Planetoid vs. Culture ship

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2003-01-05 06:07pm

Ok, it's been shown on another thread that the DSII would get splattered by even the weakest of Cultures ships. Since I have yet to read the Culture novels I do not know exactly how powerful they are. So how would one of David Weber's Planetoids from Dahakverse do against one of the weakest of Culture ships?

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-05 06:08pm

Specify the Planetoid's abilities, please

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-05 06:50pm

A GSV in Consider Phlebas was wrecked by an Idiran Linegun, and an Asgerd in The Armageddon Inheritance destroyed the forward half of a ~120 km long Achuultani warship with it's Gravitonic Disruptors. Lineguns and Disruptors are basically the same, as far as I know, so a Planetoid's beam armament should be at least theoretically capable of tearing apart just about any Culture ship, though what effect said ship's defences would have on those weapons is unknown; I don't know how powerful they are in relation to each other (though Fourth Imperium disruptors can break molecular bonds and Fourth Empire/Fifth Imperium models can break atomic bonds) and how strong Culture shielding is against gravitic weapons. Hyperbeams would also fuck up Culture vessels; I see no reason why the ship's fields wouldn't simply be translated to hyper as well.

The two series' hyperspaces are different, so the hypershielding of one will not be able to block the hyper-weapons of the other. [1] Any hypermissile emerging within a Culture ship not equipped with a Trapdoor system would be capable of destroying or at least damaging it - assuming it does not simply get displaced away - while only those carrying gravitonic warheads will be a threat to those ships with Trapdoors (as far as I know, Trapdoors do not affect gravity). Planetoids have no such defenses that I know of. The vessels would be completely invulnerable in their respective hyperspaces, due to the inability of the other side to access them. This would be a hindrance to the Planetoid, though, as Culture vessels can sit in hyper indefinately and strike targets in realspace. [2]

Culture warships can maneuver in four dimensions thousands of times faster than light, and can enter hyperspace quickly. Planetoids can maneuver in three dimensions - purely in realspace - at up to 850 c for the most advanced classes, with their inertialess Enchanach drives.

A Planetoid is theoretically capable of destroying any Culture vessel - upto and including the big GSVs - if it catches it in realspace, and in one shot. Culture vessels would be similarly capable of destroying any Planetoid in realspace in one shot, yet they can strike with impunity from hyperspace, while the Planetoid has no such luxury. Against a maneuvering target, the Planetoid would be helpless, considering flight time for missiles and beams, while the size of Planetoids and the speed of displacers would seem to make maneuvering pointless against Culture vessels.

[1] Descriptions of hyperspace in the two series:

Cultureverse hyperspace - From Consider Phlebas wrote:Imagine a vast and glittering ocean seen from a great height. It stretches to clear curved limit of every angle of horizon, the sun burning on a billion tiny wavelets. Now imagine a smooth blanket of cloud above the ocean, a shell of black velvet suspended high above the water and also extending to the horizon, but keep the sparkle of the sea despite the lack of sun. Add to the cloud many sharp and tiny lights, scattered on the base of the inky overcast like glinting eyes: singly, in pairs, or in larger groups, each positioned far, far away from any other set That is the view a ship has in hyperspace as it flies like a microscopic insect, free between the grid and real space. The small, sharp lights on the undersurface of the cloud cover are stars; the waves on the sea are the irregularities of the Grid on which a ship travelling in hyperspace find traction with its engine fields, while that sparkle is its source of energy. The Grid and the plain of real space are curved, rather like the ocean and the cloud would be round a planet, but less so. Black holes show as thin and twisting waterspouts from cloud to sea; supernovae as long lightning flashes in the overcast. Rocks, moons, planets, Orbitals, even Rings and Spheres, hardly show at all . . .

Dahakverse hyperspace - From Heirs of Empire wrote:Yet "hyper-space" was more a convenient label for something no human could envision than an accurate description, for it consisted of many "bands" - actually a whole series of entirely different spaces - whose seething tides of energy were lethal to any object outside a drive field. Even with Imperial technology, human eyes found h-space's gray, crawling nothingness... disturbing. Vertigo was almost instantaneous; longer exposure led to more serious consequences, up to and including madness. Ships in normal space could detect ships in hyper; ships in hyper were blind. They could "see" neither into normal space nor through hyper-space, and so their displays were blank.

[2] Culture displacers can target objects in realspace from hyperspace

The Player of Games wrote:"You put it under your tongue; it'll implant; you'll never know it's there. The ship homes in on that as it comes in, if it can't find you any other way. When you feel a series of sharp pains under your tongue - four stabs in two seconds - you've got to two seconds to assume a foetal position before everything within a three-quarter metre radius of that pellet gets slung aboard the ship..."
[...]
"That ship'll probably be on sprint boost; it could be dragging past here at anything up to one-twenty kilolights. At that speed even its heavy duty displacer will only be within range for about a fifth of a millisecond..."

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-05 07:54pm

Xal, whats this about 4D movement?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-05 08:07pm

The best that could possibly happy is mutal destruction. Far more likely is a Culture victory. The simple speed of their strikes would leave most Imprerium ships helpless. And the culture sure has the firepower to take them down by brute force.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-05 08:12pm

kojikun wrote:Xal, whats this about 4D movement?

Hyperspace. You've got the three dimensional plane of realspace, plus a fourth spatial dimension. Starting in realspace and tracing along this fourth axis, you have first hyperspace (Ultraspace one negative, assuming you are going away from the center of the universe), then the Superior Grid, then hyperspace again (Ultraspace one positive), then another plane of realspace, this one dominated by antimatter. Likewise in the other direction, except you have Infraspace one positive followed by the Inferior Grid and Infraspace one negative. When a Culture vessels enters hyperspace, it moves along this fourth axis.

Such things are described quite a bit in Excession, more so than in the other books.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-05 09:08pm

Ah ok. How does Culture FTL work?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-05 09:16pm

kojikun wrote:Ah ok. How does Culture FTL work?

Very well, thank you.

Actually they use fields to "push" against irregularities in the grid in hyperspace, this is a sort of traction. They can also use warp drives, but they are slower and far less useful.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-05 09:47pm

Thats how the FTL works? so im assuming hey must be in hyperspace to work yes?

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-05 09:59pm

kojikun wrote:Thats how the FTL works? so im assuming hey must be in hyperspace to work yes?

Warp drive is realspace. They do the bit with the Grid in hyperspace.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-01-06 12:51am

"Unlike previous designs, the Utu-class do not rely upon multi-dimensional drives - what your science fiction writers have dubbed 'hyper drives,' Commander - for faster-than-light travel. Instead, this ship employs the Enchanach Drive. You may envision it as the creation of converging artificially-generated 'black holes' which force the vessel out of phase with normal space in a series of instantaneous transpositions between coordinates in normal space. Under Enchanach Drive, dwell time in normal space between transpositions is approximately point-seven-five Terran femtoseconds."

"The Enchanach Drive's maximum effective velocity is approximately Cee-six factorial. While this is lower than that of the latest hyper drives, Enchanach Drive vessels have several tactical advantages. Most importantly, they may enter, maneuver in, and leave a supralight state at will, whereas hyper drive vessels may enter and leave supralight only at pre-selected coordinates."

(Page 27 of Mutineer's Moon, by David Weber.)

Can a Culture vessel really target and fire upon a planetoid during the point-seven-five femtosecond dwell time?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-06 02:37am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Can a Culture vessel really target and fire upon a planetoid during the point-seven-five femtosecond dwell time?

It's entirely possible given the reaction times of a Culture Mind. They're that fast. The Killing Time wiped out a fleet of warship in 11 microseconds, Marina, so whacking a planetoid that'll stand out like that is not a problem.

I like the Mutineer-verse but they're screwed against the firepower and reactions of the Culture.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-06 02:41am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:<snip>

Can a Culture vessel really target and fire upon a planetoid during the point-seven-five femtosecond dwell time?

I had forgotten about that part. That would tend to complicate things.

It should be capable of observing the Planetoid during that time, but their reaction times are in the hundreds of picoseconds at best. The time it takes a displace to finish would not be significantly longer, though I have no idea just how short a time it is possible for them to finish in. If the displace were completed while the Planetoid is in realspace, whatever munitions have been delivered would most likely continue on with the ship as if they were any of the ship's other contents, giving them plenty of time to do their damage. Whether or not munitions displaced out of sync with the ship's transitions would be similarly carried is unknown. In any case, a Culture vessel should be able to time the displace so that it's end coincides with the Planetoid's time in realspace.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2003-01-06 02:47am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:"Unlike previous designs, the Utu-class do not rely upon multi-dimensional drives - what your science fiction writers have dubbed 'hyper drives,' Commander - for faster-than-light travel. Instead, this ship employs the Enchanach Drive. You may envision it as the creation of converging artificially-generated 'black holes' which force the vessel out of phase with normal space in a series of instantaneous transpositions between coordinates in normal space. Under Enchanach Drive, dwell time in normal space between transpositions is approximately point-seven-five Terran femtoseconds."

"The Enchanach Drive's maximum effective velocity is approximately Cee-six factorial. While this is lower than that of the latest hyper drives, Enchanach Drive vessels have several tactical advantages. Most importantly, they may enter, maneuver in, and leave a supralight state at will, whereas hyper drive vessels may enter and leave supralight only at pre-selected coordinates."

(Page 27 of Mutineer's Moon, by David Weber.)

Can a Culture vessel really target and fire upon a planetoid during the point-seven-five femtosecond dwell time?

That time is the time require to make 1 cycle of the Enchanach Drive, in contrast the time between cycles would be much longer than that. So depending on the speed at which the Enchanach Drive cycles at, it might be posible for the planetiod to evad Culture weapons fire(Enchanach Dive appears to also be inertialess).

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2003-01-06 02:50am

XaLEv wrote:
The Duchess of Zeon wrote:<snip>

Can a Culture vessel really target and fire upon a planetoid during the point-seven-five femtosecond dwell time?
I had forgotten about that part. That would tend to complicate things.

It should be capable of observing the Planetoid during that time, but their reaction times are in the hundreds of picoseconds at best. The time it takes a displace to finish would not be significantly longer, though I have no idea just how short a time it is possible for them to finish in. If the displace were completed while the Planetoid is in realspace, whatever munitions have been delivered would most likely continue on with the ship as if they were any of the ship's other contents, giving them plenty of time to do their damage. Whether or not munitions displaced out of sync with the ship's transitions would be similarly carried is unknown. In any case, a Culture vessel should be able to time the displace so that it's end coincides with the Planetoid's time in realspace.

I believe if the munitions displaced out of sync with the ship's transitions, then you just would end up displacing them into were the planetiod was, as the each transition effectively removes the planetiod from the universe for a really short time span.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-06 02:56am

ggs wrote: I believe if the munitions displaced out of sync with the ship's transitions, then you just would end up displacing them into were the planetiod was, as the each transition effectively removes the planetiod from the universe for a really short time span.

But would that do any good? After each transition, the Planetoid would simply reappear a bit further than it was. A few micrometers, IIRC. If you displace something where it is, would it appear inside of and get picked up by the Planetoid during the next cycle, or would Something Bad happen to it? The only sure fire way, as I see it, is to make sure the displace ends while the ship is still in realspace.

septesix · Post by **septesix** » 2003-01-06 03:44am

alternatively, Gridfire the whole damn area.........

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2003-01-06 05:02am

XaLEv wrote:
ggs wrote: I believe if the munitions displaced out of sync with the ship's transitions, then you just would end up displacing them into were the planetiod was, as the each transition effectively removes the planetiod from the universe for a really short time span.
But would that do any good? After each transition, the Planetoid would simply reappear a bit further than it was. A few micrometers, IIRC. If you displace something where it is, would it appear inside of and get picked up by the Planetoid during the next cycle, or would Something Bad happen to it? The only sure fire way, as I see it, is to make sure the displace ends while the ship is still in realspace.

<Crunches a few numbers> The planetiod has a velocity of 0.25 millimetres
a femtosecond(~800c).

There is also the problem of the massive gravitaional shear generated by the artificial blackholes. IIRC Displacment(& effectors) are delivered via wormholes, and wormholes would react to the gravitational effects of the start & end cycle of a planetiods displacment each cycle.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2003-01-06 05:08am

You may want to check MM as I recall Dahak spits out the dwell time in realspace under Echanach.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-01-06 09:16am

Hmm, one can blow up planets with ease from a distance of a couple light-hours, the other can obliterate planets casually from a distance of light-years. I wonder who's going to win.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-06 12:37pm

ggs wrote: <Crunches a few numbers> The planetiod has a velocity of 0.25 millimetres
a femtosecond(~800c).

There is also the problem of the massive gravitaional shear generated by the artificial blackholes. IIRC Displacment(& effectors) are delivered via wormholes, and wormholes would react to the gravitational effects of the start & end cycle of a planetiods displacment each cycle.

One of the Culture's favorite weapons are nanoholes - small black holes - which they deliver via Displacer. If a Displace wormhole can survive a black hole passing through it, it should be able to withstand proximity to another. And besides, the strength of the Enchanach drive's gravity wells don't have much time to grow between cycles. It only gets really strong during activation and deactivation.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2003-01-06 02:51pm

XaLEv wrote:One of the Culture's favorite weapons are nanoholes - small black holes - which they deliver via Displacer. If a Displace wormhole can survive a black hole passing through it, it should be able to withstand proximity to another. And besides, the strength of the Enchanach drive's gravity wells don't have much time to grow between cycles. It only gets really strong during activation and deactivation.

If the black hole does not really appear inside the Planetoid the shields would block it easily.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2003-01-06 02:56pm

HRogge wrote: If the black hole does not really appear inside the Planetoid the shields would block it easily.

Indeed, but the volume between a Planetoid's shields is enourmous and Displacers are very accurate.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2003-01-11 05:49am

Lineguns weren't used in the latter books, indicating possibly that an effective countermeasure has been found after the Idiran war.

And gentlemen, you forgot to mention effectors

.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2003-01-11 04:16pm

The Nomad wrote:Lineguns weren't used in the latter books, indicating possibly that an effective countermeasure has been found after the Idiran war.

And gentlemen, you forgot to mention effectors .

Damn, you've beat me to it.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

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