[Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

[Sweforce]

Remember Babylon 5? There was an episode where they had a real gun, and a junior security officer asks, why do we use ppg(energy weapons) instead of real guns? That is because real guns could poke holes in the hull.

Real guns in space also require something else, oxygen. you can't fire in a vacuum. in a zero gee vacuum, you get fun with recoil too.

Well, actua-

Actually you can fire guns just fine in vacuum. All the oxygen needed is chemically bound in the gunpowder. The recoil may be an issue but should be able to handle with precautions.

Damnit. Beaten to the punch.

Yeah, the gunpowder already has the oxygen it needs to ignite. All it needs is a bit of heat and boom it goes.

The reason most guns won't work in space though because they use oil in their moving parts. Oils that, in a vacuum, undergo a complete chemical change and will gum up the works. If you have a gun that doesn't require oil in its moving parts, recoil aside, there's no reason it can't work.

That being said, I think there was an actual gun in space aboard Salyut 3. There was apparently a test firing, but I'm not sure the source is 100% reliable.

The reason most guns won't work in space is that they are not allowed to be there. The lubricant issue can be solved and I suspect that cold have more to do with it then vacuum. However mechanical items have been used in space for a long time so the lubrication issue should be solved long ago. Just clean of any existing lubricant and replace it with a space proof variant. After that you just need to figure out how to pull the trigger when wearing a spacesuits glove. Old spacesuits offered very little mobility to the hand so if that Sojuz capsule really had a gun onboard then it was probably for self defence after a rough landing or to hasten the inavetable in case of a disaster onboard.

[dragoongfa]

The gun was mounted at a small space station, it was an anti-aircraft autocanon.

[Krulle]

[...] if that Sojuz capsule really had a gun onboard then it was probably for self defence after a rough landing or to hasten the inavetable in case of a disaster onboard.

For the inevitable all cosmonauts have been equipped with a capsule of cyanide which they had to take with them during EVA....

[Sweforce]

[...] if that Sojuz capsule really had a gun onboard then it was probably for self defence after a rough landing or to hasten the inavetable in case of a disaster onboard.

For the inevitable all cosmonauts have been equipped with a capsule of cyanide which they had to take with them during EVA....

It is just that the Russians tend to have their own ideas of how to do things so I consider it a possibility. The self defense reason are still valid thou, you wouldn't want to find your cosmonaut half eaten by a Siberian tiger.

[Grayhome]

I thought they went up with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol

[Absalom]

Then why bring military vessels at all? Wouldn't it be cheaper to re-purpose and refit civilian craft?

I personally suspect that at least the Bennets probably have longer range than normal too.

Then why bring military vessels at all? Wouldn't it be cheaper to re-purpose and refit civilian craft?

Cheaper yes, but spacefaring may be so expensive that it is impractical to transport goods between worlds at all, except during economy start-up of a colony.

Microprocessors are probably an exception. Baring a high-end chip fab on the receiving end, processors in wafer form are likely to be price-dense enough to actually transport.

Krulle my point was to try to get you to acknowledge that this is a military vessel with massive numbers of military grades weapons, in the form of cannons and torpedoes. Not having small arms, battle suits and light mechs (all of which is TL9 tech) is... odd. To me at least.

If you define a mech as a legged vehicle instead of a protective article of clothing, then they probably don't have mechs on-ship, due to lack of any point: just use wheels/treads and maneuvering thrusters for anything massive enough to need mechanized transportation.

I was definitely surprised about the fact that they're carrying 20mm mass drivers as personal weapons on ship. I'm wondering how you're going to get around the whole "punching holes in the hull" issue (something to do with SHEAP, maybe?)

20mm is big enough that they probably have a wide range of ammunition types. I wouldn't be surprised if each soldier had two or three rocket rounds, some smart-explosive rounds, and a few other goodies to compensate for the unexpected, and that's for a normal combat-possible situation.

There are two reasons as to why one doesn't want to use weapons that damage the ship itself.

1) Damage to the hull, punch a hole in it and atmosphere quickly leaks out which makes the survival of anyone who is not suited up problematic at the least.
2) Damage to critical ship systems, a ship isn't just the hull, it's the combination of the hull and every last system within it. Certain systems must never be damaged or the ship itself becomes a floating coffin in no time.

You do have armor citadels around those systems when possible, right? I don't think Arioch's ever mentioned if they do it in Outsider, but I know that in the real-world US battleships were built with enough "citadel" volume to keep the ship afloat in case of severe damage. A maneuverable spaceship probably wouldn't have that kind of armor, but I expect that it would have enough on "sufficiently critical" areas (medbay + associated airlock, emergency power cells, primary computers) to remove "realistic accidents" from the list of things that can punch through critical systems (or from some munitions-storage areas to non-munitions-storage areas, assuming no bake-off).

As for during combat, ships that can't maintain operations despite one or two hits to average areas from a comparable ship aren't really fit for combat in the first place. Engines presumably can't be sufficiently armored, but if they just take out part of the crew spaces then your ship really should remain combat-capable. Even the battleships didn't normally try to provide full protection to everything, different sections of the ship usually had very variable armor protection. For that matter, even some hits to the engines should probably be survivable, just not enough of them.

Remember Babylon 5? There was an episode where they had a real gun, and a junior security officer asks, why do we use ppg(energy weapons) instead of real guns? That is because real guns could poke holes in the hull.

A real station of that size would have precautions against that, especially considering why it's number 5. Not all projectiles are intended to be so, and someone patient and sneaky can usually build a coilgun if they really feel like it. More important is that some walls are not hull walls, and may have something with a touch more "touch" than a handgun on the other side.

If I'd have a say in designing military ships, I would build in an automatic self-destruct in case of total pressure loss, exactly to avoid the enemy capturing your ship in case of hull breaches and accidental loss of life of all hands due to this decompression.

I'd seriously be disappointed if there aren't always two or three "backup personnel" in "light duty" vacuum suits just in case of unexpected pressure loss. Brig or armory, engineering, and the primary computers should always have at least one person, probably with the person in question swapped out part way through their shift.

I would build in quite a delay though, sufficient time for Humans to deactivate it if there's no need to protect secrets like the navigational data (including at least one base of your forces, possibly even the locations of all colonies of Humaniti), while the enemy will still need to find out how and what about your computer systems.

I would definitely have a self-destruct for the primary computers, but I'd base it's activation on full loss of contact with some set of terminal computers. There's a couple reasons:
1) As long as the propulsion systems (FTL drive included) have a user interface but DO NOT store data beyond the time required for the current set of instructions, you can always default to just navigating back home by manual instructions if you have an accidental self-destruct on the primary computers.
2) One terminal detecting a sufficiently anomalous situation should be enough to trigger the self-destruct on command (e.g. unauthorized/unknown entities/objects in controlled-access regions). Other situations (e.g. 100% command-station terminal logout without the techs manually disabling the self-destruct first) should be detectable on the server-side.

On top of that, ships usually have armour against micrometeorite impact, and no Smith&Wesson will be able to overcome that, as their kinetic energy is about as high as the paint elements which are now micrometeorites orbiting Earth because of the disposing of satellites by use of destructive explosions.

Especially with an EM weapon, I think you could produce a round to exceed micro-meteorite penetrations if you wanted to enough. You'd probably be looking at the edges of weapon, projectile, and power-source performance, though.

It is just that the Russians tend to have their own ideas of how to do things so I consider it a possibility. The self defense reason are still valid thou, you wouldn't want to find your cosmonaut half eaten by a Siberian tiger.

I remember the specific mention of bears, presumably the landing zone doesn't have many tigers.

The mentioned cannon, in contrast, was something of an experiment, and as far as I know was external. I assume a powdered lubricant (powdered graphite, perhaps) was used instead of a liquid one.

I thought they went up with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol

Probably not for long. That reeks of the sort of stuff that gets abandoned due to uselessness or sub-optimal design.

[Grayhome]

If you define a mech as a legged vehicle instead of a protective article of clothing, then they probably don't have mechs on-ship, due to lack of any point: just use wheels/treads and maneuvering thrusters for anything massive enough to need mechanized transportation.

I was thinking Tau Battlesuits and Battletech Battle Armor.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Battlesuit
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Battle_Armor

[Mr Bojangles]

I was definitely surprised about the fact that they're carrying 20mm mass drivers as personal weapons on ship. I'm wondering how you're going to get around the whole "punching holes in the hull" issue (something to do with SHEAP, maybe?)

20mm is big enough that they probably have a wide range of ammunition types. I wouldn't be surprised if each soldier had two or three rocket rounds, some smart-explosive rounds, and a few other goodies to compensate for the unexpected, and that's for a normal combat-possible situation.

That the Marines would have access to several types of ammo, for any of their weapons, makes a lot of sense. My comment was more on the fact that they are armed with 20mm slugthrowers on a spaceship. As you mention in your comments, it's possible that Terran ships use a citadel or perhaps jacket certain critical subsystems to improve survivability. But, there's still a lot of potential for causing serious damage to their own ship, so I'm curious as to how dragoongfa is going to mitigate that.

If you define a mech as a legged vehicle instead of a protective article of clothing, then they probably don't have mechs on-ship, due to lack of any point: just use wheels/treads and maneuvering thrusters for anything massive enough to need mechanized transportation.

I was thinking Tau Battlesuits and Battletech Battle Armor.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Battlesuit
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Battle_Armor

I'm not sure what sort of advantage mecha could confer on a modern battlefield, let alone on one occupied by Loroi and Umiak. It's something I've often thought of (because they're cool and I'm a geek), but I don't think they would offer better performance than treaded/wheeled tanks and IFVs. What do you think they would bring to the table?

[Grayhome]

Heavier armor, greater firepower, improved mobility, increased battlefield intelligence and awareness in a comparatively small, compact package. Battlesuits give every marine the firepower of an entire squad, a vast advantage in a ship to ship boarding action when the enemy has a finite number of troops and is deploying (comparatively) lighter infantry. The battlesuits could even be manufactured, maintained and repaired on the ship with a minifab. Or be controlled remotely, nullifying marine casualties. Would open them up to being hacked by hostiles but meh, strengths and weaknesses. This would be especially deadly if short range, in system FTL jumps (i.e. transporters) could teleport the battlesuits onto the hostile ship, thus negating any chance of them being shot down in transit via assault shuttles and causing a fair amount of surprise. Imagine an Umiak commander's surprise if his vessel was supposedly out of weapons range of the primitive human vessel, and then suddenly a squad of battlesuit equipped marines with heavy plasma flamers suddenly blink into existence on his bridge and start a barbeque. The human marines would have to find some way to counter jump sickness, but I would hope that with the examination of Loroi biology and a little research development, a medicine or something could be developed to counter that particular weakness.

As these starships are made for species with two to four legged locomotion I would surmise that there would be sections of the ship which would be impassible or difficult for tracked vehicles to traverse. Staircases, ladders and crawlspaces come to mind. IFV's must fly, and thus can't be weighed down by heavy armor, making them far more vulnerable to small arms. The TL 11 blasters the Loroi and Umiak use are very effective at frying unarmored and lightly armored electronics.

I'm excited to see the real world applications of mechs and exoskeletons, Lockheed's designs are gaining a lot if international attention.

[Absalom]

If you define a mech as a legged vehicle instead of a protective article of clothing, then they probably don't have mechs on-ship, due to lack of any point: just use wheels/treads and maneuvering thrusters for anything massive enough to need mechanized transportation.

I was thinking Tau Battlesuits and Battletech Battle Armor.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Battlesuit
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Battle_Armor

Powered armor makes sense, but a lot of the Tau and Battletech stuff is significantly larger than a human frame: instead of those, robots & small vehicles make more sense for a confined space like the Bennet class. Particularly since any large areas are going to either be unenclosed space, or will likely have powered equipment (cranes & such) as part of the facilities. Anything that can compellingly be called a mech instead of powered armor just won't make sense onboard.

Heavier armor, greater firepower, improved mobility, increased battlefield intelligence and awareness in a comparatively small, compact package.

The human frame has many moving joints and a fairly high surface area, which actually means that this list of features will be better achieved by something shaped like a box than shaped like a marine.

Battlesuits give every marine the firepower of an entire squad, a vast advantage in a ship to ship boarding action when the enemy has a finite number of troops and is deploying (comparatively) lighter infantry. The battlesuits could even be manufactured, maintained and repaired on the ship with a minifab. Or be controlled remotely, nullifying marine casualties. Would open them up to being hacked by hostiles but meh, strengths and weaknesses.

This really just adjusts the base-level of a squad's firepower.

This would be especially deadly if short range, in system FTL jumps (i.e. transporters) could teleport the battlesuits onto the hostile ship, thus negating any chance of them being shot down in transit via assault shuttles and causing a fair amount of surprise.

Outsider FTL isn't accurate enough for that. You need inch-accuracies, but Outsider FTL only has AU accuracies: completely different scales.

Outsider tech has a much less chaotic tech-level than Star Trek.

Imagine an Umiak commander's surprise if his vessel was supposedly out of weapons range of the primitive human vessel, and then suddenly a squad of battlesuit equipped marines with heavy plasma flamers suddenly blink into existence on his bridge and start a barbeque. The human marines would have to find some way to counter jump sickness, but I would hope that with the examination of Loroi biology and a little research development, a medicine or something could be developed to counter that particular weakness.

Humans in Outsider are a developing power, you're thinking of an already hyper-advanced group like the humans in WH40k. The situation is completely different, and it's actually the Umiak (or more likely, Historians) that can achieve what you're suggesting that the humans could do.

As these starships are made for species with two to four legged locomotion I would surmise that there would be sections of the ship which would be impassible or difficult for tracked vehicles to traverse. Staircases, ladders and crawlspaces come to mind.

Staircases can be dealt with somewhat straightforwardly, ladders are a little harder but should still be quite possible, and as long as the robot or whatever can fit they'll actually do better inside crawlspaes than humans or Umiak if they use treads or something.

Though crawlspaces are presumably rare, unless they're used for maintenance access to the interior of large pieces of machinery.

IFV's must fly, and thus can't be weighed down by heavy armor, making them far more vulnerable to small arms.

But this short story occurs in space, so flight can either be achieved with relatively little energy, or is unneeded. They can support heavier armor than the troops. Also, depending on the size of fusion plants, they might have plenty of power regardless.

I'm excited to see the real world applications of mechs and exoskeletons, Lockheed's designs are gaining a lot if international attention.

I would never call those mechs, though. They're an exoskeleton, but the only place where I understand that to be counted as a mech is in Japan: everywhere else, an exoskeleton or powered armor are worn like a piece of clothing, while a mech is piloted as a vehicle. A Tau Stealth Suit would be powered armor, while a Tau Riptide Battlesuit is definitively a mech. The equivalent to a Stealth Suit would be practical on a starship, but for anything known to exist within Outsider a XV104 would definitively not be. The Tau themselves recognize this issue, as demonstrated by their Void Battlesuit.

Chapter 11, part 3

The chemicals alone, despite their many benefits, weren’t what really allowed them to carry the more than 100 kilograms worth of claustrophobic armor, heavy weapons and equipment. The armor’s supplementary servos and spinal support did help with the weight and did enhance their mobility but most of the work was still done by old fashioned flesh and bone.

“They are going to blanket us with everything they have when they breach us. We may have to go full hydraulic and with manual aiming. I hope that everyone remembers how to properly fire your weapons without HUD assist.”

At any rate, by the sound of it the Marines are currently wearing powered armor, just not particularly powerful stuff. Honestly, it's probably the more practical option than full-strength stuff, since it'll increase endurance, allow strength training & maintenance during use, and if the augmentations go down the soldier will still be able to manage the weight.

[dragoongfa]

Some clarifications about the Marine armor, it is powered yes but not true power armor that moves on its own or enhances strength. The armor's servos/hydraulics assist with the weight and movement while providing extra compensation for weapon recoil and shockwave absorption. Of all things on the armor the most important in regards to mobility is the spinal support which effectively acts as the 'real' spine of the armored marine, i.e. the weight of the armor falls mostly on it and not on the human spine which cannot take the weight.

The human operator is the one who moves the armor and the effort sharing is 75% for the human and 25% for the assisting hydraulics, so for the standard armor and equipment that means that the human operator needs to exercise an extra 75 kilograms of force when walking and running. Of course all this weight is mostly evenly distributed throughout the body but it is still a heavy load in and on itself.

Now how would a human that is able to carry that much look like?

Forget modern soldiers, modern soldiers although fit and able to regularly carry around 30 to 50 kilograms of equipment, would never be able to properly support such an armor for an extended campaign. The most common type of injuries US soldiers and marines currently suffer from are related to the weight they are regularly tasked to carry, with all the equipment a modern soldier is tasked to carry the weight related injuries are certain to become a plague.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01717.html

Currently and in very hush hush ways, the various military research centers throughout the world are looking for ways to enhance the strength of their troops. The most common avenue that is looked into is through hormonal treatments that would enhance their muscles and bone structures and this is the half of the backbone of what I went for. The other half is the chemical cocktail that the marines are injected to by their armor which in essence is a mix of adrenaline and various other hormones which effectively allows them to push their bodies to their limits for extended amount of time without feeling fatigue.

So in order to imagine how such a marine looks and how he fights take the picture of not a modern steroid body builder but a classic Strongman:




Then imagine them clad in an armor that looks like some of the heavier Mass Effect samples:

http://lvlt.bioware.cdn.ea.com/bioware/ ... oper-p.jpg
http://www.heromachine.com/wp-content/u ... ct_Leg.jpg

Carrying a 20 mm mass driver whose potential firepower is far greater than this:

https://youtu.be/V8FzzEyegJQ?t=32s

While being enhanced by what is best described as hyper adrenaline.

[Grayhome]

Powered armor makes sense, but a lot of the Tau and Battletech stuff is significantly larger than a human frame: instead of those, robots & small vehicles make more sense for a confined space like the Bennet class.

Well yes Absalom a lot of the before mentioned sci fi universe tech is considerably larger than the human frame. But a lot of it isn’t. I’ve already made my case that stairs, crawlspaces and ladders would pose a significant hurdle for such weapon systems. These ships were designed for multi-legged species, tracks are going to have hurdles to overcome.

Particularly since any large areas are going to either be unenclosed space, or will likely have powered equipment (cranes & such) as part of the facilities. Anything that can compellingly be called a mech instead of powered armor just won't make sense onboard.

*shrug* I disagree with your opinion. As does GURPS and MOO, upon which this story has roots and which I draw upon as inspiration for my ideas.

The human frame has many moving joints and a fairly high surface area, which actually means that this list of features will be better achieved by something shaped like a box than shaped like a marine.

A lot of the Battlesuits in the WAR 40k and Battletech universes are basically small boxes with arms and legs.

This really just adjusts the base-level of a squad's firepower.

Well, yes. In an environment which you and your enemy has a finite number of troops, having troops with heavier armor, superior weapons and increased mobility would be a tremendous advantage.

Outsider FTL isn't accurate enough for that. You need inch-accuracies, but Outsider FTL only has AU accuracies: completely different scales. Outsider tech has a much less chaotic tech-level than Star Trek.

Master of Orion, GURPS Ultratech and GURPS Psionics all do.

Humans in Outsider are a developing power, you're thinking of an already hyper-advanced group like the humans in WH40k. The situation is completely different, and it's actually the Umiak (or more likely, Historians) that can achieve what you're suggesting that the humans could do.

See previous statement.

Staircases can be dealt with somewhat straightforwardly, ladders are a little harder but should still be quite possible, and as long as the robot or whatever can fit they'll actually do better inside crawlspaes than humans or Umiak if they use treads or something. Though crawlspaces are presumably rare, unless they're used for maintenance access to the interior of large pieces of machinery.

No they can't, no they wouldn't be, no they wouldn't. These vessels are designed for people who walk around on legs Absalom, tracked vehicles are going to encounter problems in such environments.

But this short story occurs in space, so flight can either be achieved with relatively little energy, or is unneeded.

Absalom, this short story occurs on starships with artificial gravity. I don't understand your point.

I would never call those mechs, though. They're an exoskeleton, but the only place where I understand that to be counted as a mech is in Japan: everywhere else, an exoskeleton or powered armor are worn like a piece of clothing, while a mech is piloted as a vehicle. A Tau Stealth Suit would be powered armor, while a Tau Riptide Battlesuit is definitively a mech. The equivalent to a Stealth Suit would be practical on a starship, but for anything known to exist within Outsider a XV104 would definitively not be. The Tau themselves recognize this issue, as demonstrated by their Void Battlesuit.

I feel like your nitpicking.

[dragoongfa]

Chapter 12, part 1

The HUD flickered back to life in safe mode merely an instant after it disappeared before shutting down again in order to return to normal with a warning that communications were limited to Morse burst. For a fleeting moment he wondered why the Umiak would use such a weak ECM attack when Terran warships with far lower tech had enough ECM strength to push their armors into the bare bones safe mode. He smirked when he realized the simplicity of the answer, they wanted the ship’s computer systems intact and strong ECM attacks would corrupt the systems and the data they contained.

“Squad, activate decoys and shut down the lights.” He ordered and the armor’s systems immediately transmitted the command in a Morse burst, as a form of communication it was slow and limited in range but it was better than being forced to rely on hand signals. After a few moments his armor’s sensors immediately registered the activations of the dozens of electronic and infrared decoys that his marines had placed throughout the shuttle bay. The HUD automatically filtered them out before going into full night vision the moment the lights went out.
He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes in order to savor this last moment of peace before the HUD flashed red and reported numerous inward explosions at the outer hull near the shuttle bay’s main door. The HUD instantly reported six breaches, probably big enough for a fully armored marine to pass through.

The Umiak seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, undoubtedly expecting decompressed air to rush out from the breaches; most of Matveyev however, with the exception of the armored medical bay, had already been preemptively decompressed. He used that hesitation to look at and examine the six breaches, they had been evenly spaced out and arranged by height from his point of view, apparently because the Umiak didn’t have any idea about the shuttle bay’s inner layout other than it should be big enough for some sort of cargo shuttle to land and unload cargo in it. Two of them were high up, near the ceiling, with a fall of several meters before reaching the armored deck. Two others were lower, just two meters above the deck while the last two were botched, low enough that the breaches were obstructed by the deck which had bent out of shape from the explosions.

The moment of Umiak hesitation passed quickly and the boarders lobbed numerous grenades inside through the successful breaches. The grenades detonated and his HUD instantly filled with static as a result, it immediately reset but this time it reported hundreds of electronic and infrared signatures as some short of miniature decoys quickly spread out from the detonated grenades.

“Ignore electronic and infrared.” He ordered and his HUD immediately complied, showing him only the green night vision input.
It was then that he finally saw the first four of the Umiak boarders as they jumped through the unobstructed breaches. They were clad in full body armor that somehow emphasized their bug like nature, he couldn’t make out specific details because of some sort of visual ECM that blurred them out slightly but the way they moved looked like it was their own skin,

He brought up his MD-45 and aimed at one of them as four more jumped through the breaches, the HUD instantly recognized the target and offered aiming assistance through his armor’s hydraulics. He followed the gentle nudge of his right arm and the instant that pressure stopped he pulled the trigger. Most of the recoil was automatically absorbed by the weapon’s and armor’s compensators, leaving only the muffled thump and slight slap on his shoulder when his weapons butt stock pushed on his armor’s shoulder.

His aim was spot on as he was rewarded with a visible impact on the Umiak’s chest armor followed instantly by a small explosion as the SHEAP round failed to penetrate the armor and detonate inside in order to ensure the kill.

The Umiak marine stumbled backwards from the impact and the shock of the explosion but was still standing when a shot from one of his men hit what looked like a frontal visor and successfully penetrated through there, the detonation left the outer armor intact but blood and gore spurted out from the visor as proof of the kill.

He immediately switched target as more Umiak rushed inside and returned fire, his next target was hit two times in quick succession, both rounds failing to penetrate and exploding on the surface.

“Squad, switch weapon output to medium.” This was somewhat risky as the projectile’s velocity would be effectively doubled but the strength of the Umiak armor warranted it. At such speeds the projectile from an MD-45 could easily penetrate the unarmored sections of hull and the various soft sections of the ship but the SHEAP’s self destruct ability at a miss should nullify the damage, unless they were forced to use HIVEAP or HEX rounds.

He aimed and fired his weapon again, this time the thump was louder and the slap was more like a shove but the SHEAP successfully penetrated the armor and detonated inside. Smiling he switched target only to see it stagger when two explosions from near misses staggered the Umiak before a third round hit it at the head. Observing the firefight there were numerous near misses, probably due to the Umiak visual ECM but each hit was now a penetration and an automatic kill.

The return fire quickly became accurate, forcing him to take cover as more and more boarders rushed inside and frantically tried to find some cover, some of them even used their numerous dead as cover without any visible hesitation. He didn’t have time to think as he fired again and again, ducking behind cover and moving to a different position whenever the Umiak fired at him. With a quick glance he counted at least a dozen boarders dead but far more had made it inside; hiding behind whatever cover they could find, making it plainly obvious that they would soon overwhelm them with far superior numbers as more and more of them entered the fray through the breaches.

To prevent that from happening he didn’t have any other choice but to overwhelm them first with superior firepower, even if that meant further damage to the shuttle bay’s armored deck and the main door behind the Umiak.

“Squad, HIVEAPs and HEXs by the numbers.” He ordered as he changed his weapon’s magazine from his half spent SHEAP one to a HIVEAP and boosted his weapon’s output to high. A few seconds later half of the squad fired slow moving and self guiding HEX rounds at the Umiak that exploded on impact while he and the other half fired high velocity armor piercing rounds that passed through everything that stood on their way.

The Umiak were torn apart in seconds as explosions and high velocity rounds tore through them and their cover, he emptied the 20 rounds of his magazine faster than he predicted and loaded a new one when the Umiak finally had enough and rushed forward with their remaining numbers, lobbing grenades and firing blindly at the marine positions.

The marines ducked behind cover and with trained precision lobbed smart defensive grenades on the path of the rushing Umiak. Something big hit him from the right and sent him tumbling, probably an Umiak grenade but the HUD didn’t report any significant damage so he stood up to witness the Umiak rush falter and come to a halt the moment the smart grenades detonated in unison.

“Squad, SHEAPs to finish them off.” He ordered, changed magazine and lowered the weapon’s output before opening fire at every alien that moved in front of him. The rest of the squad followed suit and were soon joined by three more marines from Charlie squad.

“Squad, cease fire.” He ordered when he couldn’t see any movement from the Umiak and a couple of seconds later his HUD flashed that all of his men acknowledged the order.

“Squad, damage and casualty report.” It took a few seconds for the armors to automatically exchange status information with Morse burst and soon he had a detailed report in front of him. For a moment he thought that his armor’s electronics were malfunctioning as it reported no casualties but the damage reports quickly piled up, all of their armor’s suffered some sort of damage including his own, most of them armor dents and hydraulic damage but no penetrations nor maimings were reported.

“Squad, how many did you count?” He asked as he quickly inspected their defensive positions. Scorch marks littered almost every surface and even the deck bent out of shape where Umiak grenades exploded, making him wonder how they didn’t lose anyone in that brief exchange.

“32 enemies KIA.” Came the report from Sergeant Reman a few seconds later.
That can’t be right. He thought as he run across one of his men whose armor was littered with various scorch marks.

“Private Freitas, how many times were you hit?” Lieutenant Allerberger asked.

“Five times, maybe six.” The reply said when it appeared on his HUD.

Were those idiots holding back? Even as they were getting slaughtered? The thought shook him, especially when considering that the Umiak and the Loroi had been at each others throat for 25 years. He thought it impossible that both combatants wouldn’t realize that one needs both overwhelming numbers and firepower to quickly overwhelm the defenders in a boarding action.

The TCA had learned this the hard way decades ago when Martian terrorists with full ablative A.S.T. armor and mass driver weapons hijacked a military transport carrying supplies to Hellas Landing. The TCA did succeed in retaking it but with disproportionate casualties and only after the terrorists run out of mass driver ammo. In the end a mere handful of terrorists armed with some of the first portable mass drivers managed to kill ten times their number because the marines own standard issue laser rifles couldn’t penetrate their opponent’s ablative armor while the mass drivers punched through theirs with ease, ensuring a clean kill with every hit.

The lesson learned that day was harsh but taken to heart. Boarding had to be done hard and fast with the sole priority being the quick annihilation of any and all opposition on the target ship. Hesitation and holding back firepower was the death sentence of any assault force. The outer hull could be patched later, non critical systems were replaceable while critical systems were already sealed and armored against impacts, fires and explosions even on civilian ships.

Go hard, go fast and kill everything that holds a gun with one shot. That’s the only way to secure a ship quickly and with minimal damage. Lieutenant Allerberger recited the mantra in his head and the same applied for boarding defense. Shaking his head he finally checked how much time had passed and chuckled when he saw that the firefight lasted less than 2 and a half minutes.

I hope that the captain makes sure that they won’t come back for round two, they won’t be stupid the second time over.

Chapter 12, part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 258#p20258

[dragoongfa]

I feel... nervous about this part to tell the truth, maybe I will come back to it later to flesh it out some more.

[NuclearIceCream]

I wouldnt worry. I liked it. I feel it maintained some tension and I wouldn't find it hard to believe the Umiak thought they could get away with anything less then their best. Especially since boarding action isn't all that common this late in the war.

[Krulle]

Indeed. This is a good chapter. Much action, yet short, reflecting the short and intense firefight.

The Umiak are good if they're able to push a full squad in within that short time.

Next time, if there is a next time, they will blanket the to be boarded space first, before entering....

[Grayhome]

Why I do declare! It's as if you were channeling the spirit of Dan Abbnet himself! Awesome chapter dragoongfa.

A tiny bit of constructive criticism, plasma flamers were described in GURPS as being extremely effective in boarding actions for precisely this sort of scenario. A three meter cone of plasma that washes out the boarding party's entrance and the room behind them, ignoring most cover and coating the entire boarding party in hawt hawt hawt plasma. In addition to that, the plasma flamer is not armor piercing, so it (probably) wont damage any of the ship's interior components like solid rounds will. It's just such a lovely tool, so delightfully efficient.

Flamers (TL9^) These weapons fire a low-velocity jet of high temperature plasma. Hydrogen fuel is fed into a magnetic containment chamber, heated and compressed to form a plasma, and then released as a continuous stream. Flamers are effective incendiary and terror weapons, with a role similar to that of the flamethrower. They’re also useful for disposing of vermin or microbot swarms. Flamers inflict burning damage, but not tight-beam burning damage.
Flamer Weapons
Assault Flamer(TL9^): This rifle-sized plasma weapon is often used by armored infantry involved in spaceship boarding actions and house-to-house fighting.
Hand Flamer (TL9^): This large pistol is used as a military sidearm or a terror weapon.
Heavy Flamer (TL9^): An energy-based flamethrower with a backpack power supply.
Semi-Portable Flamer (TL9^): Also called a tripod flamer, this heavy, semi-portable infantry weapon can be terrifying even to a fighter in heavy armor. A heavy flamer can be mounted on a tripod or carried by a soldier in powered battlesuit. They are also popular in combat engineering and urban assault vehicles.

[dragoongfa]

I considered the flamethrower at first for the reasons you mentioned, the problem however with these flamethrowers is the tech behind them and the very nature of the weapon itself.

The first reason I didn't use flamethrowers is that I don't think that humanity in the Outsider setting is able to manipulate plasma to that degree.

The second reason is that heavy weapons in general have the nasty habit of attracting enemy fire.

In the firefight the Umiak did hit several marines with their Blasters, which are portable particle beam weapons. The human armor took the hit without much harm but if the Umiak did the same thing the Humans did and increased the output of their weapons then the picture would be vastly different. Now how low was the setting of the Umiak Blasters?

Perhaps it was low enough to cause injury at someone wearing only a light form of airtight armor, perhaps it was set to non lethal, someone needs to ask the Umiak Hard-Troops about that but in the end the Umiak did hit the marines several times despite the beating they were getting while being on mostly open ground.

Now imagine who would be the priority target of all Umiak if such a plasma flamethrower was in use?

With the Human attitude of using weapons that ensure 1 hit - 1 kill then it would be no question that the Humans would rarely take fire magnets weapons with them, unless the situation called for them.

[Razor One]

I don't think that there would be any terrible technical hurdles for using plasma flamethrowers on an infantry scale versus boarding actions. All you really need is the requisite magnetics to contain the plasma and the power to generate it. Magnetics are easy if you have superconductors, and power consumption is the only real hurdle, which you can get around by lugging about the generator necessary for it or plugging in to the ships supply.

Plasma weapons in outsider, as I understand them, are only severely limited by range. On ship to ship scales they're completely useless, since they disperse rapidly. The plasma focus solves this problem, letting them hit from long range. Obviously that's not really a problem versus a boarding action.

If they're not using plasma flamethrowers on the ship, then it's more probable that the TCA generally don't them for the same reason modern flamethrowers aren't today; questionable effectiveness, limited use, and bad PR. If you need to hose down a bunch of soft targets, that's what flechettes are for. Harder targets get AP rounds. Really hard targets get AP explosive.

[Absalom]

Powered armor makes sense, but a lot of the Tau and Battletech stuff is significantly larger than a human frame: instead of those, robots & small vehicles make more sense for a confined space like the Bennet class.

Well yes Absalom a lot of the before mentioned sci fi universe tech is considerably larger than the human frame. But a lot of it isn’t. I’ve already made my case that stairs, crawlspaces and ladders would pose a significant hurdle for such weapon systems. These ships were designed for multi-legged species, tracks are going to have hurdles to overcome.

I would never call those mechs, though. They're an exoskeleton, but the only place where I understand that to be counted as a mech is in Japan: everywhere else, an exoskeleton or powered armor are worn like a piece of clothing, while a mech is piloted as a vehicle. A Tau Stealth Suit would be powered armor, while a Tau Riptide Battlesuit is definitively a mech. The equivalent to a Stealth Suit would be practical on a starship, but for anything known to exist within Outsider a XV104 would definitively not be. The Tau themselves recognize this issue, as demonstrated by their Void Battlesuit.

I feel like your nitpicking.

I feel like you're taking excessive liberties. I have never encountered power armor being commonly referred to as a 'mech'. In Japan the word 'mech' is simply a contraction of 'mechanical', but it covers not just powered suits and giant war robots, but also motorcycles and other mechanical devices. Elsewhere, 'mech' is used to refer to robots that are piloted.

Particularly since any large areas are going to either be unenclosed space, or will likely have powered equipment (cranes & such) as part of the facilities. Anything that can compellingly be called a mech instead of powered armor just won't make sense onboard.

*shrug* I disagree with your opinion. As does GURPS and MOO, upon which this story has roots and which I draw upon as inspiration for my ideas.

Consider the 'terrain': you've got roughly human-sized (or maybe twice-human-sized, for the Umiak) corridors, presumably some larger corridors for large ship equipment to be refitted, and some mixture of elevators, ramps, stairs, and ladders. Elevators are constrained by space and little more. Ramps are constrained by the difference of angle between ramp and floor, and the presence or absence of turns part-way up, which will also be constraining on anything with legs. Stairs are essentially a type of ramp, so if the treads of a treaded vehicle are capable of handling the distance between individual stair-steps, then they can handle the staircase. This leaves ladders as the only certain difficulty: ladders cause problems for people too, so they're not likely to be favored anywhere that is:
1) intended to be accessible, and
2) not severely constrained for space.
So, if a mech (as opposed to powered armor) can fit, then it isn't likely to need to deal with ladders, and that takes out the one thing that might distinguish a mech from a tracked vehicle... except that there's no particular need for such a distinguishment. Read on.

One relevant note: if you have good-enough software, treads shaped to grab on to holds, and you mount your treads on a 'leg-like' active-shock system, then you can handle ladders much faster than any biped can. Cars out-race animals for good reason.

The human frame has many moving joints and a fairly high surface area, which actually means that this list of features will be better achieved by something shaped like a box than shaped like a marine.

A lot of the Battlesuits in the WAR 40k and Battletech universes are basically small boxes with arms and legs.

And Gears from Heavy Gear, but you'll need small cockpits to deal with ship-board corridors, and this will severely restrict the abilities of the pilot, at which point you have problems with the very same stairs & ladders that you were talking about earlier. Dreadnoughts & similar might be a decent augmentation to a Marine crew, but they wouldn't be a good option as the primary marine unit on a ship like the Bellarmine.

Outsider FTL isn't accurate enough for that. You need inch-accuracies, but Outsider FTL only has AU accuracies: completely different scales. Outsider tech has a much less chaotic tech-level than Star Trek.

Master of Orion, GURPS Ultratech and GURPS Psionics all do.

Which is nice, but no matter how much they inspired Outsider, they are not actually Outsider. And Arioch has quite specifically mentioned that Outsider FTL isn't as accurate as you would need.

Humans in Outsider are a developing power, you're thinking of an already hyper-advanced group like the humans in WH40k. The situation is completely different, and it's actually the Umiak (or more likely, Historians) that can achieve what you're suggesting that the humans could do.

See previous statement.

You don't quite seem to have gotten the thrust of this particular comment: the Umiak are more advanced, so if it's possible within Outsider then in a Human vs Umiak fight, it's the Umiak that will have the technology advantage. Humans won't surprise Umiak with teleporters, but instead the equivalent of IEDs.

Staircases can be dealt with somewhat straightforwardly, ladders are a little harder but should still be quite possible, and as long as the robot or whatever can fit they'll actually do better inside crawlspaes than humans or Umiak if they use treads or something. Though crawlspaces are presumably rare, unless they're used for maintenance access to the interior of large pieces of machinery.

No they can't,

So easy you can do it at home. There are also robots that have been used by the military that do it with treads. Tanks are intended to be able to deal with stair-like obstacles, so this shouldn't be surprising. As long as the treads can reliably get an initial grip on the edge of a stair without breaking it, have enough motor power to pull themselves up, and have a long-enough wheel-base that they can reach the next step before they reach an angle that causes them to fall head-over-heals, they can climb stairs with no problem. Stairs are nothing but a steep ramp with level platforms spaced along it.

no they wouldn't be,

Here is a robot climbing a ladder. To climb the ladder, the robot first has to recognize that a ladder is present, and identify the parts that it can use to climb. Whatever designed the ladder, in order for it to be usable the ladder needs to have hand/foot/whatever holds spaced within a certain distance of each other (not regularly, just close enough together). Once your robot recognizes that such supports are present, it moves it's movement systems such that it can support itself with them. Hand and feet analogs are the most obvious choice, but if your treads include 'hooks' and are mounted on a sufficiently advanced active suspension, then treads can be used as well.

no they wouldn't. These vessels are designed for people who walk around on legs Absalom, tracked vehicles are going to encounter problems in such environments.

Do you even know what a crawlspace is? It's called a crawlspace because it's short enough that you have to crawl on your stomach or back instead of walking upright. And tread system capable of handling the obstructions in the crawlspace will be able to navigate it better than a human or Umiak, because the human and Umiak can't properly use their limbs to move in such a space, while a tread system will always be able to handle the obstructions that it's spec'ed for if it can actually fit in the available space.

If sentient caterpillars were a race under discussion then you might have some ammunition, but anything worthy of being called a crawlspace for a human or Umiak is going to cripple their natural movement capabilities.

But this short story occurs in space, so flight can either be achieved with relatively little energy, or is unneeded.

Absalom, this short story occurs on starships with artificial gravity. I don't understand your point.

My point is that if you're inside of a starship the size of a Bennet-class, then you do not in fact have a compelling need to fly while the artificial gravity is on: you're either outside of the ship, or you can use a grappling system to pull your vehicle up to the floor that you need it on.

I feel... nervous about this part to tell the truth, maybe I will come back to it later to flesh it out some more.

Reads like they just threw some toy troops in to assess the human's effectiveness. If they win then that's great, if they lose then no big loss. Either that, or someone goofed with the weapons settings.