Remove ads

The Practice War [Complete]

Reader mode
noliar said:
There's plenty of space well inside the jumpline.

The problem is the planets are so goddamn valuable and they present such a large attack surface. If we have to fight in their vicinity we benefit from their strength but we will take species level damage and the Shiplords will be able to make forcing moves by threatening them.

We could really do with the firepower of miracle level fortresses. We can't force the Shiplords to fight us at a location of our choosing but we can try to draw them there if we have a strongpoint to draw them to.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The entire population of Mars is living inside a single practiced miracle city with an active defense shield and defense network. What they don't have is miracle-level fortresses or enough ground-to-orbit weaponry to keep the Shiplords from getting close to it. It's also a target we know they consider a priority.

Frankly, I don't care about the Mars population, anyway. I care about the incredible treasure horde of pre-fall research data we haven't unlocked. If it would secure the research data I would cheerfully slit their throats myself.
 
Last edited:
@noliar You are greatly overestimating the size of the FTL zone. According to Snowfire's image, it only covers out to around 2.5AU. Even at closest approach, Mars is still closer to the border than it is to Earth. Even without their speed advantage, they can reach Mars well before we can cross between. If they time the attack so the planets are opposite, they could even reach Earth faster than we can cross.

Edit: *Takes Lailoken's knife* No life will be given cheaply.
 
Last edited:
GamingGeek said:
Hm.

I'm actually shocked that we would have that many people move back out into the outer system after the first war, with how badly they destroyed what we had before.

When you said we had stuff out there, I thought it was a few thousand total, not town in space...


Note to self, after this fight make some O'Neil stations and turn them into Arks, then send them out of system. All our eggs in one basket (Sol) is dangerous.

It's not like we need to live on a planet anymore, there's so much space in the Ort cloud it's crazy, there's Proxima Centori and that small brown dwarf star drifting past... If we have the Arks stay silent and not contact us... Ok, enough thinking of worse case stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I suggested that awhile back. That and von nueman seed ships. Turns out if we do that we might need to send one of those miracle fortresses in order to enable them to survive. That and a large asteroid for raw resources; and include a shipyard so that they can build thier own fleet while in transit to the destination.

@Snowfire
1. Can we develop cloning technology?
2. And could we use it to crew a large fleet of seed ships and expand our fleet around sol?
 
acegunner said:
I suggested that awhile back. That and von nueman seed ships. Turns out if we do that we might need to send one of those miracle fortresses in order to enable them to survive. That and a large asteroid for raw resources; and include a shipyard so that they can build thier own fleet while in transit to the destination.

@Snowfire
1. Can we develop cloning technology?
2. And could we use it to crew a large fleet of seed ships and expand our fleet around sol?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We probably aren't the first to try that. The Shiplords have most likely gotten very good at finding and eliminating such vessels.
 
Then if we are going to go to war lets combine cloning with mind uploading, and then crew ships with clones ala the cylons.
Lets zerg rush them with heavily armed colony ship swarms. Each with the equipment to build new bases. Then send them to the nearest 100 star systems, equiped with ftl communications to transmit the minds of those who die back to sol.
That way theres a chance at least one will make it, and lost ships will only give us more people with experience of fighting against the shiplords.
It would be a win-win situation so long as we don't abandon the build up of fortifications around our home system.
 
Oh, and as for why I wouldn't be surprised if cloning is the reason for the ban on the Second Secret, remember the Dragons.

Now imagine being able to put a fuck ton of nearly impossible to replicate effort into making a biological superweapon that makes the Dragons look like ants. Then start cloning that superweapon.
 
acegunner said:
@Snowfire
1. Can we develop cloning technology?
2. And could we use it to crew a large fleet of seed ships and expand our fleet around sol?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Do you want to meet a Shiplord War Fleet within a year of doing either of these things?

spikethehobbit said:
We probably aren't the first to try that. The Shiplords have most likely gotten very good at finding and eliminating such vessels.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Also this.

Let me reiterate: messing around with biotechnology will get you exterminated. See all the posts that have been made on the subject of the Shiplords not being 100% committed to destroying you, et. all.
 
Snowfire said:
Do you want to meet a Shiplord War Fleet within a year of doing either of these things?



Also this.

Let me reiterate: messing around with biotechnology will get you exterminated. See all the posts that have been made on the subject of the Shiplords not being 100% committed to destroying you, et. all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I assumed that meant cloning via mundane technology, without using the Second Secret.
 
Baughn said:
I'm not sure there is a difference.

For Practice, yes; that's blatantly magic. Biotech, though? The line is far more vague, and the Shiplords would probably put it wherever is convenient.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Isn't it not a Secret unless you're breaking the conventional laws of reality? Cloning should be possible without doing that. Even IRL we can already create clones of simpler mammals, but with the clones having a fucked up life cycle.
 
justinkal said:
Isn't it not a Secret unless you're breaking the conventional laws of reality? Cloning should be possible without doing that. Even IRL we can already create clones of simpler mammals, but with the clones having a fucked up life cycle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Who gets to determine what laws are 'conventional'?

A lot of the stuff we've been doing in labs recently, right here in the real world, is just plain bullshit. Did you hear we've found a (probable) way to build nonlocal cooling systems?
 
justinkal said:
Isn't it not a Secret unless you're breaking the conventional laws of reality? Cloning should be possible without doing that. Even IRL we can already create clones of simpler mammals, but with the clones having a fucked up life cycle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Non-Secret cloning probably isn't much more efficient than regular reproduction, since the only step your really skipping is 9 months of inconveniencing a woman (inconvenience will vary based on time of gestation). The hard part is raising them through childhood, and you aren't cheating THAT without Secret Bullshit.

Although, the Circle system does provide a workaround for having more children than caretakers... Yeah, let's leave that thought for another time.
 
Sightsear said:
Non-Secret cloning probably isn't much more efficient than regular reproduction, since the only step your really skipping is 9 months of inconveniencing a woman (inconvenience will vary based on time of gestation). The hard part is raising them through childhood, and you aren't cheating THAT without Secret Bullshit.

Although, the Circle system does provide a workaround for having more children than caretakers... Yeah, let's leave that thought for another time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, technically you could also rapidly grow a Clone Army via a Practiced Miracle, but that's besides the point :V


My point was that non-Secret Cloning is fine by itself, but can create devastating superweapons when what you're cloning is something created through the Second Secret.

If you make something sufficiently ridiculous and hard to replicate via the Second Secret, then slow/mundane cloning becomes the most cost effective means of creating more of that superweapon.
 
Sightsear said:
Non-Secret cloning probably isn't much more efficient than regular reproduction, since the only step your really skipping is 9 months of inconveniencing a woman (inconvenience will vary based on time of gestation). The hard part is raising them through childhood, and you aren't cheating THAT without Secret Bullshit.

Although, the Circle system does provide a workaround for having more children than caretakers... Yeah, let's leave that thought for another time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Current cloning techniques still 'inconvenience' a woman for 9 months. The only thing we skip is the fun part. Wombs-with-a-view might still count as ban violation.
 
spikethehobbit said:
@noliar You are greatly overestimating the size of the FTL zone. According to Snowfire's image, it only covers out to around 2.5AU. Even at closest approach, Mars is still closer to the border than it is to Earth. Even without their speed advantage, they can reach Mars well before we can cross between. If they time the attack so the planets are opposite, they could even reach Earth faster than we can cross.

Edit: *Takes Lailoken's knife* No life will be given cheaply.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
39AU is the orbit of Pluto which is the distance we expect them to appear at. We will see which way they are heading a long way out. If that incoming vector goes anywhere near our belt stronghold we can try to draw them to it with our own movement because our fleet is a high priority target.
 
noliar said:
39AU is the orbit of Pluto which is the distance we expect them to appear at. We will see which way they are heading a long way out. If that incoming vector goes anywhere near our belt stronghold we can try to draw them to it with our own movement because our fleet is a high priority target.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This assumes they follow the same pattern they did last time. They may be on high alert, due to Insight's little mishap, or just change tactics from one run to another. Also, we want them as deep inside the noFTL zone when we fight, to even the odds, and if everything goes well, prevent their escape.
 
Do we know if Practice requires the practitioner to have a specific genetic component, like the X-factor gene in Marvel's X-Men? Or is Practice purely an effect of the soul, like Aura and Semblances in RWBY?
 
Mizu said:
How would that work? Similarly to those wireless device chargers, and we send cooling through the air? Ah, but that'd still be local...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Quantum Physics and Maxwell's Demon.

It should basically change the layout of quantum computers and a few other things, considering we are building more and more stuff from nanoscale levels, where quantum physics applies more than classical.
 
MTB said:
That might be a bad idea (things roaming the void), except you stop in the Oort cloud?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The space between the edge of the Oort Cloud, and the Oort Cloud of the Centauri Trinary-Cluster, and AC+793888, is VERY small. If we have sublight drives that go the speed Snowfire says, then an O'Neil sized Ark would arrive within a single generation.

Now if you mean 'Things in the void outside the Heliopause', then that stops just before you reach the Oort Cloud... Well, it kinda strattles the line but still. It's only a generation out using the current sublight drives.

But again, from the sounds of things from Snowfire, they watch for these.




@Snowfire , the 'ruling' was "You can't leave your system" yes?

We're going to have to fight them over this sooner or later, that's too lethal of a flaw to allow to stick around.
 
Chaeronea said:
Do we know if Practice requires the practitioner to have a specific genetic component, like the X-factor gene in Marvel's X-Men? Or is Practice purely an effect of the soul, like Aura and Semblances in RWBY?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's something like the latter, and definitely not the result of any genetic marker or component. Further research required.

GamingGeek said:
@Snowfire , the 'ruling' was "You can't leave your system" yes?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

"Do not go beyond your star." to be exact.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top