SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread III

[Shroom Man 777]

Jayne's Frightening Ships, the Imperial Bureau of Galactic Vigilance's primary source of foreign naval intelligence! Is now available to you! Contribute more information and intelligence, comrades! For mighty Bragule!

[Simon_Jester]

I know the game's been running slow for the past few days, so it probably doesn't matter, but I've got a difficult situation due to internet problems at home; my activity is going to drop off for at least today and tomorrow

The bright side is that I can write offline with no distractions, and a pair of Dr. Susie updates are coming together quite nicely already...

[PeZook]

Jayne's Frightening Ships, the Imperial Bureau of Galactic Vigilance's primary source of foreign naval intelligence! Is now available to you! Contribute more information and intelligence, comrades! For mighty Bragule!

I added some Collector ships that people should have a good idea about by now.

More will be added as people get blown up by them.

[Shroom Man 777]

I am tired and have stopped adding entries. Whoever's not there, go write yer own navies in.

[Simon_Jester]

Oh, man. Me and Coyote both have Aurora-class battlecruisers. I need to do something about that...

[starts plotting]

[Shroom Man 777]

Borealis?

[Simon_Jester]

LoC9, I'm going to ask for something that's been absent from some of your other recent posts: a sense of chronology. When does Hoffman find out about Fourth Battlecruisers' operations? The initial orders are classified information, transmitted directly from the high echelons of government in the Umerian capital to a fleet base far from Prussian space. The ships themselves don't start moving until March 12.

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

LoC9, I'm going to ask for something that's been absent from some of your other recent posts: a sense of chronology. When does Hoffman find out about Fourth Battlecruisers' operations? The initial orders are classified information, transmitted directly from the high echelons of government in the Umerian capital to a fleet base far from Prussian space. The ships themselves don't start moving until March 12.

Sometime after the fleet starts moving - I assume Prussia would have sensors designed to detect possible enemy fleet movements in the event of war.

[Simon_Jester]

Presumably; given the speed with which the battlecruisers can move, I'd say that's about a day after Lisiewicz leaves New Tyre (because that's when he approaches Prussian space), unless the Prussians have advanced picket forces along the Trunk well to coreward ('north' on the map) near the edges of Umerian space.

What are Hoffman's travel plans? In what manner does he plan to travel, and with how much advance warning?

[Simon_Jester]

Chapters Four and Five of Dr. Susie up.

"Fly, FLY, little electrons! Fly like the wind!"

[RogueIce]

Hey look, I made a story post!

Shocking!

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, Doctor Susie. The Shepistanis have made her mad! She's setting things on fire with her mind! Man, that was totally not expected.

(I guess the electric current decreased in that second-to-the-last test because magnets loose their charge when they're heated up? I heard that in the Justice League cartoon. Steve would know which episode.)

She's putting out fire... with gasoline!

[Simon_Jester]

Man, Doctor Susie. The Shepistanis have made her mad! She's setting things on fire with her mind! Man, that was totally not expected.

(I guess the electric current decreased in that second-to-the-last test because magnets loose their charge when they're heated up? I heard that in the Justice League cartoon. Steve would know which episode.)

No, but good guess. Magnets lose their magnetic properties at high temperatures because the individual mini-magnets (microscopic-sized domains) get heated to the point where they start bouncing around and randomizing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature

What happened in the electrokinesis test was that heating the wire slightly increased its electrical resistance. Because Susie wasn't actively trying to heat the wire, the effect was not all that great; she just, well, accidentally used a power she had in place of one she didn't.

[Shroom Man 777]

Anyway, guise, I was wondering about Bragulan anti-psyker defenses. Whereas guise like Sheppy and Loiny like to saturate their areas with un-fun BFGs and null-fields and mull-fields and bull-fields and so on, I was wondering if there were more passive methods of dealing with psyker/espers. Are there surveillance methods for detecting when espers are using intense telepathy, or telekinesis, or other such things? If Sheppy and Loiny use the whole "active jamming of psionic emissions", then could there be a more "passive detection of psionic emissions"?

Because the way I was thinking, Bragulans and the IBGV would not use BFGs or null fields because the psykers would detect these and would thus hide their powers and be more cautious. So, the IBGV would use passive psi-sensors instead, so the psykers won't know when they're being watched. These sensors would detect Psycho Kinetic Emissions (PKE) and ectoplasms ( ) so when the surveillance grid detects a psyker using its power, the Bragulans then send their ubiquitous gun-drones and BragHacks (like Half-Life 2 BragHacks, but with butcher knife-sized blades instead) to kill the crap out of the offending psyker.

I was thinking it would be more fun than the "use your powers in an intense BFG, your head explodes!" style the Dominion, Shepistan and etc. have used throughout their countries. In Bragule, instead of that kind of boring stuff, your psyker instead ends up running for his life as he is being pursued by gun-drones and BragHacks and IBGV goons and Arbitrators with beating-sticks, and Black Bragcopters, etc.

[Simon_Jester]

I for one think the idea of mechanical detection of psychic activity would be an interesting option. The instruments I've introduced in Dr. Susie are fairly simplistic hookups designed to spot direct effects, really; any competent physicist studying the problem would have whipped up something like that in a matter of months.

Something more general might well be practical, and it would hardly be more abusive than civilization-wide use of other kinds of anti-psi development.

[Darkevilme]

Chamarrans use psi detectors which pick up the active use of psychic powers. So the technology does exist and is developable by societies that have fairly mediocre psi research projects.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Bragulans have developed a more humane method of counter-psi technology than the other nations! What has the galaxy gotten into?! Oh no! What is happening?!

*Bragulans equip psi-surveillance tech to gun-drones and automatic K-bolters and BragHacks with butcher knife-rotors*

Phew! All is right in the universe now!

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Presumably; given the speed with which the battlecruisers can move, I'd say that's about a day after Lisiewicz leaves New Tyre (because that's when he approaches Prussian space), unless the Prussians have advanced picket forces along the Trunk well to coreward ('north' on the map) near the edges of Umerian space.

What are Hoffman's travel plans? In what manner does he plan to travel, and with how much advance warning?

He'll send a message to the Umerians announcing his intentions - he'll arrive in a civilian vessel to show good faith.

[Simon_Jester]

Warp gate or hyperspace?

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Warp gate or hyperspace?

Hyperspace.

[Simon_Jester]

Thank you.

I'll need a few days to write the Umerian responses to Hoffman's announcement, so I'd be obliged if you could hold off on releasing anything regarding Hoffman's arrival until that time.

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Thank you.

I'll need a few days to write the Umerian responses to Hoffman's announcement, so I'd be obliged if you could hold off on releasing anything regarding Hoffman's arrival until that time.

That's alright.

[Darkevilme]

I get the feeling that the 'brief list of rights extended to spacers found to be in violation of restricted space under U.S.S. law.' Fits on a post it note while being written in none too small text.

[Shroom Man 777]

Koprulu Zone Rules exceeds the authority of human and inhuman rights!

[Steve]

Koprulu Zone Rules exceeds the authority of human and inhuman rights!

I'm starting to become increasingly convinced that the sane people of the galaxy try to stay the fuck away from your quadrant of the map.