Culture vs SW scenario

[NecronLord]

Let this thread die.

Ships are fully controlled by Minds, and minds have reaction times on, at least, the picossecond range

http://kier.3dfrontier.com/forums/showt ... icoseconds

No they don't. This one is particularly wrong.

They also use the Trapdoor System - which immediately displaces any potentially hostile presence inside a ship to somewhere safe.

correct

Grid-fire...

However, since the only time we see it used is against an orbital, from a military GSV, I am going to suggest that it is primarily for strategic use.

Again correct. It is a strategic weapon,.. Not on every Tom Dick and Harry GCU and VFP. So why do people claim it is.....

IIRC in "Excession" the Grey Area has a sort of museum of torture and weapons aboard, and one of the items is a Gridfire Impeller. It fitted easily into a room, so I don`t think that Impeller size is the limiting factor in Gridfire use during spacebattles.

But wait... do we know it works? no, Do we know that area of space it affects (given that the Meatfucker's collection is of destruction on a personal level, hence the thunbscrews) no.... Not even mentioning the fact that many of the exihbits were scale models.

Perhaps both ship and target must be stationary in order to use it, making it's tactial use in the field quite limited. There might also be a time delay inbetween the activation of the impeller and the actual incursion itself at which point it could be detected and dodged by anything other than an orbital, which would just Gridfire you back before it died, making it a suicide weapon against anyone who has gridfire of their own.

Again, possibly correct.Not every tom dick and harry GCU can blow up a whole system with the uber gridfire of death that is the size of a small pistol.

Minds have reaction speeds in the picoseconds. In fact, they actually have precognition since they can "sense" events in hyperspace microseconds before they actually occur in realspace.

Yet again...

theres more

lots more.

Be afraid of the unsupported claims...

[The Nomad]

Well it is said that black and white holes are the only natural anomalies to actually cause harm to Culture craft (yeah, they love flying into the event horizon ) so that gives a good idea.

Bwahaha! Then the Principality will merely create so many black holes the Culture will have nowhere to turn!

Culture weapons are essentially black holes ( nanoholes ) delivered through Displacer .

Effectors make their way through hyperspace, manipulate energy ( see Player of Games ) and are apparently ZPE-based. They are used as weapons, hacking tool, sensors, etc... In fact, I consider them to be Cultureverse's major asset ( with Minds and their intelligence/reaction times ) in vs. threads. They do more than compensate their slow FTL.

Displacer can deliver their weapons directly within ships, thus making Principalty non-warp shields rather pointless. Nanoholes are IIRC able to destroy planets, and Displacer-warheads ( nanoholes, CAM, plasma bombs ) are considered to be minor weapons in Excession ( nearly finished it ).

To make it clear, a single Excession-era ROU was able to face about IIRC 94 Consider Phlebas-era ROUs, and destroyed several of them while escaping unscathed safe from engine damages which were caused by overload, not ennemies. And the that ROU, Killing Time, attacked to seek revenge from one ships amongst the other ones, not to destroy the ROUs.
Therefore all CP-era abilities are to be considered absolute lower limits for ships of the Excession-Look to Windward era.

BTW, Culture ships can remain in hyperspace while attacking PZ's ships, while disruptors would have some trouble hitting them. You mentionned that a scientist had found a way to remain indefinitely in warpspace, but is it standard ability ? Isn't it a "lost tech" case ?

[SPOOFE]

Again correct. It is a strategic weapon,.. Not on every Tom Dick and Harry GCU and VFP. So why do people claim it is.....

The flaw in your thinking, however, is that you are saying "They can't" when the most you can say is "They don't." The Culture doesn't go around just blowing everything up for no reason at all. In fact, given the Culture's preference for covert and subtle manipulation over brute force - e.g. Contact will slowly alter a society, rather than forcibly take it over and enslave the inhabitants - it seems quite within the Culture's attitude that small-scale weapons/abilities, such as Effectors, would be preferable to Gridfire.

Furthermore... if you want the thread to die, as the first sentence in your most recent post would suggest... I would recommend that you not then try to continue the debate.