Except his skin wasn't blue, and he's a him, which has obvious implications...GeoModder wrote:
Well, the first Barsam Jardin met could tell in an instance.
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Except his skin wasn't blue, and he's a him, which has obvious implications...GeoModder wrote:
Well, the first Barsam Jardin met could tell in an instance.
We don't know if the Imperial government doesn't use high-ranking Loroi males for diplomatic purposes. Since it was already hinted that Alex will meet a male from the philosopher caste in at the very least a guide/mentor role, that implies the Loroi in general don't bar them from diplomatic service(s).cacambo43 wrote:GeoModder wrote: Except his skin wasn't blue, and he's a him, which has obvious implications...
How would a Barsam be able to tell whether or not a Loroi was telepathically silent?GeoModder wrote:Well, the first Barsam Jardin met could tell in an instance.RedDwarfIV wrote:And other races would know this?Twinkee wrote:I like the diplomacy angle... a human with blue makeup and idiom training could pass as loroi no?
Except our ''Loroi'' would be awfully mentally quiet...
The male philosopher caste does have an guidance role, but that's for domestic Loroi consumption. Foreign diplomacy is considered a military matter, and is the purview of the Mizol caste (which, being a warrior caste, males are precluded from joining).GeoModder wrote:We don't know if the Imperial government doesn't use high-ranking Loroi males for diplomatic purposes. Since it was already hinted that Alex will meet a male from the philosopher caste in at the very least a guide/mentor role, that implies the Loroi in general don't bar them from diplomatic service(s).
I meant the Barsam recognized Alex as a non-Loroi.Arioch wrote:How would a Barsam be able to tell whether or not a Loroi was telepathically silent?GeoModder wrote:Well, the first Barsam Jardin met could tell in an instance.RedDwarfIV wrote:And other races would know this?
That's cleared up then.Arioch wrote:The male philosopher caste does have an guidance role, but that's for domestic Loroi consumption. Foreign diplomacy is considered a military matter, and is the purview of the Mizol caste (which, being a warrior caste, males are precluded from joining).GeoModder wrote:We don't know if the Imperial government doesn't use high-ranking Loroi males for diplomatic purposes. Since it was already hinted that Alex will meet a male from the philosopher caste in at the very least a guide/mentor role, that implies the Loroi in general don't bar them from diplomatic service(s).
What can humanity offer the Loroi, I think that the above gave me a long term answer.Mr.Tucker wrote: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.
HMm... planets can't dodge. And orbital facilities follow a orbit.Mr.Tucker wrote: 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.
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.TrashMan wrote:HMm... planets can't dodge. And orbital facilities follow a orbit.Mr.Tucker wrote: 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.
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.
If it's accelerating, then it's a missile. Which invalidates the 'stealth' aspect of launching kinetic rounds.icekatze wrote: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.
Funnily enough, I think the inverse is true.Mr.Tucker wrote: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.
Doesn't matter how long it takes.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.
Not really. They also cool off pretty fast. Especially if the round is going to be traveling for days or weeksMass drivers are probably stealthier than particle beams or lasers, but the projectile comes out searing hot from all the EM energy dumped into it.
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.TrashMan wrote: 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.
TrashMan wrote:Doesn't matter how long it takes.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.
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.
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.TrashMan wrote:
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
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.Mr.Tucker wrote: 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).