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Son of a... Winter hit Alberta with a vengeance. I guess mother nature is trying to make up in one day for the nice weather we had through late December. My Accord's heater couldn't keep up, so I was freezing in the car, even with thick gloves on, and only 1/3 of the windows were clear. I finally bit the bullet and ordered the warmest pair of gloves I could find (non-heated). It's frightening when you have pay almost as much for gloves as you do for a parka. I subsequently read a review froom a member of the Canadian Ski Patrol, who considers the Black Diamond Guide gloves to be perfect for what they do. There are even warmer, heated gloves, but they cost as much as my first used VW, so I'm not that desperate yet.

I have another possible approach that doesn't involve an explicit 4th dimension: the Imperials can shoot some form of energy that can travel through shields. That's what I had originally.

Since that's too much like magic, I added that the weapon fires through hyperspace, where there are no shields, and when it encounters the hull of the target ship, the fired energy drops out of hyperspace, having skipped over the 3D shields, and hits the hull in 3D space, where the hull actually exists. Of course, this requires handwavium as to why the energy traveling through hyperspace "knows" the 3D ship is there. One of the mysteries of energy, I guess.

This is rather long, but it eliminates the need for bigger guns, which Star Wars has done to death:

Potayto. Potahto.

Slight tweak. I've gone back to hyperspace as the name of my story's extra dimension(s). I'm going to be intentionally vague since I don't want to suggest that my extra dimension is in any way related to the 4th spacial dimension of string theory, where the math says the extra dimensions must all be the itsy bitsy curled up ones. If I call mine hyperspace, then it falls into that classic sci-fi category known as "made up crap". The beauty of space opera.

Interestingly, I came across an article where scientists were able to test indirectly for the existence of a fourth spacial dimension, and two different teams using different tests found evidence that suggests it actually exists. It's not conclusive proof, but a cool result nevertheless.

I punted hyperspace as a term hours ago. I also ignored the fact that the fourth dimension is often considered to be time. I'll just have to be explicit. To simplify the writeup, I've said that all matter in our normal universe has 4 "physical" dimensions, of which we can normally only experience 3. Also, rather than 4D cannons, I've decided to give the Hercules a huge emitter on the hull, which she can use to open a hole into the 4th dimension of space, through which she can then fire a full barrage of supernova blasts at the unshielded portion of the Colonial ships. Where the extraordinary need for power will come into play is in opening the hole.

Just thought of another plot hole, though. If the Hercules wants to dump huge amounts of power into the emitter, all she has to do is install another powertron just for that (admittedly they're huge and they eat atreidite for breakfast). Then there would be no risk of overloading the existing powertron.  Crap like this has been happening to me all day. Fix one thing, break another. I'm going to bed. I'll try to figure it out tomorrow.

[Censored!]

One definition of hyperspace I read usually involves extra dimensions where the laws of physics are different than in our dimensions, allowing ships to go faster than light. It's a concept invented by an SF author in the early 1900s and used by many others, including Asimov in his Foundation novels.

I'm considering calling mine extraspace, but it probably fits the definition of hyperspace too. Specifically, all objects that exist in spacetime also exist in my version of hyperspace, which is merely a fourth "physical" dimension of those objects. If you hit an enemy ship's fourth dimension with an energy beam fired into hyperspace, that foreign energy is expelled from hyperspace at the point of collision between the energy beam and the ship's fourth dimension.

I don't actually mention hyperspace when it comes to the operation of my stardrives. I simply call it teleportation and leave the "how" to the reader's imagination. But I do refer to hyperspace (or extraspace) for how the hypercannons work. The firing ship doesn't itself enter hyperspace, but the cannons are able to fire into it, resulting in an energy beam that bypasses the target ship's shields (which only exist in the first three dimensions) and strikes the hull of the ship.

Dune had a book dedicated to the period/characters who invented their drive mechanism. They went into some details, but I don't recall how much.

Thanks, njc. Energy kicking back and causing a potential explosion onboard the Hercules (the firing vessel) could be very useful. I had previously used the idea that firing the (mattergy) cannons could overload and damage the Hercules's powertron (power source), but since I now have the ship firing through hyperspace, some kind of unpredictable blowback would serve to render the technology unusable in the long run, regardless of how powerful the powertrons eventually become. That fits well since I don't want this particular tech to remain a part of the story beyond the initial battle.

Below is the proposed replacement for those idiotic mattergy weapons in the opening battle.

Aussie said, “She’s charging her new cannons.”
“Analyze!” St. James said.
“Based on their energy signature, I believe those are hyperspace weapons, able to fire at a target through a higher dimension. Whatever energy makes it through hyperspace to its target would effectively bypass our shields, which don’t exist there. Development and use of such weapons is strictly prohibited by the Neuer Mond Treaty.”
“Since when has that ever stopped the Imperium? Weaknesses?”
“The beam such a weapon fires is known to spread out very quickly in higher dimensions, obeying the inverse cube law. By the time it hits the target back in spacetime, it has lost considerable energy to space. As a result, such weapons require enormous energy to fire a blast strong enough so that the energy that hits the target still has sufficient punch to penetrate a ship’s hull.
“The Hercules must be bypassing its powertron’s safety limits  to concentrate sufficient energy to fire, risking a breach. Many of her other systems are dropping off to compensate.”

Following is the list of finalists for groups to keep following the upcoming redo of the group purge/cleanup:

Basic
Premium
Romance
Historical Fiction
Thriller/Mystery/Suspense
Fantasy/Magic/Sci-fi - currently still called medieval fantasy/magic
Young Adult & New Adult
Spirituality & Religion
Memoirs & Self-discovery
Dark Tales - includes Gothic thrillers, horror, vampire/werewolf stories, etc.
New Authors - this will combine the existing groups New Novelists and New Members
Writing Tips & Site Help

Nobody spoke up for the following, so they won't be kept:

This is Us
You Read Mine, I Read Yours
Literary Fiction

Only the Dark Tales group will be truly new. We can add to the above list down the road as needed. However, since we can only each belong to ten groups, no one will be able to join them all, which means we'll need volunteer moderators to keep a collective eye on the groups as a whole.

Please add to this thread if there are any of the above you would be willing to moderate going forward. I know groups can have more than one moderator, although I don't know if there's an upper limit. Based on past experience, being a moderator really only involves keeping an eye out for problems and welcoming/guiding new group members, who are usually new site members as well. However, it assumes you'll be onsite often enough to serve in that role. Ideally, we should have at least 2 moderators per group.

I'll probably be a moderator for most of them initially, at least until I can finish the post-purge cleanup steps. I don't have the cycles yet to kick that off, and I haven't even approached Sol as to when he might have time to redo the mass purge.

In cases where two or more groups are being "combined", that really just means we'll rename one of the existing ones (to give it its new name) and then delete the other ones.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!
Dirk

I'm probably going to end up with either the Sweltering or the Albuma (winds). I lean toward the latter.

I narrowed it down to:
The Egg Poacher
The Sweltering
The Simmering
The Bitch-In-Heat

Any other forms of cooking I missed in the previous post?