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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)

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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete) Demons and Angels Seven Days to Skitter
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I'm assuming the Earth they visited before going to Earth Varga'd was the one from the AVP films. I mean, while AVP wraps things up nicely with all xenomorphs dead or trapped, AVP2 ends with pretty much the apocalypse having started as far as I know. Not sure, haven't actually seen it before. But I think the entire town/city is wiped out by the end, with the xenomorphs still on the lose and the Predators having failed so badly that there's at least one xenomorph with Predator traits.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Bear in mind that EDM is a total radiation shield even in atomically-thin layers, except for thermal radiation. So you don't need to add very much mass to a hull to make it fully shielded. Also, if your spacecraft is using some form of antigravity or subspace technique to lower mass, which from memory is the canon explanation for Star Trek impulse drive, the total mass of the thing isn't nearly as important as if you're using a reaction drive where every gram counts.
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Actually according to the 'Enterprise D' blueprint and Memory Alpha, the impulse drive is an augmented FUSION ROCKET. The explanation from the blue prints is slightly different in the mechanics but it is essentially the same thing.
The blueprints state that the drive produces the thrust as the fusion of deuterium pellets take place. This occurs at a faster or slower rate depending on the speed required. Each fusion reaction gives of a pulse of plasma which is used for the drive, hence the name imPULSE engine. The Enterprise D blueprints showed half a dozen or so fusion reactors for each saucer drive position with only two running at once in normal circumstances, with two on standby and two undergoing maintenance.
 
OK, so you want "Family Insta Ship"...

Take a number a 40ft containers, coat with EDM, leaving required (small) gaps, and add (air-tight) doors between containers, some vertical. Stack these in 3d to get the size of ship you want, strap them all together with EDM. Add external EDM heat sinks/radiators, with cut-offs.

In each container add insulation, life-support, lighting, arti-grav and EDM flywheel power storage. In 'infrastructure' containers add all the rest of the tech needed. You'll also want at least two 'control room' containers (one is backup for the other). If you don't want to add airlocks then arrange so you can pump-down and refill a couple of containers, and fit these with really good anti-contamination sensors.

If you get your design right a couple of containers can slide out of the stack and act as short-ish range shuttles - I'd suggest these include airlocks. :)

There! See! Easy, isn't it! :)

(OK, I'll admit that this assumes you aren't using any reaction drives or other kit requiring big 'engine spaces'. So, basically, 'fly by radio'. :) )
 
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FaerieKnight79 said:
I'm assuming the Earth they visited before going to Earth Varga'd was the one from the AVP films. I mean, while AVP wraps things up nicely with all xenomorphs dead or trapped, AVP2 ends with pretty much the apocalypse having started as far as I know. Not sure, haven't actually seen it before. But I think the entire town/city is wiped out by the end, with the xenomorphs still on the lose and the Predators having failed so badly that there's at least one xenomorph with Predator traits.
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Sounds more like that earth is from the Alien and/or the Alien vs Predator novels (which predate the AvP films by quite a bit), which had xenomarph hives in a bunch of cities.

Edit: IIRC by the end of the infestation, they had specialised squads that could go into a Hive and destroy it all. Of course they also had queens getting a bit more cunning by doing things like creating false hives/egg chambers/etc.

Of course they also had fun things like athletes doping up using synthetic xenomorph royal jelly, and running into things hard enough that they get reduced to scraps of meat. (Yeah, turns out part of the reason WY has such a hard on for xenomorphs is because their by products are insanely useful in various drugs, but the best synthetic replacements just dont work quite as well as the real thing.)
 
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mp3.1415player said:
Also, if your spacecraft is using some form of antigravity or subspace technique to lower mass, which from memory is the canon explanation for Star Trek impulse drive, the total mass of the thing isn't nearly as important as if you're using a reaction drive where every gram counts.
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That only applies to FTL travel, not STL travel, which is still something they need to do...and the transwarp drive is going to be the backup, as the wormhole drive is also capable of moving in real-space. The limit also isn't the drive so much as it is the structural components of the ship itself.

mp3.1415player said:
As far as the speed of construction goes, once they've got a good design and all the plans to hand, they could make a hull a damn sight faster than you'd think possible. But there's also a lot of work to do fitting that hull out to make it a fully equipped ship, which does take time and effort.
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Absolutely, which is where a lot of the time savings come from. They literally have to build everything, though, including the construction cradle to hold the ship itself and the various subsystems on board, some of which are new tech from their perspective. Also, it's perfectly fine for Saurial to jump on a hover board and whack into a bridge, as she's pretty much indestructible. Any ship with human crew is going to need fairly thorough testing -- Miles would insist on it as a matter of course as a Starfleet officer. You also cannot assume that the people involved are doing absolutely nothing except working on the ship. BBFO and the DWU have other commitments.

mp3.1415player said:
One trick they can add if people want it, of course, is making the internal space of the thing a much more useful size. I expect Xander at least would consider this a cool upgrade ;)
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Did I not mention the olympic-sized swimming pool and tennis courts? Seriously, though, I see this as an option that they may indulge in, but the ship is meant to get them there and back for relatively short periods of time, so giving everybody a suite-sized stateroom isn't a huge priority. They're not in much need of tons of extra space, frankly, though I will keep their abilities in mind if they need it.
 
Derek M said:
That only applies to FTL travel, not STL travel, which is still something they need to do...and the transwarp drive is going to be the backup, as the wormhole drive is also capable of moving in real-space. The limit also isn't the drive so much as it is the structural components of the ship itself.
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Actually... The STL drive also supposed involves partial submersion in subspace, to reduce the mass of the ship, making it easier to push around. A good example is the film 'Star Trek: First Contact'. Look at the acceleration Enterprise can manage, and, look at how cold-gas thrusters can move the Enterprise around when the impulse drive is dead. Yes, I know this contradicts some of the 'manuals', but...

Derek M said:
Did I not mention the olympic-sized swimming pool and tennis courts? Seriously, though, I see this as an option that they may indulge in, but the ship is meant to get them there and back for relatively short periods of time, so giving everybody a suite-sized stateroom isn't a huge priority. They're not in much need of tons of extra space, frankly, though I will keep their abilities in mind if they need it.
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The ship needs a blue wooden door marked 'Police' hidden somewhere, while otherwise the internals look the same. :)
 
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Derek M said:
Just a note on what it would actually take to manufacture a new ship, as some of you seem to be vastly underestimating the level of effort involved.

From laying the keel to commissioning, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer take 10 months of work by hundreds of workers to build. That's using a proven design, with known technology, and components that are built off-site for assembly on-site (e.g., radar systems, weapons systems, etc.). That's also using a construction slip that is already setup to build destroyers. The time for the first of the class, from contract signing to deployment, was closer to four years. Now, admittedly, the destroyer mentioned is about 200 feet longer than the fictional Firefly-class transport, but a U.S. Navy destroyer doesn't have to function in outer space. It doesn't have life support systems to provide atmosphere and artificial gravity. It doesn't have external radiation shielding or insulation against vacuum. It doesn't have defensive shields (much as the Navy might appreciate having them) or multiple drive systems for FTL vs. STL in space vs. STL in atmosphere. What do you have to have to put a real destroyer together? Apart from the hull, you have sensors (radar and sonar), communications suites, command and control systems, power plant and engines, weapons systems, emergency systems (e.g., fire suppression, life boats), internal fittings for crew such as food prep, plumbing, places to sleep, etc., storage for food, fresh water, fuel and munitions.

My point to this is that creating a new ship takes a LOT of time, a LOT of effort by many people, and in the real world, quite a bit of money. Each Arleigh Burke costs the US government about 1.8 billion dollars.

Now, the Family and the DWU have massive advantages over the IRL U.S. government in terms of free construction materials, tinker tech, super strength, etc. It wouldn't take them that much time or money to build their own IRL destroyer, but even pulling in labor from the DWU, it would easily take more than a year. My guess is that a reasonable time for them to design and build their own spaceship from scratch is at least 18 months, given all of their bullshit superpower advantages.
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However, there is the small complication of 'Infinite Improbability Reptiles are Bullshit'. Unlike a Burke, Varga and the Brain can literally magic every component out of nothing in prefab sections and bolt them together. Honestly, the part where you design the stupid thing would take the longest, and with Varga/Brain bullshit they could probably get away with building something in a lot less than 10 months, especially if it's a Defiant remake.
 
Derek M said:
That only applies to FTL travel, not STL travel, which is still something they need to do...and the transwarp drive is going to be the backup, as the wormhole drive is also capable of moving in real-space. The limit also isn't the drive so much as it is the structural components of the ship itself.
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Actually, it's mentioned in the technical manual that the Enterprise-D's impulse drive does contain subspace field generators designed to lessen the mass of the ship; it was apparently the only way they could get the Galaxy-class's 6.5-million-metric-ton stern to accelerate to the 10 km/s2​ Starfleet wanted. I don't know if smaller ships have similar setups.
 
Richardson said:
However, there is the small complication of 'Infinite Improbability Reptiles are Bullshit'. Unlike a Burke, Varga and the Brain can literally magic every component out of nothing in prefab sections and bolt them together. Honestly, the part where you design the stupid thing would take the longest, and with Varga/Brain bullshit they could probably get away with building something in a lot less than 10 months, especially if it's a Defiant remake.
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Though Taylor and Varga do still have some issues with the more complex stuff like electronics. Depending on when this split off from TV, they may or may not have figured out how to handle the split and mass-produce trick yet either. I think that's happened by now though, they have expanded the facility at least. Too late over here for me to recheck the TV timeline.

Though this still assumes that Varga and Taylor spend a lot of their time just designing the ship and making it, something they might not want to do, since at this point in the story there are still plenty of things they haven't figured out and solved when it comes to their own reality, including powers and Scion.

If they do manage to find Worm in one of the other realities, it will be interesting to see how that affects their plans for their own reality.
 
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Derek M said:
That only applies to FTL travel, not STL travel, which is still something they need to do...and the transwarp drive is going to be the backup, as the wormhole drive is also capable of moving in real-space. The limit also isn't the drive so much as it is the structural components of the ship itself.



Absolutely, which is where a lot of the time savings come from. They literally have to build everything, though, including the construction cradle to hold the ship itself and the various subsystems on board, some of which are new tech from their perspective. Also, it's perfectly fine for Saurial to jump on a hover board and whack into a bridge, as she's pretty much indestructible. Any ship with human crew is going to need fairly thorough testing -- Miles would insist on it as a matter of course as a Starfleet officer. You also cannot assume that the people involved are doing absolutely nothing except working on the ship. BBFO and the DWU have other commitments.



Did I not mention the olympic-sized swimming pool and tennis courts? Seriously, though, I see this as an option that they may indulge in, but the ship is meant to get them there and back for relatively short periods of time, so giving everybody a suite-sized stateroom isn't a huge priority. They're not in much need of tons of extra space, frankly, though I will keep their abilities in mind if they need it.
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"We cored out some of the un-needed quarters for such amenities like the pool, the arboretum, the Zero-G Sexateria, the Orgynasium. The Tentacle Closet was Dabbler's idea."
Grrl Power #710 – Womenities – Grrl Power
 
Actually... The SoF needs to detect another ship which is crippled due to a mis-jump, called 'Protector', and find that this ship is in an unstable, out-of-phase with reality state, with its only real world exit being an intermittent connection to the fridge of a certain Dana Barrett...

Who needs to call in 'experts' from her world to help...

Galaxy Quest - Wikipedia


Ghostbusters - Wikipedia
 
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I doubt the effective exhaust velocity is really that much of a concern, since if they wanted to get their propellant to to move faster, all they really need to do is reduce the amount of tungsten remass (same power / less mass flow = less thrust and more Isp​). There have been nuclear bombs developed where most of the yield is fusion (normal 3 stage bombs have about half from fission of the U238​ tamper) but IIRC the primary driving force was reduced fallout.
 
timuzhti said:
I doubt the effective exhaust velocity is really that much of a concern, since if they wanted to get their propellant to to move faster, all they really need to do is reduce the amount of tungsten remass (same power / less mass flow = less thrust and more Isp​). There have been nuclear bombs developed where most of the yield is fusion (normal 3 stage bombs have about half from fission of the U238​ tamper) but IIRC the primary driving force was reduced fallout.
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Not sure if you have that right... The basic idea is to get more specific impulse out of a unit of mass, which generally means throwing the mass out faster/more energetically. If you look at Nuclear weapon design and compare that with Project Orion there's lots of possible designs. The only use of U238​ I can see, there, was in one proposal for the pusher plate - recycle it as nuclear fuel at the destination... A pure fusion one would be preferable, but, we don't currently have a working design...

If you want a fusion rocket, sometimes called a 'torch' in some science fiction, there's an immense amount of work to be done. Also, the difference between the fusion being on the outside, and the inside (confinement and cooling issues) is major. And, there's issues about what you use as reaction mass - water is attractive and reasonably environmentally friendly.

It's a bit more tricky than shouting "Fusion... Ha!" lots of times. :)
 
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Proofing!

Derek M said:
"Amy could easily be an S-class threat," said Saurial. "Her powers are truly impressive in terms of flexibility and scope." Taylor looked at the "healer" that clearly said she was doing some reassessment.
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the "healer" that clearly said she was-> the "healer" in a wavy that clearly said she was
 
timuzhti said:
I doubt the effective exhaust velocity is really that much of a concern, since if they wanted to get their propellant to to move faster, all they really need to do is reduce the amount of tungsten remass (same power / less mass flow = less thrust and more Isp​).
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It doesn't quite work that way.

It's like how you calculate effective Isp for an open-cycle liquid fuel engine, in some cases (limit as mass/bomb goes to zero). With an open cycle engine you need to combine the separate mass flows of the main engine and the pumps. With an Orion drive, you need to calculate the separate mass flows that hit the plate and that doesn't. The total mass flow is the mass of the bombs - tungsten mass, bomb, bomb casing, etc. But only the portion of the mass flow that actually hits the plate contributes to your effective mass flow.

So if you've got a bomb that masses 1000kg, with 95kg of tungsten + 5kg of assorted bomb bits that hits the plate @1000km/s, your effective exhaust velocity is ~100km/s - you've transmitted as much momentum to the spacecraft as if you just threw the bomb out the back at 100km/s.

Now let's say you drop that 95kg of tungsten to, say, 45kg. You have 50kg of stuff hit the plate now, somewhat faster. Let's say energy upper-bound for now, or 1414km/s. What's your effective exhaust velocity now? ... ~74.4km/s. Whoops, you've dropped your effective exhaust velocity.

In practice it's worse than that. Your 50kg of tungsten + bomb bits isn't going to pick up as much energy as 100kg would, which drops the velocity somewhat.

timuzhti said:
There have been nuclear bombs developed where most of the yield is fusion (normal 3 stage bombs have about half from fission of the U238​ tamper) but IIRC the primary driving force was reduced fallout.
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And it is very fortunate that they were developed, as the small mainly-fusion designs tested in Taiga serve as an excellent proof-of-concept for an Orion kicker.

Fusion (read: fission-fusion) is much better than fission for an Orion drive. It has a much lighter average molar mass (translating to higher thermal velocity, and hence higher specific impulse), it has a much higher energy output per unit mass (again, translating to higher thermal velocity, and hence higher specific impulse), and it's a whole lot cheaper at the scale required. Oh, and it's cleaner, as you mentioned.
 
Charred said:
Though Taylor and Varga do still have some issues with the more complex stuff like electronics. Depending on when this split off from TV, they may or may not have figured out how to handle the split and mass-produce trick yet either. I think that's happened by now though, they have expanded the facility at least. Too late over here for me to recheck the TV timeline.
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I would say that it is after they figure that manufacturing trick out...

As I recall, Saurial came up with that a few chapters back while Amy is still talking about the design of the bush for the healing one shots. She hadn't perfected it at the time but was fairly close to having a version she was happy with.

As this omake makes mention of giving the visitors a couple of bushes for the healing one shots, it would stand to reason that Amy has finally got something she is happy to let out of the lab and into the world. This would then place it after the manufacturing trick was thought of.
 
TL;DR: If you really wanted high Isp​, you'd properly confine your fusion reaction. But that's not the point of the Orion.

@Pseudocognisant, your numbers might make sense if you ignore that the propellant is about a third of the mass (of the charge) and a 1000 km/s jet of plasma would have noticeable negative effects on the structural integrity of the ship. The real problem is that there's a minimum thickness required for the tungsten disk to adequately protect the ship from radiation (and of course, absorb this radiation so that it's used for propulsion). A wide diameter disk makes the plasma disperse in a bigger arc, but try to throttle Orion to a low thrust, high(er) Isp​ engine and you'll find your plasma jet cuts through your plate instead. Oops.

As for yield-to-weight, you'll find that the nuclear device makes up a negligible portion of the propulsion unit. A 1 ton unit is going to use a device with yield about 5 kt, less than 100 kilograms. The PNRs had a ridiculously low yield-to-weight, in part because they used a lead tamper instead of a fissile U tamper, which isn't a issue here, but it's ridiculously easy to make a nuclear device with far higher yield for only 150 kg. Sure, these aren't practical for the pusher plate type of Orion drive unless you make them truly massive, but the Medusa design, with a huge sail in front, can take >1 Mt yields easily, and with less directedness needed. Tiny nuclear weapons are not efficient, yield-to-weight, no matter what your design is, and the point of the Orion isn't it's high specific impulse, but it's fantastic lifting capacity. It's ok for interplanetary missions, sure, but the exhaust velocity is already orders of magnitude higher than delta-v even if you half-ass it and build a small-ish vehicle. Where it really shines is that >500t SSTO rocket people can only dream of otherwise.
 
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