sci-fi human race ideas

[Companion Cube]

Humans are the evil, opressive, mentally unstable warrior race of the galaxy. Everybody fears us. Oh and our tactics are copied by everyone, setting the new standard, we have a fearson reputation (that's a human, they use city killer weapons on their own kind!), and while not the most technically advanced speicies in the future, we are one of the most respected and feared, especially for what we do with what little we have.

That would be a great setting, IMO. I've always liked the idea of humans as the bad guys.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well it's not inconcievable, most Sci Fi light shows it's a big ugly melee during the space battles, you could imagine someone actually using tactics...


Not to mention we already have used city killer weapons on our own kind <feral grin>

[CDiehl]

I have an idea that flows from Yosemite Bear's idea of humanity being governed by a brutal militaristic government. Humans are the mercs and pirates of the galaxy. This militaristic government came to power recently, and there are huge numbers of ex-soldiers who didn't want to return to civilian life and lots of unused and outdated equipment taking up space.

Some large corporations have bought up this equipment and recruited these people to hire them out as mercenaries to aliens. In addition, there are tons of small-time outfits that bounce between piracy and mercenary work. Aliens generally despise humans as violent thugs, but are willing to let them do the fighting. In fact, many of them have become more aggressive now that they don't have to send their own people to fight.

Officially, the government is isolationist, but unofficially, they are using these mercenaries to involve themselves in alien politics. They issue documents to mercenary ships and units naming them as privateers, which give them the government's aegis if they are captured or arrested, in exchange for kickbacks, information on aliens, and alien technology.

[The Yosemite Bear]

That was generally what I was thinking of doing too.

[Shroom Man 777]

A bullet has to be stable and balanced, or it will tumble in flight. Tumbling AP ammunition doesn't work too well, as in not at all.

These special revolvers could be hybrids between conventional guns and railguns. They have small rails to magnetically stabilize the bullet and maybe give it a small boost. But this wouldn't be good, since it's gonna be overly complex and expensive. Hence it's gonna be for specialized units. Hmm.... maybe these rail stabilizers can be add ons, like silencers.

The gun would only be held as tightly as the person is gripping. And when you fire the recoil will be transmitted through the power glove into there hand, unless the glove and arm is somehow going rigid, which would mean the person can't move it. Well whatever, go ahead with it, I dont think anyone will really care.

Well, hmmm..... bah! Anyway, I never said my rounds would be uber powerful and limb breaking. Just a bit stronger than normal modern rounds, made managable thanks to powered armor.

But how would your fire it? One big advantage of powered armor is a guy can simply lift up a gun and use it normally after all.

You could simply have a sort of.... trigger built into the power glove's finger. Or something like Spiderman's webslingers. Or some plug into the person's brain system, like what Simon H. Johansen suggested. Although I shun that idea since I'm not a fan of giving grunts excessive cybernetic implants for my not so advanced sci-fi race.

It doesn't happen a whole lot, but then as I said military personal also very rarely use handguns in combat.

Hmmm.... your right. Maybe my strong handguns could serve as submachine guns, wherein tank drivers, gunners and the like can use them. Being good since they provide maximum stopping power at short distances. Kinda like the AK47s and how the US soldiers in Iraq are liking them.

If your explosive is really heavy then its advantage is largely lost. But I suppose that could work. But I don't think its necessary. Can you imagine the cost of building a tiny fuse for each of billions, likely trillions for your 1/3 galaxy empire, of rounds of ammunition? Well anyway, go ahead if you want

Oh God. Yeah, kinda sounds dumb. But it's only for military personel. And most of my 1/3rd empire is composed of uninhabitable planets. Plus the standard round is the normal solid non AP/explosive bullet, to be used by soldiers when fighting in civilian areas, or to be used by law enforcement. When soldiers need to use their hand guns in real combat against enemies with powered armor, which isn't so frequent as you've said. They're gonna use these expensive bullets.

Hmm... maybe the explosive part won't be made out of dense explosives. Maybe the outer part is made out of explosive, small but terrible. Then the core is steel, metal, dense stuff. Kinda like a pencil. The wood is the explosive, the lead is the dense stuff. Fuses will be a pain to make, but I bet it's not gonna be that hard when the universe is using plastic displays instead of cheap old paper.

Ringing a vehicle with claymores isn't an original idea of mine, people proposed it all the time, its just a really bad idea with current militaries. But for this, with a robot vehicle operating well away from supporting infantry, which are also in power armor it would be rather effective. I think monomolecular bladed shrapnel is slightly overengering the protective bombs. But a monomolecular edged bulldozer blade to allow it to cut through anything in its path would be useful. There should be a couple more of those blades on the roof, that way if say a tree falls on top, it will be cut apart, Some coils of razor wire with enhanced edges would help keep bugs off it.

Also this dozer must be big, be it aconverted tank or converted construction equipment. The D11 bulldozer is today the largest in the world. I'm thinking bigger, your'll need the size if only to provide room for the guns.

I ask you. Where do you get all these info?

Yeah, I know claymore reactive armor isn't an orignal idea, I've doodled on that idea a few months ago (strapping that kind of stuff onto tanks who will face hordes of nasty space insects).

The protective bombs will be shaped charges, no? So explosions will be directed towards the outside, so the monomolecular sharpnel will be directed towards the nasty critters outside. I think it would be cool. A neat concept of the military abusing the inexistence of humanitarian rights for nasty giant evil space insects (on a side note, I've been thinking of militaries having war exercises on planets whose inhabitants are primitive and hostile and unknown to humanitarian conventions. THe military starts mowing down these primitive civilizations, guns all loaded with hollow points, AP explosive, nasty stuff, troops having fun killing things.).

ANd now that you've mentioned monomolecular chainrippers on the roof and mono-barbed wire. I like it! Kinda like the military overdoing it. Now imagine that battle drone being painted by some troops, looking horribly nasty with spikes and blades and whatnot! Now with rock music and napalm and FAE bombs and chainripping. I might make a movie out of this!

Current automatic grenade launchers can get up to 300rpm or even more, really think your going to need some form of gatling weapon?

Just for the spirit of overkill. Would this serve as a good anti-spacefighter weapon? Railguns loaded with plasma grenades or some such.

You'll be proud to know the USMC also recently introduced its own Thermobaric rocket. Only tow got fired during Operation Iraqi freedom. One totally disintegrated a wooden building; the other was unfortunately a dud.

Sad. What would happen if a person gets hit by one of these things? Disintegration? Would there be anything left?

Well just remember the dirt doesn't get any stronger, so trenches and bunkers won't work quite as well unless you haul in 5000 tons of whatever uber-crete you use for such things. But then such stuff could always be dropped in from orbit. Heck, you could even have complete self-contained pillbox's/gun turrets dropped down at night when your bug crushing armored units need to set up a perimeter. Later some anti gravity craft could retrieve them. I'd assume the bugs don't use too many ranged weapons, so you wouldn't need to worry about concealing or digging in the things too much.

They could use super strong not so heavy armor. Or shields.

Hmmm..... self contained pillboxes and bunkers dropped onto hordes of bugs.... I like that! Dropping it onto a horde of bugs amidst carpet bombing! Bugs get squished and blown up. Claymore reactive armor blow up. Plasma, guns, flamers, dead insects. Insects retreat. After a while they come back and just poke the bunker, then it opens up exposing our beloved chainripping drone of overkill. Nasty!

One thing you might consider is making up a chart of body armor levels. Then if you make up a light weapon, you could assign it to one of those categories. Say the TD-55 pistol goes next to Level II body armor, because that's the highest level it can pierce. A slightly more powerful get might go next to level III and so on until you've got the PKT crew served blaster (which looks suspiciously like an E-WEB) alongside Level XI, class M-3 Heavy Assault Powered Armor.

This would let you keep the relative power of all the guns clear in your head, without having to actually say how powerful they are in joules or whatnot. If you go and create solider types you could also place them as having whatever level of body armor. The same can be done for vehicles and bigger guns, but because vehicles often have different armor on there various sides it's not going to work as well

As an example hear's a PDF file of various body armor and vehicle armor protection standards. (The vehicle's are armored things like limos and SUV's, not military stuff)

Nice idea. Man, this is useful. And I hate to go into numbers, nasty stuff. Having charts like that is a great idea. ALthough if I were to write stories, I might not make charts, just imply that this can > that but cannot > another thing. But something bigger can > that thing and so on.

For a roug comparison, watch the series, and look at Battletech. From the series, grab all their maneuverability, including jumping, nd human maneuverability, not to mention drop capability. Essentially, when the wearer jumps high, the thrusters kick in, allowing higher jumps. For movement, there is no resistance, and the suit amplifies your own actions.

Now, from Battletech, grab a Clan Elemental suit, massing roughly 1 ton, and give it more maneuverability, and weaponry that is just as deadly.

Combine the two, and that is roughly what the MI suits on the book are capable of. Each shoulder has pocket nukelaunchers. Each jump by the armor goes 1 mile. Hand weapons include flamethrowers, autocannon, and other death-dealing items.

The suit has lots of grenades, including the ever-famous:

"I'm a talking bomb, I'm a talking bomb. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 . . ."

As people within the building run for their lives.

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I'm staying far away from that Army of One in a power suit concept. But the concept of a heavy combat, big and ass kicking suit does sound nice. I might give the Special Forces ass kicing equivalent of the Animated Series' Marauders. The 1 mile leap might have problems with guided missiles. The talking bomb..... are you serious? Sounds fun. Maybe a bunch of wacked up, a bit of nutty commandoes could do that.

For antimatter vs Fusion, antimatter offers greater power released per unit volume, thus making it useful for warships. Fusion power can be powered by hydrogen, making it easly useful by freighters anywhere. So you have warships with M/AM reactors, and fusion powered stations to refuel them.

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Hmmm.... We could have M/AM powering those energy intensive but not so many systems. And also for warheads in heavy weapons. While fusion takes care of every other system in the ship. And ships could burn a lot of M/AM during one time, to give it a short turbo boost. This is good especially for dogfighting fighters and such.

For the FTL travel modes, what are their advantages?

Warp - go anywhere, but slow
wormhole - go to the other end, much faster, limited to the end points
Warp gate - go to the other end (unless tuneable to go to any gate?), but you can build other ends everywhere.

So you could have warp powered vessels expanding a sphere from Earth, and building a warp gate at the destination site. Earth then colonizes that site. If a wormhole is found, then expansion continues in the spherical fashion, from the other end(s?) of the WH.

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Good idea. Never thought of warp as slow though. Is it really slow? Or is it just your standard? Or a standard for a great many sci-fi universes?

For powerful pistol weaponry, rocket rounds could be useful. You have a pistol remachined to handle the exhaust, and fire bullets that are either dumb rockets, or guided missiles (Runaway).

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I was thinking about that. Have you watched the Batman Beyond animated series? There's this bad guy who had a couple of guns. Resembled boxes with gun handles and triggers. From those guns came a lot of mini dumb rockets. Nice concept. Though there is a problem with the rocket's exhaust. You could have special tubes rerouting the exhaust into some place where the user won't be burned up.

For a plasma flamethrower, do you mean an operator with a fusion plant on his/her/its back, taking in air, superheating it, and expelling that towards the enemy (mini fusion explosion). Don't get too close when that weapon takes a hit though (lots of superheated gas, even if fusion burns itself out quick, it might take a fraction of a second too long).

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Same problem with the old flamers, no? Maybe we could have brainwashed or neuro resocialized criminals man those flamers. Or we could have chemicals which react and end up burning as hot as plasma.

For the race that only lives in space, how about giving them extensive knowledge of external suits, and/or gravity fields. The suits and fields allow them to land on a planet, and be able to move around. They prefer to meet in a room, though (agoraphobia).

One thing that gives them creeps though, is when they feel wind blowing. In a starship, if you feel a strong breeze, that means the hull has lost pressure, and you have an emergency. On a planet, it means that you can fly a kite.

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Kinda like how birds get scared when they're enclosed and their wings are tied? Nice. Plus maybe they could've given the humans the secret to artificial gravity. And perhaps be the leaders in space suit technology and artificial gravity. Maybe also the ones who give humanity the secrets of warp and that shit.

For other alien takes on the humans, they could be more advanced, but afraid to show it to the humans "Humans take every gift we give them, and turn it into a weapon."

THat line you said. It makes me proud of the human race Maybe some aliens could close themselves up to the majority of the humans and aliens who are trading and sharing tech and generally blending together like countries of today, since they see that we all could turn their grand technology into weapons of destruction.

One option might be an alien race that gave humans the secret of monomolecular fiber, for superstrong cords. Humans took that technology, made the fiber into a 360 razor wire, and use the equivalent of chain shot to clear forests in a hurry (hundreds of monomolecular threads holding together pairs of weighted spheres. The spheres pull the thread long, and the thread cuts anything in its path.

Oh God, that idea rocks. I don't know where to place it. Although it's kinda dumb, not dumb dumb, but funny dumb, like from a Futurama episode. I can just imagine that happening, then maybe Bender being right infront of it and being sliced in half.

Great idea. Maybe some of the odder aliens could use that as a weapon against the superior militaries.

BTW: I'm being grounded for doing a bad thing. I don't wanna tell since it's kinda dumb on my part. Might be grounded till Christmas day. So if I can't come back till then and if this thread sinks to the 2nd page... please, I want to have the special permission to revive it, to necromance it. *begs*
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[Peregrin Toker]

One option might be an alien race that gave humans the secret of monomolecular fiber, for superstrong cords. Humans took that technology, made the fiber into a 360 razor wire, and use the equivalent of chain shot to clear forests in a hurry (hundreds of monomolecular threads holding together pairs of weighted spheres. The spheres pull the thread long, and the thread cuts anything in its path.

Oh God, that idea rocks. I don't know where to place it. Although it's kinda dumb, not dumb dumb, but funny dumb, like from a Futurama episode. I can just imagine that happening, then maybe Bender being right infront of it and being sliced in half.

Great idea. Maybe some of the odder aliens could use that as a weapon against the superior militaries.

I find the idea of monofilament-wire weaponry rather silly, as it is very difficult for the wielder to avoid injuring himself. Although we could have some sort of robots instead of living soldiers use it - and said robots could be made of some material which serves as armour against monofilament hits.

[CDiehl]

If you want to clear a forest, there are easier ways. One example I can imagine would fit the model of humans as sinister and militaristic.

Most technologically advanced species can perform genetic engineering. Most of them excel at engineeing complex lifeforms such as themselves, but humans excel at engineering microorganisms. In addition, they have gained an extensive knowledge of plant biology, especially knowledge of how to infect them with disease. They originally used it to help terraform planets to make them more earth-like by killing off plants that generated toxic gases, and to remove forests to replace with cities or farmland. Over time, they used this technology for war, wiping out forests and farms and ruining artificially created ecosystems. This is one more reason for aliens to hate humans.

[Sea Skimmer]

These special revolvers could be hybrids between conventional guns and railguns. They have small rails to magnetically stabilize the bullet and maybe give it a small boost. But this wouldn't be good, since it's gonna be overly complex and expensive. Hence it's gonna be for specialized units. Hmm.... maybe these rail stabilizers can be add ons, like silencers.

I cannot think of any way that having the gun be a partial railgun could improve the stability of the bullet in flight. Actually it would make it worse, you stabilize bullets by spinning them, while railguns really can only pull a round straightforward, if you wanted a rifled railgun you'd have to twist the rails around with the rifling. That's rather... Complex...

You could simply have a sort of.... trigger built into the power glove's finger. Or something like Spiderman's webslingers.

That Spiderman thing is painful for at least me to do, and those triggers would be incredibly easy to touch off accidentally.

Or some plug into the person's brain system, like what Simon H. Johansen suggested. Although I shun that idea since I'm not a fan of giving grunts excessive cybernetic implants for my not so advanced sci-fi race.

Well if you go with some classic cybernetic jack into neck system then all sorts of things become possibul, like having a HUD projected directly into the soldiers mind, so they essentially see it as if its being projected onto the lenses of there own eyes.

Hmmm.... your right. Maybe my strong handguns could serve as submachine guns, wherein tank drivers, gunners and the like can use them.

No that really doesnt work. Ammo capacity and rate of fire see too it, even if your bullet could be equally effective, which is unlikely given the longer barrel on a submachine gun.

Being good since they provide maximum stopping power at short distances. Kinda like the AK47s and how the US soldiers in Iraq are liking them.

The only troops using AK-47's are tank crews, and only then because each four man crew only is issued with two M4 carbines and four handguns. If they need high stopping power, then they're also going to need the capability of a submachine gun or carbine.

Oh God. Yeah, kinda sounds dumb. But it's only for military personel.

Military personal need a lot of rounds, in the threes weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom for example, US forces fired off something like 175 million small arms and machine gun rounds. That was with only three divisions heavily engaged

Hmm... maybe the explosive part won't be made out of dense explosives. Maybe the outer part is made out of explosive, small but terrible. Then the core is steel, metal, dense stuff. Kinda like a pencil. The wood is the explosive, the lead is the dense stuff.

Think what would happen when this rod of explosive is propelled down a barrel at high speed, rubbing against already hot steel with being propelled by an expanding explosion of propellant.... Does that really strike you as being safe?

I ask you. Where do you get all these info?

I remember stuff well

The protective bombs will be shaped charges, no? So explosions will be directed towards the outside, so the monomolecular sharpnel will be directed towards the nasty critters outside. I think it would be cool.

Well there not going to be shaped like a HEAT warhead is. But like a real Claymore the explosive and its detonator would be positioned and shaped so that most goes outward. The fact that on one side is going to be a steel plate hanging on the side of an armored vehicle will further help that. The shrapnel out by on the outer side and have no choice but to fly outward.

A neat concept of the military abusing the inexistence of humanitarian rights for nasty giant evil space insects (on a side note, I've been thinking of militaries having war exercises on planets whose inhabitants are primitive and hostile and unknown to humanitarian conventions. THe military starts mowing down these primitive civilizations, guns all loaded with hollow points, AP explosive, nasty stuff, troops having fun killing things.).

Be sure to have some people protest against the military dictatorship when word of that surfaces. Also be sure the protesters are dealt with in some nasty though perhaps not lethal way. They could perhaps end up as laborers on a bug planet, working off their crimes assembling barricades to break up bug charges. Did I mention how the bugs attack such work crews at every opportunity?

ANd now that you've mentioned monomolecular chainrippers on the roof and mono-barbed wire. I like it!

The wires only downside is you couldn't pile up too much of it, or the wire would cut itself apart.


But for major base defenses there would need to be more then that I'd expect. I don't know how you envision the bugs, but I'm assuming a mix like the Zerg, many small ones but also some very huges.

Ideas that come to mind are fences made of steel I beams, say soomthing like a line of dragoons teath, with the I beams welded across the top. Some of the edges could also be sharpened or have mono uber blade edges to keep bugs from easily climbing over them.

Plus of course very deep and wide trenches with the earth all bulldozed up into ramparts ( so tanks and such can shoot over the fences and mono wire without destroying them). And of course big mine fields and all that fun stuff.

Kinda like the military overdoing it. Now imagine that battle drone being painted by some troops, looking horribly nasty with spikes and blades and whatnot! Now with rock music and napalm and FAE bombs and chainripping. I might make a movie out of this!

I get credit for design work

Just for the spirit of overkill. Would this serve as a good anti-spacefighter weapon? Railguns loaded with plasma grenades or some such.

Velocity is very more important, so you can actually hit those pesky fighters with an unguided weapon. Since a grenades or any form of exploding shell will have a lower tolerance for acceleration then a solid slug, they'll be inferior for the job.

A possibul for ultra fast firing plasma grenade launchers might be on whatever kind of dropships is used to get from orbit to the surface, as the ship descends the launchers could spew out grenades to suppress fire around the landing zone. The effect would be similar to a bunch of cluster bombs going off over time.

Sad. What would happen if a person gets hit by one of these things? Disintegration? Would there be anything left?

A small one might blow the corpse into pieces, but it will be very badly burned and the person would be quite dead regardless. A hit from a big one might well leave nothing that you could identify as a body or body part. But I'm not really sure, FAE's have been little use in combat outside of Russia forces, and they aren't too open about them.

They could use super strong not so heavy armor. Or shields.

Shields are good, but low density armor tends to suck.

Hmmm..... self contained pillboxes and bunkers dropped onto hordes of bugs.... I like that! Dropping it onto a horde of bugs amidst carpet bombing! Bugs get squished and blown up. Claymore reactive armor blow up. Plasma, guns, flamers, dead insects. Insects retreat. After a while they come back and just poke the bunker, then it opens up exposing our beloved chainripping drone of overkill. Nasty!

I'm not too sure the bunkers will be in good shape if you drop them amoung a carpet bombing attack. But you could drop a couple lines of drone or manned gun turrets and pill boxs quickly box in a large bug force so it can be more easily bombed. Now the same thing could be done using normal tanks and artillery, but those would likely cost more and have less ammo and protection, well that can be the in universe explanation anyway.

Skimmer likes fixed fortifications and curses the realities of modem war that make them have little value.

Nice idea. Man, this is useful. And I hate to go into numbers, nasty stuff. Having charts like that is a great idea. ALthough if I were to write stories, I might not make charts, just imply that this can > that but cannot > another thing. But something bigger can > that thing and so on.

Well my idea was so that you could keep everything clear while you write, you dont need to go and "publish" them along with the story or anything,. After all, then you couldn't change your mind about it dozens of times, and then whats the fun?

[Sea Skimmer]

If you want to clear a forest, there are easier ways. One example I can imagine would fit the model of humans as sinister and militaristic.

Most technologically advanced species can perform genetic engineering. Most of them excel at engineeing complex lifeforms such as themselves, but humans excel at engineering microorganisms. In addition, they have gained an extensive knowledge of plant biology, especially knowledge of how to infect them with disease. They originally used it to help terraform planets to make them more earth-like by killing off plants that generated toxic gases, and to remove forests to replace with cities or farmland. Over time, they used this technology for war, wiping out forests and farms and ruining artificially created ecosystems. This is one more reason for aliens to hate humans.

Your method would work long term, but its not going to be suitable for military forces, which need the tree trunks physically removed to clear a path. Waiting 20 years for the forest to rot after the evil gas kills it isn't the best tactic.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Humans are the evil, opressive, mentally unstable warrior race of the galaxy. Everybody fears us. Oh and our tactics are copied by everyone, setting the new standard, we have a fearson reputation (that's a human, they use city killer weapons on their own kind!), and while not the most technically advanced speicies in the future, we are one of the most respected and feared, especially for what we do with what little we have.

That would be a great setting, IMO. I've always liked the idea of humans as the bad guys.

The thing with humans as the natural killers of an SF setting has been done by Alan Dean Foster, in his books from the series of books entitled "The Damned." The first two books were "A Call to Arms" and "The False Mirror." Of course, in this case, being natural killers is a good thing.

Basically, the alien union called the Weave is trying to resist being taken over by the unpleasant, mind-controlling Amplitur, who want everyone and everything subservient to and part of the Amplitur Purpose. Those species that give in to the Purpose, voluntarily or forcibly, have no way to back out, and end up with no more control of their minds and DNA than the Vorta and Jem'hadar of ST:DS9.

Unfortunately, in the universe of The Damned, virtually all normal, habitable planets have a single continental landmass, little geologic activity and sedate weather. The ecologies of these worlds are similarly sedate, and the sapient species that develop on them are, almost literally, wimpy pacifists with a mile-wide streak of reasonableness and typically a lack of physical strength that makes the climbing of a chain link fence impossible. Only a select few species have what it takes to serve as soldiers, whether to defend the worlds of the Weave or to enslave those worlds in the name of the Amplitur, and even those warrior species are no great shakes.

Then humans are discovered by the Weave, and it doesn't take long for some facts to become clear: compared to everyone else in the galaxy, humans are fantastically fast and strong, have incredible hand-eye coordination, and are homicidal psychopaths by anyone else's standards. Humans can not only harm, even kill, members of other species, but even seem to enjoy it. And they, unlike any other known intelligent species, act violently toward other members of their own species.

It also helps that the following is the invariable result of the human mind's reaction to an Amplitur's telepathic probe:

It brought forth a cataclysmic shriek of raw, uncontrolled energy, a concentrated eruption of fear, horror, loathing, and primitive primate hatred. The Amplitur shook violently. All four legs gave way simultaneously and it collapsed, managing to get off a single shot before blacking out.

- excerpted from "The False Mirror" by Alan Dean Foster (and the Amplitur itself was only capable of using a gun for a short time because of a purposely self-induced psychosis)

[CaptainChewbacca]

I like the idea of bad-guy humans, but how bad do we want them? Did they get their tech and into space thanks to an abortive first-contact? Did someone bite off more than they could chew when they invaded India? Did Oceana win a war of conquest and then take humans to the stars?

I'm reminded of a story by Harry Turtledove where FTL is an insanely easy thing that humans somehow overlook, and when cast-iron ships start disgorging aliens armed with winchesters in 1992, they get a rude awakening.

If humans aren't very technologically advanced but are the 'thugs' of the galaxy, and can imagine the more mature races putting aside their differences to glass earth.

I always wanted to do something with humans in a new role, like the mysterious, all-knowing aliens visiting a primitive race. Klingon humans rock as well, though.


Alien crewman: Captain, we have three signals approaching the armada.

Captain: Not to worry, we have five times that many ships.

Crewman: Sir, they are human gunships.

Captain: Signal the armada, full retreat. I'll not fight those madmen, they actually RAM instead of surrendering.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Hey only AFTER we disgourge the ENTIRE payload of missiles we over stocked those three fuckers with......

[Stormin]

In my abortive fanfic Rebellion, I had been planning to have a part where humans contact an alien species somehow overlooked during the xenocidal wars several thousand years before the story.
The aliens are about in our current situation socially and tech wise and they try like hell to impress the alien visiters (humans) while the humans try to hide how advanced they are and how far spread since it was believed that releasing such info would destroy their civilisation.

[Shroom Man 777]

I find the idea of monofilament-wire weaponry rather silly, as it is very difficult for the wielder to avoid injuring himself. Although we could have some sort of robots instead of living soldiers use it - and said robots could be made of some material which serves as armour against monofilament hits.

The military in my universe uses robots a lot in their special forces. Not just robots, but Terminator type robots.

I cannot think of any way that having the gun be a partial railgun could improve the stability of the bullet in flight. Actually it would make it worse, you stabilize bullets by spinning them, while railguns really can only pull a round straightforward, if you wanted a rifled railgun you'd have to twist the rails around with the rifling. That's rather... Complex...

Aww damn. Hmmm... maybe just make em rail rocket pistols.

That Spiderman thing is painful for at least me to do, and those triggers would be incredibly easy to touch off accidentally.

It's a breeze for me. But I can do some stuff which can pass for an amateur yogaist.

Well if you go with some classic cybernetic jack into neck system then all sorts of things become possibul, like having a HUD projected directly into the soldiers mind, so they essentially see it as if its being projected onto the lenses of there own eyes.

That method will be used for the special, special forces of people. Meta-humans, psychics and telepaths and telekinetics with neural implants which can get signals from the suit's computer. Hence eliminating the need of fancy visors. They then use goggles and maybe they can look like they wear gas masks, plus their black costumes, will equal to something able to scare the shit out of people.

No that really doesnt work. Ammo capacity and rate of fire see too it, even if your bullet could be equally effective, which is unlikely given the longer barrel on a submachine gun.

The pistols could be stream lined and sleeker versions of futuristic Uzis. Plus their barrels could be quite long, like an Uzi.

The only troops using AK-47's are tank crews, and only then because each four man crew only is issued with two M4 carbines and four handguns. If they need high stopping power, then they're also going to need the capability of a submachine gun or carbine.

Really? I thought some of those not in vehicles were using both M4s and AKs, ditching the M4s when the Iraqis get too close.

Think what would happen when this rod of explosive is propelled down a barrel at high speed, rubbing against already hot steel with being propelled by an expanding explosion of propellant.... Does that really strike you as being safe?

I really love the concept of explosive-AP bullets. How can I make a way for it to work? Maybe guns can have liquid nitrogen coolants or something?

Be sure to have some people protest against the military dictatorship when word of that surfaces. Also be sure the protesters are dealt with in some nasty though perhaps not lethal way. They could perhaps end up as laborers on a bug planet, working off their crimes assembling barricades to break up bug charges. Did I mention how the bugs attack such work crews at every opportunity?

My earth won't have dictatorships. Although other less humane species could do that. ANd earthlings could do that to criminals and really nasty and bad offenders. Plus also those fanatical activists who actually try and damage the military.

The wires only downside is you couldn't pile up too much of it, or the wire would cut itself apart.


But for major base defenses there would need to be more then that I'd expect. I don't know how you envision the bugs, but I'm assuming a mix like the Zerg, many small ones but also some very huges.

I love the Zerg and the bugs will be a homage to them and various other cool bugs, like SST and Aliens. So we will have nasty huge Ultralisks look alikes to be shredded by claymores, shrapnel, grenades and melted by FAEs.

Ideas that come to mind are fences made of steel I beams, say soomthing like a line of dragoons teath, with the I beams welded across the top. Some of the edges could also be sharpened or have mono uber blade edges to keep bugs from easily climbing over them.

Just like those things in the shores of Normandy? Nice idea. I can imagine ultralisks charging and getting torn to pieces by them.

Plus of course very deep and wide trenches with the earth all bulldozed up into ramparts ( so tanks and such can shoot over the fences and mono wire without destroying them). And of course big mine fields and all that fun stuff.

Yeah, I thought of that. Hmmm..... nuclear landmines..... would that be good? They wouldn't be stacked together, just placed like miles apart and very far from base. They would have long range sensors and when hordes of bugs go over the area of the nuke, BOOM! This stuff can also be used to blast underground hives.

Velocity is very more important, so you can actually hit those pesky fighters with an unguided weapon. Since a grenades or any form of exploding shell will have a lower tolerance for acceleration then a solid slug, they'll be inferior for the job.

A possibul for ultra fast firing plasma grenade launchers might be on whatever kind of dropships is used to get from orbit to the surface, as the ship descends the launchers could spew out grenades to suppress fire around the landing zone. The effect would be similar to a bunch of cluster bombs going off over time.

This would be good in a Blackhawk Down like scenario. Very good, automatic grenades add to the flavor of railguns, plasma and missiles blasting the LZ clear of all hostiles. Plus not to forget the FAEs. This world I'm making is starting to be a really nasty one.

I'm not too sure the bunkers will be in good shape if you drop them amoung a carpet bombing attack. But you could drop a couple lines of drone or manned gun turrets and pill boxs quickly box in a large bug force so it can be more easily bombed. Now the same thing could be done using normal tanks and artillery, but those would likely cost more and have less ammo and protection, well that can be the in universe explanation anyway.

Skimmer likes fixed fortifications and curses the realities of modem war that make them have little value.

Well, it might be considered carpet bombing, but think of a rain of small yet smart bombs. Kinda like carpet bombing, but they will leave bits of unscorched land for the landing bunkers to land on. The explaination is nice too. This is a really nice concept, like that troop barge thing in the SST movie. ALthough sending waves of troops at bugs is something only that captain guy from Futurama would do.

Hmmm.... what about those lasers which melt incoming artillery and missiles? Maybe they could make static fortifications effective again in my universe? Plus shield generators and all that jazz.

Well my idea was so that you could keep everything clear while you write, you dont need to go and "publish" them along with the story or anything,. After all, then you couldn't change your mind about it dozens of times, and then whats the fun?

Your right. Just to clear things up and avoid contradictions. Not actually writing it up. Maybe I could post it somewhere just incase if people like the people here start scrutinizing.

@ those dudes after Sea's post: Nah, humans won't be bad guys in my story. But it's a nice idea and I will use some for the bad guy races and perhaps some of the independent human nations which are not so likeable.

Can't post much, just sneaking away a few posts. I hope I can keep this up.

[Sea Skimmer]

Aww damn. Hmmm... maybe just make em rail rocket pistols.

Or you could just leave them a sane strength level. If you really must have increase hitting power then how about this. Each pistol has an electronic scope on top, which can identify a human body (and other aliens) out of the background. It then consults preprogrammed data and displays where the targets vital organs are on the scopes image. The result would be basically the target is walking around with a bull eye right on there heart. Add in an infrared laser sight to help aim for that and in the hands of a good shot there could be a considerable increase in effectiveness, all while keeping the gun its self and ammo simple.

The system could also be of aid to police and other forces in IDing a suspects species, and adds a possibul plot opportunity for some SPECIES UNKNOWN warning coming up when the police the "man" in sunglasses driving the truck bomb.

The pistols could be stream lined and sleeker versions of futuristic Uzis. Plus their barrels could be quite long, like an Uzi.

...the Uzi is a submachine gun. As I've been saying, these troops need submachine guns or carbines.

Really? I thought some of those not in vehicles were using both M4s and AKs, ditching the M4s when the Iraqis get too close.

No, no solider is going to run around with two rifles anyway and most action is at very close range in the first place.

I really love the concept of explosive-AP bullets. How can I make a way for it to work? Maybe guns can have liquid nitrogen coolants or something?

You can make it work by having it in higher caliber weapons, anything from about a 12.7mm machine gun through the world's largest siege guns can fire an effective HE or APHE shell. Though you of course always have solid shot AP shot for killing more heavily armored targets as well. A solid AP round will always be more effective piercing armor, buy once you get up to warship guns and heavy artillery, the target is generally so big you need the shell that explodes to do worth while amounts of damage.

For smaller calibers weapons, espically automatic cannon there's now frangible ammo, its a solid AP shot with no explosive, however once it pierces the armor it breaks up into a bunch of big fragments to do more damage inside.

I love the Zerg and the bugs will be a homage to them and various other cool bugs, like SST and Aliens. So we will have nasty huge Ultralisks look alikes to be shredded by claymores, shrapnel, grenades and melted by FAEs.

You need somthing better protected, and likely with more legs then an Ultralisk as well. Those things don't look too well armored, and if you simply blew off or smashed one leg it would be hard pressed to move. Eight legs however...

Just like those things in the shores of Normandy? Nice idea. I can imagine ultralisks charging and getting torn to pieces by them.

These are the dragon's teeth. Sometimes they also have a metal spike sticking out the top of each concrete pyramid. For gateways the Germans favored something like , I beams (those in the foreground where probably cut up and removed) would be laid across in the groves. Though sometimes they used swinging gates. The system is a potent anti tank obstacle but one that wont work too well against bugs, which can climb.

[url=http://www.vor.ru/55/Monument/6.html]This is a giant Russian war memorial depicting three hedgehogs, another form of obstacle that's basically three pieces of steel welded at angles.

Both of these systems got used at Normandy. The Hedgehogs where better in wet sand, but overall they where much easier to blow up and used up way more scare steel. But anyway I'm suggesting big dragons teeth topped with steel.

Another form of obstacle was the Belgian Gate a row of which you can see in the background of this picture. So my idea is basically a Belgian Gate (only build more heavily) on top of concrete dragons teeth which serve as a base.

Alternatively, something like the gate in the Dragoons teeth could be used continually as a barrier. That would probably be stronger now that I think about it. In both cases bladed edges could be used, while troops fire over them. Attaching heavy mines to the bug facing side would further discourage climbing.

Yeah, I thought of that. Hmmm..... nuclear landmines..... would that be good? They wouldn't be stacked together, just placed like miles apart and very far from base. They would have long range sensors and when hordes of bugs go over the area of the nuke, BOOM! This stuff can also be used to blast underground hives.

The US Army actually had such a thing in the 50's, called the ADM, Atomic Demolition Munition. It was basically a command detonated nuclear landmine that yielded around 10 tons, though as its name suggests it was more for blowing up bridges and such thing laying ambushes. The big problem though was emplacing the things in combat, and nuclear artillery shells soon replaced them.


Now for your forces nukes could have use-blasting bug hives (this is another reason to find and read Starship Troopers, they dig down and use nukes to cut off bug an underground bug colony in one battle) but I don't think you'd want to ring you base with nuclear mines even if there command detonated. You need a lot of mines, since they can be too close or they'll blast the defenses as well. It would also mean the bombs are ground bursts. The resulting heavy fallout might drift over the base. In addition nuclear weapons are more effective against soft targets like a bunch of bugs when you airburst them. So a better idea is probably just to keep nuclear artillery shells ready to destroy the main body of a bug attacking force, while normal artillery and artillery delivered mines box it in and take care of the survivors.

The direct fire defenses and barriers would stop anyone who gets past all that, and any surprise attacks, after all, the bugs wont be a big threat if you can always trash them with nukes and artillery.

Hmmm.... what about those lasers which melt incoming artillery and missiles? Maybe they could make static fortifications effective again in my universe? Plus shield generators and all that jazz.

They don't melt the whole shell, just a small part with the result that force of the air tears the shell apart; at the least it will alter the ballistics and cause the shell to land short of its target.

[Peregrin Toker]

I find the idea of monofilament-wire weaponry rather silly, as it is very difficult for the wielder to avoid injuring himself. Although we could have some sort of robots instead of living soldiers use it - and said robots could be made of some material which serves as armour against monofilament hits.

The military in my universe uses robots a lot in their special forces. Not just robots, but Terminator type robots.

Yet ANOTHER similarity between your universe and my TWW....

(although TWW's military robots aren't Terminator-style, but either spider-like contraptions armed with microwave deathrasys, or flying drones called xyrl)

However - doesn't monofilament cut through practically anything??? Are there any known materials which would protect against it, or would the monofilament-'bots have to rely upon electromagnetic forcefields for protection against their own weapons??