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The best laid plans of Cat and mouse...
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TGW-952

Chapter: Sister Sister
Characters: Admiral ariste, Capt. Malissa, Carl, hikaru, tenshi
Location: cafe, camp
└ Tags: a talk, warping a plan

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Discussion (24) ¬

  1. Bill Mullins
    June 10, 2022, 20:41 | # | Reply

    Okay, call me stupid but I just don’t see what the Admiral is talking about.
    The core worlds have true FTL capability? I went back to tgw-940 and read
    everything in the bottom series. I couldn’t find anything where Kett’rrt
    said anything that implied true FTL drive capability.
    Somebody wanna help an old fart out?

    • me
      June 11, 2022, 00:36 | # | Reply

      The warning she received from her new friend was: “Even if you have twice as
      many more hiding in stealth it would be not be enough for the weight of ships
      that we will throw at you”.

      As Captain Malissa points out, the size of the attacker wouldn’t matter much
      as long they have to send them “singly, helpless for a short time”

      This would mean that as long as the defender is able to take out single ships
      as fast as they come through, the war will degrade into a question on who’s
      wearing out the other side first.
      And missiles are faster to build and resupply than ships. Cheaper as well.
      So the defender is always at an advantage as long as they are prepared.

      So the Admiral fears the Core Worlds have some ace up their sleeves that
      changes the game, or else the warning wouldn’t make much sense.

      I can see a few other ways to change the parameters of this kind of war:
      + Have a few ships that are so massive that they would survive under fire
      long enough for the crew to return to action.
      + I thought the Empire’s AI would be a game changer, because they seem to
      return to duty after a jump faster then biological pilots.
      + The wormhole limits would not matter all that much if you’re able to open
      them at will. You could evade the defenders lying in wait and appear in
      their backs. Open ten or hundred wormholes and send entire fleets at a time.
      + Also, if you find a way to send entire fleets in one go,
      instead of single ships …

      But your enemy having FTL drives is probably worst case.
      “They could drop a fleet anywhere in our system”

      Since the Admiral’s hunting buddy sounded very confident/concerned …

      • Bill Mullins
        June 11, 2022, 08:29 | # | Reply

        Me, I don’t care how massive your ship is, a ton of rock moving
        at 10% of C is well and truly going to ring your chimes.

        • Scarsdale
          June 11, 2022, 08:43 | # | Reply

          Even 1% would vaporize most metals I did the math a while back that’s over 68,000 mph!

          • me
            June 11, 2022, 09:59 | # | Reply

            We don’t know much about the shields yet and how effective they are
            against high velocity kinetic impacts.
            When the Empire first had to deal with a dreadnought they where
            portrait to be a problem. Then again they had ample time to come
            up with new plans how to address them.

            Anyway. That the defender should be able to take out (almost) any
            single target before the next appears is exactly my point.
            The Admiral probably was very sure to have the “defend the home
            world(s)” part covered, but after she talked to Ket’rrt she fears
            that Core Worlds have some way around this problem.

            My guess is that she reads his remark about not having enough
            ships like he’s telling her “we will not come in singles”.

            • Bill Mullins
              June 11, 2022, 21:46 | # | Reply

              It doesn’t matter how good your shields are. A rock at a significant
              fraction of C has an ungodly amount of raw momentum. Even if the
              shields keep the rock from penetrating it will still transfer every
              erg to the target. Grav devices are relatively cheap.

  2. President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight
    June 10, 2022, 21:45 | # | Reply

    I’m with Bill, I’m a greater-than-90-degrees angle (obtuse).
    I’m missing something from the past several pages.
    I know, I know, “the cat sayth nothing”.
    Well, all I know is that THE CAT better speak up soon.

  3. rob stanley
    June 10, 2022, 23:21 | # | Reply

    i’m guessing here…
    TGW-949.. panel 7..”horns are controlling the gate..”
    panel 8 . “..and just go home.”
    those two statements dont mean much as is..
    but look at bigger pic,.. Goblins hate horns, don’t
    wanna talk to horns,, how to get home without
    going thru the horns blockade.??

    • Scarsdale
      June 13, 2022, 02:10 | # | Reply

      That doesn’t imply they won’t let the mercs “go home” it’s more like they are keeping their targets from
      escaping that way and dropping rods can mean shooting missiles into the gravity well of the planet with
      guided targeting. It sounds like the only real target is the horns’ ship the rest don’t much care.

  4. Jochi
    June 11, 2022, 00:17 | # | Reply

    I have to assume there was a lot of conversation that was not presented in the pages we saw.

    So, Carl and Mrs Hikaru co-parenting for a while, maybe developing into something more?

    And again, the hovertext could apply to either strip or both.

  5. Scarsdale
    June 11, 2022, 08:39 | # | Reply

    I suspected FTL would come into play here grav drives are close to
    a FTL, just needs a field rather than a beam and a refined shield
    to protect against space dust.

    • me
      June 11, 2022, 10:07 | # | Reply

      It’s never explicitly spelled out, but as far as we’ve been shown they’re a way around some problems but not an FTL drive.
      Maybe you could use them to reach 99% c without thinking much about it. (IF you had those shields you suggested)

      But even then you’d still need years and decades of travel. 10 ly at 99% c take over 10 y.

      • Scarsdale
        June 11, 2022, 14:58 | # | Reply

        Biggest problem with the grav drives is acceleration so it would take time to reach 99% without harming the crew.
        Plus the crew would suffer time dilation they’d notice a year at 99% but 10 years or more would pass otherwise…
        a warp field theory has a strong backing by several scientists but they say the power requirements are far beyond
        what’s possible at this time if they can find a way to convert the grav projectors to create a field around the ship
        they can reach speeds far greater than light and avoid the time issues plus they’d need a deflector shield even a
        tiny grain of sand in space at those speeds would destroy any ship.

        • President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight
          June 11, 2022, 18:24 | # | Reply

          You need power? Talk to Shipstone, Inc.

        • Paul
          June 11, 2022, 20:54 | # | Reply

          I think everyone is forgetting that earlier when grav drive was initiated,
          that there was a safety built in to counter the inertia pull on humans.
          TGW-137 Do grav drive ships have to use the worm hole
          or can they use the pull/push to just ‘drop in?’
          As Jochi said, I also think/hope something will develop between Carl and Mrs. Hikaru.

          • Petercat
            June 11, 2022, 21:29 | # | Reply

            Explained in Panel 6:
            http://thegentlewolf.net/comic/tgw-137/

        • me
          June 12, 2022, 01:32 | # | Reply

          The grav tech can compensation for “G forces” and it can even generate it’s own energy.
          Their main problem if is how fast they can dump excess heat.
          (But maybe that’s mainly a problem during a combat situation? The more heat you emit the easier you are to be spotted)

          All that’s light-years beside the point. As long as they have to stay in the realm of relativity they can get faster than light.
          It’s not a problem of acceleration it’s an issue of fundamental physics.

          According to Einstein’s basic formula about how observed velocities should be added, if you’re moving at 99% c relatively to your
          target and send out a missile that does 99% c relatively to you, the missile would be traveling at around 99.995% c relatively to
          the target. That’s still not light speed. The same goes if you add this 99% c to your own speed.

          Short version: to cross one light year in less than a year you must somehow either
          bend space to your will (aka warp drive) or leave the realm of this theory.

  6. Scarsdale
    June 11, 2022, 23:15 | # | Reply

    There is another issue with FTL the accepted theory about reaching light speed is the mass of the object
    mass would increase as it approaches the speed of light the closer you get the greater the mass while the
    grav drives could reach and even pass that the problem would be mass and inertia so a type of inertia canceling
    or damping field would solve that problem plus in a state like that anything that would strike the ship would
    just stop and the ship might twitch or float away 180 degrees from the impact. This would also allow a ship
    to enter the braking maneuver much later so to an outsider the ship would just seem to appear out of nowhere…
    see where I’m going with this?

    • me
      June 12, 2022, 01:40 | # | Reply

      Relativity doesn’t work that way.

      All those effects are described as they are seen by an external observer (your target for example).
      If you’d travel at almost c and conducted some experiments within your vessel you’d notice nothing
      “weird”. Same mass as ever, time works like it should …
      only the world on the outside is acting strange.

      But yes, anything that’s not moving relatively to your target (or at least way slower than
      you are) would be hitting you at near light speed – which would usually be a big problem.

      • Scarsdale
        June 12, 2022, 14:03 | # | Reply

        That is the problem any damping field would be basically breaking the rules of physics, in the context
        of the strip they are already breaking some rules by creating the grav drives in the first place in order
        for the drives to work gravity would have to be a wave form that can be duplicated or canceled out
        likewise inertia would work in a similar way it would have to be a wave form. This would effect mass
        and how it reacts to inertia. I could spend some time looking up examples in the scientific area that
        is looking into this concept I’ve been doing reading on the subject lol. But I’ve retired as a farmer (yeah
        I know crazy but I can’t stand sitting around) and time isn’t what i have a lot of.

  7. JasonAW3
    June 11, 2022, 23:16 | # | Reply

    Crazy thought here; if you want shields that will work against both matter and energy,
    a dense cloud of iron particles circulated within a magnetic field surrounding your
    ship, ought to work pretty well. Or, if you prefer, exterior metal plates that can
    be detached and held away from the ship with magnetic fields.

    • Scarsdale
      June 12, 2022, 14:06 | # | Reply

      Heavy shielding would be needed for the ship systems and the safety of the AI’s it might cause issues.
      As it would for anyone with metal plates or screws in their bones I have a plate in my neck I can’t have MRI’s because of it

  8. Petercat
    June 12, 2022, 23:15 | # | Reply

    There was a comment in TWC’s “Pending” comment section from someone named Margaret.
    This is it in it’s entirety:
    “I strongly suggest that you become an actor in my first porn film.”
    She has obviously never laid eyes on me.

    • Scarsdale
      June 13, 2022, 01:53 | # | Reply

      OOOOOooookkk……. well someone’s desperate for “talent” lol “Margaret” might be one of those people
      that think the avatar is what they look like in real life? I’d pay it no mind I had something like that happen
      years ago I was chatting with a client called Microsoft Chat it basically was talking to people in a comic strip
      format I made several avatars for friends my own was a dashing figure of a man in a snappy business suit
      and I had a lady stalk me! I still don’t know how she got my address etc… kinda scary… didn’t care until
      she tried to pick up my boys from school called the cops after that. Kept telling people I was her boyfriend…
      Didn’t do the chat much after that jeez…

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