Sennadar Forums

Quindo Ma wrote:So while a revolt in such a way might be plannable, this story is not theirs. We follow Jason, and his life.

This is true, but there can be problems when an author allows only the main character(s) to take intelligent, brave, and/or noble action. We are apparently getting close to the end now, and we still don't know much about how things are on Earth. Despite the date being very fixed, and the Faey being quite well developed, it comes close to being a 'Nowhere Nowhen' story. We won't know what version of Earth they're trying to save. Fel only gives vague hints that could go either way.

I haven't kept up to date on all the postings in this thread, but I was wondering if anyone had proposed this idea for a variance on some weapons Jason has created.
Jason could modify the technology of his railgun to fire hollow rounds filled with those magnetic balls he let loose on the Faey space station. If mounted on a starship, this could be doubly effective in breaching a hull while causing major internal damage. It would probably be just as useful in attacking grounded targets, such at buildings.
So what do you guys think?

Halcyon wrote:I haven't kept up to date on all the postings in this thread, but I was wondering if anyone had proposed this idea for a variance on some weapons Jason has created.
Jason could modify the technology of his railgun to fire hollow rounds filled with those magnetic balls he let loose on the Faey space station. If mounted on a starship, this could be doubly effective in breaching a hull while causing major internal damage. It would probably be just as useful in attacking grounded targets, such at buildings.
So what do you guys think?

Hmm, I think it would have too much speed, that the marble would just explode out the other side of the ship..

Plus there is the issue of the differing Magnetic Fields. The Marbles were contained in a magnetic field. A rail gun/gauss gun uses magnetic induction to move a projectile through its barrel. It does so by varying the fields to move said projectile along. This would interfere with the containment of the Marble. Not impossible to calculate but it would always be changing because of localized conditions.

J-Man5

I remember somewhere a typical armed drop ship had a 10MJ shield. In a simplistic interpretation, Jason's rail gun (170kJ) lacks the power to punch through this.

If the vehicle is unshielded, then you could fire marbles straight from the rail gun. What makes them work is a property of Faey ship hulls, which wouldn't be an issue until after they punch through the outer hull. A problem is that once they do this it will take the marbles time to build up speed again. Also if the skin is too thin (like a 747 or a stick) the marble will just pass through and cause little damage.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a lot of discussion on what Jason could do with the Karinne's tech and Faey tech. Making an stew so to speak of all the best tech he could get from both worlds... I'm too tired to come up with anything right now, but maybe after I've slept for a few minutes... reprogramming people is hard work...

Well I suppose that with the Karinne hyperspace technology, Jason could always find a military application for it, like say launching large objects or explosives into an object at hyperspeed. That would be effective in taking out targets in realtime as compared to trying the same thing with current Faey tech.

Halcyon wrote:Well I suppose that with the Karinne hyperspace technology, Jason could always find a military application for it, like say launching large objects or explosives into an object at hyperspeed. That would be effective in taking out targets in realtime as compared to trying the same thing with current Faey tech.

like said earlier... skipper missles. Dissapear when you fire them, come back into real space when they are inside the enemy ship. And since we know that you can't do a hyperspace jump inside of the gravity well, assumedly because it would cause damage to either the ship or planet, a missle could again do a hyperspace jump and damage the inside of the enemy ship. its an idea anyway.

~Michael

Could he use hyperspace to drop his marbles into the bridge of a ship?

lapland wrote:Could he use hyperspace to drop his marbles into the bridge of a ship?

If he could do it marbles, he could also do it with a PPG core. I think he's implied elsewhere that solid objects can't be put into or taken out of a PPG. If it wasn't impossible you could put a human into one and they woudl be immune to telepathy (because of the compressed distance inside) and could still operate machines the 'PPG' is connected to.

See earlier pages for similar discussions.

How about this idea, since we're still talking about the marbles. Jason made some sort of gun that could charge the marbles with kinetic energy, at varying levels, and then fire them. Obviously he would need some sort of containment shielding to keep his gun from exploding, but I think he could do it.

Halcyon wrote:How about this idea, since we're still talking about the marbles. Jason made some sort of gun that could charge the marbles with kinetic energy, at varying levels, and then fire them. Obviously he would need some sort of containment shielding to keep his gun from exploding, but I think he could do it.

The problem with all this is the fact that if the marbles have enough Speed to pierce an object, they already have enough speed to keep going..

Hearly wrote:

Halcyon wrote:How about this idea, since we're still talking about the marbles. Jason made some sort of gun that could charge the marbles with kinetic energy, at varying levels, and then fire them. Obviously he would need some sort of containment shielding to keep his gun from exploding, but I think he could do it.

The problem with all this is the fact that if the marbles have enough Speed to pierce an object, they already have enough speed to keep going..

Nope, because they lose a lot of the kinetic power when they punch through something.

Remember, when the marbles were let loose in Orbital One, they punched through the walls and then got lost in the space between walls until they'd regained enough energy to punch through again.

The idea of shooting them is fine, you just have to make sure you give them the kinetic energy to punch through once, but not twice.

Lochar wrote: Nope, because they lose a lot of the kinetic power when they punch through something.

Remember, when the marbles were let loose in Orbital One, they punched through the walls and then got lost in the space between walls until they'd regained enough energy to punch through again.

The idea of shooting them is fine, you just have to make sure you give them the kinetic energy to punch through once, but not twice.

Not sure how the numbers would play out, but would assume after 1 bounce it would get enough to punch back out?

To me it would just be easier to use a railgun type weapon.

Hearly wrote:To me it would just be easier to use a railgun type weapon.

My feeling also. KE weapons are usually more effective if they break up after penetration to the vulnerable bits. In rifles this is a shot gun effect. In hypervelocity tank rounds (slow by railgun standards) the round vaporises and then the metal burns in the air; almost like a fuel air explosive. And then, "Pop goes the turret."

On the whole it might be better to have the round explode inside the vehicle, rather than merely bounce around.

PS: 'Shot gun effect' as in 'cone of damage'. Would you have preferred 'claymore' effect? As opposed to a pencil thin line of damage inside.