What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

[ShadowDragon8685]

The issue is that TransHuman Space (the other RPG setting from the same era like Early Traveler) themes would clash with the Traveler themes of Outsider. Traveler is about the journey into the society and politics of civilizations..human or alien. TransHuman Space is about the stories of interactions of technology and science with the society and politics.

Of course! I would have personally also loved if the final epilogue chapter was Alexander holding hands with Fireblade..both smiling at the sunset..ten millennia from now.

I still think that genetic upgrades like what the Culture can do for its organic citizens..aka: Biological Immortality..are more doable in Outsider then uploading into a new and better meat puppet.

Everyone hop onto the Trans-Sapient/Post-Sapient Train! CHOO CHOO! Motherfuckers.

Eh, I never worry about "themes" when I'm writing. I just write.
And frankly, if the enemy has a huge technological head-start, the only really reasonable option is to disengage all the brakes on the technological progress train and put the hammer down, consequences be damned.

So the Umiak have an insane industrial base. Okay, that's a big problem.
Possible solutions include full-bore, no-limits augmentation and transhuman technologies to augment ship crew, marines and industrial workers, and full-bore deployment of artificial general intelligence. You don't need any embodied crew at all when you can crew a ship with the uploaded minds of your finest crews and AGIs raised wholecloth as infolife, using robotic drones to perform maintenance tasks.

Also, I'm not sure there is a proper term for "Transhumanism" when applied to sapient species which were not originally human. "Transorigin" is the umbrella term I like, but I dunno if anybody else uses it.

I did an came to think about missile ordinance. Since those missile use antimatter both as fuel and warhead, did they consider plundering them for fuel to the ships? They did leave ships behind after all.

They almost certainly did, yes. One of the advantages of fullerened antimatter is that, if you absolutely have to, you can carry it around in a paper sack.

To be clear, the missiles they have now are ordnance spares provided by the fleet support tender that arrived with Fragile Storm's fleet, not the ones they had remaining when they got the fuck out of Dodge.

I just got a brilliant idea:



Rapid Fire Kinetic Railgun/Coilgun Fragmentarty Flak?

The purely Human cock-blocking answer to Umiak Missile/Torpedo Spam. Remember: Kinetics don't trigger the shields on the torpedoes.

Blocked in my country on copyright grounds.

That having been said, kinetic PD is certainly a viable option, and would probably be the one humans will be employing. It doesn't have nearly as much range as the Loroi laser PDs and won't be as capable of savaging Umiak ships since their inertial dampening systems are effective against kinetic impacts, and any point-defense cannon is going to necessarily fire a lot of little projectiles instead of a big, fuckoff "I don't give a damn about your inertial dampeners" ship-to-ship cannon's projectile, which would be exponentially more destructive against a Umiak ship by the simple expedient of concentrating exponentially more force on a smaller area.

But I'd expect they'd actually be more effective as point-defense than lasers. The Loroi might consider arming at least some dedicated point-defense corvettes with mass driver PD cannons.

[Krulle]

By the way, did anybody actually read that big list o' ships and classes, or did errybody's eyes just gloss over it? Did anybody notice the new classes listed or wonder about them, or does nobody give a damn about that kind of thing and I should stop obsessing over such?

I read it. I wondered. I shrugged, as I do not care much for that. It does not seem to cotnribute to the story, for now. When it comes around inside the story, I'll gladly read it, but... yeah.

I assumed it has to do with the upgrading as done by the Human repair engineers, which made the ships slightly different to each other. Say, one ship got most of the speed improvements, one for the range, one for the skip distances, one for weapon powers, as neither ship had the place to get all upgrades, and not enough modules to go around anyway. To make it fit, the engineers decided for this or that for each single ship.
At least, that was my preliminary assuming. If the story tells me more, I'll revise, but I can simply live with the way it has been presented.
I am also not that much into details like these. I love seeing them, as it tells me that the author has put a lot of thought into his world when details like this are fleshed out, but as that does not contribute to the story in general, my mind tends to skip these details when storing the elements of the story.
Also, while I have a knack for abbreviations, I hate abbreviations used in space, military, and aeronautics. For those I have no feel. I still do not know if a cruiser is bigger than a frigate, or not. But then, both names are used for wide ranges of ships, so there is surely some overlap. And as I do not get my head to hold these details, however important they are to people who served, I tend to skip such details when readin a story. I read the words, but my mind will not remember whether the ship is 200m or 300m long, just because my head read frigate or cruiser.
But I do know that a battleship is larger than either, jsut as a heavy is either even larger (heavy battleship) or better armoured (heavy cruiser). But then, "heavy" can also refer to raw firepower.

Please do NOT explain these details to me, I've read them at least 20 times now on different pages. But I do remember other ridiculous details, like the real fig trees have three sexes, to accomodate the fig wasp they need for pollination.

I did an came to think about missile ordinance. Since those missile use antimatter both as fuel and warhead, did they consider plundering them for fuel to the ships? They did leave ships behind after all.

Very possibly you'll need specialised handling tools to remove the AM from the missiles. Possibly the fleet did not have that available. And if you're in a hurry because you're being followed, you do not have time for such things. It might be better to program them for trapping any Umiak ships trying to investigate those left-behind ships they stumble over.

[Durabys]

The issue is that TransHuman Space (the other RPG setting from the same era like Early Traveler) themes would clash with the Traveler themes of Outsider. Traveler is about the journey into the society and politics of civilizations..human or alien. TransHuman Space is about the stories of interactions of technology and science with the society and politics.

Of course! I would have personally also loved if the final epilogue chapter was Alexander holding hands with Fireblade..both smiling at the sunset..ten millennia from now.

I still think that genetic upgrades like what the Culture can do for its organic citizens..aka: Biological Immortality..are more doable in Outsider then uploading into a new and better meat puppet.

Everyone hop onto the Trans-Sapient/Post-Sapient Train! CHOO CHOO! Motherfuckers.

Eh, I never worry about "themes" when I'm writing. I just write.
And frankly, if the enemy has a huge technological head-start, the only really reasonable option is to disengage all the brakes on the technological progress train and put the hammer down, consequences be damned.

So the Umiak have an insane industrial base. Okay, that's a big problem.
Possible solutions include full-bore, no-limits augmentation and transhuman technologies to augment ship crew, marines and industrial workers, and full-bore deployment of artificial general intelligence. You don't need any embodied crew at all when you can crew a ship with the uploaded minds of your finest crews and AGIs raised wholecloth as infolife, using robotic drones to perform maintenance tasks.

Also, I'm not sure there is a proper term for "Transhumanism" when applied to sapient species which were not originally human. "Transorigin" is the umbrella term I like, but I dunno if anybody else uses it.

I did an came to think about missile ordinance. Since those missile use antimatter both as fuel and warhead, did they consider plundering them for fuel to the ships? They did leave ships behind after all.

They almost certainly did, yes. One of the advantages of fullerened antimatter is that, if you absolutely have to, you can carry it around in a paper sack.

To be clear, the missiles they have now are ordnance spares provided by the fleet support tender that arrived with Fragile Storm's fleet, not the ones they had remaining when they got the fuck out of Dodge.

I just got a brilliant idea:



Rapid Fire Kinetic Railgun/Coilgun Fragmentarty Flak?

The purely Human cock-blocking answer to Umiak Missile/Torpedo Spam. Remember: Kinetics don't trigger the shields on the torpedoes.

Blocked in my country on copyright grounds.

That having been said, kinetic PD is certainly a viable option, and would probably be the one humans will be employing. It doesn't have nearly as much range as the Loroi laser PDs and won't be as capable of savaging Umiak ships since their inertial dampening systems are effective against kinetic impacts, and any point-defense cannon is going to necessarily fire a lot of little projectiles instead of a big, fuckoff "I don't give a damn about your inertial dampeners" ship-to-ship cannon's projectile, which would be exponentially more destructive against a Umiak ship by the simple expedient of concentrating exponentially more force on a smaller area.

But I'd expect they'd actually be more effective as point-defense than lasers. The Loroi might consider arming at least some dedicated point-defense corvettes with mass driver PD cannons.

Trans-Sapient is as good as anything.

About that video:
https://vimeo.com/10224994

It would be fun if the Loroi went back to kinetic's after such long time.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Trans-Sapient is as good as anything.

About that video:
https://vimeo.com/10224994

How adorable.
Flak is only useful if the enemy are going to be clustered up at ranges such that they could theoretically shoot one another with small arms. I mean, hey, if the enemy feels like participating in the creation of your dream engagement by doing something stupid like flying starfighters at WWII prop plane ranges, and compounding that by flying in a straight stream from their carrier towards your ship instead of ballooning out, you might as well...

The Umiak strike me as being too practical to participate in the creation of anybody's dream engagement.

It would be fun if the Loroi went back to kinetic's after such long time.

They do use some - Warhead Launchers are basically giant railguns, used to give torpedoes a kick into battle and to give KKVs you're aiming towards a planet you don't want the enemy to have an extra kick when you're done accelerating your ship towards it.

[Durabys]

Trans-Sapient is as good as anything.

About that video:
https://vimeo.com/10224994

How adorable.
Flak is only useful if the enemy are going to be clustered up at ranges such that they could theoretically shoot one another with small arms. I mean, hey, if the enemy feels like participating in the creation of your dream engagement by doing something stupid like flying starfighters at WWII prop plane ranges, and compounding that by flying in a straight stream from their carrier towards your ship instead of ballooning out, you might as well...

The Umiak strike me as being too practical to participate in the creation of anybody's dream engagement.

It would be fun if the Loroi went back to kinetic's after such long time.

They do use some - Warhead Launchers are basically giant railguns, used to give torpedoes a kick into battle and to give KKVs you're aiming towards a planet you don't want the enemy to have an extra kick when you're done accelerating your ship towards it.

I wasn't talking about using kinetics against warships! I was talking about using them to destroy the Macross Swarms of missiles and torpedoes! Aka: Targets with not as much a guiding intellect or armor as a Umiak warship. And the closer these missiles are to your ship..the greater effect will the flak have on them.

[Durabys]

And the closer these missiles are to your ship..the greater effect will the flak have on them.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I wasn't talking about using kinetics against warships! I was talking about using them to destroy the Macross Swarms of missiles and torpedoes! Aka: Targets with not as much a guiding intellect or armor as a Umiak warship. And the closer these missiles are to your ship..the greater effect will the flak have on them.

And the closer these missiles are to your ship..the greater effect will the flak have on them.

Thing is, though, in space, "close" range is gonna be friggin' enormous empty volumes. You'd basically be aiming a flak cannon at a single torpedo/gunship/missile anyway, same as you would with a standard point-defense gun. Making a "this big gun fires a big shell slower than a big gun can fire small shells, but the big shell explodes to shotgun shrapnel in the enemy's general vicinity" is an extremely niche device which won't be worth it almost all of the time.

The exception is when a lot of small missiles start flying from one target at short distance - such as a Loroi cluster torpedo. In this case, flak cannons might be useful as a hard counter if the cluster torpedoes were so disgustingly, devastatingly effective that they were a potential tide-turner by themselves - which they are not. Also, you could just shoot the torpedo with a KKV before it launches anyway.

Now, if the Umiak used missiles which were designed to juke and jink like an epileptic squirrel on PCP, it might be theoretically worthwhile, and a flak cannon could probably switch at the last minute to launching solid KKV ammo that would go through an Umiak gunship like its screens weren't even there (which they wouldn't be, effectively,) but the problem with that is that by the time the Umiak gunships are in railgun range, you've been in plasma focus range for ages, and they've been in pulse cannon ranges for ages more.

tl;dr: Gatling mass driver = fuck yo' torpedoes, fuck yo' missiles sideways. Flak mass driver = Virtually useless.

[Tamri]

And the closer these missiles are to your ship..the greater effect will the flak have on them.

... And the more likely that the missile destroyed the ship too close touches bring a splash or noise on your sensors. In principle, the idea of ​​using kinetics as missile defense is not so bad, if the shells to disperse at least up to 1000 km/s. In this case, the effective range is about 15 Mm, which, of course, worse than the energy counterparts, but not bad. Accuracy will also be worse, but if nothing is better not to find, then acceptable and the bast shoe.

SpoilerShow

The main problem with your assumption is that the technology you see is practically the same technology as today which for all intents and purposes it shouldn't be.

The most glaring example that most people don't notice are the TCA space suits and how lightweight and most importantly flexible they are when compared with their current equivalents which have visually and practically remained unchanged since the earliest days of space flight. That's a crucial piece of equipment that has visually remained unchanged for more the better part of a century already due to the limitations of technology to that particular field. Yet for all their similarities the space suits of today are not the space suits of the 1960s, they are made from other materials, with different techniques and they have different performance characteristics. The reason they are visually identical is because the human inside is identical with the same wants and needs in regards to their operation while the technology still still hasn't advanced enough to offer better size, weight and flexibility characteristics.

Yes, the bridge is operated by touch screen flat panels but you don't know how more advanced the technology behind them is when compared with their modern equivalent; the fact that they remain visually recognizable doesn't mean anything other than the fact that the human wants and needs are similar to the one's of today. The technology is undoubtedly related but that doesn't mean that the 2160 counterpart of the touch screen flat panel is technologically identical with the ones of today (that are known for the their unreliability which is why the military doesn't want to be anywhere near them for now).

No, I was just ideating how the technology would look like in 100 years, provided that there is nothing fundamentally new appears. It should be noted that the result was the picture that science fiction draw at least through the year 1000, and even more. And then, in the light of scientific news this year, I realized that in some circumstances I was very wrong with the necessary time, development and integration of technologies.

There are a number of technologies that have remained virtually unchanged for centuries, simply because they have reached the peak of its development, and to tie them to the new gimmicks or can not, or do not need. These suits you come in different types, depending on the tasks assigned to them, and the variability of the appearance can be enormous. As the author draws, and we will be justify - then come up with. In the end, there is a tradition, the customer requirements and banal pastiche of something.

Just in terms of reliability and security desirable mechanical keyboard, not touchscreen. Exactly how, and more, designed to work in conditions of complete assholes, is mechanical. And electronics - as simple and lined with a thick layer of protection. And this will be true for both beginners ships, like the people, and for any super-duper advanced guys like Historians. But my remark about the shitty computers do not refer to a touch screen (which is why the bridge once or twice a handful, as if there is always a maximum of two or three officers at the same time is), but at least to all other monitors that suspiciously resemble miniature CRT monitors. On the bridge of the "Pillar of Autumn" this junk looked anything, though in his remaster replaced by something more modern, but here on the bridge, "Bell" It looks like a pimple on the ass. And the interface I would not call very friendly - and it is in the workplace, which was always someone working.

Anyway, my point of view, you know. Yes, part of the garbage can be attributed to the fact that Jim is so painted, and another part to the fact that the world of comics just in the zero years and started. But this doesn't change the fact that people Outsider isn't particularly advanced, even by modern standards, but if you get into the most reasonable Futurism - if not primitive to hiccups.

[Mr Bojangles]

I assume that the reaction products are more convenient, too: as I recall, normal M/AM reactions produce neutrinos, thereby wasting energy, and some of the processes suggested for engines are supposed to produce similar inefficiencies. If you can get mostly photonic energy results, that would suddenly bring the usefulness of anti-matter much closer to the hype.

Yeah, if I recall correctly, depending on the type of particle/antiparticle annihilation, somewhere between a quarter to half of the energy output gets converted to neutrinos. I'll have to look into that; I'm probably remembering wrong. If the Loroi and Umiak are using some sort of "quantum tweaked" AM fuel, you'd like to think they could tune the reaction to make the products more beneficial.

Bellarmine would need to be at least half fuel tank to have a bingo range of ten+ jumps, if she were powered by hydrogen fusion reactors, and that's being generous; it would probably be more like 80% fuel tank.

Bell just isn't big enough for a fusion reactor to fuel her, whether she was capable of in-situ refueling or reliant on the tanker.

I'm not sure how you can say this. We don't know the energy requirements or the efficiency of jump engines, but we can see the Bellarmine's fuel capacity is enough to give a her a ten-jump range before needing to hook up with the tanker. That range also needs to include travel between jump points. We don't know the efficiency of her reaction engines, either, but apparently it's good enough for the stated bingo distance.

And, we still don't know what fusion process is used to drive human starships. Bell may use something more exotic, much as the Loroi and Umiak use something more exotic than standard AM. But, fusion is what Outsider humanity has, no matter how paltry it seems (man, that was a weird sentence to type).

Edit: In the Humanity in 2160 essay there is specific mention that helium-3 is a "a key fuel for second-generation fusion reactors." It also says liquid hydrogen was in the Bell's main tanks as fuel for the drive. So, we do have a bit of info about humanity's fusion tech.

[sunphoenix]

I think.. I finally got it right.

Stormrage {Tempest, pre-Cydonia} GURPS:

SpoilerShow

windows 7 screen shot

[Tamri]

I think.. I finally got it right.

Cool. Really. But here's the question ... In fact, in is the origin her rank O1, ie on your money 2 Lieutenant. Leinnol - O4, ie Maj. But at the same skill points they have obtained similar. Plus, Leinnol older than 6 years ... In fanfic the difference is even greater, almost 8-10 years (due to time lateness). Once coolest it to shaped for private (our reality).

[sunphoenix]

I think.. I finally got it right.

Cool. Really. But here's the question ... In fact, in is the origin her rank O1, ie on your money 2 Lieutenant. Leinnol - O4, ie Maj. But at the same skill points they have obtained similar. Plus, Leinnol older than 6 years ... In fanfic the difference is even greater, almost 8-10 years (due to time lateness). Once coolest it to shaped for private (our reality).

Yes, I expect the "Real" canon character - Teidar Marir - 01 'Mothwing', is less than 300 points like Teidar Pallan Leinnol - 04 'Fireblade'. Even still... I wanted to make Stormrage "comparible" to Fireblade and I liked the fact of the irony being that Stormrage, in her childhood, had trouble controlling her temper and as such her control/focus of her powers suffers when she is in a seething fury. But Fireblade is a force of nature when she is in a rage! Stormrage needs calm focus to be at her full power.

Even so, Fireblade could STILL crush Stormrage with but a thought when she is in a berserk rage!

Oh yes, Stormrage is young.. but her rank is less even though she is always volunteering for the toughest of missions and thickest of fighting. But her {ahem}.. amorous proclivities have not earned her a good reputation with her superiors... and thus not the kind of promotions Fireblade has earned; despite Stormrage's apparent ability to survive in the worse screwed up situations when others around her die.

It is likely.. Stormrage's mother has had a hand in approving her reassignments to more and more dangerous deployments~ despite Stormrage's belief that her mother takes no interest in her selfless and some would say near suicidal bravery in battle! She is supposed to be ALL HERO!

[ShadowDragon8685]

I assume that the reaction products are more convenient, too: as I recall, normal M/AM reactions produce neutrinos, thereby wasting energy, and some of the processes suggested for engines are supposed to produce similar inefficiencies. If you can get mostly photonic energy results, that would suddenly bring the usefulness of anti-matter much closer to the hype.

Yeah, if I recall correctly, depending on the type of particle/antiparticle annihilation, somewhere between a quarter to half of the energy output gets converted to neutrinos. I'll have to look into that; I'm probably remembering wrong. If the Loroi and Umiak are using some sort of "quantum tweaked" AM fuel, you'd like to think they could tune the reaction to make the products more beneficial.

There's no need for any such tweaking, especially if He-3 fusion is a sufficient power source. Only about 30% of a matter-antimatter annihilation reaction is lost to neutrinos; the remaining 70% is boom. Of course, if you're using this stuff to fuel a reactor instead of the direct destruction of your enemies, the amount you're going to get which is useful will probably be somewhat less than that.

Let's take a look at energy density, and let's assume that they're using antiuranium suspended in carbon-60 buckyballs because that nicely approximates to antimatter being one-quarter of the total fuel weight by mass, and it means your fuel can just be loaded in a huge hopper. One gram of fullerened antiuranium, containing just 250mg of antiuranium, has a matter/antimatter reaction potential of 10.74 KT of TNT. Chopping off the 30% neutrino fraction yields a total of 7.518 Kt, or ~31455.312Gj. But let's assume that you're losing a lot of that energy to neutrinos, unpleasant particles that don't play nice with your reactor and need to be contained, and the energy required to break more carbon-60 buckyballs to keep the reaction going. Let's assume you're only getting 25% usable power in a reactor (you'll be getting quite a lot more, closer to that original figure, if you're using it for straight-up antimatter rocketry/warhead use.)

Even if you're only getting 2.685Kt of useful energy out of that 250mg of antimatter, that's still 11,234 Gj.

Compare to 100% (IE, magically impossible) efficiency for He-3 fusion, which, per gram of helium-3, yields 0.000000000000000000000982662952826 GJ/gram of He-3, unless I have very badly bollocksed up my math, (which I am not discounting.) That's 26 orders of magnitude difference; that's also discounting the deuterium fuel, as that number is the best you can get from deuterium (He-2)-He3 fusion, which is the most energetic. Fusing He3 with itself is simpler logistically and arguably cleaner, but gives you less energy. (It's still going to be the same number of orders of magnitude, though.)

I'm not sure how you can say this. We don't know the energy requirements or the efficiency of jump engines, but we can see the Bellarmine's fuel capacity is enough to give a her a ten-jump range before needing to hook up with the tanker. That range also needs to include travel between jump points. We don't know the efficiency of her reaction engines, either, but apparently it's good enough for the stated bingo distance.

And, we still don't know what fusion process is used to drive human starships. Bell may use something more exotic, much as the Loroi and Umiak use something more exotic than standard AM. But, fusion is what Outsider humanity has, no matter how paltry it seems (man, that was a weird sentence to type).

Edit: In the Humanity in 2160 essay there is specific mention that helium-3 is a "a key fuel for second-generation fusion reactors." It also says liquid hydrogen was in the Bell's main tanks as fuel for the drive. So, we do have a bit of info about humanity's fusion tech.

I can say it because we know the storage requirements for bulk amounts of liquid helium. Any kind of appreciable quantity of liquid helium is going to require bloody massive cryogenic storage tanks. There is no "more exotic" form of fusion - fusion is fusion. You're not getting more than 18.354 MeV out of the deuterium-He3 fusion reaction, period, which is also going to mean you're going to need extra tanks, to store the cryogenic deuterium.

We also know that undertaking a hyperspace jump is no energetically trivial task: even Tempest, with its huge technology advantage, couldn't take a hyperspace jump just on reactor power, she needs to charge up her accumulators to do it. We also know that, one way or another, Tempest is powered by something energetically equivalent to a matter/antimatter reaction. Thus, it clearly takes a lot of juice, unless the untold secret is that humanity has somehow engineered a hyper-efficiency hyperdrive that has eluded both Loroi and Umiak and all the rest. Clearly, then, barring Bellarmine having had some kind of unknown game-changer in her aft (not entirely impossible, and possibly the reason the unknown hostiles took the extra time to vape her stern even after she was obviously hors d'combat,) the energy requirements are significant, meaning that they'll be many orders of magnitude more fuel-significant for a ship powered (any way you slice it,) by He-3 fusion. QED: massive freaking fuel tank with a ship wrapped around it if you want a ten+-jump bingo range.

[e]If "Second-generation fusion reactors" were specifically mentioned, that's almost certainly refering to the Deuterium-He3 reaction instead of the He3-He3 reaction.

[Mr Bojangles]

SpoilerShow

Yeah, if I recall correctly, depending on the type of particle/antiparticle annihilation, somewhere between a quarter to half of the energy output gets converted to neutrinos. I'll have to look into that; I'm probably remembering wrong. If the Loroi and Umiak are using some sort of "quantum tweaked" AM fuel, you'd like to think they could tune the reaction to make the products more beneficial.

There's no need for any such tweaking, especially if He-3 fusion is a sufficient power source. Only about 30% of a matter-antimatter annihilation reaction is lost to neutrinos; the remaining 70% is boom. Of course, if you're using this stuff to fuel a reactor instead of the direct destruction of your enemies, the amount you're going to get which is useful will probably be somewhat less than that.

Let's take a look at energy density, and let's assume that they're using antiuranium suspended in carbon-60 buckyballs because that nicely approximates to antimatter being one-quarter of the total fuel weight by mass, and it means your fuel can just be loaded in a huge hopper. One gram of fullerened antiuranium, containing just 250mg of antiuranium, has a matter/antimatter reaction potential of 10.74 KT of TNT. Chopping off the 30% neutrino fraction yields a total of 7.518 Kt, or ~31455.312Gj. But let's assume that you're losing a lot of that energy to neutrinos, unpleasant particles that don't play nice with your reactor and need to be contained, and the energy required to break more carbon-60 buckyballs to keep the reaction going. Let's assume you're only getting 25% usable power in a reactor (you'll be getting quite a lot more, closer to that original figure, if you're using it for straight-up antimatter rocketry/warhead use.)

Even if you're only getting 2.685Kt of useful energy out of that 250mg of antimatter, that's still 11,234 Gj.

Compare to 100% (IE, magically impossible) efficiency for He-3 fusion, which, per gram of helium-3, yields 0.000000000000000000000982662952826 GJ/gram of He-3, unless I have very badly bollocksed up my math, (which I am not discounting.) That's 26 orders of magnitude difference; that's also discounting the deuterium fuel, as that number is the best you can get from deuterium (He-2)-He3 fusion, which is the most energetic. Fusing He3 with itself is simpler logistically and arguably cleaner, but gives you less energy. (It's still going to be the same number of orders of magnitude, though.)

I'm not sure how you can say this. We don't know the energy requirements or the efficiency of jump engines, but we can see the Bellarmine's fuel capacity is enough to give a her a ten-jump range before needing to hook up with the tanker. That range also needs to include travel between jump points. We don't know the efficiency of her reaction engines, either, but apparently it's good enough for the stated bingo distance.

And, we still don't know what fusion process is used to drive human starships. Bell may use something more exotic, much as the Loroi and Umiak use something more exotic than standard AM. But, fusion is what Outsider humanity has, no matter how paltry it seems (man, that was a weird sentence to type).

Edit: In the Humanity in 2160 essay there is specific mention that helium-3 is a "a key fuel for second-generation fusion reactors." It also says liquid hydrogen was in the Bell's main tanks as fuel for the drive. So, we do have a bit of info about humanity's fusion tech.

I can say it because we know the storage requirements for bulk amounts of liquid helium. Any kind of appreciable quantity of liquid helium is going to require bloody massive cryogenic storage tanks. There is no "more exotic" form of fusion - fusion is fusion. You're not getting more than 18.354 MeV out of the deuterium-He3 fusion reaction, period, which is also going to mean you're going to need extra tanks, to store the cryogenic deuterium.

We also know that undertaking a hyperspace jump is no energetically trivial task: even Tempest, with its huge technology advantage, couldn't take a hyperspace jump just on reactor power, she needs to charge up her accumulators to do it. We also know that, one way or another, Tempest is powered by something energetically equivalent to a matter/antimatter reaction. Thus, it clearly takes a lot of juice, unless the untold secret is that humanity has somehow engineered a hyper-efficiency hyperdrive that has eluded both Loroi and Umiak and all the rest. Clearly, then, barring Bellarmine having had some kind of unknown game-changer in her aft (not entirely impossible, and possibly the reason the unknown hostiles took the extra time to vape her stern even after she was obviously hors d'combat,) the energy requirements are significant, meaning that they'll be many orders of magnitude more fuel-significant for a ship powered (any way you slice it,) by He-3 fusion. QED: massive freaking fuel tank with a ship wrapped around it if you want a ten+-jump bingo range.

[e]If "Second-generation fusion reactors" were specifically mentioned, that's almost certainly refering to the Deuterium-He3 reaction instead of the He3-He3 reaction.

First, I want to be clear that I’m not arguing against M/AM as a power source. If you can make it work, i.e., reliably contain it, it’s more energetic. You gain speed and range. That’s what you want for your ship.

But, the discrepancy between annihilation and fusion is nowhere near as vast as you’re making it out to be. Your math is indeed a bit off. If you annihilate 2 grams of anything (antiprotons or anti-uranium), you will release 1.8 *10^14 J. If we assume that we are using D-He3 fusion, the energy released by fusing 1 g of D with 1 g of He3 is on the order of 1*10^12 J. There are only about 2 orders of magnitude difference. This is line with the theoretical efficiencies of each process: 100% conversion for M/AM and 1% conversion for fusion.

You’re right when you say you’re not getting more than 18.3 MeV from a D-He3 reaction. But, you’re getting that from each reaction, and there are around 6*10^23 atoms in 2 g of D-He3. That’s what gives the energy release value above. So, while the Bell is probably mostly a flying fuel tank, those tanks only have to be sized to give her the range that humanity can reliably and cost-effectively manufacture. They won’t have to be “bloody massive.” (And, we can perhaps assume that humanity’s refrigeration and insulation tech is better than what we have now).

As to the energy necessary for the jump, it’s stated to be proportional to ship mass. The Tempest, empty, masses 1.2 million metric tonnes. The Bell may mass about a twentieth of that, loaded. If we don’t assume direct proportionality between jump energy and mass, the Bell probably needs an order of magnitude less energy to jump. But, given that she uses a power source 2 orders of magnitude less energetic, it probably means that the Bell takes longer to charge her drive. Power is energy per unit time, so a human ship will have to put more time into that equation, whereas the Loroi can dump more energy.

What I’m getting at is that fusion fits into Outsider’s setting. It works, but it’s slower and has a more limited range (the Tempest can likely make more than 10 jumps before bingo fuel). This is part of Alex’s dilemma when he sees the battle and thinks “just what can humanity offer?” That humanity uses fusion is a key part of story.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Yeah, I figured my math was badly off afterwards, when a friend double-checked me. So I was derping there.

And yes, fusion unquestionably has a place as an energy source. You really don't want honking great piles of fullerened antimatter being used as fuel anywhere you plan to inhabit, for reasons The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse quite thoroughly details. And on a planetary surface, space isn't nearly at as much of a premium as it is on a ship, nor is fuel mass a critical issue, so I would imagine the Loroi use DT-He3 fusion to power most of their civil infrastructure, just as humanity does.

Even so, antimatter's not that hard to make industrially, when you have access to a sun. To me, it makes more sense that the Bell was more likely fueled by magnetic-bottle-confined antimatter. Also, re: Tempest having a greater than ten-jump bingo range:

Remember, one of the reasons they're sending Jardin to Seren is because a trip ten jumps past Naam requires logistics. It's not a trip that Tempest, not being a scout, or one of her frigates, is prepared to just up and make after a quick refueling. If humanity's fuel source was two orders of magnitude worse than the Loroi's, I would expect a not-a-scout warship to have a bingo range at least equal to or superior to a human scout vessel.

On the other hand, cryogenic helium, whilst certainly not all that dense, is loooooads more dense than liquid hydrogen. I was misremembering hydrogen-fueled ships as helium-fueled, so yeah, a fusion-powered ship could be more reasonably sized. I still think it'd probably be a lot damn bigger than Bellarmine would be, though, to have a twenty+ jump range plus in-system travel time.

[Tamri]

SpoilerShow

Yeah, I figured my math was badly off afterwards, when a friend double-checked me. So I was derping there.

And yes, fusion unquestionably has a place as an energy source. You really don't want honking great piles of fullerened antimatter being used as fuel anywhere you plan to inhabit, for reasons The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse quite thoroughly details. And on a planetary surface, space isn't nearly at as much of a premium as it is on a ship, nor is fuel mass a critical issue, so I would imagine the Loroi use DT-He3 fusion to power most of their civil infrastructure, just as humanity does.

Even so, antimatter's not that hard to make industrially, when you have access to a sun. To me, it makes more sense that the Bell was more likely fueled by magnetic-bottle-confined antimatter. Also, re: Tempest having a greater than ten-jump bingo range:

Remember, one of the reasons they're sending Jardin to Seren is because a trip ten jumps past Naam requires logistics. It's not a trip that Tempest, not being a scout, or one of her frigates, is prepared to just up and make after a quick refueling. If humanity's fuel source was two orders of magnitude worse than the Loroi's, I would expect a not-a-scout warship to have a bingo range at least equal to or superior to a human scout vessel.

On the other hand, cryogenic helium, whilst certainly not all that dense, is loooooads more dense than liquid hydrogen. I was misremembering hydrogen-fueled ships as helium-fueled, so yeah, a fusion-powered ship could be more reasonably sized. I still think it'd probably be a lot damn bigger than Bellarmine would be, though, to have a twenty+ jump range plus in-system travel time.

As we justify - the raiders, and exactly how the attackers, fuel give about as much as they need for operations, while terran scouts tanker loaded in full. By my count, two-week supply of antimatter for the Rapier at Jim calculations is about half a kiloton. For larger ships - up to one and a half out. A 51st at the time of detection of Bell almost ended its raid, ie roughly speaking, his tanks have already been virtually dry, plus to climb a potentially hostile territory with an almost empty cellars - suicide. So forward to Alex sector administrative center and from there to equip an expedition to the front line - in principle, it is logical, do not be a "meeting window" so narrow. In my estimation, the operation is about a month and a half, given that contactees even fly backward. In this case, it would be logical to refuel at the same Azimole and fly to a meeting there to establish formal prior contact, what would have happened much faster. But - over-organization, and as a consequence, the inflexibility of making comics, drawing out the story and introducing intrigue.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Can anybody understand what the hell Tamri is saying? Can someone please translate that for me, I've read it three times now, and I can't make heads or tails of it. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to make sense, and there's reason and sense behind it and he's not just posting whilst tripping balls, but I can't understand. Am I just being a dumbshit here?

[Hālian]

No.

[sunphoenix]

Actually... I think that last post is the most 'coherant' of his posts thus far...

To parse/translate{?} his meaning... I think he is saying that he agrees that a fusion powered Bell could indeed have been possible with the calculations that 'Jim' "Arioch" has used... but that it seems to strain a little on the edge of believability that the Bell could do 10 jumps without refueling... considering the logistics involved of refueling at a tanker or fuel depot so far removed from human space. But for a story-writer sometime you have to fudge a little for the sake of story plot and drama.

I 'THINK' that is essentially what Tamri is saying.

But its clear English is NOT his primary language... possibly even a tertiary proficiency. From his word choice and sentence structure .. I'd say he may be Asian.. perhaps Cantonese or maybe even possibly middle eastern...?

I try not to ...point to much attention at his posts~ oddness {I don't want to embarrass him away} and just hope as he learns to interact with us more.. {becomes more fluent with English} his word choices will be come clearer eventually!

[Tamri]

Can anybody understand what the hell Tamri is saying? Can someone please translate that for me, I've read it three times now, and I can't make heads or tails of it. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to make sense, and there's reason and sense behind it and he's not just posting whilst tripping balls, but I can't understand. Am I just being a dumbshit here?

Sorry. I'll try to write more clearly.

Rationale, why the 51st could not go directly to the venue with Prabhu (except for Umiak groups hanging on his tail) - the fact that the fuel and ammunition for interception groups allocate most likely not "all you like" and "as necessary." As I think, the middle raid may take approximately two weeks + - 4-5 days. As we know from the comics, at the time of detection Bell, the 51st has actually completed his raid, ie his tanks and cellars they should already be almost empty. In such circumstances, they are quite "physically" cannot go to a meeting, because otherwise they wouldn't have enough fuel and supplies on the way to the base, especially given the way that passed through a de facto hostile territory.

In light of this, sending Alex into the administrative center of the sector, it makes sense, in order to further the formation of a contact group and a special expedition to contactees. Or rather, would have, if not for "contact window" so narrow. As I see it, to contact itself the scouts must be something about a month or and a half is because, even if the fuel and reactor mass in tanker enough, their supplies to them is clearly not infinite. And they still need fly home. In this case, it would be quickly for refueling or form prior contact group on the same Azimole, and the center is already connected on the principle of "if you have time." But Loroi, seems too much organized for such an option, due to what the plot of "bypasses" the longest and intriguing track.