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[Radio Controlled]

(BLAME RADIO.))

I regret nothing!

Not enough sods for a war, but enough sods for missions. A research and recovery mission ship could set out with a human crew and a complement of some 100 sods, do whatever is needed, then return. The measure of success would be determined by some rolls, and the result would be seen by whether anything was brought back, and how many sods (and away team crewmembers) survived.

Sure, just pointing out that 'stupendous quantities of clone troops' isn't really the case when looking at the bigger picture of what we'd use them for.

I might be wrong, but I believe it is more likely that we cannot 'explore' the Nyartifacts with science-crews only - i.e. they are for players to discover and explore - but, once fairly explored, science crews could be put to 'engineer' design specifics for the new (likely player-designed) projects based on those (more or less explored) artifacts (taking away the need to delve into too much detail tinkering those).
So, humans still have all the most juicy and interesting bits to work on (and Nyartifacts, as opposed to mission ones, are on-player-demand, after all, rather than on GM's schedule), yet not forced to deal with the more boring and tedious stuff (and not taxing GM in that regard). Well, at least that seems like a nice logical way to deal with the issue.

We'd have to ask pw how exactly he wants to deal with it for nyartifacts; And there is a pretty great one coming in (teleporter gun), so we'll have the perfect test case ready.

I'm pretty sure the sod divisions discussion is pretty much done.  Radio, if there's something in your last spoiler that you want me to reply to, just say so.

You're right, we'r good for now. We (or you, I'm on mission, sorry) can gather some info and then work from there once it comes up again.

As far as the mind control automanip is concerned, I doubt that would be practical.  Automanips are extremely rigidly defined in what they do, and where they do it, so manipulating neurochemistry in such a precise way would be... about impossible.  Conceivably, we might be able to do it if we discovered some weird 'anger field' aspect of alien physics, which doesn't need to specifically do anything aside from be around a person to affect them.  I just doubt any such thing exists.

Hey, as I said, just a idea that I got, chances are pretty big it won't pan out. Still, it might be worth looking into for me once the mission ends.

Anyways, I'm not sure what you mean by 'anger field aspect of alien physics'. Care to elaborate? For example, all sods have the same(-ish) brain, so that's something that might be targetable in a very precise way, no?

And if precise altering is impossible, it could still be used to just mush their brainstem or something, making it a good thing if you need to keep infrastructure intact.

[Parisbre56]

@Radio: We already have an anger ray. Remember the sharkmist mission? Sharkmist can emit radiation that causes severely destructive behavior to humans. I wonder if Milno is ever going to try using that as a weapon.

[Radio Controlled]

@Radio: We already have an anger ray. Remember the sharkmist mission? Sharkmist can emit radiation that causes severely destructive behavior to humans. I wonder if Milno is ever going to try using that as a weapon.

That was one of the things I thought we could study to get a better idea of how to go about it, but using that itself... I'm unsure if that's plausible, seeing as how there was a metric ton of the stuff on the planetoid, and it took rather long before the colonists became really violent. But yes, I'd like to see how much we know about that stuff, and if we could modify it for getting certain properties.

[syvarris]

Anyways, I'm not sure what you mean by 'anger field aspect of alien physics'. Care to elaborate? For example, all sods have the same(-ish) brain, so that's something that might be targetable in a very precise way, no?

I meant basically what Paris mentioned.  A lot of alien artifacts have strange effects on humans.  In some cases, like with the M1 power source, it seemed to stem from the artifact being intelligent, and having some manner of power.  In other cases, like with the M14 rifle, it was probably intentional.  What I figured would be necessary is something like the sharkmist, which wasn't intelligent nor designed to affect humans, but affected them because it just happened to emit a radiation or (meta)physical force that by sheer chance caused personality alteration in humans.

Basically, if we can make an automanip that just emits a beam of "anger radiation", then it doesn't need to be perfectly aimed and everything.  But if we made an AM that specifically altered neurochemistry, that would probably need to be exactly oriented to the brain.  It would probably still not work, because you're altering extraordinarily sensitive things at a cellular level, and people's brains can vary enough that you might be doing entirely incorrect things, even if aimed perfectly.  Then again, mind control amps work, and they should really have the same problem.

And if precise altering is impossible, it could still be used to just mush their brainstem or something, making it a good thing if you need to keep infrastructure intact.

Why would you need a manip that affects neurochemistry to just destroy a section of brain?  A heat AM that increases temperature in a tiny area by ten degrees would be able to selectively target and destroy any section of the brain needed, and it'd be extremely cheap and small.

[Radio Controlled]

Why would you need a manip that affects neurochemistry to just destroy a section of brain?  A heat AM that increases temperature in a tiny area by ten degrees would be able to selectively target and destroy any section of the brain needed, and it'd be extremely cheap and small.

Not sure, but I think it is easier to tell a mind automanip to 'mush anything that's made of brainmatter' than to teach a heat manip how to specifically target brains. Basically, heat amps can eat up anything, so it'd be more difficult to get them to only heat enemy soldiers, compared to something that can only target the desired target anyways.

[Radio Controlled]

Doubleposting. Blame Harry.

Hm. If you're not tired and annoyed by this yet, perhaps the more technical OOC thread would be better to discuss it.

Hmm. Here are three scenarios I though up while typing the post where they might be useful:

-All sods are basically genetically identical. Meaning they are rather vulnerable to a specifically engineered bioweapon to selectively kill them (doesn't even have to be a living organism, a peptide that can be taken up through the lungs might be enough) while leavng others alone (if this isn't needed, chemical weapons or neutron bombs would work). This means we can carpet bomb an area with the agent without fear of harming civilians or regular people we want to keep alive for whatever reason, while killing a good portion of the enemy's footsoldiers. Sure, a cheap suit (Mk.I) can prevent that, but the UWM currently doesn't give those to their sods standard. And the time between us first using it, and the sods being adequately protected, gives us a nice window of opportunity. We'd then employ this in a situation important enough, to turn a hard battle into a much more manageable one.

-We engineer a disease that's rather contagious (but doesn't survive FTL travel, I have idea for getting this) and kills in a week or so, and has extremely unpleasant symptoms in between. Make sure you also make a difficult-to-produce medicine that halts the disease but doesn't cure it permanently. Then we seed this (perhaps using a sleeper 'typhoid Mary' on a civilian transport) to a planet that's important enough we'd need it, but whose population is rather pro-UWM.

"Yo dawg, we're ARM, come join us, we're much better than the UWM."
"Nah thanks, we're cool. Though we've been having an epidemic lately that makes people defecate their intestines explosively."
"Oh really? Well, we just so happen to have a cure against that."
"Oh for reals? Share?"
"Ah, sorry, but it's a real epidemic, and we kinda have to prioritize giving it to our allies, I'm sure you understand. But hey, we'll let you know when we have spares. Perhaps next fiscal year"
"Oh, well, in that case, would joining you mean we get it faster?"
"Naturally."
"Where do we sign?"

An overly dramatized account, but I think you see the point. And hey, even if we can't use it covertly, if you really need to keep a large population in check that doesn't appreciate your presence then a similar approach can be tried (feeling your skin feel off and your insides slowly liquefy might be a good disincentive for rebelling anytime soon, compared to just threatening to nuke them (especially if you really do need them alive for whatever reason)).

-Suppose we've been getting a large influx of regular humans recruited from allied worlds. Giving each of them cheap gene treatments to augment their abilities, in addition to a cheap suit and such, might raise their effectiveness. Why not just stuff them all into robobodies? Because aside from the cost, I suspect a lot of regular people wouldn't appreciate being shoved into a cold metal body. Would you? As in, the real you, not your character. Remember, aside from the perks, you'd lose a whole lot of human interaction, something most regular humans find important.

-Seed (using typhoid mary principle from above, for example) population with a bacterial vector that closely resembles natural bacteria (eg in gut). Use 'molecular clock' system (like how shortening of telomeres works) so that, at a certain time (eg after a certain amount of divisions) an inhibition fails and a viral vector now leaves its lysogenic cycle and is transcribed from the bacteria to invade the host. Can have it kill the host, but also, perhaps, have it target and destroy certain parts of the brain/receptors responsible for impulse control and rage inhibition. Congratulations, you now have a rage virus giving you a population of mindlessly violent people, softening up your foe (who is busy containing the disaster) and making him less ready to respond to you.

[Harry Baldman]

- A sod-killer is a fairly solid idea. Perhaps making sod fever would be even better, where instead of outright killing them (or before outright killing them) it causes dementia and hallucinations, or maybe creates feelings of aggression toward other individuals? Induces destruction of their language comprehension centers and otherwise makes them extremely confused (potentially allowing one to fix the damage later and get some extra sods to work with)?

- Wouldn't you need to engineer the disease on the spot if it can't survive FTL travel, though? That seems like it'd need more equipment than the average Typhoid Mary could unsuspiciously work with, or at least enough support staff on hand that perhaps letting a disease run free among the populace might actually harm them as well (or, if they're in orbit, making them relatively easily detectable by local authorities). Other than that, reasonable idea, though its success probably does heavily depend on local medical advancement. And if it's a very important planet that we want, it'd seem a reasonable guess that they've got tech up the wazoo there. Not too easy to do epidemiology in a deeply futuristic society.

But what's your idea for the FTL non-communicability mechanism? I might be misunderstanding the idea.

- I suspect that people would be significantly more ill-disposed to genemodding than robotic enhancement, what with the Altered and all. They'd have every reason to find people who offer them cheap genemods to improve their abilities highly suspect, especially since a genemod may in serve as a permanent signup to the rebel side. Besides, it's not impossible to construct a more socially acceptable robobody instead, with possibility for individual facial features and other modifications if one can cough up the cash. Could make VR-based entertainment facilities for socialization with full sensory input to solve the socialization problem, too. It'll always be a bit creepy, but genemods, depending on the interpretation, can seem more sinister and untrustworthy an enhancement method.

- Rage viruses, though, seem unpredictable and shaky as weaponry, depending very greatly on quality of seeding and quarantine procedures in place. Not to mention probably completely undesirable for conquest. Terror, though, that it could be used for, though even then would probably need to be carefully applied. Should try sharkmist, though. Wonder how that would work out for terror purposes, and if one can't just send it and seed it more efficiently than biological agents. Mass death could work, though, and the bacterial-virus thing sounds reasonable, even if I have no idea how you'd seed gut bacteria look-alikes inconspicuously among the populace in a way that isn't entirely too hilarious to work.

[Toaster]

...a more socially acceptable robobody instead, with possibility for individual facial features and other modifications if one can cough up the cash...

That sounds like a good Tinker project for someone with some spare time.

[PyroDesu]

So while I was pursuing an infantry discussion thread (not on Bay12), I came across a type of ammunition called DUDS - Depleted Uranium Discarding Sabot. Used to make even low-caliber weapons (like, assault-rifle caliber) capable of wrecking armor. Imagine a 7.62mm with the piercing capability of a .50BMG.

I also remembered what paramagentism is. See, while all of our gauss weapons have been using ferromagnetic projectiles, they don't have to - the difference is in whether the magnetic field is maintained or transmitted to other objects (and strength, but for paramagnetism, that depends on the material).

Uranium (depleted or no) is paramagnetic. Probably rather strongly (for how strong paramagnetism can be), it seems paramagnetism favors elements with exposed d and f subshells in their electron configuration. Even if the magnets in our gauss weapons aren't strong enough to accelerate them to the same velocity as ferromagnetic rounds, not only can the magnets be made stronger (imagine the magnet strength needed for the micro-cyclotron in Sean's FEL rifles), but the Discarding Sabot makes up for it as well.

[Xantalos]

So what my brain oversimplified that into was you essentially invented reverse magnetism to fire reverse magnets out of our gauss guns.

[PyroDesu]

So what my brain oversimplified that into was you essentially invented reverse magnetism to fire reverse magnets out of our gauss guns.

More like, a lot more things are magnetic than iron, but they can't be made magnets (for the most part), and they can't act like magnets even when stuck to a magnet (ever hung a bunch of paperclips from a magnet using the magnetism alone?). Uranium could be one of those that still interacts decently with magnets, and high-density uranium flechette going really fast can inflict a hell of a lot of damage.

[syvarris]

Ooh, neat!  I like that idea.  If we could replace our gauss rifles with something that has more ammo and better AP ability, that would be awesome.

I have the feeling that it would be in the same ballpark, power wise, to the Testament LSW.  They both boast high AP ability, due to a high velocity, but the Testament gains ammo capacity--I doubt any worked metal round of decent size could get 180 bullets to the token--and volley fire.  If it's cheaper, then it would be a practical weapon; The Testament isn't because it's so close to the superior Spektr.

The one bit that makes me worry is the reference to Sean's FEL rifles.  If the magnets would boost the cost, then it might not be an effective idea.  I was under the impression that the massive magnets in those rifles accounted for a goodly amount of the cost, not to mention the 5 str requirement.  Those would ruin the only real benefits a ballistic weapon has over a laser- namely, compact size, while still being effective and suppressible.  Yes, ballistics do perform better against laser-resistant materials, but those only really come into play at the 10-token range.  I don't think anything is ever going to beat the PSL there.

[Devastator]

Er.. Paramagnetic forces are kinda small, you know?  Like hundreds of thousands of times smaller than ferromagnetic ones?  I'm not so sure about the viability of putting tens of thousands of tesla strong magnetic fields through a hand-held device.

Also, isn't there a whole zoo of special rounds available for the gauss rifle?  Is there an APDS round there?

I'm just worried about the idea of a weapon I could convert to a handheld orbital strike cannon..

[syvarris]

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but doesn't magnetic propulsion of any form render sabots pointless?  Sabots are there to allow a small projectile to still have a good seal in a large bore.  You don't need that if it's a magnetic weapon, since there's no gas, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even get any benefit from firing a small projectile from a large bore.

Sabot round for the gauss rifle might exist, because if you want to change caliber without changing the gun you need them, but a specialized weapon shouldn't have sabots.

[Radio Controlled]

General remark: I meant these examples as a way to prove biotech applications aren't fully obsolete or useless, and literally just thought these up as I typed. I'm sure that we could come up with better ideas than this tripe if we brainstormed on it for a while. Even these retorts are more meant to entertain than to 'prove' that they are awesome ideas that will all work out.

A sod-killer is a fairly solid idea. Perhaps making sod fever would be even better...

Maybe yes, the details would have to be researched beforehand to find an optimal solution out of the different possibilities.

- Wouldn't you need to engineer the disease on the spot if it can't survive FTL travel, though? That seems like it'd need more equipment than the average Typhoid Mary could unsuspiciously work with, or at least enough support staff on hand that perhaps letting a disease run free among the populace might actually harm them as well (or, if they're in orbit, making them relatively easily detectable by local authorities).
But what's your idea for the FTL non-communicability mechanism? I might be misunderstanding the idea.

You are right, it can't be made on the spot, too complicated.

Say your vector is in your gut. What happens to a person's microbiota when he goes into stasis? If the stasis technique puts your eukaryotic cells into slumber, does it also work on gut prokaryotes? Do they also 'go to sleep', or are they killed of, after which one can re-inoculate himself after waking up? Depending on how it works, different strategies might be needed.

If second, containing it to a planet isn't that hard (as far as I recall, we always need to go into hypersleep when going from place to place, though that might not be the case for very short jump, not sure). And getting it to survive the journey to intended destination could be achieved by engineering one that can be put into a dormant state (eg endospore) but isn't capable of putting itself into sleep mode without external activation (eg a specific activator made by a wholly different organism in a bioreactor on Hep) then putting it into a pill inside a hollow molar or something (or hide it in the luggage, whatever).

If first, we could work with one that is made vulnerable to whatever procedure is used in for hypersleep, but again can go into a dormant state where it can survive FTL, but needs an external product to activate the relevant pathways.

Other than that, reasonable idea, though its success probably does heavily depend on local medical advancement. And if it's a very important planet that we want, it'd seem a reasonable guess that they've got tech up the wazoo there. Not too easy to do epidemiology in a deeply futuristic society.

Even good medical facilities aren't worth that much if the people manning them got violently ill before using them. But sure, it'd have to be determined if the engineered strains can be made potent enough to work (one reason I choose to work with a vector closely resembling a natural gut bacteria, helps to camouflage it).

- I suspect that people would be significantly more ill-disposed to genemodding than robotic enhancement, what with the Altered and all. They'd have every reason to find people who offer them cheap genemods to improve their abilities highly suspect, especially since a genemod may in serve as a permanent signup to the rebel side. Besides, it's not impossible to construct a more socially acceptable robobody instead, with possibility for individual facial features and other modifications if one can cough up the cash. Could make VR-based entertainment facilities for socialization with full sensory input to solve the socialization problem, too. It'll always be a bit creepy, but genemods, depending on the interpretation, can seem more sinister and untrustworthy an enhancement method.

I dunno, we'd have to actually check (aka ask pw) how the people would feel (some propaganda can work wonders, and we're working on timescales large enough we can really make that work in our favor) and what would be the most cost-effective way. I agree that a more human robobody could be a good idea, but we'd really have to check if it'd be worth the trouble first.

- Rage viruses, though, seem unpredictable and shaky as weaponry, depending very greatly on quality of seeding and quarantine procedures in place. Not to mention probably completely undesirable for conquest. Terror, though, that it could be used for, though even then would probably need to be carefully applied.

The big thing about this method would be to try and distribute it covertly to a good segment of the population before the activation, making it harder to contain. Could be for terror, though I do think it could also serve more direct purposes. Depends on what you need done really.

Should try sharkmist, though. Wonder how that would work out for terror purposes, and if one can't just send it and seed it more efficiently than biological agents.

Tinkering with sharkmist is indeed on my to do list (though not in the top 5), but for this particular application I'm not sure it'd be the best choice, due to it being rather obviously non-natural to humans.

Mass death could work, though, and the bacterial-virus thing sounds reasonable, even if I have no idea how you'd seed gut bacteria look-alikes inconspicuously among the populace in a way that isn't entirely too hilarious to work.

Just use your imagination.

But more seriously, just think about how, in real life, gut-dwelling pathogens get in there and move around between hosts.

The Testament isn't because it's so close to the superior Spektr.

I'd wait with judgement like this until they are actually tested. One thing I've noticed is that it seems it's easier to armor against lasers than against equally expensive kinetic weapons. Secondly, if it turns out the Spektr is too powerful for it's price, its token cost could still be increased. that's what we have the testing phase for, after all.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but doesn't magnetic propulsion of any form render sabots pointless?  Sabots are there to allow a small projectile to still have a good seal in a large bore.  You don't need that if it's a magnetic weapon, since there's no gas, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even get any benefit from firing a small projectile from a large bore.

Sabot round for the gauss rifle might exist, because if you want to change caliber without changing the gun you need them, but a specialized weapon shouldn't have sabots.

Perhaps one could try encasing the high-density kinetic penetrator in a 'shell' of very magnetic material that is discarded after firing. The shell would allow the projectile to reach high velocities witout needing ridiculous magnets.