Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

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GotToGo
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by GotToGo »

I'm for waiting on Jason's meeting with the Benga Gen and what he will learn from that meeting will be the basics for the decisions he will take. Any of our guesses are just wild ass at that. Need more info to get this old brain on mine to base at least an informed guess.


The old wifes(wise;) tells that bad things come in threes (believe it also mention in Book 1). Chapter 9 was the third bad luck for Jason in this run, so it bound to turn around soon. Anyone heard anything from Fel on progress of Chapter 10? Then maybe add my two cents into the spoilers again.
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kyli
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by kyli »

I'm looking for chapter 10 too. I've been waiting like crazy for Jason's first meeting with Gen (and I was very sure it would happen), and when we finally get the meeting, the chapter ends. It might not be the biggest cliffhanger, but it sure feels like it.
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Fel
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Fel »

Yes, you'll see Jason's meeting with Gen. I'm not skipping over that.

For plot reasons, I decided to put it at the beginning of the next chapter instead of the end of chapter 9.
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JNMC
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by JNMC »

Five years = 1825 days. Each day they could use an interdictor to peel off a portion of the fleet, overwhelm it with numbers, then use Hyperspace translight drives to overtake the fleet again and destroy the next segment. I guess the limiting factors would be: How many can they peel of and still be confident of destroying them? Can they be precise enough with the interdictor to peel off around that number? How many times a day can they perform the maneuver? How long/often can they sustain this without significant downtime for maintenance rest and resupply? And how long would the fleet have to stand down before resuming intercept/destroy operations?
Not a ID
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Not a ID »

JNMC wrote: Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:16 am Five years = 1825 days. Each day they could use an interdictor to peel off a portion of the fleet, overwhelm it with numbers, then use Hyperspace translight drives to overtake the fleet again and destroy the next segment.
This actually WAS brought up previously. Every ship involved in "harassment" actions is also a ship they NEED for defense of the Milky Way. They also have to expect to take losses, be they permanent ones(ship destruction), to more variable degrees of "availability disruption" due to needing repairs themselves.

The advantage they certainly have is the use of Gates and Hyperspace FTL lets them cover a LOT of territory in very short order. Their "logistics tail" is much shorter, to the point of virtual non-existence with the gates. Likewise, they can have a heavily damaged ship tow it back for repairs and have repairs underway in earnest within days of a particular skirmish. While the Benga fleet is going to be left with either leaving ships behind, or "making do" with what repairs can be done enroute.

Which is where that means the Galactic transit is going to be primarily a "3D" undertaking with some fleet support. That is why I posted earlier saying the initial objective, at least for the first 2 to 3 years, shouldn't be to destroy as many of the ships as possible. But rather to (seriously) damage as many ships as possible. But more on that in a bit.
I guess the limiting factors would be: How many can they peel of and still be confident of destroying them? Can they be precise enough with the interdictor to peel off around that number? How many times a day can they perform the maneuver? How long/often can they sustain this without significant downtime for maintenance rest and resupply? And how long would the fleet have to stand down before resuming intercept/destroy operations?
If they're being clever, they're going to be "seeding" regions of space with all kinds of 3D nasty in addition to the interdictors, with varying levels of fleet support elements mixed in. Sometimes they'll have a large fleet engage the Benga, other times they'll just have a small token fleet present to pick off one or two super ships before they(the Confederation) cuts and runs. Basically keeping things random enough to ensure that the Benga can't be too certain about what's going to be waiting for them when they get forced out of hyperspace.

It probably wouldn't "hurt" too much if during part of that process, they actually did establish a pattern briefly just to "encourage" the Benga to start spewing missiles or whatever else on reflex every time they get punted out. Then interdict them a couple times where nothing else happens.

Another interesting question to pose would be:

Is it possible to perform an intercept within hyperspace? I'm not talking about interdiction in this particular context. I'm talking more on the order of (modern day) Missile Defense Systems where you try to shoot down (Ballistic) Missiles with another Missile(or a hail of bullets). I'd be inclined to suspect that the mathematics behind trying to do that, at least with regards to non-FTL transits of Hyperspace, would be slightly less involved than what they're doing to travel FTL while in Hyperspace. (Maybe something of a very steeply increasing difficulty curve as the speed of a given object within Hyperspace increases) That the Benga Ships also happen to present comparatively large targets as well just also happens to make things a little bit easier as well. Instead of trying to hit a golf-ball, you're shooting at a beach ball instead. :twisted:

Because the reality is, I suspect an interdiction strategy, in and of itself, isn't going to be particularly effective in the long run. That and I'd suspect a collision event in hyperspace would be positively nasty for anybody involved. (And maybe even the region of "real space" where it happens)
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by SYED »

They could build special bombardment ships capable of launching a lot of fire power at extreme long rang distances. With karrine mobility, they could strike benga secure territory targeting key and valuable installations. With hyper missiles they don't even need to be in the same system. Imagine those missiles combined with the benga compact anti matter warhead tech.
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Not a ID
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Not a ID »

SYED wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:45 am They could build special bombardment ships capable of launching a lot of fire power at extreme long rang distances. With karrine mobility, they could strike benga secure territory targeting key and valuable installations. With hyper missiles they don't even need to be in the same system. Imagine those missiles combined with the benga compact anti matter warhead tech.
I'd suspect any such hyperspace missile/projectile is going to require a hyperspace drive of its own the moment it slips out of the "bubble" of the ship it launched from. Of course, if it has its own drive, nothing says the ship/vehicle launching it even needs to be in hyperspace, maybe the weapons itself does that.

Which in turn helps possibly put yet another "check" on how out-of-hand that could get. As "duds" that fail to detonate should be expected to happen, and that means that whatever such projectiles would need, there is certain tech they're going to NOT want to employ in order to do so(as they have to expect at least a small handful to be intercepted/captured at some point). Which isn't to say there aren't ways to get around some of that, as they've already done with some other things. :D (IE a separate biogenic device/craft serving as a relay for the other equipment, be it a drone itself, or an actual ship with crew onboard)

But an unmanned missile is still going to require a lot less of a drive than a crewed ship should need, as there is no need for life support, or spaces in which the crew operates. And being fully expendable, albeit expensively so(compared to an individual GRAF Cannon shot for example), provides other (harassment) options to them with significantly reduced risk to others.

Needless to say, "the Math behind it" for a hyperspace missile/projectile should be complex enough to be very processor intensive, and require enough information such that using them in a intra-galactic context(say 2 minutes or so) isn't particularly practical without regard to how advanced the processors are you throw at it. Although on the intra-galactic side of things, a large part of "the problem" would be location of your missile vs location of your presumed target. But as the Benga are making an inter-galactic journey, are (comparatively) limited on routes they can take(relative to the Milky Way), and are going to be in transit for years, rather than minutes, their super-fleet is creating a proverbial shooting gallery for anybody that can take such a shot.

Another knock-on effect, even if hyper-space weapons become more widely available across the confederacy in general, and they proved to be particularly useful even at closer ranges, is that it would significantly increase the strategic importance of the Gates. As a gate transit isn't vulnerable to such things.

Of course, I'd be slightly concerned about what could happen should somebody aim such a hyperspace weapon at a planet for example, but that may be overblown as I'd think THAT issue would have come up already with regards to "navigation failures" of ships making hyperspace transits. As I don't seem to recall any stories about planets/cities being devastated by such things, just the ships themselves.
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Friendly »

One line in this chapter that was a little jarring was about the marriage bracer made of "comprressed neutronium." That much degenerate neutron matter would have a mass of (at least) millions of tons. :-)
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Fel
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Fel »

Nah, but it is fairly heavy.
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Greymist »

Also it could be super thin, to negate some of the weight issues.
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kyli
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by kyli »

Greymist wrote: Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:09 pm Also it could be super thin, to negate some of the weight issues.
If it's too thin, it would cut like a razor.
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Greymist
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Greymist »

kyli wrote: Fri Jun 29, 2018 2:24 pm
Greymist wrote: Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:09 pm Also it could be super thin, to negate some of the weight issues.
If it's too thin, it would cut like a razor.
Fine, super thin with rolled edges :p
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Friendly »

A material with a density of 4 * 10 ^ 17 kg per cubic meter isn't suitable for jewelry no matter how thin it is or how well-rounded its edges are. LOL.
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by JNMC »

I missed that one. I generally try not to look too closely at science fiction 'science' because it tends to go against the suspension of disbelief. The one from the Subjugation series that really jumped out at me was the species that could only fly (I forget the exact numbers) because their planet had three quarters normal gravity but the atmospheric density was half again as high, or something like that. Since one of the primary factors of gaseous density is the pressure, i.e. gravitational force, it's under, I have to wonder what kind of weird gaseous mix their atmosphere is to accomplish such a state. Then I pretty much put it out of my mind because it, at least so far, doesn't have much to do with the story itself, just more of Fel's dressing it up to have a complete universe.
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Re: Retrubution Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

Post by Wolfee »

JNMC wrote: Sat Jun 30, 2018 4:13 am I missed that one. I generally try not to look too closely at science fiction 'science' because it tends to go against the suspension of disbelief. The one from the Subjugation series that really jumped out at me was the species that could only fly (I forget the exact numbers) because their planet had three quarters normal gravity but the atmospheric density was half again as high, or something like that. Since one of the primary factors of gaseous density is the pressure, i.e. gravitational force, it's under, I have to wonder what kind of weird gaseous mix their atmosphere is to accomplish such a state. Then I pretty much put it out of my mind because it, at least so far, doesn't have much to do with the story itself, just more of Fel's dressing it up to have a complete universe.

Agreed, love science fiction... you need to suspend disbelief... if the author made all the scientific points 100% correct you probably wouldn't enjoy the story.
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