Agreed; but maybe a little laughter (even if
it is embarrassing) will help her recover.
That little morsel of information could be derived from what has been
revealed in passing so far but someone would need to put it together.
Now they don’t have to.
Alice may yet reveal more, but I think that will depend on Ket-rtt
revealing something useful to her (and the plot just about demands it)
President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight
Family will irritate each other to no end.
But let an “outsider” try to do the same………
Family that was quarreling, squabbling, teasing each other just moments
before, will stand together against an “outsider” quicker then lightspeed.
And an Empire that will soon equal the core worlds if not surpass them!
Mostly word play the real extent of the Empire can’t be openly known as
yet but if she impresses Kel’rrt enough he may impart more info than
intended.
I feel for Tenshi images like that only fade in time but never go away
it’s worse if you were close to the victim it’s a bit cold to say it
but she didn’t know most of them it’ll make it easier to deal with.
Three day (minor) cliff hanger – Saturday to Tuesday for me as I am GMT + 10Hrs.
And the Cat does say something occasionally – just not when or what you want him
to say! (and that is probably different for every reader commenting on this comic)
I hear that Bill! I’ve run several scenarios in my head but knowing PC I’m sure I’ll get it wrong LOL.
In the 5 (? I’m guessing) years since the Wolf Empire first launched that propane tank to the moon
they’ve done an amazing job of building space based fleets and support placements with the inclusion
of the other peoples they’ve met and/or rescued it’s only gone faster.
In another 5 with all the new members the face of the known space will be changed. Unless the core
has something like FTL or something no one’s thought of yet it’ll be reduced to a member or at least a
“middle class” empire as the Wolf is now. I for one like the idea of everyone being “middle class” no
more upper or lower classes everyone has the same chances as anyone else to get ahead and enjoy
their work in life not flooded with laws and restrictions designed to keep you in your class.
I know that’s a pipe dream, but a nice one!
I am betting the core does have some form of FTL; the ability to dump multiple
starships into a system simultaneously balances the technical advantages of
gravity drives and weapons of the empire.
But if the (cats/Wolf Empire) gain a seat on council the core can’t do that
without breaking the inter-species defense treaty so the core would have to
scrap that treaty before attacking.
And we still don’t know the outcome of the ‘fact finding’ mission to Dogashaun;
that could trigger the war before the council meeting takes place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do with the bottle neck the wormholes creates but the core are bullies
trashing the weaker races or forcing them into working for them with the threat of their massive fleet
to take out any resistance. Meeting an Empire that rivals them in fleet power will scare the crap out of
them as it did with the core humans. The risk of FTL drive will ramp up defense production for sure.
With the gravity engines the Empire has, do they need wormholes for travel?
I would think the push-pull engines would travel at a great velocity and
not need wormholes to reach other worlds. When they hit the edge of one
universe they can pull to the next planet in the new one. Hypothetically
anyway. Are the grav-engines as fast as FTL?
I would think so but there’s so many theories on the subject sci-fi says yes.
science says yes/no/maybe type it into google and wait a bit there’s a ton
most are garbage I keep dozing off trying to find good info.
They do say that gravity does effect time so it would make
sense but without a way to test it who can say.
Here’s it’s in PC’s capable mind
A strong “gravity field” does slow down time for anybody inside of that field.
GPS satellites need to compensate for this effect since they’re farther away
from Earth than us people on the surface who’re using them.
This effect is local, though. In General Relativity there’s not really an
absolute notion of time.
if you travel at almost light-speed or sitting in a (very) deep gravity well
you would age much slower to an eternal observer who stayed behind on Earth.
You could use this effect to help your crews survive an interstellar trip
to some place a few hundred light years away and back.
But to the those who stayed on the planet they would have been away for
hundreds or even thousands of years.
(There’s a few “hard science” fiction books about this effect, like “Transfer”
by Stanislaw Lem or “Encounter with TIber” by Buzz Aldrin – yes that one)
Gravity is light speed. That’s been proven real-world, David Weber had it wrong.
So a gravity drive is pretty much for local travel. You could point it at a star, say
one light year away, for example. But you’d be sitting there for a year waiting
for it to take hold and begin moving you.
In a battle, it would mostly be used to maneuver, not to travel. Seeing starships
or fighters maneuvering like atmospheric aircraft is bound to shake up any
opponent.
I didn’t realize that your drive had a delay … it should be (barely)
noticeable at distances like Earth Moon too (a bit more than one light
second)
By the way: how do you zoom around within a star system using them,
practically speaking? You’d always need something to pull yourself to, right?
Pretty easy if you’re trying to get closer to your target – but what about
evasive maneuvers?
Triangulation. Since each ship has multiple sets of independent grav drives, you can
pull against different objects at the same time at different power levels, to slingshot
your ship in the direction you want to go. Of course, you would be limited by the
number and location of available masses. Say all you had was the Earth, moon and
an enemy warship, you would have to choose a direction within the triangle defined
by those three points. This is why the later generations of fighter craft were given
plasma drives as well.
P.S. – Please use the “Enter” key to keep your sentences from being so long that they
run off the edge of the page when viewing this comic on a phone or low-resolution
monitor. You’ll notice that I’ve edited the width of your other comments.
Besides, I hate reading long lines! Too much eye movement!
I thought as much, but thank you for pointing it out.
Just using interplanetary dust and gas wouldn’t be enough, I guess.
(Plus you’d have to deal with a lot of micro-meteorites that way)
PS: Sorry about the long lines. I’ll try to do better in the future.
I do try to format my posts into separate paragraphs,
because I (personally) find that more readable.
The thing is they have found objects in deep space that are red-shifted meaning
they are moving away faster than the speed of light from the big bang and the
dark matter.
They suspect it makes up the bulk of mass in the universe I suggest dark matter and
dark energy could be the key to FTL travel it seems to repel gravity effects.
Gravity is everywhere that’s why they started calling 0-G mircogravity rather than
0-g it is reduces with distance I read where they tested the earth’s gravity at different
distances from sea level and detected minor changes in different elevations even on
Mount Everest.
So far, it appears that space itself is expanding at a velocity
that is faster than light, caused by “dark energy”.
However; I have my own theories, based upon observation, interpretation
of both Newtonian and Quantum physics.
It’s a touch complicated, but modifies the standard model, without
fully breaking it.
It adds one element to the Standard Model that builds upon what Einstein
worked out about Space/Time, and Superstring Theory.
It answers; What is Energy and Matter and how do they interact with
Space/Time?
The answer is both simple and complex, in concept, but unfortunately,
I lack the advanced math skills to fully explain and outline it.
Quantum and Conventional Physics seem to be leaning in the direction
that I am thinking, but is still putting it together.
One major hint; Gravity and Mass are NOT part of the “Atomic Forces”,
such as the Electro Strong, Electro Weak and Electromagnetic,
but is, instead, the result of the interactions of Space/Time and
“matter”. And yes, it “blew my mind” when I put it together.
I am trying to write up as complete a description of what I have come
up with, but, as I have stated before, I lack the advanced math skills
to properly define my theories.
Any Physicists, with an open mind, who would like
to discuss this with me would be welcome.
A minor correction, it is not the distance to the satellite that
relativity corrects for but the speed of the satellite relative
to the surface of the earth.
The distance is corrected for in the normal spherical trigonometry
and gives an accuracy of tens of meters (normally under 100 feet).
Correcting for relativity effects refines this to a meter or two
(about six feet) Using accurate star positions is even more
accurate but requires a telescope and a lot more time.
“The rate of advance of two identical clocks, placed one in the satellite
and the other on theterrestrial surface, will differ due to the difference of the
gravitational potential (general relativity) and to the relative speed between
them (special relativity).”
That’s what I was referring to they say the closer to a black hole the slower time
moves matter at the event horizon has been there for millions if not billions of years.
Plus I doubt the tech is sturdy enough to maintain that level of pull long enough to
reach a percentage of C.
Since the very way they’re described in this comic break not only “conservation of
energy” (at least seemingly) but also General Relativity anyway, all bets are off.
From the way the Imperial Navy is using them, I’d guess they’re not FTL capable.
And without traveling faster then light interstellar travel would take actual YEARS.
The average distance between stars in the milky way is about two light years
but the our galaxy (and most others) is far from homogeneous.
In the spiral arms (we are located on the inside edge of one) the average is four to five light years
which is comparable to the 4.2 light years to Alpha Centauri, our nearest star
(a triple star system that includes Proxima) Between the spiral arms it is significantly more
and in the outer halo could be as much as several hundred light years.
Binary and multiple stars are much closer, from actual contact binaries to somewhat more than
typical solar system spacing, particularly those containing three or four stars.
Globular clusters and the galactic centre are typically half a light year apart
and open clusters are typically a light year apart.
Lets assume PC’s world is set in a recently formed open cluster with an unusually
close spacing of a tenth of a light year, about 10x10e11 km.
I think it was stated the Toby class fighter could pull 40G; plugging this into the
Newtonian laws of motion gives us a flight time of about 120,000 years !
Not very practical unless you are immortal, and then only marginal.
You seem to forget tat it is a CONSTANT acceleration of 40 G’s, and time
dilation, compared to a “fixed” observer,will cause time for the craft to
slow down, although, unless they have some form of shielding to divert the
gas, dust and other matter in the craft’s path, erosion will become a
significant problem, prior to achieving one third the velocityof light.
Judging by the description of the drive, I suspect that it will become an
issue way before this, as matter is pulled in by the drive’s field effect.
In other words, bug meet windshield… Splat!
You’ve given me an idea. A robot ship with a wide-angle, fairly weak grav field
coming from an armored nose would be a great way to clean up orbital debris
and other random space junk.
In the same vein, properly configured gravity drives could pull material in
front of the craft to act as a physical deflector shield.
Given a sufficiently high velocity, the material would fuse together into a
solid shell. Now the problem becomes how to keep that shell in front of
the craft, rather than it slamming into it. Maybe a gravity missile around
which you build the shield, that is remote controlled from the ship to stay
in place?
Maybe, or it might make for a much more complicated Kessler Cascade situation…
If yo get too many things colliding at too high a velocity, they tend to shatter, and
scatter shrapnel all over the place…
But, using that same idea to SLOW objects in orbit to below orbital velocity, let them
Burn up in the atmosphere, and Bob’s your uncle!
The admiral is telling her hunt brother similar information that he had
already given her openly, it seems.
She appears to be doing her duty towards a hunt brother even while expecting
no reciprocation.
I believe that she is hoping that they can form understandings and work
together much better than the Marines existing relationship with the foolishly
dominating grass eaters that cannot fight worth a damm, much less hunt, nor do
the grass eaters understand the other species. The question of switching
alliances
is bound to be a future consideration, especially if the Wolf / Dragon Empire
is a match or superior in war capabilities. That the Earth Empire is making
alliances that benefit the other species and do not exploit the other species,
while the right thing to do, it is also a great incentive to ally with the
Catians and Terrans and the others in the Empire.
Switching allegiances isn’t really the issue, as much as presenting information to be sent to
higher authority, so they can make a better informed decision, prior to committing to actions
that could be detrimental in both the short and long terms.
The Core might be in for a nasty surprise. Bottom two panels: http://thegentlewolf.net/comic/tgw-887/
I doubt if they’ve encountered that kind of battle before..
With the Terrans meeting the core head on to draw their attention it leaves the core open to an ambush by the cats.
Given the superior weapons and drives of the Wolf Empire what hope does the core have – unless they have massively
superior numbers. The question becomes do any of the core fleet escape to report the capabilities of the Wolf Empire?
For attack the wolf empire could send a single warship through a wormhole at high speed
and use both plasma and gravity drives at maximum to outrun any opposition.
electronics could scan the system and select targets while they recover from jump lag
Then they would launch grav missiles at as many targets as possible (including any
opposition near the worm hole, put up as much jamming interference as they could
and then make their escape.
Time several such attacks to occur simultaneously and how much havoc could they cause the core?
I feel a little sorry for Tenshi as she has to be remembering the meeting.
And Ket-rrt slides under water in surprise and possibly becomes upset.
Agreed; but maybe a little laughter (even if
it is embarrassing) will help her recover.
That little morsel of information could be derived from what has been
revealed in passing so far but someone would need to put it together.
Now they don’t have to.
Alice may yet reveal more, but I think that will depend on Ket-rtt
revealing something useful to her (and the plot just about demands it)
Not even an official family yet, and already the dirt is coming out.
Ah yes family they are always quick to embarrass you but dare to do it back! LOL
Family will irritate each other to no end.
But let an “outsider” try to do the same………
Family that was quarreling, squabbling, teasing each other just moments
before, will stand together against an “outsider” quicker then lightspeed.
And an Empire that will soon equal the core worlds if not surpass them!
Mostly word play the real extent of the Empire can’t be openly known as
yet but if she impresses Kel’rrt enough he may impart more info than
intended.
I feel for Tenshi images like that only fade in time but never go away
it’s worse if you were close to the victim it’s a bit cold to say it
but she didn’t know most of them it’ll make it easier to deal with.
Drat! Now we have to wait until Monday evening to find out what Tenshi said.
Bummer! Meanwhile, as the saying goes “The cat sayeth nothing.” {sigh}
I wonder if the dragons didn’t nudge things along? naaa…
Three day (minor) cliff hanger – Saturday to Tuesday for me as I am GMT + 10Hrs.
And the Cat does say something occasionally – just not when or what you want him
to say! (and that is probably different for every reader commenting on this comic)
I hear that Bill! I’ve run several scenarios in my head but knowing PC I’m sure I’ll get it wrong LOL.
In the 5 (? I’m guessing) years since the Wolf Empire first launched that propane tank to the moon
they’ve done an amazing job of building space based fleets and support placements with the inclusion
of the other peoples they’ve met and/or rescued it’s only gone faster.
In another 5 with all the new members the face of the known space will be changed. Unless the core
has something like FTL or something no one’s thought of yet it’ll be reduced to a member or at least a
“middle class” empire as the Wolf is now. I for one like the idea of everyone being “middle class” no
more upper or lower classes everyone has the same chances as anyone else to get ahead and enjoy
their work in life not flooded with laws and restrictions designed to keep you in your class.
I know that’s a pipe dream, but a nice one!
I am betting the core does have some form of FTL; the ability to dump multiple
starships into a system simultaneously balances the technical advantages of
gravity drives and weapons of the empire.
But if the (cats/Wolf Empire) gain a seat on council the core can’t do that
without breaking the inter-species defense treaty so the core would have to
scrap that treaty before attacking.
And we still don’t know the outcome of the ‘fact finding’ mission to Dogashaun;
that could trigger the war before the council meeting takes place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do with the bottle neck the wormholes creates but the core are bullies
trashing the weaker races or forcing them into working for them with the threat of their massive fleet
to take out any resistance. Meeting an Empire that rivals them in fleet power will scare the crap out of
them as it did with the core humans. The risk of FTL drive will ramp up defense production for sure.
With the gravity engines the Empire has, do they need wormholes for travel?
I would think the push-pull engines would travel at a great velocity and
not need wormholes to reach other worlds. When they hit the edge of one
universe they can pull to the next planet in the new one. Hypothetically
anyway. Are the grav-engines as fast as FTL?
I would think so but there’s so many theories on the subject sci-fi says yes.
science says yes/no/maybe type it into google and wait a bit there’s a ton
most are garbage I keep dozing off trying to find good info.
They do say that gravity does effect time so it would make
sense but without a way to test it who can say.
Here’s it’s in PC’s capable mind
A strong “gravity field” does slow down time for anybody inside of that field.
GPS satellites need to compensate for this effect since they’re farther away
from Earth than us people on the surface who’re using them.
This effect is local, though. In General Relativity there’s not really an
absolute notion of time.
if you travel at almost light-speed or sitting in a (very) deep gravity well
you would age much slower to an eternal observer who stayed behind on Earth.
You could use this effect to help your crews survive an interstellar trip
to some place a few hundred light years away and back.
But to the those who stayed on the planet they would have been away for
hundreds or even thousands of years.
(There’s a few “hard science” fiction books about this effect, like “Transfer”
by Stanislaw Lem or “Encounter with TIber” by Buzz Aldrin – yes that one)
Gravity is light speed. That’s been proven real-world, David Weber had it wrong.
So a gravity drive is pretty much for local travel. You could point it at a star, say
one light year away, for example. But you’d be sitting there for a year waiting
for it to take hold and begin moving you.
In a battle, it would mostly be used to maneuver, not to travel. Seeing starships
or fighters maneuvering like atmospheric aircraft is bound to shake up any
opponent.
I didn’t realize that your drive had a delay … it should be (barely)
noticeable at distances like Earth Moon too (a bit more than one light
second)
By the way: how do you zoom around within a star system using them,
practically speaking? You’d always need something to pull yourself to, right?
Pretty easy if you’re trying to get closer to your target – but what about
evasive maneuvers?
Triangulation. Since each ship has multiple sets of independent grav drives, you can
pull against different objects at the same time at different power levels, to slingshot
your ship in the direction you want to go. Of course, you would be limited by the
number and location of available masses. Say all you had was the Earth, moon and
an enemy warship, you would have to choose a direction within the triangle defined
by those three points. This is why the later generations of fighter craft were given
plasma drives as well.
P.S. – Please use the “Enter” key to keep your sentences from being so long that they
run off the edge of the page when viewing this comic on a phone or low-resolution
monitor. You’ll notice that I’ve edited the width of your other comments.
Besides, I hate reading long lines! Too much eye movement!
I thought as much, but thank you for pointing it out.
Just using interplanetary dust and gas wouldn’t be enough, I guess.
(Plus you’d have to deal with a lot of micro-meteorites that way)
PS: Sorry about the long lines. I’ll try to do better in the future.
I do try to format my posts into separate paragraphs,
because I (personally) find that more readable.
The thing is they have found objects in deep space that are red-shifted meaning
they are moving away faster than the speed of light from the big bang and the
dark matter.
They suspect it makes up the bulk of mass in the universe I suggest dark matter and
dark energy could be the key to FTL travel it seems to repel gravity effects.
Gravity is everywhere that’s why they started calling 0-G mircogravity rather than
0-g it is reduces with distance I read where they tested the earth’s gravity at different
distances from sea level and detected minor changes in different elevations even on
Mount Everest.
So far, it appears that space itself is expanding at a velocity
that is faster than light, caused by “dark energy”.
However; I have my own theories, based upon observation, interpretation
of both Newtonian and Quantum physics.
It’s a touch complicated, but modifies the standard model, without
fully breaking it.
It adds one element to the Standard Model that builds upon what Einstein
worked out about Space/Time, and Superstring Theory.
It answers; What is Energy and Matter and how do they interact with
Space/Time?
The answer is both simple and complex, in concept, but unfortunately,
I lack the advanced math skills to fully explain and outline it.
Quantum and Conventional Physics seem to be leaning in the direction
that I am thinking, but is still putting it together.
One major hint; Gravity and Mass are NOT part of the “Atomic Forces”,
such as the Electro Strong, Electro Weak and Electromagnetic,
but is, instead, the result of the interactions of Space/Time and
“matter”. And yes, it “blew my mind” when I put it together.
I am trying to write up as complete a description of what I have come
up with, but, as I have stated before, I lack the advanced math skills
to properly define my theories.
Any Physicists, with an open mind, who would like
to discuss this with me would be welcome.
A minor correction, it is not the distance to the satellite that
relativity corrects for but the speed of the satellite relative
to the surface of the earth.
The distance is corrected for in the normal spherical trigonometry
and gives an accuracy of tens of meters (normally under 100 feet).
Correcting for relativity effects refines this to a meter or two
(about six feet) Using accurate star positions is even more
accurate but requires a telescope and a lot more time.
Quoting ESA (European Space Agency):
https://gssc.esa.int/navipedia/index.php/Relativistic_Clock_Correction
“The rate of advance of two identical clocks, placed one in the satellite
and the other on theterrestrial surface, will differ due to the difference of the
gravitational potential (general relativity) and to the relative speed between
them (special relativity).”
That’s what I was referring to they say the closer to a black hole the slower time
moves matter at the event horizon has been there for millions if not billions of years.
Plus I doubt the tech is sturdy enough to maintain that level of pull long enough to
reach a percentage of C.
Weeeeellllll ….
Since the very way they’re described in this comic break not only “conservation of
energy” (at least seemingly) but also General Relativity anyway, all bets are off.
From the way the Imperial Navy is using them, I’d guess they’re not FTL capable.
And without traveling faster then light interstellar travel would take actual YEARS.
The average distance between stars in the milky way is about two light years
but the our galaxy (and most others) is far from homogeneous.
In the spiral arms (we are located on the inside edge of one) the average is four to five light years
which is comparable to the 4.2 light years to Alpha Centauri, our nearest star
(a triple star system that includes Proxima) Between the spiral arms it is significantly more
and in the outer halo could be as much as several hundred light years.
Binary and multiple stars are much closer, from actual contact binaries to somewhat more than
typical solar system spacing, particularly those containing three or four stars.
Globular clusters and the galactic centre are typically half a light year apart
and open clusters are typically a light year apart.
Lets assume PC’s world is set in a recently formed open cluster with an unusually
close spacing of a tenth of a light year, about 10x10e11 km.
I think it was stated the Toby class fighter could pull 40G; plugging this into the
Newtonian laws of motion gives us a flight time of about 120,000 years !
Not very practical unless you are immortal, and then only marginal.
You seem to forget tat it is a CONSTANT acceleration of 40 G’s, and time
dilation, compared to a “fixed” observer,will cause time for the craft to
slow down, although, unless they have some form of shielding to divert the
gas, dust and other matter in the craft’s path, erosion will become a
significant problem, prior to achieving one third the velocityof light.
Judging by the description of the drive, I suspect that it will become an
issue way before this, as matter is pulled in by the drive’s field effect.
In other words, bug meet windshield… Splat!
You’ve given me an idea. A robot ship with a wide-angle, fairly weak grav field
coming from an armored nose would be a great way to clean up orbital debris
and other random space junk.
In the same vein, properly configured gravity drives could pull material in
front of the craft to act as a physical deflector shield.
Given a sufficiently high velocity, the material would fuse together into a
solid shell. Now the problem becomes how to keep that shell in front of
the craft, rather than it slamming into it. Maybe a gravity missile around
which you build the shield, that is remote controlled from the ship to stay
in place?
Maybe, or it might make for a much more complicated Kessler Cascade situation…
If yo get too many things colliding at too high a velocity, they tend to shatter, and
scatter shrapnel all over the place…
But, using that same idea to SLOW objects in orbit to below orbital velocity, let them
Burn up in the atmosphere, and Bob’s your uncle!
Not forgotten, just ignoring relativity (and other factors – including
all those you mention) as that makes the situation worse.
The admiral is telling her hunt brother similar information that he had
already given her openly, it seems.
She appears to be doing her duty towards a hunt brother even while expecting
no reciprocation.
I believe that she is hoping that they can form understandings and work
together much better than the Marines existing relationship with the foolishly
dominating grass eaters that cannot fight worth a damm, much less hunt, nor do
the grass eaters understand the other species. The question of switching
alliances
is bound to be a future consideration, especially if the Wolf / Dragon Empire
is a match or superior in war capabilities. That the Earth Empire is making
alliances that benefit the other species and do not exploit the other species,
while the right thing to do, it is also a great incentive to ally with the
Catians and Terrans and the others in the Empire.
Switching allegiances isn’t really the issue, as much as presenting information to be sent to
higher authority, so they can make a better informed decision, prior to committing to actions
that could be detrimental in both the short and long terms.
The Core might be in for a nasty surprise. Bottom two panels:
http://thegentlewolf.net/comic/tgw-887/
I doubt if they’ve encountered that kind of battle before..
With the Terrans meeting the core head on to draw their attention it leaves the core open to an ambush by the cats.
Given the superior weapons and drives of the Wolf Empire what hope does the core have – unless they have massively
superior numbers. The question becomes do any of the core fleet escape to report the capabilities of the Wolf Empire?
For attack the wolf empire could send a single warship through a wormhole at high speed
and use both plasma and gravity drives at maximum to outrun any opposition.
electronics could scan the system and select targets while they recover from jump lag
Then they would launch grav missiles at as many targets as possible (including any
opposition near the worm hole, put up as much jamming interference as they could
and then make their escape.
Time several such attacks to occur simultaneously and how much havoc could they cause the core?