Revelation Space vs Mass Effect

[Whiskey144]

As in title; a versus scenario, who wins? Assume that Revelation Space groups can figure out how to operate mass relays, but are unable to reverse-engineer ME-verse FTL drives.

For those who might not know- Revelation Space is a hard-SF setting created by Welsh writer Alastair Reynolds. It has no FTL (or usable, anyway), and for interstellar travel immense 3 to 4-kilometer long "lighthuggers" are used; each ship uses "Conjoiner Drives" which require no fuel or remass input, as the draw such from teh quark-gluon plasma from the beginning of the universe via an internal wormhole. Lighthuggers are capable of long-term 1g accelerations (~0.99c in 1 Earth year). A lighthugger also uses a thick caul of ice to protect against relativistic particle impact (speculation- said caul might be useful for protecting against ME-verse kinetics).

Later in the series, lighthuggers acquire stealthed Conjoiner Drives that produce no emissions, cryo-arithmetic engines (computers that can make a ship cold by executing certain calculations), inertia suppressors (something about quantum foam and inertia).

More info on RS-verse tech here: Wikipedia Page

My take- Revelation Space has a massive firepower and engagement range advantage (Cache Weapons+PD grasers that can drill 200km wholes in a planetary crust; ref Revelation Space), but ME-verse (especially initially) has the strategic initiative; however, an RS lighthugger is pretty much self-sufficient (ref Revelation Space; a character pretty much gives some operational parameters and an AI builds a gun; the ship was able to also self-repair damage from a detonating Cache weapon), and can carry around 160,000 people (ref Redemption Ark).

However, I'd also say that the RS-verse has a pretty serious infantry advantage, as they use "suits" which are pretty much human-sized self-contained spaceships, that can extrude manipulators or weapons on demand. Weapons include: lasers, particle beams, plasma pulse weapons, and "ack-ams", which fire small bits of antimatter caulked in matter at a near-light-speed. Ack-ams are quite obviously capable of easily destroying a suit completely (ref: Revelation Space; one character uses said ack-ams to turn another character (while in a suit themselves) to radioactive debris). Non-suit weapons include pretty much anything and everything you could think of: lasers, particle beams, chemical projectile guns, coilguns, railguns, plasma rifles, "beamers" (an ambiguously-named beam pistol of some sort), and "boser pistols" (sidearm-type weapon firing a matter-containment laser (presumably with matter contained inside), and capable of seriously damaging a suit (also ref: Revelation Space)).

What does SD.Net think though?

[Stofsk]

I think it would depend on whether the MEverse has intel regarding the RSverse strategic targets, and assault them in force to defeat in detail. The advantages RSverse has are impressive, but FTL is not one of them, and this gives the Mass Effect forces a window to take them out before they cause too much damage.

I imagine RS ships would be nigh untouchable once they accelerate to relativistic speeds, although I can't recall how fast ME ships can be. I recall the opening to Mass Effect which had the Normandy go past Jupiter and then Neptune in like a crazy amount of time, and Charon base is where the relay is in Sol system, so ME verse must have access to pretty stupendously fast engines. Or maybe that was the FTL drive, I dunno.

Shepard will of course obligingly do something heroic while quipping sarcastic remarks etc etc.

[Connor MacLeod]

I wouldn't call Revelation Space Hard Sci fi, since they're using extradimensinoal power taps, starships that can reach close to the speed of light, mass lightening, multi gigaton, relativistic railguns, "crust buster" warheads that go up to the teraton range, etc. IT is a very "hard-ish" sci fi in certain ways, and it has some marvellous internal consistency to it, though.

And technially they DO have FTL, its just nigh impossible for an organic to achieve it (as is the mass lightening). And I believe its heavily implied to be very dangerous to use it anyhow (they have a sort of FTL communicatons too.).

In a conflict, the main advantage the Citadel races will have is that they are unified and they have FTL. I *think* multi-kt weapons can peentrate and damage hulls (I'm not too specific on the actual resilience issue for starships, especially lighthuggers) and it will be damned hard (if nigh impossible) for the Revelation Space side to attack them without using some form of FTL (whether they use Mass Effect's against them or not.)

But they have some impressive energy handling and matter handling capabilities and resources (alot of it implied in comparison to what the Inhibitors can do, who are alot better.) and as long as they have resources in the system, most of the sufficiently-high end factions can probably defeat any effort by the Mass Effect side to invade, conquer or destroy them (the Conjoiners and Ultras almost certainly, but the Demarchists can fight at least on some level with the conjoiners evne if they are losing, so they can probably do so as well.)

But they can (for example, from REdemption Ark) release mines that carry particle beam weapons with an effective range of 5 light seconds at the stated yield (1/100th that of a Crust Buster, which could be teraton range. Possibly more, possibly less.) and that was expected to be able to cripple/kill a lighthutter. And relativistic impacts can kill too, so I suspect they can't take much of their own firepower.

[Ford Prefect]

And I believe its heavily implied to be very dangerous to use it anyhow

It's not 'heavily implied' to be dangerous, it IS dangerous. They actually talk to a person who was involved in the first FTL experiments involving Grub inertial control and one of the two researchers was retroactively killed months before the technology had been discovered. When Skade actually tries to go tachyonic to escape Clavain's pursuit, it blows up her ship.

Anyway, taking all the late RevSpace stuff with Exordium/Hades derived supertechnology probably isn't all that useful, because all of it belongs to like two lighthuggers. Belle Epoch era Demarchists don't have any of that but are generally much more capable, because they'd have all the pre-Melding Plague smart technologies, could produce significantly more antimatter ('militarily useful' are the words given in the text), have a way more functional society and so on. They obviously can't defeat an interstellar power that has major worlds hundreds or thousands of lightyears apart, though. They can make it too difficult for the Citadel to win, though.

[Connor MacLeod]

It's not 'heavily implied' to be dangerous, it IS dangerous. They actually talk to a person who was involved in the first FTL experiments involving Grub inertial control and one of the two researchers was retroactively killed months before the technology had been discovered. When Skade actually tries to go tachyonic to escape Clavain's pursuit, it blows up her ship.

I meant in general, not just the "trying to go state 4 will fucking kill you" type. Hell the State two inertial suppression isn't all that safe either to begin with. But ANYTHING FTL in Revelation space is implied to be highly risky, including the FTL comms (I remember that bit when they learn about the Grubs in Chasm City.) I mean something like "something will eat you if you mess with it too long" dangerous. (It would be kind of amusing if Revelation space FTL turns out to be like the 40K warp.)

And Skade's ship didn't blow up, it just effectively crippled itself and compressed the Inertial suppression engineers into ultradense marbles. Less dangerous but infinitely more horrific.

They obviously can't defeat an interstellar power that has major worlds hundreds or thousands of lightyears apart, though. They can make it too difficult for the Citadel to win, though.

On further reflection I doubt it would go very long militarily even if it did to begin with. Revelation space humanity is as curious as systems alliance humanity, especially when it comes to aliens. Whilst its possible they might do something to tick off the turians, Revelation space would crush any "police action" or outright war they could try in short order, especially if the various factions of humanity unified (not impossible) More likely the council would intervene and try to co-opt RS humanity into the alliance.

What would be more interesting (and a challenge) is probably the Reapers vs Revelation space humanity, since the Reapers are more likely to be on a par with them (in theory) and will have numbers and FTL to be a real danger.

Even more interesting is to throw the Inhibitors into the mix. Whilst the inhibitors don't SEEM to have FTL (or if they do they aren't allowed to use it) the feats they are capable of (esp industrial) far outstrip what we have seen of the Reapers thus far.

[Whiskey144]

First off, I'm a bit sorry that I haven't been paying much attention to this thread. Seems almost negligent, considering I created it.

I think it would depend on whether the MEverse has intel regarding the RSverse strategic targets, and assault them in force to defeat in detail. The advantages RSverse has are impressive, but FTL is not one of them, and this gives the Mass Effect forces a window to take them out before they cause too much damage.

I imagine RS ships would be nigh untouchable once they accelerate to relativistic speeds, although I can't recall how fast ME ships can be. I recall the opening to Mass Effect which had the Normandy go past Jupiter and then Neptune in like a crazy amount of time, and Charon base is where the relay is in Sol system, so ME verse must have access to pretty stupendously fast engines. Or maybe that was the FTL drive, I dunno.

Shepard will of course obligingly do something heroic while quipping sarcastic remarks etc etc.

For the initial scenario, I'd imagine it would be due to Citadel-species (any one, really) exploring and finding a wormhole, or the RS-verse humans finding a wormhole, likely in interstellar space, before proceeding to check out a mass relay. Quite possibly a dormant one.

WRT intel, I'd assume that neither side really knows anything about the other; they know that each other are out there, but other than that, they don't know squat.

WRT ME-verse acceleration, I've always assumed that they used FTL drive to get around systems, though this is admittedly based on a couple of cutscenes wherein a shuttle ascends from a planet/location and then FTLs out.

I wouldn't call Revelation Space Hard Sci fi, since they're using extradimensinoal power taps, starships that can reach close to the speed of light, mass lightening, multi gigaton, relativistic railguns, "crust buster" warheads that go up to the teraton range, etc. IT is a very "hard-ish" sci fi in certain ways, and it has some marvellous internal consistency to it, though.

And technially they DO have FTL, its just nigh impossible for an organic to achieve it (as is the mass lightening). And I believe its heavily implied to be very dangerous to use it anyhow (they have a sort of FTL communicatons too.).

In a conflict, the main advantage the Citadel races will have is that they are unified and they have FTL. I *think* multi-kt weapons can peentrate and damage hulls (I'm not too specific on the actual resilience issue for starships, especially lighthuggers) and it will be damned hard (if nigh impossible) for the Revelation Space side to attack them without using some form of FTL (whether they use Mass Effect's against them or not.)

But they have some impressive energy handling and matter handling capabilities and resources (alot of it implied in comparison to what the Inhibitors can do, who are alot better.) and as long as they have resources in the system, most of the sufficiently-high end factions can probably defeat any effort by the Mass Effect side to invade, conquer or destroy them (the Conjoiners and Ultras almost certainly, but the Demarchists can fight at least on some level with the conjoiners evne if they are losing, so they can probably do so as well.)

But they can (for example, from REdemption Ark) release mines that carry particle beam weapons with an effective range of 5 light seconds at the stated yield (1/100th that of a Crust Buster, which could be teraton range. Possibly more, possibly less.) and that was expected to be able to cripple/kill a lighthutter. And relativistic impacts can kill too, so I suspect they can't take much of their own firepower.

WRT the extradimensional power taps, I don't think thats the case. Reading up on Conjoiner drives (the device I think you're referring to), they seem to use a wormhole to draw quark-gluon plasma from the deep past. That's the Wikipedia explanation, though.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Citadel races could damage lighthugger; however, a lighthugger does have the advantage of a (presumably) far superior engagement range, on account of being armed with PD-grasers. A huge firepower advantage is also present, considering said grasers are reputed to be capable of drilling a 200km deep hole in a planetary crust (ref: Revelation Space).

However, my personal opinon is that if the Citadel races decide to invade, then they'd be rebuffed every time, but OTOH, the RS-verse humans would pretty much be stuck and incapable of counter-attacking against enemy territories, unless they access the mass relays. In which case, I'd call game over.

It's not 'heavily implied' to be dangerous, it IS dangerous. They actually talk to a person who was involved in the first FTL experiments involving Grub inertial control and one of the two researchers was retroactively killed months before the technology had been discovered. When Skade actually tries to go tachyonic to escape Clavain's pursuit, it blows up her ship.

Anyway, taking all the late RevSpace stuff with Exordium/Hades derived supertechnology probably isn't all that useful, because all of it belongs to like two lighthuggers. Belle Epoch era Demarchists don't have any of that but are generally much more capable, because they'd have all the pre-Melding Plague smart technologies, could produce significantly more antimatter ('militarily useful' are the words given in the text), have a way more functional society and so on. They obviously can't defeat an interstellar power that has major worlds hundreds or thousands of lightyears apart, though. They can make it too difficult for the Citadel to win, though.

That's actually something I like about the RevSpace 'verse. Some of the tech can malfunction so catastrophically, that it's a very two-edged sword. However, I'll note that (according to Wikipedia, at least) RevSpace peeps have quite a few (though never explicitly stated, AFAIK) lighthuggers with stealthed Conjoiner drives and cryoarithmetic engines (<-computer that gets colder when executing certain algorithms, making it a more awesome version of the Normandy's stealth system).

And Skade's ship didn't blow up, it just effectively crippled itself and compressed the Inertial suppression engineers into ultradense marbles. Less dangerous but infinitely more horrific.

That's right; AFAIK it's supposed to have crashed on Ararat and is subsequently encased in ice due to cryoarithmetic engine failure.

On further reflection I doubt it would go very long militarily even if it did to begin with. Revelation space humanity is as curious as systems alliance humanity, especially when it comes to aliens. Whilst its possible they might do something to tick off the turians, Revelation space would crush any "police action" or outright war they could try in short order, especially if the various factions of humanity unified (not impossible) More likely the council would intervene and try to co-opt RS humanity into the alliance.

What would be more interesting (and a challenge) is probably the Reapers vs Revelation space humanity, since the Reapers are more likely to be on a par with them (in theory) and will have numbers and FTL to be a real danger.

Even more interesting is to throw the Inhibitors into the mix. Whilst the inhibitors don't SEEM to have FTL (or if they do they aren't allowed to use it) the feats they are capable of (esp industrial) far outstrip what we have seen of the Reapers thus far.

Personally, I think that Reapers vs RevSpace humanity would be very heavily biased in RevSpace humanity's favor. Lighthuggers, which can carry some a max of 160,000 people (at minimum; quite likely more if in reefersleep), could pretty much sit in stealthed mode using cryo-arithmetic engines and 99% of personnel in reefersleep, and wait out the Reapers.

OTOH, a lighthugger could also probably take on ten Reapers and win (easily, IMO). Once again, due to graser PD.

WRT Citadel coopting RevSpace humans into the Alliance, I'm doubtful that that would be successful. They'd probably try it (better to not have rogue maverick humans who aren't the Alliance and are pretty much uncontrollable), and they'd probably fail. I personally see RevSpace humans as being far too independent to integrate with the Alliance, and to because Citadel members to the extent of most Citadel species.

I'd say RevSpace humans likely get an embassy on the Citadel, and maybe trade a few bits and bobs with the majority of the Citadel, but most of their tech they either keep for themselves, or hand out examples to the Alliance (with stipulations not to give it to the Citadel). OTOH, RevSpace humans would likely get into the mass relay network, and might even get ahold of FTL drives. However, I'm skeptical that they'd use FTL drives, considering the issues with static electricity buildup and the sheer size of the lighthuggers, which would likely be the majority of interstellar ships.

EDIT: should also note that I've always considered the Inhibitors to pretty much cover the galaxy, rather than have FTL. It would make more sense, though, wouldn't it? Being so numerous as to effectively canvas the galaxy and prevent interstellar civilizations from arising, would probably be more effective than FTL'ing to wherever a civilization is borderline interstellar.

[Ford Prefect]

The Conjoiners have working cryoarithmetics before Clavain chases Skade outside of Yellowstone, as it's an Exordium derived technology. However, the super stealth drives aren't developed until Khouri comes back from Hades pregnant, so it strikes me as very unlikely that anyone other than the Ararat factions would have them.

I recall the opening to Mass Effect which had the Normandy go past Jupiter and then Neptune in like a crazy amount of time, and Charon base is where the relay is in Sol system, so ME verse must have access to pretty stupendously fast engines. Or maybe that was the FTL drive, I dunno.

The Normandy goes from Jupiter to Pluto in the time it takes Shepard to walk down a hallway, yeah. I'm willing to chalk that up as artistic license, because zillion gee accelerations is so out of character for literally everything else to do with spaceships in Mass Effect (except for the derelict Reaper).

[The Grim Squeaker]

What would be more interesting (and a challenge) is probably the Reapers vs Revelation space humanity, since the Reapers are more likely to be on a par with them (in theory) and will have numbers and FTL to be a real danger.

Even more interesting is to throw the Inhibitors into the mix. Whilst the inhibitors don't SEEM to have FTL (or if they do they aren't allowed to use it) the feats they are capable of (esp industrial) far outstrip what we have seen of the Reapers thus far.

What would be REALLY Interesting would be the Reapers vs Inhibitors. (Obviously, this will need to wait until after ME3).

As for the FTL, the analogy to the 40K warp is a bit much, it's hideously risky (as in "Wasn't there an interstellar civilization here once?"), but it's due to the inherent dangers of the technology and it's attempted use, not due to anything eating you if you use a FTL comm.
(Even Ancient elder races [The cloakers?] use space folding to hide away [From the Inhibitors], not FTL )

[Stofsk]

I recall the opening to Mass Effect which had the Normandy go past Jupiter and then Neptune in like a crazy amount of time, and Charon base is where the relay is in Sol system, so ME verse must have access to pretty stupendously fast engines. Or maybe that was the FTL drive, I dunno.

The Normandy goes from Jupiter to Pluto in the time it takes Shepard to walk down a hallway, yeah. I'm willing to chalk that up as artistic license, because zillion gee accelerations is so out of character for literally everything else to do with spaceships in Mass Effect (except for the derelict Reaper).

I think I can explain it: it has to be the regular FTL drive and not sublight acceleration (remember they use FTL drives to get around too not just the relays, the relays let them go across the galaxy but there isn't a relay in every single star system). Shepard's journey from the lower deck to the bridge is too quick for it to be anything other than FTL. The distance between Jupiter and Neptune (which is 'near enough' to Pluto for this to be applicable) of course varies based on orbit; at it's closest, it would be 3.7 billion kilometres, while at it's farthest it would be 5.3 billion kilometres (Jupiter to Pluto would be closer to the 5.3 figure). Either way, you're looking at over ten thousand light seconds between the two (3.7 billion km divided by 300K km = 12333.3 assuming they're at their closest). Since Shepard takes less than a minute to go from A to B, and since there's only sixty seconds in a minute, they had to be travelling FTL.

[Whiskey144]

The Conjoiners have working cryoarithmetics before Clavain chases Skade outside of Yellowstone, as it's an Exordium derived technology. However, the super stealth drives aren't developed until Khouri comes back from Hades pregnant, so it strikes me as very unlikely that anyone other than the Ararat factions would have them.

I wasn't really aware of the timeline from which some of the tech is acquired, as I (sadly, and hopefully to be rectified around the time of my birthday) have only the first novel. TBH, however, I'm doubtful that stealthed Conjoiner drives would provide a huge advantage, considering that a lighthugger could simply use inertia suppressors+cryoarithmetic engines to boost up to a convenient velocity, coast, and then decelerate.

What would be REALLY Interesting would be the Reapers vs Inhibitors. (Obviously, this will need to wait until after ME3).

As for the FTL, the analogy to the 40K warp is a bit much, it's hideously risky (as in "Wasn't there an interstellar civilization here once?"), but it's due to the inherent dangers of the technology and it's attempted use, not due to anything eating you if you use a FTL comm.
(Even Ancient elder races [The cloakers?] use space folding to hide away [From the Inhibitors], not FTL )

The ancient species you're thinking of are the Shrouders, who are really Amarantin who went into space and 'accidentally' set off the Inhibitor trap. But yeah, RS-verse FTL-tech is the kind of thing that makes people around it randomnly disappear from the timeline.

I think I can explain it: it has to be the regular FTL drive and not sublight acceleration (remember they use FTL drives to get around too not just the relays, the relays let them go across the galaxy but there isn't a relay in every single star system). Shepard's journey from the lower deck to the bridge is too quick for it to be anything other than FTL. The distance between Jupiter and Neptune (which is 'near enough' to Pluto for this to be applicable) of course varies based on orbit; at it's closest, it would be 3.7 billion kilometres, while at it's farthest it would be 5.3 billion kilometres (Jupiter to Pluto would be closer to the 5.3 figure). Either way, you're looking at over ten thousand light seconds between the two (3.7 billion km divided by 300K km = 12333.3 assuming they're at their closest). Since Shepard takes less than a minute to go from A to B, and since there's only sixty seconds in a minute, they had to be travelling FTL.

Good points; if the RS-verse powers were to attempt to invade, then they'd have to slowboat between systems without releases, or with non-connected relays. OTOH, this also means that the Citadel races might go "lolz, we made them run away and hide", and then half a decade later they're going "oh noes, we didn't pwnz0rs them".

Or rather, statements to that general effect.