Fourth Empire vs Lensman

[Darth_Shinji]

For those without access to the book, Colin had prevously spent the last ten-minutes saying that the system could be hostile, and with the 4th empire's weaponry, they all could be dead in a few hours.

[Currald]

Lensman hyperspace is the classic 4D wormhole. A ground-based generator is required at one end, and the appropriate equipment must be installed on the ship. Transmissions want' go through the hyper-tube, but ships, dirigible planets, negaspheres, etc. can. It can be aimed accurately (within feet, or within millimeters with a homing device at the target), but cannot be aimed too close to a large gravitational body (In the Sol system, for instance, it cannot be aimed at anything within over 1AU of Sol).

I see. Well, Dahakverse hyperspace is described as a grey mass which looking at for too long can cause nausea, vertigo and eventually madness, so they probably aren't the same.

Hmmm... almost precisely the same as the discription of what the Dauntless crew see through their plates! Probably not a coincidence.

[Darth_Shinji]

But in this case the hypertube is a wormhole while hyperspace in Dahak are energy demensions...

[technomage]

Imperial warships are not blind while under Enchanach drive. Only in hyperspace. In Enchanach, the ship is still in n-space the entire time. It's systems are simply limited by the fact that it's only in one place for billlionths of a second at a time. But it is not said anywhere that I know of that it is blind in Enchanach.

Foldspace tech is not the same as hyperspace tech. Foldspace systems bend n-space so that two points are in congruity to each other, thus allowing realtime communications and sensor systems that operate at effectively FTL speeds. Hyperspace involves other universes.

And the Empire is more than capable of building shields larger than planetoid size. What do you call Earth's planetary shield, or better yet, the Bia system shield, which forms a sphere with a diameter about the size of Mars' orbit? They prefer not to put heavy installations on planetary surfaces because energy weapons can cause all sorts of havoc with the atmosphere, and because return fire from space isn't healthy for the surrounding area. They can however, fire hyper missiles from atmosphere. The Imperium had to build airtight launchers, but the Empire had a substance that was impervious to warp radiation.

[Darth_Shinji]

Imperial warships are not blind while under Enchanach drive. Only in hyperspace. In Enchanach, the ship is still in n-space the entire time. It's systems are simply limited by the fact that it's only in one place for billlionths of a second at a time. But it is not said anywhere that I know of that it is blind in Enchanach.

I've just posted a quote that shows that they can not use sensors untill after thier jump is compleated. There's a very simaly one when they enter that other system too(iirc).

Foldspace tech is not the same as hyperspace tech. Foldspace systems bend n-space so that two points are in congruity to each other, thus allowing realtime communications and sensor systems that operate at effectively FTL speeds. Hyperspace involves other universes.

Actaully foldspace tech uses elements of hyperspace and gravitronic technology (Mutinners Moon pg, 37).

And the Empire is more than capable of building shields larger than planetoid size. What do you call Earth's planetary shield, or better yet, the Bia system shield, which forms a sphere with a diameter about the size of Mars' orbit? They prefer not to put heavy installations on planetary surfaces because energy weapons can cause all sorts of havoc with the atmosphere, and because return fire from space isn't healthy for the surrounding area. They can however, fire hyper missiles from atmosphere. The Imperium had to build airtight launchers, but the Empire had a substance that was impervious to warp radiation.

Yep. And because of how shields work the larger the area the more powerful the shield if you can power both to a certain point.

[Currald]

Now what is the range of those sensors? 5 light minutes?

[Black Admiral]

Now what is the range of those sensors? 5 light minutes?

Fold-space scanners?

Maximum that we've seen them used at is 9.8 light hours, when Dahak spots Mother in orbit of Birhat.

[Xon]

Imperial warships are not blind while under Enchanach drive. Only in hyperspace. In Enchanach, the ship is still in n-space the entire time. It's systems are simply limited by the fact that it's only in one place for billlionths of a second at a time. But it is not said anywhere that I know of that it is blind in Enchanach.

I've just posted a quote that shows that they can not use sensors untill after thier jump is compleated. There's a very simaly one when they enter that other system too(iirc).

There are examples of Planetiods firing weapons while using the Enchanach Drive! There are commenst that some of the planetiods died due to enemy fire while zipping about ~720c and firing weapons(since it mentions them dieing as it passes the enemies)

Also an Enchanach drive operates in a series of fermo-second jumps, and cycles really fucking fast.

Those hypertubes arent going to be much use against a planetiod using a Enchanach drive. Since the Enchanach drive causes enormous graviational shear around the planetiod. ~10 planetiods flying in circles at FTL, locked down hyper in a radius of 40 lightminutes, when the hyperlimit is normally 10-15 lightminutes.

[Captain Cyran]

There are examples of Planetiods firing weapons while using the Enchanach Drive! There are commenst that some of the planetiods died due to enemy fire while zipping about ~720c and firing weapons(since it mentions them dieing as it passes the enemies)

Actually I think that was more because the Planetoids were moving at 70% the speed of light, not because they were using Enchanach. And if they'd used Enchanach while passing an enemy fleet I can assure you bad things would have happened to some of that fleet.

Also an Enchanach drive operates in a series of fermo-second jumps, and cycles really fucking fast.

Those hypertubes arent going to be much use against a planetiod using a Enchanach drive. Since the Enchanach drive causes enormous graviational shear around the planetiod. ~10 planetiods flying in circles at FTL, locked down hyper in a radius of 40 lightminutes, when the hyperlimit is normally 10-15 lightminutes.

Those weren't 10 Planetoids, that was hundreds of those drone things moving about in Hyper. I believe you're thinking of the 6 or so Planetoids that caused a star to go nova when they used enchanach near it.

[Darth_Shinji]

There are examples of Planetiods firing weapons while using the Enchanach Drive! There are commenst that some of the planetiods died due to enemy fire while zipping about ~720c and firing weapons(since it mentions them dieing as it passes the enemies)

Please post at least a page number, I'm not able to find it so far and the quote I've posted says otherwise.

Also an Enchanach drive operates in a series of fermo-second jumps, and cycles really fucking fast.

Yeah, but apperently they can't use sensors until the hypertape is compleatly turned off.

Those hypertubes arent going to be much use against a planetiod using a Enchanach drive. Since the Enchanach drive causes enormous graviational shear around the planetiod. ~10 planetiods flying in circles at FTL, locked down hyper in a radius of 40 lightminutes, when the hyperlimit is normally 10-15 lightminutes.

If the Empire doesn't mind destroying its own civilain worlds, yeah.

[Xon]

Those weren't 10 Planetoids, that was hundreds of those drone things moving about in Hyper. I believe you're thinking of the 6 or so Planetoids that caused a star to go nova when they used enchanach near it.

No, they were a dozen or so transport planetiods doing donuts with enchanach drive to prevent the enemy(I cant spell they name) from escaping into hyper.

It was a big plot point.

[Xon]

There are examples of Planetiods firing weapons while using the Enchanach Drive! There are commenst that some of the planetiods died due to enemy fire while zipping about ~720c and firing weapons(since it mentions them dieing as it passes the enemies)

Please post at least a page number, I'm not able to find it so far and the quote I've posted says otherwise.

I'll look. I've only got 1 book in ebook format, and I'm not too sure were the other 2 are.

[Xon]

I bought the ebook of "Empire From the Ashes" (Omnibus), I've been meaning to get it.

Now behold the wonders of "Grep -i Enchanach * > c:\a.html"!

File 0743435931__42.htm

"Dahak was. In fact, he and 'Tanni are still about twelve hours out. Tamman and I took the others and micro-jumped on ahead," Colin said, then grinned at Horus's expression. "Scout's honor. Oh, we still needed Dahak's computers—we were plugged in by fold-space link all the way—but he couldn't keep up. You see, those ships carry hyper drives as well as Enchanach drives."

File 0743435931__43.htm:

"Yeah," Colin said, "but these ships are dumb, Horus, and we don't begin to have the people for them. We managed to put skeleton crews on six of the Asgerds, but the others are riding empty—except for Sevrid, that is. That's why we had to come back on Enchanach Drive instead of hypering home. We can't run 'em worth a damn without Dahak to do their thinking for them."

Fold-space links *do* work while under Enchanach drive. Otherwise they wouldnt have gotten the Emperor's personal fleet home.


Ah. I found what I was looking for:

Chapter 24 of The Armageddon Inheritance

All magazines were topped up, and transferring Dahak's skeleton crew to Ashar had given them sixteen autonomous units once more. They were as ready as they could get, he thought, deliberately not looking at the hastily-installed mat-trans which had replaced the tactical officer's couch and console.

"All right, Dahak, saddle up. Get the minelayers moving."

"Acknowledged." The unmanned colliers moved out, accompanied by Dahak and his bevy of lobotomized geniuses, loafing along under Enchanach Drive at sixty times light-speed. They weren't in that great a hurry.
...
The stealthed colliers ringed the mines, waiting obediently to play their part in Operation Laocoon and fifteen more stealthed Asgerd-class planetoids were invisible even to Dahak's scanners, their positions marked only because he already knew where they would be
...
"Execute Laocoon," Colin replied.

"Executing."

The colliers ringing the minefield engaged their Enchanach Drives. No human rode their command decks, but none was needed for this simple task. They flashed through their preprogrammed maneuvers in an intricate supralight mazurka, exchanging positions so quickly and adroitly that, in effect, one of them was constantly in each cardinal point of a circle twenty light-minutes across.

They danced their dance, harming no one . . . and wove a garrote of gravity about the Achuultani's throat. They were invisible stars, forging a forty-light-minute sphere in which there was no hyper threshold.

They werent planetiods, but they were large enought to have an Enchanach drive, and there was only 16 of them.

As for the using the Enchanach in combat:

Dahak Two abandoned stealth and plunged into the space-annihilating gravity well of her Enchanach Drive—the gravity well lethal even to her sisters if they chanced too close as she dropped sublight. Not even Imperial computers could control the exact point at which Enchanach ships went sublight or guarantee they wouldn't kill one another when they did. All of Jiltanith's captains instantly recognized the insane risk she ran. . . .
...
His people swept in at many times the speed of light, riding an impossible line between life and mutual destruction in an effort to save him
...
A whiplash of fresh shock slammed through Great Lord of Order Hothan. Where had they come from? What were they?!

Fifteen ravening spheres of gravitonic fury erupted amid his ships. Two blossomed too near to one another, ripping themselves apart, but they took a high twelve of his ships with them. And then the gravity storm ended, and a twelve of fresh enemies were upon him. Upon him? They were within him! They appeared like monsters of wizardry, deep in the heart of his nestlings, and their beams began to kill.

Twelve thousand humans died as Ashar and Trelma destroyed themselves, and another six thousand as massed fire tore Thrym apart, but the Achuultani had given all they had and more for their Nest.

Ok, looks like I was wrong about firing while using the Enchanach drive.

0743435931__60.htm:

Under the latest generation Enchanach drive, for example, a ship covered distance at eight hundred and fifty times light-speed, yet it didn't really "move" at all. It simply flashed out of existence here and reappeared over there. The drive built its actual gravity masses in less than a femtosecond, but the entire cycle took almost a full trillionth of a second in normal space between transpositions. That interval was imperceptible, and there was no Doppler effect to distort vision, since during those tiny periods of time the ship was effectively motionless, but any human eye would have found it impossible to sort out the visual stimuli as its point of observation shifted by two hundred and fifty-four million kilometers every second.

So the computers generated an artificial image, a sort of tachyon's-eye view of the universe. The glorious display enfolded the bridge in a three-hundred-sixty-degree panorama whose nearer stars moved visibly and gave humanity the comforting illusion of moving through a comprehensible universe.

I'm fairly sure the sensors arent blind, during the use of the Enchanach drive.

[Currald]

Based on speed and sensor range, the 4th Empire wouldn't stand much of a chance. The Dauntless-class could go ~2.5 million c. The 4thE would be outmaneuvered in short order. They might take out a few ships in the early stages of the conflict before the GP figures out effective tactics against them, but such a wide disparity probably cannot be overcome.

[Black Admiral]

Based on speed and sensor range, the 4th Empire wouldn't stand much of a chance. The Dauntless-class could go ~2.5 million c. The 4thE would be outmaneuvered in short order. They might take out a few ships in the early stages of the conflict before the GP figures out effective tactics against them, but such a wide disparity probably cannot be overcome.

Well, the problem is that a lot of their systems are very heavily defended, and we've never really seen what an undamaged 4thE planetoid can do. Most of the IGF was barely possible to restore to combat readiness in the time Colin had (five months), due to being out of stasis for something like 48,000 years. Dahak was in Earth's orbit longer, but he had put all his systems into stasis, only breaking that stasis for short periods of repairs.

Still, now that I've got Mutineers' Moon back, I can post that 'vaporize a planet quote':

"Essentially, Commander, this ship could vaporize your planet.

That's Dahak explaining to Colin what he's capable of. Note that Dahak isn't prone to hyperbole, and it's stated during TAI that a purely civilian unit of Dahak's size and mass, built using 4thE technology, would have twenty times his combat capability.

The IGF is all military units, and any one of them at full capacity would thrash Dahak I, unless Dahak does what he did to BattleComp and paralyses its systems.

[Darth_Shinji]

I bought the ebook of "Empire From the Ashes" (Omnibus), I've been meaning to get it.

Now behold the wonders of "Grep -i Enchanach * > c:\a.html"!

File 0743435931__42.htm

"Dahak was. In fact, he and 'Tanni are still about twelve hours out. Tamman and I took the others and micro-jumped on ahead," Colin said, then grinned at Horus's expression. "Scout's honor. Oh, we still needed Dahak's computers—we were plugged in by fold-space link all the way—but he couldn't keep up. You see, those ships carry hyper drives as well as Enchanach drives."

File 0743435931__43.htm:

"Yeah," Colin said, "but these ships are dumb, Horus, and we don't begin to have the people for them. We managed to put skeleton crews on six of the Asgerds, but the others are riding empty—except for Sevrid, that is. That's why we had to come back on Enchanach Drive instead of hypering home. We can't run 'em worth a damn without Dahak to do their thinking for them."

Fold-space links *do* work while under Enchanach drive. Otherwise they wouldnt have gotten the Emperor's personal fleet home.

Thats links between ships, we also know they can know the've been scanned but niether of these go against the quote I've posted. They can not scan outside.

I'm fairly sure the sensors arent blind, during the use of the Enchanach drive.

That could of simply of been pictures with devices simler to modern camera's there not fold-space scans like the one in my quote that says without a doubt can not work without the hypertap off. Read the quote I've posted.

[Darth_Shinji]

That's Dahak explaining to Colin what he's capable of. Note that Dahak isn't prone to hyperbole, and it's stated during TAI that a purely civilian unit of Dahak's size and mass, built using 4thE technology, would have twenty times his combat capability.

The IGF is all military units, and any one of them at full capacity would thrash Dahak I, unless Dahak does what he did to BattleComp and paralyses its systems.

Okay, so? The Patrol has single missles that can "nearly volotize" planets. Single missles in fleets numbering in the millions. Who also move faster and can pop in thru a hypertube nearly anywhere.

[Black Admiral]

Okay, so? The Patrol has single missles that can "nearly volotize" planets. Single missles in fleets numbering in the millions. Who also move faster and can pop in thru a hypertube nearly anywhere.

*shrugs*

Just giving a benchmark for 4thE firepower.

Also, what it takes the GP a planet and a hypertube to do, the 4thE can do with one missile and a parasite (spark a supernova).

[Black Admiral]

Oh yeah, how willing to planet-bust is the GP?

I ask because AFAICT, the 4thE doesn't consider planetbusting an undesirable possibility of war, it considers such events an inevitable outcome.

[Currald]

Oh yeah, how willing to planet-bust is the GP?

The GP will bust a planet if it is too heavily-defended to defeat in other ways. They are always "sickened to the core" when they do it, but "it had to be done."

[Darth_Shinji]

Also, what it takes the GP a planet and a hypertube to do, the 4thE can do with one missile and a parasite (spark a supernova).

Well those things are still in paper form in the begining of the war. A attack on Birhat might preempt there exsistence entirely. And its going to be hard getting in system to either E-drive out or missle a sun with a sun beam on it.

[Darth_Shinji]

Not to mention Civ consits of 1(2?) galaxies by the last book. Definatly 2 if this some time after the last novel.

[Xon]

Also, what it takes the GP a planet and a hypertube to do, the 4thE can do with one missile and a parasite (spark a supernova).

Well those things are still in paper form in the begining of the war. A attack on Birhat might preempt there exsistence entirely. And its going to be hard getting in system to either E-drive out or missle a sun with a sun beam on it.

One of those sun killer warheads, was biuld in a moderte side statue and shipped to Birhat. They were really worryed that it would take them out.

So they have been biult, and it didnt exactly take vastly new resources.

[Xon]

Fold-space links *do* work while under Enchanach drive. Otherwise they wouldnt have gotten the Emperor's personal fleet home.

Thats links between ships, we also know they can know the've been scanned but niether of these go against the quote I've posted. They can not scan outside.

Fold-space comms & Fold-space sensors are the same f*cking technology.

So more often than not, communications are based on the same princibles as the sensors, in most universe. But Communications are more complicated todo.

Thats like complaining someone can talk via short-wave radio, but not using a portable radar system

[Darth_Shinji]

Fold-space comms & Fold-space sensors are the same f*cking technology.

So more often than not, communications are based on the same princibles as the sensors, in most universe. But Communications are more complicated todo.

Thats like complaining someone can talk via short-wave radio, but not using a portable radar system

Read the damn quote, hell read both passages and explain them to me instead of making a really, really stupid comparision between radio and fucking warping space. There are really plain on the fact that Colin and the rest of the crew are scared becuase they can't scan either system untill the hypertap is shutdown. I've already posted the Birhat one. This is simply getting stupid until you face those quotes.