Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi → The Archangel Syndrome
Kill me now. If I convert electromagnetic energy to some other form (call it hokey energy) that can be fired "like" EM radiation (e.g. a beam out of a superweapon), am I not still stuck with the inverse square law? I had hoped that a hokey beam would diverge much more quickly than EM radiation, but now I wonder if that even makes sense given the laws of physics...
I don't recommend *overly* worrying about physics.
After all, if you can "see" a laser being fired, it's probably not a laser but rather something much slower.
It's probably also wasting energy into the visible spectrum in some direction other than it's going (eg has a moving point of emission (effusion?) or other)
If your ship's computers can "see" an attack before it strikes, the attack was already slower than light or there's handwavium.
If you can see a turret "warming up" (before shooting a light blast) you might ask how so much infrared energy escaped and how such radiation eclipsed higher energy signatures.
am I not still stuck with the inverse square law?
Well, yes, until you need magic to break it. Will you adhere to known rules or will you side-step when required?
I was hoping not to outright contradict too many pesky laws of physics other than the ones that most space operas usually rely on as well. If something clearly violates physics, then I would have preferred to conjure up a bit of technobabble to explain why.
>After all, if you can "see" a laser being fired, it's probably not a laser but rather something much slower.
I've seen lasers with a continuous beam, mostly in lab photos, but also at concerts. So those must be in the visible spectrum, making the light beam itself visible within visible light, or is none of that the actual laser but rather what the beam passes through, as someone on Quora suggests below as well? Obviously, you can fire something that's not visible to humans at all, but I'm assuming they're firing something visible. So, would all those lasers under Google images be invisible in space? If so, that's cool, but annoying for me.
>from Quora:
>If you fire a laser through perfectly clear, clean air, it's invisible. What you're seeing when you see a beam of light (any beam of light, not just a laser) is >the beam illuminating something in its path - it could be dust, smoke, steam
I had no idea.
I might be able to salvage my current write-up by having the "loss" of energy occur when the incoming EM energy from the annihilator is converted to hokey energy, which is what the new weapon fires, rather than after the weapon is fired and somehow diverges faster than EM energy.
Cacas!
Some variant of mattergy is beginning to sound better all the time. Grrr.
How about firing a lightning bolt or a positron bolt (antielectron)? People see lightning storms regularly, so they won't wonder too much about the physics. If the electron and positron bolts collide at the target, then gamma rays are emitted. Bad.
This is a little similar to Star Trek's photon torpedoes that were composed of antimatter hitting matter and gamma rays were emitted.
But I think we only see lightning bolts because of the atmosphere heating up. Hmm. There would have to be debris in space which might be doable if you're a planet... I guess.
How about a weapon that momentarily rips through or tears up space-time. The tear or gash leaks energy which everyone can see. It's a concentrated Hadron beam weapon. I have no idea if this is feasible.
Remember, George, I'm looking for a very powerful weapon that
- has the ability to create the kind of extreme damage to St. James's destroyers caused by the mattergy guns (e.g., a single shot can plow all the way through a ship, in spite of the target's reinforced shields and hull plating)
- requires the Hercules to expend a huge quantity of energy to charge the superweapon, so much so that after a few shots/reloads, the ship's overloaded neutrino annihilator is damaged sufficiently that the Hercules can no longer fire weapons nor escape using her stardrive (i.e., the superweapon is a failure)
- since that much energy from the fired weapon could easily wipe out the destroyers without breaking a sweat, I need a way for most of that energy to not make it to the targets; ideally 2/3 to 3/4 of the energy expended by the Hercules each time she fires should somehow be lost to space, another dimension, converting the annihilator's EM energy to some hokey form the weapon can fire, etc.
- due to scaling limits on nova technology, it isn't possible to fire that much EM energy through a supernova (that would break other parts of the story), hence the need for a new weapon technology using a different form of energy, which is still roughly as destructive as EM energy (e.g., same order of magnitude)
- the solution cannot simply be a mega version of a supernova with a different name; it has to be a different weapon in certain key ways, which is proven unusable in chapter 1's combat so that it's never deployed by either side; also, it has to be possible for the Colonies to shore up ship defenses (presumably shields and more hull plating) against this weapon in the future, just in case the Imperium tries again
- I've tried all kinds of weird variations, none of which hold up as a workable solution for the battle that satisfies the above requirements and doesn't make me retch with how stupid it is; I even considered though never fully wrote up a variant in which the fired new form of energy loses much of its energy as it travels from the Hercules to the target (this last one is similar to your suggestion to open a rip in spacetime, which could then suck out much of the fired energy into another dimension); it may be time to try writing that one up
since that much energy from the fired weapon could easily wipe out the destroyers without breaking a sweat, I need a way for most of that energy to not make it to the targets;
Why? Just blow up / eradicate a few of the good-guy ships and save the weakest and last shot for St James.
They do get blown up, but I don't want them pulverized in one shot. The sister ships have roles to fill in the battle. I'm trying to keep the chapter mostly unchanged (since I like it as is), except for the details of the superweapon from hell. It's my own fault for trying to create something more interesting (e.g., firing through hyperspace, firing through time, firing something that shoots right through the shields as if they don't exist, etc.). The mattergy weapon was nothing more than a big version of supernovas using a ridiculous concept for the tech.
I'm going to try revising my latest version such that the energy in the fired shot is so great that it tears fissures into the fabric of space (to God knows where, it doesn't matter), and much of the energy is lost through those fissures, yet enough makes it to the target such that it's still a very powerful weapon, just not insanely so.
Once more unto the breach!
[censored!]
See what it took to sink Yamato: https://youtu.be/xCkfPeMls7s?si=geEOvj6M5_zd_xv- . It may give an idea of how to kill a ship slowly. Obviously your ships won't involve water. (The actual attack comes in the last third or so of the video, but Drachinifel is generally worth listening to.)
The spacetime gash allows the path to be seen which I was aiming for. Lasers, lightning bolts cannot be seen without debris or whatever. And I don't know how light sabers work. I'm not really sure what a light saber is! The gash allows you to decrease the power by whatever you want as it progresses. Linear decrease, inverse square? Who cares since it's all made up and you can be consistent about it. The ships can now calculate how much blast hits the targets based on distance. They might want to get just a little bit closer... or further away. Have fun rewriting!
Because no good idea goes unpunished, having the superweapon fire beams powerful enough to tear fissures into the fabric of space doesn't work since the superweapon fires EM energy, and the biggest objects in our universe give off way more EM energy than a superweapon ever could, without causing tears in space. I'll add that idea to the "kill me now" pile.
However, if the superweapon fires alterphasic energy (i.e., energy out of phase with our universe), that could have as little or as much destructive power as I want, and since alterphasic energy comes from outside our universe, it has a strong tendency to return to its own universe, starting from right after the energy is fired until a second or two later, when it has all disappeared. That's enough time for enough of the fired energy to disappear that what remains is sufficient to severely damage St. James's destroyers but not obliterate them in one shot.
Although energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can be "borrowed" from elsewhere in the multiverse, at least temporarily. However, in order to be able to get energy from another universe, one has to simultaneously inject some of our universe's energy into it. The multiverse dictates how much energy of type X you have to pump into another universe in order to be able to extract energy of type Y from the other universe. As a result, the Hercules has to pump a ton of EM energy into another universe, so it can extract the type of energy from there that it intends to fire. Attempting to generate all that EM energy eventually overloads the Hercules's annihilator, crippling the ship.
I have most of the alterphasic solution written up, and it holds together. Hopefully, I won't think of anything that blows it out of the water.
Good night, Seattle, we love you!
It is an electromagnetic/gravitational/quantum/time weapon. A Unified-Field-Weapon. That is why it can penetrate through force shields and then crush hulls. It tears up the time space fabric in the process. It consists of quantum particles at hyper relativistic speeds (includes time) enveloped by EM fields and gravitons and are emitted at specific frequencies. And it can be alterphasic to boot.
LOL. I'll bet you had an AI write that. :-)
Yay! The alterphasic cannons solution holds together throughout chapters 1 & 2. Finally moving on...
I need an alternate (future) expression in lieu of "like shooting fish in a barrel." I'm also trying for something funnier. My best one so far is:
Soon, the Classiarii forced their way through other hatches and targeted the Marines from three sides, picking them off as easily as shooting the pizza-stuffing elite of Rome, fat capital of the Imperium.
That one's not bad since it sounds contemptuous of Rome and its ruling elite, which isn't a bad way for St. James (POV character) to think of them at this moment. But it is rather long.
Thanks
Dirk
Shooting meatballs off a pizza? Shooting tiramasu at a Roman feast? Plinking wine goblets at a Roman feast?
Stomping on roaches in a roach motel.
Shooting stuffed elites eating stuffed pizza.
Shooting stuffed elites stuffing stuffed pizza down their stuffed throats. (Hmm. Too much?)
Shooting stuffed elites stuffing stuffed pizza down their stuffed throats. (Hmm. Too much?)
Just a wee bit.
...Shooting tiramasu at a Roman feast? Plinking wine goblets at a Roman feast?
I'm not sure if I should use Roman feasts at that point since I haven't given enough background that this is a resurrected Roman society. However, it does give me the idea to perhaps use something from history, preferably before our time.
As easily as shooting leaves off a tree
As easily as finding needles on a pine tree
As easily as stabbing Julius Caesar in the back - not too bad
As easily as finding Italians at a pizza convention 
As easily as bunnies mate
As easily as conquering France in WW2 - This is probably the one!
As easily as conquering Denmark in WW2 - 2 hours! It's funny, you don't hear about this much, but France! LoL
As easily as finding porn on Galaxinet
My fav is Julius Ceasar.
Don't use conquering France or Denmark. How insulting! You fellow citizens (Quebecers) might not like it.
Of course it's insulting. The book makes all kinds of insane commentary about modern society.
I was born in Quebec. Surely they wouldn't get upset at one of their native sons?
Okaaaaay. I'll withdraw my complaints... sort of. :-)
But my fav is still the Julius Ceasar comment.
Picking them off like wine goblets at the cardinals' feasts?
Good one, but it's for the other story. I went with Julius Caesar. The WW2 quote is too far off topic.
The other one is a variant of the elite quote: as easily as spotting the Imperial elite in Rome, fat capital of the Imperium. Of course, that one's a little rude and long. Caesar will probably win by default.
Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi → The Archangel Syndrome
