On Lensman-verse Aliens (From PSW)

[Simon_Jester]

Perhaps, but I was under the impression that Kandron was the one primarily behind those campaigns on Civilisation's worlds. The L2s and Children seem to dismiss the Black Lensmen rather quickly too.

That's mostly because they're not decisive compared to other issues at stake, I think. The Black Lensmen don't have enough numbers or individual power to dismantle Civilization all by themselves once they are known to exist, and none of them have the full range of exotic capabilities available to the L2s, let alone the Children. By the time anything they can do poses a serious threat, the war will be over one way or another.

I rechecked the passage; supposedly, the second generation of Valerians is already predominant on their world, the first-generation settlers having been unable to adapt to the hostile environment. So they must have been there for twenty years at least, which makes more sense with regards to the massive space infrastructure they have, but does not appear to match with Costigan’s family (two young children). Still, it is strange that expansion would be that quick, with private corporations owning entire populated planets.

Earth could be overpopulated, or at least its cities could. If population control measures are in place on Tellus, you might well get tens of millions of colonists in the first recruitment drive: enough to set up viable economic communities on a dozen colony worlds.
_________

As I understand it (which according to some is not very well), the best mechanism for predicting its behaviour is still to look at analogies in real life, which is defined throughout by competition for resources and a desire for perpetuation of the species. Assuming that the AI is capable of truly independent thought and evaluation, it would reasonably follow similar mechanisms (if for nothing else because the creatures in its environment do). Though it is not something we can be certain of, it appears likely to me.

It's possible, but remember that intelligent creatures as we know them are evolved. An AI isn't. There's going to be huge psychological differences between an evolved being (whose most basic level drives set by the fact that all the ones who didn't have them died of starvation) and a created being, which can have more or less arbitrary basic-level drives.

Hm. I never looked at it in those terms, but that does make sense - and not just for the Arisians, but for all the various "ascended ancients" and "energy beings" that space opera is littered with.

Yeah. The Singularity is an older concept than they think.
________

So now even Roger's planetoid, described in Triplanetary as an "artificial planet of metal", measures only a few million tons? Assuming that it was only as big as Pluto (which is no longer even counted as a planet, but was one at the time), and that one thousandth of its volume was iron in some form (rather extremely conservative as well, since ship material does seem to be some form of steel at this point), that's still more than 6 million cubic kilometres' worth of iron. With iron density at 7,900 kg/m^3, that is close to 8 BILLION metric tons per cubic kilometre . . . This of course gives ridiculous numbers for Nevian cargo capacity. We can divide these numbers down by a million, that the Nevian ship can lug around these kinds of masses still speaks volumes about its size and capabilities (although we never see it land carrying such masses, of course).

Point of order: You cannot use a modern definition of "planet" to place a lower bound on the size of an object described as a "planetoid" in the 1930s.

[Teleros]

It could also be that Jupiter had gotten tired of the Adepts at some point when the war was going badly, with their military or whatever launching a coup, throwing them out, and brokering some kind of status quo peace. Roger had supposedly spent some time out of the system before he came back with his planetoid; perhaps the Jovians exiled him?

Possibly, although I doubt it given who he was.

Well, that was my point, more or less. A cube of 800 metres would likely still be bigger than any ordinary ship design (except perhaps super-maulers). Now, obviously they can build ships of these sizes (and masses) and much larger still, given Roger's planetoid, but it does not appear to be a common occurrence, so one would think that they would at least mention that this "cruiser" was really a miles-long monster that fired torpedoes as large as battleships.

Unless it was mounted in the same manner as the rockets to get a shuttle into orbit are mounted on the shuttle. But yes, I agree it's basically odd - my preferred solution would be to have them use some super-dense material, which would cut down on the volume of the torpedo a lot.

Given ultra-wave detection and free travel speeds, a Devil's advocate could say that loose formations are less telling because of small reaction times; a fortress could easily move into position to deal with any one intruder close up (assuming of course that the ship is not undetectable/stealth-equipped). Of course, that explanation would make Helmuth's defences leak like a sieve if they were confronted with a larger force. At Arisia, were those groups an outer detector screen of some sort? (Children of the Lens is one of the books I do not have available for reference at the moment.) The tractors I do remember now; those were rather impressive, both the range and being FTL.

And given how well defended Helmuth's world was supposed to be, it certainly sounds odd to have them move to confront a threat like that. As for Arisia...

"Yes. You can see it plainer down in the reducer. The white star is Arisia. The yellows, all marked, are suns and other fixed points, such as the markers along the arbitrary rim of the galaxy, running from there to there. Reds will be Boskonians when they get close enough to show. Greens are ours. Up in the big tank everything is identified, but down here there's no room for details - each green light marks the location of a whole operating fleet. That block of green circles, there, is your command. It's about eighty parsecs deep and covers everything within two hours - say a hundred and fifty parsecs - of the line between Arisia and the Second Galaxy. Pretty loose now, of course, but you can tighten it up and shift it as you please as soon as some reds show.
...
"Now you, Cliff. These green crosses, half-way between the forward wall and Arisia, are yours. You won't have quite as much depth as Laf, but a wider coverage.
...
All space within ten parsecs of Arisia was divided into cubes, each of which was given a reference number. Fleets were so placed that any point in that space could be reached by at least one fleet in thirty seconds or less of elapsed time.

Just going with LaForge's ships (the top paragraph), an area 80 * 80 * 150 parsecs comes out to 960,000 cubic parsecs. With one fleet per parsec^3 that's still nearly a million fleets, and with each one on average (based on the 75 parsecs per hour travel time - ie the 150 parsecs above) 1min 15 secs from its nearest neighbour (for reference, 30 secs travel time at 75 parsecs per hour is 0.625 parsecs, so to position ships that closely would require on the order of 1.5 million fleets).
As for what they were doing there, it looks like they were positioned there to engage any incoming fleet from the Second Galaxy. If they were expecting a serious fleet to attack from there, then a more sensible solution (as Haynes used when he attacked the 2nd Galaxy) would be to bunch the fleet up and use scouts to detect the Boskonians, then send the fleet out to meet them as necessary (the precautions against hyper-spatial tubes are the defences within 10 parsecs of Arisia). They have to come to you to attack after all, so you have the advantage there (never mind all the ships behind you). It seems odd to cover nearly a million cubic parsecs like that, unless you're planning on engaging over such distances, which implies ridiculously long-ranged weapons. I suppose we could hand-wave it away as 20 years of increases in accuracy & targeting or something (even just an odd formation).

Point of order: You cannot use a modern definition of "planet" to place a lower bound on the size of an object described as a "planetoid" in the 1930s.

I wonder if anyone has a very old dictionary handy. At any rate, a quick look on Google seems to show that most use the term to mean an asteroid (although back in Doc Smith's day, Ceres was considered one...), so at least we shouldn't have to deal with anything the size of Mercury or Pluto ...

[Darth Hoth]

It's possible, but remember that intelligent creatures as we know them are evolved. An AI isn't. There's going to be huge psychological differences between an evolved being (whose most basic level drives set by the fact that all the ones who didn't have them died of starvation) and a created being, which can have more or less arbitrary basic-level drives.

Most Singularity-style speculation appears to take it more or less for granted that the machine intelligence will be able to reprogramme itself (although I could certainly not tell how that would work; it goes completely to the contrary of what little personal experience I have with programming), which might render its basic programming less relevant. And something that has the traits to be called intelligent and self-aware should have some form of desire for survival/self-perpetuation.

Point of order: You cannot use a modern definition of "planet" to place a lower bound on the size of an object described as a "planetoid" in the 1930s.

I did not use the modern definition, which would have excluded Pluto. And it is explicitly described as a "planet", not merely a "planetoid" (although both terms are used, apparently somewhat interchangeably):

[quote="Triplanetary, "Fleet Against Planetoid""]The artificial planet of metal was now close enough so that it was visible to the ultra-vision of the Service men[/quote]

"Planetoid" was (and is) when used correctly, a synonym to "asteroid", although nowadays it is often taken to mean any planet-like object; I am not certain whether that looser definition was current in Smith's time. "Planet" most usually referred to the eight (or nine, after Pluto's discovery) planets of the Solar system from the mid-19th century onwards, although you can sometimes see asteroids spoken of as "lesser planets" or "minor planets" of Sol after that. In such cases the term can also include other celestial objects, such as the Jovian moons. My impression is that this meaning is mostly obsolete, although I have not studied it in detail. So it could perhaps be smaller than Pluto, but it could also be larger (like one of the larger Jovian satellites). There is one other passage in Triplanetary that might be somewhat indicative:

[quote=""Pirates of Space""]While they stared into space a vast area of the heavens was blotted out and they saw, faintly illuminated by a peculiar blue luminescence, a vast ball - a sphere so large and so close that they seemed to be dropping towards it as though it were a world![/quote]

[Darth Hoth]

Possibly, although I doubt it given who he was.

Gharlane possessed Nero and Hitler as well, and we know what happened to them. If he thought his aims were fulfilled, or better served elsewhere, he had no problem dropping his meat puppets.

Just going with LaForge's ships (the top paragraph), an area 80 * 80 * 150 parsecs comes out to 960,000 cubic parsecs. With one fleet per parsec^3 that's still nearly a million fleets, and with each one on average (based on the 75 parsecs per hour travel time - ie the 150 parsecs above) 1min 15 secs from its nearest neighbour (for reference, 30 secs travel time at 75 parsecs per hour is 0.625 parsecs, so to position ships that closely would require on the order of 1.5 million fleets).
As for what they were doing there, it looks like they were positioned there to engage any incoming fleet from the Second Galaxy. If they were expecting a serious fleet to attack from there, then a more sensible solution (as Haynes used when he attacked the 2nd Galaxy) would be to bunch the fleet up and use scouts to detect the Boskonians, then send the fleet out to meet them as necessary (the precautions against hyper-spatial tubes are the defences within 10 parsecs of Arisia). They have to come to you to attack after all, so you have the advantage there (never mind all the ships behind you). It seems odd to cover nearly a million cubic parsecs like that, unless you're planning on engaging over such distances, which implies ridiculously long-ranged weapons. I suppose we could hand-wave it away as 20 years of increases in accuracy & targeting or something (even just an odd formation).

God damn. I must have completely forgotten about that passage. Well, at a propagation speed in vacuum of "roughly" 19 trillion c (as per Gray Lensman), ultra-wave weapons beams will travel in excess of 1 LY a second, so if you can target at those ranges you most likely can hit stuff as well. Usual combat ranges are probably limited by targeting and ECM, rather than weapons ranges as such; if so, the presence and aid of Arisians and Children doing the targeting with perception/Visualization could explain unusually long ranges.

[Connor MacLeod]

So now even Roger's planetoid, described in Triplanetary as an "artificial planet of metal", measures only a few million tons?

No, I said "millions upon millions." Try actually reading my replies rather than trying to piss me off with your colossal ignorance. Of course, if you are being deliberately dishonest, feel free to let me know and I'll inform a mod.

Assuming that it was only as big as Pluto (which is no longer even counted as a planet, but was one at the time), and that one thousandth of its volume was iron in some form (rather extremely conservative as well, since ship material does seem to be some form of steel at this point), that's still more than 6 million cubic kilometres' worth of iron. With iron density at 7,900 kg/m^3, that is close to 8 BILLION metric tons per cubic kilometre . . . This of course gives ridiculous numbers for Nevian cargo capacity. We can divide these numbers down by a million, that the Nevian ship can lug around these kinds of masses still speaks volumes about its size and capabilities (although we never see it land carrying such masses, of course).

Yet again we see you respond to me with... more conjectural, unsubstantiated bullshit. I'm getting tired of this habit of yours to handwave away the blatantly obvious problems of your bullshit with yet more bullshit. Try something better, like oh, actual evidence to prove your claims for once. Maybe, as a start, you can actually point out ot me some place in Triplanetary where we're given an inkling of how big Roger's planetoid was? I certainly don't remember anything like that. I do remember Roger set about building the new and improved one on an actual planet, which tends to argue against them being "pluto sized" despite what you claim.

On the other hand the fact you think that you can structurally build a Pluto size object completely out of frigging iron is fucking hilarious in and of itself. I would dearly love to see your proof to back this up. (Hint: Look up the word "planetoid" before making up goddamn calcs?)

And Triplanetary does note that the Boise was more massive than the Nevian ship:

[quote=""Super-ship In Action""]Prodigiously massive and powerful as the Nevian was, the Boise was even more massive and more powerful;

[/quote]

Which has fuck-all to do with my original point and is therefore a red herring, since we're talking about "pre-inertialess" ships (which were FAR less massive than the Nevian ship anyhow, as I recall. Nevermind being far less powerful.). I only brought up the Nevians as the sole example we know of "millions of tons" of starship being lugged around, and THAT still involved the Nevian ship being overloaded and correspondingly sluggish. (It's also mentioned that the Nevian ship unloaded would "float", whereas loaded down as it was it actually sank. I won't even begin to get into the issue with the braking jets boiling the water.)

How is it nonsensical? Ultra-waves propagate at trillions of c; why is it nonsensical to assume that they have different mass properties than electromagnetic rays?

Well for first and most important - because you have no proof about how they work? You're just making shit up, or did you get granted magical canon authority by the Smith estate and you just didn't tell us?

Secondly you don't even have an actual mechanism in place to explain why, you just said "quantum" and "It works somehow!". You're basically doing what Darkstar did with the Death Star vs Alderaan - you said "they did ti somehow" (remember the Mysterious Unknown Mechanism?") When you propose a theory like that you at LEAST put an effort into explaining it (cf Mike Wong's theory on phasers converting mass into neutrinos. It's a theory, but it fits the facts AND doesn't shit all over physics.) You're as bad as the trekkies who think you don't have to obey science to explain how the Enterprise can generate gigatons of energy while sitting around doing nothing in "True Q", or that a few dozen Trek starships literally vaporize the crust of a planet in an hour or less (The Die is Cast) despite [url=http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Hat ... te-1a.html]visuals and basic physics saying otherwise[/url.

Again, I get fucking tired of explaining the painfully obvious to you because you appear to fucking lazy to figure this shit out for yourself rather than having someone explain it to you.

And we have iron-hard evidence from the core series that ultra-waves ARE used in weapons applications eventually (from Triplanetary onwards), so there is no inherent impossibility to it under the rules of the setting. Suspension of disbelief, and all that.

HAH! You know fuck-all about suspension of disblief style analysis. The fact that you're creating this overly complicated theory to justify ONE LINE OF DIALOGUE from what is at best a second-tier source only proves it. In a similar case, Mike would have just dismissed the New Lensman quote as an outlier, not constructed some overly elaborate construct of bullshit just to justify that one bit of dialogue. He, unlike you, understands concepts like Occam's Razor.

You could construct a theory for FTL weapons where you have some particles or mass traveling at a velocity through a FTL "tunnel" or "medium" (assuming such is possible, like with Culture Displacers) or exists in say a tachyonic state but "convert" or are "dumped" into normal space on impact or lose energy on impact with real matter (tachyons go faster as they lose mass/energy, whereas real matter gains speed as it gains mass/energy.) That would be a possible mechaism explaining things, if it were consistent with the known facts. (But you can't adapt either for Lensman, since Lensman FTL isnt tachyonic nor is it an intradimensional "tube") You can't use "technobabble mechanism" to get around baisc physics. Phasers are technobabble in mechanism, they can be used at FTL or travel at FTL speeds (if at warp), yet they still can have energy or thermal effects and STILL exhibit recoil. Likewise Curtis' theory for Hyperdrive is FTL yet it ALSO closely obeys conservation laws despite being a mere theory. So again, unless you can provide an INTELLIGENT mechanism to explain why ultrawaves magically get around recoil and momentum, or can provide some actual evidence rather than speculation, you're speculation is full of shit. It's also a red herring - the fact that ultrawaves can be weapons does nothing to explain how they would deal with recoil.

Oh, and I also like how you conveniently ignored the first point simply to go after the second one. How very dishonest of you.

It is unspecific enough to be of little value. But if you want to interpret it like that, you must also take the description of Roger’s planetoid as planet-sized, quoted above, equally literally. Which means that it is incredibly massive, orders of magnitude beyond any Earthly element at room temperature and surface pressure.

To which I respond "learn what planetoid means." I already adressed this when you laughingly claimed Roger's planetoid might be pluto-sized. Not even remotely the same in any case, since I am NOt claiming a particular size, I am establishing an UPPER LIMIT, which still allows for a range of sizes up to a certain value based on a simple distinction betwene "large" and "small". If it said "slightly smaller", I would come to the conclusion it meant "less than 50% greater", not "100% or more times greater". because that would be twisting usage around. Of course if you want to claim that "10 or 20% greater than the diameter of the ship" can mean "vastly greater" or that inertialess fields routinely extend massive distances from their hulls like that, I'd like to see your evidence. Christ, this is as bad as nitpickery that claims "close to the speed of light" might mean "5 or 10% of lightspeed" or that "a few" means "thousands" or "hundreds" actually mean "millions."

Oh, and I also noted they hauled the supership out with tractors and rolled it onto the launch platform. Mind explaining to me how they did that with a multi-billion ton supership that you are proposing?

Under suspension of disbelief, we observe the feats they perform and extrapolate logically what these would require. So how do you propose that they manoeuvre inertialess ships with reaction engines again? The source material is clear that they DO have technology that allows them to violate conservation of momentum by demonstrating the same (and, Hell, GURPS Lensman even calls it just a "reactionless drive" in plain letters), and you cannot just handwave it away by saying that it is arbitrary technobabble – it is, but so are inertial dampers, anti-gravity, hyper-drives (regardless of setting or type) and I know not what else that makes various space-opera settings work. Or is all of the core series non-canon now because it uses a technology you think should not exist?

The fact that you claim to be acting "under suspension of disbelief" in one breath and then claim that they can "routinely violate conversation of momentum" only proves how breathtakingly stupid you are. Of course, Teleros has also addressed this far better than I have. All this amounts is to you whining and crying that "evil physics isn't allowing me to have my way" - you basically just want an excuse to ignore it like any other of those fanatical pseudoscientific trekkies who are featured on the main site. Oh, and trying to appeal to the "Other tech isn't sensible so this isn't either" is a classic fanboy/pseudoscientific moron approach to wanting an excuse to ignore basic science. Explain to me why the fuck, on this very board, you believed it would fly here? Would you like to bring a Mod or Admin on this (or, failing that Mike Wong himself) and see if THEY'D buy it? I'd love to see you do that. In fact, I demand you find me examples on Mike's page of him "ignoring physics" or handwaving it away just to justify some calculation. Really, do so. I'd love to bring it to his attention if you did.

Of course, if we let you have your way, then Lensmanverse physics are so vastly different from our own that we can't do any actual calcs - it's no better than cartoon physics. So your hypothetical energy figure becomes utterly meaningless anyhow. But as it is, there's plenty of evidence in Lensman that they actually obey conservation of momentum, rather than ignore it, so you're argument really is fucked either way. Again, you don't get to have it both ways unless you're trying to be a dishonest pseudoscience fucktard.

Driving jets used for inert flight are reaction engines, whatever made you think I was claiming otherwise? This in no way disproves that they use reactionless (gravitic, apparently) engines for "free" flight, nor does it show that such are not used as auxiliary engines for lifting heavy loads in-atmosphere.

In case you forgot or chose to ignore it, let's review what you said:

The Triplanetary Service has access to reactionless drives (else the Boise would not be able to manoeuvre, as reaction drives are quite useless for an inertialess ship). This implies that they would be able to somehow work around conservation of momentum, even before the discovery of Nevian neutralisation of inertia, which might be involved in how they handle gun recoil, or how they can lift potentially huge masses into space without the energy expenditures and environmental effects that would result from the mechanisms you calculate.

You claimed a.) they flat out ignore conservation of momentum and b.) as a result they don't have energy expenditures or enviromental effects. Both of which have been flat out disproven by Telereos and myself. What's more, you didn't even bother to back your bullshit up. So basically, yet again, you handwaved away basic science by claiming "they ignore it somehow" and spouting unsubstantiated bullshit. Unless you have some actual proof to back up your claims, shut the fuck up. It's obvious you don't even begin to understand the issues at hand, much less how SoD applies.

And your evidence that super-atomics were invented in Children of the Lens would be? The book never says so, but GURPS does note that one of the Jovian moons was subjected to a super-atomic bombardment that stripped it of its atmosphere in the late Jovian Wars (presumably sometime after Triplanetary, given that the Triplanetary League conquered Jupiter somewhere between then and First Lensman, although the dating is uncertain). Which fits with the timeline: super-atomics are total-converters, just like the allotropic iron bombs that then became available. One might merely be a name for another.

Occams' Razor. Learn what it means. We've never SEEN them before Children of the Lens, so we have no reason to believe they exist. Do you even fucking realize you're asking me to prove a negative? ("prove that super atomic warheads didn't exist until Children of the Lens." Christ...) And if you're going to bring GURPS into it, I will just turn around and note what Telereos said and the book says: Allotropic Iron provides 1/10th its mass in "useful energy". And before you start blathering again about "100% efficient" conversion, note the "useful energy" bit and read my replies to Telereos which cite the main fucking website as far as "efficiency" goes. Just becuase it might be "total annihilation" does not mean all the energy is neccesarily usable or useful, or dangerous or whatever, and it would be fucking stupid to assume it is.

As for duodec, it did in fact not replace atomics in First Lensman, but was used concurrently with them, as the battle with the Black Fleet shows:

All of the Patrol ships had, of course, the standard equipment of so-called “violet”, “green”, and “red” fields, as well as duodecaplylatomate and ordinary atomic bombs, dirigible torpedoes and transporters, slicers, polycyclic drills, and so on;

Which Teleros pointed out to me and I conceded. I guess you just decided to igore that bit, eh?

It might be that duodec is easier to handle, and thus preferred. Then again, the Eich used duodec torpedoes to disrupt and volatilise worlds:

[quote="Gray Lensman, "Eich and Arisian""]The giant voice ceased. Eichlan’s tentacles moved towards the controls. The vast torpedo launched itself.

But instead of hurtling towards distant Arisia it swept around in a circle and struck, in direct central impact, the great cruiser of the Eich. There was an appalling crash, a space-wracking detonation, a flare of incandescence incredible and indescribable as the energy calculated to disrupt – almost to volatilize – a world expended itself upon the insignificant mass of one Boskonian battleship and upon the unresisting texture of the void.

Coming close to vaporising an Earth-like planet like Arisia should, by my rough estimate, require at least e29-e30J worth of energy. Yet the torpedo, although described as "vast", was ship-launched, which puts an upper limit on its volume. So either duodec is in fact better than total-conversion (and violates e=mc^2), or it can be packed at extreme densities yet still function (a preferable solution, but with its own problems).[/quote]

Aside from what Telereos already pointedout, this is purely speculative since we can't quite be sure what "volatileize" or "disrupt" means. The only definite claim we have is that it would basically amount to a mass-extinction event (which actually implies the place would be intact, rather than a cloud of floating vapour.) Mass extinction can be achieved with FAR LESS energy than you claim. Plus, it's also a more commonly stated result of munitions striking planets rather than outright mass scattering/annihilation - that level of destruction is reserved for negaspheres and free planets. (Even Sunbeams can't achieve that and they're basically more powerful than any other weapon they have.)

So you will cheerfully ignore Roger’s dialogue that Nevian iron conversion is total:

[quote="Triplanetary, "Roger Carries On""]Their source of power is the intra-atomic energy of iron. Complete; not the partial liberation incidental to the nuclear fission of such unstable isotopes as those of thorium, uranium, plutonium, and so on.

while using Rodebush’s dialogue to say that it is worse than plutonium fission? A Triplanetary engineer supposedly knows how things work better than an alien super-mind billions of years old? And there is not even any necessary contradiction, there; it could be that they are discussing some variant, less than total-conversion application (a dirty bomb, so to speak – which would make sense, given that the discussion continues on the topic of specialised radiation weapons specifically).[/quote]

Again I see you decided to ignore my discussion with Teleros on this issue. Even it's like antimatter, that hardly means that 100% of the energy is usable, that's an unrealistic assumption. So while I had to concede one part of my earlier statement, the essential point will remain unchanged, unless you have actual proof that 100% of the energy is usable.

Another thing I ran across while checking this:

" . . . Well, the original Rodebush-Cleveland free drive was a killer, you know . . . "
"How I know!" Kinnison exclaimed, feelingly.
"They beat their brains out and ate their hearts out for months without getting it any better. Then, one day, this kid Bergenholm . . . says:
"'Why don't you use uranium instead of iron and rewind it so it will put out a wave-form like this, with humps here, and here; instead of there, and there?' and he draws a couple of free-hand, but really beautiful curves.
"'Why should we?' they squawk at him.
"'Because it will work that way,' he says ( . . . ).
"Well in sheer desperation, they tried it - and it WORKED! And nobody has ever had a minute's trouble with a Bergenholm since. That's why Rodebush and Cleveland both insisted on the name."

Which incidentally proves my earlier point: iron was abandoned for reasons of reliability, not conversion rate.

No, it doesn't. You're assuming 100% efficient matter energy conversion (which is unrealistic for the reasons I gave Teleros, even linking to an explanation on the fucking website itself for proof, since Mike knows more than you or I put together.) and that ALL of that energy is usable energy. (Which, if we go by GURPS, which you yourself cited, it isn't.) Your quote isn't even inconsistent with that, since reliability could be tied TO the fact allotropic iron does not release its energy as 100% totally usable energy - it may need special shielding or cooling systems to handle the part of the energy that isn't usable. But by all means continue assuming your totally unrealistic assumption of perfect efficiency.

Absurd as it sounds, Lensman does have some way of tolerating ridiculously extreme in-atmosphere bombardments without widespread environmental damage. We quote First Lensman again, from the first battle with the Black Fleet:

Those Black bombs should have peeled the armor off of that mountain like the skin off a nectarine and scattered it from the Pacific to the Mississippi. By now there should be a hole a mile deep where the Hill had been But there wasn’t. The Hill was still there! It might have shrunk a little – Clayton couldn’t see very well because of the worse-than-incandescent radiance of the practically continuous, sense-battering, world-shaking atomic detonations – but the Hill was still there!

Yet again you invoke your "its cartoon physics so we don't have to address it" bullshit excuse, as if this will somehow change for you what it hasn't changed for trolls and pseudoscience morons who have been trying similar tactics for years. Go fucking read the website and learn suspension of disbelief analysis and stop trying to pretend you can calc something and simultaenosuly ignore physicas at the same time.

The reason that the observer is surprised is that the Hill has a new gravitic shielding system, of which he is unaware, which has protected it from destruction. The Hill is described elsewhere as a "truncated cone" of a mountain coated in armor with a "mile-wide" flat top. We can thus calculate a rough figure for the energy that would have been required to crush it like Claytonhad expected. Destroying the mountain and leaving a crater should take hundreds of megatons at least as an order-of-magnitude estimate (disregarding its ultra-wave theatre shield, which would hold off an unknown amount of energy), and could well go into low gigatons. Despite this, no environmental effects of these detonations are ever mentioned, even locally.

Which has what to do with the fact you are essentially claiming no problems with hurling around hundreds of gigatons worth of energy that your insistence on the validity of the e20 joule statement from New Lensman implies? Other than the fact you're blatantly trying to twist around and outright ignore science because its inconvenient to your argument, that is? And don't try bullshitting. You're BLATANTLY twisting science about, and "but the series does it!" does not fucking excuse it. If you think it does, you haven't read the fucking website attached to these forums or paid attention to the handling of the Trek portion of it, else you would not be so fucking stupid as to try passing off that argument here.

To reiterate. They do not toss around hundreds or (more likely) thousands of gigatons of firepower. That didn't happen in First Lensman OR triplanetary. We know such effects are not inconsequentila because of Gray Lensman (the attack on Bronseca) and this looks NOTHING like Bronseca. There is a MOUNTAIN of evidence agianst this despite your bullshit, overcomplicated handwaving to justify a single piece of dialogue, your shitting all over basic science and logic (Occam's Razor? What's that?) and your blatant manipulation of dialogue and canon. So unless you have some ACTUAL evidence to back up all your claims, stop fucking pretending you actually have an actual coherent argument.

And then after that description, several ships hit it in suicide runs at high inert accelerations (New Lensman has one of them, a heavy cruiser, going at a "significant fraction of the speed of light"). Still no ruined environments recorded.

So basically you're claiming the Lensman Universe makes as much sense as bugs bunny, in which case your energy statmeent is meaningless and we can't quantify lensman. Fine by me, since either way it fucks you over. You don't get it both ways.

I do not pretend to know HOW they can throw around this kind of firepower without ruining the planet (nevermind the North American continent), any more than I can know the nature of the Force or the secret of the fabrication of hypermatter. All I can establish from canon is that they HAVE DEMONSTRATED these abilities beyond any reasonable doubt, and thus they have them under any reasonable consideration for suspension of disbelief. As a consequence, we must assume that they have some kind of technology to deal with it, even if we have no idea how it would work.

You're a moron. You don't get to claim fantastic abilities and ignore basic science. Trektards have tried this countless times, as has been outlined in a myriad of different ways on the attached website. You are doing things which are no better than they are. Why the fuck do you think YOU are any different, asshole? Tell me why the fuck you get to be allowed to twist and mangle basic science and SoD just ot jusstify one single fucking piece of second tier dialogue, something which almost anyone else, Mike included would simply dismiss as an outlier? ARe you really too dense to comprehend that?

"Doc" Smith apparently did not think that it was irreconcilable, since he authorised it. This whining is unbecoming of a senior debater such as yourself.

Fuck you, asshole. You've proven yourself to not only be totally idiotic, but either completely ignorant of basic science and how it applies to suspension of disbelief style analysis (despite how it is PAINFULLY spelled out on the Main website, on Star Wars Technical Commenatire,s on Brian Young's forums, etc.) but you think you're arrogant enough to lecture ME about it, when much of what I have fucking LEARNED regarding sci fi analysis comes from knowing and interacting with those people and them being patient enough to explain to me. I KNOW how you fucking approach the analysis of evidence, and it is NOT the way you are doing it, no matter how hard you try to bluster that it is.

The bottom line is that we have canon descriptions of weapons power and damage-control mechanisms, some of it in the series, some in a prequel authorised upon review by the author.

Which, according to you, intrinsically violate our own science and physics, and therefore have as much understanding for us as a bugs bunny cartoon. Or are you really fucking stupid enough to think that you can have your cake and eat it by claiming calcs based on real life figures while simultaenously IGNORING those very same rules that allow us to do the analysis to begin with?

Your refusal to accept canon figures is reminiscent of the Trektards who claim that the ICS is not a valid source.

ROFLMAO. I've got my name in both ICSes, precisley BECAUSE of my analytical abilities WRT Star Wars, so try again. I have people that ask me for my input or advice or help in doing calcs, just as I have asked Mike or Curtis for help. It's one of the reasons WHY I am in the Senate, and WHY I am as you put it a "veteran". The fact you claim I am like trektards who ignore a source which I am credited in is fucking hilarious beyond belief. Almost as hilarious as pretending you actually know enough about Trektards to recognize and identify their tactics, particularily since alot of the handwaving, pseudoscientific bullshit you have claimed is straight outta their playbook. EG, Darkstar's Mysterious Unknown Mechanism, countless trekkies (such as Virus-X) who want to claim The Die Is Cast is a genuine display of Trek firepower despite the fact physics count against it, etc.

The fact is, you're the dishonest, pseudoscientific, whining asshole who is emulating the trektards and refuses to acknowledge reality. Not me, YOU.

You do not get to decide what is canon, Smith (and somewhat more tentatively, his estate) has that exclusive privilege.

Says the man who wants to ignore/distort the preponderence of evidence to justify a single bit of dialogue rather than treat it as an outlier, which would be the LOGICAL conclusion that any intelligent sci fi analyst would conclude.

You cannot just throw out any occurrence you dislike. Under suspension of disbelief we accept that the fictional technologies work as described, and attempt to define limits from that. If this leads to apparent contradictions, we attempt to produce a rational explanation for them if possible; otherwise, we just note them down.

Funny enough, that's precisely what you do, since all you do is continue to invent extravaganet and complicated sepculation to justify a single bit of quetionable dialogue. Your handwaving away basic science amounts to ignoring it, which is something that countless trektards have done in the debates ot Mike and others. (EG TDIC yet again.)

Cheerfully ignoring the source material is not an option.

Yes, it is. Mike, Curtis, and all intelligent and consistent sci fi analysts do it all the time. What matters is the justifications for doing it. You see, we're not required under SoD to take every, single, piece of dialogue as absolute truth. Its rather core to the "dialogue vs visuals" discussion, for one thing. Ever heard of an "outlier?" Mike's used the term more than once. It's even used in the highest level of canon (IE dismissing Han's statement about "a thousand starships" in ANH, or Obi-Wan's statements about "thousands of systems" in the REpublic in ROTs.) Things like the inherent ambiguity of dialogue, the education level of the person speaking, whether its casually stated or given as part of a comprehensive dilaogue, the emotional state, etc. It's even done with visuals, such as the "randomly flucutating sizes of the Klingon Bird of Prey" in Star Trek. We throw out the outliers there, too.

See. You don't even understand tHAT much. don't even begin lecturing me on something you yourself either fail to grasp or deliberately choose ot ignore. This is not a game you can win.

And really? I'm at the end of my patience with you with that last bit of sanctimonious shit you decided to pull. If the next response of yours isn't showing evne the LEAST bit of improvement to your arguments, and something resembling actual evidence instead of speculative bullshit, I take this up with the staff and you can try blustering THEM. And if you pull this shit on me again, I AM going to be taking it up with one of them.

[Simon_Jester]

I did not use the modern definition, which would have excluded Pluto. And it is explicitly described as a "planet", not merely a "planetoid" (although both terms are used, apparently somewhat interchangeably):

I think the definition used in 2004 still qualifies as "modern," being only five years old, even if it is no longer current.

[quote=""Pirates of Space""]While they stared into space a vast area of the heavens was blotted out and they saw, faintly illuminated by a peculiar blue luminescence, a vast ball - a sphere so large and so close that they seemed to be dropping towards it as though it were a world![/quote][/quote]If you're close enough, the Death Star would be more than big enough to qualify. Heck, something fifty or sixty kilometers on a side would seem gigantic up close, and you could get the illusion of something worldlike from it.

And Roger could plausibly* build something like that, because there are nickel-iron asteroids in that size range.

*For "Doc Smith" values of "plausible." Man had a hellacious imagination.

[Teleros]

I did not use the modern definition, which would have excluded Pluto. And it is explicitly described as a "planet", not merely a "planetoid" (although both terms are used, apparently somewhat interchangeably)

You do realise that this sets up a slight problem for you, no? Describing something as both a planet and planetoid, when most of the evidence points to it not being anything like the size of, say, Pluto, is a problem when you're trying to argue it was far bigger than any mere asteroid .

Aside from what Telereos already pointedout, this is purely speculative since we can't quite be sure what "volatileize" or "disrupt" means.

To volatilise something means to vaporise it. The torpedo had almost enough energy to almost do that. Also note that the phrase is "energy calculated to almost vaporise a world" - they may have calculated the various inefficiencies from using a bomb like that, and used an even more powerful warhead. Assuming Arisia is fairly Earth-like, you're looking at something close to 1e30J to actually vaporise it.

We know such effects are not inconsequentila because of Gray Lensman (the attack on Bronseca) and this looks NOTHING like Bronseca.

Just to back up this point a little, Triplanetary was written after GP & GL were done, so it's not as if Doc Smith could only have realised this problem after this but in time to write about the attack on Bronseca.

[Darth Hoth]

Connor, I concede all outstanding points. I have the greatest respect for your analysis elsewhere, and your standards of knowledge; if you think I am acting like an idiot, I probably am, even if I do not realise it.

Can I instead humbly ask some questions about suspension of disbelief, which I perhaps do not know as well as I thought I did? The passage I was talking about earlier (the 10^20 watts one) was not dialogue, it was part of the third-person narration of the book. Knowing this, can we still ignore it as easily as you propose? I am fully aware of the problem with contradictory or nonsensical dialogue and character statements, and how that is to be handled, characters being human and prone to mistakes, generalisations, oversimplifications, flat out lying and so on. But is the same true of narrative descriptions in prose that do not conform to science as we know it, third-person impersonal narrators not being subject to the limits placed on characters? Or for the other example, if a book says that a ship rams a planet at low relativistic speeds, can we just say that it was wrong because it does not appear to produce the requisite collateral damage? Should we not assume that it did hold that speed, but that the momentum and kinetic energy were somehow handled? I am asking out of curiosity and a desire to learn.

On another note, does one departure from physics as we know it automatically render an entire setting’s physics null and void, so that all calculations and quantifications are impossible? Would the presence of a reactionless drive in a setting make it impossible to estimate, say, the power required to vapourise a given amount of iron? As I understood suspension of disbelief, it assumes that the universe being analysed has essentially the same physical properties as our own, except that it accept unfeasible (and sometimes, impossible) technologies (and various other phenomena, like the Force or the Warp, or Lensman telepathy) as real and working. Am I completely wrong, here?

[Teleros]

Can I instead humbly ask some questions about suspension of disbelief, which I perhaps do not know as well as I thought I did? The passage I was talking about earlier (the 10^20 watts one) was not dialogue, it was part of the third-person narration of the book. Knowing this, can we still ignore it as easily as you propose?

I believe the figure was used as an example by the narrator, so it probably can be disregarded if it doesn't square with other evidence, which it doesn't.

Or for the other example, if a book says that a ship rams a planet at low relativistic speeds, can we just say that it was wrong because it does not appear to produce the requisite collateral damage? Should we not assume that it did hold that speed, but that the momentum and kinetic energy were somehow handled? I am asking out of curiosity and a desire to learn.

Ideally it would have hit like that, but there are issues - the shielding the Hill would require, as well as the missile (in this case the ship), and so on. If we take NL as lower canon than the original books though, then it couldn't have happened at a significant fraction of the speed of light, if only because it would have turned itself into a plasma bomb upon entering the atmosphere .

As I understood suspension of disbelief, it assumes that the universe being analysed has essentially the same physical properties as our own, except that it accept unfeasible (and sometimes, impossible) technologies (and various other phenomena, like the Force or the Warp, or Lensman telepathy) as real and working. Am I completely wrong, here?

Seems right to me.

[Connor MacLeod]

To volatilise something means to vaporise it. The torpedo had almost enough energy to almost do that. Also note that the phrase is "energy calculated to almost vaporise a world" - they may have calculated the various inefficiencies from using a bomb like that, and used an even more powerful warhead. Assuming Arisia is fairly Earth-like, you're looking at something close to 1e30J to actually vaporise it.

Conceded on volatilize, although I will point out that as a rule, it is common in sci fi to have the term "vaporize" even be nitpicked over (and admittedly, in some cases it is used in a more loose sense.) neverrmind that phrasing can either imply partial or complete vaporization depending on circumstances --there are cases in 40K where terms like "vaporization" and "incineration" are used but is inconsistent with other parts. Hell, even in the Lensman novels the descriptions of what happens with delameters is hard to quantify easily for that seam reason. Taken on its own, it would be hard to put an accurate number on the quote since it could mean "disrupt a planet but not vaporize it" or "almost totally vaporize the planet" without even getting into the "mechanism" bit of it (which is another argument in and of itself given duodec and atomics and whatnot... LOL)

Overall, "kill all life on the planet" is a more reliable lower limit and harder to nitpick (and can still allow full vaporization of a planet.) I would at best treat the aforementioned quote as an upper limit of some kind.

Just to back up this point a little, Triplanetary was written after GP & GL were done, so it's not as if Doc Smith could only have realised this problem after this but in time to write about the attack on Bronseca.

Yep, but it doesn't really make much of a difference from the standpoint of analysis does it? I mean there's also the absence of computers and such in the novels, even thouugh they basically get added "after the fact". I've pretty much presumed they are there from the get go.

[Connor MacLeod]

Connor, I concede all outstanding points. I have the greatest respect for your analysis elsewhere, and your standards of knowledge; if you think I am acting like an idiot, I probably am, even if I do not realise it.

Fine, but you don't really show it when you proceed to argue in something you evidently don't understand. I've had to say this to you repeatedly, and had to lecture you on this on more than one occasion, which does not add favorably to your case. It basically amounts to a combination of broken-record tactics and Wall of Ignorance, things that if you'd done it against most people (say Mike) you probably would have been in deeper shit.

If you really HAVE respect for a person, learn not to keep arguing with them, lecturing them, or outright telling them they're little better than a rabid trekkie. Those are not tactics geared to endear someone to you.

Can I instead humbly ask some questions about suspension of disbelief, which I perhaps do not know as well as I thought I did? The passage I was talking about earlier (the 10^20 watts one) was not dialogue, it was part of the third-person narration of the book. Knowing this, can we still ignore it as easily as you propose?

Um, when was the last time you read the passage? I managed to at last see this much-contested piece and it does not look nearly as straightforward as you present it:

"Lasers."
Pete froze.
Lasers had gone out with the first Jovian War. They were inefficient wasters of energy. With the
advent of multiplex projectors, which were so efficient because they could convert their own heat
losses back into usable, transmittable energy, lasers as weapons were abandoned. To be portable,
an ultra powerful weapon required ultra efficiency. If you use 1020 watts of power in your 99.999
per cent efficient weapon, how do you get rid of the lO15 watts of raw heat released inside your
own ship in the insulation of a vacuum? No ship can use a really big laser, but a base on a planet
or moon can, because it has whole world to soak up the thermal losses. But once more efficient
weapons were available, what base would want to go to the trouble of preparing and maintaining the
paths for those thermal losses.
"We've had it," Pete said.

First, "dialgoue" and "narration" don't make much of a difference. Its still a person doing the explaining, and thus still subject to the considerations of "dialogue vs visuals". Documents of any kind, historical or otherwise, can still be subject to bias, scientific or other sorts of inaccuracies, etc. (The oft spoken of "New Republic/REbel bias" in analyzing WEG material and EU novels, for example.) Nitpicking over "but its not the person saying it" really won't change things, especially since it could be seen as the "Third person narrator" simply explaining the thought processes of an individual as well (again, not obvious here.)

Secondly, let us revisit your original claim that started this uproar:

...e20 Watts range for Jovian Wars era starship cannon..

The quote does NOT make that statement. It's speaking of lasers as the Jovian War weapon, and it also says that an e20 watt laser on a starship would be IMPOSSIBLE. Moreover, its not actually saying that the wattage figures stated are actually firepower figures, from the statement, it can simply be interpreted as an illustrative example, rather than a statement of capability.

Were it not for the fact this statement is contradicted, you might have been able to claim it as some sort of firepower figure, but not with the myriad problems outlined below. If we followed your theory as accurate, then it changes things. The whole first part of Galacitc Patrol with the Britannia becomes irrelevant, because they have multi-gigaton weapons that should have been capable of breaching Boskonian defenses quite easily, not to mention the power generation to back it up (20 tons of duodec will be at best ~430 gigatons, and that assumes 100% efficiency and total conversion AND that its a shaped charge detonation into an effective beam weapon..) NEVERMIND how it throws off the tech progression scale or affects later incidents or complicates the problems with earlier novels as already outlines. This isn't even addressing other aspects of the quote the way it is written, like the apparent ability to "re-use waste heat" (which is retarded), or that they don't even have radiators (and thus excess heat must be vented into the ship).

I also understand from the context that these are the same weapons you refer to as the "WW3 era lasers consuming several kg worth of allotropic iron", which tends to muddle the issue even more (multi-gigaton weapons require TONS of matter even at 100% efficiency to run.)

I am fully aware of the problem with contradictory or nonsensical dialogue and character statements, and how that is to be handled, characters being human and prone to mistakes, generalisations, oversimplifications, flat out lying and so on. But is the same true of narrative descriptions in prose that do not conform to science as we know it, third-person impersonal narrators not being subject to the limits placed on characters?

We know the Lensman novels are commonly presented as historical records, which means they are written and told by some other person (we even get refrences to the narrator as an individual, such as the references to the "historian" in Gray Lensman, or the fact Christopher Kinnison was the chronicler in Children of the Lens.) Being a narrator or historian or writer does not exclude someone from the possibility of error. I know you wouldn't accept just any statement at face value from any author from say, an EU source or WEG/WOTC material - the oft spoken of "New REpublic Bias". No different here.

Or for the other example, if a book says that a ship rams a planet at low relativistic speeds, can we just say that it was wrong because it does not appear to produce the requisite collateral damage? Should we not assume that it did hold that speed, but that the momentum and kinetic energy were somehow handled? I am asking out of curiosity and a desire to learn.

First off, "how fast" depends on how the author phrases it. There's a great deal of idfference between "close to the speed of light" or "near-lightspeed/near-c" and something like "a fraction of the speed of light."

Mechanism also matters greatly. It is unlikely that


It depends on the mechanism of acceleration as wlel. For example, its highly doubtful that Lensmanverse ships can accelerate to large fractions of c in very short timeframes (minutes o seconds.) to achieve 30% of c on the single/double digit accelerations from the novels would require nearly two weeks at 10 gees. Ten gees would get you up to maybe 2.5% of C if you spent a full day accelerating at 10 gees. And before you bring up the "hundreds of gees" acceleration from GURPs lensman, that won't change things greatly. Instead of nearly two weeks, you take the better part of a day to more than a day depending on acceleration (at the ~300 gees you get form GURPS, it would take ~9 hours of constant acceleration.) The Rodebush-Bergenholm fields were described as having an acceleration of around 100,000 gees roughly, so maybe you could make hundreds or a couple thousand km/s before impact, although I doubt that it would be "relativistic" in any meaningful way, and I could very well be over estimating things (it depends on how far away the fields act and the range of engagement.)

And yes, relativistic velocity in an atmosphere qualifies as a significant enviromental consideration. Even something sa small as the human body can have significant effects at great distances A starship is alot bigger than a human (to say nothing of the multi-billion behemoths required for your interpretation to work) and the effects will be correspondingly greater/more devastating.

Hell, the simple fact is that evne non-relatavistic impactors can have significant effects over large areas even at a velocity of a few tens of km/s and hundreds of thousands/millions of tons, nevermind BILLIONS. Look up the Tunguska impact if you don't believe me. (Or any significant asteorid impactor in general, Mike's "Planet Killer" page is a good place to check out for an idea if you don't have a clue of what I am discussing.)

I'm also doubtful that you could say 'highly relatavistic" impacts in the Lensman universe are trivial things given what is stated in "Children of the Lens"

Everybody there had seen pictures of what happened when the insignificant
mass of a space-ship, traveling at only a hundredth of the velocity of light, collided with
a planetoid. That was bad enough.

That's 3,000 km/s, which isnt even going to quite qualify as "relativistic" either.

On another note, does one departure from physics as we know it automatically render an entire setting’s physics null and void, so that all calculations and quantifications are impossible?

No, since for most sci fi a certain amount of "technobabble" is accepted or even neccessary. But you can never actually calculate anything from the technobabble with real science. (EG you can't measure a warp field, and its nearly impossible to do accurate calculations of power generation baesd on FTL drives without being told a great many variables.) But you can't toss out science either when it comes to actually DOING calcs. Its too fundamental to establishing any meaningful benchmarks we understand. You can't say "conservation of momentum/energy works differently or is ignored somehow in X universe" and still do calculations. You need to invent mechanisms to explain WHY it apparently doesnt work (EG explaining absurd phaser knockdowns and the absence of corresponding recoil on the individual.) Simply saying "it works somehow" isn't enough.

Would the presence of a reactionless drive in a setting make it impossible to estimate, say, the power required to vapourise a given amount of iron?

Depends on how it works and you define "reactionless". If your reactionless drive requires exterting some thrust or force to move the ship (IE pushing against something, like tractor-repeller beams or SW repulsors) then it can still be consistent with physics (within certain constraints) and you can at least calculate the effects (but not the method of generating it.) - reactionless simply refers to the absence of reaction mass. If the drive system somehow involves exerting NO thrust to move the ship, you can't calculate it.

Likewise, vaporizing "iron" depends entirely on the mechanism. If the mechanism is somehow related to the inertialess drive then yeah, you rpboably can't calc it. It would be like saying you can calculate phaser vaporization. If it works by some other mechanism, you may or may not be able to calc it depending on the mechanism and how consistent it is with our understanding of science. And whether or not one kind of technobabble affects another feat is again a "depends" scenario, since there are lots of ways it can go and it often depends on the author, universe, and context.

You cna't really generalize, except for the basic fact that you NEVER throw out science when it comes to actually doing the calcs. This means you can't say "they circumvent thermodynamics somehow and thats why we don't see the results of vaporizing iron we would normally expect to see by the analysis." without providing sufficient explanation/mechanism to justify WHY. Things like thermodynamics and conservation of momentum - hell, science itself, is a very complex and very intricately linked concept.. its not easy to just "toss out" one bit and not have it influence others. For example, vaporizing something with energy ultimately comes down to kinetic energy and motion - imparting enough kinetic energy to the molecules or atoms of matter that make up said iron that it is (basically) converted into a gaseous state. But kinetic energy and momentum are closely related concepts (non relativistic KE is 1/2m*v^2, while momentum is m*v) and if the concept of momentum behaves radically different in the fictional universe from our own (Eg you dismiss it), it will ALSO affect heating objects up (those individual particles and molecules will have KE and momentum too, after all.)

As I understood suspension of disbelief, it assumes that the universe being analysed has essentially the same physical properties as our own, except that it accept unfeasible (and sometimes, impossible) technologies (and various other phenomena, like the Force or the Warp, or Lensman telepathy) as real and working. Am I completely wrong, here?

No, but you're not evidently understanding the concept fully, else you would not be casually dismissing certain aspects like recoil or enviromental effects. Sometimes we are FORCED to dismiss our own concepts of science when dealing iwth sci fi principles, and we just accept they exist, but they are utlimately beyond our knowing or understanding. (kinda like God and religion in context of our understanding of science.) But our understanding of science is the foundation, the basis, upon which we attempt to do our analysis, it provides the benchmarks and consistencies by which we can draw any meaningful conclusions. It is, for lack of a better word, the "rules" the game is run by, and you do not break the rules and still expect ot be able to play the game in the same way.

[Simon_Jester]

We know the Lensman novels are commonly presented as historical records, which means they are written and told by some other person (we even get refrences to the narrator as an individual, such as the references to the "historian" in Gray Lensman, or the fact Christopher Kinnison was the chronicler in Children of the Lens.) Being a narrator or historian or writer does not exclude someone from the possibility of error.

Though, to be fair, if the narrator is nominally Christopher Kinnison, you wouldn't expect a lot of errors: Chris is the kind of guy who's going to try to get his facts straight.

[Darth Hoth]

I am not going to argue the point any further, just seek some clarification.

Fine, but you don't really show it when you proceed to argue in something you evidently don't understand. I've had to say this to you repeatedly, and had to lecture you on this on more than one occasion, which does not add favorably to your case. It basically amounts to a combination of broken-record tactics and Wall of Ignorance, things that if you'd done it against most people (say Mike) you probably would have been in deeper shit.

If you really HAVE respect for a person, learn not to keep arguing with them, lecturing them, or outright telling them they're little better than a rabid trekkie. Those are not tactics geared to endear someone to you.

I can only apologise, and try to do better in the future. My respect for your other work is genuine; I have actually learned a fair bit from your 40k analysis. I was simply annoyed when it seemed like you were just going to dismiss the book without consideration. It will not happen again.

Um, when was the last time you read the passage? I managed to at last see this much-contested piece and it does not look nearly as straightforward as you present it:

"Lasers."
Pete froze.
Lasers had gone out with the first Jovian War. They were inefficient wasters of energy. With the
advent of multiplex projectors, which were so efficient because they could convert their own heat
losses back into usable, transmittable energy, lasers as weapons were abandoned. To be portable,
an ultra powerful weapon required ultra efficiency. If you use 1020 watts of power in your 99.999
per cent efficient weapon, how do you get rid of the lO15 watts of raw heat released inside your
own ship in the insulation of a vacuum? No ship can use a really big laser, but a base on a planet
or moon can, because it has whole world to soak up the thermal losses. But once more efficient
weapons were available, what base would want to go to the trouble of preparing and maintaining the
paths for those thermal losses.
"We've had it," Pete said.

First, "dialgoue" and "narration" don't make much of a difference. Its still a person doing the explaining, and thus still subject to the considerations of "dialogue vs visuals". Documents of any kind, historical or otherwise, can still be subject to bias, scientific or other sorts of inaccuracies, etc. (The oft spoken of "New Republic/REbel bias" in analyzing WEG material and EU novels, for example.) Nitpicking over "but its not the person saying it" really won't change things, especially since it could be seen as the "Third person narrator" simply explaining the thought processes of an individual as well (again, not obvious here.)

This is probably another ignorant question, but given that in a novel the narrator provides all direct descriptions (which I gather would be the closest to "visuals") as well as all elaboration and indirect descriptions, why should one be more reliable than another? If the narration is assumed to the be provided by an omniscient external observer, is it still subject to the same limitations as a character's descriptions would be?

Secondly, let us revisit your original claim that started this uproar:

...e20 Watts range for Jovian Wars era starship cannon..

The quote does NOT make that statement. It's speaking of lasers as the Jovian War weapon, and it also says that an e20 watt laser on a starship would be IMPOSSIBLE. Moreover, its not actually saying that the wattage figures stated are actually firepower figures, from the statement, it can simply be interpreted as an illustrative example, rather than a statement of capability.

I suppose that you could just take it to be an example, or a description of the character's thoughts. Still, if your quote is accurate (I have no reason to doubt it, but I do not have New Lensman available to check, just my old notes), I would think that it says that lasers had been at least mostly superseded by the end of the First Jovian War at the latest, to make room for more efficient weapons that could use more power.

Were it not for the fact this statement is contradicted, you might have been able to claim it as some sort of firepower figure, but not with the myriad problems outlined below. If we followed your theory as accurate, then it changes things. The whole first part of Galacitc Patrol with the Britannia becomes irrelevant, because they have multi-gigaton weapons that should have been capable of breaching Boskonian defenses quite easily, not to mention the power generation to back it up (20 tons of duodec will be at best ~430 gigatons, and that assumes 100% efficiency and total conversion AND that its a shaped charge detonation into an effective beam weapon..) NEVERMIND how it throws off the tech progression scale or affects later incidents or complicates the problems with earlier novels as already outlines. This isn't even addressing other aspects of the quote the way it is written, like the apparent ability to "re-use waste heat" (which is retarded), or that they don't even have radiators (and thus excess heat must be vented into the ship).

Conceded.

I also understand from the context that these are the same weapons you refer to as the "WW3 era lasers consuming several kg worth of allotropic iron", which tends to muddle the issue even more (multi-gigaton weapons require TONS of matter even at 100% efficiency to run.)

I can run those basic maths, at least. As I remember it those were not the same weapons that that passage described. The moon prospector rigged up equipment from an old WW3 era moon base and used that car-portable allotropic iron generator I was talking about earlier to power its lasers in order to shoot down a small Black Fleet ship; less than a second of their full output consumed the "small bar" of iron clean. I believe it was three guns firing at once, it might have been four or six (it was a little convoluted; I would have to re-check the book to be certain).

We know the Lensman novels are commonly presented as historical records, which means they are written and told by some other person (we even get refrences to the narrator as an individual, such as the references to the "historian" in Gray Lensman, or the fact Christopher Kinnison was the chronicler in Children of the Lens.) Being a narrator or historian or writer does not exclude someone from the possibility of error. I know you wouldn't accept just any statement at face value from any author from say, an EU source or WEG/WOTC material - the oft spoken of "New REpublic Bias". No different here.

Well, as I said before, it would be an open question whether the books are notionally a "history" or not, given that the narration is not entirely consistent on that point. Can you explain the point about "New Republic bias" pertaining to the novels in a little more detail? I know the WEG sourcebooks, Essential Guides and so on are treated that way, since they are notionally in-universe documents with clearly identified authors, but does the same apply to the novels?

First off, "how fast" depends on how the author phrases it. There's a great deal of idfference between "close to the speed of light" or "near-lightspeed/near-c" and something like "a fraction of the speed of light."

Obviously. As I have quoted it in my notes, it just says "a significant fraction of the speed of light", which I tentatively took to be around 10 percent of c - I suppose you could say it was lower if you wanted to, but probably not less than one percent as a lower limit.

It depends on the mechanism of acceleration as wlel. For example, its highly doubtful that Lensmanverse ships can accelerate to large fractions of c in very short timeframes (minutes o seconds.) to achieve 30% of c on the single/double digit accelerations from the novels would require nearly two weeks at 10 gees. Ten gees would get you up to maybe 2.5% of C if you spent a full day accelerating at 10 gees. And before you bring up the "hundreds of gees" acceleration from GURPs lensman, that won't change things greatly. Instead of nearly two weeks, you take the better part of a day to more than a day depending on acceleration (at the ~300 gees you get form GURPS, it would take ~9 hours of constant acceleration.) The Rodebush-Bergenholm fields were described as having an acceleration of around 100,000 gees roughly, so maybe you could make hundreds or a couple thousand km/s before impact, although I doubt that it would be "relativistic" in any meaningful way, and I could very well be over estimating things (it depends on how far away the fields act and the range of engagement.)

If it was a dedicated suicide run, might they conceivably have built up the speed before going to Sol, given how the Bergenholm appears to "conserve" inert velocities? In effect, using the ship as a purpose-fitted kinetic impactor?

And yes, relativistic velocity in an atmosphere qualifies as a significant enviromental consideration. Even something sa small as the human body can have significant effects at great distances A starship is alot bigger than a human (to say nothing of the multi-billion behemoths required for your interpretation to work) and the effects will be correspondingly greater/more devastating.

Hell, the simple fact is that evne non-relatavistic impactors can have significant effects over large areas even at a velocity of a few tens of km/s and hundreds of thousands/millions of tons, nevermind BILLIONS. Look up the Tunguska impact if you don't believe me. (Or any significant asteorid impactor in general, Mike's "Planet Killer" page is a good place to check out for an idea if you don't have a clue of what I am discussing.)

I have at least some idea of the magnitudes involved. I personally found that incident rather strange, but assumed that the description in the book would be accurate, given that it was clearly described by the narrator, and brought it up as a example beside that of the Hill. I probably should not have done so.

No, since for most sci fi a certain amount of "technobabble" is accepted or even neccessary. But you can never actually calculate anything from the technobabble with real science. (EG you can't measure a warp field, and its nearly impossible to do accurate calculations of power generation baesd on FTL drives without being told a great many variables.) But you can't toss out science either when it comes to actually DOING calcs. Its too fundamental to establishing any meaningful benchmarks we understand. You can't say "conservation of momentum/energy works differently or is ignored somehow in X universe" and still do calculations. You need to invent mechanisms to explain WHY it apparently doesnt work (EG explaining absurd phaser knockdowns and the absence of corresponding recoil on the individual.) Simply saying "it works somehow" isn't enough.

Alright.

Depends on how it works and you define "reactionless". If your reactionless drive requires exterting some thrust or force to move the ship (IE pushing against something, like tractor-repeller beams or SW repulsors) then it can still be consistent with physics (within certain constraints) and you can at least calculate the effects (but not the method of generating it.) - reactionless simply refers to the absence of reaction mass. If the drive system somehow involves exerting NO thrust to move the ship, you can't calculate it.

Likewise, vaporizing "iron" depends entirely on the mechanism. If the mechanism is somehow related to the inertialess drive then yeah, you rpboably can't calc it. It would be like saying you can calculate phaser vaporization. If it works by some other mechanism, you may or may not be able to calc it depending on the mechanism and how consistent it is with our understanding of science. And whether or not one kind of technobabble affects another feat is again a "depends" scenario, since there are lots of ways it can go and it often depends on the author, universe, and context.

You cna't really generalize, except for the basic fact that you NEVER throw out science when it comes to actually doing the calcs. This means you can't say "they circumvent thermodynamics somehow and thats why we don't see the results of vaporizing iron we would normally expect to see by the analysis." without providing sufficient explanation/mechanism to justify WHY. Things like thermodynamics and conservation of momentum - hell, science itself, is a very complex and very intricately linked concept.. its not easy to just "toss out" one bit and not have it influence others. For example, vaporizing something with energy ultimately comes down to kinetic energy and motion - imparting enough kinetic energy to the molecules or atoms of matter that make up said iron that it is (basically) converted into a gaseous state. But kinetic energy and momentum are closely related concepts (non relativistic KE is 1/2m*v^2, while momentum is m*v) and if the concept of momentum behaves radically different in the fictional universe from our own (Eg you dismiss it), it will ALSO affect heating objects up (those individual particles and molecules will have KE and momentum too, after all.)

OK.

No, but you're not evidently understanding the concept fully, else you would not be casually dismissing certain aspects like recoil or enviromental effects. Sometimes we are FORCED to dismiss our own concepts of science when dealing iwth sci fi principles, and we just accept they exist, but they are utlimately beyond our knowing or understanding. (kinda like God and religion in context of our understanding of science.) But our understanding of science is the foundation, the basis, upon which we attempt to do our analysis, it provides the benchmarks and consistencies by which we can draw any meaningful conclusions. It is, for lack of a better word, the "rules" the game is run by, and you do not break the rules and still expect ot be able to play the game in the same way.

I did not mean to sound like I was dismissing them just like that; put that way, I see that I sounded retarded. But then, I suppose an invisible technobabble mechanism is not much better, really.

Thanks for having more patience with me than I probably deserved. I will not be back with this again.

[Connor MacLeod]

This is probably another ignorant question, but given that in a novel the narrator provides all direct descriptions (which I gather would be the closest to "visuals") as well as all elaboration and indirect descriptions, why should one be more reliable than another?

Because it doesnt mesh with the overall continuity - its an outlier. That's the short answer. The Long answer is, it's fucking hard if not downright impossible to justify insanely high firepower yields when it doesnt mesh with events later down the line like the whole Britannia subplot in GP (nevermind outright changing them) and it creates a buttload of problems from various standpoints with "current" material (EG recoil, power generation, side effects, etc.)

Put it this way. If the pirates had gigaton/Teraton/second firepower per ship, why did they bother attacking the HILL itself? Why not just render the planet uninhabitable? hell, for that matter, why not reduce the surface of the planet to molten slag? If we take capabilities as per New Lensman at face value, that would have been a trivial feat for them. This isn't even factoring in the orders of magnitude increases that rapid technological advancements (an OoM ALONE in Triplanetary from the supership, easy) that would have to be factored in. Many of my problems were in fact assuming that the Lensman verse pre-GP were completely stagnant. Likewise, we know that as a rule Lensman munitions are many orders of magnitude more powreful than their conventional cannon, so you're saying they were alreay throwing around petaton munitions, when new Lensman material at best would support low TT munitions (hell I remmeber Samms even commenting they weren't at the scale yet for planet killing weaponry.)

If the narration is assumed to the be provided by an omniscient external observer, is it still subject to the same limitations as a character's descriptions would be?

Why assume the narrator is "omniscient?" We know he's "informed", but we get no indication that he/she/it is somehow godlike in their knowledge or abilities that we would take them as being totally, utterly reliable. The only case *possible* case we might assume otherwise would be Children of the Lens, and that doesn't even neccesarily hold true (Even the Arisians didn't admit to perfection as I recall. THey were very very accurate, but they were never perfect. So why should we assume the Lens Children are?)

I suppose that you could just take it to be an example, or a description of the character's thoughts. Still, if your quote is accurate (I have no reason to doubt it, but I do not have New Lensman available to check, just my old notes), I would think that it says that lasers had been at least mostly superseded by the end of the First Jovian War at the latest, to make room for more efficient weapons that could use more power.

Yes, but if we follow your logic through to its logical conclusion, you're giving them firepower and capabilities they should possess well before the Kimball Kinnison era. Which is, as I said, only one of the problems. Why should we completely and utterly rearrange and reinterpret everything else just ot suit one bit of evidence? Doesn't that seem a bit silly to you?

Of course, the switch to multiplex projectors simply says they are "more efficient" weapons. it doesnt neccesariyl say they ar more powerful. There could be lots of positive benefits to adopting the weapon aside from raw firepower. A more compact weapon that saves on internal volume and allows you to cram in more weapons or defenses or whatever. A weapon that with better coherency/range or less energy loss. Less "waste heat' can also mean you can fire it for longer, or use it in ways that more better use the energy (pulsed beams that inflict greater mechanical damage, rather than relying entirely on thermal damage - say by using micro or nanosecond pulses rather than a single continuous beam). Unless power generation drastically changes or improves, in fact, I would not assume that firepower neccesarily increases greatly.

I can run those basic maths, at least. As I remember it those were not the same weapons that that passage described. The moon prospector rigged up equipment from an old WW3 era moon base and used that car-portable allotropic iron generator I was talking about earlier to power its lasers in order to shoot down a small Black Fleet ship; less than a second of their full output consumed the "small bar" of iron clean. I believe it was three guns firing at once, it might have been four or six (it was a little convoluted; I would have to re-check the book to be certain).

As far as I know...: There was a moon car but no power sourcewas specified. The iron generator they hooked up was some "mule pack" mentioned. They charged about eight lasers (which appear to run on capacitors) from the generators, which in turn were used to defeat the pirate fleet attacking the base. Shortly after the pirates disappear they power for the base goes out as the reactors run out of fuel.

The following is the text involving the "small bar"

"'We're out of iron. The generators must have used up their supply. That spaceship quit just in
time," Harv reported. He picked up a small bar of iron in his gloved hand and dropped it into one of the hoppers. The lights came on, flickered and went off. "You might turn off a couple of beams," Harv said to Pete. The next load of iron kept the lights on. Harv filled the generators, in case of emergency.

Its worth noting that prior to that, four of the lasers were put on charging, which is what Harv refrences when he tells pete to "turn off" some beams.

So yes, the bar does seem to provide "brief" power (to one of the generators) given the flicker, but its powering/charging at least four if not eight lasers. Given that a second load seems to provide steady power (by the lights) with at least two beams charging, and that its unlikely a man can heft all that much raw iron (certainly not tons) it seems unlikely that we're talking gigatons/second of firepower. Especially since if we assume he's capable of oh, 20 kilos of iron in 10 seconds (which could be a fairly hefty load to perofrm in a sustained feat, even for a healthy guy), he'd need to load the thing some, he'd need to be steadily loading the thing for an hour and a half to provide merely one second of power to 8 e20 watt lasers, which doesn't seem very likely.

This is why, I should add, you do NOT try to argue things from memory alone, and this also illustrates why you don't take statements at face value - people are imperfect, evne superhuman ones.

Well, as I said before, it would be an open question whether the books are notionally a "history" or not, given that the narration is not entirely consistent on that point. Can you explain the point about "New Republic bias" pertaining to the novels in a little more detail? I know the WEG sourcebooks, Essential Guides and so on are treated that way, since they are notionally in-universe documents with clearly identified authors, but does the same apply to the novels?

Mike explains it in his sci fi analysis page:

I see you sometimes mention a "New Republic bias" when talking about the novels. Doesn't this violate suspension of disbelief?

No. Bias must be accounted for in real-life analysis of historical documents too. That's one of the reasons that real-life science is considered more reliable than real-life history. Historical methods are often our only way of determining what happened long ago (we have no way of knowing how many soldiers died on D-Day through scientific means, for example), but if an historical story cannot be reconciled with science, there is no question that we classify it as inaccurate (for example, the historical story of the Biblical Great Flood is impossible for many reasons, so we conclude that it did not literally happen as written. Instead, we look at the fact that smaller, more localized floods are possible (and there are even some candidates for specific mechanisms through which a regional flood might have occurred at the right time and place), and try to reconcile the historical record with our understanding of science.

Basically its an explanation for why a particular piece of material may be unreliable for whatever reason (scientific, etc.) One example of how bias may be applied might be minimalistic fleet numbers, TIE pilot Solar panels/not having shields, incompetent TIE pilots (X-wing novels which glamourize Rogue Squadron - that could be seen as propoganda), etc.

Hell its not even neccearily "bias" in universe. Alot of the WEG stuff (from which novels and such derive) is admittedly from a "New Republic" standpoint in-universe, has even admitted in universe that it may not always be accurate:

Example: The Imperial sourcebook, in universe, is depicted as an alliance report by one Arhul Hextraphon or however you spell his name. He admits in-universe that the document is imperfect and may even be flawed and should not be take as 100% absolute. Given that the NR doesn't get ahold of an actual Imperial OoB until the Black Fleet crisis, this is entirely a reasonable view to take (so it means that fleet and army numbers derived form the book are at best conservative.)

Of course to invoke "bias" we need a very good justificaiton to do so - such as something definitively contradicting a higher source and no possible way of reasonably explaining it exists (note "reasonable"), or some other source (usually of equal level) represents something different from the bulk of other materials (Eg an "outlier"). That is not a comprehensive or absolute "listing" as you can technically have "higher" sources made to fit with lower by the "bias/exaggeration/person is imprecise" logic - eg Obi-Wan saying there are "thousands" of Worlds in the Republic in ROTS despite WEG depicting tens of millions. Again you handle thee on a case by case basis.

If it was a dedicated suicide run, might they conceivably have built up the speed before going to Sol, given how the Bergenholm appears to "conserve" inert velocities? In effect, using the ship as a purpose-fitted kinetic impactor?

Sure, but why did they muck around with a conventional fleet attack or robotic bombs to begin with then? They could have built dozens/hundreds of dedicated ramships, cranked them up to relativistic speeds behfore hand, and then flown them out inertialess to Tellus and then let them run into the planet at high speed. They had problems intercepting those robotic attack drones, so I find it hard to believe they would be any BETTER at interpceting kamikaze impactors (especially alot of big ones.)

I have at least some idea of the magnitudes involved. I personally found that incident rather strange, but assumed that the description in the book would be accurate, given that it was clearly described by the narrator, and brought it up as a example beside that of the Hill. I probably should not have done so.

No, you shouldn't assume that just because its written that way it must be true. Thats quasi-religious thinking (It's in the bible IT MUST BE TRUE!) and a literalist interpretation, which rarely ever works. Literal interpretation is fine as long as we have no reason to believe it is inconsistent iwth scinteific principles in the context. EG: Its reasonable to interpret a beam weapon as vaporizing something literally so long as its consistent with what we understand about science (EG not phasers), but we wouldn't make the same leap neccesarily for a projectile weapon (different principles.)

The "Eclipse superlaser 2/3 the power of the DS superlaser" falls under similar rational. It can't be literally true from the standpoint of recoil, logical extrapolation, power generation, etc. Hell, the logic I applied to the e20 watt beam weapon in NL is little different to the logic explaining WHY the Ecplise Superlaser can't be chucking out e37 joules of energy per shot.

I did not mean to sound like I was dismissing them just like that; put that way, I see that I sounded retarded. But then, I suppose an invisible technobabble mechanism is not much better, really.

Thanks for having more patience with me than I probably deserved. I will not be back with this again.

[/quote][/quote]

Reembmer: you do not argue with someone just because you "vaguely recall" it unless you are certain your memory is good, otheriwse you will just end up making yourself look stupid if you're proven wrong. And you end up pissing someone off. You do not argue with someone when you don' t understand the principles and logic BEHIND the argument, either (EG you need to understand SoD before you claim you follow it. It is not EASY to understand suspension of disbelief, and there are times I have had problems following it or been proven wrong because I applied it wrongly.)

[Darth Hoth]

This is probably another ignorant question, but given that in a novel the narrator provides all direct descriptions (which I gather would be the closest to "visuals") as well as all elaboration and indirect descriptions, why should one be more reliable than another?

Because it doesnt mesh with the overall continuity - its an outlier. That's the short answer. The Long answer is, it's fucking hard if not downright impossible to justify insanely high firepower yields when it doesnt mesh with events later down the line like the whole Britannia subplot in GP (nevermind outright changing them) and it creates a buttload of problems from various standpoints with "current" material (EG recoil, power generation, side effects, etc.)

Put it this way. If the pirates had gigaton/Teraton/second firepower per ship, why did they bother attacking the HILL itself? Why not just render the planet uninhabitable? hell, for that matter, why not reduce the surface of the planet to molten slag? If we take capabilities as per New Lensman at face value, that would have been a trivial feat for them. This isn't even factoring in the orders of magnitude increases that rapid technological advancements (an OoM ALONE in Triplanetary from the supership, easy) that would have to be factored in. Many of my problems were in fact assuming that the Lensman verse pre-GP were completely stagnant. Likewise, we know that as a rule Lensman munitions are many orders of magnitude more powreful than their conventional cannon, so you're saying they were alreay throwing around petaton munitions, when new Lensman material at best would support low TT munitions (hell I remmeber Samms even commenting they weren't at the scale yet for planet killing weaponry.)

If the narration is assumed to the be provided by an omniscient external observer, is it still subject to the same limitations as a character's descriptions would be?

Why assume the narrator is "omniscient?" We know he's "informed", but we get no indication that he/she/it is somehow godlike in their knowledge or abilities that we would take them as being totally, utterly reliable. The only case *possible* case we might assume otherwise would be Children of the Lens, and that doesn't even neccesarily hold true (Even the Arisians didn't admit to perfection as I recall. THey were very very accurate, but they were never perfect. So why should we assume the Lens Children are?)

I conceded the firepower argument in face of the evidence; this question was about how suspension of disbelief applies to prose novels (as opposed to visual media) in general. Sorry if I was unclear.

I suppose that you could just take it to be an example, or a description of the character's thoughts. Still, if your quote is accurate (I have no reason to doubt it, but I do not have New Lensman available to check, just my old notes), I would think that it says that lasers had been at least mostly superseded by the end of the First Jovian War at the latest, to make room for more efficient weapons that could use more power.

Yes, but if we follow your logic through to its logical conclusion, you're giving them firepower and capabilities they should possess well before the Kimball Kinnison era. Which is, as I said, only one of the problems. Why should we completely and utterly rearrange and reinterpret everything else just ot suit one bit of evidence? Doesn't that seem a bit silly to you?

Of course, the switch to multiplex projectors simply says they are "more efficient" weapons. it doesnt neccesariyl say they ar more powerful. There could be lots of positive benefits to adopting the weapon aside from raw firepower. A more compact weapon that saves on internal volume and allows you to cram in more weapons or defenses or whatever. A weapon that with better coherency/range or less energy loss. Less "waste heat' can also mean you can fire it for longer, or use it in ways that more better use the energy (pulsed beams that inflict greater mechanical damage, rather than relying entirely on thermal damage - say by using micro or nanosecond pulses rather than a single continuous beam). Unless power generation drastically changes or improves, in fact, I would not assume that firepower neccesarily increases greatly.

I did not mean to continue an argument for e20J projectors. What I noted was that the passage did seem to imply that high-efficiency projectors allowed for greater energy outputs from shipboard weapons, even if it was not an increase to those orders. Though as you note in your second paragraph, it is not a given.

I can run those basic maths, at least. As I remember it those were not the same weapons that that passage described. The moon prospector rigged up equipment from an old WW3 era moon base and used that car-portable allotropic iron generator I was talking about earlier to power its lasers in order to shoot down a small Black Fleet ship; less than a second of their full output consumed the "small bar" of iron clean. I believe it was three guns firing at once, it might have been four or six (it was a little convoluted; I would have to re-check the book to be certain).

As far as I know...: There was a moon car but no power sourcewas specified. The iron generator they hooked up was some "mule pack" mentioned. They charged about eight lasers (which appear to run on capacitors) from the generators, which in turn were used to defeat the pirate fleet attacking the base. Shortly after the pirates disappear they power for the base goes out as the reactors run out of fuel.

Conceded, then, as I might have misremembered that. While I am asking, since you appear to have the book available, was there any size mentioned for the "mule" thing?

The following is the text involving the "small bar"

"'We're out of iron. The generators must have used up their supply. That spaceship quit just in
time," Harv reported. He picked up a small bar of iron in his gloved hand and dropped it into one of the hoppers. The lights came on, flickered and went off. "You might turn off a couple of beams," Harv said to Pete. The next load of iron kept the lights on. Harv filled the generators, in case of emergency.

Its worth noting that prior to that, four of the lasers were put on charging, which is what Harv refrences when he tells pete to "turn off" some beams.

So yes, the bar does seem to provide "brief" power (to one of the generators) given the flicker, but its powering/charging at least four if not eight lasers. Given that a second load seems to provide steady power (by the lights) with at least two beams charging, and that its unlikely a man can heft all that much raw iron (certainly not tons) it seems unlikely that we're talking gigatons/second of firepower. Especially since if we assume he's capable of oh, 20 kilos of iron in 10 seconds (which could be a fairly hefty load to perofrm in a sustained feat, even for a healthy guy), he'd need to load the thing some, he'd need to be steadily loading the thing for an hour and a half to provide merely one second of power to 8 e20 watt lasers, which doesn't seem very likely.

Well, it was on the moon, so under the lesser gravity he might lift six times as much as normal. Nitpicks aside, I was not arguing that those lasers put out gigatons, I thought I was clear on that from the very beginning (even when I was still defending that figure). Those were another weapon entirely from my "hypothetical e20J ship cannon". My initial argument was that the moon lasers were powered by kilograms of iron per second, not tonnes; you were right in calling me an ignorant ass earlier, but not quite so ignorant that I would misrepresent the mass/energy equivalence by three orders of magnitude or more.

This is why, I should add, you do NOT try to argue things from memory alone, and this also illustrates why you don't take statements at face value - people are imperfect, evne superhuman ones.

Arguing from memory has, so to say, bitten me in the arse before. Hopefully it will not, again.

Well, as I said before, it would be an open question whether the books are notionally a "history" or not, given that the narration is not entirely consistent on that point. Can you explain the point about "New Republic bias" pertaining to the novels in a little more detail? I know the WEG sourcebooks, Essential Guides and so on are treated that way, since they are notionally in-universe documents with clearly identified authors, but does the same apply to the novels?

Mike explains it in his sci fi analysis page:

I see you sometimes mention a "New Republic bias" when talking about the novels. Doesn't this violate suspension of disbelief?

No. Bias must be accounted for in real-life analysis of historical documents too. That's one of the reasons that real-life science is considered more reliable than real-life history. Historical methods are often our only way of determining what happened long ago (we have no way of knowing how many soldiers died on D-Day through scientific means, for example), but if an historical story cannot be reconciled with science, there is no question that we classify it as inaccurate (for example, the historical story of the Biblical Great Flood is impossible for many reasons, so we conclude that it did not literally happen as written. Instead, we look at the fact that smaller, more localized floods are possible (and there are even some candidates for specific mechanisms through which a regional flood might have occurred at the right time and place), and try to reconcile the historical record with our understanding of science.

Basically its an explanation for why a particular piece of material may be unreliable for whatever reason (scientific, etc.) One example of how bias may be applied might be minimalistic fleet numbers, TIE pilot Solar panels/not having shields, incompetent TIE pilots (X-wing novels which glamourize Rogue Squadron - that could be seen as propoganda), etc.

Hell its not even neccearily "bias" in universe. Alot of the WEG stuff (from which novels and such derive) is admittedly from a "New Republic" standpoint in-universe, has even admitted in universe that it may not always be accurate:

Example: The Imperial sourcebook, in universe, is depicted as an alliance report by one Arhul Hextraphon or however you spell his name. He admits in-universe that the document is imperfect and may even be flawed and should not be take as 100% absolute. Given that the NR doesn't get ahold of an actual Imperial OoB until the Black Fleet crisis, this is entirely a reasonable view to take (so it means that fleet and army numbers derived form the book are at best conservative.)

Of course to invoke "bias" we need a very good justificaiton to do so - such as something definitively contradicting a higher source and no possible way of reasonably explaining it exists (note "reasonable"), or some other source (usually of equal level) represents something different from the bulk of other materials (Eg an "outlier"). That is not a comprehensive or absolute "listing" as you can technically have "higher" sources made to fit with lower by the "bias/exaggeration/person is imprecise" logic - eg Obi-Wan saying there are "thousands" of Worlds in the Republic in ROTS despite WEG depicting tens of millions. Again you handle thee on a case by case basis.

I was not aware that SoD treated prose novels as in-universe histories on general principle when they were not specified as such (like you would have for WEG sourcebooks, or any story with any sort of pre-amble or notional in-universe history). That, and your final paragraph, pretty much clears that up. Thank you.

If it was a dedicated suicide run, might they conceivably have built up the speed before going to Sol, given how the Bergenholm appears to "conserve" inert velocities? In effect, using the ship as a purpose-fitted kinetic impactor?

Sure, but why did they muck around with a conventional fleet attack or robotic bombs to begin with then? They could have built dozens/hundreds of dedicated ramships, cranked them up to relativistic speeds behfore hand, and then flown them out inertialess to Tellus and then let them run into the planet at high speed. They had problems intercepting those robotic attack drones, so I find it hard to believe they would be any BETTER at interpceting kamikaze impactors (especially alot of big ones.)

True, I suppose. Though this is stuff that is generally problematic in space opera, relativistic kill vehicles being fairly easily obtainable yet not used in any sensible application (Lensman might be a particularly egregious offender, given that they actually do throw around whole planets as kinetic impactors, so they at least understand and make use of the mechanics behind it). Ah, well

No, you shouldn't assume that just because its written that way it must be true. Thats quasi-religious thinking (It's in the bible IT MUST BE TRUE!) and a literalist interpretation, which rarely ever works. Literal interpretation is fine as long as we have no reason to believe it is inconsistent iwth scinteific principles in the context. EG: Its reasonable to interpret a beam weapon as vaporizing something literally so long as its consistent with what we understand about science (EG not phasers), but we wouldn't make the same leap neccesarily for a projectile weapon (different principles.)

The "Eclipse superlaser 2/3 the power of the DS superlaser" falls under similar rational. It can't be literally true from the standpoint of recoil, logical extrapolation, power generation, etc. Hell, the logic I applied to the e20 watt beam weapon in NL is little different to the logic explaining WHY the Ecplise Superlaser can't be chucking out e37 joules of energy per shot.

Understood.

However, sometimes taking all angles into account yields problematic results. Recoil and conservation of momentum in particular tend to be ignored in most sci-fi when it comes to weapons effects, so for many franchises it is hard to analyse those kinds of effects sensibly (at least for me, with a purely autodidactic {and often woefully lacking} understanding of physics). This is true for visual media as well, whenever you have handguns that throw people (much less cars or worse) around yet do not send the shooter flying (and are not equal reaction "recoilless rifles" or analogues). I am not intending to argue against science or try to defend my earlier statements (which were idiotic), but if I were to ask, what kind of solution would you recommend for that general kind of problem (i.e., there is an unambiguous effect, but it does not produce the recoil it should)?

Reembmer: you do not argue with someone just because you "vaguely recall" it unless you are certain your memory is good, otheriwse you will just end up making yourself look stupid if you're proven wrong. And you end up pissing someone off. You do not argue with someone when you don' t understand the principles and logic BEHIND the argument, either (EG you need to understand SoD before you claim you follow it. It is not EASY to understand suspension of disbelief, and there are times I have had problems following it or been proven wrong because I applied it wrongly.)

I will strive to improve, and make a decent (moreso at least) contribution to the debate in the future. But then, at least I learned a lot from all my mistakes and outright stupidity here. Thanks again for your patience.

[Connor MacLeod]

I conceded the firepower argument in face of the evidence; this question was about how suspension of disbelief applies to prose novels (as opposed to visual media) in general. Sorry if I was unclear.

I know, I was using examples to illustrate the piont just to be sure it got home. There's alot of scope involved with this particular inconsistency and none of it is immediately obvious, and I am trying to show precisely that.

I did not mean to continue an argument for e20J projectors. What I noted was that the passage did seem to imply that high-efficiency projectors allowed for greater energy outputs from shipboard weapons, even if it was not an increase to those orders. Though as you note in your second paragraph, it is not a given.

I repeat, I am aware you conceded, I am not continuing the argument. I am illustrating a point as to why this passage is a problem, since the problem stems with your understanding of how SoD applies in this particular case.

Conceded, then, as I might have misremembered that. While I am asking, since you appear to have the book available, was there any size mentioned for the "mule" thing?

Not off the top of my head, no. I will note you at least go tthe half a million miles number right it would seem, and that IS useful as it gives a good value for weapons range.

Well, it was on the moon, so under the lesser gravity he might lift six times as much as normal.

I know this is a joke, but I am going to just state that weight and mass aren't the same and leave it at that.

Nitpicks aside, I was not arguing that those lasers put out gigatons, I thought I was clear on that from the very beginning (even when I was still defending that figure). Those were another weapon entirely from my "hypothetical e20J ship cannon". My initial argument was that the moon lasers were powered by kilograms of iron per second, not tonnes; you were right in calling me an ignorant ass earlier, but not quite so ignorant that I would misrepresent the mass/energy equivalence by three orders of magnitude or more.

But that's another logical inconsistency. These are some sort of super-lasers that can seriously threaten/harm (for this period of time at least) modern warships. AND they're set up in the manner that the e20watt passage indicated they WOULD be useful in (as a planeteary/moon based weapon rather than on a ship) Especially since IIRC these were meant ot be jovian era weapons. Having e20watt uberweapons of doom in an older era yet having modern ships fragged by a fraction of that yield, as I said, is an inconsistency, which further illustrates the whole overall problem of your argument, and where you went wrong.

I was not aware that SoD treated prose novels as in-universe histories on general principle when they were not specified as such (like you would have for WEG sourcebooks, or any story with any sort of pre-amble or notional in-universe history). That, and your final paragraph, pretty much clears that up. Thank you.

You don't treat WEG sourcebooks "in universe" as in universe game material, and you don't treat fictional novels as "sci fi stories" in universe. They're all treated as some sort of historicla (or quasi-historical) work... you might think of novels as a historical retelling even if it is a story. Or an autobiography in some cases. The essential gist of it may generlaly be true, but details may or may not be true. RPG books usually are other kinds of historical documents (like text books) but depending on the novel it may also be a "historical document". As far as I know "prose" doesn't come into it save that it basically comes down to "human oriented commentary" such as dialogue, thoughts, etc.

Another way to think of it is, in a "historical novel" that is either fiction or might be a fictionalized retelling (such as Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, or CS Forrester's Horatio Hornblower novels, but also stuff that is less dramatized and more "statistical" retellings) we may or may not be given insight into the thoughts/feelings/manner of historical figures (like Napoleon, Wellington, etc.) and if we are, they may or may not be "authentic".

True, I suppose. Though this is stuff that is generally problematic in space opera, relativistic kill vehicles being fairly easily obtainable yet not used in any sensible application (Lensman might be a particularly egregious offender, given that they actually do throw around whole planets as kinetic impactors, so they at least understand and make use of the mechanics behind it). Ah, well

appealing to other fiction as examples or standards is a bad idea, as a rule. One, it sounds like whining and two, it breaks Suspension of disbelief. The difference here though is that if it WERE a deliberate capability this Pirate cruiser was using, and if he jus tthought it up, there's enough precedence to think they could have thought it up or pulled it off in a planned manner rather than an impromptu one. It sounds too Star-trekky to just say "oh hey this random dude just had an inspiration and it saved the day!"

However, sometimes taking all angles into account yields problematic results. Recoil and conservation of momentum in particular tend to be ignored in most sci-fi when it comes to weapons effects, so for many franchises it is hard to analyse those kinds of effects sensibly (at least for me, with a purely autodidactic {and often woefully lacking} understanding of physics).

Irrelevant. This gets into "author's intent" territory, and that is a big unknown. Its also along the lines of "Special effects people don't know science so visuals can't be trusted." both of which don't matter insofar as suspension of disbelief goes - we treat it as happening. It either gets dealt with, or we can't analyze the sci fi. There are no excuses insofar as proper SoD style analysis goes.

This is true for visual media as well, whenever you have handguns that throw people (much less cars or worse) around yet do not send the shooter flying (and are not equal reaction "recoilless rifles" or analogues). I am not intending to argue against science or try to defend my earlier statements (which were idiotic), but if I were to ask, what kind of solution would you recommend for that general kind of problem (i.e., there is an unambiguous effect, but it does not produce the recoil it should)?

You can't create a "general" solution, because solutions invariably depend upon the circumstances surrounding a particular incident. In some cases you might argue "explosive vaporization creating knockdown/knockback", but that may not work due to visuals or thermodynmaic complications, so you might go more exotic (IE Mike's neutrino theory, which does allow for significant knockback without recoil problems or thermal ones.) In some crazy cases (like martial arts movies or crap like the Matrix) you might go with something even more exotic ("magic" or in the case of the matrix "they're rewriting the program so it makes things look as if they're bending physica nd doing impossible things.")

[Darth Hoth]

But that's another logical inconsistency. These are some sort of super-lasers that can seriously threaten/harm (for this period of time at least) modern warships. AND they're set up in the manner that the e20watt passage indicated they WOULD be useful in (as a planeteary/moon based weapon rather than on a ship) Especially since IIRC these were meant ot be jovian era weapons. Having e20watt uberweapons of doom in an older era yet having modern ships fragged by a fraction of that yield, as I said, is an inconsistency, which further illustrates the whole overall problem of your argument, and where you went wrong.

I am fairly certain that the base was supposed to hail back from before WW3 (which was listed as 1962 in the GURPS book and was in the 20th century at the latest in Triplanetary); I am going by memory again (bad, I know), but if I recall it at all correctly that was fairly clearly stated. Thus those lasers would very much be antiques, and not representative of the Jovian Wars era. Of course, they still sufficed to defeat the (small?) Black Fleet ship that threatened them, so from that it might be possible to extrapolate something.

You don't treat WEG sourcebooks "in universe" as in universe game material, and you don't treat fictional novels as "sci fi stories" in universe. They're all treated as some sort of historicla (or quasi-historical) work... you might think of novels as a historical retelling even if it is a story. Or an autobiography in some cases. The essential gist of it may generlaly be true, but details may or may not be true. RPG books usually are other kinds of historical documents (like text books) but depending on the novel it may also be a "historical document". As far as I know "prose" doesn't come into it save that it basically comes down to "human oriented commentary" such as dialogue, thoughts, etc.

Another way to think of it is, in a "historical novel" that is either fiction or might be a fictionalized retelling (such as Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, or CS Forrester's Horatio Hornblower novels, but also stuff that is less dramatized and more "statistical" retellings) we may or may not be given insight into the thoughts/feelings/manner of historical figures (like Napoleon, Wellington, etc.) and if we are, they may or may not be "authentic".

Alright.

You can't create a "general" solution, because solutions invariably depend upon the circumstances surrounding a particular incident. In some cases you might argue "explosive vaporization creating knockdown/knockback", but that may not work due to visuals or thermodynmaic complications, so you might go more exotic (IE Mike's neutrino theory, which does allow for significant knockback without recoil problems or thermal ones.) In some crazy cases (like martial arts movies or crap like the Matrix) you might go with something even more exotic ("magic" or in the case of the matrix "they're rewriting the program so it makes things look as if they're bending physica nd doing impossible things.")

OK. Thanks.

[Connor MacLeod]

I am fairly certain that the base was supposed to hail back from before WW3 (which was listed as 1962 in the GURPS book and was in the 20th century at the latest in Triplanetary); I am going by memory again (bad, I know), but if I recall it at all correctly that was fairly clearly stated. Thus those lasers would very much be antiques, and not representative of the Jovian Wars era. Of course, they still sufficed to defeat the (small?) Black Fleet ship that threatened them, so from that it might be possible to extrapolate something.

Yes, but they didn't have/use lasers in World war III (which would have been exceptionally good anti-missile defense, I might add) so they either just developed them or somehow installed them on a secret base later (although that makes little sense since this is a SECRET moon base..)

It doesn't really matter ALL that much though insofar as the inconsistency goes though. You still have supposed e20watt weapons from the Jovian war, yet warships from a considerably more advanced period of time (The Pirate ships pre Benett were at least equal to what the Patrol had at the time of the Battle of hte Hill, obviously) are threatened by these "antiques." You would have thought that if it were otherwise, those guys wouldn't have bothered using them at all.