Steakthedog
Verified Pedant
I don't know if the Fleet of Worlds may show it's face, but there's certainly some chance of atleast a reference to the Hebert's…
Incompatible System
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
- Start date
I noticed another logical possibility here that the Geth apparently overlooked. The unknown attacker might simply have used thousands of independently mounted weapons to saturate every likely targeting solution around the Batarian ships. After all, if the weapons fire was only detectable when it hit, they have no way to estimate how many shots missed.
Space is big and at that range and speed it isn't a feasible option. You'd need a million if not a billion such weapons to saturate that big an area.
And at that point, anything else in the same general direction as the target would also get shredded and there would be evidence of that.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They decided not to think about that because it inspired 'GUNS! EVERYWHERE!' terrors
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"If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime!"
Particularly apposite, as this is an ME crossover.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Space isn't empty. If nothing else, there's a few hydrogen atoms scattered around, here and there. If your instruments are good enough, should you be able to detect them being disturbed?
You know, I am now imagining the Reapers default trigger for "reaping time" is some idiot organic species getting that idea and firing it in the general direction of the dark center of the universe and it pinging of one of them around 1000-2000 years later...
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- She/Her
Space is so big that if you miss your target, the chances of hitting anything else, anywhen, anywhere goes way way way down.
- Location
- Georgia
While true, there is also a lot of radiation sleeting through, and all sorts of interference only really noticeable that far from any significant mass(or in artificial voids) that mean a few atoms getting energized by a beam hitting them is going to be lost in the background static. Precision is a believable deduction because, even if the attack was a cone, it was a cone coherent enough to still have enough energy density to destroy that ship, which is still really precise over the distances involved. A cone of energy doesn't have the same conservation of energy density that actual matter projections have, that is, it continues to degrade at 4πr2, where r is the distance from the source. With matter, you are eventually dealing with individual atoms unable to discharge their momentum until they hit something. A directed energy weapon continues to attenuate until only a single photon is hitting things.
- Location
- Israel
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny…'"
Isaac Asimov
is this FF dead?
- Location
- Norfolk, Va
It isn't officially dead until the OP declares it dead. On the other hand, it hasn't been updated in almost 4 year so YMMV.
- Location
- Livin' in the Land of the LOST! *roar*
Yeeessssssss. And no. In general interstellar, or even interplanetary, space, you're mostly right. Within the Hill sphere of a major body, you're less so. The space within the orbitals tends to be much more confined in many ways, and the projectile will get multiple opportunities to hit. Add in the gravitational effects of a planet not being perfectly round and uniformly dense, as well as from any significant orbiting moons, and making predictions over more than a few years can start to get crazy.
- Location
- Georgia
This author is notorious for disappearing for long periods of time, sometimes jumping back to fics that seemed dead and buried years ago. I just leave it on 'watch' to see if they've come back or somebody has a point interesting enough to warrant reengaging.
Isn't the weapon we're talking about fast enough to trivially escape any gravity well you'd want to be in in the first place, though?
- Location
- Livin' in the Land of the LOST! *roar*
Some are, some aren't.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Also, are you assuming weapon use in the plane of the ecliptic? 'Up' or 'down' not only takes you out of the solar system, but pretty quickly out of the galaxy...
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If the subject was all space weapons, yes.
If the subject is the weapons of Like A Greased Weasel I don't think it's so unclear?
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- Somewhere, Maybe
The issue with that is that "up" out of the solar system is "along" the plane of the galactic ecliptic. That's why the Milky Way stretches north to south (roughly) in our skies. You'd need to shoot sorta tangential to get out of both the solar system ecliptic -and- galactic ecliptic with the same shot.
Presumably doesn't matter, since the post seems to be talking about a shot that doesn't escape the local gravity well and thus hangs around as an orbital hazard.
Which is a lot more of a problem than a shot that will make a swift trip to interstellar space.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If mp3.1415player ever rewrites this story, can he toss the Lord Alamo character in the bin? He's incredibly grating to read and I have no idea why he was included in this story at all. I like every other part of the fic, but any scene he's in just ruins my immersion.
Isnt my realname
This isn't my real name.
- Location
- Not Here
Eh, I suspect that the answer to your question is very likely something along the lines of "no thank you".
Are you trying to get a Life and Times of Lord Alamo sidestory??