View Thread
 Conclusion to "defense field" technology - by Glacialis
|
|
| Glacialis |
Posted on 14-11-2005 01:27
|
 Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
Magnetic fields of that strength would be enormously strong and very difficult to create. The way we've figured out is much more believale given the level of technology in the HW universe. |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 15-12-2005 22:03
|
 Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
Did we resolve this topic? I don't think so, but I could be wrong - I'll have to read back. By the way, I spoke to experts, and the 'transit time' in a wormhole is non-zero. However, it's also very short (maybe on the order of a Planck time interval.) Edited by Cobalt Shiva on 15-12-2005 22:07 "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Heimdall |
Posted on 17-08-2006 08:51
|
 Posts: 10 Joined: August 15 2006 |
Wow, I have to admit I couldn't read -all- of that...some of that is just beyond my comprehension; I'm a sci-fi fan, and enjoy learning about the associated science, but I'm not by any means "knowledgable" on quantum mechanics and other sorts of things. So, if what I say sounds...rediculous, please bear with me...some of that stuff gave me a headache when I tried to wrap my brain around it. I don't think anyone's touched on this, but as far as Hyperspace Inhibitor Fields go...who says they have to be gravity? Or even some form of complex quantium thing that confuses hyperdrives? I would think the simpler thing would be to say that HIF generators are, basically, very specialized jamming devices. Why do I think this? Well, first of all, it's known that hyperspace travel technology will automatically kick a ship out of hyperspace when a gravity well is detected. Which means they have sensors of some sort to be able to know there's a gravity field. Knowing this, what's to say you couldn't just essentially transmit a "jamming" signal to -trick- the hyperspace system on a ship into -thinking- there is a gravity well? Assuming it works similar to conventional jamming, the computers of your own ships could easily be told "this is not a gravity well, so it's ok to jump". Of course, enemy ships could do this as well, but since in the game's storyline hyperspace inhibitor fields are always detected -when you are in one- ("Suddenly they were pulled out of hyperspace unexpectidly by an inhibitor field" ), they still remain useful, because of the "surprise" element (you don't know the inhibit field is there till you encounter it), and even when you're in it, let's just assume that configuring your computers to "ignore" the inhibit effect to be able to jump again, takes longer than is feasable in a combat situation. (let's say hours, perhaps even a day) As far as the "defense field"...clearly magnetics don't work, neither does gravity...but since it only blocks missiles and other "macroscopic" projectile weapons, but not spacecraft...maybe it's some form of electromagnetic shielding...unsure, but I believe the Defense Field Frigates in HW1 were described as using a "field" (possibly electromagnetic of some sort) that used a narrow band of frequencies that could redirect projectile weapons and destroy missiles, but DEW weapons and spacecraft were unaffected (due to not being within the "frequency range" )...I wish I still had my HW1 manual. Problem with that though, is how does that allow your -own- weapons to fire out? So, perhaps this "hyperspace defense system" might make more sense, especially if it operates as a very close range point defense system; as in, threats that are about to reach the hull (let's assume all threats are allready tracked since we have radar and such guiding other defense systems; DEW can be "predicted" via radar and optical imaging of your enemy..seeing that he has a beam turret aimed at you is warning enough) have a "hyperspace bubble" of sorts projected in their path, thus disrupting the threat enough (hopefully) that armor can defeat it. I would assume that this would only be energy-efficient at very close ranges, otherwise combat turns into a "hyperspace boxing match". Someone mentioned I-War 2...personally I see that as being far more realistic than some form of "force field". LDA (Linear Displacement Array) shields basically used -very- short gravity pulses to attempt to "shove" projectiles and DEW attacks off-target, by dispersing a stream of particles enough that armor would be able to stop it, or destroying a missile. The downside to the I-War "shields" was that each emitter could only track one target at a time (basically they "watched" that target and looked for incoming attacks to know when to turn on), so large enough attack forces could get hits through even capital-scale installations of the technology. Hopefully I didn't ramble on too much there. Edited by Heimdall on 17-08-2006 09:03 |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 17-08-2006 17:49
|
|
Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
Nicely said. I like your jamming theory of hyperspace inhibitors - it circumvents one of the great logical pitfalls of the 'artifical gravity well' theory, namely the fact that you have to, in fact, generate an artificial gravity well. "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Silent_Assasin |
Posted on 17-08-2006 21:51
|
|
Posts: 43 Joined: June 28 2006 |
Hmm, the jamming theory of hyperspace inhibiters is very interesting. Consider this. Hyperspace transit is basically travelling through a wormhole. Now it has been proved that if such a wormhole could be opened it is going to be extremely 'fragile' as any fluctuation of the amount of matter inside it would make it collaspe. Raises the question of how the hell a frigate can enter one let alone a cap ship. Technology by then must have taken a quantum leap, haha, get it? Ok bad joke. Anyways, back to HIFs. Now all matter exert a certain level of gravitational pull no matter how much of it is present. (When I mean any matter, I mean any matter, including something as small as a nuetrino.) The above point is extremely important. Wormholes are mathematically determined to be able to form linking two points using a path that lets it maintain an uniform gravitational force on it throughout. As such, disrupting a ship travelling through a wormhole would take a minimal amout of effort by the generator. Any kind of mass fluctuation in the ship's path would destabilize the wormhole and it would collapse taking all of the ships within it with it. The only problem is figuring out the EXACT path of the wormhole which is impossibly hard to find due to the sheer abundance of matter everywhere Note that the reasoning above forbids a ship from hyperspacing within a combat setting as trying to go through a wormhole that your ship created. That prettly little hole will immediately collapse upon the movemnet of any ship as the gravitational fields would have shifted. The above reasoning also explains how hyperspace windows can be used to destroy incoming shrapnel. As soon as the bullet enters the hole, it becomes unbalanced and collapses taking the bullet with it. AS you can see there are a lot of things that were taken for granted when the notion of hyperspace/wormhole travel was implemented into Homeworld. As such it is probably in the best interest to not go too deep into hyperspace travel since our current understanding of wormholes is very limited and based completely on mathematics. No wormhole has ever been observed, ever. It is only a theoretical appendage coming out of the discussion of the singularity of a black hole. I apologize if I made anyones brain hurt. Edited by Silent_Assasin on 17-08-2006 22:03  USMC Pilot candidate |
|
|
|
| JustinWick |
Posted on 23-10-2006 05:29
|
 Posts: 18 Joined: September 24 2005 |
Wormholes, as currently envisioned under modern General Relatavity, are inherently unstable and require the presence of negative energy to provide positive "pressure" to prevent the wormhole from collapsing. Some suggest that the casmir effect could provide this using zero point energy, but that is an entirely untested hypothesis. Furthermore, any gravitational waves are amplified when passing through a wormhole, to the point that even small waves from an approaching ship would be enough to destroy the wormhole. Thus, for wormholes to be used at all means that they must be being actively stabilized by some system. There exist modifications to GR such that strong magnetic fields actually dampen gravitational waves, which means a strong magnetic field could be used, in theory, to "shield" the wormhole long enough for the ship to enter it. Also, there is no reason that a wormhole must be stationary - it is likely that the ship would want to pull the wormhole towards it rather than trying to accellerate the ship, although I'm unsure of what effects this would cause or how this would be accomplished. Either way the wormhole would be difficult to locate before the ship entered it (indeed the window could be very small). Thus the question becomes, how to disrupt the stabilization of the wormhole? If it is being magnetically stabilized, then it is possible that a properly polarized EM signal could linearly combine with the "shielding" magnetic field to *very rapidly* destructively interfere with it. Combined with a strong graviton source, this could easily disrupt the wormhole. Also, the injection of plasma into the magnetic shielding could create necessary fluctuations and disrupt its effectiveness. This is more difficult to explain, but I am certain that future scientists can work this out with ease. Another way to stabilize the wormhole would be to somehow cause the spacetime that is being curved to become "stiff" (no, I have no idea how one would go about doing that). Maybe if a natural feedback loop was created such that the negative energy sustaining the wormhole would react to incoming disturbances and reflect them (as a mirror reacts to incoming light by actually radiating the exact signal required to exactly cancel it out at the boundary point, in the continuum approximation for a perfect conductor). How to obtain this behavior is also highly speculative. Regardless of what method is used, the ability to track the likely position of the wormhole would significantly reduce the amount of power that must be expended (as it would reduce the volume in which the effect must exist). ===================================
Who would sup with the mighty must climb the path of daggers. |
|
|
|
| Jump to Forum |