Is this even possible?

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dellstart
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Is this even possible?

Post by dellstart »

Its probably way out there , but since we are waiting for the next chapters in this series - we got time anyways :P .

Simply put , why haven't any of the other space faring nations or peoples done anything to counterbalance the over the tremendous advantage , that the faey have in war , due to their telepathy?.

Despite , having a few of their own telepathic members to fight back , not much has seen to be done.If i was a key scientist in one of these nations, you can bet your bottom dollar , I would be hell bent on developing something that would jam or disrupt the flow of telepathy , whilst somehow protecting my own troops.


yes , I know the consortium dabbles with it ,(I think) , yet where is everyone else? Reminds me of Radar , the whole ability to jam or be rendered sightless on the screen is whats its all about.That how you even up the teams and after that it becomes a more conventionality battlefield , that you can win , if you have enough men and weaponry to win the day.

perhaps this really far fetched , who knows?
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by Lochar »

Remember, most of the other races that have telepathics have to genetically engineer them into their people.

So what is forced on one race is natural in the Faey, so it might operate differently. Beyond that, how do you test something like that, short of capturing a Faey or two, keeping them tied down with several miles between them and the nearest sentient that isn't telepathic.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by Hearly »

Didn't Jason say something along the lines that there is no defense at all against it?

To me he would be on the cutting edge if there was a defense as to help protect Humans.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by Mad Monk »

dellstart wrote:Its probably way out there , but since we are waiting for the next chapters in this series - we got time anyways :P .

Simply put , why haven't any of the other space faring nations or peoples done anything to counterbalance the over the tremendous advantage , that the faey have in war , due to their telepathy?.

Despite , having a few of their own telepathic members to fight back , not much has seen to be done.If i was a key scientist in one of these nations, you can bet your bottom dollar , I would be hell bent on developing something that would jam or disrupt the flow of telepathy , whilst somehow protecting my own troops.


yes , I know the consortium dabbles with it ,(I think) , yet where is everyone else? Reminds me of Radar , the whole ability to jam or be rendered sightless on the screen is whats its all about.That how you even up the teams and after that it becomes a more conventionality battlefield , that you can win , if you have enough men and weaponry to win the day.

perhaps this really far fetched , who knows?
We have to accept Fel's assertion that no-one has been able to develop a telepathic shield, in spite of many attempts. There does not seem to be much technological advancement with any of the races near the Faey, possibly due to the interference by the Kimdori - After all, new technologies will bring changes. which could bring conflict, and the Kimdori do try to prevent conflict.

Telepathy, with a range limited to a few miles (Jyslin was exceptionally strong for a marine, after all) will only be useful if you can get your telepaths close to the enemy ships. The Faey use fighters for this. What defenses would You use to keep fighters away?

My preference would be a cluster munition, spreading mines in the path of oncoming fighters, as well as long range saturation shooting - In Vietnam, the viet cong were instructed to just shoot randomly in the air if they heard approaching American planes. This is wasteful of ammunition, but does work - by the time you see the plane, it is probably passing you and it is too late to aim.

I'm sure others would be able to think up of better defences against fighters.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by Quindo Ma »

There is no way for any machine to interfere with Telepathy.

At least, that is what the entirety of the galactic power outside of the Karrines believe.

The Karrines are the only ones who were able to develop something that could interact with telepathy, and even they had to genetically engineer half of that project within their Generations Program.
Outside of that, the only other such telepathy-machine we have seen was in an enemy that came from an entirely different galaxy.

While I'm certain a lot of the other races outside of the Faye have tried, I'd bet none of them succeeded.
It took the Karrines (arguably the technologically most advanced, next to the Kimdori) to do that.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by dellstart »

You know MM , that would only help you if you were fighting a naval or space battle. Once you fight a land or ground battle , your even more screwed.So basically , i suppose you would have to win in the air , for once it develops into ground warfare your at a distinct disadvantage.

Quindo Ma, you may well be right , was just throwing the idea out there.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by Mad Monk »

We already know that the Skaa ground troops battle the Faey by sheer numbers. Its difficult to take control of the enemy if you are outnumbered by thousands to one. Others must also have their tricks, possibly using drones, like the US army do.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by dellstart »

Mad Monk wrote:We already know that the Skaa ground troops battle the Faey by sheer numbers. Its difficult to take control of the enemy if you are outnumbered by thousands to one. Others must also have their tricks, possibly using drones, like the US army do.
mmmm true.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by ANTIcarrot »

Hearly wrote:To me (Jason) would be on the cutting edge if there was a defense as to help protect Humans.
Jason's control of Earth is dependent on his ability to bitchslap the planet (or some portion of it) any time it steps out of line and tries to assert itself in a way the Imperium doesn't like. It's like a farmer. You protect your livestock from predators, but you never give your livestock the ability to defend itself - because then they can hurt you as well. And usually they have every reason to. He may once have wanted to help hum,anity in this way - but he seems to have brought into the whole 'untermensch can't be trusted with freedom' view the Kimdori are so adherant to.

Theoretical defences against the faey include significant cybernetic replacement of brain tissue, various flavours of AI, distance, and genocide.
*The Faey can probably produce non-organic brain tissue as easily as we can produce non-organic hearts, but don't because beyond some significant point it would have to degrade telepathic function. (Plus some other minor ethical issues.) Humans might be far less picky, especially for accident victims, and be very willing to pick up where the Faey left off.
*AI vision systems have advanced leaps and bounds over the past few years. They can easily place targets in 3D space andd predict their trajectories (which is an advancement) but they can't tell the difference between a leaf and a 18 wheeler truck (which is not). Something like a Fly By Wire/IFF system would also be useful as a crew-action-limiter. Some way of making it impossible or at least very difficult for soldiers to do themselves or allies harm.
*Given the Faey's control over spacetime, they might be able to build something like a TARDIS, a box that's 2m wide on the outside, but 20km wide on the inside. (Which is pretty much what a PPG is IIRC.) A human sitting in capsule in the middle of this box would be 10km+ from the nearest Faey, even if a Faey was standing right next to the vehicle the box was mounted in. Even without this, the Faey seem to have COTS unbreakable communication systems that would allow remote operators to play merry hell with a Faey battle line.
*And Genocide (of a sort) worked pretty well for the banking planet (kinda) in the form of the 'No Kimdori Zone' virus they released into their own atmosphere.

Military equipment is usually one of the first things a developing nation produces. Eventually companies on Earth will start to combine unfettered human creativity with advanced Faey technology. And unlike Jason, they will sell their products. An answer to the Telepath Problem will probably be high on their wishlist, because it would sell like hotcakes. Then it becomes a race between how quickly the human race can come up with new ideas and how quickly the kimdori can learn to suppress that trend without tripping suspicion in cultures they have almost no experience with.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by furry_wolf2001b »

Why dose people keep forgetting that it is an -Empire-, and earth is pretty much a little island nation.
An island nation with good food and fertile ground with hungry neighbors..
With bad tempers.
And armed to the teeths.
(an are not sexy blue fey)

As for future mil tech.
Well yes and no.
I doubt very much that humans are all that alone in innovation and "clever thinking".
Still a new perspective on stuff never hurts eh?
Nothing earth alone could do (alone) would actually matter much.

And as for stopping selling of mil tech to unknown third parties, there are always loads of way to stop that.
From simple killing, to reprogramming.

Ask yourselves this, do you know of a third party that it would be good to supply arms too?
heh, now that i think of it, some stuff we could make probably are not as good, or would be used by fey, but would perhaps be attractive to others who do not have all the fey gadgets and know how.
Must be careful tho, so one/we dose not supply pirates or other lowlifes with things...

Besides, what makes you think earth wants out of the empire?
I bet most are way the hell better of with them in charge now with Jason looking over things then ever before.
There will always be rednecks and other people who will disagree, but so what, that is nothing new.

The best thing against telepathy and the like is probably robots and the like.
But that is only good until some one digs up the keys from some ones brain.
Or simply orders those who can/know to shut them down.

And i do not doubt it has been tried, and are being used in ome shape or form.
But bolos might be great, but the risk is always the berserkers...
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by ANTIcarrot »

furry_wolf2001b wrote:Why dose people keep forgetting that it is an -Empire-, and earth is pretty much a little island nation.
Read up on the USSR's own forcasts for a USSR vs UK warfare, or USSR vs France warfare. The phrase Do Not Want springs to mind. Small doesn't mean impotent.

The problem is that the Faey treated 6 billion people like shit for ten years or so, and only stopped on a whim of a single person. Supose some future ruler decides to have a whim in the other direction? Would you trust a group like that? I wouldn't. And I think that sometimes non-europeans really don't understand sometimes what a munumentally fucked up system monarcy actually is.
I doubt very much that humans are all that alone in innovation and "clever thinking".
Actually Fel kinda *does* say this time and again. The Faey are really conservative when it comes to design work. At best they evolve instead of redesign, which is why some of their cockpits are really user unfriendly. Even then all their really good ideas for a thousand years came from one house, which had tinkered its DNA until it was no longer entirely Faey. Since that house got nuked, the Faey haven't really innovated anything. Since they haven't been overtaken by the other races, we can say with reasonable confidence that humans might be the most imaginitive being in known space.

Add to that they don't have technology that we anticipate having in a few generations, or could build now if we wanted. So yeah...
Nothing earth alone could do (alone) would actually matter much.
Specifically wrong again. Jason's rail gun remember? There are at least four ways of duplicating that effect, and we have it on very good authority from the man himself that hypervelocity rounds go through even Imperial armour like it wasn't there. The kenetic revolution will lead to a large percentage of the Imperium buying the new weapons and armour against it. Humanity's vast (by comparison) experience in the field of gun design will put them at a decisive advantage.
Ask yourselves this, do you know of a third party that it would be good to supply arms too?
Well, the whole Alliance thing Jason has been working on of late... Until then, anyone in the Imperium who wants a gun capable of defeating 90% of existing body armor. The 'Mr Colt makes everyone equal' principle.
Besides, what makes you think earth wants out of the empire?
Never said it did. But there's a difference between wanting out of a wolf pack and wanting to not be the omega wolf.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by furry_wolf2001b »

"USSR vs UK warfare, or USSR vs France warfare. The phrase Do Not Want springs to mind. "
Do Not Want is the word.
They where not alone either.
Now with Jason as patron saint and karrines as cousins thing are good.

Winning is doubtful, and we do not have the ships and infrastructure to take the fight to them, so guess who's land is going to get flattened.
And a good rifle alone do not win the war or conflict.
All it would take will be capturing one and they can make it.
Besides you should study the burnt earth methods of Russia, both sides could use that, but it is -we- who would have to live here at the end of it..
And i am not stupid enough to not see it unscaled.
Again numbers.
It is why Jason was so adamant about not pissing off the whole fay EMPIRE.

As for the armor, was it not the house armors that was vulnerable (old less capable model) or do i remember wrong?
And you bring in Jason again...

And the fay.
I did not mean Jason or fay when talking about innovation and inventiveness, we have seen Jason is very capable, but we have not seen much regular humans pull things out of his ass and being half as good as him.

There are plenty of species out there, do not be too narrow in focus.

And about wolf packs, hurting the pack do not give you status in one.
You put down rabid dogs.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by ANTIcarrot »

furry_wolf2001b wrote:"USSR vs UK warfare, or USSR vs France warfare. The phrase Do Not Want springs to mind. "
Do Not Want is the word.
They where not alone either.
Now with Jason as patron saint and karrines as cousins thing are good.
Please use complete sentences. But to repeat the point you seem to have missed: If you have a single ballistic missile submerine, you do not need a massive fleet of warships. The rules of quality VS quantity changed at the end of WWII. This is why I specified Britain and France. The USSR was rightly cconfident it could steam roller the rest of europe, because of the reason you give. But they also knew they could never take the other two nations alive, because of [edit]their military capacity to fight back; with nukes. (Also known as MAD.)[/edit] You don't need to win, or even survive, in order to ensure the other side doesn't. And if that threat is convincing, they'll never attack you, and you'll never need to defend yourself.

And this is by the way how the entire Imperium works! :P
As for the armor, was it not the house armors that was vulnerable (old less capable model) or do i remember wrong?
In the story, an iron bullet with titanium coating would dent highest quality imperial armour, and severely injure the Faey inside. That's a lousy bullet design which we haven't used for almost a hundred years. Upgrade it to even a APCR round (one of the more primitive armour piercing designs) and it would almost certainly go straight through. (We have 70 years more refinement if needed.) Jason's gun is also only has middling performance (6.2kps) as far as such weapons go. We know of multiple ways of doing better today. Post Trillane Earth would be more than capable of mass producing such items, and they would sell like hot cakes.
we have seen Jason is very capable, but we have not seen much regular humans pull things out of his ass and being half as good as him.
Possibly because Fel has a very misanthropic writing style. His human characters usually don't stay human very long. The ones that do are usually either killed off or very quickly written off stage. The aliens that replace them usually complain incessently about how evil humans are, and then go onto do the exact same things without batting an eyelid. (Hence Jason's horror that the Kerinne would kidnap a child! Which is strange, since this was exactly what he was going to do with Ian a few chapters earlier. Or his disgust that the Kerinne looked down at other races as below them. Which is strange, since this is exactly what both he and Zaa do in a few chapters time.)

I guess it depends on what you know going in. I know about engineering. I can see the potentials of the technology Fel lists, and how it could be plugged into the human knowledge base to produce things the Faey don't seem to have but would probably find very useful. I also know about writing, and TVTropes, and have a well developed Balloney Detection Kit. I can't write as prolifically as he can, but I can take apart his work as easily as Jason can disect Faey technology. So I can see the false-dichotomy he presents to the readers, and 90% of the time, I just don't buy it.

But to get back on topic: I pointed out that when Earth was helpless, they were treated very badly - and that once the yoke was lifted, they would wish to correct this weakness. The Imperium can't be trusted to play nice because of their fundimental corruption, incompetence, and callousness. Jason can't be trusted to prevent it either, because he effectively views humanity as a lesser race. (Just like the Faey!) Hence Earth has reasons to want to be able to defend itself. You seem to take this as a endorsement of all out warfare, or some kind of attack on the Imperium! It isn't! There are other ways. Such as an MAD policy, and/or greater and more diverse economic ties to the imperium (as a weapon/technology producer for example).
Last edited by ANTIcarrot on Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by Isengrim »

The Imperium doesn't work on the basis of MAD. The politics works on the basis of the balance of power.

The closest analogue in our history is probably Europe in the 16th - 19th centuries, rather than the USA/USSR conflict at the end of the 20th century.
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Re: Is this even possible?

Post by ANTIcarrot »

Isengrim wrote:The Imperium doesn't work on the basis of MAD.
Actually in chapter 20 both Jason and Dahnai contradict you: "Try this again and I'll send a fleet to Actus and destroy it! Don't think I won't!" At the end of the story the two of them have sufficient resources that they can garantee a massive retalitory strike against Trillane now matter what Trillane does. Neither of them use the term MAD, but that's exactly what they're describing here.
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