Aftermath of Bombardment

[SilverDragonRed]

A scene in the story I'm writing has the principle race's homeworld by a volley of fire equal to 1.5 teratons. How long would it take to disperse that energy naturally, or would any artifical means of doing so be necessary?

[Borgholio]

Do you mean to disperse the energy from the impact around the world or to clean up the environment afterwards? The energy will disperse around the planet rather quickly, perhaps on the order of minutes. Cleaning up and repairing the damage would take millions of years if you let nature take it's course.

[SilverDragonRed]

I meant dispersing the energy from the impact around the world. The interlocking system of theater shields would have prevented any further damage from the blast or the shockwave.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

A scene in the story I'm writing has the principle race's homeworld by a volley of fire equal to 1.5 teratons. How long would it take to disperse that energy naturally, or would any artifical means of doing so be necessary?

Well that depends on how long it takes to deliver all that energy. If you deliver it all at once, you create a crater roughly 35 kilometers wide and ruin everything within a few hundred kilometers of wherever you delivered all that energy (it's roughly the same as dropping a 3.4 km wide rock at 20 km/s.) If you deliver it over some length of time, then the total "1.5 teratons " of energy delivered becomes meaningless, as you become more interested in how much energy that volley is delivering at any given moment.

[SilverDragonRed]

Well that depends on how long it takes to deliver all that energy. If you deliver it all at once, you create a crater roughly 35 kilometers wide and ruin everything within a few hundred kilometers of wherever you delivered all that energy (it's roughly the same as dropping a 3.4 km wide rock at 20 km/s.).

The energy is delivered all at once. It was a single volley from a single turret on an orbiting corvette that had lucky timing.

I wouldn't have asked the question if it was delivered over a stretch of time.

[biostem]

Did the volley that struck the planet consist of physical impactors, some sort of energy weapon, or some other sort of exotic weapon, (antimatter, nuclear, technobabble)?

Is this planet earth-like, or is its surface of some other composition?

Did the volley strike land, water, mountains, flat terrain, etc?

What sort of infrastructure was in place when the volley hit? Vast cities, tunnel networks, etc could have an impact on the recovery time.

What sort of climate/seasons/rainfall/winds does this planet have?


Basically, I'm thinking that, for instance, a massive laser that delivered 1.5 teratons, striking an ocean, would have a much different aftermath than some sort of massive 'rod from god' hitting a mountain.

[SilverDragonRed]

Did the volley that struck the planet consist of physical impactors, some sort of energy weapon, or some other sort of exotic weapon, (antimatter, nuclear, technobabble)?

Is this planet earth-like, or is its surface of some other composition?

Did the volley strike land, water, mountains, flat terrain, etc?

What sort of infrastructure was in place when the volley hit? Vast cities, tunnel networks, etc could have an impact on the recovery time.

What sort of climate/seasons/rainfall/winds does this planet have?


Basically, I'm thinking that, for instance, a massive laser that delivered 1.5 teratons, striking an ocean, would have a much different aftermath than some sort of massive 'rod from god' hitting a mountain.

1) The turret is a directed energy weapon
2) Planet is Earth-like
3) It hit flat terrain
4) There was a city (with a shield generator) at the center of the impact
5) The planet is mostly a barren wasteland

[Eternal_Freedom]

Did the city shield withstand the impact?

[SilverDragonRed]

No; it had been already taken down earlier

[Sea Skimmer]

Directed energy weapon could mean a slingshot, blackpowder cannon or a casaba howitzer fired inside of a super barrel for all that really helps. Energy + direction is rather wide open. Basically the more penetrating the impact the more cratering effect you get, which will mean fewer thermal effects on the surface, and less direct blast, but oh so so so much more debris and dust ejected into the atmopsphere and near space.

[Simon_Jester]

At the velocities required for a single battery salvo to be in the teraton range, any projectile made out of atoms behaves like a particle beam. Or rather, like a cloud of high-energy subatomic particles weakly held together by faint interatomic forces, and vaguely noticeable intra-atomic ones.

[SilverDragonRed]

Directed energy weapon could mean a slingshot, blackpowder cannon or a casaba howitzer fired inside of a super barrel for all that really helps.

I was under the impression that when someone said DEW on this forum, they were referring to something akin to a turbolaser.

Although, I do need to correct a mistake from the first post. The blast would have been just a single teraton (not 1.5 like what was originally stated) 'cause two of the barrels fired just before the planetary shield came back up.

[Borgholio]

*Just* a single teraton is still a fuckload of energy. City without a shield is basically a big smoking hole in the ground. Depending on the depth of the crater, you could have flash and shockwave damage hundreds of miles away. If it was a deep shot with lots of ejecta, then as pointed out before you'd be looking at planetwide damage from the debris.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Depending on how big the ship is and how low it's orbit is, it might be in danger from the ejecta as well.

[Borgholio]

Depending on how big the ship is and how low it's orbit is, it might be in danger from the ejecta as well.

That...would actually be a perfect opening for a Sci-Fi comedy in the vein of Spaced Invaders.

[SilverDragonRed]

The corvette in question is around 500 meters long, and would have fired the shot at least ten light-seconds away from the outer atmosphere.

[Borgholio]

Little danger of being hit by debris then. A corvette can fire shots in the teraton range? What are the larger capital ships capable of doing?

[SilverDragonRed]

Lauching 5-million kg missiles up to 2,000 lys effective range in only ten minutes, launching masses of planes (only the carriers), and generally just packing more heavy turrets than the one that the corvettes get. The corvette's main armament is 100-gigaton medium turrets, 25-gigaton light guns, and a 20,000 kg torpedos that reach 10 lys away in half-a-minute.

[Simon_Jester]

What reason, storywise, do you have for these very large numbers?

The missiles are massively superluminal and can reach ranges that we can't even measure precisely from Earth with present astronomy.

The guns are all firing OMG FIVE THOUSAND TON SHELLS.

This is starting to sound like 'wank' territory, a slightly more mathematically sophisticated version of the "My guys have a ship as big as the SOLAR SYSTEM and they can eat ice cream WHENEVER THEY WANT" crap little kids get up to.

[Lord Revan]

Just to add to what Simon said (no pun intended), when you weapons reach a point where energy weapons have nuclear level collateral damage you got to be very careful as wars are have always been about obtaining strategic assets and flattening a city with 1 salvo is generally counter to that.

[SilverDragonRed]

Just to add to what Simon said (no pun intended), when you weapons reach a point where energy weapons have nuclear level collateral damage you got to be very careful as wars are have always been about obtaining strategic assets and flattening a city with 1 salvo is generally counter to that.

I did realize how bad orbital strikes could be about a month ago. It just that the androids aren't apart of the setting's equavalent of the U.N., so they don't abide by their articles. Plus, there was a generator for the planetary shield in the city that was hit.

What reason, storywise, do you have for these very large numbers?

Just the reason that its only been a couple of centuries since humanity was ended by extragalactic aliens. Newer classes of ships have weaker weapons on them because the strategic thinking is slowly switching over to that of carrier-age warfare. The missiles are capable of accurately targeting at that range if there are already planes in the area to feed the info back to the fleet.

[Simon_Jester]

The androids may not have signed onto any international treaties, but if their military objectives are consistent with "utterly ruin the planets and planetary ecospheres of the people we're fighting," you may need to think carefully about your plot. All-destroying swarms aren't really that interesting.

As to scale, you kind of missed the point. First of all, you're making all ships and weapons, including ones I assume you mean to be "light combatants" like 'corvettes,' immensely powerful. So much so that you have to ask, what would someone in this setting do if they only wanted to lightly damage something? Do they have any setting on their weapons lower than "extinction level event?" There are many situations where a hail of gigaton gunfire is as inappropriate a tool for solving the problem as spanking a baby with an axe would be.

Also, please think carefully about the strategic implications of your weapons. I suggest reading the Skylark series by Dr. Edward Elmer Smith, which at least begins to address (in the later novels) some of the problems that arise in combat on an intergalactic scale with weapon ranges measured in the thousands of light-years. Although other, better-written and more recent fiction on the subject exists.\

One thing to bear in mind is that it confers a huge advantage on the defender, because he can conceal missile batteries in entirely different solar systems, which are otherwise totally unremarkable and unknown... then use those missiles to fire on an intruding fleet and strike them with only a few minutes' notice. The task of invading competently defended space would become very difficult- prohibitively so, I think.

No conceivable mobile platform can carry as much firepower as could be mounted by static defenders with numerous solar systems' worth of resources to bring to bear on the problem. As long as the enemy must defend each star and its orbitals with only the resources of that star system there might be a chance.

But if they can build missiles on a million worlds, park them around a million suns, and then hit you with all of them in a single coordinated time-on-target salvo simultaneously...

You as an aggressor really don't have much chance of success.

[Sea Skimmer]

At the velocities required for a single battery salvo to be in the teraton range, any projectile made out of atoms behaves like a particle beam. Or rather, like a cloud of high-energy subatomic particles weakly held together by faint interatomic forces, and vaguely noticeable intra-atomic ones.

That assumes only real materials are in play, and the energy came from velocity. I think both of those are not safe assumptions when apparently something rated as only a corvette has terraton class turrets, suggesting a civilization an order of magnitude more powerful then Star Wars. Lots of magictech required.

I was under the impression that when someone said DEW on this forum, they were referring to something akin to a turbolaser.

Generally.....they could mean a bunch of other sci fi weapons like phasers or powerguns, or a bunch of real and sort of weapons like nuclear bomb pumped lasers or high power microwave emitters. See how this term isn't very helpful when you're looking for specifics?

These things mentioned above do not behave the same way, the disintegrating effects of Trek phasers being prime examples, and the term itself implies nothing much of use except that the effect was not originally an omni directional explosion. Even then a directed beam like weapon like a turbolaser should have a considerably different effect if the beam were very short in length but wide, as opposed to being very long and narrow. But we can probably ignore that issue with such a colossal yield as is in play here.

So what's this actually supposed to be? Or do you not know yet?

[SilverDragonRed]

One thing to bear in mind is that it confers a huge advantage on the defender, because he can conceal missile batteries in entirely different solar systems, which are otherwise totally unremarkable and unknown... then use those missiles to fire on an intruding fleet and strike them with only a few minutes' notice. The task of invading competently defended space would become very difficult- prohibitively so, I think.

That would be a great for the tech to be utilized down the line once it becomes more widespread. And it would certainly made the job of the pilots harder as they are sent on seek-and-destroy missions across a wide area.

As to scale, you kind of missed the point. First of all, you're making all ships and weapons, including ones I assume you mean to be "light combatants" like 'corvettes,' immensely powerful. So much so that you have to ask, what would someone in this setting do if they only wanted to lightly damage something? Do they have any setting on their weapons lower than "extinction level event?" There are many situations where a hail of gigaton gunfire is as inappropriate a tool for solving the problem as spanking a baby with an axe would be.

If they only wanted to lightly damage something, the attacker would call in a specialized carrier to launch atmospheric craft to take the infastructure. Energy and particle weapons do have variable settings, but not the kinetic weapons.

Also, please think carefully about the strategic implications of your weapons.

What makes you think I'm not seriously thinking of the horrific implications of the technology and the effects it would have on the societies of the setting?

Generally.....they could mean a bunch of other sci fi weapons like phasers or powerguns, or a bunch of real and sort of weapons like nuclear bomb pumped lasers or high power microwave emitters. See how this term isn't very helpful when you're looking for specifics?

So what's this actually supposed to be? Or do you not know yet?

I don't know yet (though they very well just end being in the visible light spectrum or infared).

[Simon_Jester]

One thing to bear in mind is that it confers a huge advantage on the defender, because he can conceal missile batteries in entirely different solar systems, which are otherwise totally unremarkable and unknown... then use those missiles to fire on an intruding fleet and strike them with only a few minutes' notice. The task of invading competently defended space would become very difficult- prohibitively so, I think.

That would be a great for the tech to be utilized down the line once it becomes more widespread. And it would certainly made the job of the pilots harder as they are sent on seek-and-destroy missions across a wide area.

Harder? Try fucking impossible. They have, potentially... hm.

There are 55 stars and stellar remnants within a roughly 16 light year radius of Sol. If you park a task force, the total volume within its missile range for these interstellar missiles is 100 times larger in radius, roughly... corresponding to a volume one million times larger. So, up to fifty million stars to search.

Each system is light-hours across, and the missile launchers could be literally anywhere within that volume. Or, for that matter, parked out in deep space with no emissions to give them away. I don't care how big your ships are and how many parasite craft they carry, that's a recipe for disaster. You're not going to be able to find them all, and they can lob an almost unimaginable volume of fire at you because every missile battery in that spiral arm of the galaxy can range on you. The person firing the missiles automatically gains the ability to concentrate force against any target they choose, provided they can find it.

And if you have a mobile platform launching missiles, it can be localized by the enemy figuring out where the missiles are coming from and backplotting to identify the region of space it occupies.

No point target can realistically be defended against this kind of missile threat, if you ask me; the only defense is massive dispersion, not only of your starfaring fleets but of your civilian population and infrastructure. And 'dispersed' means really dispersed; if teraton level energy releases are on the table, one exploding warhead from this civilization could totally burn up everything within an entire planet's orbital space in one shot.

So basically, you're looking at very grand-scale space opera by the nature of things; no single point can be of particular importance to any of the combatants, because nothing can realistically stand up to the scale of attack that could be directed against it.

Also, please think carefully about the strategic implications of your weapons.

What makes you think I'm not seriously thinking of the horrific implications of the technology and the effects it would have on the societies of the setting?

Well, have you gotten to the part where you can reasonably expect a high level of dispersal, wars of spying and counterspying, possibly no real centralized command structure because of how stupidly easy it is to launch an apocalyptic strike aimed at decapitating a hostile state?

Also, what's scouting, mobility, and detection technology like? If you have war where weapons have interstellar ranges but shipboard sensors have only interplanetary ranges, the result is very different than in a Skylarkesque setting where everyone can see at least as far as they can shoot.

I don't know yet (though they very well just end being in the visible light spectrum or infared).

Then perhaps you might want to work that out and come back later.