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[syvarris]

Quick post, since I'm busy, but I've been wanting to bring up the discussion people had a long while ago about fighters.  IIRC, it was decided that self-propelled fighters were entirely impractical, and at most we'd want to use movable turrets magnetically attached to the hull..

I don't remember the discussion well enough to say whether it actually is practical, but it's an interesting concept.

[Parisbre56]

I think the only ones who would benefit from space fighters is space wizards.
They could also be used in a dual role since they would be better suited for atmospheric or underwater combat.
They could also be used as stealth craft that stay behind after a fleet retreats posing as inert space debris, before making a hit and run or suicide attack, kinda like mines.
Or they could be used to overwhelm automanipulator defenses with many targets, if the UWM starts using more powerful ones.
Obviously they can be autonomous, they don't need a human driver.

[Nikitian]

@Sean At the very least, I see that any means of self-propulsion might prove to be significant structural weaknesses in the 'turret' design; I might be wrong, of course.

@syvarris Well, the space-wizardly-fighters were the main idea back then, yeah. The most promising design was 'space Avatar fighters', providing significant boost to the user's wizardly powers, not to mention survivability and versatility. Another similar design was based on utilising whatever means possible to do the same, only "cheap and dirty" way - using genetically modified 'brains-in-jars' instead of people (possibly multiple merged together), simple metal hulls, cheaper non-universal manipulators/amps, and so on, and so on; it fell significantly short of the first design's power level, and we never learned if greater mass-production rates could compensate for that.
Overall, space Avatars were deemed potentially practical, if at least as 'stealth ships'.

[syvarris]

Yeah, I was the original one to advocate the AoW fighter.  I never really thought smaller ships would work, because the user simply wouldn't have the mental power to do real damage.  Mini-ghostships might work, but I'm not sure if we can even make them, and they seem like they could have problems.  What if having only ten ampers doesn't homogenize them enough?  Where would we get that many trusted ampers?  With the AoW, you only need one amper.  Since we have QECs and possession programs, they might not even be completely locked from missions, VR, and other interactions.

I don't really remember my idea being popular, probably because space magic is dangerous, and a crazy AoW capable of spaceflight with a universal amp is... yeah.

[Nikitian]

Also, why not consider AoW-based mini-ghostships? The only problem (aside from technical difficulties of understanding and safely recreating ghostship mind-merging process on lower scale) I see is that maybe a single regular human would have greater strength of will than a small agglomerate of minds (no real facts to support, pure conjecture).

Oh, and I am fairly sure that a determined AoW (not to mention one armed with a Universal manipulator) could escape any celestial body it is confined to, and reach the outer space. Now, a ground-based AoW would have inferior spaceflight capabilities, most likely, and lack the stealth upgrades we intend to install, but I dare guess that, given time and intelligence, it might even be able to utilize the jump travel.

[syvarris]

AoW mini-ghostships... Hmm.  I imagine that the benefits would only be additive, but it's an interesting idea.  If we use literal ghostships, then I think the AoW would gain control over the ghostship- IIRC, they had their individuality and will stripped from them, and became something closer to sods than humans.  On the other hand, their combined will might be strong enough to completely subjugate the avatar.  Dunno.

As far as all avatars being dangerous, well... I imagine a land based one wouldn't be all that effective in space, because SM is basically knife range.  It would just be sniped with lasers, since it wouldn't be able to protect itself, AND fly closer faster than a warship could flee, AND attack, all at the same time.

On the other hand, a stealth avatar wouldn't be seen, even as ships are being chopped in half.  Plus, that's if it chose to use an unsubtle method- it would be trivial to MC a few technicians, and sabotage a ship.

I doubt either would be capable of going through a jump point though, unless maybe they traveled a long distance away, then sped up over a few days.  Even then, they'd need to get the angle perfect, or risk being lost.  I had figured we'd design a 'cradle' with powerful engines, which would carry the AoW through the JP, and then loiter on the other side.  The cradle could be controlled by Steve, effectively locking the AoW in-system.

[Parisbre56]

Actually, amps (except for the mind control kind, possibly some other exceptions) are not affected by range. So somebody with an amp could hit something on the other side of the planet if they could hold the concept of the distance involved in their head, if they could imagine exactly the right distance and exactly the right spot. It's not a range limitation, it's a limitation in the human mind's ability to aim and understand large distances.

Theoretically, a ghost ship should be much more accurate at grater ranges, since it uses advanced space magic sensors that let it be aware of everything around it and has a great number of human minds to help with gauging the distances involved.

This is one of the reasons the AM is extra dangerous. She is capable of being aware of almost everything around her and has an inhuman intellect. Depending on how powerful she is, she could probably kill someone from orbit if she tried hard enough. So there are few cases where one can be far enough away from her to be safe.

[Nikitian]

On topic of reasonable pill machine uses General Miyamoto might possibly approve:
I hereby suggest the idea of making a pill out of the fleshknitter. I also volunteer myself (as Dr. M.Sanctor) as the first test subject for the new pill.

"What's the worst that could happen, eh?"

[Radio Controlled]

On topic of reasonable pill machine uses General Miyamoto might possibly approve:
I hereby suggest the idea of making a pill out of the fleshknitter. I also volunteer myself (as Dr. M.Sanctor) as the first test subject for the new pill.

"What's the worst that could happen, eh?"

Remind me, that stuff, where does it come from again? No space magic involved, right?

[AoshimaMichio]

Maurice invented it himself during Heph timeskip.

[Radio Controlled]

Maurice invented it himself during Heph timeskip.

Thought so. Yeah, then it's probably ok.

Gonna have to make a waiver of responsability document though 

Time to get mah lawyer on.

[piecewise]

Actually, amps (except for the mind control kind, possibly some other exceptions) are not affected by range. So somebody with an amp could hit something on the other side of the planet if they could hold the concept of the distance involved in their head, if they could imagine exactly the right distance and exactly the right spot. It's not a range limitation, it's a limitation in the human mind's ability to aim and understand large distances.

Theoretically, a ghost ship should be much more accurate at grater ranges, since it uses advanced space magic sensors that let it be aware of everything around it and has a great number of human minds to help with gauging the distances involved.

This is one of the reasons the AM is extra dangerous. She is capable of being aware of almost everything around her and has an inhuman intellect. Depending on how powerful she is, she could probably kill someone from orbit if she tried hard enough. So there are few cases where one can be far enough away from her to be safe.

Nah, she's got a range. That...whatever she uses to see these days. Certainly ain't eyes. But yeah it can only see so far. Flesh is flesh is flesh and though we tired we couldn't replicate it perfectly. We got pretty close, so she's good  but you run out of orbital distance and she can't get ya.

Nah good thing too. I mean, the other one doesn't have that but thats cause...ahhhh wait I see what you're doing there. Trying ta trick me.

Don't worry the degradation is limited for the moment. We've got a while yet till the Quicksilver fails.

[Parisbre56]

Oh, great, we'll have to fight AM's sister sometime in the future. I bet she looks like a snarky little girl that is good in hand to hand combat. And is probably a homicidal maniac alien death goddess.

@sean: you should probably also check the weapon's recoil, since the hep has a lot of that.

Also, do gamma rays need to be focused like regular lasers? If so, then how will you do that if they pass through things without being affected very much?

And since they pass through things, won't that mean that most energy will be transferred to the densest thing, that is, the armour? Will the energy that passes through and is absorbed by the less dense interior be enough to make a difference from a normal, weaker laser? Because causing cancer to our enemies doesn't sound like a fast way of killing them and if enough gamma rays are getting through the armour to cause significant damage to the interior, then you're probably melting the exterior. Then again, the advantage of getting through ablative or reflective armour might be worth it.

[Devastator]

I'm also looking up some real FELs now.. and they seem to be pretty big.  Some proposed X-ray FELs need multi-kilometer long wigglers.  I know we got the magic electron guns, but you still need a pretty big wiggler, right?

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'm also looking up some real FELs now.. and they seem to be pretty big.  Some proposed X-ray FELs need multi-kilometer long wigglers.  I know we got the magic electron guns, but you still need a pretty big wiggler, right?

The length of the wiggler doesn't matter as much if you're cycling the output back into the input to seed the electron stream. A long wiggler gives more time/distance for the electron stream to fully synchronize with the desired wavelength over the single pass. Once you have the electron stream, the rest you can fit inside a shoebox.

The problem right now is that XRays are very hard to reflect - there are no "mirrors" that can just punt a beam in a different direction, you have to use dense materials and grazing mirrors that deflect the beam over a series of shallow angles in a curve. It's a highly difficult prospect, technologically, not economical when large amounts of open space and huge magnetic vacuum tunnels are more available and easier to maintain - but we have that covered with new materials sciences and engineering techniques in ER, so we can do that instead.

No such luck with gamma-rays though. And really no need, I think. It's going to be huge, long, and as artillery as a laser-armed ship can get. A true ship built around a gun.