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The Practice War [Complete]

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Shard said:
Do we know of what happened to space probes pre-secret that were sent out of SOL?
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Short answer: if you want to find your extra-solar probes, take Glimmering in the Dark.

Long(er) answer: You do not. Tracking them down shouldn't be hard given your access to FTL, although it would help if you had a few actual exploration craft. Military sensor packages are good, but they're optimised for combat operations. The explorer design favourite is currently slightly larger than an Ulfberht, and trades out weaponry for advanced defensive systems, mass storage, and a truly comprehensive sensor suite.
 
Speaking of Glimmering in the Dark where can people see us going? Bearing in mind that the replacement will be here by the next full turn we should probably have some idea of what we should focus on. Glimmering in the Dark might be a good idea if we want some more attention from the Shiplords, and also the other alien species. Personally I don't think we're ready for that yet so I'd say we should explore Inviolate Matter maybe even try for grav-shear weapons, seeing as how the "deconstructor swarm" mentioned in an Interlude (I cannot remember which one) is decidedly ineffective against Shiplord ships. Failing that I'd say we should fully explore AI creation as a Secret.
P.S. (Is Inviolate Matter possibly linked to a Secret?)
 
Flickerwisp said:
@Snowfire How far are we from doing something like this? Or this?
How many civs have we seen doing things like these?
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Well, Amanda has personally projected an energy burst equal to the per/second output of Sol, if under truly exceptional circumstances.

That said...well. The Dyson Beam runs into the problem that regular space combat in the Practice War involves ships dancing around at 20-30% of c, and it's just vastly more efficient to build a larger fleet with grav-shear weapons. As for starlifting...well it's almost within your grasp, but the amount of work required to get it functional would be immense and there are plentiful easily accessible asteroids. You haven't seen any civs using those techniques, although it's suspected that the Shiplords use it to supplement their other sources of mass.

In general, however, there appears to be a considerable dearth of megastructures out in the galaxy - I've mentioned this before. In most cases however, it's more a matter of efficiency than anything else. Also the fact that they're rather massive targets, and no one still alive (or talking, in the case of the Neras) appears to know what the Shiplords will do to anyone who tries to build one. This has an...effect.
 
Snowfire said:
Well, Amanda has personally projected an energy burst equal to the per/second output of Sol, if under truly exceptional circumstances.

That said...well. The Dyson Beam runs into the problem that regular space combat in the Practice War involves ships dancing around at 20-30% of c, and it's just vastly more efficient to build a larger fleet with grav-shear weapons. As for starlifting...well it's almost within your grasp, but the amount of work required to get it functional would be immense and there are plentiful easily accessible asteroids. You haven't seen any civs using those techniques, although it's suspected that the Shiplords use it to supplement their other sources of mass.

In general, however, there appears to be a considerable dearth of megastructures out in the galaxy - I've mentioned this before. In most cases however, it's more a matter of efficiency than anything else. Also the fact that they're rather massive targets, and no one still alive (or talking, in the case of the Neras) appears to know what the Shiplords will do to anyone who tries to build one. This has an...effect.
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So megastructure = shiplord starbreaker ship visit + war fleet clean up operation
 
Snowfire said:
Well, Amanda has personally projected an energy burst equal to the per/second output of Sol, if under truly exceptional circumstances.

That said...well. The Dyson Beam runs into the problem that regular space combat in the Practice War involves ships dancing around at 20-30% of c, and it's just vastly more efficient to build a larger fleet with grav-shear weapons. As for starlifting...well it's almost within your grasp, but the amount of work required to get it functional would be immense and there are plentiful easily accessible asteroids. You haven't seen any civs using those techniques, although it's suspected that the Shiplords use it to supplement their other sources of mass
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Fair enough, a lot od sci-fi authors avoid large-scale projects like these because REASONS, but you seem to have put more thought into it. However...

Snowfire said:
In general, however, there appears to be a considerable dearth of megastructures out in the galaxy - I've mentioned this before. In most cases however, it's more a matter of efficiency than anything else. Also the fact that they're rather massive targets, and no one still alive (or talking, in the case of the Neras) appears to know what the Shiplords will do to anyone who tries to build one. This has an...effect.
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In that case, why not use a huge swarm swarm of small structures instead of a single, solid one? That'd be much harder to destroy, and they don't seem to mind or habitats.
 
Flickerwisp said:
In that case, why not use a huge swarm swarm of small structures instead of a single, solid one? That'd be much harder to destroy, and they don't seem to mind or habitats.
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The Shiplords have access to vessels capable of inducing novas. Anything that exists in a star system is quite eminently destructible when you can just default to blowing the whole thing the fuck up.
 
Snowfire said:
Well, Amanda has personally projected an energy burst equal to the per/second output of Sol, if under truly exceptional circumstances.

That said...well. The Dyson Beam runs into the problem that regular space combat in the Practice War involves ships dancing around at 20-30% of c, and it's just vastly more efficient to build a larger fleet with grav-shear weapons. As for starlifting...well it's almost within your grasp, but the amount of work required to get it functional would be immense and there are plentiful easily accessible asteroids. You haven't seen any civs using those techniques, although it's suspected that the Shiplords use it to supplement their other sources of mass.

In general, however, there appears to be a considerable dearth of megastructures out in the galaxy - I've mentioned this before. In most cases however, it's more a matter of efficiency than anything else. Also the fact that they're rather massive targets, and no one still alive (or talking, in the case of the Neras) appears to know what the Shiplords will do to anyone who tries to build one. This has an...effect.
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What if the megastructure was a ship?

What if instead of a shipping outfitted with weapons it was a ship made around a weapon?

Also, I wonder, would it be possible to make inviolate matter out of antimatter? How would it react to normal inviolate matter?

I think I already know what that giant weapon will use...

The funny thing is that we probably already have or are able to make something more powerful that that, but my version of 'I have the general idea of what have happened thus far in this quest' means 'I have read like 35% of the story posts and 5% of the others'.
 
EmptyHusk said:
Also, I wonder, would it be possible to make inviolate matter out of antimatter? How would it react to normal inviolate matter?
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"Inviolate matter" seems to be mostly an energy construct surrounding a matter scaffold, so I can't see why an antimatter version would be any different than the regular matter version. After all, it's the energy matrices that will be interacting, not the scaffolding.
 
TheEyes said:
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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I like the way you think!

MTB said:
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 ...
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See the Very Dangerous Array from Schlock Mercenary. And, yes, the VDA eventually gained FTL denial capabilities, along with everything else.

EmptyHusk said:
How would [antimatter Inviolate Matter] react to normal Inviolate Matter?
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The Inviolate effects destabilize, then they mutually annihilate? This requires testing.
 
How effective would strong force disruptors be against the shiplords?
Or just molecular disruptors?


I'm assuming on that last question that those dissentigration weapons used on theshiplords we're nanite based.

On the other hand if we could figure out how to harness exotic particles for use in we eapons they might be useful. They did destroy that very large shiplord craft. We we just need to figure out how to so that technologically and without practice.

For that matter harnessing whatever energy source the dragons somehow tapped into would be useful. Not the direct source practice draws from, which is slowly building up. The source of the energy that is flowing into the resevior that practice draws from.
Theres gotta to be something else connected to the wellspring that humanity draws on, something we are indirectly drawing on to fill that resevior. Some very powerful reaction that the dragons sacrifice catalyzed.
A battery can be used to power something, but the energy that humanities souls are collectively drawing on is surely coming from somewhere.
Now if only that source could be tapped directly... Without drawing on the collective "soul network" so to speak.
Unless the dragons catalyzed a reaction that is coming from all of humanities collective souls directly.

Is each awakening the same size? Or are they getting progressively larger?
If they are getting larger, by how much?
The soul energy buildup sounded exponential...
And it was as large as the sun's total energy output.
If practice uses that energy as a source, but keeps building up, what we have been using outside of using Words sounds small scale in comparison. And energy buildups, exponential or not, are never good. Worst case it vaporizes potentials from the soul on up. Best case they lose their physical form yet somehow survive...

Is that what happened to the uninvolved?
Is that what powers shiplord weapons?

Because those shiplord starbreakers would need 6.87×1041​ J to accomplish destroying the sun minimum. That's the suns gravitational binding energy. And many magnitudes greater than a stars energy output each second.
A power source greater than a star on something the size of a ship.
 
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If you could figure out how to implement strong force disruption, it would probably be everything that gravitic shear weapons are and more -- instead of tearing matter apart at the molecular level, you're tearing atoms apart at the quark level.

The problem with strong force disruption is twofold.

First, the strong force itself is 1038​ times stronger than gravity at nuclear ranges. This means it would take a ridiculous amount of energy to disrupt the strong force at macroscopic scales. We already have trouble powering gravitic shear weapons. Powering a strong force disruptor would be ludicrous.

Second, the strong force drops off much much faster than gravity does. Gravity drops off according to the inverse square law -- 2x the distance means 1/4x the strength. The strong force doesn't obey a simple curve, but going from a distance of 1fm to a distance of 2fm is ~1/10x the strength. And unlike gravity where more matter means more force, the strong force is interfered with by having other matter in the way.

So if strong force disruption CAN be made into a practical weapon, then it works by having the power to adjust one of the fundamental constants of the universe in a localized region, not by simply inducing different forces in different regions like gravitic shear weapons do.
 
Coda said:
So if strong force disruption CAN be made into a practical weapon, then it works by having the power to adjust one of the fundamental constants of the universe in a localized region, not by simply inducing different forces in different regions like gravitic shear weapons do.
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I do agree that there probably isn't a wave-motion gun hidden in any sort of strong force manipulation Secret; as you said, the force decays much more quickly as a function of distance than gravity, which makes gravitic shear a far more effective weapon when operating from one ship to another.

On the other hand, one thing that strong force disruption would be able to do is drastically enhance the power of a missile: hundreds of times the power of an anti-hydrogen missile with no storage problems. I suspect, though, that the true power of a strong-force manipulation Secret is going to be to make Inviolate Matter without having to use Practice, and that's going to be important considering that we still only have the same five Practice Dice that we had since the Quest began, and don't seem to be able to grow those in any way. Being able to "offload" basic fighting duties from the Practiced vessels and personnel to the "mundane" ships is going to be super-important is that trend continues.
 
TheEyes said:
On the other hand, one thing that strong force disruption would be able to do is drastically enhance the power of a missile: hundreds of times the power of an anti-hydrogen missile with no storage problems.
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What do you think a boosted fission warhead is? It's a real-world weapon that functions by unbinding strong force energy in the nucleus.
 
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Coda said:
What do you think a boosted fission warhead is? It's a real-world weapon that functions by unbinding strong force energy in the nucleus.
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How more affective would it be if you nearly completely anhilated the strong force binding the nucleus together though?
Still it's more likely for an alien civilization or the shiplords to either already have it or developing it than for us to develop it is ourselves without outside help or making it from the ground up with a practiced miracle.
 
TheEyes said:
onsidering that we still only have the same five Practice Dice that we had since the Quest began
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The quest started with four, actually. Something to consider is that Practice dice represent your ability to apply Potentials to a given problem, not what all of them are doing. Given how deeply intertwined they are with Earth's military-industrial complex, civilian industry, and actual military this shouldn't be all that surprising. I'm going to leave all matters that have to do with strong force manipulation for if you actually develop a means of doing so.

MTB said:
Inviolate again - would it be possible to treat the Unison platforms?
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According to the theory you have, no, they're too small. That said, they're pretty much the most skilled and definitely the powerful Potentials on the planet and an Aegis is fundamentally quite similar in its structure. So, y'know. Probably maybe.
 
Effective trade items:
* Information! This can be copied forever, and any good way to beat the Shiplords that we can sell should sell like hotcakes.
* Technology. Much the same as Information. Of course, we're likely behind on technology, but that just mean we can buy a Secret or two. (We can... right?)
* Crazy stuff like the Veil of Light.
* Fleet support.
* Network cleanup services. (Suggested by TheEyes and MTB.)
* Our culture? (Suggested by yidgamer.)
* Proof the Shiplords can be beaten, on a galactic level. (Pointed out by Snowfire.)
* ???
 
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Hello. Just been catching up [oh so very slowly] and after witnessing the natural 1 on Project Insight, when I got here...
[Begin Trip Back in Time]


Snowfire said:
[Wall of Mars: 1, 73 + 38 = 111. Success]
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I literally burst out laughing. "Well, it's important enough I'd want to put 2 dice on it too" I thought to myself when looking at the plans. Then this happened. And oh god the luck of that natural 1 being *there* with that 73 and not somewhere else... :D

Snowfire said:
[Breaking Chains: 64 + 44 + 9 (Network Supremacy) = Irrelevant]
Practice Roll: 56 + 50 = Irrelevant
[Cutting the Cord: 100 + 99 + 59 = 258! Natural Critical reroll: 99! (Kill me) Absolute Success]
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AND IN THE SAME POST A NATURAL ONE IS NEGATED, THIS HAPPENS!

[/End Trip Back in Time]

This was just... Pretty great moment, that's all.

It'll probably be a few weeks 'til I'm fully caught up, but... I'm looking forward to participating in some of those discussions!
Thank you, Snowfire :)
 
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