Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi → The Archangel Syndrome
The Warming/the Albuma winds is now the Basting, a contemptuous term intended to convey the notion that the Earth is cooking people in their own juices (sweat). Requires virtually no explanation, unlike the Albuma winds, whose explanation was too long/tangential.
Basting is good since it's concise and you're basting in your own sweat.
This is rather long, but it eliminates the need for bigger guns, which Star Wars has done to death:
“Based on its energy signature, other characteristics, and my knowledge of relevant research, I believe the dish’s purpose is to create an opening into hyperspace. I’ll know more if they actually try to do so.”
“And the reason for such an opening?”
“As you know, all matter in the universe, including our ships, has a fourth spatial dimension. It exists in hyperspace, about which we know very little. Therefore, our shields were never designed to work there, leaving our ships’ fourth dimension unprotected.”
St. James’s eyes widened. She looked at the captain and the colonel. “If they can enter hyperspace, our entire fleet would be wide open to them!”
“Unlikely. The energy required to create an opening between dimensions large enough for a warship can be calculated based on well-established theorems and is far beyond the output of even the largest powertrons.”
Spirits said, “For now.”
St. James asked, “What would happen if they fire conventional weapons — supernova beams or missiles — into hyperspace?”
“Unknown.”
“Speculate.”
“It is unlikely they would have deployed an emitter on the Hercules unless they believed they could fire into hyperspace with some degree of accuracy, effectiveness, and safety.
“So, all they really need is a hole big enough to shoot through.”
“Correct.”
“How long will the hole remain open?”
“3.1415 seconds — the value of π.”
“Do they have enough power to create a five-meter-wide opening each time they want to fire?”
“Barely. They’ll need to exceed their powertron’s safety limits to dangerous levels. She’s already begun to divert power from other systems.”
St. James turned to Spirits. “Captain, evacuate all areas within the ship close to our hull, and reroute the extra power to our critical shields. Have our other ships do the same.”
Aussie said, “Shields will be useless against it, Admiral.”
“The HKs are still out there. And if that dish is not what you think it is, I don’t intend to get caught with my britches down.”
Initial comments:
1. Dish? I imagine a big thing hanging off the ship. Also, does the dish always create the hole in front of the dish (ship)? It just seems clumsy or clunky. Remember the cloaking devise the Romulans used? Wasn't it internal to the ship? But you need some external geometry to have this discussion. I would make it sound more streamline.
2. "As you know" seems rather old fashioned or trying to spell it out too much.
3. You wrote: "Therefore, our shields were never designed to work there, leaving our ships’ fourth dimension unprotected.” I ASSUME you mean that the ships 4th dimension is sort of a portal (?). I'm trying to wrap my brain around my own personal 4th dimension.
4. I would spell out π. Pi or pi.
5. Great discussion on trying to explain what's going on. I'm confused though since apparently the blast can skip the shields and appear interior to the ship (?). Your average techno geek might enjoy this.
Hmm. Great feedback. I didn't realize how confusing my descriptions were.
1. Yeah, I didn't copy over the description of the dish and it's location. My bad. If you're going to beam something into space, you should pretty much have some sort of external gizmo to actually do the beaming. Previously, it was massive guns. Now it's a big parabolic dish. Normally partially recessed into the forward hull, it extends forward/out when in use, so it can beam in pretty much any direction except backward. Not sure what you mean by streamlined.
2. I used "as you know" to provide information to the reader that St. James would know. If scientists discovered/proved that we are 4 dimensional beings, I would expect an admiral to know that. I'll see if I can write it without the as you know.
3. Not a portal. If I said you were a four dimensional being (but the 4th dimension is not visible to you), I would think you'd have to imagine something rather weird since humans don't think in 4D (eg look up tesseract for an example of such weirdness).
4. Ok
5. The blast doesn't appear inside the ship, nor does it skip the shields. Perhaps this is clearer: imagine (in 3D) that the back of your ship is unshielded and the enemy could hit you from behind. The back of your ship is simply one side (the 4th) of your three dimensional ship. By comparison, the ship's 4th dimension is similar to it having a "fifth" side. That fifth side has no shields, and the Imperium has figured out a way to see it and shoot at it. If you breach the ship's fifth side, it's just as deadly as if you had breached one of the other sides of the ship. Since it's the 4th dimension of the ship, it must exist in hyperspace (anything greater than 3 dimensions is hyper, by definition).
Looks like the new approach may be too complicated to explain easily/quickly. Not good.
Thanks, George.
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.
How about something that disrupts the shield? Like a photon torpedo (Star Trek) which causes intense ripples in the shield? Then the energy blasts through the rippled/compromised area. Or a plasma comprised of radioactive something like Helium. It causes a fusion explosion that blows holes into the shield which is followed by other weapons.
It can't be torpedoes because it needs to be a weapon that eventually overloads the Hercules's powertron and cripples key systems, including her weapons and her stardrive. Also, it needs to be so dangerous to the firing ship that the Imperium abandons them, otherwise they'd be in the next two battles, which I can't have. It also has to be something the Colonies learn how to protect themselves from as a result of the data returned by St. James (the Colonies deploy a solution on all Colonial ships shortly thereafter to better resist the weapon's effects, rendering it obsolete).
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.
This is just evolution! Survival of the fittest. Be strong, grin, and survive. Canadians might take over some day. A chunk of the US is getting hit as well. I probably won't go to church on Sunday. Online services! Yeah!
Supposedly, living in a warm climate (NY/NJ) thins the blood somewhat, but after 8 years back in Canada, I'm still waiting for it to thicken. :-)
One cool thing, though, a new medication I'm on makes me warm enough I can keep the thermostat down by 5+ degrees and be totally comfortable. Weird side effect.
I'm not sure I've ever heard of a side effect like that. Interesting and useful.
-55C in Edmonton. Nice.
Btw Jupiter is sitting at -110 right now. You're half way there!
-55C in Edmonton. Nice.
Btw Jupiter is sitting at -110 right now. You're half way there!
You know it's cold when Alexa switches to Kelvin. LoL
Avg Temp on Jupiter = 163K = -110C
Surface = 125K = -148C
Core = 24K-36K °K = ~24K-36K °C
Looks quite toasty inside Jupiter.
This is just evolution! Survival of the fittest.
I pity whoever gets caught in this weather with a broken down car. Someone going from a heated garage at home to a heated garage at work, or the reverse, is likely to get very complacant, especially those young enough to reproduce. Which reminds me, I need to order a better blanket for the car. Or a winter-weight down comforter. 
If I want to measure the length of the 4th spatial dimension of a hypercube, is there a name for what I'm measuring? In other words, length, width, height, and ??? I've seen it called both depth and Q online, but those don't seem to be universal terms. And are there terms for the length of other, even higher dimensions?
Thanks
Dirk
In one of mine I did l,w,h,anode (mirrored cathode).
Past four, things get exponentially complex and you'll have diminishing returns. I remember trying to hit 6-d and re-reading it later, things get incomprehensible.
I think I finally have an acceptable replacement for mattergy cannons. It's way simpler/shorter than my recent parabolic dish writeup.
Aussie said, “She’s charging her new cannons.”
“Analyze!” St. James said.
“Based on their fluctuating signature, other characteristics, and my knowledge of relevant research, I believe those are hypercannons — weapons able to fire through hyperspace, specifically the fourth spatial dimension.
“Fire at what?”
“Us, Admiral! Although our ship is not technically present in the fourth dimension, we do intersect with it. Just as a point bisects a line, and a line bisects a square, our ship bisects a hypershape surrounding us in 4D space. According to fringe theories, if an energy beam were fired at us through hyperspace and struck our intersection with it, that energy might return to spacetime and strike our hull, having completely bypassed our shields by coming at us from the fourth dimension. We have no defense against that except the hull itself.
Very well written. The intersection part is very good. However, why would it bypass the shields and hit the hull? Are you saying that the shields don't intersect but the hull does?
Wouldn't they be toast with all the time they're taking to explain things? It must take a while to charge the weapons.
Correct. The ship intersects with hyperspace, but the energy of the shields doesn't. Coming at the ship from hyperspace is like coming at a "fifth" side of the ship where there are no defenses.
There has to be some minimal explanation here for the reader to follow it. This write-up is about 1/3 the length of the one with the dish. And, yes, it takes time and a lot of energy to charge this weapon since it has to open a hole into hyperspace before the energy beam is fired.
I finally came up with a theoretically possible future power source to serve as the core of powertrons: neutrinos. Fusion will still be used for smaller power sources. The only down side of both neutrinos and fusion is that neither will come close to doing that implode-explode thing when the powertron is breached. Perhaps something about the way energy is "gathered" from neutrinos makes imp-exp explosions possible. Hard to imagine though since researchers are talking about neutrino-powered smartphones and electric cars in the coming decade(s). Apparently it's not a particularly dangerous tech.
Perhaps if I use neutrons (from an artificial baby neutron star in engineering) rather than neutrinos....
I finally came up with a theoretically possible future power source to serve as the core of powertrons: neutrinos. Fusion will still be used for smaller power sources. The only down side of both neutrinos and fusion is that neither will come close to doing that implode-explode thing when the powertron is breached. Perhaps something about the way energy is "gathered" from neutrinos makes imp-exp explosions possible. Hard to imagine though since researchers are talking about neutrino-powered smartphones and electric cars in the coming decade(s). Apparently it's not a particularly dangerous tech.
Perhaps if I use neutrons (from an artificial baby neutron star in engineering) rather than neutrinos....
I found a paper entitled "Neutrino-antineutrino annihilation around a collapsar".
It has neutrinos, antineutrinos, annihilation, and a collapsing collapsar (star going through gravitational collapsing).
https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//fu … 9.000.html
And, apparently, within the cold fusion process you can get neutrinos and antineutrinos emitted. With enough arm waving can you use this to create a car collapse/explosion or a ship collapse/explosion?
I really like fusion because hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. It's a natural energy source.
George FLC
Thanks, George. I'll check out the article. Whichever power source will get me closest to a little crunch/bang when things go wrong is the one I should probably go with. I figured I'd try to use something different for the big ships, rather than just good old fusion for all my power needs.
By the way, since the are billions of neutrinos passing through us every second, I figured that would make a good alternative power source.
I did not try to read the article. I just like some of the words it used (antineutrino sounds cool) and that it included collapsing.
Correction: there are 100 trillion neutrinos passing through us every second.
Interesting quirk: Even a banana emits neutrinos—they come from the natural radioactivity of the potassium in the fruit. If only I could come up with some way to efficiently concentrate potassium to the point where the result produces enough neutrinos to be a useful source of energy.
Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi → The Archangel Syndrome
