How humanity can affect the war, by turning the moon into a deathstar.

[boldilocks]

Could not Earth just pull a "The Mouse that Roared" maneuver?

[jterlecki]

Considering the current life cycle of military weapon design - short term would be anything under a decade Let's think roughly 5 years - the time for scientists and engineers to absorb some of the knowledge transfer (assuming they do so) and have time to try to apply it. I know that for the planning, design of a plant and tooling up portion it is complicated. It is why they are now using AI to help with similar tasks.

[spacewhale]

If Humans are anything like the MOO2 humans, we could win via diplomacy and charisma. Death Rays come later.

[mwightman]

Also, using wave carriers parallel next to each other will increase the dissipation, as it's even more unlikely to keep the waves in a pattern that they don't disturb each other.
Ever heard of how waves can cancel each other out?
Any plasma would at those places dissipate ....

No, you'd need only one focal element per beam, anything else will cause a decrease in efficiency, and thus in range, of the carrier wave / plasma corralling wave.

Yes I've heard of wave cancellation but I've also heard of wave magnification when pulsed or rather initiated correctly. Really the first thing that popped into my noggin when I started reading this thread and the use of thousands of pulse cannons was the classic Ghost Busters quote about crossing the streams.

[Mjolnir]

The moon is just a big ball of rock. Simply being on the lunar surface isn't going to provide power or cooling, that's all stuff you're going to have to build. At most, you're making use of a tiny amount of surface rock for thermal mass.

You could take this entire "death star" defense installation and transplant it into open space, and it just means each component will have twice as much sky to radiate heat into, it won't be attached to the second-biggest target in the area for kinetic weapons, and you'll no longer have the problem of half your weapons being on the wrong side of the moon to fire at a given target. Break it up into multiple units with minimal propulsion, and you eliminate the blind spot behind Earth, and your defenses are no longer anchored to the moon's orbit. And you don't have to deal with dust getting into your weapons and very energetically vaporizing when you fire them.

And at that point, you've reinvented system defense stations. The Loroi already have those. They wouldn't build them if they weren't effective, but they aren't superweapons, and filling a remote non-allied system with them doesn't sound like a war-winning strategy.

[Mr.Tucker]

The moon is just a big ball of rock. Simply being on the lunar surface isn't going to provide power or cooling, that's all stuff you're going to have to build. At most, you're making use of a tiny amount of surface rock for thermal mass.

You could take this entire "death star" defense installation and transplant it into open space, and it just means each component will have twice as much sky to radiate heat into, it won't be attached to the second-biggest target in the area for kinetic weapons, and you'll no longer have the problem of half your weapons being on the wrong side of the moon to fire at a given target. Break it up into multiple units with minimal propulsion, and you eliminate the blind spot behind Earth, and your defenses are no longer anchored to the moon's orbit. And you don't have to deal with dust getting into your weapons and very energetically vaporizing when you fire them.

And at that point, you've reinvented system defense stations. The Loroi already have those. They wouldn't build them if they weren't effective, but they aren't superweapons, and filling a remote non-allied system with them doesn't sound like a war-winning strategy.

Once caveat, though: dissipating heat via conduction is more efficient than using radiation in open space. In theory, the Moon's batteries could be bigger and fire more often.
Doesn't help with having to build power, mobility or range, but... just sayin'

[Mjolnir]

The moon is just a big ball of rock. Simply being on the lunar surface isn't going to provide power or cooling, that's all stuff you're going to have to build. At most, you're making use of a tiny amount of surface rock for thermal mass.

You could take this entire "death star" defense installation and transplant it into open space, and it just means each component will have twice as much sky to radiate heat into, it won't be attached to the second-biggest target in the area for kinetic weapons, and you'll no longer have the problem of half your weapons being on the wrong side of the moon to fire at a given target. Break it up into multiple units with minimal propulsion, and you eliminate the blind spot behind Earth, and your defenses are no longer anchored to the moon's orbit. And you don't have to deal with dust getting into your weapons and very energetically vaporizing when you fire them.

And at that point, you've reinvented system defense stations. The Loroi already have those. They wouldn't build them if they weren't effective, but they aren't superweapons, and filling a remote non-allied system with them doesn't sound like a war-winning strategy.

Once caveat, though: dissipating heat via conduction is more efficient than using radiation in open space. In theory, the Moon's batteries could be bigger and fire more often.
Doesn't help with having to build power, mobility or range, but... just sayin' :P

Rock is a really bad thermal conductor. It makes a fine thermal mass for regulating building temperatures, but you'd need enormous exchange loops to handle the kind of waste heat these weapons would produce. That doesn't seem much easier than just providing the orbital defenses with big thermal masses, tanks of expendable coolant, etc.

[spacewhale]

The real human fighting ground is the Belt, it's always the Battle of the Belt. Bad guys jump in, fighters and small craft whiz out of the asteroids and wreck face.

[Ithekro]

The enemy is drawn to Saturn. The Battle of Saturn, with the typical battle through its rings and all that. With the combat ranges in question, you could have fleets on either side of the one hemisphere of the planet and be exchanging ranged fire across the surface of the ring. Or depending on the day, a battle between Enceladus and Mimas, over the rings. They would of course be in the gravity well of Saturn.

[Arioch]

As picturesque as a battle in Saturns rings or the asteroid belt would be, an enemy force has no reason whatsoever to engage there. The Terran fleet is very little threat to a Loroi or Umiak fleet in open space, so if the Terrans hide in some kind of advantageous terrain, the enemy can simply ignore them and attack Earth. The enemy doesn't really have to worry about the Terrans disrupting their supply lines; even their transports are faster than the Terran warships, and even a few escorts could probably outgun the entire Terran fleet. At least in defending Earth, there's a chance that the enemy might get close enough to come within weapons range.

It seems a little odd that folks often picture a scenario where humanity has to defend against an enemy attack without help from the other side. I don't see any advantage for humanity in agreeing to an alliance that does not include some form of military aid, because defending alone against such hopeless odds would be suicide. If an enemy fleet arrives in force at a populated Terran system, and there is no support from the ally, I don't see any option for humanity other than to promptly surrender and hope for good terms.

[Ithekro]

I was always thinking a the Humans having either direct or indirect (technological) support from a more advanced ally if Earth gets drawn into the war and the war coming out towards the Sol System. Earth Forces of 2160 have about zero chance against anyone in the local bubble.

We the readers assume, if their is an alliance of sorts, it will be with the Loroi, since that's the side we are seeing via the eyes of the protagonist. So we assume Loroi weaponry and ship types for help and the Umiak as the enemy.

If they are given time....as in five year plus to build up a new force using some new technologies, I could see Earth deploying its own new defensive designed fleet to cover the Sol System and its colonies against Umiak warships, allowing Fast Loroi Strike Fleets to operate out of that region with a reasonable chance that those worlds will be protected. Should the new offensive work out, the new Earth fleets can be deployed forward as garrison forces or bulwark units to keep the Umiak from attempting to encircle the Loroi Strike Fleets like what happened near the end of the Semoset Campaign. I imagine the liberation of Orgus would be one of the thing Humanity negotiates with the Loroi as part of the war effort.

[spacewhale]

I imagine it'll come full circle and it'll be Terran fleets ambushing space-people out of dust clouds, as this setting's "Ewoks with Dirt Bombs"

[QuakeIV]

In my opinion five years would be a really massively compressed timeframe for that, given the huge technological differential.

I personally think you would be looking more at training a whole new generation of engineers before you were fully up to speed, say 5-10 years assuming we had alien engineers on hand teaching people the new stuff (not to say that the already-trained engieners couldn't learn, but they would take a lot of time as well, they would probably need to come up to speed on a lot of fundamentals prior to getting to the actually advanced stuff) followed by quite a lot of time spent working up the industry before it could produce large amounts of this newer, higher tech stuff.

Not to say that they couldn't start doing very limited production at the later stages of this learning process, but some workshop with a bunch of really expensive tools that can make very small amounts of something would be a lot faster to get to than real industrial production, particularly trying to build up the production ecosystem needed to make the stuff that you need to make the stuff that you need to make the stuff ad infinitum.

It would also probably help a lot if we had experienced aliens leading a lot of the early efforts to build stuff, to help train human engineers as they came up to speed on the actual practical side of producing these things (there is a lot in my opinion that comes up in engineering when you actually try to do something which doesn't really come up during teaching).

If you were willing to divert 20-100 experienced aliens (they have a pretty big civilization so not necessarily a huge deal) then over the course of say 20 years they could probably germinate a minimally productive industrial core (that is to say, reaching a point where there might be actually useful if small quantities of stuff coming out) which could grow to become a really useful industrial base over the coming decades. It would probably take those aliens a lot of dedicated effort in the mean time though, if they really wanted to maximize the speed of the process. To be fair, both sides would presumably be pretty motivated to make sure the whole thing worked relatively smoothly (particularly the humans obviously).

e: Honestly it seems to me the biggest sticking point would probably be that the humans would want to start building their own ships as soon as possible, whereas the loroi would presumably not be interested in that given their current, known foreign policy of using their allies as basically industrial auxiliaries that have no real fighting capability of their own.

[Krulle]

over the course of say 20 years

I fear this is an investment timeframe neither the Loroi nor Humanity has.
The Umiak are relentlessly expanding outwards, only limited by the resistance they meet when conquering, and then retooling the conquered planets.
And the Loroi are once again doing a defensive war. Which causes populations to become war-tired.
Plus it happens again and again on their territory...

The Loroi need a much faster ROI, and Humanity will doall it can to absorb the technology.
But, I wonder if the Loroi would even be willing to "exchange" that much technology to a species so far out they're hard to defend and might, with the new tech, fall into enemy hands.
On top, Humans are potentially a template species, which goes against the Loroi superiority belief, and are immune to Sanzai, and this will breed strong reservations about helping Humanity at all.
And hardliners will exist, which will advocate a straight out bombing of Humanity, and can only be held in check by the Barsam and the Historians having witnessed one being of Humanity on a contact mission. Any bombardment of Earth by Loroi hardliners could lead to a Union internal war on top iof the external threat.

[Ithekro]

This is mainly a thought exercise on how Earth can be militarily useful in this war. Given the situation as it appears at present, the war either will end relatively soon with one side or the other exhausted, or it will stalemate for another decade or two while the two sides try to rebuild and/or outflank the other. As of this current point in the story, it has only been about a year and a half since Earth had first contact with the Orgus, and Alex left Earth space only a few months ago.

Humanity, at present, cannot defend itself against any of these forces...even the auxiliary units have more firepower than most Earth built ships, with only the heavy cruisers being even remotely viable against single frigates, and only at point blank ranges (which the local powers will likely not give the Humans outside an extremely well planned ambush.) The stated goal of the Scouting mission is to ally with the "winning side" as to survive, due to Earth not being able to remain an unknown forever (though given its relative location, the Loroi probably wouldn't have located it for decades, if not centuries given they have no pressing reason to head in that direction). The Umiak might find Earth, given their proximity to Orgus space, and that the Umiak seem to still be expanding while engaged in this war. Something that the Loroi don't appear to be able to do, since they are on the defensive for much of the war.

Logic suggests that the Umiak would be the winners of the war. Even though they have not managed to outright crush the Loroi, they have not had to fight in their own territory for the entire course of the war, and appear to be expanding in other directions at the same time. However, what would be the cost to Humanity, should the Umiak absorb Earth, and win the war? While we (and probably the Loroi) don't have all that much data from inside Umiak space, the Orgus and other sources suggest that treatment of other species might not be all that well and good within Umiak space. Should these worlds be only viable for labor and eventual strip mining, Earth and all its colonies would eventually be doomed under Umiak control.

But what of the Loroi? Are they better? Possibly. The races under their Union seem to still function and maintain their own civilizations, at least somewhat. Their worlds do not appear (so far) to be being strip mined and their populations being used only for labor forces for the Loroi's war efforts. The problem from a human observer is....can the Loroi win? If yes, than mission accomplished. You've picked the winner and allied with them. Humanity is safe under their Union allies. But what if they can't? CAn Umiak rule be considered survival? If that path leads to the end of Earth, but maybe humans living as labor forces....is that enough? Batteries for the Umiak war machine, or something? Or would Humanity do one of those silly things we often try....fight in a vain hope to defeat the Umiak with the Loroi Union?

If Humanity side with the Loroi, and the Loroi Union is losing the war...what can Humanity do to help turn the tide? We aren't that big of a civilization in the mid-22nd century. Our technology is around two generations behind the warring parties in most areas. Aside from a random opening the Human scout ships provide in the ongoing stalemate, and maybe an alternate perspective on the war via Alex...their isn't anything Earth can provide in the relative short term to the Loroi to prevent them being overwhelmed by an Umiak offensive.

The options are limited at this point. Either the Loroi reserves prove to be enough to defeat the new Umiak offensive and can start a counter-offensive. The Loroi reserves are enough to stop the Umiak but not enough to do anything else but return to the decades long stalemate (which given the setup, it would seem something important has changes, so a return to a stalemate seems....anti-climatic). Or the Loroi reserve is not enough and they lose even more territory. It is unlikely the Umiak offensive will be enough to break the whole of the Loroi Union, but it would be basically the beginning of the end of the war....even if the Umiak require years to press the advantage into all sectors, they would have a clear edge and there would be effectively no logical way the Loroi Union would be able to win anymore without outside help, or the Umiak economy collapsing as a result of the offensive.

However, its Arioch's story and universe. All we can do is armchair admiral/politician the war from what limited information we have, and the logic would see based on other sources/stories we know about. Given the length of the story (both in terms of its present form, and its likely timeframe to get to a conclusion) we have plenty of time to speculate. I like the universe presented so far, and the attention to worldbuilding given. The pace of the story....well, you can't have everything all at once. I do hope to see the story though. The story is approaching I think its 19th anniversary in a few months. I have only been actively looking at it for a year or two, though I suspect I did see it much, much earlier at some point, as the art style of the early pages seems familiar to something I saw a long time ago. but there wasn't much at that time, so I probably lost track of it. I don't imagine the story remaining unfinished in 2041 without something tragic having happened. I can see a side story or continuation project being worked on by that point....but not this specific story of Ensign Alex Jardin.

[MBehave]

I actually worked this out for lasers already.
Humans don't want pulse cannons for fixed defense on something like the moon where space does not matter.

Lasers all the way...
10nm Xray with a 1m emitter(assume this is normal terran ship based laser emitter size)
6.3cm spot size at 5000km
50.8cm spot size at 40000km
Terran Heavy laser in outsider
5-9 damage at 5000km
2-1 damage at 40000km

The moon lets you have large emitters...
10nm xray laser with a 100m emitter has
3.8cm spot size at 1 light second(299792km)
7.6cm spot size at 2 light seconds
15.2cm spot size at 4 light seconds
38cm spot size at 10 light seconds

Moon based lasers are capable of engaging targets at 10 light seconds and delivering 2 damage.
Hit probability?
Tempest main engines can burn at 30g, its thrusters only provide 0.1g, with mains it takes 4.7 seconds to turn 90 degrees, this is from information provided by Arioch.
You need around ~1000 lasers in a bracket to hit at 10ls, ~200 lasers in a bracket to score one hit at 8ls and quickly drop to needing maybe 10 at 4ls.
Below 1ls and every shot is likely a hit.

If you want super long range energy weapon hitting power from fixed locations where space is not a factor you want lasers not particle or plasma weapons.

[jterlecki]

I personally just worry that currently - humanity is of low-value to the loroi. Our tech sucks, our numbers suck and we can even be a liability to them... I really do not see what we have to offer them

[QuakeIV]

I agree with the notion that humanity probably wont be industrially useful before the end of the war. In my defense I was mainly mentioning that the Loroi could probably initiate the process at a relatively minimal cost to themselves, though I do agree probably the war wont still be happening in 20 years or more.

[Werra]

The quickest benefit humanity can provide either side is their knowledge of the terrain. So their maps may provide an avenue for a decisive flanking maneuver.
With some investment, human space might also be able to produce a decent amount of base and processed materials, such as starship fuel ship armor plates or wiring material. Depending on what can be produced, this could turn human space into a very valuable staging area for a new front. It is also the most likely way humanity will get new technologies, as it will teach humanity how to produce current-ish materials, without one side giving them the plans for their state of the art weapons.

Longterm benefits for an alliance with humanity are in the colonizing opportunities this alliance provides. Earth is essentially a fertile oasis in a sea of lifeless rocks. That's valuable even to the Umiak, who might want to take over Mars as center of shipbuilding and a world more suited to their needs. If the Umiak take over human shipbuilding industries, they also ensure future compliance and can still make use of us as controllable alies that are suited to lots of high-G worlds. If the Umiak win, they will have a lot of Loroi worlds to colonize, afterall.

Loroi would also enjoy the benefits of incorporating humanity into their empire for the purposes of colonizing an entirely new sector. However, I don't believe there will be any warm, personal feelings between the species outside of the human sector. That humans are immune to much of the Mizol arsenal will make Loroi leadership naturally distrustful of the humans. Depending on how smart and ruthless the Loroi are, they will use the opportunity of uplifting our species to tie humanity to their economy in a way that makes betrayals impossible without decades of preparation time for the Loroi. Or they might be gregarious and send us a whole lot of their specialists as residents to help us. A lot of them, most of them military personel of course and with Loroi males in administrative and health care roles. To turn a possible future Loroi - human war into a Loroi civil war.

[silentstormpt]

Hum has no one considered Loroi fleets controlled by human 99% crew:

It would require, crew training, systems in english and base10 and few loroi in specific fields like engineering with a human crew to support and repairs besides replacing complete modules (armor plates, ammo and fuel) would need a return to Loroi space. Its alot but compared to getting up to the same tech level. Specially considering training personel seems the actual limit and not the industrial capacity.