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The Practice War [Complete]

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TheEyes said:
"A stop" relative to what? Are you telling me that the Practice War universe has a privileged inertial frame of reference? Do they have an aether there? How much of modern (non-Practice/Secret) physics is completely different in the Practice War universe?
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The vector created by the reactionless drive ceases to apply, and as the drive doesn't impart velocity except when it's running, you come to an immediate stop relative to that no longer existent vector.

It doesn't cancel out solar motion and the like, mainly because it never applied it.

acegunner said:
Could inviolate matter be used to create an timatter or micro-singularity drives if combined with gravity based shielding for containment?
Any chance of creating time dilation or time stasis fields?
Together they could potentially form really powerful non-secret sublight drives. Maybe even relativistic drives if there big enough in comparison to the craft they are mounted on.
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Why would you want to make a reaction drive when you can relatively easily construct reactionless ones capable of .2c?

Fuck no.

You know, using Practice kinda makes it rely on Secrets type BS. Also you're playing fair with Newton, and that's...not great for combat operations.

mastigos said:
@Snowfire we can't (currently) use The Sixth Secret for Inviolate Matter but ... what about the opposite? Using Inviolate Matter as the substance to build nanomachines out of?
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The energy matrix requires a large enough area to stabilise. Nanochines are definitely right out.

TheEyes said:
Would it stand up to Amanda's Sunbeam, the one we created with Purify that could destroy all life on Earth in a matter of seconds (and frankly ought to have vaporized both of our fleets just from the refracted and reflected beams)?
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Let's be upfront here; that was a focused, high energy density exotic matter release channeled by a mnemonic into directed form specifically so that it didn't blast the entirety of both fleets to cinders, and Mars along with it.

The transfer medium most definitely wasn't light. There was some bleedthrough, sure, but the primary component was a burst of high energy exotic matter. As to if Inviolate Matter could stand up to it? Well that's what testing is for.
 
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Snowfire said:
The vector created by the reactionless drive ceases to apply, and as the drive doesn't impart velocity except when it's running, you come to an immediate stop relative to that no longer existent vector.

It doesn't cancel out solar motion and the like, mainly because it never applied it.
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Ah, okay, so our reactionless drives change position without imparting momentum. That's... basically a continuously-active First Secret drive, with a slightly different restriction. Do the Shiplord vehicles' reactionless drives work in the same way, or do they rely on a different Secret? Some sort of Gravity Secret-based inertial dampener field or something?
Snowfire said:
Let's be upfront here; that was a focused, high energy densitt exotic matter release channeled by a mnemonic into directed form specifically so that it didn't blast the entirety of both fleeys to cinders, and Mars along with it.

The transfer medium most definitely wasn't light. There was some bleedthrough, sure, but the primary component was a burst of high energy exotic matter. As to if Inviolate Matter could stand up to it? Well that's what testing is for.
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Hm. Well we're obviously not coordinating billions of people into helping Amanda do a Care Bear Stare at a piece of armor plate as a test, but maybe we can enlist Kalilah to try something?
 
TheEyes said:
Hm. Well we're obviously not coordinating billions of people into helping Amanda do a Care Bear Stare at a piece of armor plate as a test, but maybe we can enlist Kalilah to try something?
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Let's just hope that if we do try something with Kalilah along that path that we do not roll a Practiced Miracle. The number of moons in our star system is finite. We are talking about the strongest Potential of Destruction. Worst case we could lose a planet (or a part of it):).
 
Inviolate matter - would that make missiles feasible again? Because the enemy's point defense would hate that inviolate casing ...
 
MTB said:
Inviolate matter - would that make missiles feasible again? Because the enemy's point defense would hate that inviolate casing ...
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Its obviously the OP's choice but I think the point of inviolate matter is more for defence than to turn into RKV's. We don't need to weaponise everything in order for it to be useful.
 
MTB said:
Inviolate matter - would that make missiles feasible again? Because the enemy's point defense would hate that inviolate casing ...
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If you can't build fighters out of it due to matrix ratio issues, I'm not seeing you being able to build missiles. Also if they're warhead equipped missiles instead of pure kinetic energy, you may have some problems getting the payload to actually affect the ship you fired at. Because Inviolate Matter.
 
Snowfire said:
If you can't build fighters out of it due to matrix ratio issues, I'm not seeing you being able to build missiles. Also if they're warhead equipped missiles instead of pure kinetic energy, you may have some problems getting the payload to actually affect the ship you fired at. Because Inviolate Matter.
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More to the point, with the advent of Practice-based and grav shear weapon systems, mundane physics has kind of had its day when it comes to being relevant in offensive warfare. Unless those missiles are packing some sort of Secret-based disintegration waves, they're just not going to be particularly relevant in a fight.

Well, maybe if we pack the warhead full of antimatter, and have it "flip over" when near the target so the antimatter explosion gets focused by the inviolate matter shell rather than being shunted away from the target...
 
TheEyes said:
More to the point, with the advent of Practice-based and grav shear weapon systems, mundane physics has kind of had its day when it comes to being relevant in offensive warfare. Unless those missiles are packing some sort of Secret-based disintegration waves, they're just not going to be particularly relevant in a fight.
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Antimatter warheads still play a part in void combat, but the main use of missiles by the FSN is expected to be to drop the shields of Regular Fleet craft. Gravity shear weapons can breach them, but missiles can do it more efficiently. It also allows you to hold your main battery until the enemy shields are down, which means you cut loose on unshielded plating.
 
Unless, of course, it ever becomes viable to mass produce FTL missiles. Send out swarms of missiles that use similar tactics to Shiplord War Fleets :V

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Or FTL Interdiction Missiles. Missiles that temporarily make First Secret drives unusable in the area they explode.
 
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justinkal said:
Unless, of course, it ever becomes viable to mass produce FTL missiles. Send out swarms of missiles that use similar tactics to Shiplord War Fleets :V

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Or FTL Interdiction Missiles. Missiles that temporarily make First Secret drives unusable in the area they explode.
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Of course, that kind of missiles need an FTL drive, sensor systems, navigation units, ECM and lots of energy. I mean, technically that might still be a 'missile', but ...
 
Snowfire said:
Why would you want to make a reaction drive when you can relatively easily construct reactionless ones capable of .2c?

Fuck no.

You know, using Practice kinda makes it rely on Secrets type BS. Also you're playing fair with Newton, and that's...not great for combat operations.
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Because they lose all momentum when turned off. Which makes them useless for kkvs. Reusable kinetic kill vehicles going at rediculous speeds due to being nothing but engine and very tough reusable shell could help bring down shiplord shields faster. And absorb some of the point defense fire that would have otherwise killed members of the 322.


Some other ideas for inviolate matter.​

It could also be used to build an armoured cic and control center to keep crew on damaged ships alive. Especially if we use a couple of centralized areas to run the entire ship.

Or as part of a large array of defense platforms to supplement our auxileries around key defense points. Normal conventional rcs thrusters mounted on the he outside would be more than enough to allow them maintain orbit.

Puttin near invulnerable survival bunkers for people as well as information databases would also help preserve life and key data so that the shiplords have a hard time destroying what we have worked so hard to discover and build.

A nigh invulnerable armour could help preserve lives and key scientific data even when everything around it is anhilated.

Those are the two things we cannot afford to lose in this war.
Ships can be rebuilt, but people are not so easily replaced. Especially people like Mary.
 
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justinkal said:
Unless, of course, it ever becomes viable to mass produce FTL missiles. Send out swarms of missiles that use similar tactics to Shiplord War Fleets :V

Edit:
Or FTL Interdiction Missiles. Missiles that temporarily make First Secret drives unusable in the area they explode.
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I don't know about FTL missiles, but the way reactionless drives work in the Practice War universe it might be useful to "pre-load" missile batteries with momentum going in various directions, that the drive field will suppress until the missile is launched. All of a sudden the missile leaves the drive envelope and instantly resumes its previous momentum of 0.5c heading straight at the target ship.
 
  • TheEyes said:
    I don't know about FTL missiles, but the way reactionless drives work in the Practice War universe it might be useful to "pre-load" missile batteries with momentum going in various directions, that the drive field will suppress until the missile is launched. All of a sudden the missile leaves the drive envelope and instantly resumes its previous momentum of 0.5c heading straight at the target ship.
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This is exactly why I was suggesting antimatter or blackhole drives, to get them up to 0.5 c or higher. Normal rockets won't work for such velocities. And nuclear fusion just isn't prsctical, you would wind up with ship sized rockets at best.

I still think they would make better armour for our people though.
 
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Please tell me we can have all the research on arenak inviolate matter done in Skylark.

Also, I wonder if we have any leads on what the Third, Fourth and Fifth Secrets are.
 
The Sandman said:
Please tell me we can have all the research on arenak inviolate matter done in Skylark.

Also, I wonder if we have any leads on what the Third, Fourth and Fifth Secrets are.
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On Mars? Why? I presume if we're doing stress-testing we're going to be unloading enough energy that we don't want the test happening anywhere near any planet surface, even Mars. Perhaps you meant our semi-private research fiefdom Arcadia? I'm not even sure that's going to be necessary: the basic science appears to be mostly done, and the heavy lifting is going to be on the side of upscaling production to fit our Sixth Secret-boosted production capabilities and refitting all our auxiliary vessels with inviolate hulls. That's not really the kind of skunkworks projects we're going to need to invest our time in, really.

The actual ordinal numbers for the Secrets are, apparently, discovered as part of the process of researching them. Gravity manipulation looks to be a Secret, as does AI creation, but we really have no idea what numbers those will turn out to be, even if I heavily suspect that Gravity is going to be Third. Apparently we'll know for sure in ~2 years, since current actions lowered the interval on the Longest Force to 2 years and we really need to get that up and running if we're going to make grav shear weapons a standard armament on our capital ships, auxiliaries, and (hopefully thanks to Sixth Secret magic) our fighters.
 
Inviolate - if we ever create a deep space explorer (one with FTL) - even if it may only be crewed by a handful of potentials, that might be worth it.
 
MTB said:
Inviolate - if we ever create a deep space explorer (one with FTL) - even if it may only be crewed by a handful of potentials, that might be worth it.
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Fitting in the necessary systems for deep space exploration around living quarters and an FTL drive would make that...somewhat difficult. Your current First Secret drives are just too big when taken together with the necessary power supply. Extending a weave of Involate Matter around a hull would be possible, however, even if it would leave weak points. Lina's current view of it is that it's an extremely useful substance for specific systems, potentially an auxiliary version of the Tower class, and maybe at some point down the line complete replacement of standard auxiliary hulls. Given the production methods involved, and the absolute requirement for Potentials in that process, she's not seeing it as something to build hulls out of for a while.

Using it as structural reinforcement or hull plating though? Yeah, that's definitely on the table. Pretty much at the very top, in fact.
 
Wouldn't hull plating run into the 'adding components together and having energy matrix problems' problems?

//

I really want to read as many as possible interludes from the aliens point of view with regards to first contact / humans in general.
Like "is that all they have for a fleet and what trashed this tribute fleet" and "why is there a new space station for alien visitors" or "WHEN did they discover 6th secret???".
Or the polite request from Marcus/Vision to stop trying to put worms into our systems ...
 
MTB said:
Wouldn't hull plating run into the 'adding components together and having energy matrix problems' problems?
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Not if you limit it to specific sections only. Command and control modules and weapons blisters, for example.

MTB said:
I really want to read as many as possible interludes from the aliens point of view with regards to first contact / humans in general.
Like "is that all they have for a fleet and what trashed this tribute fleet" and "why is there a new space station for alien visitors" or "WHEN did they discover 6th secret???".
Or the polite request from Marcus/Vision to stop trying to put worms into our systems ...
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I think I'll be able to satisfy your curiosity in a few places, at least. Probably not more though, this is a human-viewpoint quest, after all ;)
 
MTB said:
Or the polite request from Marcus/Vision to stop trying to put worms into our systems ...
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And the data they do get (see: the data we let them get) is all about Magical Girls and BoysTM​. They then draw their own conclusions. :V
Imagine, if you will, entire alien races that think every Potential is a Magical Girl/BoyTM​: transformation sequence, shouting about love/justice/friendship/etc, are mostly teenagers, have talking familiars, et all.
:V
 
Malaquez said:
And the data they do get (see: the data we let them get) is all about Magical Girls and BoysTM​. They then draw their own conclusions. :V
Imagine, if you will, entire alien races that think every Potential is a Magical Girl/BoyTM​: transformation sequence, shouting about love/justice/friendship/etc, are mostly teenagers, have talking familiars, et all.
:V
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"How by the big bang did THEY trash a shiplord fleet???"
 
MTB said:
"How by the big bang did THEY trash a shiplord fleet???"
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I wonder where they are hiding that super weapon our telescopes and long range sensor array discovered...
At least their diplomat Amanda is so polite, and they are keeping that weapon stored away while we visit. Certainly wouldn't want it pointed anywhere near me, but we might be able to form a lasting friendship with these people after all! Especially if the rest of them are as nice as her.

Wait... Didn't thier older radio broadcasts from before the Lords came mention "Gunboat Diplomacy"? Maybe it's a good thing they seem to have forgotten it... The Lords often leave the ones they attack with itchy trigger fingers...
 
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