Retribution, chapter 5, (spoilers)

[Wolfee]

I am pretty sure the fleet in already in system or just about to enter.

While the confederation does not want a war, they do want to send a statement to the syndicate.

The fleet is 4 months away. Thats enough time to evacuate and pull out of the system. As for making a statement, i think they've just finished doing that. Of course, if i were them, I'd destroy those ships too. I'm sure they could get quite a lot of them to surrender once they realized they were just targets out there. Especially if they used the Kimdori at fleet headquarters to mark all the ships with QE communications back to headquarters so that they can be taken out and jam all other communications to cut them off from their HQ.

Agreed - Time for the 8 command ships and 2 fleet flag ships to begin long range bombardment - they can pretty much wreck the entire fleet coming at them if they want to - more scrap for harvesting - just put in a stargate once the battle is over and start harvesting.

OR.... leave the interdictor up and running - and cause the star to go supernova and nuke the fleet that way... yes I have watched entirely to much SG-1.

[GotToGo]

Fel, how about having the Dirty Tricks Dept. look at ways to erode or disrupt the containment fields on the antimatter the Syndicate uses? Would make those super moon size ships blowup like mini-super novas with all the antimatter weapons they are carrying. Would make using antimatter weapons a liability.

Just a thought.

[Rakshasa claw]

I am pretty sure the fleet in already in system or just about to enter.

While the confederation does not want a war, they do want to send a statement to the syndicate.

The fleet is 4 months away. Thats enough time to evacuate and pull out of the system. As for making a statement, i think they've just finished doing that. Of course, if i were them, I'd destroy those ships too. I'm sure they could get quite a lot of them to surrender once they realized they were just targets out there. Especially if they used the Kimdori at fleet headquarters to mark all the ships with QE communications back to headquarters so that they can be taken out and jam all other communications to cut them off from their HQ.

Agreed - Time for the 8 command ships and 2 fleet flag ships to begin long range bombardment - they can pretty much wreck the entire fleet coming at them if they want to - more scrap for harvesting - just put in a stargate once the battle is over and start harvesting.

OR.... leave the interdictor up and running - and cause the star to go supernova and nuke the fleet that way... yes I have watched entirely to much SG-1.

While I approve of just killing the star, it is after all the only way to be sure. I don't imagine the confederate leaders are all ruthless enough to sentence all of those sailors to death that cold bloodedly.

[SYED]

Anti matter is a tech that is quite common, the benga just really miniaturized and boosted the power. Do we know how much of a radiation fall out this tech? If there is too much residual radiation, then the benga would risk environmental contamination at every battle site.
I am hoping very little then it would allow a nuclear engine more viable.

Anti matter eants to explode, the key is containment and control. If they can stabilize it for heavy use, this aspect is key. This is likely done by energy containment fields. If messed with, could really mess with the benga.

[Rakshasa claw]

Anti matter is a tech that is quite common, the benga just really miniaturized and boosted the power. Do we know how much of a radiation fall out this tech? If there is too much residual radiation, then the benga would risk environmental contamination at every battle site.
I am hoping very little then it would allow a nuclear engine more viable.

Anti matter eants to explode, the key is containment and control. If they can stabilize it for heavy use, this aspect is key. This is likely done by energy containment fields. If messed with, could really mess with the benga.

Anti matter bombs shouldn't have any fallout. A true anti matter reactor fully converts the energy binding the matter AS matter IE e=mc^2. So when you combine matter and anti matter, provided the proportions are equal there won't be any matter left behind at all. Fallout is the side effect of nuclear fission where the heavy elements that remain after splitting a very heavy element are radioactive. Since there wouldn't be any mass left behind once the initial destruction was gone there wouldn't be anything left. Hence why Nuclear Fusion doesn't generate fallout either. Because provided you fuse the correct elements the results won't normally be radioactive, whereas with Fission not getting a radioactive daughter is nearly impossible. Modern H bombs of course do have fallout, but they aren't true fusion bombs they have Fission occurring as well.

I concede that if you ignite a matter/anti matter bomb that isn't equal proportions matter to anti-matter it might result in strangeness. That could mean fallout, or myriad other things that really aren't easy to quantify without knowing exactly what is fueling the bomb and the exact mechanics of how it works.

Not a nuclear physicist, but I spent a few years working on Nuclear reactors on Submarines in the Navy so I have a decent understanding of the quirks of nuclear physics.

[kyli]

This is bugging me. If the Syndicate fleet is 47 light years away, how can they get back in four months? They are traveling at sublight speeds, so it should take more than 47 years to get back. What am I missing here?

I'm am anwsering this question here because it was asked in a part of the forum where we should all try to avoid spoilers.

The Interdictor is still expanding and had only expanded to 4 light-months radius distance from the Dreamer moon. The Syndicate jumped their fleet back to the moon through hyperspace which probably only took less then a minute but they were knocked out of hyperspace at 4 light-months away. From there, they are forced to enter the system in normal space and are limited to light speed at most since they have no other means of FTL.

[SYED]

In addition, they can use this system and fleet, to keep the syndicate full attention while the kimdori go after those dreamers that were stolen away. They went from a population of millions to thousands. It might not even be a viable number. They can't be locked into VR all the time, as they need them breeding. Also, they are still a very tricky all telepathic race that the benga needs to keep in check.
So it is likely all remaining dreamers will be gathered in one central and secure location. And they will be desperate for telepaths to man the operation. So I am seeing a snatch and grab operation.

[MartinK]

In addition, they can use this system and fleet, to keep the syndicate full attention while the kimdori go after those dreamers that were stolen away. They went from a population of millions to thousands. It might not even be a viable number. They can't be locked into VR all the time, as they need them breeding. Also, they are still a very tricky all telepathic race that the benga needs to keep in check.
So it is likely all remaining dreamers will be gathered in one central and secure location. And they will be desperate for telepaths to man the operation. So I am seeing a snatch and grab operation.

Why so complicated? As a civilization that is capable of faster-than-light-travel, I would be surprised if they didn't know how to clone a person. Given that they still have thousands of dreamers spread out on ships - and probably one or more safeguarded dna repositories of usefull species hidden away somewhere - the Kimdori will have their hands full to track those and all related research down.

I just know there is a lot of secret research in combining and/or crossbreeding races with usefull attributes going on. Sort of like the Founders of Deep Space 9, who mainly worked through at least two known artificially created races in their war with the Federation.

In fact, why the heck aren't they using programmed robots in combat? Although they would be less effective than people with brains, given their numbers they could just work with overwhelming-by-numbers strategies of any enemy who isn't that much more advanced than you. And given that they own most of their galaxy, I would have expected more slave races fighting on their side as well. It should be easy - stick a trained slave in combat armor, trust him out the airlock and his chance of survival is reduced to kill-enemy-before-he-kills-you.

[Wolfee]

In addition, they can use this system and fleet, to keep the syndicate full attention while the kimdori go after those dreamers that were stolen away. They went from a population of millions to thousands. It might not even be a viable number. They can't be locked into VR all the time, as they need them breeding. Also, they are still a very tricky all telepathic race that the benga needs to keep in check.
So it is likely all remaining dreamers will be gathered in one central and secure location. And they will be desperate for telepaths to man the operation. So I am seeing a snatch and grab operation.

Why so complicated? As a civilization that is capable of faster-than-light-travel, I would be surprised if they didn't know how to clone a person. Given that they still have thousands of dreamers spread out on ships - and probably one or more safeguarded dna repositories of usefull species hidden away somewhere - the Kimdori will have their hands full to track those and all related research down.

I just know there is a lot of secret research in combining and/or crossbreeding races with usefull attributes going on. Sort of like the Founders of Deep Space 9, who mainly worked through at least two known artificially created races in their war with the Federation.

In fact, why the heck aren't they using programmed robots in combat? Although they would be less effective than people with brains, given their numbers they could just work with overwhelming-by-numbers strategies of any enemy who isn't that much more advanced than you. And given that they own most of their galaxy, I would have expected more slave races fighting on their side as well. It should be easy - stick a trained slave in combat armor, trust him out the airlock and his chance of survival is reduced to kill-enemy-before-he-kills-you.

Well said, cloning would be a easy way at this level of technology.... not to mention a few million DNA samples don't take up that much space. Definitely something easy to hide.

[Rakshasa claw]

In addition, they can use this system and fleet, to keep the syndicate full attention while the kimdori go after those dreamers that were stolen away. They went from a population of millions to thousands. It might not even be a viable number. They can't be locked into VR all the time, as they need them breeding. Also, they are still a very tricky all telepathic race that the benga needs to keep in check.
So it is likely all remaining dreamers will be gathered in one central and secure location. And they will be desperate for telepaths to man the operation. So I am seeing a snatch and grab operation.

Why so complicated? As a civilization that is capable of faster-than-light-travel, I would be surprised if they didn't know how to clone a person. Given that they still have thousands of dreamers spread out on ships - and probably one or more safeguarded dna repositories of usefull species hidden away somewhere - the Kimdori will have their hands full to track those and all related research down.

I just know there is a lot of secret research in combining and/or crossbreeding races with usefull attributes going on. Sort of like the Founders of Deep Space 9, who mainly worked through at least two known artificially created races in their war with the Federation.

In fact, why the heck aren't they using programmed robots in combat? Although they would be less effective than people with brains, given their numbers they could just work with overwhelming-by-numbers strategies of any enemy who isn't that much more advanced than you. And given that they own most of their galaxy, I would have expected more slave races fighting on their side as well. It should be easy - stick a trained slave in combat armor, trust him out the airlock and his chance of survival is reduced to kill-enemy-before-he-kills-you.

Pretty sure they don't trust most of their slave races enough to let them fight in battle. I mean we are talking about a species that is even less trusting than humans if that is even possible. As for robots... even if they had true AI which based on the theme of the entire series anyone that doesn't have biogenic technology really doesn't have true AI... they would be less combat effective than you'd think. True AI at least could grow past their programming and become more effective with time, but the much more limited AI the Benga would be forced to use would require new program updates any time something changed with new tech or new strategy for either side of the conflict. The additional limitations of needing ways to provide instructions and program updates mean that you may well be able to find a way to hack them or at least isolate them from the main system. Just watch Episode 2 of Star Wars and ignore that you hate the movie and consider the limitations of the Droid army. Short of Jason deploying an army of Biogenic robots (and those would be way to expensive to make an effective army anyway)... those problems are universal. That is after all, the reason that despite so many idiots trying to push drones onto the US military that they still haven't replaced manned planes. Robots might be effective at suppressing locals with a weaker tech base, but would prove unreliable as a front line army. Just my opinion though. Also, the Benga don't strike me as particularly concerned with losing tens of thousands of their own people to secure victory.... which means less incentive to bother with robots.

As for cloning, yes they probably could clone the Dreamers. However, it is possible that considering how much effort they went to in securing the Dreamers from their enemies they never set aside DNA samples for cloning. I mean they took extreme measures to ensure that the Consortium never even knew that they existed. And on top of that they still had an absurdly massive fleet sitting around in that system as a just in case. Any effort they did which removed the dreamers (or their DNA) from the moon beyond the ones that get sent to the fleet raised the chances of their existence being discovered... it IS possible the Benga in charge of the Syndicate may well have gone overboard on the secrecy because until Jason came along the idea that anyone would be able to steal the Dreamers (alive OR dead) from them was almost certainly considered beyond absurd.

Also, suggesting that they have thousands of dreamers on ships is probably an overstatement. They only seem to place them on their mega super ships for fleet commands. It's unlikely that even if they have millions of ships that they actually have very many not on the moon. If you use the fleet they sent to our galaxy as an example, they had 30 thousand ships but only one oracle. They might have hundreds, but I doubt they have more than a few thousand oracles on their ships and it's probably lower. I mean the more they deployed to the front line the greater chance their enemies will learn of their existence. And with their QE computers they have instant galactic communication (intergalactic really) so one ship can coordinate using that oracle effectively which it reduces the need for multiple oracles quite a bit. Good chance that only Fleet Commanders like Sha Ra actually even knew about the oracles, maybe her direct subordinates but not much further than that. At best I imagine they likely only have 1 oracle for every ten thousand ships or so, which means even with over a million ships they probably don't have more than a couple hundred. Which if they don't have a DNA database from their species is not enough to maintain a viable population long term.

Edit: Wow, that was longer than I thought. TLDR version: It's probably they can't clone the Dreamers because they didn't conceive they might ever need to, droids aren't effective as front line combatants, and they probably have noticeably under a thousand dreamers left on ships.

[SYED]

Most advanced tech of the benga was stolen from the consortium, which was stolen from some Karrine refugees. There is no guarantee their medical tech progressed to similar levels.

It is true they did not risk the consortium becoming aware of the oracles, but also they wanted to ensure no single corporation or individual gaining an advantage over others. They could no risk extreme internal conflict sure to occur if oracles were used in internal disputes.

[MartinK]

Most advanced tech of the benga was stolen from the consortium, which was stolen from some Karrine refugees. There is no guarantee their medical tech progressed to similar levels.

WE have already cloned animals successfully! We also routinely do artificial implantation in humans to help nature along if the natural way isn't effective enough. We have transplanted wombs from one woman to another, which have then given birth. We also have children born to parents using another female unrelated to those parents as the birth mother.

Oh, and, we still use chemical rockets to send small robotic probes around our own solar system. Thinking a species that has managed to develop FTL and reserve engineered a bunch of way more complicated tech has no idea how to make babies any other way but the natural way is like expecting a race that has developed fusion power generation to not know anything about the steam engine.

Anyway, given that some species are obviously compatible in Fels universe, even just a few fertilized eggs will be enough to get a new population of Oracles started.

[Rakshasa claw]

Most advanced tech of the benga was stolen from the consortium, which was stolen from some Karrine refugees. There is no guarantee their medical tech progressed to similar levels.

WE have already cloned animals successfully! We also routinely do artificial implantation in humans to help nature along if the natural way isn't effective enough. We have transplanted wombs from one woman to another, which have then given birth. We also have children born to parents using another female unrelated to those parents as the birth mother.

Oh, and, we still use chemical rockets to send small robotic probes around our own solar system. Thinking a species that has managed to develop FTL and reserve engineered a bunch of way more complicated tech has no idea how to make babies any other way but the natural way is like expecting a race that has developed fusion power generation to not know anything about the steam engine.

Anyway, given that some species are obviously compatible in Fels universe, even just a few fertilized eggs will be enough to get a new population of Oracles started.

I think agree that it might be possible, but I think it's likely that to ensure balance between the corporations of the Syndicate that they wouldn't have wanted any Oracle related stuff stored off their moon. I mean, during the attack they did try to abduct as many as they could find... they just couldn't find any because they were hiding in preparation for rescue by the Phoenix. Based on that contingency plan it's not unreasonable that they might not have what they need to produce the species, they did expect even if it was attacked by overwhelming force they could simply evacuate "their" Dreamers.

Also, any tampering involving rebuilding the species from adding DNA with a few frozen samples could potentially screw with their clairvoyance. Remember, even the Faey aren't entirely certain about DNA tampering with regards to specific telepathic gifts. Hence why the Karinnes had a selective breeding program. They couldn't just modify the DNA portions they wanted because they (The Karinnes) didn't know which ones they needed. So any attempt to recreate the Dreamers to obtain Oracles may well fail simply because lacking a viable population the introduction of non-Dreamer DNA may prevent the correct gene sequences from existing.

[SYED]

Do we know if precognition breeds true? All faey and dreamers are telepathic, and every generation can commune and use telekinesis. But that might not be true for all gift or telepathic races. Just because a race has a potential for something, does not guarantee its appearenCe or strength.

Say one day a generation breeds with a dreamer, specificly an oracle. Could a merging of the bloodlines make the gift of precognition breed true? Imagine it an oracle enhanced by biogenics.

[Belgarion213]

...didn't Jason basically beat the shit out of a Benga because he doesn't wan't people playing around with trying to exploit the precognition (especially the way that the Syndicate was doing it). That said, the natives seem to know how to control their gifts at least a little bit without the horrible tortures that hte Syndicate did to FORCE precognitive visions on them.

That said, the enhancement of a Precognitive who was compatible with say a CIBM like Cybi would be horrifying...but probably really difficult to make sense of.

I remember one book described precognition as modelling the entire universe and running that simulation forward....which obviously needs more and more 'bandwidth' the further out you want to model and how much of the universe you wan't to take into account (aka its probably entirely possible to do something like a Jedi or Spiderman's precognitive reflexes/danger sense, but if you want to try and model something as complicated as a battle between intersteller powers like the Consortium and the Syndicate, it becomes much harder because of the huge number of variables you need to take into account. Of course, it probably doesn't work that way in the Subjugation universe but the mechanics of precognition would be interesting to examine.

As for them breeding true...difficult question. It's certainly possible but that raises a lot of squick potential (Jason could cry fowl all he wants but unless he is willing to reduce a few of the Confederation members to the stone age, trying to prevent some of them from breeding Precognitive powers into their bloodlines and then war on each other is a frighteningly possible outcome of a entire race of precognitive people.). Races that could do it easily would have an almost unbeatable advantage of those that don't have them, unless there is some way to stop precognition working. You know Somebody in the galaxy is going to be a big enough jerk to try and reproduce the Syndicate's little plot if they got there hands on DNA that enables reliable prediction of the future.

That's a n interesting point actually, Jason has been focused on what he is going to do to take these people out of the hands of the Syndicate but not much about what they are going to do afterwards. When there was only one precognitive in the Confederate space living as a family member of one of the most politically and military powerful men in the galaxy, it was possible to ignore it. However with thousands if not tens of thousands of people? Unless they stay on one planet (The Generation method for hiding), SOMEBODY is going to make a run at them.

If even one of them is kidnapped...or even just a DNA sample is taken. Remember when the Imperial Intelligence Mind benders got a sample of a Generations blood/DNA and were getting huge deliveries of Cloning Chambers? That's a frightening plausible end game of the introduction of this race. They are simply to valuable for some despicable people to ignore.