Comments on Librium Universe Infodump thread

[Comrade Tortoise]

by twilight period, I mean that people would basically have a massively extended late middle age and elderly period. You look like you are 50 for 30 years....

[rhoenix]

by twilight period, I mean that people would basically have a massively extended late middle age and elderly period. You look like you are 50 for 30 years....

Ah, I thought it was at the other end of the spectrum, where one looks 30 for 50 years.

[Shark Bait]

Curing cancer would not be enough, even if you do cure cancer you have to find a way to get brain cells to replace themselves without causing cancer. even if you don't get cancer at 100+ years your brain starts to degrade, keeping busy playing mental games can extend how long that degradation takes but in the end your brain just starts to give up. The problem is that while some brain cells can repair themselves or produce new brain cells most "long" neurons never come back when they die.

[frigidmagi]

For your consideration the Universal Republic:


Universal Republic

Languages: French 24%, English 38%, Hindi 22%, Portuguese 26%

Religions: Atheists 42%, Church of England 12%, Hindu 20%, Catholic 35%

Astrographic position: East of the Asseverate.

Brief History: The Universal Republic started as a French Utopian colony on what was then the eastern edge of explored space. It was a radical experiment in socialist/anarchist society that didn't last long, becoming a parliamentary democracy in under 3 generations. Under the Republic government life was good and the population grew to the point where secondary colonies were established. It was 300 years after the founding that the Universal Republic faced another challenge. Immigration. The first series of wars that would led to Asseverate domination of the core of human space kicked off sending ship loads of refugees off fleeing the planet killing violence. The biggest groups of refugees to flee to the Universal Republic were English, Indians and Brazilians (who had been unable to find safe passage to the Hispanic Union forming off in the western edge of space). The French natives waged a battle of laws, finances and education to keep power in the hands of Francophones. They didn't quite win, nor did they quite lose.

The right to vote, once universal to all adults was restricted to those who paid a poll tax of 10% of their earnings before government taxes and passed a “political awarenessâ€

[frigidmagi]

The Quoom:

Astrographic position: East of the Asseverate, South of the Universal Republic.

Biological Facts: The Quoom are sapient semi-aquatic endothermic egg layers. They are capable of space travel and have colonized several dozen systems. They are bipedal, with 2 legs and 2 arms. Covered in hairless leathery greenish brown skin with large black eyes and ears set under a bone ridge and a more downward facing mouth then is the norm for earth species. Their earliest ancestor was a aquatic blood sucker who evolved into carnovorehood and from there into omnivore status and finally into the Quoom of today. Due to their origins they retain the ability to drain blood from prey and a fondness for it. The Quoom reach sexual maturity at roughly 17 standard years, but tend not to actually mate until their mid-20s. A female Quoom will lay from 2 to 6 eggs per successful mating. Quoom do not mate recreationally like humans do and have a lower sex drive. Instead they have a strong desires to have children and see them grow to adulthood.

Society: They form extended family groups based off of brothers and their mates and trace their family lines via clans. Mating pairs remain together for extended periods, usually til their young reach adulthood. The families groups tend to be heavily focused on child rearing and very protective. When the children grow up the parents may mate again or choose to go their separate ways, children choose their father's or mother's clan upon adulthood. Clan membership has no real political or economic impact for the most part although the clan as a whole serves a social network and safety net for it's members. A clan member is expected to aide and protect other clan members. Nepotism isn't just accepted among the Quoom, it's expected as long as the clan member in question can show basic competence. As one Xenologist noted Quoom society can be a lot like one really big old boys network.

Government: Constitutional Elected Monarchy. The Monarch is elected from a royal clan by the population at large and serves as head of state along with a number of governmental powers. There is also a 3 chambered parliament and judicial branch whose members are selected based on age.

History: The Quoom begin on a lush watery world. Forming into clans and then extended tribal systems, to confederated city states. At this point warfare was a matter of honor and attaining ritual submission, conflict over resources being somewhat rare. This led to a style of warfare that was of raid and counter raid, attacking enemy weak points and bleeding an opposing state to surrender through asymmetric warfare. It was until industrialization occurred that direct formation dominated warfare would occur. Industrialization came late to the Quoom due to their preferred environment, the first nation to do so was in the more arid part of the world and was quick to use the advantages of industry to conquer their neighbors.

The Quoom refer to this as the 1st Imperialium. The 1st Imperialium was able to conquer or reduce to client state status most of it's hemisphere of the planet, it then began the process of colonization the other hemisphere. This was in part driven by a need for living space and resources for both it's rapidly expanding population and to feed the expanding needs of industry. At this point a rival industrial power arose and began to compete for power first by pushing out colonization efforts of the Imperialium and then uniting it's own hemisphere. Both powers fell when their technological advantage spread to the various client and conquered nations enabling them to rise up.

The 2nd Imperialium was a successor state that managed to suppress it's internal revolts via a combination of ruthless bloodletting and bribing the rebels by granting them access to the halls of power. It rose to become the most powerful nation state in that era. It's political system was unstable however, depending heavily on charismatic individuals able to forge cults of personality. This led to internal fictionalization and eventually civil war. At this point nations on the edge of the Imperialium were swift to attack and join in the blood letting and looting.

This led to a period of nation states of more or less equal power competiting for resources and dominance over each other. The technology of the Quoom was a roughly early 20th level at this point. At this point an island state that was a break away fragment of the 1st Imperialium had several organizational and technological break through, the biggest of those being the invention of radio. Led by a clan that claimed descent from the leaders of the 1st Imperialium which in that region of the world had attained a mystical quality. The royal clan was able to forge the nation around the goal of reunifying the 1st Imperialium and was able to do in roughly a century as well as force the submission of the rest of the planet. The 3rd Imperialium is the modern state of the Quoom and led them into space, at first on slow generational ships but upon a chance encounter with human explorers was able to gain access to Hyperspace technology. The Quoom spread out to about 48 systems in that time frame.

Currently the 3rd Imperialium is fighting a war against the invading Universal Republic. Although the technology of the Quoom is inferior to that of the Universal Republic they have managed to keep the war expensive in man and material for the URA and URN by guerrilla warfare and sudden raids in unguarded places. As of yet 12 planets of the Quoom are occupied by the URA but none can be truly said to be secure.


Come on folks comment. I know you're out there.

[Hotfoot]

So, in this war, who is the aggressor? It seems like the UA is pushing forward and the Quoom are just trying to survive, given that they've resorted to guerrilla tactics, and they don't seem to have the tech or numbers that the UA has.

[frigidmagi]

So, in this war, who is the aggressor?

Well that depends who you ask. The Quoom will tell you that the UR is invading them without any excuse. The UR will claim they were forced into it by the Quoom.

[Marcao]

Union Space
Unity System, Hispania

The Unity System was without a doubt the living heart of the Union. It was here that the original settlements had been established, it had been in this system that the various members of the Union had arrived and Hispania became the living cradle for the hopes and dreams of millions. Hispania glittered in space ringed by a myriad of orbiting facilities. Every orbiting satellite bore with it a purpose, the vast majority of which was defensive. The Union military doctrines of the present frowned upon the concept of static defenses. Orbital fortresses and weapon emplacements had long fallen out of favor but Hispania itself had been quickly ringed by such systems shortly after the initial colonization process. These systems continued to be maintained, upgraded and improved in the time that followed out of pride as much as any military necessity.

The military might that orbited the Union home world was staggering but it was not the primary deterrent to potential foreign aggression. The first fleet was the primary deterrent, a state of the art formation which matched the technological and destructive power of any other fleet in known space. The first fleet was the most visible of the fleets which the Union possessed and it rarely ventured out of the system for prolonged periods of time. The first fleet was led by the HUNS Orgullo de las Estrellas, the newest and largest capital ship fielded by the Union. The ship itself had not been tested in battle, but the handful of intelligence agencies throughout known space that had managed to get their hands on pictures and ran predictive simulations all seemed to be grateful that the ship and her escorts so rarely left the Unity System.

The HUNS León Dorado fell out of hyperspace well outside the range of the orbiting defenses which ringed Hispania as protocol dictated. The ship was a cruiser, one of the favorite vessels of the Union itself. The Confederation of Logos favored smaller frigate sized vessels, utilizing them deftly as patrol ships of their space and spheres of influence as well as picket ships, escorts and scouts in military formations. The United Protectorates favored the larger ships, utilizing them as hammers against enemy forces and an ever present show of force. The Union favored the cruiser; its naval forces were more balanced than those of its allied twin nations. The truth was of course that a delicate balance existed and that all three nations seemed to somewhat feed on the others. The Union saw no need to try and keep up with the Confederation’s rampant appetite to craft and deploy multitudes of frigate sized ships. The Union also saw little need to try and match the Protectorates hunger for massive and expensive capital ships on a ship per ship basis. In case of a conflict which would demand the cooperation of the three navies, the United Protectorates were all but certain to take the lead and in doing so place their large, powerful and expensive ships into the very teeth of the maelstrom.

The Union was content on its current position, gaining as much advantage as possible from the military expenditures and habits of its allies without allowing itself to fall hopelessly behind both numerically and technologically behind its allied rivals. It was a dance that they had been carrying out for years and so far, the results had been satisfactory. Such was the thought of the captain of the HUNS León Dorado Alejandro Mendoza. Alejandro had brought his ship to the home world for both military and personal reasons. The ship was scheduled to be refitted with two new systems which according to the reports he had read earlier would increase sensor capability and range by 9.5 percent. The missile launcher tubes were also going to be refitted in order to accommodate the newest munitions developed for the Union Navy. The estimated time that his ship would be out of action was expected to be four months, he added two months to that time frame in his mind. He had some experience with how these things went in the past. His other reason was far more personal. It was his sister’s birthday and he had promised that he would attend the festivities. It was with that thought in mind that he left his private room and made his way towards the shuttle deck.

Union Space
Unity System, Hispania
Atlantis

Atlantis was the name given to one of the most luxurious and expensive hotel complexes in Hispania. The complex was singular and roughly three and half kilometers in diameter. The central spire at the center of the complex rose almost 1.5 kilometers into the air while its four sister towers located at forty five degree angles from the center at the edges of the complex itself rose 750 meters. If the complex itself were built on solid ground it would compare poorly to other such complexes located in Hispania and other planets within the Union. Atlantis was different because the entire complex floated in the middle of a lake and was capable of submerging beneath the waters to a depth of up to 1000 meters.

Atlantis was the playground of the rich, utilizing the very state of the art of civilian science to create a compound in which any desire a patron could conceive would be realized. Atlantis spent mornings and afternoons above the surface of the water, but when the star which Hispania orbited fell from the sky the complex sank beneath the waves, external lights allowing all within a breath taking view of the marine life in the lake around them. Alejandro arrived on the complex a little over half an hour before the city was scheduled to sink beneath the depths. By the time that he was changing in his room, the city stirred and then began to sink. The technology involved was beyond his knowledge or interest, but he had heard about some peculiar characteristics of the materials involved. It was more than simply filling ballast tanks like a submarine, although he expected that somewhere in the complex ballast tanks were filled to some degree to regulate their descent. In the end, it mattered little to him how exactly Atlantis managed its remarkable translocation. His eyes focused on a nearby window, external lights showing him the waters beyond. He would never get used to this place.

After having left his room, it took a fair bit of time to maneuver himself towards his final destination. One of the downsides of Atlantis was more than just its exclusivity but all the perils that came along with it. There were certain individuals who expected and demanded near absolute privacy during their stays, this tended to make movement through parts of the facility more difficult and time consuming than it had to be. Every effort was made to facilitate the processes of movement within Atlantis, but there were times when little could be done but wait or try to bypass some of the more difficult areas. In the end, twenty minutes after he started he found the floor in question after presenting his identification, his invitation and allowing one very thorough DNA scan he was allowed through.

The entire floor had been procured for his sister’s celebration and he was somewhat taken aback by the number of people that he saw. It almost felt as if his sister’s entire class, their friends and family were present. He hesitated for only a moment before moving deeper into the floor, his eyes aware that the entire floor seemed to be made of glass. It was not quite that simple of course, the material itself was far sturdier than glass. It was akin to being in the middle of an aquarium, one with a rather sizeable dance floor.

The music was a collection of familiar sounds representing over a dozen separate ethnic groups. He heard tango, salsa, merengue, and several others intermingled in the mix. It was a joyous celebration, the impending ascension of a young girl into womanhood. He made his way to the bar and ordered a drink. He had already identified the location of his sister, but she was at the moment currently indisposed as she danced with a fiery Argentinean whom he immediately recognized. His head turned as he brought the drink to his lips, his eyes focusing on his mother as she sat in the central table her attention fully on her daughter. Alejandro wondered if arrangements were already being made for his sister. It was a well known fact that amongst the top catholic families, marriage was something that was not left to chance.

He finished his drink and placed the empty glass on the counter before he made his way towards the central table. His naval uniform attracted a great deal of interest as he walked, not everyone recognized him but everyone knew the uniform of the Union Navy. Members of the Navy were encouraged to be seen in their uniforms, and pay for members of the armed forces was higher than average. This money was meant to be spent in ways that would make service more appealing to the masses; a small enough investment that had so far paid dividends for all branches of the military. Upon reaching the table he watched as his mother turned to look at him.

“Mother, I apologize for being a bit late. Are you well?â€

[frigidmagi]

A good beginning! More!

[frigidmagi]

Volunteers required:

I've decided that a species in the write up, the Sliianerians should be expanded a bit in terms of their political set up. To that end, I've decided to have them set up in 7 power blocks that are all members of a Confederation. This Confederation was set up upon contact with humanity and uptaining FTL Hyperdrives. Before this their colonization efforts had been via sleeper and generational ships. Because of that, there were dozens of colonies that were more or less independent. Now there are over 140 planets with Sliianerian colonists.

The colonies and governments within the home system of the Sliianerians chose Confederation as a means of presenting a united front to humanity and other aliens, the 7 blocks each has internal autonomy however and very different domestic set ups and laws. That's where our brave volunteers come in.

Your mission if you chose to accept it is to write up one of these blocks. You have the power to invent ethnic groups, government systems, ideologies, religions whatever you require to make it work. I will be serving as over all editor to keep everything coherent and workable within the rules and confines of the Librium Universe.

You may not have an independent forgein policy in regards to aliens, not openly anyways. You may not have an FTL fleet only the Confederation government does.

Beyond that anything goes.

Volunteers may post or PM me. Feel free to request further information.

[Hotfoot]

Based on a rather long discussion with Alan.

Missiles, point defense, ECM, and so on.

Now, as we all know, a common trend tends to allow missiles to be fired in a large alpha strike which can result in utter devastation of the enemy fleet. This of course makes missiles the weapons of choice because they are the ultimate weapon, and makes space combat fast and utterly brutal.

Frankly, I don't like writing that sort of story. I like there to be a nice back and forth, with a lot of tension one both sides. So, how to justify missiles being effective weapons, but not the king of all space borne weaponry.

Keep in mind, this is not going to be a discussion of realism per se, but rather one of consistancy. Realism is all well and good, but sometimes we need to set it aside in favor of telling a good story. This is one of those times. So now I will deal with the issues that would make missiles the king of all space combat and help adjust them to make them effective long range weapons that are dangerous, but still allow for things like railguns to be used in a fight.

1. Missile payloads: It is entirely possible for a missile to contain a payload so large that smaller ships are obliterated in one shot. This makes it very hard to justify the use of smaller ships or the use of railguns at all, since railguns can't pull off a one shot kill on most vessels. To adjust for this, an in-universe justification can be used of balancing the warhead mass and the overall maneuvering of the missile. Too much boom, a slower missile that can easily be shot down by point defense. As a general rule, I think there would be one overall size class of missile with a general warhead strength and maneuverability, designed to get a capital ship threatening warhead close enough to a capital ship through ECM and point defense to do damage. Obviously, there will be variations on the theme, depending on a race's style and technology level, but overall the results should be about the same. If we decide roughly how many missile strikes it takes to bring down a given ship's shields, and then to disable/destroy the vessel, the rest is rather easily done from there. This is largely to keep the flow of combat and damage as consistant through the various writing projects in the universe. Marcao and I were throwing around the idea that about 4 or so missiles would be needed to drop the shields of a smaller ship, like a frigate, while two would be needed to cripple or destroy it, with obviously larger ships needing more.

2. The Alpha Strike: If all you need is a certain number of missiles to kill ships, why not just put all your missiles in a pod and launch them in one big wave at the beginning of the fight? You stand the best chance of overwhelming your enemy's point defense and killing every enemy ship in one overwhelming blast. Again, I don't think this style of combat is as much fun to write, and there's another way we can get around this in-universe without seeming like we're pulling shit out of our asses: Sympathetic detonation. We're using fairly beefy warheads in our space combat (no specific numbers are needed, but let's say between the 20 to 100 megaton range). If you fire too many missiles too close together and one get shot down by point defense, it explodes and takes out any other missiles that are nearby it, and then those can explode and take out missiles by them, and so on. The means that for a given angle of attack, you can only launch so many missiles at once for a given period of time, at least effectively. It's still possible to overwhelm an enemy's point defense and get missiles through (I'll cover that shortly), but doing it all at once and having a win button isn't possible, especially if you're only facing your enemy head on. A way to overwhelm point defense would be to surround the enemy and then saturate the void with missiles coming from all directions, making them spread their point defense out and miss more missiles in each wave. That promotes maneuvers and tactics, rather than just brute force.

3. Overwhelming point defense: This isn't a simple equation, but again, rather a guideline. There's a point where there's more missiles inbound than a point defense screen can reliably deal with. As the missiles enter the point defense envelope, they begin to maneuver to avoid being hit, and the tracking systems/gunners have to try and knock them down. For a given point defense screen, you will have a value of how many missiles it can reliably stop before missiles start getting through, but it will rarely match the number of missiles thrown out by a roughly equivalent force. For example, let's say two wolf packs are going at it, throwing missiles and kinetic strikes at each other. Their point defense will stop some of the missiles coming their way, but not all, and each hit will hurt a lot for the smaller ships. A good, tense moment. Now take a wolf pack and put it against a battlegroup. Most likely the wolfpack's missile complement won't do much to the battlegroup at range, maybe if they closed in, but they would have a hard time doing so if the battlegroup unleashed a full barrage. If the battlegroup did, the wolfpack might be able to get one or two ships limping away, assuming no interdictors were forcing them to remain in the fight.

Thoughts and comments?

Next I'll write a bit about the possibility of planetary shields.

[Cynical Cat]

Massed missile strikes aren't nearly as effective as described in certain series (Honor Harrington for example) because the problems with them are hand waved away.

1) Limited fuel and engine power. Fuel is acceleration and defensive maneuvering. With the same engine technology as its launching civilization the missile must cross space, not be destroyed, and intercept its target. HH cheats this one by giving missiles free energy and engine systems superior to that of space ships by several orders of magnitude.

2) Dumping heat. It's hard to dump heat in space and a missile is mostly engine and warhead. Solving for problem one above without cooking yourself is a big issue.

3) Size. A missile with a big warhead, a big engine, and a big fuel supply is big. That limits the number you can carry and makes them easier for defenses to hit.

4) Defense gauntlet. From jammers to clouds of ball bearings to laser clusters their are potentially a lot of ways for a missile that doesn't cook itself or malfunction to still never make it to its target.

5) Cost.

6) Tiime. Missiles have to get there. If you're fighting across 10,000 km and your launcher fires a missile at 1km/s and it accelerates at 10g, its going to be a while before you hit. Particle beams and lasers could turn your ship into a lifeless hulk before your missiles enter his point defence envelope.

How effective missiles are compared to other weapons depends on how effective you make your technology. As Atomic Rockets mentions if you've got a projectile going faster than 3km/s, don't bother with chemical explosives because the KE will be higher. If lasers and railguns and whatever can inflict a reasonable amount of damage and a reasonable chance of connecting during combat, missiles won't necessarily rule the game.

[frigidmagi]

I wish you guys would spend less time talking about gutting the Void Navy and more time talking about your societies.

[Hotfoot]

Doing that too, but this is one thing that came up that I thought was rather important. Let's not forget that this is all about making stories with cool action sequences as well. In the process we did talk about the various Genetic Alteration things of the HU and the various methods and tendencies for Cybernetics in the CoL. I will be updating my CoL thread periodically, there are actually updates ready to go as I type this, it's just a matter of getting the file back up.

And we're not talking about gutting anything, we're talking about making it so that the stated dynamic we talked about for combat works. If battles are nothing but missile spam fests because that's what works best, then why the hell would anyone do anything but that? It would be suicide.

[frigidmagi]

No, this pretty much is gutting the Void Navy or at least requiring me to go back and rewrite chunks of said navy, it's ships and doctrine.

This isn't fixing anything this is changing things.

I think you're over worried about the effectiveness of missiles, if nothing else sheer logistics dictates a limit to their use.

[Hotfoot]

No, this pretty much is gutting the Void Navy or at least requiring me to go back and rewrite chunks of said navy, it's ships and doctrine.

This isn't fixing anything this is changing things.

I think you're over worried about the effectiveness of missiles, if nothing else sheer logistics dictates a limit to their use.

What I'm primarily concerning myself with is the ebb and flow of combat. Missiles under the system Alan and I have talked about are still extremely useful, but not the be-all end-all of combat. If the only real restriction to them is logistics, that just means that you move more slowly but win close to every fight, or your enemies just try to get you to waste as many missiles as possible, but at the end of the day there's no reason at all to have any weapons but the best ones available.

Look, I'm trying to just set up combat dynamics that meet the designed goals we talked about. As far as I can tell, what I've described works. This is about having a basic reference so when people write in the universe, there's a measure of consistency that ties it all together. We're going to be doing multiple revisions throughout the setting as we come to different decisions on things. None of what I've written above is set in stone, so let's talk about the specific issues you have and work together on this. I'm on AIM now, I have my cell phone, the only thing I don't have right now is Skype, but Alan's Netbook does and we have a working net connection.

[Cynical Cat]

This isn't gutting the void navy. This is pointing out the realistic limitations of missiles. Nothing I've posted means they are necessarily ineffective weapons just reasons why "Mass missile spam =/ automatic win".

[frigidmagi]

I wasn't refering to your post Cat I was refering to Hotfoot's.

[frigidmagi]

Okay, let me state my position here.

I've been waiting for the CoL and HU write up's since what? 2006? 2007?

Y'all are busy, I know that. Alot going on. Work and Real Life come first, I'm not trying to be an asshole.

But now I find instead of writing about that, you want to go back and write up... Again, shit that has been settled for awhile. Hotfoot no offense meant but you seem to always want to rewrite the mechanics. To me it's akin to building a foundation... And then constantly tearing it up and rebuilding rather then actually building the house.

But fine, I'll deal. Here's my compromise. We'll talk and hash out combat mechanics until you're tinkled pink and happy... After I see the LoC and HU posted. Until then I don't want to run around in circles. So sit down and actually write out all these great ideas and post them and then we'll redo navy combat... Again.

[Hotfoot]

Look, Alan and I have been talking about our writeups for the HU and the CoL, and one of the concerns he has is the writeup of the military and how it's going to be organized. Maybe it's a little thing, but it's what comes up.

Frankly I'd love nothing better than to get the three of us in a room together to hash this all out face to face, or at least in real time. As it is, I constantly seem to be the middleman trying to get this and that done. I know I've been really poor about getting stuff done for my own things for a while, but I'm on it now and I'm just trying to get the outline squared in my head before spending a huge time coming down with everything else.

Anyway, that discussion was the one that had little to do overall with my writeup, and I figured I'd post it here. I'll likely be doing more writing over the course of the con and beyond.

[frigidmagi]

Never the less that's my offer and while it's not your fault or Alan's I have been waiting a mighty long tim

Plus the militaries of the nations in question are really a small part of the write up aren't they?

[Hotfoot]

Arguably true, though oddly talking about that stuff led to a lot of other ancillary conversations about other things in our societies, though admittedly that had a fair deal to do with the ground combat, but then these talks on these crazy eight hour drives tend to wind around.