Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

[dragoongfa]

Yeah, building a prototype is easy; being able to have an assembly line production for it is hard.

The long running practice for all kinds of military aircraft is to first have a prototype built as a proof of concept. Then if the prototype stands up to the demands there will be an initial order for several production prototypes in order for the company to learn how to build it in a production line without fucking things up somewhere and for the client to make sure that the company can build the damn things in the first place (and this 'fucking things up somewhere' happens a lot). Only then does serialized production starts.

Fun fact, the initial M1 Garand production rifle often exhibited the '7th round stoppage' issue. The prototypes all worked flawlessly but the all the initial production rifles often jammed at the 7th round for some reason. It turned out that the assembly engineers decided to cut just a tiny bit of a corner from the firing mechanism for streamlining reasons which resulted in the fault in all initial production rifles.

[Cthulhu]

What's even harder is finally achieving a streamlined production for a rather good piece of hardware. It's quite a difficult balance between exhausting resources in order to produce a super weapon and clinging to reliable, cheap, but outdated stuff. Ideally, you should find a middle ground, where a war machine is good enough to achieve whatever task it is needed for, requiring the least amount of resources possible and being easy enough to manufacture by as many factories as possible. There won't be a perfect example of that, but even getting close to this ideal with, for example, the T34 tank, is infinitely better than trying to perfect the King Tiger or the Maus, not getting even close to it and lose the war. But with our speed of advancement, by the time such a good design gets perfected, the war is usually over and a new generation of war machines is already underway.

[dragoongfa]

What's even harder is finally achieving a streamlined production for a rather good piece of hardware. It's quite a difficult balance between exhausting resources in order to produce a super weapon and clinging to reliable, cheap, but outdated stuff. Ideally, you should find a middle ground, where a war machine is good enough to achieve whatever task it is needed for, requiring the least amount of resources possible and being easy enough to manufacture by as many factories as possible. There won't be a perfect example of that, but even getting close to this ideal with, for example, the T34 tank, is infinitely better than trying to perfect the King Tiger or the Maus, not getting even close to it and lose the war. But with our speed of advancement, by the time such a good design gets perfected, the war is usually over and a new generation of war machines is already underway.

Fun facts about the T-34

It was designed and built by a single man, Mikhail Koshkin, who worked at a candy factory before moving on to a tank engineering bureau. His design was initially declined in favor of the A-20 but the mad lad wrote to Stalin himself asking for an opportunity to prove his design. Stalin agreed and had Mikhail drive his prototype 800 kilometers to Moscow to undergo trials supervised by him in the mid of winter!

Mikhail did exactly that, driving the prototype up to Moscow and successfully passing the trials that were asked of the tank. The T-34 design was then accepted by Stalin himself and went into full production instead of the A-20. Unfortunately Mikhail died of pneumonia soon after this, pneumonia that he probably caught due to having to drive a prototype tank 800 kilometers to Moscow through the midst of winter.

In any case, a similar example of a mass produced tank turning out better than the otherwise superior rivals is the M4 Sherman. An easy to manufacture tank that had doggedly reliability; the diesel variant that the Soviets received via Lend Lease was loved by its crews for its reliability and ease of maintenance. Prompting even a competition of shorts among the crews of M4 and T34 tanks about which was better. US and Brittish tankers didn't like the M4 because the Gasoline variant that they used was prone to catch fire easily when struck; the allied logistics chain however loved the M4 for its reliability and ease to repair when struck while the numerical advantage against the German tanks didn't go unnoticed by the high brass of both sides.

[Mk_C]

Fun facts about the T-34

Why must you trigger me so violently, Dragoongfa?

So much offtopicShow

T-34 was not designed and built by a single man. It's not a rickety tractor with a gun and bolted-on armor, it's a specifically developed military vehicle - it has over 20000 parts, a good deal of them novel-developed. Thinking that one man could design and build it is about as insane as imagining a single man designing and building an F-16. It's way the fuck too much work to do single-handedly even in a decade, and T-34 was developed in record time. We know the list of engineers of the Construction Bureau №24 of the Kharkov Tank Works № 183 who worked on the T-34: it includes 24 engineers and over a hundred technicians and assistants. Tarshinov and Rabinovich were in charge of hull design; Moloshtanov and Mironov worked on the turret; Korotchenko and Kotov (famous for this and other work on improving Soviet diesel engines) - on the engine; Baran and Shpaikhler designed the new transmission; the tracks were done by Matukhin and Braginsky; Vasilyev created the control scheme; and the computations coordination was done by Berkhovsky. Morozov was the project head. Koshkin was the head of the bureau, an administrator and organizer for T-34 rather than an engineer (which is arguably even more important, but still).

T-34 was never in a competition with A-20. A-20 was CB-24's own earlier design, for which Koshkin actually WAS the project head (before he was made the head of the bureau) under Alfred Dik, so it can be said that A-20 was more of "his design" than T-34. A-20 was rejected by the People's Commissariat of Defense outright for not satisfying the Commissariat demands (which lead to Dik's arrest and Koshkin's promotion). A-20 was reworked into A-32, more in line with what the CoD wanted. The CoD then ordered to improve the armor and upgun it with the new LKZ's L-11 gun, and named the new machine "T-34" - specifically in the Commissarat of Defense Order № 85 for January 1940.

Koshkin did not run T-34 from Kharkov to Moscow in the mid of winter. For once, the prototype was not even complete by mid winter. Secondly, that would not be possible since Koshkin had notoriously poor health, after getting grievously wounded and suffering through multiple instances of typhus fever during the Civil War - he experienced troubles walking without a cane, much less driving a tank, especially such an exhausting one as a T-34. Thirdly - neither Koshkin, nor Morozov, nor most of the other engineers who worked on the project (save POSSIBLY Vasilyev and Baran, who served in Red Army's tank forces prior, but we don't know if either of them were specifically drivers) knew how to drive a tank period, much less run an 800 km offroad rally. Which is natural - they were engineers, not tankers, expectign them to be good at both is akin to expecting Hyman Rickover being a sick nuclear submarine helmsman. We know that the famous test drive was done on March 5th 1940, and it involved two tanks, not one, and they were piloted by professional test tankers N. Nosik and V. Dukalov - both tanking veterans since the Russian Civil War, who first learned the stuff on trophy Entente tanks taken from White Army. Nosik's tank famously malfunctioned during the run and had to be pulled to Moscow, but such mishaps were expected for such an unprecedented run, and on a raw, new design - hence the test drive involving two tanks, and Dukalov's tank successfully made it to Moscow. Koshkin most certainly did not develop a pneumonia in the run, as he didn't accompany the machines. The anecdotal rumor is that he caught it when the tanks and the presentation crew were taken back to Kharkov a month later, and a tractor hauling one of them fell into a creek. Koshkin and other engineers supposedly worked with the transport crew to pull it out - but even this is just that, an unsubstantiated rumor.

As with most such things, the reality significantly differs from a compact narrative of an interesting anecdote.

[dragoongfa]

Fun facts about the T-34

Why must you trigger me so violently, Dragoongfa?

So much offtopicShow

T-34 was not designed and built by a single man. It's not a rickety tractor with a gun and bolted-on armor, it's a specifically developed military vehicle - it has over 20000 parts, a good deal of them novel-developed. Thinking that one man could design and build it is about as insane as imagining a single man designing and building an F-16. It's way the fuck too much work to do single-handedly even in a decade, and T-34 was developed in record time. We know the list of engineers of the Construction Bureau №24 of the Kharkov Tank Works № 183 who worked on the T-34: it includes 24 engineers and over a hundred technicians and assistants. Tarshinov and Rabinovich were in charge of hull design; Moloshtanov and Mironov worked on the turret; Korotchenko and Kotov (famous for this and other work on improving Soviet diesel engines) - on the engine; Baran and Shpaikhler designed the new transmission; the tracks were done by Matukhin and Braginsky; Vasilyev created the control scheme; and the computations coordination was done by Berkhovsky. Morozov was the project head. Koshkin was the head of the bureau, an administrator and organizer for T-34 rather than an engineer (which is arguably even more important, but still).

T-34 was never in a competition with A-20. A-20 was CB-24's own earlier design, for which Koshkin actually WAS the project head (before he was made the head of the bureau) under Alfred Dik, so it can be said that A-20 was more of "his design" than T-34. A-20 was rejected by the People's Commissariat of Defense outright for not satisfying the Commissariat demands (which lead to Dik's arrest and Koshkin's promotion). A-20 was reworked into A-32, more in line with what the CoD wanted. The CoD then ordered to improve the armor and upgun it with the new LKZ's L-11 gun, and named the new machine "T-34" - specifically in the Commissarat of Defense Order № 85 for January 1940.

Koshkin did not run T-34 from Kharkov to Moscow in the mid of winter. For once, the prototype was not even complete by mid winter. Secondly, that would not be possible since Koshkin had notoriously poor health, after getting grievously wounded and suffering through multiple instances of typhus fever during the Civil War - he experienced troubles walking without a cane, much less driving a tank, especially such an exhausting one as a T-34. Thirdly - neither Koshkin, nor Morozov, nor most of the other engineers who worked on the project (save POSSIBLY Vasilyev and Baran, who served in Red Army's tank forces prior, but we don't know if either of them were specifically drivers) knew how to drive a tank period, much less run an 800 km offroad rally. Which is natural - they were engineers, not tankers, expectign them to be good at both is akin to expecting Hyman Rickover being a sick nuclear submarine helmsman. We know that the famous test drive was done on March 5th 1940, and it involved two tanks, not one, and they were piloted by professional test tankers N. Nosik and V. Dukalov - both tanking veterans since the Russian Civil War, who first learned the stuff on trophy Entente tanks taken from White Army. Nosik's tank famously malfunctioned during the run and had to be pulled to Moscow, but such mishaps were expected for such an unprecedented run, and on a raw, new design - hence the test drive involving two tanks, and Dukalov's tank successfully made it to Moscow. Koshkin most certainly did not develop a pneumonia in the run, as he didn't accompany the machines. The anecdotal rumor is that he caught it when the tanks and the presentation crew were taken back to Kharkov a month later, and a tractor hauling one of them fell into a creek. Koshkin and other engineers supposedly worked with the transport crew to pull it out - but even this is just that, an unsubstantiated rumor.

As with most such things, the reality significantly differs from a compact narrative of an interesting anecdote.

You mean that a few internet articles and videos I watched lied?
Where has the world come to?

Thanks for the correction but you have to admit, the anecdote sounds cool

[Mk_C]

You mean that a few internet articles and videos I watched lied?

As with the Loroi sagas - it's not technically a lie for one to relegate a tale in terms and concepts that he understands, and for those who heard it to do likewise, repeatedly. Until people start telling tales of how a Classical period general of a Western Deinar city-state with a piece of Soia technology actually did weather magics and commanded armies of water spirits.

[Dan Wyatt]

You mean that a few internet articles and videos I watched lied?

As with the Loroi sagas - it's not technically a lie for one to relegate a tale in terms and concepts that he understands, and for those who heard it to do likewise, repeatedly. Until people start telling tales of how a Classical period general of a Western Deinar city-state with a piece of Soia technology actually did weather magics and commanded armies of water spirits.

Isn't that how memes are spread?

[Demetrious]

I think maybe part of it is because (understandably) many people look at Outsider as if it was an RPG or strategy game setting ("Loroi are OP!"), and partly because popular Scifi has spoonfed everyone settings like Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Stargate in which Humanity is not the most technically advanced, yet somehow we're always in charge of everything, our enemies have better technology than we do but are somehow really stupid, and those ultra-tech aliens who occasionally drop by to pat us on the head and humble us never seem to be around when the galaxy is in trouble.

In addition to this problem (i.e. a tendency towards viewing things through a Grand Strategy lens, perhaps due to the persistent popularity of '4X' style sci-fi games) I suspect people aren't fully accounting for the implications of the strategic situation as a whole. If human civilization was relatively small or at a steep tech disadvantage, it'd be an excellent "underdog" setup for a Grand Strategy style story. But humanity is both small and hopelessly out-tech'd. In science fiction stories like this, humanity's survival typically hinges on asymmetric advantages derived from unusual origins, such as powerful cultural forces. The "Halo" series is a good example of a thoughtful and effective implementation of this. Just because technology is inherited doesn't mean that those inheriting are stupid or arrogant enough to decline truly mastering the knowledge - indeed, mastery would be required in any scenario falling short of a full technical database being discovered. (Christopher Columbus couldn't reverse-engineer a nuclear submarine but possession of such would accelerate his entire species's scientific advancement considerably nonetheless, starting with the metallurgy of the deckplates.) Halo's universe attributes it to religion - and not just an arbitrary religious edict, but a fundamental tenet of a religion responsible for unifying a plurality of sapient species into a stable and unified polity. For Halo's "Covenant," pursuing a more fundamental understanding of the theory behind their technology bears existential risks. (This is also the source of the entire story/series plot's instigating incident.) "Stargate" is another solid example; in which modern-day humanity's ability to resist a much more advanced, galaxy-spanning alien empire owes chiefly to the titular technology itself; built by a precursor race whom intelligently sized their wormhole portals adequately for shipping containers but wholly incapable of transporting military forces en-masse short of infantry walking into an easily-covered killzone (and as the series itself demonstrates, tech disparities are least significant at infantry scale.) These two examples are emblematic of how "hopelessly outclassed humanity" is handled in the science-fiction current generations are familiar with.

Hence the confusion - not only does the personal focus of the story de-emphasize the background strategic situation (as it should) to the point that it doesn't possess "glowing neon clue-bat" obviousness, but sci-fi readers are just accustomed to "crammed cosmos" settings with multiple species preferring a focus on fundamental differences (for reasons ranging from thoughtful exploration of truly alien species to lazy "planet of hats" writing. Proud Warrior Race Guy etc.) The "4X" influenced, ironically, should be more sensitive to your narrative solution but tend to be blinded by the vast asymmetry of starting positions (anathema for games despite being integral to fiction.) Thus you have an unusual number of people missing the blatant strategic "realpolitik" answer - a species too small and backwards to pose any threat whatsoever is also hardly worth the effort to attack for major polities in a deadlocked existential conflict.

Humanity's situation is dire indeed - not only is the species's entire "fleet" numerically equivalent (and tonnage inferior) to a major combatant's single small frontier squadron, but a single light warship of any major combatant could easily destroy that entire fleet without taking damage in anything approaching an engagement on even terms. By the same token, however, none of the major combatants would have much to gain by attacking humanity - slaves are of little use to people trucking around with antimatter drives, given the level of automation they likely possess; all of humanity's heavy industry is built upon a hopelessly outdated tech base, etc. Indeed, the danger to humanity (as far as their current in-story intel would suggest, if I read it right) lies in someone deciding to conduct such depredations "while they're there" due to the ease of it while pursuing other objectives - as illustrated by humanity being in danger of discovery primarily because of aggressive scouting efforts to find new travel routes to bypass defended front-line systems.

Like the aforementioned examples, your setting has a reason for humanity having a shot at survival that is so strong it is fundamental to the underlying premise - and one visible from reading the story itself, without having to be told the hobbit analogy. To wit; if you have A. a bunch of sapient species that lucked into tons of ancient technology from precursor civilizations to reverse-engineer and B. they have no fundamental cultural or psychological forces preventing them from doing due diligence in mastering said technology, then C. they are almost certainly going to point their shiny new rayguns at their neighbors, who also have shiny new reverse-engineered rayguns, and proceed to zap the ever-loving daylights out of each other. That the Space Elves™ were fighting interstellar wars while humanity was still fighting on horseback sounds majestic and awesome until you account for interstellar war posing an existential threat to a species that some guys on big animals with pointy sticks just can't muster. Even at our most fractious and genocidal, the worst long-term consequences of intra-species war tends to be acceleration of technology development (necessity etc.) whereas for inter-species war defeat doesn't simply mean a different faction of your species becomes top dog, but that your entire civilization could be erased from existence with your cratered husk of a home-world as your tombstone. This is a rather steep price to pay for the massive head-start in technological development, enough so that it probably goes a long, long way towards explaining how humans went from armored knights charging each other on horseback during the High Middle Ages to torch-ships and laser cannons in the same timeframe it took the Loroi to go from fusion-torchships to antimatter drives. Even accounting for the sharp climb of the technological difficulty curve, that still suggests growing up in a neighborhood littered with discarded shotguns of precursor wizards was not fun. When you consider the massive barriers between alien species as compared to those between factions of the same species, it's clear that cross-pollination/percolation of information in inter-species, inter-stellar war will be greatly reduced compared to intra-species war. The Loroi and everyone else, from their star-faring epoch, have been trapped in a thunder-dome of the precursor species's (inadvertent) making. The other races may be inclined to view humans as the lucky ones, comparatively. "Your closest brush with existential destruction was a series of wars and standoffs that took you from your first heavier-than-air flight to your first landing on your own moon in less than one lifetime? Wow. Sounds nice. I bet we could have achieved similar leaps if we hadn't been occupied preventing multiple angry alien species from incinerating our entire civilization from the cosmos with ionized pillars of fire from the heavens. But yeah, ICBMs, sounds rough dude."

Undoubtedly some of what I've said isn't completely accurate to the story (told or untold), much less it missing the fundamental point of what kind of story it is. But even then, for those concerned with such things, it should be obvious that humanity's inability to contest even a small alien fleet is counter-balanced by the powerful disincentives for aliens to commit a small fleet to a pointless target when every hull is desperately needed to hold off a powerful and equally-matched enemy. This is the situation of which good stories are made; where desperate ruses, noble sacrifices and ingenious, hasty improvisation can save the day. This is obvious if one appreciates that "getting a Terran cruiser into mass-driver range of a single Umiak scout-ship" could indeed save the day - or at least buy six months for someone else to do it by other means, which is functionally identical. Just because this story is about Benjamin Franklin working his diplomatic magic in Great Powers territory (right down to his popularity with the ladies, ahem,) doesn't mean that Washington's useless or his struggles in vain. Or to borrow the LOTR analogy, just because the armies of Mordor hopelessly outmatched the good guys didn't mean that Gandalf and Aragorn banging on the Black Gate and daring Sauron to come out and tussle if he thought he was hard enough was pointless. A similar setup in this story is neither implied nor necessary, but those presuming it to be entirely precluded on the basis of what we've seen so far have, in my humble opinion, neglected to factor in the consequences of both sides in the war being very, very busy with each other.

Apologies for the tl;dr but I found your background setting details to be remarkably thorough, thoughtful and hard sci-fi justifiable, so I just wanted to say that you have clearly done nothing wrong.

[jterlecki]

If the Terran scientists+engineers had to reverse engineer a minor piece of tech from the Loroi and Umiak to understand how it worked - say an energy based rifle - which one would be easier or closer from a technological perspective?

[orion1836]

If the Terran scientists+engineers had to reverse engineer a minor piece of tech from the Loroi and Umiak to understand how it worked - say an energy based rifle - which one would be easier or closer from a technological perspective?

I think the three seashells would be the first priority.

[jterlecki]

If the Terran scientists+engineers had to reverse engineer a minor piece of tech from the Loroi and Umiak to understand how it worked - say an energy based rifle - which one would be easier or closer from a technological perspective?

I think the three seashells would be the first priority.

Hey! 3 sea shells is serious business!!! Only enlightened people know how to use those, not lowly cavemen!

[Arioch]

If the Terran scientists+engineers had to reverse engineer a minor piece of tech from the Loroi and Umiak to understand how it worked - say an energy based rifle - which one would be easier or closer from a technological perspective?

The tech level of the major combatants is fairly similar, so it would probably be about the same. Depends on the item.

A beam rifle is probably not the best item to attempt to reverse-engineer, because a) humanity already understands the concept of the particle beam; they just don't have the level of expertise required to miniaturize both the emitter and the power source, and looking at a rifle probably won't tell them much about how to go about it. And b) in terms of "bang for the buck" items to reverse engineer, small arms are not key to victory, nor are beam-rifles a crucial upgrade over what humanity is currently using.

[Keklas Rekobah]

It seems reasonable to state that while 22nd-century Terrans could understand the workings of a Loroi combat laser pistol, they would then be faced with the conundrum of having to produce the tools that make the tools that are used to fabricate the components of a laser pistol.

As an analogy, consider a consortium of Michael Faraday, Andre-Marie Ampere, and James Clerk Maxwell being given the task of replicating an iPhone during the American Civil War.  While they might be able to derive which component does what, and maybe how those components do what they do, they may not even begin to imagine the methods by which a simple point-contact transistor is made; much less an integrated circuit composed of millions of bipolar transistors on a 6mm silicon wafer.

[SVlad]

As an analogy, consider a consortium of Michael Faraday, Andre-Marie Ampere, and James Clerk Maxwell being given the task of replicating an iPhone during the American Civil War.

I have a suspicion that even for them, the iPhone will be indistinguishable from magic. And its discovery, instead of the development of science, on the contrary, will push towards mysticism.

[Cthulhu]

As an analogy, consider a consortium of Michael Faraday, Andre-Marie Ampere, and James Clerk Maxwell being given the task of replicating an iPhone during the American Civil War.  While they might be able to derive which component does what, and maybe how those components do what they do, they may not even begin to imagine the methods by which a simple point-contact transistor is made; much less an integrated circuit composed of millions of bipolar transistors on a 6mm silicon wafer.

An analogy would be a 17th century musket-maker being given an assault rifle to replicate. Even if he may, in painstaking manual labor, replicate the mechanism, it wouldn't work:
1. The crude metal of that time would burst, requiring much thicker parts.
2. He couldn't replicate smokeless powder or the capsule, but replacing it with gunpowder and flint will lead to an even bigger mechanism
3. Trying to get it to fire full-auto would require all the cartridges to be made up to specs, forcing him to craft them piece by piece or creating even more leeway.

Basically, no matter what, you'd end up with a slightly smaller cannon. He may pick up some advanced concepts, like the integrated cartridge, but with the technology of the time, it couldn't be mass-produced anyway. The same goes for the 21st century weaponmaker, he'd have to re-create a generation or three of technological advance to get to this miniaturization level.

[Keklas Rekobah]

... he'd have to re-create a generation or three of technological advance to get to this miniaturization level.

And THAT, my dear illithid, is my whole point.

[Cthulhu]

... he'd have to re-create a generation or three of technological advance to get to this miniaturization level.

And THAT, my dear illithid, is my whole point.

Not quite, what I meant is that your example features too big of a tech gap. The honored scientists could probably recognize it as a piece of technology instead of it being witchcraft, but that's it. The highly integrated circuitry would confuse them to no end. At best, they could understand that the flat black thing is a power source. You also get -5 points for using an iPhone as an example. I mean, eww?!
In the case of a human scientist of the year 2160, he will be able to recognize how a Loroi blaster and its parts work, but he will also understand how far behind his tech level is.

Anyway, how about a question. What level of man/machine interfaces do the Humans have? VR, implants, cybernetics, full Matrix-style immersion?

[gaerzi]

Anyway, how about a question. What level of man/machine interfaces do the Humans have? VR, implants, cybernetics, full Matrix-style immersion?

Piloting anything requires thinking in Russian.

[Cthulhu]

Piloting anything requires thinking in Russian.

Nope, Chekov was the navigator, the pilot was Sulu.

[SVlad]

Anyway, how about a question. What level of man/machine interfaces do the Humans have? VR, implants, cybernetics, full Matrix-style immersion?

I remember that topic was already discussed here.
Uh, here it is:

If you mean computer implants, I think they will exist, but will be rare and limited in capability. The problem is in the interface; the human nervous system is decentralized, and doesn't have a central data "bus" to jack in to. Such implants exist today, but they are incredibly difficult for the human brain to learn how to use, requiring months or years of rigorous training/therapy to achieve not-very-satisfactory results.