GP Hulls/Shields vs.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-09-16 12:15am

so how well do they hold up against other realities?

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2004-09-16 12:37am

By "GP", do you mean General Products, from Larry Niven's Known Space universe?

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-09-16 12:52am

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-09-16 03:04am

They are pretty damn tough. Gravity effects and specific bands of light/radiation will get through, but IIRC they have only been destroyed by direct contact with Anti-matter.

IIRC they are one huge artificial molecule with bonds that are artificially strengthened.

Neko_Oni · Post by **Neko_Oni** » 2004-09-16 04:44am

The Pupeteers gave a guarantee that the owner couldn't be injured while in a General Products hull. They had to pay up once (when antimatter destroyed one of the hulls), in another incident around a neutron star, I think that one ended up with a settlement between the Pupeteers and the pilot (Beowulf Shauffeur? He might have even been the pilot on both occasions).

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-09-16 05:33am

The hulls themselves might be more susceptible to Photon Torpedos than to SW turbolasers, although the crew inside will be just as dead due to the light transparency properties. I'm sure a Death Star could destroy one just from sheer trauma, but other than that I have no idea. Those things have survived some serious trauma.

And if the hull has a properly-working stasis field, then it can't take damage until the ship pops back into time. That'd be difficult to deal with.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2004-09-16 06:36am

Just use a warp warhead ( Dahak-Verse ) and the ship is gone.

or a paratron converter / disruptor ( Perry Rhodan ).

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-16 08:20am

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:And if the hull has a properly-working stasis field, then it can't take damage until the ship pops back into time. That'd be difficult to deal with.

About the only weapon the "warTARDIS" was known to carry was a device that forced time machines into the normal time flow at a point of their choosing. That'd about do it I imagine.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-09-16 10:21am

Neko_Oni wrote:The Pupeteers gave a guarantee that the owner couldn't be injured while in a General Products hull. They had to pay up once (when antimatter destroyed one of the hulls), in another incident around a neutron star, I think that one ended up with a settlement between the Pupeteers and the pilot (Beowulf Shauffeur? He might have even been the pilot on both occasions).

As I recall, his name is Beowulf Shaeffer, and he was involved in both incidents. The Puppeteers hired him to investigate what happened to a pair o people who tried to orbit a neutron star. So he got paid, but the puppeteers didn't have to pay anyone else off. The antimatter incident did have to get paid off.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-09-16 11:11am

Well, we know General Products hulls could very possibly survive hitting a neutron star at high fractions of the speed of light (from the Bey Shaffer story Neutron Star) and we've known that General Products hulls have taken direct hits from laser weapons that could literally reduce the Earth to a vapor (Ringworld).

What makes the GP hull so effective is the Statis Field and how damn quickly a puppeteer ship can pull one around the hull. Once the field activates, the insides of the field are moving at a different rate of time to the outside, to the tune of 1 second passing inside for several billion years happening outside. They are invulernable (how do you damage a pocket universe) and protect the contents of the ship perfectly. In "World of the Ptavvs", Kzanol's ship hit Pluto (then a moon of Neptune, 2 billion years ago) with enough force to knock it into Pluto's present orbit (very close to the speed of light) and the ship survived, though it was broken in half and everything that was in statis was in perfect condition (this included a living being who was Kzanol's slave who went on to live a rather interesting life). Kzanol, who was looking to be picked up, had his ships computer first aim for planet F124 (called Earth, nowadays), jumped out an airlock in a space suit, and turned on the statis field. Kzanol hit Earth at close to the speed of light and ended up imbedded in the crust. 2 billion years later, people found him and disabled his statis field with another one (two statis fields can't exist within one another), and he was completely fine as if no time had passed from when he activated his statis field.

All General Products hulls have this feature and the Puppeteer computer that governs it is insanely advanced, reacting quick enough to stop a the Ringworld Meteor Defense from cooking the inside of the ship after it started to detect the glare of the thing ramping up.

A GP hull with a statis field is going to be impossible to crack for most universes. At the very least, it makes ramming a dirty but highly viable tactic for the GP ship.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-09-16 11:15am

Beowulf wrote:As I recall, his name is Beowulf Shaeffer, and he was involved in both incidents. The Puppeteers hired him to investigate what happened to a pair o people who tried to orbit a neutron star. So he got paid, but the puppeteers didn't have to pay anyone else off. The antimatter incident did have to get paid off.

What they paid Bey Shaeffer for was to keep his trap shut about his knowledge that they didn't take extreme gravity in account in their brochure, because Shaeffer "figured out" that they didn't consider tides because they have very little experience with them. This was a bit of misdirection, as the Puppeteers know tons about tides (they made the Kemplar Rosette in Ringworld, after all), but the cost to confuse people was well worth it for the chump change they paid Shaeffer.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-09-16 11:22am

Imperial Overlord wrote:They are pretty damn tough. Gravity effects and specific bands of light/radiation will get through, but IIRC they have only been destroyed by direct contact with Anti-matter.

IIRC they are one huge artificial molecule with bonds that are artificially strengthened.

specific bands of EM radiation will get through only if it's been set by the user to be transparent to that part of the spectrum.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-09-16 11:28am

Matt Huang wrote:specific bands of EM radiation will get through only if it's been set by the user to be transparent to that part of the spectrum.

Nah, all GP hulls are transparant to the visible spectrum of light. However, they may have something underneath the hull that can become selectively transparant to visible light on command.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-16 11:59am

Let's see, races and methods destroy a ship with a GP stasis field. Bear in mind the only Known Space book I've read is Ringworld:

The Time Lords. Either returning it to the normal time flow or simply depoiting it into a black hole etc. etc.
The Culture. Destroyed long before it can get the field up. Else, contents displaced out of field by layers. Or having a black hole created next to it with sufficient mass for it to be inside the event horizon, etc, etc.
The Necrons. How could I not. Much like the Culture, their teleporters seem to work along the same principles. As such, they might be able to simply chop it into layers via displacer until they eventually shred the generator.
The Old Ones (40K). Blackstone Fortress shot should do it, once in the warp, stasis won't help you, as time is very fucked up there.
The Imperium of Man. Eventually, a vortex torpedo would do the above to it. Or a stasis grenade. Not sure if they're that smart though.
Assorted magical entities able to alter reality on a large scale. Nuff said.

You will note that with the except number five all are well up there on the scale. As for the hull. How much antimatter hit it?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-09-16 12:37pm

On the antimatter, they landed on an antimatter planetoid. The AM works not by energy release, but by the annhilation reaction removing atoms from the artificial molecule in sufficient quantities to cause it to collapse.

Void torpedos are Eldar weapons, although the Imperium might have a few stashed away for "special" uses.

Necron disintigrators probably wouldn't work. Similar weapons exist in Known Space.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-16 12:45pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:Void torpedos are Eldar weapons, although the Imperium might have a few stashed away for "special" uses.

They're also dark age of technology man tech.

Necron disintigrators probably wouldn't work. Similar weapons exist in Known Space.

I didn't propose that they would. Dispalcer =!= Gauss weapon. The displacer system they use is capable of targeting a man sized object from many AU and teleporting it, by what appears to be something akin to a wormhole or cultureverse displacer, as it is faster than light.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-09-16 12:54pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:
Matt Huang wrote:specific bands of EM radiation will get through only if it's been set by the user to be transparent to that part of the spectrum.
Nah, all GP hulls are transparant to the visible spectrum of light. However, they may have something underneath the hull that can become selectively transparant to visible light on command.

I'll take your word for it until I can read Ringworld again.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-09-16 12:55pm

I know the Imperium has the tech, but they don't use them as standard ship weapons.

I don't know how the displacer works, but gauss weapons work similarily to Slaver disintigrators in Known Space IIRC. GP hulls are obviously immune to them.

My knowledge of Necrons is one of my 40K weakpoints. Could you briefly explain how the displacer works? If I am operating off inaccurate memory, then my conclusions can hardly be valid.

Thank you.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-09-16 01:13pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:On the antimatter, they landed on an antimatter planetoid. The AM works not by energy release, but by the annhilation reaction removing atoms from the artificial molecule in sufficient quantities to cause it to collapse.

The did not land on the planet. Beowulf was of the opinion that it was a bad idea, and kept Elephant from landing. Rather, it was the antimatter micrometeorites that killed the hull. If they had landed, they'd be dead, because they'd have hit the surface.

And I'm not sure you can displace through the stasis field.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-16 01:51pm

Beowulf wrote:And I'm not sure you can displace through the stasis field.

You can't do anything through a stasis field, this is one of the rules. It is 100% reflective. You can crash it into black holes, through the center of a star, whatever you want... but nothing can hurt it until it's been shut off.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-16 02:06pm

Imperial Overlord wrote: My knowledge of Necrons is one of my 40K weakpoints. Could you briefly explain how the displacer works? If I am operating off inaccurate memory, then my conclusions can hardly be valid.

Thank you.

No necron technology is explained. All that is really known is that the contents of one area can be moved at faster than light velocity (creating a vaccuum where it was) to another one many AU away. It doesn't appear to dematerialse them, but simply move everything within a specified area. (Same with the vastly inferior teleporters of other races too.)

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-16 02:08pm

Beowulf wrote:And I'm not sure you can displace through the stasis field.

Has anyone tried? Certainly with the Culture, they have can and do (Given that IIRC, this is how CAM is stored)

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-09-16 02:17pm

Necron ships have an inertialess drive.

Gauss weapons work by stripping off atoms.

So we have some explanation with regards to them. Can you describe a displacer in more detail?

Thank you.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-09-16 02:27pm

Huh? I've just described everything that's known about it. Its means of operation are so vastly beyond modern technology that I couldn't even give you a wild stab in the dark about how it works. Necrons = Clarketech. All that's known is that the contents of bit of space X dissapear, presmably in one piece (Razor. It's not matter transmission, as it's FTL), and reappear at area Y.

And no, the intertialess drive is mis-naming by the IoM. A real inertialess drive can't go FTL, the necron one can. Very much so. And no, the function of the gauss weapons is speculation by the IoM. They may be magnetic, but describing how they work is utterly beyond modern science. Describing what they do isn't.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2004-09-16 02:35pm

Thanks for your best shot.

So with the displacer we have an immovable object going up against the irresistable force? The GP hull is all one molecule so . . . . I don't know. I would tend to think the burden of proof is on the one claiming they can damage a GP hull, but Necron tech is vile.

BTW do we know that Necron FTL drive is the same as their "in system" one?

Thank you for the info.