

2 points:

1) the Loroi timeline is not in wartime and is largely due to their cultural traditions, not their actual capacity. So just using simple math isn't really going to give you a reasonable approximation. Much like the 1/2+7 rule for creepiness while dating. Perhaps humans just maintain a higher non-wartime level of progress? etc

2) with the railgun, it's designed to be used against similar acceleration vessels as other terran ships. vs Loroi or Umiak level acceleration it doesn't matter how small you make it you're unlikely to hit anything at the ranges the enemy can fire at. (Also it might not be double, as there is a non-linear relationship between accuracy and closing time of the "projectile" as we're dealing with acceleration, not velocity)

-O

[dfacto]

1) the Loroi timeline is not in wartime and is largely due to their cultural traditions, not their actual capacity. So just using simple math isn't really going to give you a reasonable approximation. Much like the 1/2+7 rule for creepiness while dating. Perhaps humans just maintain a higher non-wartime level of progress? etc

Or maybe we actually fight much much more than the Loroi? They say their hisory is one of constant bloodshed, but for all we know they might freak out if they read about human history and our nearly nonstop quest to kill the guy in the next country.

2) with the railgun, it's designed to be used against similar acceleration vessels as other terran ships. vs Loroi or Umiak level acceleration it doesn't matter how small you make it you're unlikely to hit anything at the ranges the enemy can fire at. (Also it might not be double, as there is a non-linear relationship between accuracy and closing time of the "projectile" as we're dealing with acceleration, not velocity)

In terms of Human vs Umiak/Loroi, yes it's still useless. But against other human ships I think it would matter.

[Trantor]

another effect might be studying the human Lotai telepathic mask ( or lack of Far-seeing detection) since the Far-seeing jammer, for lack of better words, is A) Telepathic is nature and thus, our abilities might be able to get in close to one of the jamming ships (or location of the device or person IE since telepathy is biological in nature and non-machine reproducible: as far as we know) and disable/capture the device in a key battle or strategic move

B) The Loroi might be able to find a full or somewhat effective ( note: can't find the right word) counter to the jammer that would allow far-seers to able to regain some form of LR detection. Weird theory and the mask ability might be alien in origin, but I figure some research into the Counter-mask ability ( involving safe- non gruesome RnD) on humans might prove useful, no matter what slim chance that any useful results could be attained.

That, or the umiak jamming is just a side effect of a new farseeing device of their own. That would be humanity´s jackpot then, assumed that we´re invisible to their device, too.

[Trantor]

Humanity has 6 colonized worlds in 4 systems, of those worlds only 2 of which could be considered heavily industrialized (Earth, Mars). The other 4 worlds are not yet self-sufficient and depend on Earth and Mars for their finished goods needs.

The Loroi have 50 inhabited systems with at least one inhabited planet each. The Loroi Union controls several hundred systems.

...The addition of humanity to the war effort would be a paltry 2% increase in production capability ...

Good point.
But IIRC nearly all of them lack metals and higher elements.

[Rosen_Ritter_1]

Or maybe we actually fight much much more than the Loroi? They say their hisory is one of constant bloodshed, but for all we know they might freak out if they read about human history and our nearly nonstop quest to kill the guy in the next country.

This is rather self flattering concept. Reminds me of that Twilight zone episode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI

But really. I don't think we have all that much reason to assume the Loroi don't have as violent of a primitive history as the humanity. I'd think their fast maturation and reproductive rates would lend themselves to fighting more aggressively than humans. Plus post starflight Loroi history seems to mostly be them uniting their species under a military dictatorship, and expanding it's influence over nearly a dozen different species, even committing xenocide against one that stood against them to hard.


Plus, I don't think people in the middle of fighting a xenocidal space war with major battles that involve thousands of capitol ships are going to be fundamentally disturbed by reading about the crusades.

[Tash]

Or maybe we actually fight much much more than the Loroi? They say their hisory is one of constant bloodshed, but for all we know they might freak out if they read about human history and our nearly nonstop quest to kill the guy in the next country.

Somehow I don't think people who are perfectly willing to commit xenocide and scorch worlds from orbit are going to get squeamish because we, too, like to kill eachother.
They created a DMZ by burning it into the galactic landscape.
They're plenty violent.

[Rosen_Ritter_1]

Somehow I don't think people who are perfectly willing to commit xenocide and scorch worlds from orbit are going to get squeamish because we, too, like to kill eachother.
They created a DMZ by burning it into the galactic landscape.
They're plenty violent.

Well technically it's not a Demilitarized zone. As these last few pages have shown, it's a HIGHLY militarized zone.

The key thing is that it's a no mans land because everything in this area got blown up by the Umiak/Loroi.

[Tash]

Well technically it's not a Demilitarized zone. As these last few pages have shown, it's a HIGHLY militarized zone.

The key thing is that it's a no mans land because everything in this area got blown up by the Umiak/Loroi.

Point.

The main thing is that the Loroi- and the Umiak- are perfectly capable of wrecking entire sections of space. Humans might get some respect for a similar willingness to wreck things, but I don't really see either side being afraid of us.

[fredgiblet]

Half the weight double the speed and you still have double the energy.
Pluss double the effective range.

Nope. Half the mass gives double the acceleration, the greater acceleration decreases the amount of time the slug is accelerating (since the barrel length isn't being increased) so the end result is far less than double the muzzle velocity.

[fredgiblet]

Also I assume you reduce your maximal muzzle velocity by increasing round size. I'm not well versed in electrical engineering, but I have a hunch that the relationship between mass and electrical energy required to accelerate it to a given speed isn't linear (as with rocket fuel and ship speed). For anyone who may know, is that true?

The higher the velocity you are shooting for the lower the efficiency is going to be. Specifics would require actual designs which are far beyond anything we could actually produce, so it's impossible to say exactly how the efficiency would drop, but it would drop, probably quickly.

[Grayhome]

In response to Tash's comment

Though terror has proven an effective solution in the subjugation of many populations for extended periods, time and time again we see throughout history that the moment those subjected populations catch even a scent of weakness in their oppressors they bear their fangs and strike. I fear the Loroi will soon be seeing this lesson played out on a massive scale as all the misery and abuse they have visited upon their client species returns to haunt them later on in the story (casts gaze towards Mannadi space).

There are also the morale ramifications to consider when your entire view of gaining "respect" involves who's holding the biggest stick with the most heads impaled upon it. I very much doubt that Arioch will be taking that approach when dealing with Humanity, for which I am very thankful as too many Science Fiction stories these days play out the xenophobic stereotype. I expect diplomacy and negotiation will play a major roll in Humanity earning respect on the galactic stage, not fear.

Now someone draw us a picture of "The Guardian" Jardin in an animal skin clutching a pointy stick with alien heads impaled upon it. It will amuse us!

[Mjolnir]

Half the weight double the speed and you still have double the energy.
Pluss double the effective range.

Nope. Half the mass gives double the acceleration, the greater acceleration decreases the amount of time the slug is accelerating (since the barrel length isn't being increased) so the end result is far less than double the muzzle velocity.

And given the same acceleration distance and projectile energy, higher velocity shots will require higher peak power, and will also come with greater losses...more energy input needed to achieve the same projectile energy, more waste heat to dispose of. Given the need to fit the whole system in a mobile ship, the limitations of electromagnetic acceleration, and the nature of the available targets, it's not unreasonable that they've optimized for relatively large projectiles at lowish velocities.

There's also the possibility that the projectiles aren't purely ballistic shots, but have some capacity for maneuvering to fine tune their trajectory and compensate to some degree for their target's attempts to evade...this would be easier with larger projectiles and lower accelerations, an increase in velocity with a move to purely ballistic projectiles might lead to a reduction in hit rate in the scenarios that were typical prior to contact with Loroi/Umiak.

[Tash]

In response to Tash's comment

Though terror has proven an effective solution in the subjugation of many populations for extended periods, time and time again we see throughout history that the moment those subjected populations catch even a scent of weakness in their oppressors they bear their fangs and strike. I fear the Loroi will soon be seeing this lesson played out on a massive scale as all the misery and abuse they have visited upon their client species returns to haunt them later on in the story (casts gaze towards Mannadi space).

Possibly, but there is a 'critical mass' of rule through fear; if your enemy nearly destroyed you once, would you want to risk them completing the job? Likely not.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the Loroi treated enemies like Turians do; by making them incapable of ever being a threat again.

There are also the morale ramifications to consider when your entire view of gaining "respect" involves who's holding the biggest stick with the most heads impaled upon it. I very much doubt that Arioch will be taking that approach when dealing with Humanity, for which I am very thankful as too many Science Fiction stories these days play out the xenophobic stereotype. I expect diplomacy and negotiation will play a major roll in Humanity earning respect on the galactic stage, not fear.

That's not xenophobic; that's a perfectly valid view of a militaristic species, respect for one's prowess or willingness to do anything for victory.
I didn't say that diplomacy is irrelevant; it's entirely possible that mankind's ability to negotiate will play a crucial role for everyone involved...but mankind's ability to fight, even despite a crippling tech gap, could gain them credibility, at least with the Loroi. It's a relatable quality.

Now someone draw us a picture of "The Guardian" Jardin in an animal skin clutching a pointy stick with alien heads impaled upon it. It will amuse us!

Seconded.

[captainsmirk]

I doubt the Mannadi are going to prove much of a problem, they've been quaratined for the better part of 600 years which I would take to mean they have no access to the advanced ships or construction facilities they would require to be a threat. Also the Loroi are only stretched thin at the front because they are building up their reserve, a fleet which could be used to help crush any rebellion, probably before the Umiak would learn of it and be able to take advantage (based on the means of long range communication they may possibly never learn of it).

Also as Arioch has stated the Loroi are almost purpose built for crushing resistance within an occupied territory, being telepathic and combining the capabilities of the Mizol and Teidar.

The Arekka and Nissek however....

[BattleRaptor]

fredgiblet
The muzzle velocity was listed, not acceleration for terran mass drivers.
Double Velocity and you quadruple the KE.


Just a point.
Terrans are Terraforming basicly any world they come across they think can be usefull.

Meanwhile the Loroi and Umiak are rendering worlds barren and no mention is made of any attempt or ablity of them to terraform.
Maybe Alex will get truce agreement where man gets all the worlds of the deadzone to act as a buffer between the Loroi and Umiak.
Both the Loroi and Umiak may see those worlds as useless and may require nothing in exchange from humanity.... infact if Alex is crafty he could get them both to commit resources and technology to help man create the buffer zone due to the "DRAIN" on resources such dead worlds would be.