The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Serafina]

We already know that there is some kind of "life energy" - remember that guy from Armagedon (Prof ? ) who was brought back to earth after he died?
Well, his body started to die after he was brought there - which was related to the different energy radients on earth and hell.

Well, i imagine Uriel somehow dupliacted this effect - he drained some kind of energy from his victims.
Given that this is propably some kind of "energy" that humans have high amounts from, there would be no radiation-related side effects.
It could also explain the ageing - after all, draining energy from something affects it, too.

I guess human scientists will figure it out. And then the engineers are going to replicate it. And then the army is going to use it.

Damn, apparently, i was too slow.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I guess human scientists will figure it out. And then the engineers are going to replicate it. And then the army is going to use it.

Damn, apparently, i was too slow.

I wouldn't bet on it. We've been whittling away at gravity for a few centuries now, and we're still not close to weaponizing it.

[tim31]

We already know that there is some kind of "life energy" - remember that guy from Armagedon (Prof ? ) who was brought back to earth after he died?

That was Richard Dawkins Although the character won't go by that name in the actual book release, I assume.

[Serafina]

I guess human scientists will figure it out. And then the engineers are going to replicate it. And then the army is going to use it.

Damn, apparently, i was too slow.

I wouldn't bet on it. We've been whittling away at gravity for a few centuries now, and we're still not close to weaponizing it.

Actually, i was just trying to reconstruct one of the most awesome sentences from Armageddon.

[dragon]

Damn it I keep checking every couple of hours to see if more posted damn your addicting story

[Samuel]

Damn it I keep checking every couple of hours to see if more posted damn your addicting story

I think it would be hilarious if the blurbs on the back of the paperback copy of Pantheocide were:

This is like sex for the brain.

Mmm, Delicious internety crack.

Oh. Oh yes. That's the stuff. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

[Peptuck]

Damn it I keep checking every couple of hours to see if more posted damn your addicting story

Oh thank God I'm not the only one.

[MKSheppard]

This is AEGIS-ABM. It's target designation beam is powerfuil enough to illuminate a target more than 1,000 nautical miles away (how much more: classified) and detect motion irregularities in that target.

Can someone tell me why these capabilities aren't publicized more often? That totally blows away the "Decoy" argument; if SPY-1 with the ABM upgrades is powerful enough to detect the small wobbles that differentate a light mass decoy from a heavy mass warhead in space. So why isn't MDA splashing these things all over the evening news, as a way of countering the known Anti-ABM tactic of making shit up and knowing it can't be refuted unless classified/sensitive information is released?

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

What's the point, Shep? The 'tards are just going to think its all lies from the government, because they wouldn't tell you it could do those things if it really could. It would probably take a nuclear war in which an ABM-equipped nation escapes relativaly unharmed to convince some of these people its a good idea.

I'd rather just skip the war, but I'm a long-haired hippy peacenik, so what do I know?

[Pelranius]

This is AEGIS-ABM. It's target designation beam is powerfuil enough to illuminate a target more than 1,000 nautical miles away (how much more: classified) and detect motion irregularities in that target.

Can someone tell me why these capabilities aren't publicized more often? That totally blows away the "Decoy" argument; if SPY-1 with the ABM upgrades is powerful enough to detect the small wobbles that differentate a light mass decoy from a heavy mass warhead in space. So why isn't MDA splashing these things all over the evening news, as a way of countering the known Anti-ABM tactic of making shit up and knowing it can't be refuted unless classified/sensitive information is released?

Maybe it's just service rivalry at work again? Navy won't talk to the other people, and they won't talk back? And the MDA might not want to go too much into specifics on what is still rather classified technology (sure, talking about it might not give away much, but there are all sorts of weird classification rules that no one wants to run afoul of).

[JBG]

This is AEGIS-ABM. It's target designation beam is powerfuil enough to illuminate a target more than 1,000 nautical miles away (how much more: classified) and detect motion irregularities in that target.

Can someone tell me why these capabilities aren't publicized more often? That totally blows away the "Decoy" argument; if SPY-1 with the ABM upgrades is powerful enough to detect the small wobbles that differentate a light mass decoy from a heavy mass warhead in space. So why isn't MDA splashing these things all over the evening news, as a way of countering the known Anti-ABM tactic of making shit up and knowing it can't be refuted unless classified/sensitive information is released?

Apart from classification issues, not everyone has the knowledge or inclination to, say, go toe to toe with devotees of the lightweight fighter! Most people get lost in the technology and terminology and besides, there's a game on tonight etc!! Plus all those who disbelieve anything at all that comes out of military or government mouths.

How long is it since Stuart posted essays about this elsewhere?

[Simon_Jester]

And, seeing that Stuart posted essays on this subject, where can I find them?

[DavidEC]

These 'hidden' aspects of AEGIS are interesting indeed, and it's the first time I've heard of it.

What capabilities does it imply in real life simply as a weapon against enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles? I know it's possible to jam their electronics but is catastrophic structural damage possible? My uneducated guess is that convective cooling from sheer airspeed would cool down a targetted airframe too quickly for it to reach uncomfortable temperatures, but I'm no aerodynamicist.

How about this for real life ABM duty: a nuclear-powered cruiser, say 20,000 tons, with fuck-off-big-as-possible AESA(s) as its primary weapon. One or more reactors provide not only the array's necessary power but also that required for heavy-duty cooling. I don't imagine it's that useful against terminal phase ICBMs (which suffer massive heating anyway) but what about boost phase and midcourse interception?

Or is there an inevitable bum note to my USS Frickin' Invisible Death Ray of Death Ship.

[Simon_Jester]

What capabilities does it imply in real life simply as a weapon against enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles? I know it's possible to jam their electronics but is catastrophic structural damage possible? My uneducated guess is that convective cooling from sheer airspeed would cool down a targetted airframe too quickly for it to reach uncomfortable temperatures, but I'm no aerodynamicist.

I suspect that convective cooling will be offset by frictional heating, so it may cancel or nearly cancel. Hypervelocity aircraft like the Blackbird get hot, but I don't know about stuff flying at more conventional speeds.

[K. A. Pital]

Hypervelocity aircraft like the Blackbird get hot

Hyper? I'm afraid the Blackbird is nowhere near the "hypersonic" thresholds.

I know it's possible to jam their electronics but is catastrophic structural damage possible?

Catastrophic damage to what?.. The frame of an aircraft itself? That's very unlikely, but I'll let Stuart weigh on the issue. He knows more.

[JBG]

And, seeing that Stuart posted essays on this subject, where can I find them?

Simon, go to HPCA ( TBOVerse.com ). That is the home to most of Stuart's fiction ( the TBOVerse ) and now TLW plus much other fiction. Admiral Slade is the undisputed master of that realm and you should expect more history, military and otherwise, than here. Which is no criticism of Mike's site.

Re lightweight fighters, check out a long debate on Eject! Eject! Eject!.

http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/

About halfway through a well informed fellow proceeds to demolish their arguments.

[Simon_Jester]

Hypervelocity aircraft like the Blackbird get hot

Hyper? I'm afraid the Blackbird is nowhere near the "hypersonic" thresholds.

Yes, as I myself pointed out a few pages back. I was using "hypervelocity" in a generic sense of "very, very fast." Hypervelocity != hypersonic.

Of course, this is woefully imprecise terminology, but for some reason I didn't want to say "very, very fast." The key being that while a Blackbird is far from hypersonic, it is fast enough that operates in a very different regime from the one experienced by aircraft that top out at Mach 2 or so.

[erik_t]

I've always been partial to the thought that the term "hypersonic" becomes applicable when aerodynamics and thermodynamics are strongly coupled over the majority of the aircraft; that is, one may be worried about acreage heating just as much as drag. By this definition, the SR-71 could well be considered "hypersonic".

Note the studious use of quotes to note that this is very much a personal terminology issue, and there is no right answer (although there are certainly wrong ones).

[bcoogler]

Yes, as I myself pointed out a few pages back. I was using "hypervelocity" in a generic sense of "very, very fast." Hypervelocity != hypersonic.

Of course, this is woefully imprecise terminology[....] <snip>

Nah. Imprecise is, "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive!"

[Ast]

I don't think that it would be reasonable to use the radar directly as a death ray to destroy a mechanical target.
After all, it's made of metal and - other than a human or a an angel - it reflects the radar beam rather than absorbing its energy.
So, if you wanted to pump enough energy into the target to actually do some damage, you would have to pay for it with an enormous consumption and waste of power.

I guess a regular artillery shell or a missile would be more effective.

P.S.: Great story Stuart!

[Gil Hamilton]

I don't think that it would be reasonable to use the radar directly as a death ray to destroy a mechanical target.
After all, it's made of metal and - other than a human or a an angel - it reflects the radar beam rather than absorbing its energy.
So, if you wanted to pump enough energy into the target to actually do some damage, you would have to pay for it with an enormous consumption and waste of power.

I guess a regular artillery shell or a missile would be more effective.

P.S.: Great story Stuart!

Well, no. You reflect SOME of it. You also absorb and reemit some or just plain absorb it.

I don't know the frequency of the AEGIS system, but leaving aside the brutal power of such a system, I'm willing to bet its in the right range to correspond to some rotational modes or even vibrational modes of the water in an human or angels body. You know what that means? It COOKS you, exactly like a microwave does.

While using a radar system on pencil beam mode isn't a purpose built weapon, the way it was used against Uriel was largely bonus damage. The missiles were the main event, the active radar was there under "throw everything including the kitchen sink" principle. For the military, killing such a high up amongst the enemy is worth the energy cost as well as blowing out every television and radio that happened to be on in San Diego at the time.

[Ast]

Exactly my thinking.
Very good for cooking angels, but it wouldn't be useful as a ship's main weapon.

As for the frequency:
Wasn't the microwave oven "discovered" because of a melted chocolate bar near a radar, or something like that?
If the used wavelengths didn't change too much since then, living tissue should be a quite good absorber of the transmitted energy.

[Gil Hamilton]

Here is a good coverage of radar bands used.
http://www.aewa.org/Library/rf_bands.html

Keep in mind your standard microwave oven operates at 2.45 GHz, which is great for dielectric heating, particularly of liquid water. At 20GHz or so is when you get spectroscopic effects, which correspond to rotational and at the higher end some vibrational transitions in water. I'd bet good money that the radio waves that an AEGIS system puts out may well be HIGHLY interactive with water on a spectroscopic front, which, of course, is what all that stuff that Stuart talked about severe restrictions on being near active radar systems is all about.

Actually, its a testament to the durability of the angel that he didn't explode in a cloud of angry water vapor.

EDIT: On further investigation, it seems the AN/SPY-1 system operates on the S-Band, which is the 2-4 GHz frequency, assuming that the website I looked at isn't false. So its radiation is EXACTLY like what comes out of a microwave's heating element. So I suppose lot of the effects on Uriel were from dielectric heating interactions, which are no joke with the wattage being thrown around here.

[phongn]

SPY-1 is an S-Band radar, as far as I know.

[Gil Hamilton]

Ah, there we go, confirmation. Thanks, Phong.