An entry with a Bang! - A BT roundrobin II

[hpackrat]

Originally Posted by Magni

Then I'm going to yoink it into the story thread. Followed by cramping it up with another dozen or more in the same direction. I'd rather see this story die than having it go down a route filled with idiotic bullshit like this.

Err, wouldn't it be more polite to suggest that if the majority accepts the introduction of ASBs in the story, that you'll introduce an equalizer to the Spheroids to counter the destructive potential of the ASB? Its the basis of war to introduce an innovative weapon then intro a counter-weapon. Question is what can the IS do that is within their means to counter the ASB?

[WBH21C]

Real life meets BT again.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...le+Feedfetcher

[consequences]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

Once again, the VAC-20 was designed to emulate the AC-20, "coincidentally" having exactly identical game stats, except its alternate fire modes lower the rate of fire to improve range. So in 20 mode, the VAC performs exactly like an AC-20. In 10 mode, it has the same range, damage, and heat of an AC-10, in 5 mode, and AC-5's range and damage, etc. Ammo consumption is 1 shot per point of damage with 100 shots per ton.

A VAC-10 would have stats identical to an AC-10, be capable of firing in 5 and 2 modes with the stats of an AC-5 and AC-2 respectively, but be incapable of firing in 20 mode.

Why does the Avenger Gattling acting as a VAC get all that weight? Because of all the peripheral equipment required to get the supertight shot groups needed to do damage like BT ACs do. The Avenger by itself has a shot group that's 40 meters wide at a couple thousand meters, way too wide for anti-BT work.

Edit: Hmm, this should go into the technobabble thread.

I postulated an improved version in the Gun porn thread that used the crappier shot grouping at range to emulate the effects of an RAC2 or 5. Never really got any feedback on that, or the idea of an eventual VAC30.

[hpackrat]

Originally Posted by consequences

I postulated an improved version in the Gun porn thread that used the crappier shot grouping at range to emulate the effects of an RAC2 or 5. Never really got any feedback on that, or the idea of an eventual VAC30.

Sounds logical to me

[Magni]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

Once again, the VAC-20 was designed to emulate the AC-20, "coincidentally" having exactly identical game stats, except its alternate fire modes lower the rate of fire to improve range. So in 20 mode, the VAC performs exactly like an AC-20. In 10 mode, it has the same range, damage, and heat of an AC-10, in 5 mode, and AC-5's range and damage, etc. Ammo consumption is 1 shot per point of damage with 100 shots per ton.

A VAC-10 would have stats identical to an AC-10, be capable of firing in 5 and 2 modes with the stats of an AC-5 and AC-2 respectively, but be incapable of firing in 20 mode.

Why does the Avenger Gattling acting as a VAC get all that weight? Because of all the peripheral equipment required to get the supertight shot groups needed to do damage like BT ACs do. The Avenger by itself has a shot group that's 40 meters wide at a couple thousand meters, way too wide for anti-BT work.

Edit: Hmm, this should go into the technobabble thread.

Addendum: It should be noted that if you try to emulate a Ultra AC or, god forbid, RAC with the VACs higher settings, BAD THINGS are likely to happen. As in, it's almost guaranteed to jam and carries a substantial risk to explode into your face or similar niceties. Especially when you're dumb enough to try and turn it into a RAC/10 or even RAC/20. It's simply not made for that.

Also, the current VAC based on the GAU-8 is a VAC/10. For a Class 20 to be feasible, C-Earth will need to use a somewhat bigger calibre.

[consequences]

Originally Posted by Magni

Addendum: It should be noted that if you try to emulate a Ultra AC or, god forbid, RAC with the VACs higher settings, BAD THINGS are likely to happen. As in, it's almost guaranteed to jam and carries a substantial risk to explode into your face or similar niceties. Especially when you're dumb enough to try and turn it into a RAC/10 or even RAC/20. It's simply not made for that.

Also, the current VAC based on the GAU-8 is a VAC/10. For a Class 20 to be feasible, C-Earth will need to use a somewhat bigger calibre.

Well yeah. But RAC2 would be well within the theoretical fire rate of an AC20, and even RAC5 would be somewhat doable(if iffy once you get past four shots). Likewise, emulating an Ultra AC10 should be achievable with enough work.

And hell, even standard autocannon can fake the performance of an ultra, it's just that the failure rate shoots up by a factor of six(with a pesky 2.78% chance of outright kersploding).

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by consequences

Well yeah. But RAC2 would be well within the theoretical fire rate of an AC20, and even RAC5 would be somewhat doable(if iffy once you get past four shots). Likewise, emulating an Ultra AC10 should be achievable with enough work.

And hell, even standard autocannon can fake the performance of an ultra, it's just that the failure rate shoots up by a factor of six(with a pesky 2.78% chance of outright kersploding).

You know, the primary problem with the VAC isn't technical, it's tactical.

Gunner: "Okay, which of these bazillion settings are we supposed to be using again?"

At the higher end, the VAC would have so many settings that it would be confusing trying to pick the best one for any given situation. This inevitably results in either gunners using on two or three settings regularly or causes possibly lethal hesitation in combat as the gunner tries to calculate what the best setting for any given moment ought to be.

And that doesn't even get into how buggy and auto-select system would be.

So what are the possible settings a VAC-20 might have?
4 standard AC (all shots land in single location)
4 LBX (all shots scatter all over the place for slightly better range)
3 RAC/Ultra (shots scatter, but cluster by location: 10 x 2 pt clusters, 4 x 5 point clusters, and 2 x 10 point clusters)

And that's assuming the VAC only has settings for 2, 5, 10, and 20 damage. Throw in nonstandard damages like 1 or 15... well you can see how confusing things can get.

Still, the VAC's primary advantage outweighs all that IMO: You can plink at long range and blast at short, all in a single weapon.

[hyzmarca]

One solution is to not give it setting at all and simply teach the pilots how long they can hold down the trigger and still remain accurate. It's not like they're actually going to be fighting in discrete 10-second rounds.

[Knobby]

Ammo conservation should be something they're already taught, anyway, given the long-ass supply lines and currently limited transport capability (as shown in the segment with Dansel's catapulted mech-bombs, when he had to use unusual tactics because they'd ran short on ammo for more conventional approaches).

[consequences]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

You know, the primary problem with the VAC isn't technical, it's tactical.

Gunner: "Okay, which of these bazillion settings are we supposed to be using again?"

At the higher end, the VAC would have so many settings that it would be confusing trying to pick the best one for any given situation. This inevitably results in either gunners using on two or three settings regularly or causes possibly lethal hesitation in combat as the gunner tries to calculate what the best setting for any given moment ought to be.

And that doesn't even get into how buggy and auto-select system would be.

So what are the possible settings a VAC-20 might have?
4 standard AC (all shots land in single location)
4 LBX (all shots scatter all over the place for slightly better range)
3 RAC/Ultra (shots scatter, but cluster by location: 10 x 2 pt clusters, 4 x 5 point clusters, and 2 x 10 point clusters)

And that's assuming the VAC only has settings for 2, 5, 10, and 20 damage. Throw in nonstandard damages like 1 or 15... well you can see how confusing things can get.

Still, the VAC's primary advantage outweighs all that IMO: You can plink at long range and blast at short, all in a single weapon.

The times nine range silliness actually helps here. When your effective range bracket for the LBX2 is a full twenty seconds of travel for a mech doing 96 kph before hitting the next longest ranged mode, it doesn't hurt as much to take an extra second to set up your shot.

You can also just automate the thing, so it takes the shot for a given range according to preferences preset by the operator, unless the shooter specifically takes the time to override.

[HawaiianOnline]

Originally Posted by hyzmarca

One solution is to not give it setting at all and simply teach the pilots how long they can hold down the trigger and still remain accurate. It's not like they're actually going to be fighting in discrete 10-second rounds.

Or have the targeting system determine the mode depending on range. Since the AC5, AC10, and AC20 have a decreases their effective range for an increase in damage, have the VAC do the same thing, but with one weapon. At long ranges, the targeting system would confine the VAC to the AC5 mode, at medium ranges it would be the AC10 mode, and at short ranges, the AC20 mode. This would be pretty easy to do as long as you have range data. A small ranging laser or radar could be used to get this.

EDIT: Ninja'd...

[Knobby]

I don't know about with mechs, but with pilots of RL aircraft, they tend to dislike automating the "making stuff go boom" functions, given artificial stupidity occasionally rearing its ugly head, not to mention the whole "knights wrapped in metal awesomeness" attitude.

[Magni]

Originally Posted by consequences

And hell, even standard autocannon can fake the performance of an ultra, it's just that the failure rate shoots up by a factor of six(with a pesky 2.78% chance of outright kersploding).

Oh, I know that. I once had it happen to the guy I played a small-scale game against. The AC/10 of his Centurion went kablooie, ripped off the arm and opened up the torso and then a single MG salvo from one of my Mechs ignited the ammo stored in there. That was a 3025 campaign game, btw.

Never got an easier kill.

And as Evil said, you should prolly leave the VAC at four pre-set ranges max, perhaps with an alternate LB-X-esque setting on a second switch. Though, LB-Xs afaik don't get higher ranges simply due to spreading the ammo, considering that they also have somewhat higher range when using standard ammo. And yeah, letting the computer decide on the setting is going to cause some major issues. An automated system simply isn't as good as a human when it comes to this kind of thing.

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by Knobby

I don't know about with mechs, but with pilots of RL aircraft, they tend to dislike automating the "making stuff go boom" functions, given artificial stupidity occasionally rearing its ugly head, not to mention the whole "knights wrapped in metal awesomeness" attitude.

Agreed. Automating the RoF selection means that at any given time, you cant be absolutely certain what your weapons is going to do, which is why I prefer the manual selection method. Besides which, sometimes you get into a "use em or lose em" situation where you want to blow as much metal down range as you can even if you're not at optimal firing distance.

Say an enemy is at Range 7. Do you:
a) Fire in AC20 mode with a long range modifier?
b) Fire in AC10 mode with a medium range modifier?
c) Fire in AC5 mode with a medium range modifier?
d) Fire in AC2 mode with a short range modifier?

The answer of course would depend on a number of factors such as...

Am I about to die?
Do I have enough ammo?
Do I need to conserve ammo?
Is the other guy about to die?
How many buddies does the other guy have?
Is he easy enough to hit to justify using a higher damage setting?

And so on and so forth.

[serack]

Originally Posted by hpackrat

Err, wouldn't it be more polite to suggest that if the majority accepts the introduction of ASBs in the story, that you'll introduce an equalizer to the Spheroids to counter the destructive potential of the ASB? Its the basis of war to introduce an innovative weapon then intro a counter-weapon. Question is what can the IS do that is within their means to counter the ASB?

arrow VI are good at anti air roles

[consequences]

Which is where your RTO and tactical computer come in. By the time you(and your lance, fuck fighting fair and one on one) fire on a target, you should know how far out it is, how fast its moving, and what the obnoxious clutter in the area is like.

With the four base settings, it's less complicated than trying to figure out exactly how many shots to fire with your RAC that volley, and IS pilots seem to manage that fine with no backseater and really crappy situational awareness. Really, its just a matter of maximizing advantages, and training to the point that you make the decision unconsciously.

[JonBerry]

I couldn't make the China section work, so I'm just going to re-post what's left of my piece. Hopefully, I can throw it up, then move on to my next plotted segment. IS spies!

-----
London, England
Earth, Granville Cluster
29 January 2007

"The International Olympic Committee released a news statement today addressing the petition to allow the world of Antallos to participate in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. They rejected the petition on three grounds. First, that Antallos does not have any form of professionally organized sporting events recognized as an Olympic Sport, thus it is unlikely that they would be able to field a proper team within the next 18 months.

"Secondly, the City-State of Port Krin is not a soverign state, currently under the purview of a military govenorship by the Coalition. The IOC reiterated that self-determination is a requirement in order to be a representable nation at the Olympics.

"Lastly, the GDI still has a limit on the transportation space between Port Krin and Earth, as well as security concerns about the location of our world.

"The IOC has reserved judgement on possible participation in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics at this time. They have also rejected a public petition to include Battlemech gladitorial combat in future Olympics.

"In economic news, the OPEC Nations are facing a continnuing crisis under the new leadership of Secretary General Abdallah Salem el-Badri. With the announcement by General Electric America of the first civilian Fusion Electrical Power Plant to begin construction in New York State within 12 months (pending approval by the Atomic Energy Commission), the price of crude Oil dropped to $19.50US per barrel. This is the latest in a long series of decreases in the value of that natural resource, leading many economic speculators to believe that the OPEC economies will face recession or depression in the coming decade. Similar ventures in India, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa and Japan are predicted to drive the price of crude oil down further.

"In related news, the stock prices for General Motors and Toyota rose today with the annoucement that the two companies would seperately develop and begin manufacuring of a larger series of Electric, Hybrid and Electric Fuel Cell vehicles. Both companies cited a projected surplus in electricity in the coming decades, as well as economic pressures in their decisions. Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors thanked Toyota for the competition during his press confrence yesterday, thinking that the massive cooperative projects seen in the past 6 months by various comapines as a bad thing for the long term economies of the involved corporations.

"On to Weather. The massive Cold Wave in southern Asia continnues unabated this week, with forcasters not seeing any sign of an end to this unusual weather pattern. In Northern Europe, a severe wind storm warning is still in effect, in conjunction with the unusual heat wave coming off the North Atlantic. In North America, the economic damage from the mid-January Ice Storm is still being tallied, and is expected to reach $1 Billion US.

"This is the BBC Hourly News. Please stay tuned for our next programme..."

Antallos Jumpoint
02 Febuary 2007/3022

Space bent, warped, and broke, leaving behind a half-dozen jumphsips, all bearing the hearldry of the Draconis Combine. The GDI jumpship that patrolled the point returned the signal announcing their arrival, not that such was needed as ComStar had delivered a message earlier in the week that the convoy was one jump out.

Ulysses Kurita watched as the bridge crew of his dropship made final preperations to seperate from the jumpship and head in-system. 4 days transit, then he would once again put his feet onto the soil of this interesting world. On the decks below him, a ROM agent carefuly hid the evidence of their actions. Opening a supposedly sealed container, the Agent damaged certain particular pieces of valuable machinery under the guise of making sure the cargo was ready for acceleration.

The Agent was unsettled by the necessity of damaging such precious technology, but recognized that only into the service of the Word would this machine reach its fullest potential. And these Motherloders were not followers of Blake. How could they be? No, better to show them the error of their ways when they falsely use these machines. Let them be punished for their sins.

Afterall, it's not like they would look inside a supposedly sealed device, to see through the casing of the machine, one clearly labeled 'Do not Open'.

Faith and Trust
Non Standard Jumpoint, Wallacia, Free Worlds League
Mid Febuary, 2007

An allergy. That was the final prognosis from the Doctor as to the cause of death. David was miserable as the imprompru casket was escorted into the airlock. The deceased was the only other proper civilian in the Tomb Raider expidtion. And now he was dead, headed for an unmarked grave, a burial inside a star.

Daniel wanted to get a drink, throw up, and sleep - hoping to wake safe at home; all in no particular order.

The normal party to decide the new name of their Jumpship and Dropship (the first such party had taken place after they had left the OWA for the Federated Suns) had been put on hold when the deceased had fallen ill during supper. Apparently, one of the fruits had caused a reaction that there simply wasn't time to counter. A shot of Epinepheran had done nothing, and the poor man had been pronounced dead within the hour.

The next day, the Samurai announced the new name for their Jumpship. No longer the Avante Garde or the Hail Mary, she would be called Hope for Tomorrow.

Nadair Jump Point
Sol System, Granville Cluster
13 Febuary 2007

The GDI jumpship snapped into existence, and within milliseconds, it had sent out a coded IFF pulse, and received a secure confirmation that they were who they were, and were where they were supposed to be. Weapon systems disarmed, preventing the jumpship from being enguled in nuclear fire. All this in the time it took for the Captain of the jumpship to look down from the main viewscrean to his command chair at the Green light that signaled their safety.

This was was lost on the passengers of the refitted Union Olympus. When she first came to Earth, she had been fitted to carry a lance of Mechs, and plenty of loot. Now she was meant to ferry about important people for the CSN. Today, her passengers were a dozen representatives of the Draconis Combine - diplomats, a couple lawyers, as well as three guards.

The diplomatic party were briefed on what came next though. Because the distance from the jumppoint to Motherlode was ten days at standard acceleration (a lie they had no reason to doubt), they would transfer to another jumpship for the last leg of the Circuit. They noted that normally dropships would simply cruise in, but they had freed up the Jumpship Emerald City to ferry them to a Pirate Point closer to Earth. It would be less than a day from there, cutting two off the total travel time.

Within half an hour, the dropship had switched jumpships, and vanished towards the distant star. The left-behind jumpship deployed its sail, and waited for the arrival of its next load of passengers and equipment bound for Antallos.

[walkir]

Originally Posted by JonBerry

I couldn't make the China section work, so I'm just going to re-post what's left of my piece. Hopefully, I can throw it up, then move on to my next plotted segment. IS spies!

Yes, we need more IS snippets.

London, England
Earth, Granville Cluster
29 January 2007

"The International Olympic Committee released a news statement today addressing the petition to allow the world of Antallos to participate in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. They rejected the petition on three grounds. First, that Antallos does not have any form of professionally organized sporting events recognized as an Olympic Sport, thus it is unlikely that they would be able to field a proper team within the next 18 months.

"Secondly, the City-State of Port Krin is not a soverign state, currently under the purview of a military govenorship by the Coalition. The IOC reiterated that self-determination is a requirement in order to be a representable nation at the Olympics.

"Lastly, the GDI still has a limit on the transportation space between Port Krin and Earth, as well as security concerns about the location of our world.

"The IOC has reserved judgement on possible participation in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics at this time. They have also rejected a public petition to include Battlemech gladitorial combat in future Olympics.

"In economic news, the OPEC Nations are facing a continnuing crisis under the new leadership of Secretary General Abdallah Salem el-Badri. With the announcement by General Electric America of the first civilian Fusion Electrical Power Plant to begin construction in New York State within 12 months (pending approval by the Atomic Energy Commission), the price of crude Oil dropped to $19.50US per barrel. This is the latest in a long series of decreases in the value of that natural resource, leading many economic speculators to believe that the OPEC economies will face recession or depression in the coming decade. Similar ventures in India, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa and Japan are predicted to drive the price of crude oil down further.

"In related news, the stock prices for General Motors and Toyota rose today with the annoucement that the two companies would seperately develop and begin manufacuring of a larger series of Electric, Hybrid and Electric Fuel Cell vehicles. Both companies cited a projected surplus in electricity in the coming decades, as well as economic pressures in their decisions. Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors thanked Toyota for the competition during his press confrence yesterday, thinking that the massive cooperative projects seen in the past 6 months by various comapines as a bad thing for the long term economies of the involved corporations.

"On to Weather. The massive Cold Wave in southern Asia continnues unabated this week, with forcasters not seeing any sign of an end to this unusual weather pattern. In Northern Europe, a severe wind storm warning is still in effect, in conjunction with the unusual heat wave coming off the North Atlantic. In North America, the economic damage from the mid-January Ice Storm is still being tallied, and is expected to reach $1 Billion US.

"This is the BBC Hourly News. Please stay tuned for our next programme..."

Antallos Jumpoint
02 Febuary 2007/3022

Space bent, warped, and broke, leaving behind a half-dozen jumphsips, all bearing the hearldry of the Draconis Combine. The GDI jumpship that patrolled the point returned the signal announcing their arrival, not that such was needed as ComStar had delivered a message earlier in the week that the convoy was one jump out.

Ulysses Kurita watched as the bridge crew of his dropship made final preperations to seperate from the jumpship and head in-system. 4 days transit, then he would once again put his feet onto the soil of this interesting world. On the decks below him, a ROM agent carefuly hid the evidence of their actions. Opening a supposedly sealed container, the Agent damaged certain particular pieces of valuable machinery under the guise of making sure the cargo was ready for acceleration.

The Agent was unsettled by the necessity of damaging such precious technology, but recognized that only into the service of the Word would this machine reach its fullest potential. And these Motherloders were not followers of Blake. How could they be? No, better to show them the error of their ways when they falsely use these machines. Let them be punished for their sins.

Afterall, it's not like they would look inside a supposedly sealed device, to see through the casing of the machine, one clearly labeled 'Do not Open'.

Faith and Trust
Non Standard Jumpoint, Wallacia, Free Worlds League
Mid Febuary, 2007

An allergy. That was the final prognosis from the Doctor as to the cause of death. David was miserable as the imprompru casket was escorted into the airlock. The deceased was the only other proper civilian in the Tomb Raider expidtion. And now he was dead, headed for an unmarked grave, a burial inside a star.

Daniel wanted to get a drink, throw up, and sleep - hoping to wake safe at home; all in no particular order.

The normal party to decide the new name of their Jumpship and Dropship (the first such party had taken place after they had left the OWA for the Federated Suns) had been put on hold when the deceased had fallen ill during supper. Apparently, one of the fruits had caused a reaction that there simply wasn't time to counter. A shot of Epinepheran had done nothing, and the poor man had been pronounced dead within the hour.

The next day, the Samurai announced the new name for their Jumpship. No longer the Avante Garde or the Hail Mary, she would be called Hope for Tomorrow.

Nadair Jump Point
Sol System, Granville Cluster
13 Febuary 2007

The GDI jumpship snapped into existence, and within milliseconds, it had sent out a coded IFF pulse, and received a secure confirmation that they were who they were, and were where they were supposed to be. Weapon systems disarmed, preventing the jumpship from being enguled in nuclear fire. All this in the time it took for the Captain of the jumpship to look down from the main viewscrean to his command chair at the Green light that signaled their safety.

This was was lost on the passengers of the refitted Union Olympus. When she first came to Earth, she had been fitted to carry a lance of Mechs, and plenty of loot. Now she was meant to ferry about important people for the CSN. Today, her passengers were a dozen representatives of the Draconis Combine - diplomats, a couple lawyers, as well as three guards.

The diplomatic party were briefed on what came next though. Because the distance from the jumppoint to Motherlode was ten days at standard acceleration (a lie they had no reason to doubt), they would transfer to another jumpship for the last leg of the Circuit. They noted that normally dropships would simply cruise in, but they had freed up the Jumpship Emerald City to ferry them to a Pirate Point closer to Earth. It would be less than a day from there, cutting two off the total travel time.

Within half an hour, the dropship had switched jumpships, and vanished towards the distant star. The left-behind jumpship deployed its sail, and waited for the arrival of its next load of passengers and equipment bound for Antallos.

I'd say go for it (but most of the China part problems escaped me. OTOH the problems with that part were mostly the china thing)

[Keiran Halcyon]

Originally Posted by JonBerry

I couldn't make the China section work, so I'm just going to re-post what's left of my piece. Hopefully, I can throw it up, then move on to my next plotted segment. IS spies!

-----
London, England
Earth, Granville Cluster
29 January 2007

--Snip--

It's great. I've got no problems with it. Post.

[walkir]

@JonBerry: IS spies on Earth, Antallos, the capital worlds or everywhere?

[JonBerry]

Spies, spies EVERYWHERE! On Antallos, on Earth, on a couple of the Capitals! Loyal to the Houses, ComStar/Blake and the CSN!

Maybe that's a little too much for one post. May have to break it up a bit first.

[walkir]

As we got a lot of CEarth positive stuff, it might be good to start with those spies that actually get good intel the the spheroids. Which would be everyone but the CSN spies I guess.

[Keiran Halcyon]

Taking into account the debate from the DefenseTech thread and the general consensus there I've altered a few details in the segment. I've got it as ready as it can be, I think.

Oval Office
White House, Washington DC
Earth, Grantville Cluster
3rd May 2007

Jack Ryan Sr had ever since the first Spheroid Pirate invasion of New Zealand heard many schemes, proposals, plans and projects that many in his own administration had dreamed up, including some that filtered through the various alphabet soup agencies. Most of the ideas had concrete benefits, that he could see would work out long-term, and had gotten his stamp of approval and bumped around to the rest of the CSN Head of States. Some were good ideas, but not entirely practical. Others were the equivalent of political nitro-glycerine that could threaten to divide the very new CSN even before it properly got off the ground – off-world colonization policy was such an issue for example, especially in light of the Outer Space Treaty; while they ignored the nukes in space bit, everything else was still firmly being adhered to, especially the clause that prevented any government (singular) from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, since it was the ‘Common heritage of mankind’. The Treaty said nothing of a supra-national government or agency though, like the CSN and GDI.

From his seated position on the couches surrounding the Seal of the President, Jack stared at the two people standing beside an easel with chart diagrams explaining their proposal. He stomped down on his first reaction; which was to blurt out ‘This can’t possibly work outside of fiction.’ but a President didn’t say such things to his Science Advisor and a top tier DARPA scientist. Not especially when fiction had indeed turned to reality. In addition he knew his Science Tsar well enough; and the fifty two year old man would most certainly not be wasting his President’s time with nonsense.

“This is actually feasible?”

Dr Stephen Young, PhD in aeronautics, astronautics and plasma physics, current Director of the Presidential Office of Science and Technology Policy nodded earnestly. “Oh yes, Mr President. Casaba Howitzer’s theoretical work was started in the Sixties when the military advisors to Project Orion noticed that if you could make the plasma burst a little faster and with a narrower spread, it would no longer be a propulsion system. It would be a directed energy weapon of a magnitude that would dwarf any reusable ‘cannon’ –style system.”

Jack nodded in understanding but asked, “Okay, so instead of having a propulsion system that is essentially a shaped nuclear charge under a tin can, now you’re proposing we use that shaped charge to shoot at an enemy?”

“We’re using the nuke to get the energy to blast a mass of Lithium or Potassium plasma at them, Mr President.”

“I see,” Jack nodded. “So this, the Bomb Pumped gamma-ray laser and the FusionT weapon is what you propose to close the gaps in the Nuclear Shield?”

“Yes, Mr President. Dr Kemp’s proposal…” Dr Young nodded to his rather attractive fellow scientist; who was standing on the other side of the easel in a woman’s suit, looking highly professional but her face showed her nervousness of being in the ‘Office’ and meeting with the Boss. “…is the only viable solution we see to the problem of an enemy jumping into the Solar System with prior knowledge of our Nuclear Gauntlet and equipping large amounts of Laser based AMS systems.”

It was not a common known fact to the man in the street that a standard nuclear weapon detonated in space was actually far from the iconic mushroom clouds that had burned itself into the minds of people since the first one was detonated over Hiroshima. With no air medium around the weapon, in a vacuum a nuke needed to contact detonate against a ship hull to destroy it for sure. If it missed and went off just a mere one kilometer from the target (a tiny relative distance in space) then the weapon would just singe the paint and perhaps blind the targets’ sensors for a time.

Then you had to factor in a ship equipped anti-missile systems that blasted away with Small Lasers at ranges well beyond a kilometer and while Spheroid targeting computers didn’t even come close to passing muster against their Earth counterparts, it would still require firing dozens of nukes at a ship to score a kill. That figure went up into the hundreds when going against a prepared opponent.

Jack thought for a moment and then nodded firmly. “Okay, you’ve both sold me on Casaba and the long-term goal of a bomb pumped Graser. However, I’m a bit leery of the idea of turning a Dropship engine into a weapon – it’s an extremely double-edged sword.”

“In that our Spheroid enemies could imitate it relatively quickly once we’ve used it against them,” Dr Young agreed. “Mr President, I advise that the Fusion Torch weapon, if successful, should only be deployed within the Solar System on ODPs, and even then is fired as a weapon of last resort. The Casabas and Grasers are to be issued to ODPs and our future warships and battlecarriers, but again are only to be used if the ship and/or colony in question have exhausted all other avenues of defence.”

Jack sat back in the soft couch and shook his head ruefully. “We’re going to end up with MAD eventually, except on an interstellar scale.”

Dr Young didn’t bother to point out that it had been Mutually Assured Destruction that had kept the West and Warsaw Pact from ever considering turning the Cold War into a hot one, and ensured a lasting ‘peace’ that had resulted eventually in the current relatively stable political climate on Earth. Jack Ryan knew this as surely as the man knew how to tie his shoelaces. “DARPA has taken that into account, Mr President.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, feeling intrigued. “Oh?”

Young turned to the woman who had done the watered down technical part of the presentation for the President. “Dr Kemp?”

Dr Evangeline Kemp cleared her throat nervously. “Mr President, DARPA has not been approaching this from just a perspective of us developing the weapons. We’ve also established a counter-project team, whose job is to develop methods and technologies from defending against Casabas, Grasers and FusionT weapons.”

Jack frowned. “I’m sorry, Dr Kemp, but with the capabilities of Casaba and others…how would our future ships defend against that?”

“Casaba is a mass of plasma travelling at extremely high velocity; you need to hit it before it can detonate. We hope to eventually produce a Casaba that can accurately hit a ship a thousand kilometres from the point of detonation. To counter we could adapt the Star League Barracuda Missile and its relevant Launchers; develop a means to extend its range even further beyond nine hundred kilometres – this could be done by developing a small FusionT engine, attach our latest guidance and sensor packages, vectored thrust and theoretically we’ve extended the Barracuda’s range as much as we can squeeze reaction mass inside it for propulsion.”
Jack understood. “Essentially an anti-missile missile for space.”

“Yes, Mr President, they’re also working on achieving the Beyond Light-second range goal for ship mounted Lasers and PPCs. With our superior optics and computers, especially with quantum state IT soon to be introduced we are already on our way to that end.”

“We will eventually be able to hit a ship at an extreme stand-off range that no Spheroid faction or Clan will be able to match, Mr President,” Dr Young concluded.

“The counter-project team is also researching the idea of the Blue Shield Particle Field Dampener for our future warships.”

Jack blinked, he was not sure he had heard that right. “Shield?”

Dr Kemp grinned and shook her head. “It’s not a ‘Shield’ in the Star Trek sense, Mr President. It’s a system that cuts down significantly on the damage a PPC can inflict; by dampening the incoming ions that the PPC beam is throwing into the target. This system will have to be developed from scratch though; we will have to wait until New Dallas Expedition returns with the Star League Core to aid us in development.”

“Even with that, it’s not a sure thing,” Dr Young argued. “Blue Shield will not be developed for another thirty one years, according to the sourcebook timeline. All we have is the idea, and no practical starting point of even where we should begin to experiment. I think we would be better off focusing on the Cold Plasma Defense Shield.”

“If FedCom scientists could do it, then there’s no reason we can’t; they also had the Star League Cores to work from as a basis. And while Cold Plasma Shielding, in theory, would deflect both particle beams and laser attacks – there is no guarantee we could tune the plasma frequency high enough to do that…there’s also no way we could practically envelop an entire warship or jumpship with the shield, it would also effectively blind the ship’s sensors…”

Dr Young was incredulous. “You can’t be suggesting we throw CP out the window?”

“Not at all, it’s a technology with good potential, but combat and logistical conditions make it impractical for protecting warships against directed energy weaponry. I can see it being used to aid other weapons in performing their job better; keeping dust off laser optics for instance, stealth, and allow for rapid decontamination of clothing, equipment or personal gear…”

Dr Young was about to retort, but Jack interrupted the potential argument and stood from the couch. “Regardless of either the Particle Dampener and Cold Plasma’s viability or their potential applications, I can see the advantage and the need to develop both technologies and leverage them well. Consider your entire project green-lighted, I’ll run it by the CSN for further funding and support to be thrown your way.”

Both scientists inadvertently chorused, “Thank you, Mr President.”

Jack shook Evangeline’s hand. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you Dr Kemp, I suggest you get started.”

The determination was clear in her voice. “We won’t disappoint, Mr President.”

“Have a good day, Mr President,” Dr Young promptly ushered the DARPA scientist out.

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951 Gaspra Asteroid
2.1 AU from Sol Primary
20th November 2009

For countless eons since the final formation of the solar system, 951 Gaspra had been coasting in space on its orbital velocity of nineteen kilometres per second. It was a silicate type asteroid that bore the honour of being the first to be closely photographed when it was approached by the Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter. As such, quite a lot was known to the inhabitants of Earth about this particular eighteen by ten by nine kilometre rock. It had the usual small craters, quite a few large flat areas and there was a very subtle colour variation on the surface which contained olivine and pyroxene. Gaspra's surface lacked unambiguous craters of a size comparable to its radius. A probable reason was that the collision that produced the Flora family of asteroids and Gaspra was relatively recent on an astronomical timescale; as a result Gaspra had not yet had the opportunity to acquire many large craters. In addition, analysis of the cratering rates suggested the age of the surface was only about 20 million years.

Right now though, there was another spacecraft holding station just within a thousand kilometres of Gaspra. The difference between this one and the previous one that had flown by roughly nineteen years ago was roughly over five centuries of technological advancement.

Dr Evangeline Kemp felt the stomach-churning zero gee in her current quarters aboard the GDI Manatee class Dropship which had been named Oppenheimer by its small highly vetted crew. She cringed and went through a quick mental exercise - when she felt confident she wouldn't throw up the freeze dried food she had just eaten all over her laptop - she stared with a bit of sadness at the high-resolution image of Gaspra it displayed. After today it would forever be changed, marred with the scars of experimental weapon systems.

The DARPA scientists on board had been working feverishly ever since their arrival over two days ago turning every scientific instrument and imagining device they had on the asteroid to preserve its unmarred state, at least within the various databanks on Earth. A few hours ago in a last act of preservation they had also done an EVA to collect samples. Now Gaspra was about to be turned into Earth’s first extra-terrestrial nuclear test site and shooting gallery.

A chime from her cabin door sounded. The voice of Oppenheimer’s XO, Lt. Commander Nicholson was distorted through the tiny speaker in the door control pad. “Dr Kemp, we’re ready, the last of the sensor platforms has been positioned.”

Eva grumbled, getting out of her zero g bed and awkwardly floated toward the door after pushing off. She keyed the pad. “I’ll be there asap. Thanks.” She tied up her loose auburn mane of hair and grabbed a jacket to put over her olive dyed NASA-style jumpsuit and stave off the perpetual cold that being in this tin can meant. Sure it was a perfectly live-able nineteen degrees Celsius but not from the perspective of a Texan.

Leaving her quarters her hand clutched the guide rails tightly as she floated along. Despite having passed a six-month abbreviated NASA training course on getting accustomed to the minutia of space travel, zero g training had been virtual torture. As she was seemingly cursed with the most sensitive stomach to ever grace the halls of NASA; her instructors had eventually told her to not even bother with food on days scheduled for zg. She had not let it stop her at all and persevered; being out in space was a dream come true, before the truly insane yet wondrous ISOT event that had transposed fifty light years of their own space into the BT Universe, she had to content herself to only looking forward to perhaps a Mars Landing by the late 2020s, and perhaps she herself would go into Earth orbit and perhaps the Moon eventually when the infant space tourism industry grew up a little more.

Now, everything had changed.

Entering the Bridge of the Oppenheimer, she saw that the DARPA team were all clustered around the area devoted to monitoring the streaming sensor data, whilst the GDI Navy crew were all seated at their respective stations in the circular ‘CIC’ or Command Information Centre, as it was officially called.

Commander Sean Johnstone gave her a polite smile from the central chair. “Dr Kemp.”

“Commander.” She greeted as she moved along via the consoles handrails, finally arriving at her own station and hooking her feet into the straps on the floor to keep her tumbling about from as simple an action as pushing buttons or typing on a keyboard. She did a quick remote status check on the devices they were here to test and brought up a Radar and Lidar derived tactical diagram of the Dropship relative to the asteroid.

‘Hmm, good the Casabas are exactly where they should be, as is our other little experiment. The sensor platforms as well.’ She mentally thanked God that Oppenheimer had gotten an overhaul of its IT systems to Earth-spec. Many in DARPA wondered how the Spheroids could stand working with the garbage that masqueraded as an Operating System on their ships. It was just one of those things that happened to societies governed by feudal lords that had idiotically blown up each others centres of learning and massacred scientists to try and one up the other over three centuries of war. Now, with no IT specialists to speak of, they had just become used to the same crappy computers and OS’s.

Commander Johnstone swivelled his chair in a slow revolution, meeting everyone’s eyes as he talked, his gaze was dead serious and his Australian accent deepened. “All right everyone, we’re about to do the test run. We know in theory what’s going to happen, but this will be the first time we detonate these things in deep space under testing conditions. We’re a nice safe distance away but if we have so much as a hint of something wrong which could possibly endanger us, I’m calling this off. That being said lets see if we can’t make us a nice weapon to literally blast our future enemies into oblivion. Dr Kemp?”

Eva met the six other faces of the DARPA team and received nods in return. “We’re ready here in all respects, Commander.”

“Good. You may proceed.”

She took a deep steadying breath as the Oppenheimer’s Com Officer gave her station priority access. Using the ‘rollerball’ mouse interface integrated into her panel, she selected the first Casaba Howitzer - placed a mere one kilometre from the surface of Gaspra.

“Casaba Alpha is responding to commands, and reporting good orientation to its target area. Detonation in three…two…one…”

Casaba Alpha was a specially shaped nuclear charge, with a nominal yield of seven kilotons. Whereas a standard nuclear weapon would emit its energy in an expanding sphere, the Casaba channelled that energy for the briefest of moments by surrounding the nuke with a shell of x-ray opaque material, uranium in this case, and a hole in the top.

For a few picoseconds, extremely powerful x-rays blasted in the direction of Gaspra, only to be intercepted within the Casaba by a plate of beryllium oxide. The beryllium instantly transformed the nuclear x-rays into a fury of intense heat. This heat blasted itself into another plate of Potassium. Another picosecond later this Potassium was vaporized…and resulted in a nicely aimed narrow jet of sun hot plasma spearing towards Gaspra…it crossed the kilometer near instantly and tunnelled into the surface of the asteroid, vaporizing the silicates, carbons and other elements instantly and only adding more plasma to the mix. The Casaba ceased to exist at this point as the expanding radiation of a tiny artificial star flashed briefly before turning into a small mini-nova that expanded out in a rough sphere.

The crew of Oppenheimer had turned off the critical sensors to avoid the flash blinding effect, but now turned them on to gather as much data in the aftermath as possible. The visual effect of the Casaba nuke had already passed, the cameras left purposefully on were beyond repair now, but they had streamed the a few good frames of images for post-blast analysis.

“Did we get a good hit?” Commander Johnstone queried hopefully.

Eva squinted at the images coming in now, focusing the feed from the nearest sensor platform. She turned to crew and grinned, “Gaspra has a nice deep new crater.” The crew let loose with a round of spontaneous whistling and clapping, to vent their nervousness that the first obstacle had been overcome.

A few minutes later Casaba Beta was detonated. This one at a range of ten kilometres. The cameras and sensors had much more data now, as the destructive jet of plasma had been visible for slightly longer before boring into Gaspra’s surface.

Casaba Charlie at a range of fifty kilometres however, was a flop. It only blew up as a normal nuke and sent no potassium plasma blast anywhere.

“Damn x-ray casing must have been too thin on that one,” muttered Eva; Casaba Charlie had been an experiment on the minimum required thickness of the uranium x-ray shell, in an effort to determine the most economical method of construction for the Casaba.

Delta detonated successfully and sent its plasma blast over a void of a hundred kilometers, still burrowing a deep, two meter wide crater into Gaspra.

Echo, emplaced at a hundred kilometres was a failure.

Foxtrot at two hundred k also just wasted its energy in a spherical detonation.

Casaba Golf though, was successful, and that was critical…two hundred and seventy kilometers was the longest accurate range of a Clan Heavy Large Laser, and if the Casaba could send its deadly spear of plasma from ranges beyond then no smaller Laser based Point Defense system could hope to intercept it before it detonated. Only perhaps the Barracuda Missile System, designed for ASF intercept could reach out beyond that to nine hundred kilometres and no current Inner Sphere nation had that system any more.

Golf’s plasma blast crossed the three hundred kilometres in the blink of an eye and slammed into Gaspra’s surface.

Eva shook her head in frustration as she received the visual of the impact area. “The plasma blast is becoming wider as we detonate further away. I’m reading an eight meter wide crater and its depth penetration is degrading.”

“So the focusing of the blast needs to be improved the further out we go,” one of the DARPA engineers mused. “Casaba Hotel should help with that.”

Commander Johnstone turned in his chair. “Dr Kemp?”

“The jet angle also grows narrower as the thickness of the potassium plate is reduced, but conversely it means less plasma quantity,” Eva explained. “To offset this we use an element with an even lower atomic number, it would further increase the speed of the plasma jet and narrow its delivery angle for longer ranges…going lower than Potassium means a Lithium plate – Casaba Hotel is such a weapon.”

Thirty seconds later the Lithium Casaba Howitzer was detonated at a range of five hundred kilometres. Lithium was the least dense solid element known, only having an atomic number of three. Lithium-6 was valued as a source material for tritium production and as a neutron absorber in nuclear fusion; hence the expensive Lithium Fusion batteries that some military Jumpships carried that enable a second consecutive use of an FTL KF Drive. But here the insulated Lithium plate inside Casaba Hotel was instantly transformed into narrow stream of plasma barely half a meter wide that blasted into Gaspra and…

Eva stared at her monitor in near stupefaction. “Holy shit!” The other engineers were likewise stunned and gaping at their monitors.

Commander Johnstone was not amused. “What? What’s going on? Do we need to get out of here?! C’mon…Dr Kemp, speak to me!”

“Relax Commander…we’re fine, it’s just that we never expected…that plasma blast was frightfully fast, so much so that the damage we just did to Gaspra included a significant kinetic energy transfer.”

“How significant?”

Eva turned to one of her co-workers who was frantically busy with the calculations from the data to get an exact figure. The engineer looked up from his screen, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Point eight nine three of C.”

“That’s roughly two hundred sixty thousand kilometres per second.” The GDI crew blinked as they tried to get their head around that. “We never expected to achieve such velocities with Casaba, perhaps it’s because we’re only two atomic numbers from Hydrogen, a stable isotope of which is called Deuterium…”

“Which is used in a Fusion Reactor,” the Commander nodded, realization entering his eyes.

“Yes, and consequently the Fusion Torch Engine which has an exhaust velocity at near ninety nine percent of Light speed. We’ll have to wait to do more analysis of the data, but I believe we achieved a Lithium Fusion reaction with that last Casaba. Essentially blasting Gaspra with reactor grade fusion plasma. We’ll see what Casaba India gives us.”

Four hundred kilometres away from Oppenheimer another seven kiloton detonation heralded another Lithium Casaba exploding; which failed to send its blast of plasma.

Eva slammed her hand down on the console. “Shit!”

Casaba Juliet however, shot its jet of lithium plasma downrange with success. It was the last and the engineers salivated over the data, already talking excitedly how they could possibly increase reliability with this practical information. They were not done though. A mere kilometre away from Oppenheimer floated a disembodied Star League V84 drive system salvaged from Antallos a year ago. It had been in a crashed Leopard that had been excavated from the sands, and while it seemed nice and intact at cursory examination, testing on Earth revealed that its internals did not pass muster and it would likely fail after a few days of continuous operation.

She shook her head as she established a remote link with the computer attached to the V84. “I really wish we could’ve used an Earth FusionT engine to try this.”

“We might be cranking them out like Henry Ford did with the Model T back in the day, but we need every engine we can possibly make out there in the Cluster,” the DARPA engineer commented gravely.

The Commander noticed what she was doing on his own tactical display. “What exactly are we testing here, with that hunk of junk you asked us to haul out there?”

“We’re going to see if we can turn a Dropship engine into a true one hit shipkiller.”

The ‘shipkiller’ had just enough reaction mass within it for this one purpose. It lit off with all its safeties removed, and since it didn’t have to push a dropship weighing thousands of tons, it managed an acceleration of 230Gs. It kept a full burn going leaving a glowing plasma trail behind it.

“Target is nine hundred and eighty kilometres distant, Shipkiller velocity at 5.4kms.”

The scientists and crew eyes were glued to their screens…every second the Shipkiller gained another two point two kilometers per second in speed. It pushed and pushed, getting faster and faster. It began to eat up the distance extremely fast and the GDI crew was surprised when the whole contraption stopped its engines at the halfway mark, only to perform a reorientation and aim its exhaust nozzle towards Gaspra.

“Initiating nozzle confinement.”

The Shipkiller under direction of the attached guidance computer, altered the geometry of its magnetic nozzle, so that the drive plume no longer flared out to provide thrust…but instead channel the plasma in a directed beam. It waited until terminal guidance sensed it was only fifty kilometres from the asteroid and restarted its engine burn…way, way beyond the red-line.

A point four meter diameter fusion plasma beam fired at .99C hit Gaspra with titanic force…spraying rock and silicate everywhere and actually cored straight through. The V84 finally gave up the ghost after only two seconds of this, and exploded in a maelstrom of radiation, nucleic debris and a mix of gamma and x-rays – but it didn’t matter, it might as well have been an eternity if an enemy ship would’ve been on the receiving end of that beam.

“Shipkiller indeed,” Commander Johnstone breathed in awe.

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[walkir]

Go for it.

I'll post the internet lesson thing tomorrow (GMT).

[bluepencil]

Kieran, are you going to put the 2007 bit in the Story thread or is the whole shebang going into the Non-Canon thread?

By way, I'd like to raise a small complaint about recent idea posts. Apart from a few established characters, there are too many people in too many projects, and not enough personalities. There are a lot of names with no descriptions, traits, or even appreciable motivations other than For Science! Thrown into the story once, and never used again. This gives Bpen a sad, since there are old characters that already have had some character development and are being ignored. For example Dana Zumross, Natalie's technician, she was there to make exposition about the VAC/20... and now what?

What is the fate of BT technicians left on Earth? What about those accompanying the Antallos group? I think they're taking correspondence college courses, since most of them didn't really have formal technical education.


edit:
Reading back on the story thread, Natalie's technician and best friend is named Dani. Woops. Okay, that's confusing. She's who I meant; what, no last name?