|
| If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|||||||
| Register | FAQ | Members List | Calendar | Mark Forums Read |
![]() |
|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
|||
|
That reminds me of something from one of my "novels" (actually stories I came up with but which will never really be written, nevermind published). A population secretly developed surface-to-space missiles, knowing that they could and would be shot down on launch by orbiting weapon satellites. But they built a bunch and launched them together, in swarms. Each cluster's outermost missiles were indeed shot down, but having them go first protected the ones in the middle of the group because they'd just have to be hit later in the order, and it took long enough for the inner ones to reach escape velocity & altitude, drop their engines, and coast away past the satellite network on inertia alone, thus creating no emissions to alert the satellite network to their existence. Drifting cold on the trajectory they'd been given before dropping their engines, they then completed a slingshot maneuver around the moon and came back in to strike the satellites from above/behind a few days later, using only minor little lateral thrusts for final guidance.
|
|
|||
|
I was always impressed with the idea of the "stasis field" put forth in The Forever War, which not only set an absolute speed limit of so-many meters per second, but which neutralized all electromagnetic activity. In the novel, this protects the soldiers inside from laser fire, bombs, and missiles, but forces hand-to-hand combat.
__________________
"He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River." --Anonymous |
|
|||
|
my favorite tactic is when they sit nose to nose with the enemy ship, and the captain orders the deflector dish to be energized..
__________________
"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion The.. Best.. Thread..Ever... |
|
||||
|
My favorite is from one of Brin's Uplift books, where the dolphin ship dumps most of its water in the path of the pursuing ships,
__________________
An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people. Cincinnati Enquirer headline about Emperor Norton I
|
|
||||
|
Quote:
Novaderrik's and Romanus' examples break known physics.
__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint. |
|
||||
|
To make it clear, I want to stick to known physics. Otherwise, the most creative tactic is "hypometric weapons" from Reynold's Absolution Gap -- your enemies (or parts of your enemies, if you are feeling "creative") simply disappear. Indistinguishable from magic. And when Inhibitors adapted, hypometric weapons "simply stopped working against them". Bigger magic.
Although Absolution Gap had some creative tactics within realm of possible. Such as what happens when two relativistic starships are travelling from one star to another at same speed, one few light-hours ahead of the other? Keep in mind that "throw ball bearings in the path of pursuer" is not particularly effective because ball bearings will retain velocity and just keep on alongside the lead ship. Anything you care to throw from either ship to the other must be accelerated, and thus can not be completely invisible.
__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint. |
|
|||
|
Quote:
How big are these ships? You have a ship that is big enough to have a railgun powerful enough to accelerate to 100kps, is that standard? How did they hide the reaction of the firing? (the chinese ship would change course) |
|
|||
|
Quote:
I keep doing that. Thanks for the correction. http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/rediscovery.htm |
|
|||
|
I'm still waiting to hear of something cooler than Han Solo clamping onto the backside of a star destroyer.
![]() In the real physics category, Europa Strike is pretty cool, but I'm going to have to go with pretty much the entire last chapter of Footfall - especially the gamma ray lasers |
|
||||
|
Wouldn't wrapping them in superconducting materials and a Faraday cage do the trick? Superconductors exclude magnetic fields , they can't pass through.
__________________
If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits |
|
||||
|
Quote:
Who is going to man them? We have volunteers. My favorite from that battle is definitely the stovepipes.
__________________
An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people. Cincinnati Enquirer headline about Emperor Norton I
|
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
|||
|
Only going into what I seen and read—and not in too much detail at that—I'd have to say the atmosphere jump in Battlestar Galactica and the ending of Ender's Game.
Wow...my post looks so lame compared to the ones above. ![]()
__________________
|
|
||||
|
I've always enjoyed the way the troopers landed in Heinlein's Starship Troopers. (the book! not the movie!)
One of the Firefly episodes is pretty funny where Walsh is piloting the Serenity though a winding canyon to escape, and the pursuers are casually cruising above it. |
|
|||
|
tell that to Captain Picard..
__________________
"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion The.. Best.. Thread..Ever... |
|
||||
|
I don't think measurements were explicitely given, but my impression was on the order of modern naval shis. 100-200 meters, and fusion-powered.
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint. |