The 13th Tribe Book II: A Symphony of War

[fnord]

Well, why not? E_F does seem to have the matching arms race going.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

But what will Fireman do with his Lens?

[fnord]

Reimburse me for the keyboard you just killed.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

You shouldn't have been drinking and typing.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Jellicoe does have recurring nightmares about the Fall - we see some of them in the chapter when he was heading out to Pegasus on the Warstar in Book I, and another mention here of what happened to his brother's command, the Yashuman.

As for the Greater Scope Villain, you make an interesting point. I'll throw it in my ideas pool for book III.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And no, no Eddorians or Lensmen. That much I can promise you.

[fnord]

Well, that means we can steer clear of our answer to Igor Amizov, author of the Crustacean series - wherein giant crabs wander out of the sea and win baseball's World Series.
Prelude to Crustacean
Crustacean
Crustacean and Umpire
Second Crustacean
Crustacean's Edge
Crustacean and Dirt
Forward The Crustacean

Asimov himself thought the parody was hilarious.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Asimov always did have a sense of humor.

Though...either the Mule or the Second Foundation would've made for interesting Greater Scope Villains.

Maybe, Jellicoe will adopt a clown with a Visio-Sensor out of pity, and he plays concert halls all over Terra...

[Eternal_Freedom]

No...just no.

At this point, the "Greater Scope Villain" will probably be something of my own creation that I can work up to.

So...forget about it for now. Like I said in Book I when I mentioned the Furlings, they ain't appearing in Book II so kindly cease speculating. Please go back to commenting/discussing what I've actualyl written so far.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

So no Bill and Lee Adama being descended from the House of Kobol?

Okay, okay, I'll be good.

[Sky Captain]

What happened to Atlantis drone factory? After Atlantis magazines are full it would be useful to continue production and arm Terran ships with drones too. Maybe add drone racks to Scmitar bombers or cruisers. Drones bypass shields and armor, they would be incredibly useful in combat. During last battle with Wraith Terrans demonstrated capability to build their own drone launch and control facility. Someone should have floated the idea to give ships drone armament.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You make a good point, but the Terrans and Tau'ri can't completely replicate Ancient fire control systems - the ones used at the final battle were basically one-shot fire and forget, and had to be programemd specifically to target the Wraith in advance, not something easy to do in battle against new/different enemies.

Also, I'm not convinced they completely bypass shields. We see that they're powerful, sure, and effective against Wraith or Goa'uld ships, but Goa'uld shields are consistently shown as inferior to Ancient/Asgard/Terran shields in terms of strength etc.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Beside, the Tau'ri, at least, have a limited ability to replicate Ancient drones and satellite weapons, but primarily for planetary and orbital defense purposes.

Same with the Atlantis drone factory. It likely is running full tilt, but for the defense of the city almost exclusively..

[DKeith2011]

Would it be possible to program a drone platform to perform like unguided rockets? Fire a shotgun blast of drones out in a saturation pattern that blows holes in whatever happens to be in front of it then self-destructs any drones left over after a certain time delay and/or range limit.

Not terribly efficient but it could be useful.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Not only inefficient, but equally dangerous for all the ships in the immediate battlespace, including the good guys.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ineffecient and dangerous, indeed.

Drone production at Atlantis is indeed limited - it's a major power hog (since those particle forges are basically creating matter out of energy, and E=MC^2 is a bitch), even with 3 ZPM's and a spare handy they can't keep them running at full tilt - the numbers produced during the run-up to the final battle in book 1 (300 or so) were basically a "holy shit give it everything we've got, just in case." It's not something that can be sustained long-term.

Like I already said, Ancient drones are effective against unshielded targets and those using Goa'uld shields - but look how many thousands were needed to take out Anubis's fleet - the drone lines can't handle that. The only example we have of them being used against threats of comparable technology is SG1's season 10 ep "The Road Not Taken," where Carter ends up in an alternate world that managed to drive off one Ori ship - and doing so nearly completely drained their ZPM firing off their drones. And that was only "we drove them off" not destroyed them.

Hell, even the ZPM-powered (but unshielded super-hive in "Enemy at the Gates" managed to shrug off drone salvos from Atlantis - they just detonated on the hul, rather than passing through like normal.

They're powerful weapons, don't get me wrong. But the Kobolians and the Tau'ri aren't exactly short on powerful weapons at the moment - and in a sustained firefight any mass of drones is probably less useful (and seemingly shorter-ranged) than an equivalent mass/power consumption of turbolaser mounts.

EDIT: And yeah, for orbital/planetary defence mounts, the Satellite Weapon is much better - kills Hive Ships in one shot and only needs a man-portable naquada generator, not a ZPM. One wonders why those weren't mounted on Atlantis. But hell, the Ancients weren't warriors, as I've established. Their solution, like the Asgard, was "build a fancier weapon" even if a simpler weapon would have been more useful. The Kobolians and the Tau'ri are very much "Build a fancier weapon but only if a less-advanced weapon won't cut it."

[fnord]

Almost UNIX tradition - "When in doubt, use brute force."

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well it's worked for them so far hasn't it.

[fnord]

Very much so. Wonder what ken and dmr's take on it would be.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I have no idea who you are referring to.

[fnord]

The guys who originally developed UNIX (and C, to boot).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ah.

Anyways, I've been having fun hunting through Wikipedia's list of latin phrases to scrounge up ship mottos, and this is what I have:

Ship Mottos:

Nemesis: “Pro Libertate”/For Freedom
Phoenix: “Stamus Contra Malum”/We Stand Against Evil
Lionheart: “Fortis Cadere, Cedere non Potest”/The Brave May Fall But Cannot Yield
Temeraire: “Audentes Fortuna Iuvat”/Fortune Favours the Bold
Illustrious: “Dum Vivimus Servimus”/While We Live We Serve
Victorious: “Usque Ad Finem”/To the Very End
Republic: “Bello vel Pace Paratus”/Ready for War or Peace
Vanguard: “Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum”/Never a Backward Step
Intrepid: “Semper Ad Meliora”/Always Towards Better Things
Indomitable: “Vincit Qui Patitur”/He Conquers who Endures
Eridanus: “We shall flow a river forth to thee.”
Pegasus: “I Bring the Thunder.”
Warspite: “First in Harm’s Way.”
Galactica: “I Will Not Be Moved.”

I'm quite happy with these but am open to suggestions. To explain the Latin thing, well, Republic's motto was given to me by Steve already in Latin, which we know is derived from Ancient/Lantean, so since the Terrans have a close link to the Lanteans/Lords of Kobol then it seems appropriate to use Latin mottoes. The nice bit is that since Latin is derived from Lantean, any mistakes in exact spelling/grammar can be chalked up to that, so Latin grammar nazis can just be quiet.

Colonial ships do not have Latin mottoes, largely because the language of the Lords had almost completely disappeared from Colonial records during that whole "leaving Kobol, landing on the Colonies and having all our fancy technology taken away."

And before anyone asks, no, Nemesis' motto is NOT a Braveheart shoutout...it's my clan motto, and that's an infinitely better reference to use than Mel Gibson.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I have a couple of suggestions.

(please bear in mind my Latin is horrible)

Nemesis: Mea Est Ultio/ Vengance Is Mine.
Phoenix: Ex igne/Born In Fire
Vanguard: Punctum In Hasta/Point(Tip)Of the Spear
Intrepid: Impavidus Contra Hostes/ Fearless In the Face Of the Enemy
Lionheart: Pro Libertate/For Freedom, because it suits Lionheart better, lionhearted being synonymous with brave hearted.

No, I didn't care for yet another macho Mel Gibson butchery of history; I would've much preferred to have seen a movie where James Douglas played the central role he did in securing the Scottish crown for Robert the Bruce.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Suggestions accepted with Phoenix, Lionheart and Intrepid. As for Nemesis, well I think I'm going to use my original idea for Phoenix for the big bugger instead: "Stamus Contra Malum”/We Stand Against Evil.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

No problem. Always glad to help. Especially when it aids in alleviating my writer's block,

And, I like your motto for Nemesis better,