David Weber's Dahak series vs... Anybody

[Connor MacLeod]

The Dahakverse has some advantages over alot of other universes like SW, but alot of that stems precisely from technobabble.

Not to defend either side, but isn't basically all in question "technobabble", be it SW, ST or Dahakverse? Hypermatter reactors" vs. core taps, turbolasers vs. warp beams,...?

Dahakverse stuff is "technobabble" in the sense it uses shortcuts. For example, the honorverse uses its magical impellar drive to get around problems of a reaction drive but still (somehow) obeys conservation of momentum and energy after a fashion. Hypermatter reactors do that as well. Dahakverse reactionless drives however, seem to be different (They have that velocity limit for one thing, nevermind the mass/inertia reducing nonsense.)

Gravitonic warheads are technobabble simply in the same way virtually any mention of a black hole/singularity is bound to be technobable - its presentation is fucked up. Otherwise we'd end up playing black hole gravitowank games (and in SW case there are plenty of retarded examples to draw on - a shuttle powerplant and a gravity well projector cna make a black hole, as can Vong coralskippers.... despit ethe fact they aren't really black holes.) Hell its not really as if how gravitonic warheads "work" is actually ever defined precisely anyhow.

[Serafina]

The Dahakverse has some advantages over alot of other universes like SW, but alot of that stems precisely from technobabble.

Not to defend either side, but isn't basically all in question "technobabble", be it SW, ST or Dahakverse? Hypermatter reactors" vs. core taps, turbolasers vs. warp beams,...?

What Connor is talking about is brute force vs. shortcuts.

A couple of examples:
Two persons travel from A to B. Both arrive at the same time. But while Person A used a fast vehicle, person B used his good knowledge of the city to take shortcuts. Both are equal within that universe (city), but in other conditions (another enemy in a crossover) there might be no shortcut to take and A would win.
The Empire of Technobabble beats it's opponents by exploiting specific weaknesses in their bodyarmor. Their rifles are no better than RL-ones KE-wise, but they ar honed to exploit specific weak spots. But that might not work against a completely different type of armor.
The Borg use very sophisticated adjustments of their shields to exploit the way their enemies weapons work. But against weapons working on another principle, they would be screwed.
The Confederacy of United Technobabble has a chain-reaction weapon that vaporizes hexa-tronium - which is what their enemies build their starships from. Despite it's low yield, it's very destructive. But against other materials, this will not be the case.

I could go on an on with this. The point is that "technobabble" tends to be specific - it exploits weaknesses, works on certain principles other than brute force and so on. That's not bad, but in a crossover it can often be argued that it will be less effective against their new opponent, since there will be nothing to exploit. That actually happens in real life too - specialists tend to suck in new situations, generalists thrive in them. Brute force is the generalist of sci-fi crossovers.

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm actually talking about degrees of shortcuts. Hypermatter (and Impeller drives for that matter) take certain shortcuts, but they also still face certain limitations. Hypermatter reactors can run out of fuel (esp if running flat out) by as long as it's active a Core Tap can run virtually indefinitely (or an Impeller wedge, for that matter, although Weber claimed that the Impeller wedge only partly drew its power from hyperspace.) Having a virtually unlimited source of power and eliminating fuel and propellant needs is "advanced" in one sense, but because it cheats to do it it isn't advanced in the ways the brute force approach of hypermatter reactors and the magical ion drives of STar Wars do.

[Batman]

In defense of Weber using laser heads in the Honorverse, in 'Storm from the Shadows' he flat out admits impeller driven missiles would do massively more damage as kinetic impactors, the problem allegedly is landing direct hits.
Also, given the gravitic nature of sidewalls, it may be (note this is speculation on my part) they are a lot more effective against physical projectiles than they are against laser beams. Also, remember that DESPITE a nuke wasting the majority of its yield on empty space, they were preferable to kinetic kill missiles before the advent of the laser head, when both have an equal chance of being intercepted yet the nuke was assumed to be able to wear down the sidewall while the kinetic impactor was apparently a no go.

[Cykeisme]

A big part of technobabble is technological tools whose functioning methods do not obey what we currently know of physics.
Some offenders merely make the assumption that there are areas of physics that we have not yet even hypothesized about. However, The worse ones actually defy what we know; they would have to take place in what is literally a different universe, with different laws.

Interestingly, thanks to Curtis Saxton, descriptions of Star Wars technology flouts a minimum of known physical laws in achieving the feats we see on-screen.

[keen320]

What's wrong with technobabble?

Most sci-fi universes that aren't hard sci-fi use technobabble. Blaster's are technobabble. Hyper drives and Warp drives are less technobabble, because physicists have at least hypothesized their existence. Some scientists claim they have actually accomplished teleportation... with photons. Energy shields are completely technobabble. All of them, unless you just use lasers to incinerate projectile weapons. Weber laser heads are oddly not technobabble, they have been proven to work by underground nuclear tests. Gravity anything, be it artificial gravity, anti grivity, inertial compensators, or black hole devices, is complete technobabble because we do not comprehend why gravity works. Durasteel, battle steel, and Duranium are technobabble. Phasers are technobabble. Tractor beams are technobabble. Impulse drive is technobabble. Star wars ion drives are pretty much technobabble, because they can't be operating on currently known principals to be so effective at acceleration.

Dahakverse reactionless drives however, seem to be different (They have that velocity limit for one thing, nevermind the mass/inertia reducing nonsense.)

Uh, antigravity? Or the inertial compensator every high accel ship, be it Star Wars or Trek or whatever, MUST use to stop their occupants from being jellified?

Core taps and hypermatter are just both ways to explain how the ships have more power than you can plausibly get from anti-matter. Personally, I always thought the core tap was a smidgen more plausible than hypermatter. Also, while hypermatter has a fuel limit, core taps are much more volatile if they fail. They can blow up a planetoid.

And how does hypermatter cheat any less than a core tap? It's just a vehicle for storing more fuel than can be logically explained. Core taps are just as guilty, because they cheat to essentially get limitless energy from nothing.

So why does anyone talk like technobabble is some kind of sin? Its only bad when it breaks suspension of disbelief. Which has been stretched pretty far for most of us.

[RhoOmicronMu]

On the other hand they had that neat transmat system between worlds, which is something few sci fi (including SW) can match, which ofssets their sucky FTL.

Literally everything in their military from infantry to tanks and warships having a cloak and their ground forces actually using their technology to a higher extent than, for example, 40k or Star Trek .

They have the Potential for planetary elimination but again using technobabble gravitonic warheads in unknown numbers and quantity (nevermind the manner of destruction.) The only notable example of gravitonic warhead destruction I can recall is that 16 4th Empire gravitonic warheads (at least the most powerful ones) managed to obliterate the moon of Iapetus in Armageddon Inheritance. That might allow something on the order of Petatons per torpedo or therabouts I believe, if it were translated into brute firepower.

For evidence of even older weapons than the kind used on Iapetus being able to destroy a planet there is this:

"Analysis rules out the employment of kinetic weaponry," Dahak said precisely, "distribution of the planetary rubble is not consistent with impact patterns. Rather, it would appear that the planetary bodies suffered implosive destruction consistent with the use of gravitonic warheads, a weapon, so far as is known to the Imperium's data base, the Achuultani have never employed."
...
"I regret to say, Captain, that the destruction matches that which would be associated with our own Mark Tens. In point of fact, and after making due allowance for the time which has passed, it corresponds almost exactly to the results produced by those weapons."
...
"Inaccurate, Captain. No Earth-like planets remain, but Sheskar was selected for a Fleet base because of its location, not its planets, and it now possesses abundant large asteroids for installation sites. Indeed, the absence of atmosphere would make those installations more defensible, not less."

[Vehrec]

What's wrong with technobabble?

Lots. For one thing, It's the Deus ex Machina, which is one of the worst forms of storytelling, normally to be reserved for when you have written yourself into a corner.

Most sci-fi universes that aren't hard sci-fi use technobabble.

Lies. Damnable lies.

Blaster's are technobabble. Hyper drives and Warp drives are less technobabble, because physicists have at least hypothesized their existence.

Here is where you've gone wrong. You don't call something 'technobabble' because it's scifi tech. Technobabble is when characters talk about the technology and offer meaningless but extensive explanations. to clarify-Nobody goes on and on about the operating principles of a blaster-show not tell is the order of the day! They are space guns, and nothing more needs be said. When you start squawking on about modifying the galven circuitry to penetrate the phasic frequency of the enemy's shields, then you're into technobabble. Just because we don't understand how something works, or because a certain kind of scifi is less hard, doesn't mean it has more technobabble.

Dahakverse reactionless drives however, seem to be different (They have that velocity limit for one thing, nevermind the mass/inertia reducing nonsense.)

Uh, antigravity? Or the inertial compensator every high accel ship, be it Star Wars or Trek or whatever, MUST use to stop their occupants from being jellified?

Frankly, inertial compensation-or more accurately, locking the crew into the ships inertial frame, is a non-starter compared to a reactionless drive. For one thing, remember the old chestnut about friends not letting friends use reactionless drives-they make cheap planet smashers, and avoiding this means establishing random and arbitrary rules about how they can operate than anyone with a few weeks can think up workarounds for. There are CONSEQUENCES of using reactionless drives, but almost none for inertial compensators or artificial gravity. At least, from a storytelling standpoint.

Core taps and hypermatter are just both ways to explain how the ships have more power than you can plausibly get from anti-matter. Personally, I always thought the core tap was a smidgen more plausible than hypermatter. Also, while hypermatter has a fuel limit, core taps are much more volatile if they fail. They can blow up a planetoid.

And Hypermatter can blow up a planet or a death star when it's reactor fails, so what? That's not 'much more volatile'. Also, you have no reason to conclude that magically sucking energy out of a sidereal dimension is more plausible than tachyonic power generation-we at least have mathematical models of tachyons. I've never heard of a mathematical model for dimensional energy transfer.

And how does hypermatter cheat any less than a core tap? It's just a vehicle for storing more fuel than can be logically explained. Core taps are just as guilty, because they cheat to essentially get limitless energy from nothing.

So why does anyone talk like technobabble is some kind of sin? Its only bad when it breaks suspension of disbelief. Which has been stretched pretty far for most of us.

Technobable is not bad because it breaks suspension of...

Look, you've obviously confused Technobabble, which is what Webber does, and what B&B did in startrek for Tech, which is the sensible way to do things. Let's look at han Solo repairing the Millennium Falcon. In Star Wars, this is done by having Han and Chewie crawl in and out of hatches with tools, covered in lubricant, and generally do work. In a Webber book, this would be done by talking about the problem, and describing the history of the hyperspace motivator, all of Han's modifications to the ship, and Chewie's apprenticeship as a hyperspacial mechanic. You see how much of a waste the later is, how it takes up space but does nothing?

[Darth Hoth]

The majority of them would survive, in hyperspace at the time or not. The effects of the attack are limited by c, while the ship's view of the star through hyperspace is not. They'll see the change in the star while its effects are still minutes or hours away from affecting them, and can enter hyperspace or warp away. Orbitals may well be able to do the same thing, since they have engines too, and interstellar sites like Pittance Rock would be entirely unaffected.

Even if the above wasn't true, the ranks of ships that happen to be in hyperspace at the time would include a large percentage of the General Systems Vehicles, which spend most of their time traveling. As the author describes them: "The idea behind them is that they represent the Culture, fully. All that the Culture knows, each GSV knows; anything that can be done anywhere in the Culture can be done within or by any GSV. In terms of both information and technology, they represent a last resort, and act like holographic fragments of the Culture itself, the whole contained within each part." You said above that you've read Excession, so you should know the sort of things a GSV can do.

All right. Strategic weapons will, at most, destroyed fixed assets. It becomes, then, a question of whether the ships could be hunted down. Skylark does have absurd sensor ranges and the ability to enter a four-dimensional hyper-space (although it is different from the Culture one, of course) and travel between separate three-dimensional space-time continuities (called "universes" in the books), so I am not entirely sure that the Culture ships would be safe even so, but that enters the realm of speculation.

Although, when fighting another empire, it did hunt down the colony ships it sent out (one reaching across half the observable Universe, if I recall correctly), so they have the will if nothing else.

Additionally, as this is a general attack on the galaxy, not just on the Culture itself, you've attacked several other Culture level civilizations, numerous powers which share the Culture's military advantages over other franchises in miniature, and antagonized who knows how many Sublimed entities which retain an interest in the material universe. Good job.

Since I am not aware of any power in the Cultureverse with FTL significantly faster than the Culture itself, I would think that these would be equally unable to retaliate, if they could even figure out where the attack was coming from. (I might be wrong, though, since I have not read the majority of the books, myself.) As for sublime entities . . . these are your archetypical "omnipotent" energy squids, like the Ascended Ancients in SG-1, right? Skylark have fought that kind of creatures in their own universe, too, and won. Although they may have been holding back in some of the battles, but their technology can kill them. (Of course, these God-like beings are essentially unquantifiable in most cases, so it might not be so clear-cut, but whatever.)

[eyl]

Would the planetoids not have territory to defend, though? That puts limits on how far they can flee.

True. However, to a degree planets can take care of themselves to an extent - hypermissiles can be launched from the ground (or under it, presumably) - the launchers don't need to be space-based.

Unless they decide to just abandon their planets and flee, of course. Which is a possibility, of course; if I recall correctly, each planetoid was also a colony ship.

In effect - which is where the human population of Earth comes from in-universe.

How do the tracking mechanisms for the hyper-missiles work, again? They travel in hyper-space, but they should still require Einstein-space input in order to hit moving targets. Star wars has the technology to jam electromagnetic and gravitic sensors, as well as subspace and other technobabble ones.

They don't have any guidance. I'm not sure if it's possible to look from hyperspace into normal space (though IIRC the opposite is possible, that's how mines work), but it's moot, because when using Dahakverse hyperdrive the exit coordinates are determined when you enter hyperspace - they can't be changed en-route.

They use electronic, gravitonic and fold space sensors/scanners IIRC. They also need to predict the course of the targets and adjust the fire accordingly at when they fight across light minutes(the missiles do not travel instantaneous).

Besides that, they usually spam missiles - both because of the targeting issue and to "catch" whichever hyper-band(s) is currently unshielded.

Honestly? It could be either. You're talking about an author who can create a universe that uses projectiles that could double as mutli-GT/TT kinetic kill projectiles in order to deliver multi-megaton warheads

Given the way technology is set up in the Honerverse (which is what I assume you're referring to) it's pretty much impossible to actually hit a powered target with a kinetic impactor (at least at anything beyond point-blank range).

but at the same time they have and are threatened by gigaton range antimatter missiles (The Achuultani use them, and I remember Armageddon Inheritance noting that millions of Achuultani missiles threatened the Planetoid fleet used against them.)

The number would be high millions at least - there were at least half a million Achuultani ships in each of the major battles, and presumably they had more than a handfull of missiles each.

Core taps also seem to operate merely in the TT or so range (judging by Armageddon inheritance and the concerns if the one they used to power the earth shield lost control) so they aren't neccesarily on the uber-high end for powerplants either.

There might be a discrepency in core tap power given the off-screen destruction of that planetoid in Heirs of EMpire - continent-destroying power shouldn't have caused the loss of its entire crew (though, of course, in this case it was an internal explosion which may account for it). It's possible that core taps can be run at varying outputs.

Look, you've obviously confused Technobabble, which is what Webber does, and what B&B did in startrek for Tech, which is the sensible way to do things. Let's look at han Solo repairing the Millennium Falcon. In Star Wars, this is done by having Han and Chewie crawl in and out of hatches with tools, covered in lubricant, and generally do work. In a Webber book, this would be done by talking about the problem, and describing the history of the hyperspace motivator, all of Han's modifications to the ship, and Chewie's apprenticeship as a hyperspacial mechanic. You see how much of a waste the later is, how it takes up space but does nothing?

That's not technobabble, that's padding - technobabble would be spending all those pages on the nature of the Whatdoyoucallem particles which let the drive run.

[keen320]

You know, it looks like we could do an entire thread on the nature of technobabble. Whether it would be an interesting thread, I can't say.

[Themightytom]

Look, you've obviously confused Technobabble, which is what Webber does, and what B&B did in startrek for Tech, which is the sensible way to do things. Let's look at han Solo repairing the Millennium Falcon. In Star Wars, this is done by having Han and Chewie crawl in and out of hatches with tools, covered in lubricant, and generally do work. In a Webber book, this would be done by talking about the problem, and describing the history of the hyperspace motivator, all of Han's modifications to the ship, and Chewie's apprenticeship as a hyperspacial mechanic. You see how much of a waste the later is, how it takes up space but does nothing?

Well actually it was done in Heirs of Empire by having Sean watch a robot weld new plates onto his battleship after it took damage, I think you just compared world building in a book to scene transition in a movie. Which is pretty much apples and oranges since both mediums require different approaches to engage an audience.