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[Glass]

The action with the most utility with the least risk, is fixing the warp bubble so that meteors cannot penetrate it.   The fact that some managed to make it in, is alarming. VERY ALARMING.

Even a single hydrogen atom, accelerated to FTL velocity, is deadly beyond all reason. It's like a cosmic ray on steroids and crack cocaine, at the same time.

NO, Evaluation about exactly "how" the meteors managed to get through spacetime curvature that should have prevented outside material from ever reaching us in a causally connected way in the first place, so that it can be corrected, is necessary for safe FTL travel.  (This event is so improbable, that it's literally on par with something shooting out of the event horizon of a black hole. In and of itself, the event warrants tremendous efforts to study.)

It will also assure that this can never happen again.

I agree with this

This, I am willing to give a +1 to.

[ZBridges]

The action with the most utility with the least risk, is fixing the warp bubble so that meteors cannot penetrate it.   The fact that some managed to make it in, is alarming. VERY ALARMING.

Even a single hydrogen atom, accelerated to FTL velocity, is deadly beyond all reason. It's like a cosmic ray on steroids and crack cocaine, at the same time.

NO, Evaluation about exactly "how" the meteors managed to get through spacetime curvature that should have prevented outside material from ever reaching us in a causally connected way in the first place, so that it can be corrected, is necessary for safe FTL travel.  (This event is so improbable, that it's literally on par with something shooting out of the event horizon of a black hole. In and of itself, the event warrants tremendous efforts to study.)

It will also assure that this can never happen again.

I agree with this

This, I am willing to give a +1 to.

+1, but I don't think it's an option available to us for whatever reason.

I have removed my +1 until the necessity of modifying the warp bubble, and the procedure's associated risks, are more firmly established due to the fact that these issues have been cast into doubt by mightymushroom.

[Taricus]

Militant

C, it's not a big issue, in all honesty, and it's the least valuable server of the lot too. Though if we can fix the warp bubble, I'm good with that too.

[Glass]

I don't think it's an option available to us for whatever reason.

The wonderful thing about games that have an actual person controlling them is that you can try to do things that aren't explicitly options.

[Eschar]

I don't think it's an option available to us for whatever reason.

The wonderful thing about games that have an actual person controlling them is that you can try to do things that aren't explicitly options.

Glass has a point.

Oh, hey Glass. Looooooong time no see.

I have literally no knowledge about this decision, so I'm not voting though. This is a PTW.

[Glass]

Oh, hey Glass. Looooooong time no see.

...for the life of me, I can't remember who you are or where you might have seen me before. Sorry.
Could it have been C2's SatS, or something earlier, like BLAZECOOKS?

[Eschar]

Oh, hey Glass. Looooooong time no see.

...for the life of me, I can't remember who you are or where you might have seen me before. Sorry.
Could it have been C2's SatS, or something earlier, like BLAZECOOKS?

No apology needed. The first thing I did on this forum was run a tiny RTD I called Assemblage. You were one of the players before it drifted off into the winds of irrelevance, and I don't think we've been in any other of the same threads since then, 2017. So I definitely can see why you don't recall me.

What was C2's SatS?

[Glass]

What was C2's SatS?

Shadow Among the Stars, from Chubby2Man. I guess I should have said SAtS. Oh well.

The quick version is that it was one of the very first games I joined that was on this board (rather than specifically the RTD board) and we tried to make it so we were running a country based out of a worldship. It was cool while it lasted (though it was too complicated for the GM to keep running).

[mightymushroom]

The action with the most utility with the least risk, is fixing the warp bubble so that meteors cannot penetrate it.   The fact that some managed to make it in, is alarming. VERY ALARMING.

Even a single hydrogen atom, accelerated to FTL velocity, is deadly beyond all reason. It's like a cosmic ray on steroids and crack cocaine, at the same time.

NO, Evaluation about exactly "how" the meteors managed to get through spacetime curvature that should have prevented outside material from ever reaching us in a causally connected way in the first place, so that it can be corrected, is necessary for safe FTL travel.  (This event is so improbable, that it's literally on par with something shooting out of the event horizon of a black hole. In and of itself, the event warrants tremendous efforts to study.)

It will also assure that this can never happen again.

The report under discussion is clear that these impacts were not so dangerously energetic as all that. ((Either that, or our materials science provides shielding durable enough to shrug it off.)) It seems unlikely, then, that we and they were traveling at superluminal velocities relative to each other. I suspect that they were matched to our internal 'bubble space' conditions as they crossed the interface between the ship's local environment and the universe at large. I can agree that this is unexpected, even troubling, and should be studied by all means. But positing collisions at speeds greater than what is on record by orders of magnitude is a scare tactic and uncalled for.

At the same time, "least risk" seems to assume – before we understand the phenomenon – that we can, automatically, devise and implement a safe modification to our most powerful technology while it is in use. Casing replacement entails some few risks, but all are known risks undertaken by trained personnel.

[Glass]

Let me reword what wierd was trying to say.

We were traveling at FTL velocity. Nothing else is going to be doing that, except maybe in the vicinity of a black hole, in which case we're already probably close enough to the thing to be fucked anyway.

Now, velocity is relative; after all, you might be driving a car and say you're going, say, 10 miles per hour, but that's relative to the Earth's surface. Relative to the sun, you're going really fucking fast - along with the rest of the Earth. Relative to yourself, you're not moving; instead, everything else is moving around you.

That last scenario is the important one here. We're moving at FTL speeds, but for simplicity's sake, we'll say that we're not moving, but the universe is moving around us. That means that everything else is moving at FTL speeds.

Or in other words: any matter in our path is hitting us really fucking quickly, with a lot of energy, and our shields had been deflecting all of it. Something managed to slip past and hit us directly, and that's a problem, because at the speed we're going, hitting anything can royally fuck us up.

[ZBridges]

Can you please quote where helmacon has clearly indicated that the ship is moving at FTL speeds?  Nevermind, I found it.

[IronyOwl]

Something managed to slip past and hit us directly, and that's a problem, because at the speed we're going, hitting anything can royally fuck us up.

I think you guys are overthinking this. We've already seen what happens when something magically slips through, and it's not all our atoms being shredded. It's one of our data casings being somewhat damaged.

Plus, let's be real here: These are not ideal conditions. Even if we have the materials and expertise to completely redo the ship's hyperdrive bubble, it'll likely come at the cost of something else which can also theoretically kill us. This whole expedition is about choosing the less bad thing, not micro-engineering everything to be absolutely perfect.


On that note, I say B. People are gonna be awake the whole trip anyway, shouldn't be any great tragedy for them to also fly the ship.

[mightymushroom]

Something managed to slip past and hit us directly, and that's a problem, because at the speed we're going, hitting anything can royally fuck us up.

I think you guys are overthinking this. We've already seen what happens when something magically slips through, and it's not all our atoms being shredded. It's one of our data casings being somewhat damaged.

Exactly my point. I'm willing to admit the danger of things hitting us (or us hitting things, however you want to look at it). I am not willing to worry about the extremity of hitting things at superluminal velocity. I even suggested my own in-fiction explanation for why our relative velocity doesn't instill that level of panic.

[wierd]

Something managed to slip past and hit us directly, and that's a problem, because at the speed we're going, hitting anything can royally fuck us up.

I think you guys are overthinking this. We've already seen what happens when something magically slips through, and it's not all our atoms being shredded. It's one of our data casings being somewhat damaged.

Exactly my point. I'm willing to admit the danger of things hitting us (or us hitting things, however you want to look at it). I am not willing to worry about the extremity of hitting things at superluminal velocity. I even suggested my own in-fiction explanation for why our relative velocity doesn't instill that level of panic.

There's a problem with that line of thinking.  It's not what the DM said at all.

The council has been awoken mid voyage! A dilemma has arisen. Several micro meteorites seem to have struck the drive bubble at just the right angle to avoid bouncing off, and have impacted on the casings of the cultural histories data server. While no real damage was done, the casing is somewhat comprised and many of the citizens are concerned. There has been a suggestion put forth that the casing be swapped with that of another data server, as they all use the same casings, to move the risk to something less valuable.

In other words-- The worst case manifestation of this is FTL particles hitting the ship.

IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

[IronyOwl]

There's a problem with that line of thinking.  It's not what the DM said at all.

That's exactly what the DM said. We hit a thing (and/or a thing hit us), presumably going at normal traveling speeds. It damaged a casing. No complete disintegration due to being struck by a faster-than-light railgun was observed, theorized, or expected.

In other words-- The worst case manifestation of this is FTL particles hitting the ship.

IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

This is what the DM didn't say at all. We have no more reason to believe this is a symptom of a greater (and solvable) problem than we do that there are no other worlds with breathable atmospheres or that the microbial life on this world is a super-plague that has even now hitched a ride to and infested our entire ship.