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[Tack]

Sounds pretty quantum.

Also that's a pretty cool design, Tux.
So pumping the shrouds happens barrel-by-barrel with the rest of the loading?

[Dirst]

The ice wouldn't be "stationary" unless the human ship came to a complete stop first. If they dropped the fluid from their ship during their slingshot maneuver it (the ice) would be moving at the same speed as the ship. If the ice was stationary relative to the alien ship then it would have to have been fired (as opposed to released) from the human ship towards the alien ship, at exactly the speed that the alien ship was approaching.

running away in opposite direction

They did (well, it wasn't proably complete stop but enough to make a difference). It was only logical for the aliens that the humans ship would try to gain as much speed as they could from the gravity assist and run away but instead the humans (actually again, more like dolphin) faked it, pulled high-g maneuver, used the gas giant cover to stop and relase the water and then go in some other direction.

EDIT:
NOTE THAT I HAVE NO ACTUAL IDEA BUT THIS IS HOW I REMEMBER IT. The book was David Brin's Startide Rising, by the way.

The water would probaby boil, not freeze.

Actually, both, IIRC. First it freezes then it boils and then it freezes or someshit. And even if it was just gas, at high speeds it wouldn't be very amazing to fly into it.

That's how I remember that scene as well.  The author was of the opinion the water would freeze into small ice crystals.  The ice was orbiting the moon slowly (basically the dolphin/human* vessel came as close to a stop as possible to change direction) and the alien ship was moving "at a significant fraction of the speed of light."

* In this universe, dolphins and chimpanzees had been genetically "uplifted" to sentience, though they were many generations away from being as smart as humans or the aliens.  Another book in the series, The Uplift War, is told from the point of view of a chimpanzee.

[Dirst]

By the way, my favorite line from that book was one of the alien captains barking an order:

"Consult the Library!  I want to know what 'Nyah! Nyah!' means in their language!"

[Culise]

* In this universe, dolphins and chimpanzees had been genetically "uplifted" to sentience, though they were many generations away from being as smart as humans or the aliens.  Another book in the series, The Uplift War, is told from the point of view of a chimpanzee.

And was apparently a bit of a feghoot, if a rumour I once heard is accurate.  I mostly credit the rumour because I find it somewhat amusing, in part because it's very carefully never stated of or by the protagonists (both humans and chimps)...

Spoiler: Spoiler for the first third of the book (click to show/hide)

...that they are technically waging "gorilla warfare."

[Parsely]

The ice wouldn't be "stationary" unless the human ship came to a complete stop first. If they dropped the fluid from their ship during their slingshot maneuver it (the ice) would be moving at the same speed as the ship. If the ice was stationary relative to the alien ship then it would have to have been fired (as opposed to released) from the human ship towards the alien ship, at exactly the speed that the alien ship was approaching.

running away in opposite direction

They did (well, it wasn't proably complete stop but enough to make a difference). It was only logical for the aliens that the humans ship would try to gain as much speed as they could from the gravity assist and run away but instead the humans (actually again, more like dolphin) faked it, pulled high-g maneuver, used the gas giant cover to stop and relase the water and then go in some other direction.

Oh okay, I get it now.

[Kot]

Spoiler: Spoiler for the first third of the book (click to show/hide)

...that they are technically waging "gorilla warfare."

Those books were pretty great.

[Amperzand]

With regard to the rotary gun thing, you'd only actually need a gasket at the firing end of the barrels, since the non-firing end of the cooling jacket can by attached behind the rotor, rendering any mobility pointless. The gasket around the muzzles would be necessary to allow it to fire without damaging the coolant shroud, but would basically just be a ring of fluid-tight low friction bearings at the ring just before the muzzles.

[Tack]

So... Big pleather sheath over the barrels then?

One interesting solution I have played with for paradoxes, is the "quantum universes" approach.

This suddenly made me remember an idea for a book I had however long ago.
Basically:

Spoiler: because people blah-ing about bygone book synopses is probably annoying (click to show/hide)

The core idea is that whenever you die, your consciousness is shunted over into a new universe in which you hadn't died.
So the proliferating multiverse theory, but it's tied to deaths and there's an almost infinite number of the things.
(Take a moment to dwell on that IRL. Every time you drove home really tired/drunk and thought "how the heck did I survive that?"... You didn't. Many times.)

Anywho, average Joe protagonist is driving his car, a cat runs across the road and he swerves, but fixes it and continues driving, only to notice that the car which was behind him is gone. He doesn't pay any attention to it, and gets to work, stumbles on a step and his tie changes color.

Turns out people in the scientific-renaissance-universe figured out how to make a multiverse portal, and by doing so bored a hole through them all, fixing them in place and preventing proliferation. So when he dies, his consciousness is being shunted to the most similar multiverse, and so-on. (Super-power hook, he keeps memories of all lives, becoming very multi talented very quickly).
He ends up basically having to race to find the cause and shut it down before he ends up back in the "Germany won" or "humanity ended" timelines.

[Insanegame27]

Spoiler: because people blah-ing about bygone book synopses is probably annoying (click to show/hide)

The core idea is that whenever you die, your consciousness is shunted over into a new universe in which you hadn't died.
So the proliferating multiverse theory, but it's tied to deaths and there's an almost infinite number of the things.
(Take a moment to dwell on that IRL. Every time you drove home really tired/drunk and thought "how the heck did I survive that?"... You didn't. Many times.)

Anywho, average Joe protagonist is driving his car, a cat runs across the road and he swerves, but fixes it and continues driving, only to notice that the car which was behind him is gone. He doesn't pay any attention to it, and gets to work, stumbles on a step and his tie changes color.

Turns out people in the scientific-renaissance-universe figured out how to make a multiverse portal, and by doing so bored a hole through them all, fixing them in place and preventing proliferation. So when he dies, his consciousness is being shunted to the most similar multiverse, and so-on. (Super-power hook, he keeps memories of all lives, becoming very multi talented very quickly).
He ends up basically having to race to find the cause and shut it down before he ends up back in the "Germany won" or "humanity ended" timelines.

That's awesome, mind if I use it?

[Tack]

Sure, but if you make a million, send me a pity cheque.

[PTTG??]

A gun that interacts with the "god experience" section of the brain, specifically to cause a religious experience in the targeted enemy. The opposing combatant will in an instant realize that all humanity is one family and that our petty squabbles are but a fleeting shadow on the face of the deep unfathomable ocean that is the cosmos. He or she will, through the nerostimulative mechanism of the weapon, see in his or her enemy a human being with both flaws and nobility, endowed with a desire to live, someone who is in a very real way an equal, even though ideologies differ. In fact, through the use of broadcast neuroamplification, even sworn enemies will have the presence of mind to reconsider their prejudices and deep-seated philosophies. Fear of superiors, ideological brainwashing, earnest nationalism, it all washes away, leaving only the innocent core of personality, unclothed in hate, trembling before the universe. To the subject of the primary mode of this weapon, truly will every human being be a shining, divine child born from the majesty of the cosmos.

Thus disoriented, the targeted individual will be susceptible to stumbling out of cover, and the wielder of the weapon will be able to engage the secondary mode of the weapon, which lights the target on fire.

[Grimlocke]

On the subject of cooling rotary space-guns, covering the whole barrel cylinder in a liquid cooling shroud that moves with the rest of the thing, and putting the fluid ports along two points of the axle. Kind of like a spinning Maxim gun.

This should be a minimum of moving parts, keeps the fluid exchange further away from hard vacuum and allows the ammunition feed some room.

Said ammunition feed and the ammunition storage would also have to operate in vacuum as there ends of each barrel are obviously going to be open.

I also had the crazy idea of making the gun shoot in two opposite directions, only the baddy-facing end would shoot an actual bullet, and the other end would just shoot an equal weight in gas to eliminate the unwanted thrust the gun might generate. The gun would have to operate from a kind of arm to keep the gas from hitting the craft and pushing it around anyway.

[Parsely]

I also had the crazy idea of making the gun shoot in two opposite directions, only the baddy-facing end would shoot an actual bullet, and the other end would just shoot an equal weight in gas to eliminate the unwanted thrust the gun might generate.

I guess you've never heard of recoilless rifles before.

[Grimlocke]

I guess not many crazy ideas are so crazy that nobody else had them before..

[Jimmy]

A gun that interacts with the "god experience" section of the brain, specifically to cause a religious experience in the targeted enemy. The opposing combatant will in an instant realize that all humanity is one family and that our petty squabbles are but a fleeting shadow on the face of the deep unfathomable ocean that is the cosmos. He or she will, through the nerostimulative mechanism of the weapon, see in his or her enemy a human being with both flaws and nobility, endowed with a desire to live, someone who is in a very real way an equal, even though ideologies differ. In fact, through the use of broadcast neuroamplification, even sworn enemies will have the presence of mind to reconsider their prejudices and deep-seated philosophies. Fear of superiors, ideological brainwashing, earnest nationalism, it all washes away, leaving only the innocent core of personality, unclothed in hate, trembling before the universe. To the subject of the primary mode of this weapon, truly will every human being be a shining, divine child born from the majesty of the cosmos.

Thus disoriented, the targeted individual will be susceptible to stumbling out of cover, and the wielder of the weapon will be able to engage the secondary mode of the weapon, which lights the target on fire.

The primary ammunition for this weapon is composed of dessicated missionaries. The secondary ammunition is mostly TV evangelists, for the concentrated hellfire component.