Future Tech Advice and Assistance Thread [O.O.C.]

[Sunset]

Just to add my two cents as far as a timeline goes...

Power Armor is not a major event.

However, the birth of Tony Stark might be. Or at least your local version of Tony Stark. Now if it were the development of the faster-than-light drive I'd include that but I'd also put something like 'FTL Drive developed by Doctor Blank and Doctor Blank of the University of Blank.' Give us enough background to keep the entry interesting, but not enough to tell the whole story because you might want to do that later. But unless said technology is the local equivalent of the iPhone (maybe everyone wears power armor?) I wouldn't include it unless the impact was notably enormous. Which, I love power armor, but its not in the same league as FTL travel or terraforming or genetic manipulation or...

But again, more important is to give us a little taste of what's going on. Unless the timeline is specific to military technology, then that's a whole different story. But Nations are about people and thus people will make the timeline more interesting.

[Taigawa]

Are there any effective ways to defend against Antimatter weapons?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Are there any effective ways to defend against Antimatter weapons?

As a general rule of thumb; don't be in the way when they go off. Any weapon, no matter how energetic, can only hurt things within a comparatively minute distance of space. Space is really, really, really, effing big, and your ships are really really really really effing small, even if they're absurd 20 klick monstrosities. Even if your military's opponent is using, say, A/M warheads tipped with a few grams of fullerenes for a big boom, anti-missile defenses, kill-buses, interception drones, electronic spoofing, all that is still a genuine countermeasure.

Assuming nothing gets too out of hand, that is. If someone detonates an antiproton moon next to your homeworld, well, kiss your sweet solar system goodbye.

[RawHein]

Are there any effective ways to defend against Antimatter weapons?

Depends. If they're normal missiles with antimatter warheads then normal defences -ECM, decoys, point defence etc- can be used. If it's globs of antimatter propelled at high speeds, like a shell, then besides point defence consider putting a nebula, debris field, or other light matter between you and the hostile if possible - or better, get them to follow you in. Firing in there would be suicidal.

[Lubyak]

Are there any effective ways to defend against Antimatter weapons?

It'd depend on the type of weapon. If it's a torpedo or shell or something that has a matter-antimatter warhead, then apply your standard tools for dealing with a weapon of that yield. You can try to intercept and destroy munitions, or rely on your shield/armour to tank the damage output of the warhead if it does hit.

However, if they're shooting pure anti-matter at you, then shields are probably a good defense--assuming they're some kind of 'energy' and not matter in and of themselves. Pure anti-matter would need some matter to annihilate with to release energy, so if you can keep the anti-matter from annihilating, you'd effectively neutralise it. Presumably, the anti-matter is meant to react with the matter of your ship's hull, so if your shielding is of a type that would keep the anti-matter projectile from impacting the hull, the damage should be minimised. This, of course, presumes that the anti-matter can't annhilate with whatever makes up your shields, and that it doesn't have some kind of 'sheath' to penetrate the shields to avoid this altogether.

Really, in an RP setting, the answer is 'work with your RP partner'. Talk to them and come up with some interesting ways your weapons and defences can interact, and go from there. Hopefully the ideas we've put out here offer some jumping off points.

[SquareDisc City]

Are there any effective ways to defend against Antimatter weapons?

As far as tech backstory goes, plenty. "Don't get hit" or "shoot first" are defences against anything. So are whatever sci-fi 'shields' you might come up with. Being a bit more specific, a simple isotropic warhead will lose effectiveness with distance squared, so preventing it from getting close to its target will be an effective defense. That applies whether it's antimatter, nuclear, chemical, or made up sci-fi stuff. A more sophisticated warhead that directs its blast is almost surely more complex and so damaging it is likely to cause a mis-detonation, even if it's antimatter powered. In both cases, this is basically saying "point defense" works.

When it comes down to an actual RP though, as I see it what matters more is purpose of the weapon. All I can do as far as "science" and "realism" goes is make my own stuff self-consistent, and I will work out technologies and numbers because I like doing that, but those "hard numbers" go all wibbly wobbly in an actual story. I don't care if someone's rocking antiproton torpedoes, nuclear graser warheads, or even a giant catapult - if it's a weapon meant to be effective against X, the story will have it be effective against stuff in my nation like X.

[Senkaku]

[If someone detonates an antiproton moon next to your homeworld, well, kiss your sweet solar system goodbye.

*hurriedly scribbles notes*

An antiproton moon, you say... Yes, yes, that will do nicely...

[Maljaratas]

[If someone detonates an antiproton moon next to your homeworld, well, kiss your sweet solar system goodbye.

*hurriedly scribbles notes*

An antiproton moon, you say... Yes, yes, that will do nicely...

How about an Electron Moon?

[Senkaku]

*hurriedly scribbles notes*

An antiproton moon, you say... Yes, yes, that will do nicely...

How about an Electron Moon?

A naked singularity you say?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Maljaratas]

How about an Electron Moon?

A naked singularity you say?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Kinks in the Space time Continuum

[Federal Republic of Free States]

To move the thread a bit along. One thing that I have been thinking about recently...

When your military forces are involved in operations that take them far from their home systems, how do your military commanders continue to give them a sense of home while their away? Something like letters from loved ones would be quite difficult depending on the distance. One way that came to my mind, were letters from "home", which in themselves are just outright lies. Possibly written by an AI program.

Thoughts?

[SquareDisc City]

Well in the FT setting the communication side of things really depends on how your nation's technology works. Maybe you have easy galaxy-wide communications anyway. Maybe it's more limited, perhaps there are relay stations in well-explored space but it's harder in the real unknown systems. Maybe the best way is literally a letter on a starship.

But the idea of deceiving the enlisted men the way you suggest, I think in many armed forces that would be seen as unsavoury. Maybe if there's heavy reliance on conscripts it might fly, but even then it's just asking to backfire when word gets out. Not to mention you can't really pull that off at every level of the chain of command.

As far as more general "home comforts" goes, the UPT space force has rather austere 'front-line' spacecraft, but the support craft and mobile stations are more expansive and have the kind of luxuries someone on a whatever-month tour of duty needs and wants. It fits into the "Air Force analogy" elements of the space force I've conceived, where a lot of the supporting stuff is split away from the vessels doing the actual shooting; in contrast the commonly seen "naval analogy" has the combat vehicles more self-sufficient and independent and thus they have necessary support crews and functions on board.

Of course, the whole matter could be rendered moot by a nation having the capability to directly control emotional state and morale of a person. Who cares if the spaceship is stinking, cramped, and devoid of intellectual stimulation if everyone's doped up on happy pills or mind controlled by brain chips.

[Sunset]

Email works, as does video/holographic conferencing. To me any civilization with regular reliable FTL would also have some form of FTL Communications network that would also allow those further afield to stay in touch with friends and family. Sunset, for instance, runs an open communications network through our Aurora Transit Gate network that allows real-time comms nearly anywhere out to the edges of the Republic. However...

The idea of a government who either does not have such a capability or views it as frivolous or something of a security threat engaging in a systemic campaign of deception against their own rank and file would make an intriguing element along with the potential for rebellion and insurrection as well as the possibilities for internal politics and manipulation. A rogue Admiral who manipulates the system to turn the fleets to his own end, or the politician back home who orders brave men and women to their deaths for his own avarice and greed. The possibilities laid out are very much story-worthy.

[Senkaku]

To move the thread a bit along. One thing that I have been thinking about recently...

When your military forces are involved in operations that take them far from their home systems, how do your military commanders continue to give them a sense of home while their away? Something like letters from loved ones would be quite difficult depending on the distance. One way that came to my mind, were letters from "home", which in themselves are just outright lies. Possibly written by an AI program.

Thoughts?

I expect high command probably just wouldn't give a shit. Communication with family or friends back on @@PLANET@@ would just be viewed as a potential security/psychological/espionage risk and a waste of bandwidth. Same goes for some sort of attempt to deceive the troops- wasteful and potentially dangerous. Maybe occasionally they'd do something like how the Girl Scouts sell cookies to the Army, so you get like food or candy from home? For most I doubt it'd even be that, though servicemembers with unusual postings like to deep space stations (overseeing telescope or communications arrays, that sort of thing) or very long, isolated deployments would probably get special privileges so they wouldn't lose their minds.

[Oppressorion]

When your military forces are involved in operations that take them far from their home systems, how do your military commanders continue to give them a sense of home while their away? Something like letters from loved ones would be quite difficult depending on the distance. One way that came to my mind, were letters from "home", which in themselves are just outright lies. Possibly written by an AI program.

Thoughts?

Well, Oprusa wouldn't bother with faking letters since the officers would eventually return anyway and find out then, so it wouldn't be worth it unless they were stranded somewhere and returning were especially difficult. To be honest, the government there has a difficult time understanding sentimentality, or emotional bonds - or rather, they can understand them but often dismiss them as distractions to good decision making. They're more inclined to brutal honesty, which makes them more straightforward to deal with but also a great deal less pleasant.

Another issue is, as SquareDisc pointed out, communication. FTL comms are difficult to use and maintain, bulky, and thus restricted to official or emergency use only. Everything else -whether it be letters, low-level reports, or maintenance records- gets put on the Solar Network to make it back (eventually) on a series of messenger pods. Ships on long patrols, therefore, are expected to act with little home support and are equipped with recreation modules to destress the crew, including makeshift cinemas, gyms, and mess halls (which, granted, are usually unused cafeterias to save space). Experienced crewmembers usually advise bringing small, precious (but inexpensive) possessions for comfort, which include family photos, posters, or the occasional sex doll.

[Bakra]

To move the thread a bit along. One thing that I have been thinking about recently...

When your military forces are involved in operations that take them far from their home systems, how do your military commanders continue to give them a sense of home while their away? Something like letters from loved ones would be quite difficult depending on the distance. One way that came to my mind, were letters from "home", which in themselves are just outright lies. Possibly written by an AI program.

Thoughts?

Most everyone has gone the communications route, so I'll put in my piece.

Holochambers give a good sense of what home feels like, for obvious reasons. It's pretty great climbing Half Dome from the safety of your holo chamber, or witnessing historical events that shaped your nation for a patriotic high.

Conversely, you can give them an actual high by using LSD-like drugs that evoke memories of home. Have minimal side effects, focus on positive trances, and take out addictiveness for them to get a quick bump whenever they feel homesick.

Lastly, artifacts and trinkets of one's homeworld works too. In Bakra large enough ships could have parks or memorials to home.

[The Voidborne]

As communications has been thoroughly covered, I'll add to the more solid, physical side... While Voidbornean ships are relatively small compared to most other peoples ships, their smaller crews and reliance on automation have allowed for a significant amount of customization based on personal preferences; some of these include personal libraries (with actual paper books for nostalgia purposes), holodecks (like in Star Trek), gyms, training ranges, art galleries, music halls, and so on... Essentially, this allows them to gear their ships to their own personal tastes as typically, they end up living on their ships...

The above probably wouldn't work on a traditional military ship, but a less extravagant version would probably be more than reasonable IMO.

[Dimoniquid]

I'm looking for some help, if anyone's willing to give me some advice:

I'm trying to make three specific units for an army in my FT infantry; a simple foot soldier, a much heavier armed soldier, and a mounted unit.

The Empire I'm making this for is a mix between the Spartans and the Dothraki from GOT, in which the nation's renowned for it's military force. They pour everything they have into making themselves the most disciplined, tactical, well-armed and trained military in existence. This left out a lot of scientific and medical technological advancement, along with some society advancement (mainly democracy and governance, rather than the rag-tag feudal system they made for themselves where the warrior class is on top). Eventually, they take to space and begin to enslave a lot of races and assimilate their technology, such as cloning and augmentation, along with some ancient alien technology, such as hardlight material, fission and vacuum space energy sources, and wormhole travel. After they spread themselves and their faith, they cut down the amount of regular slaves their using for combat, services and product manufacturing , and sift through to find the most genetically viable choices to clone and augment. Now, the warriors, servants, and laborers are cloned, while the ruling class are scrawny, rich, and spoiled; the complete opposite of who they used to be. The kicker is that their military went from swords and shields, to combat armor and rifles, back to swords and shields when the discovered these abundance of sophisticated materials.

My questions are this:

1. What's the best kind of augmentations would be best for my soldiers? They're meant to be fast, aggressive, yet highly trained and obedient. Would I use chemicals to physically enhance them, and then use behavioral conditioning and memory augmenting technology, or would I have them in advanced suits of armor that connect to their brain and have them controlled that way?
   
2. When designing weapons for my troops, is it best to have them purely armed with melee weapons and armour made of sophisticated materials that can withstand kinetic weaponry, energy and plasma to an extent, or should I have them armed as a mixture of melee weapons for foot soldiers and conventional rifles for archers, per say? Should I have them armed entirely with conventional weaponry and have personal drones emit person shielding for them?
   
3. How should I be portraying the lower class? If the divide is so big, should I be having them in slums outside of major cities, or would they be forming communities of their own?

[Neornith]

I'm looking for some help, if anyone's willing to give me some advice:

I'm trying to make three specific units for an army in my FT infantry; a simple foot soldier, a much heavier armed soldier, and a mounted unit.

The Empire I'm making this for is a mix between the Spartans and the Dothraki from GOT, in which the nation's renowned for it's military force. They pour everything they have into making themselves the most disciplined, tactical, well-armed and trained military in existence. This left out a lot of scientific and medical technological advancement, along with some society advancement (mainly democracy and governance, rather than the rag-tag feudal system they made for themselves where the warrior class is on top). Eventually, they take to space and begin to enslave a lot of races and assimilate their technology, such as cloning and augmentation, along with some ancient alien technology, such as hardlight material, fission and vacuum space energy sources, and wormhole travel. After they spread themselves and their faith, they cut down the amount of regular slaves their using for combat, services and product manufacturing , and sift through to find the most genetically viable choices to clone and augment. Now, the warriors, servants, and laborers are cloned, while the ruling class are scrawny, rich, and spoiled; the complete opposite of who they used to be. The kicker is that their military went from swords and shields, to combat armor and rifles, back to swords and shields when the discovered these abundance of sophisticated materials.

My questions are this:

1. What's the best kind of augmentations would be best for my soldiers? They're meant to be fast, aggressive, yet highly trained and obedient. Would I use chemicals to physically enhance them, and then use behavioral conditioning and memory augmenting technology, or would I have them in advanced suits of armor that connect to their brain and have them controlled that way?
   
2. When designing weapons for my troops, is it best to have them purely armed with melee weapons and armour made of sophisticated materials that can withstand kinetic weaponry, energy and plasma to an extent, or should I have them armed as a mixture of melee weapons for foot soldiers and conventional rifles for archers, per say? Should I have them armed entirely with conventional weaponry and have personal drones emit person shielding for them?
   
3. How should I be portraying the lower class? If the divide is so big, should I be having them in slums outside of major cities, or would they be forming communities of their own?

1. In regards to augmentation it depends on the culture of you society I've always thought, now since you have an upper class that has little concern for the lower class I would suggest cyborg augmentations (i.e. replacing body parts with robot parts) since it strips away their humanity and it would add another layer of sadism too your overlords, chemicals and conditioning together would be viable even if you handwaved it.

2. Rule of cool for FT, if you want melee pick melee weapons, understand though you'll need too work very hard in collaboration with your RP partners though because melee weapons in FT is asking for a large amount of suspension of belief, if I could suggest have weapons with bayonets or something of the like that dual purposes as a ranged weapon and a melee weapon, or something along those lines, if you go the cyborg route you could give them a gun and put extendable blades in the forearms.

3. Two words "Hive cities" basically large structures with millions of people squished together where the upper class is on the top living comfortably and down below is where the slums are and where the underworld actually controls things. For reference check out Chi-Town in Palladium's Rifts settings, I think you'll be intrigued by the possibilities.

[Dimoniquid]

1. In regards to augmentation it depends on the culture of you society I've always thought, now since you have an upper class that has little concern for the lower class I would suggest cyborg augmentations (i.e. replacing body parts with robot parts) since it strips away their humanity and it would add another layer of sadism too your overlords, chemicals and conditioning together would be viable even if you handwaved it.

2. Rule of cool for FT, if you want melee pick melee weapons, understand though you'll need too work very hard in collaboration with your RP partners though because melee weapons in FT is asking for a large amount of suspension of belief, if I could suggest have weapons with bayonets or something of the like that dual purposes as a ranged weapon and a melee weapon, or something along those lines, if you go the cyborg route you could give them a gun and put extendable blades in the forearms.

3. Two words "Hive cities" basically large structures with millions of people squished together where the upper class is on the top living comfortably and down below is where the slums are and where the underworld actually controls things. For reference check out Chi-Town in Palladium's Rifts settings, I think you'll be intrigued by the possibilities.

1. I was planning on going in the Halo SPARTAN program route, where they're physically augmented during puberty and they grow up to be the superhuman peak of human conditioning. I'm not too sure about the cyborg augmentations; if your going to replace body parts, why not just get robots?

2. Okay, that I understands. I think I'll go with conventional weaponry and experiment with hardlight swords, or maybe something similar to a lightsaber as a secondary weapon. What about the shielding? If I'm ditching the melee weapons as their main weapons, should I leave the shielding as well?

3. I'll definitely check out Rifts. I'll also check out some arcology stuff aswell.

[Taigawa]

How does one defend against an exterminatus?

[RawHein]

How does one defend against an exterminatus?

Well, if there's an Exterminatus fleet above your world then your defences are already defeated. Beyond that, it depends on the method. Virus bombs are the "easiest" to defeat, with stasis pods or city quarantines being effective. Cylonic torpedoes and orbital bombardment...not so much short of shooting them down before contact.

[Lubyak]

How does one defend against an exterminatus?

It's going to depend. By exterminatus do you mean generic planet busting? There are an infinite array of means to destroy a planet in sci-fi and more are developed whenever someone sits down and says "Huh I want to blow up a planet but I don't want to just Death Star it". In 40k alone you have virus bombs, cyclonic torpedoes, and good ol' fashioned planetary bombardment.

How you resist it is going to depend on what your tech is like. Destroying a planet is 100% FT and up to the imaginations of the players. If you wanted to, you could just say "My planetary shield is strong enough to resist the superweapon attack". You could also destroy the weapon itself before it can be used ala Death Star. Since planetary destruction is almost always a key plot point, I'd recommend you approach the issue by communicating with the player in question. Successfully defending a planet against a weapon capable of destroying one is likely to be just as big a plot point, and deserves plenty of co-operative dialogue between players.

[Pillowlandia]

How does one defend against an exterminatus?

Exterminatus them first?

[SquareDisc City]

How does one defend against an exterminatus?

A nation faced with an enemy seeking to utterly annihilate it has few options. Defeat the attacking force obviously. Negotiate a non-exterminatus ending, which may be unlikely, although a credible ability to retaliate in kind might deter such attacks. Flee, but almost surely most of the people will be left behind to certain death and only a 'handful' of survivors will escape.

But many approaches are not viable in such a scenario. Unconventional/asymmetric warfare doesn't really work against an enemy who considers every person and every structure a target for destruction.