Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

[Arioch]

I still do not understand why the Terrans would even consider sending out scout vessels instead of using all their available resources to research and develop new military technology. Someone break it down for me. Why is sending out scouts a good idea again? Seems like covering yourself in barbeque sauce, walking into a den of lions and ringing the dinner bell, considering their tech disadvantage, territorial desirability and lack of a real military experience.

Given the situation, there are really only two options: either try to avoid contact and hope that things work out, or try to be proactive and seek contact on your own terms. From a storytelling point of view, the choice is pretty straightforward: the story of humanity hiding in a hole doesn't make for a very compelling adventure tale. But here are some pros and cons to each option that come to mind:

If you try to avoid contact, you are basically giving up your options and hoping for the best. There is the possibility that the war may end before either side discovers humanity. However, if humanity is discovered before the war ends (and, with no end to the war in sight, this seems likely), then there are essentially no options for negotiation; humanity will most likely be forced to join whichever side finds us first, and with their ships already on our doorstep, we won't be in a very strong negotiating position. Research efforts will be intensified, regardless of whether we try to hide or make contact, but it's not as if humans weren't doing research before; there's a limit to how quickly you can drive advancement. Humanity is almost two full tech levels behind the major combatants; this isn't a gap that can be closed in 10 or 20 years, especially without outside help.

Sending out scouts reveals humanity's existence, but it allows us to gather information and offers the possibility of making a choice between the two sides and making a deal on our own terms, rather than having a choice forced on us. Proactive contact doesn't necessarily mean having to make an immediate deal; you still may have some time to gather information before one side makes a move in your direction. Making a deal sooner rather than later offers the possibility of both military and research assistance, and closing the technology gap faster than going it alone.

[Grayhome]

Arioch, considering the situation of the Orgus's invasion by the Umiak (which humanity will have access to a least a portion of) it seems extremely unlikely to me that either empire's reaction to finding a lone, 5G acceleration max, unscreened diplomatic vessel from an alien race would be anything other than kill/capture.

Neither the Umiak or the Loroi would even bother allowing the Human diplomats to return alive to Human space, they'd be dissected for biological and psychological warfare research after the first sensor scan of the Terran vessel. Neither empires have shown much in the way of any qualms about such conduct before... neither seems even remotely willing to negotiate. From a story point standpoint I understand it, of course, buuuuuut from a realistic standing I do not understand how two such peoples could possibly have gotten past the nuclear age without destroying themselves. Or even to the nuclear age, for that matter, even with alien artifacts to use as a tech reference.

Based upon even the most ignorant guesses of Loroi and Umiak culture, society and economy (one of which steamrolled the Orgus, the other must be at least comparable) Terran authorities would be able conclude some measure of the strength necessary to accomplish this so speedily, and conclude that the Umiak and Loroi are coming full steam and that they would not be even in the slightest bit inclined to do anything other than throw gobs of troops at us to capture as many slaves and infrastructure as intact as possible. I am assuming the Orgus refugees knew a bit about their own people in this and knew something about their military capacity, and would be willing to discuss this with humanity.

The only way I can see humanity sending out anyone is as sacrificial bait to draw the aliens in, before springing some kind of trap. I doubt this would be very calming to Jardin's sanity.

As a closing note I saw that the Victory class battle cruiser has 24 missile tubes, is that a typo?

[cacambo43]

Regarding the idea to send scouts and tech gap:

I'm sure Arioch will have a better response, but the way I see it (based on info from the Insider pages, and Alex's asides in the comic), we knew there'd be a tech gap, but the size of it's a lot bigger than we anticipated.

CJSF

EDITED to add: UGH! Can't keep up!

[Arioch]

Arioch, considering the situation of the Orgus's invasion by the Umiak (which humanity will have access to a least a portion of) it seems extremely unlikely to me that either empire's reaction to finding a lone, 5G acceleration max, unscreened diplomatic vessel from an alien race would be anything other than kill/capture.

The lesson of the Orgus invasion is that neutrality is not an option. The Umiak attacked the Orgus because they controlled key transit systems and refused to become affiliated with the Hierarchy (after having been pressured to do so for some time). It wasn't a very nice thing to do, but it was done for a reason. The Umiak don't randomly attack newly-met alien races; they have no reason to do so. The only known cases of genocide by the Umiak have been against the Loroi (and the Orgus don't yet know about that).

Neither the Umiak or the Loroi would even bother allowing the Human diplomats to return alive to Human space, they'd be dissected for biological and psychological warfare research after the first sensor scan of the Terran vessel. Neither empires have shown much in the way of any qualms about such conduct before... neither seems even remotely willing to negotiate.

I don't see any evidence for this assumption, even based on what the reader knows but humanity doesn't. Both the Loroi and Umiak are militaristic empires to be sure, but the majority of each side's client states were obtained through negotiation (occasionally under the implied threat of force, admittedly). Neither side has yet attacked a non-enemy party that expressed an interest in making a deal, and the Loroi in particular have never attacked anyone who did not attack them first (in this case, attacking an ally or overtly aiding or siding with a declared enemy counts as an attack). There's not currently any conclusive evidence that either the Loroi or Umiak attacked the Bellarmine. And nobody has yet attempted to dissect Alex.

From a story point standpoint I understand it, of course, buuuuuut from a realistic standing I do not understand how two such peoples could possibly have gotten past the nuclear age without destroying themselves. Or even to the nuclear age, for that matter, even with alien artifacts to use as a tech reference.

I think you're exaggerating the hostility of both the Loroi and Umiak, but I'd point out that there's no atrocity that the Loroi or Umiak have committed that humans haven't also committed a dozen times over in our history.

As a closing note I saw that the Victory class battle cruiser has 24 missile tubes, is that a typo?

Not a typo.

[sunphoenix]

HA! See folks?!?! I've ALWAYS said the Loroi and the Umiak are not a bloodthirsty as Everyone 'seems' to want to make them out!

THANKS Arioch!

[Indubitably]

do the terrans have access to nuclear fusion powered aircraft, more specifically fusion powered SABER engines? or are high power fusion reactors still too bulky to place on airliner sized machines?

[Arioch]

do the terrans have access to nuclear fusion powered aircraft, more specifically fusion powered SABER engines? or are high power fusion reactors still too bulky to place on airliner sized machines?

Probably too large and too expensive, but I don't know what benefit it would be. Conventionally-fueled engines have plenty of power to push an aircraft fast enough to burn it up in the atmosphere. And I don't think you really want nuclear reactors on civilian aircraft that crash on a regular basis, or to have to worry about radioactivity in the exhaust.

Maybe it might make sense when you get to "Mr. Fusion" levels of technology, but I think that's still a ways off from where humanity is in the story.

[sunphoenix]

They might make good space drives though.

Just out of curiosity Arioch, what ARE Terrans, Loroi and Umiak using as space conventional drives? Typical fuel burning reaction drives... or something more exotic?

Forgive me ahead of time if this has already been answered somewhere... {blush}

[GeoModder]

Colonial Fleet vessels are mostly named after the nations and continents of Earth and the other five worlds; often, prominent ships are named after a nation as a political concession. Scout Corps ships are named after famous explorers of the early colonial period and prominent former members of the Corps.

So, who is/was Mr./Mrs. Bellarmine in the Outsider universe?

[discord]

phoenix: Semi Reactionless drive for the more advanced races, humans have been using fusion torch drive but switching to this new technology is underway.
http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/insider.html <--- lots of goodies there.

geo: a guess would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bellarmine this guy.

[Suederwind]

geo: a guess would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bellarmine this guy.

A 17. century Cardinal and Saint? Doesn't sound like a famous explorer of the early colonial period or prominent former member of the Scout Corps to me.

Another question: Do the human nations still operate (armed) spaceships or are they all controlled by the TCA now?

[GeoModder]

geo: a guess would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bellarmine this guy.

A 17. century Cardinal and Saint? Doesn't sound like a famous explorer of the early colonial period or prominent former member of the Scout Corps to me.

Yeah, that was the only hit I had as well, so now you see why I asked.

Another question: Do the human nations still operate (armed) spaceships or are they all controlled by the TCA now?

Besides TCA-allowed police frigates, I don't think so.

[Suederwind]

Yeah, that was the only hit I had as well, so now you see why I asked.

My search for this name got me the same result, back then.

Besides TCA-allowed police frigates, I don't think so.

Might be, but the bigger nations might still have some kind of armed spacenavy of some sort. I can't think of, lets say the USA, without a spacenavy of their own (although controlled and/or limited by the TCA).

[Arioch]

Just out of curiosity Arioch, what ARE Terrans, Loroi and Umiak using as space conventional drives? Typical fuel burning reaction drives... or something more exotic?

The Terran drive system is unspecified; it's probably either a fusion torch or a fusion-powered ion drive.

The Loroi and most of the other major combatants use taimat-powered "Floater" drives. Taimat (also known as "Type A" fuel) is an artificially-produced form of exotic matter with similar properties to helium-4. It is unstable, and can be induced to self-annihilate on demand, which releases an amount of energy comparable to a proton-antiproton annihilation. Taimat is less expensive to produce than antimatter, and easier to store.

The Floater drive (named after the Pipolsid, who developed it) projects the nuclear "ash" from the taimat annihilation reaction (mixed with a small amount of propellant) through a Floater field, which is the inverse of an inertial damping field; it both accelerates and temporarily increases the effective mass of the propellant, giving a very high specific impulse for a very small mass of propellant. External vanes projecting out the engine outlets extend and focus the field, both increasing thrust and allowing for thrust vectoring.

The Umiak and some of their allies use a "Polyp" drive, which works on the same principle as the Floater drive, but without the external vanes. It has a lower maximum thrust and no thrust vectoring capability, but it is more compact and more efficient in terms of the mass of the drive, energy requirement, and propellant mass requirement.

Historian vessels use drives that have bright outlets, but which do not appear to expel any mass at all. It is not clear how they operate.

Colonial Fleet vessels are mostly named after the nations and continents of Earth and the other five worlds; often, prominent ships are named after a nation as a political concession. Scout Corps ships are named after famous explorers of the early colonial period and prominent former members of the Corps.

So, who is/was Mr./Mrs. Bellarmine in the Outsider universe?

Ms. Aya Bellarmine was a member of the team that solved the navigational problem of jumping into a multiple-star system, and then demonstrated the solution with the first successful jump to the Alpha Centauri system in 2088. (The first successful single-system jump was made to Barnard's Star in 2086 by a different team.)

Do the human nations still operate (armed) spaceships or are they all controlled by the TCA now?

Yes, but they are limited by treaty in size, number, and armament.

[Indubitably]

Probably too large and too expensive, but I don't know what benefit it would be. Conventionally-fueled engines have plenty of power to push an aircraft fast enough to burn it up in the atmosphere. And I don't think you really want nuclear reactors on civilian aircraft that crash on a regular basis

It wouldn't be for civilian aircraft. I was thinking more of a SSTO like the British skylon concept, except 135-140 years more advanced. Such a craft would allow massive amounts of material and finished products to be brought to space from the surface of a planet, allowing the (very likely) greater ground based industrial capacity to be used to its fullest extent.

Even without the fusion reactor, which would be much safer then fission reactors due to the way it would operate, do the terrans of the outsider verse have access to such a SSTO craft?

[Absalom]

do the terrans have access to nuclear fusion powered aircraft, more specifically fusion powered SABER engines? or are high power fusion reactors still too bulky to place on airliner sized machines?

Fusion powered... SABER engines? As in the British HOTOL/Skylon engines? I find this... dubious, and here's why:
The SABER and related engines are distinguished not in terms of being a new basic form of engine, but instead by being a unusual and possibly unique combination of technologies. In particular, the thing that sets SABERs apart from all other engines is that they condense oxygen from the atmosphere to burn.

Now, if you're getting the energy for your drive from fusion instead of chemical combustion, why exactly do you need to extract the oxygen from the air? Turbine pumps, ram jets, scram jets, the various forms of pulse jets, actual propellers, and likely any number of other things may all be converted in the far future to use electricity as their energy source instead of combustion, but an engine design optimized for combustion is not likely to be so converted.

Just out of curiosity Arioch, what ARE Terrans, Loroi and Umiak using as space conventional drives? Typical fuel burning reaction drives... or something more exotic?

The Terran drive system is unspecified; it's probably either a fusion torch or a fusion-powered ion drive.

The Loroi and most of the other major combatants use taimat-powered "Floater" drives. Taimat (also known as "Type A" fuel) is an artificially-produced form of exotic matter with similar properties to helium-4. It is unstable, and can be induced to self-annihilate on demand, which releases an amount of energy comparable to a proton-antiproton annihilation. Taimat is less expensive to produce than antimatter, and easier to store.

So, it's a genuinely controllable exotic-matter equivalent to nuclear isomers?

Historian vessels use drives that have bright outlets, but which do not appear to expel any mass at all. It is not clear how they operate.

And I suspect the Historians like it that way.

[Arioch]

Even without the fusion reactor, which would be much safer then fission reactors due to the way it would operate, do the terrans of the outsider verse have access to such a SSTO craft?

Since we're very close to having SSTO craft today, I think it goes without saying that they will exist by 2160.

So, it's a genuinely controllable exotic-matter equivalent to nuclear isomers?

Something like that, though not perfectly controllable. The idea is that it's fairly stable if cooled to a superfluid state, but will start to decay if allowed to boil, and if you strike a nucleus with the right kind of particle, several of the nucleons will annihilate each other. So if you raise the temperature of the taimat in an enclosed chamber, you can get a sustained chain reaction. If there's loss of containment and the fuel boils into open space, there will be decay and radiation but probably not a chain reaction. But if there's loss of containment or an unregulated flow within the implosion chamber of the reactor, there could be a runaway chain reaction and an explosion. Torpedo reactors are probably designed to do this on purpose: when triggered, the chain reaction is allowed to run up the fuel injector and into the fuel container.

[Absalom]

So, it's a genuinely controllable exotic-matter equivalent to nuclear isomers?

Something like that, though not perfectly controllable. The idea is that it's fairly stable if cooled to a superfluid state, but will start to decay if allowed to boil, and if you strike a nucleus with the right kind of particle, several of the nucleons will annihilate each other. So if you raise the temperature of the taimat in an enclosed chamber, you can get a sustained chain reaction. If there's loss of containment and the fuel boils into open space, there will be decay and radiation but probably not a chain reaction. But if there's loss of containment or an unregulated flow within the implosion chamber of the reactor, there could be a runaway chain reaction and an explosion. Torpedo reactors are probably designed to do this on purpose: when triggered, the chain reaction is allowed to run up the fuel injector and into the fuel container.

Sounds loads more controllable than isomers (those, I think, would at best be useful as a sort of battery). For that matter, it sounds like a good material to make a hammer from, compared to beta mercury azide (really, probably most materials in that blog category; you should read it if you haven't, but not when you need to avoid laughing). Tiamat may be dangerously unstable outside of controlled conditions, yes, but so is e.g. peroxide, & that gets used in some rockets.

[sunphoenix]

Historian vessels use drives that have bright outlets, but which do not appear to expel any mass at all. It is not clear how they operate.

Ouch! So the Historians have reactionless thrusters?!?!? Eeek! That clearly puts them in the {GURPS} TL12 - "Masters of Force" or perhaps {TRAVELLER} TL18... dangerous world shattering tech.

Hope they are friendly.

[GeoModder]

Historian vessels use drives that have bright outlets, but which do not appear to expel any mass at all. It is not clear how they operate.

Ouch! So the Historians have reactionless thrusters?!?!? Eeek! That clearly puts them in the {GURPS} TL12 - "Masters of Force" or perhaps {TRAVELLER} TL18... dangerous world shattering tech.

Hope they are friendly.

In a sense, emitting light is form of expelling.