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Oooook this is what happens when I spend a day in work away from the forum. ... Fnord: There isn't an exchange program per-se, but there is a reasonable overlap as Elysium Base over Earth is a joint command. Dang, There goes the in-universe shout-out to True Names over at the Computer Research Divi...

If he does land the spot, he'll probably (be expecting to) cop a lot of stick. Not sure if I got an answer to this earlier, but here goes again. E_F has said that Kobolian crews are mostly homogeneous - Terran crews on Terran ships and likewise for Colonials. Is there an exchange program with the Ta...

Dang, so we won't see Kirk, J.A., commanding Enterprise in action this book? J.T., fnord. Phil, may I suggest tracking down Roger McBride Allen's novel Hostile Powers? While not as well-written as its prequel. The Torch Of Honor, it does describe just the carrier I think you're looking for(albeit o...

Dang, so we won't see Kirk, J.A., commanding Enterprise in action this book?

Well, if the Covvie vehicle in question is far enough back from the forward edge of battle, neither your troops nor the vehicle's crew would notice too much of a difference between the choices of banger.

In UNSC terms, how far above their weight do the Terran booties punch? A full echelon? If so, that would make either Terran division roughly equivalent to a UNSC corps in their own right. Will we get to see any pinpoint orbital bombardment on-screen? Phoenix flattening ICBM fields in book 1 didn't c...

Well, that left a mark, and was worth the wait. Not the first time geological features copped some wear and tear in this crazy rocket ride, but aforementioned geology actually survived this time (unlike when the planet Atlantis was on disappeared into an artifical Negative Space Wedgie).

Jacob's Wild Ride, echoing Frankie's?

Well, given Jellicoe's previously-shown optimistic outlook (*koff* sarcasm *koff*), he'd assume that as a matter of course - would fit with rest of overall military competence shown by the Covenant. Lord High Muckamuck #1 getting clobbered doesn't leave the Covenant fleet headless. And north (bugger...

For example. if you suddenly had to beat feet from the rim of the Milky Way to the Furling Beacon, (approx 80k light year), would Kobolian kit work out quicker (after accounting for cycle times, extra calcs as you got further in, waffles, etc) than bumming a lift? Would that change if you had to bea...

Ah, that makes sense. Keyship is not a battlewagon per se (although it can handle itself when fur flies), but it force-multiplies other battlewagons. What's the (rough) crossover distance between where it's faster to use Kobolian FTL and where it's faster to bum a lift off the Keyship? Likewise, the...

Um... when would a capital ship (warstar, battlestar, superheavy cruiser, etc) not be both a battlewagon and a strategic asset?

Have there been any other times when multiple supercarrier-level ships have gone down in the same fight?

I think it was three this time - one flattened by NOVA, and the other two by Giant Frikkin' Lasers.

Bloodied by real life, but unbowed? Fleet Ops, CIC and a handful of other critical compartments in the ship’s bow section were more effectively isolated, surrounded by a solid armour box and equipped with independent life support, artificial gravity and inertial damper systems to better prevent shoc...

Given the apparent doubt, resolve it in the direction of "what makes a better story"?

Was more thinking about the effects of Sod's Law (or whim of Eternal_Freedom - functionally equivalent in this story).

That does tend to assume the dissenters - Mastanee et al - survive the (presumed) upcoming wtfpwnage. If they're blasted to plasma, I doubt their voices will be doing much of anything.

Terran Navy Special Arm - "Don't Make Us Come Over There." So, in book 1, we had lots of giant frikkin' lasers, nukes aplenty, leeroying ships, and an accidental metric weapon. Book 2, more lasers, more nukes, and actual brute-force atomic-wedgie planetbusters. How will that trend go in bo...

At least (from Jellicoe et al's POV), it wasn't a metric weapon - no false vacuum collapse, deep fried cheesy *FNORD*, or... waffles.

U.P. Cinnabar wrote: ↑2018-11-04 11:59am

fnord wrote:. Maybe a strategic reserve of battlewagons and weapons that haven't previously been committed?

All painted red, so they're three times more powerful than the whole Covie Navy.

Maybe "Paint It Black" as the soundtrack for the next bit?

Bit of last post that got chomped by edit window: Wattinree grinned in approval. “You anticipate my next comments well Supreme Commander. Between our various carriers and battlecruisers we have some seven hundred stealth corvettes. We will send them in first under full stealth protocols to obtain a ...

I wonder how worried Wattinree et al are (now) about naquada-enhanced NOVA bombs mounted in bomb ketches (what goes around in book 1 seems to come around in book 2)? Drone ships mounting aforementioned bangers being thrown into the midst of Covenant fleets would do numbers on slightly less cautious ...

Now you got me curious about wanting to see not your proposed planetbuster per se, but the story, people, arguments, etc behind the TCN Special Arm's genesis (proposed motto: Don't Make Us Come Over There).

You sure it isn't shading towards "Relativistic Weapons Are Just Better"?

I wonder if Wattinree would count that as a partial win - clueless Prophet blasted to plasma, more info learned about the human superheavies, etc.