Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

[dragoongfa]

Let me clear up some misunderstandings. When I said ''mentally quiet'' I was specifically refering to Human-Loroi interactions. We'd have no chance of passing off as one of them (remember they've had contact with ''enemy constructs'' before. They're probably, by now, very good at sniffing out impostors among themselves). I was thinking the other Union races would be cautious because they're used to Loroi, and we're very similar to them (though it would probably not take a lot of time to realize we're not nearly as dangerous). That being said, the Barsam are pacifists, so no combat tech, and the Neridi are most likely too timid to trade it away for fear of Loroi reprisal.

As I said in a post some 12 months ago, shady backroom deals with DISTANT races would be the obvious choice. Why? Because all of the proper Union members are screened by Loroi intelligence. TELEPATHICALLY. They would not be able to keep a secret even if they tried.

What can humanity offer the Loroi, I think that the above gave me a long term answer.

If the Loroi and Humanity ally and win the war it would actually be seen as some form of Loroi benevolence because of the Human immunity to Loroi telepathy. Think about it, everyone thinks of the Loroi as that Telepathic species that commits genocide against those they deem as threats.

Humans are the perfect enemies of the Loroi on the telepathic front and yet the Loroi ally with them. Physical looks not withstanding it would allay a lot of fears about the Loroi trying to control everyone through their Telepathic gifts and that everyone who is deemed a threat is killed.

[TrashMan]

Agreed. I'm also under the impression that most of the ship-building facilities are either in space (orbital hangars/shipyards) or on airless moons. Lack of atmosphere makes even a 750 gigaton impact less effective (just an earthquake unless directly hit; no blast; maybe falling debris depending on distance from impact site). That's IF said projectile manages to get through the barrage of defensive fire (and they'd be seen and anticipated the moment they jumped into the system. No stealth in space ). Orbital facilities can move, making them hard to hit with kinetic weapons that have to accelerate from half a system away.

HMm... planets can't dodge. And orbital facilities follow a orbit.

You could jump in at the very edge of a system, far enough that your probably won't be detected.
Have a ship with a big-ass coilgun.
Fire a few shots at the planet or orbital facility.
Go away.

In 2-3 days the shots reach their target.

Since they are just small chunks of metal or rocks in space, I doubt one could detect them without some sort of magic sensors.

[RedDwarfIV]

Agreed. I'm also under the impression that most of the ship-building facilities are either in space (orbital hangars/shipyards) or on airless moons. Lack of atmosphere makes even a 750 gigaton impact less effective (just an earthquake unless directly hit; no blast; maybe falling debris depending on distance from impact site). That's IF said projectile manages to get through the barrage of defensive fire (and they'd be seen and anticipated the moment they jumped into the system. No stealth in space ). Orbital facilities can move, making them hard to hit with kinetic weapons that have to accelerate from half a system away.

HMm... planets can't dodge. And orbital facilities follow a orbit.

You could jump in at the very edge of a system, far enough that your probably won't be detected.
Have a ship with a big-ass coilgun.
Fire a few shots at the planet or orbital facility.
Go away.

In 2-3 days the shots reach their target.

Since they are just small chunks of metal or rocks in space, I doubt one could detect them without some sort of magic sensors.

The ISS is on a fixed orbit. It can still maneuver. It has to, or atmospheric drag would make it a Skylab 2. Spacecraft jumping in could be detected, at which point a slight shift in their orbits would throw off the shots.

Plus, jumping in so far out from the star has the danger of doinking off spacetime, remember.

[Zakharra]

I think it would take a lot longer than a few days for shots fired from the edge of a star system to reach the inner system. Even at the speeds a rail-gun could fire at.

[JQBogus]

The orbit of Neptune is about 30 AU out. Light takes ~4 hours to go that far. The higher velocity mass drivers that humanity uses are listed as 400 km/sec, or about 1/750th of light speed. So 3000 hours, or about 4 months, from Neptune to the sun at mass driver shot velocity.

To have the Neptune to Earth travel time be just a couple days, you'd need to travel at about 10% of light speed..

[icekatze]

hi hi

There are a number of handy calculators online for finding these things out. I like to use the Relativistic Star Ship Calculator myself.

A Scimitar Mk3 has an acceleration of 30 Gs, and it has an endurance of 3.54 days. If we plug in some numbers, we find that will travel about 45.5 AUs in those 3.54 days, and reach a top speed of about .148 c.

[RedDwarfIV]

hi hi

There are a number of handy calculators online for finding these things out. I like to use the Relativistic Star Ship Calculator myself.

A Scimitar Mk3 has an acceleration of 30 Gs, and it has an endurance of 3.54 days. If we plug in some numbers, we find that will travel about 45.5 AUs in those 3.54 days, and reach a top speed of about .148 c.

If it's accelerating, then it's a missile. Which invalidates the 'stealth' aspect of launching kinetic rounds.

Not that I think kinetic rounds are actually stealthy. You can do a full scan of the sky with current space sensors in two hours. I don't know what the resolution of those modern sensors is, but I'm pretty sure races with the technology of the Umiak and Loroi can build mirrors big enough to get you some nice, high resolution images.

[Mr.Tucker]

You're massively underestimating sensor tech mate. The Hubble can pick up a burn by the Shuttle's LOX engines all the way from Pluto. That's 21st century tech, and much smaller and less powerful engines. And just passive sensors. No radar or Lidar.
There'd be no way someone can jump into a system undetected (big flash of light/radiation when jump is finished). Mass drivers are probably stealthier than particle beams or lasers, but the projectile comes out searing hot from all the EM energy dumped into it.

[RedDwarfIV]

Mass drivers are probably stealthier than particle beams or lasers, but the projectile comes out searing hot from all the EM energy dumped into it.

Funnily enough, I think the inverse is true.

Lasers and particle beams are more stealthy because you won't see them coming. On the other hand, you'd need a XASER just to irradiate an enemy space facility from light hours out.

[TrashMan]

I think it would take a lot longer than a few days for shots fired from the edge of a star system to reach the inner system. Even at the speeds a rail-gun could fire at.

Doesn't matter how long it takes.
A planet has a fixed trajectory and you can technically nuke it from another system if you're patient enough.

Mass drivers are probably stealthier than particle beams or lasers, but the projectile comes out searing hot from all the EM energy dumped into it.

Not really. They also cool off pretty fast. Especially if the round is going to be traveling for days or weeks


And evidently ships can hide well enough in the Outsider universe, otherwise that unknown ship could have never sneaked up on Bellarime, who is a SCOUT.
Speaking of which, do we even know if jumps are highly detectable? Without knowing the physics behind it, we can only guess.

[cacambo43]

And evidently ships can hide well enough in the Outsider universe, otherwise that unknown ship could have never sneaked up on Bellarime, who is a SCOUT.
Speaking of which, do we even know if jumps are highly detectable? Without knowing the physics behind it, we can only guess.

Arioch has said at least a few times, both in the Insider pages and on the forum, that a jump is VERY detectable, even for Humanity's tech level.

If the point is hitting the planet, then yes, unless your foe has a really good way to vaporize or deflect from the appropriate distance, the planet is going to get hit. But if you're targeting an orbital facility with relatively smaller projectiles (i.e., you're not trying to reduce a city to a crater or destroy the planet), with enough lead time the orbit could be modified to allow the projectiles to miss, given a small enough number or spread of incoming objects.

CJSF

[Zakharra]

I think it would take a lot longer than a few days for shots fired from the edge of a star system to reach the inner system. Even at the speeds a rail-gun could fire at.

Doesn't matter how long it takes.
A planet has a fixed trajectory and you can technically nuke it from another system if you're patient enough.



And evidently ships can hide well enough in the Outsider universe, otherwise that unknown ship could have never sneaked up on Bellarime, who is a SCOUT.
Speaking of which, do we even know if jumps are highly detectable? Without knowing the physics behind it, we can only guess.

We're talking about settled systems, which have established orbital and space infrastructure, so they will have sensors in place to watch for ships entering the system. And if a hostile ship is detected, measures can be taken to stop or reduce the effectiveness of an attack by said hostile ship.

The ship that shot the Bellarime was able to hide in the debris and dust of the system, much like the Bellarime was able to hide. The system was very messy; a LOT of dust and several accretion disks where planets might be in a few hundred million years. The dust and debris hinders sensors and greatly reduces their range.

[Mr.Tucker]

Zakharra wrote:
I think it would take a lot longer than a few days for shots fired from the edge of a star system to reach the inner system. Even at the speeds a rail-gun could fire at.




Doesn't matter how long it takes.
A planet has a fixed trajectory and you can technically nuke it from another system if you're patient enough.




Quote:
Mass drivers are probably stealthier than particle beams or lasers, but the projectile comes out searing hot from all the EM energy dumped into it.




Not really. They also cool off pretty fast. Especially if the round is going to be traveling for days or weeks

Firstly, things tend to cool off slower in space, since the only way to conduct heat would be by radiation. That's why space stations and the like use massive radiators (they do seem to be absent from most combat craft, but that can be due to heat sinks and folding radiators) . In the weeks it cools it will be tracked, it's trajectory plotted, and countermeasures enacted. While I could be wrong about the whole mass drivers might be stealthier bit, the basic idea is that any energetic event (like firing a thruster or a weapon) has a very high chance of being detected (notwithstanding astronomical quirks like the massive debris field in the Naam system where the events of the comic so far take place). Even the Bellarmine managed to do it with the hostile ship. If you somehow make the projectile maneuverable you also need to make it tough enough to survive the firing, which tends to be problematic given the massive forces and fields involved.

Secondly, truly inhabited systems like colonies are rare and usually quite far from the frontlines. As things stand, most systems have beacons, listening posts, depots, relays and occasionally service stations. All the big industries are concentrated in the heart of the territories (for instance, human space has around 40 systems, but only 5 colonies, of which one is in the home system). Then there's the no man's lands that get created between the major empires (like the Charred Steppes).

Finally, if you're thinking about launching a projectile from and adjacent system at relativistic speeds and waiting for the years to pass till it hits, that also creates problems. Interstellar space is not empty, and orbits are not 100% predictable over such monumental distances and timespans (n-body problem).

[halftea]

Finally, if you're thinking about launching a projectile from and adjacent system at relativistic speeds and waiting for the years to pass till it hits, that also creates problems. Interstellar space is not empty, and orbits are not 100% predictable over such monumental distances and timespans (n-body problem).

This. Unless you have incredibly detailed intelligence about where such orbital facilities are located, as well as all of the potential gravitational influences (because a 0.0000001% deviation as such distances is still pretty significant) this is less likely to be practical. Planets are pretty easy to hit by comparison to an orbital facility.

[icekatze]

hi hi

There's the n-body problem, there's the imperfect medium of the interstellar space, and there's also the problem of thermal recoil force, like with the Pioneer Anomaly. These sorts of things may not be a problem over the course of a few days, but over the course of a few decades, they can be pretty significant.

If the war was expected to last a few hundred years, sending sub-light warships straight at the enemy's capital might be pretty clever if they wouldn't also be incredibly outdated by the time they arrived.

[Mr.Tucker]

What's funny is that by the time those ships or projectiles reach their intended target systems the war could be long over .

[junk]

hi hi

Mr. Tucker, that figure also includes labor and bureaucracy, just like the 450 million per launch figure. It is beginning to look like some of the Umiak's greatest industrial achievements may have been in cutting down the costs of labor and bureaucracy.

At least the Umiak don't build torpedoes that go out, drop a payload, then come back to pick up another. (I know their engine is their payload, but still...)

15% and 30% does seem like a pretty significant difference. Perhaps that is also part of why the Loroi don't see very many Umiak super-heavies on the offensive?

Another thing to consider - similar to stuff like jet fighters or warships is the cost of RnD. Generally the more of something you build, the lower the per unit costs.
a) you can standardise component creation and actually mass produced some
b) your per unit cost comes down as you spread the RnD cost around. Which is for instance why the f35 seems to fluctuate so wildly in price.

[Sweforce]

I have been lurking about a few days and finally registered.

So what can we offer the Loroi? Certainly not military power, I seen so many contrived suggestions about how the Terran warships can be of use but look at it like this, there is a military use for crossbows even today but they see only an very limited use for very special situations. It is a waste of time looking for those special situations.

Sure the railguns are powerful but they are only useful for orbital bombardment really, short of assisting in some mopping up operation or suppressing rebellions on overtaxed, overworked member worlds in the empire I see no use for this and most likely, the Loroi already use their own obsolete ships for these kind of missions.

What we can contribute with are logistic support, especially if we keep our slow fusion engines so we do not use up precisions anti matter fuel. Any anti matter fuel on Terran ships would be cargo. Further considering everything needed to produce a Loroi warship I suspect we can contribute with some parts, even if it's just nuts and bolts.

Still I suspect we better concentrate on other wares like consumer goods. 25 years of war must be straining on the populations patience and they need their new washing machines, Barsam dolls and coffee. Anything to help keep peoples spirits up. Entertainment in the form of reality tv shows, flashy Hollywood productions and dirty magazines.

And finally, the security implication of a telepathically inactive people are immense. No risk that we overhear things we are not supposed to overhear and we are not going to accidentally spread what we do know just by thinking about it. This makes us the perfect clerks really. Weed out the sleep talkers and we are all set keeping secret what needs to be kept secret.

[Mr.Tucker]

And finally, the security implication of a telepathically inactive people are immense. No risk that we overhear things we are not supposed to overhear and we are not going to accidentally spread what we do know just by thinking about it. This makes us the perfect clerks really. Weed out the sleep talkers and we are all set keeping secret what needs to be kept secret.

Why would humans be better at that than the Barsam or Neridi? It's not like these species can read minds as well. Only the Loroi can do that. I also HIGHLY doubt the Loroi would allow a telepathically UNSCRUTABLE species to fill such roles in their society. While not beligerently xenophobic, they do seem passively so. I think trust issues will be major for Loroi-TCA relations.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Humans would be better than a Barsam or Neridi in those regards, because another Loroi cannot walk up and probe their minds to find out what their boss has been saying.