Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Carl on May 11, 2005, 09:51:51 pm
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They could have just moved it away from the jump node. Silly command, always with the explosions :rolleyes:
I'm right though, right?
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Well, it might depend on the mobility of the device. What exactly is holding it in place as it spins? Maybe it wouldn't have been quite that simple. Also, Command is silly.
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unless it's somehow stuck to the node, you could just hook some cables up to it and tow it away. that would be alot easier, safer, and cheaper than using a giant bomb.
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Those components are huge, crusier and corvette sized. Given that and the fact that they are moving faster than a Horus at full burners...moving them would be problematic at best.
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or, hey, here's another idea: turn it off.
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Hmmmm.....here's why they did it: They wanted to show off a GIANT EFFING EXPLOSION, which happened to be pretty damn cool back in the day. The Vanilla shockwaves no longer are as cool as the 3d thingamajig. And yes, you do have to factor in the logistics of moving a giant thing like that.
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Originally posted by Liberator
Those components are huge, crusier and corvette sized. Given that and the fact that they are moving faster than a Horus at full burners...moving them would be problematic at best.
if you hook up cables to each of the pieces and tow them perpendicular to the rotation plane (in the direction of the axis) then the matter is quite simple.
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If the Knossos worked anything like theoretical wormhole portals, then moving the Knossos would move the jump node right along with it.
Of course, they could simply have collapsed the Capella-Gamma Draconis node when destroying the Knossos didn't work.
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Well, Goob, if the node moves... here's an idea: couldn't they have..well, ****, different idea. Is it possible to tow the thing inside another subspace node? Those Shivan bastards would never know what hit them.
Or hell, tow it inside itself? That ones a little less likely, but what the hell.
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Nah. All they needed to do was pull the knossos into the sun! Let the shivans experience nuclear fission first hand!
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sun = nuclear fusion.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
If the Knossos worked anything like theoretical wormhole portals, then moving the Knossos would move the jump node right along with it.
but remember that the knossos didn't create the node, it stablized it.
Originally posted by Ghost
Is it possible to tow the thing inside another subspace node?
:eek2: a subspace node inside subspace? if you went into the node then you would have subspace inside other subspace! would that even work?
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Originally posted by Carl
sun = nuclear fusion.
One or the other. It was a 50-50 guess for me :p
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Carl: that was the entire point of my question. It boggles the mind, doesn't it? The very idea of subspace is weird enough, but... Dimensions within dimensions within dimensions. Bizarre.
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Originally posted by Carl
but remember that the knossos didn't create the node, it stablized it.
Doesn't matter. If the Knossos is exercising any sort of control over the node, then the node should move toward the Knossos. It wants to seek its lowest energy state.
And even if it didn't, the Knossos would be designed to hold a node in place anyway. The reason is because it's extremely unlikely that subspace nodes never move of their own accord over the course of their entire lifetime. Gravitational perturbations from comets, interstellar dust, orbit around the sun, etc. should cause them to move just like any other wormhole, natural or artificial. So a node is going to drift around the solar system.
The Knossos is going to drift around too, for the same reason - but they're probably not going to drift along the same path. So if the node doesn't seek the Knossos of its own accord, it's going to drift out of range and destabilize. For the Knossos to stay near the node for a long period of time, it has to move with the node or move the node with it. Since the Knossos has no apparent means of propulsion, the conclusion is that it holds the node in place.
So, whether by nature or by design, the node must stay with the Knossos. :p
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It seems likely a Subspace Node would only occur at the LaGrangian points for the System. Hence why each system only has 1 or 2, sometimes 3 at the outside. These points move in relation to the gravity fields creating them. I'd just hate to have to calculate the L-points for as complex a thing as a star system.
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Goober, if that is true then the GTVA should build knossos's around every GTVA controlled node, and move them closer to each other so those escort missions aren't so darned long.
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Originally posted by Liberator
Those components are huge, crusier and corvette sized. Given that and the fact that they are moving faster than a Horus at full burners...moving them would be problematic at best.
Then how did it get there? The Ancients must've had a way to move it or take it apart. Ehh, the GTVA could just uncover the solution like they did during the Great War.
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Originally posted by EtherShock
Then how did it get there? The Ancients must've had a way to move it or take it apart. Ehh, the GTVA could just uncover the solution like they did during the Great War.
The Ancients built the thing, remember? They would be able to control, transport, switch on, switch off etc the knossos device....the Ancients were clearly a lot more advanced than the GTVA (knossos, subspace tracking, vast empire).
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No shields, though. And before you yell at me that that was Shivan technology, read the tech description for MX-50. There was a shielding prototype at Ross 128.
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True, but that was IMHO very stupid on :v:'s part. Essentially the only reason that part of the tech description exists is to give the player a hint that MX-50s don't work well against shields.
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CCCAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNN. Doesn't matter, it's still "true," Goob.
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I never said it was false, just that it was stupid. I'm not arguing its canonicity.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
The Ancients built the thing, remember? They would be able to control, transport, switch on, switch off etc the knossos device....the Ancients were clearly a lot more advanced than the GTVA (knossos, subspace tracking, vast empire).
In terms of propulsion, yes. But their military technology lagged a fair amount behind the GTVA as I understand it. Why? They had a huge empire and kept fighting lots of weak enemies.
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Subspace inside subspace would cause a terrible explosion, collapsing the Knossos, its other end, and the two ends of the natural subspace node.
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Originally posted by Ghost
No shields, though. And before you yell at me that that was Shivan technology, read the tech description for MX-50. There was a shielding prototype at Ross 128.
Well, IIRC there's not any evidence the Ancients didn't
have shields; it solely depends on how you interpret the line 'unlike the others, they wouldn't die' (AFAIK that's the gist of it).
I don't think there's any information of how militarily advanced the Ancients were; being destroyed by the Shivans when the GTVA survived may not be a good judge, because we don't know the size of the Shivan fleet. IIRC one of the ancients monologues indicates the Shivans may/did have multiple Lucifer-or-similar class shielded destroyers. Without knowing who the Ancients fought before the Shivans, or how many Shivans there were, it's hard to make a true judgement; potentially it could have been a war that made FS! & 2 look like a playground scrap.
Incidentally, the MX-50 describes the deflector array as an "energy based defense"; that doesn't necessarily entail shielding as stolen/copied from the Shivans. Either way, the GTA/GTVA defo didn't have working shield technology until retrieving it from the Shivans, and they struggled to overcome it during the first confrontations (possibly indicating GTA shielding wasn't advanced enough for them to know ways round it).
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Yeah, I suppose you're right, aldo...
And if subspace would collapse is there was a seperate node inside the actual node, why the hell didn't they do it, then?
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The GTVA couldn't shut the Knossos down. The only ones with that knowledge was Bosch, who had disappeared into the nebula with all his top people, and the NTC Trinity, which was destroyed. What with the impending Sathanas invasion Command had little choice but to destroy it, thinking the node would collapse.
As for why Command didn't collapse the Capella-Gamma Draconis node: Command thought that the destruction of the Knossos would destabilize and collapse the nebula node (most likely backed by Dr. Hargrove and her staff). By the time Command had devised the plan to collapse the other two nodes, the C-GD node was overrun and most likely impossible to breach.
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Originally posted by Yogert
The GTVA couldn't shut the Knossos down. The only ones with that knowledge was Bosch, who had disappeared into the nebula with all his top people, and the NTC Trinity, which was destroyed.
but didn't they say they had enough info on it to build their own? i would assume we wouldn't build our own without knowing how to turn it on and off.
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True, however on off switches are realatively easy to implement. On the other hand, I don't think there was anything saying that Bosch knew or even cared about shutting it down.
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You do NOT want to put subspace inside subspace! Have you ever watched babylon 5, and seen what happens when you open a jump point inside a jump point? First comes a well of gravity, then a big explosion, then the jump points are gone.
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in b5...
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Originally posted by Carl
but didn't they say they had enough info on it to build their own? i would assume we wouldn't build our own without knowing how to turn it on and off.
That'd (or could) simply mean they understood the physics of it, not necessarily how to operate or even interface with the control systems created by the Ancients.
Of course, it may not even be possible to turn the thing off; I don't think it's entirely clear whether it was ever switched on prior to the Trinity, is it?
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The average IQ of Command rating somewhere down in the low teens doesn't really help their case at all, i mean, i'll bet that on the back of the Knossos, there was a giant ON/OFF switch that Command never noticed...
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Originally posted by Yogert
The GTVA couldn't shut the Knossos down. The only ones with that knowledge was Bosch, who had disappeared into the nebula with all his top people, and the NTC Trinity, which was destroyed.
Beg to differ, refer to your first command briefing on the Knossos. "The portal will remain open while Dr. Hargrove and her team study it." Which implies that the GTVA knows how to shut the portal as well and could have done so.
I believe they blew it up as a way of "just making sure"...that turned out disasterously wrong.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Of course, it may not even be possible to turn the thing off; I don't think it's entirely clear whether it was ever switched on prior to the Trinity, is it?
i would have thought that when the ancients built it thousands of years ago they would have used it at least once, or else why build it?
on the other hand, if they had used it, then the node would have been stablized, but it wasn't stable until the trinity activated the knossos.
...unless it destablized again over 8000 years.
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maybe the Ancients switched it off in the hopes that the shivans couldn't follow through an unstable Jump Node.
edit: if thats what your trying to say...:nervous:
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Originally posted by Carl
i would have thought that when the ancients built it thousands of years ago they would have used it at least once, or else why build it?
on the other hand, if they had used it, then the node would have been stablized, but it wasn't stable until the trinity activated the knossos.
...unless it destablized again over 8000 years.
More than possible, of course; I think the debrief after the knossos is destroyed indicates it's possible the node can destabilize.
Of course, none of the other Knossos' seen were deactivated, which raises other questions; it could be the GD Knossos was never activated because of the Shivans, or it could be that reactivating it started the others, or so on.
I can't remember if the GD knossos was ever dated; it's possible the Ancients never activated it because of the war with the Shivans, although that raises its own issue as to how the other Knossos' were built.
On the balance of things, it probably makes more sense if the Knossos in Gd was deactivated by the Ancients, possibly to try & stop the Shivans. But IMO there are certainly other possibilities.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Beg to differ, refer to your first command briefing on the Knossos. "The portal will remain open while Dr. Hargrove and her team study it." Which implies that the GTVA knows how to shut the portal as well and could have done so.
Or simply implies that they aren't going to blow it up as a security risk.
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wasn't that mission a test of the Meson as well?
anyway, i don't see how using "cables" would work on the Knossos, since the spinning components would cause a massive strain on the ships system, thereby causing an overload and kaboom.
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Towing it wouldn't work. The way the Knossos moves defies physics; you'd have to stop the things from spinning first, or build a giant frying pan you could tow around the Knossos and move it.
Command would've been better off parking something big on the jump node, mining the area, destroying the G-D node, or trying to destroy the node with an explosive within (after deactivating the Knossos).
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Towing it wouldn't work. The way the Knossos moves defies physics; you'd have to stop the things from spinning first, or build a giant frying pan you could tow around the Knossos and move it.
that's basically what i just said. :wtf:
Command would've been better off parking something big on the jump node, mining the area, destroying the G-D node, or trying to destroy the node with an explosive within (after deactivating the Knossos).
yeah, much better than blasting a millennia-year-old ancient artifact to space dust. :nod:
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Towing it wouldn't work. The way the Knossos moves defies physics; you'd have to stop the things from spinning first, or build a giant frying pan you could tow around the Knossos and move it.
Originally posted by Carl
if you hook up cables to each of the pieces and tow them perpendicular to the rotation plane (in the direction of the axis) then the matter is quite simple.
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Wouldn't that be pulling the segments apart? Which might not even be possible.
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There's also the matter of connecting the cables, and doing so such that the towing craft would not be damaged...which is an impossiblity.
Recall that the Knossos' components interlock. Any attempt to tow all the segments of it would result in some of the cables being snapped; any attempt to tow just the larger segements would cause the smaller ones to crash into the larger.
Also, before such a tow could even be attempted, the towing craft would have to match the movement of the segment it is supposed to tow. Since no known craft in FS is capable of moving at such speeds, much less one large enough to tow a cruiser or corvette-sized chunk of stuff, that's just not going to happen.
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stop stating what i just said! argh!
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Cobra, you said no such thing. Your post refers to strain on ship systems after they had been hooked up, which a) makes little sense and b) has precious little to do with what we're talking about. I think the Knossos could be turned off, pulled out of position one piece at a time and then reassembled and turned back on, but you couldn't move an active one. It's somewhat anchored to the node as well, remember, so it's not so simple as just moving the physical components.
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Too bad they don't have tractor beams in the FS universe. They'd have no problems moving that thing with tractor beams once it was shut down.
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Originally posted by StratComm
but you couldn't move an active one.
yes, you could. as i've stated twice before: just hook up cables to each of the pieces and tow them perpendicular to the rotation plane in the direction of the axis.
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Originally posted by StratComm
Cobra, you said no such thing. Your post refers to strain on ship systems after they had been hooked up, which a) makes little sense and b) has precious little to do with what we're talking about. I think the Knossos could be turned off, pulled out of position one piece at a time and then reassembled and turned back on, but you couldn't move an active one. It's somewhat anchored to the node as well, remember, so it's not so simple as just moving the physical components.
Actually, Cobra's post is perfectly valid. Even if you managed to hook a ship up to one of the segments, it has to be able to pull it away. Unless the GTVA has hauler ships the size of the Colossus, any of the segments would put a heavy strain on the superstructure and engines of the ship attempting to tow it.
The only way I can see you hooking a ship up to the segments in the first place would be to create a rotating tug attachment to a ship, then start pulling. (Or the giant frying pan idea, of course).
Any other method would either knot the cables, or put the ship in competition with the force that makes the segments orbit around the jump point.
This sounds like a fun question to put on a MESA quiz, though. :p
I think what I'm thinking of in the 2nd paragraph is what you're describing, Carl, but I can't see how you'd do it without making the cable rapidly spin up or knot (which would eventually snap it).
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Going on the towing the peices apart argument you could just attach a great deal of weight to one of the segments like some kind of scoop( with maybe some thrusters but we'll use those later) then present bunches of raw ore or some other heavy matter.
With the motion of the ring it would be only a matter of time before the load on the one segment would tear it away from the formation. Of course this would likely send the segments flying at unknown vectors at unimaginable velocities.
Likely you would have to put some kind for recovery thruster system on each of the peices. To do that you would need a ship at the center with a spinning counter weight rig on it to attach something to each of the components, but the catch with that is you have to do opposit segments on each ring at the same time so that you didn't throw off the ballance off the rig, and to get to the outside sections you could attach a super structure that the inner segments pass thru.
Now mind you the engineering and preplanning for a venture such as this is quite costly in time and resources. Custom refabrication of a science ship with the spinning pannals replaced by a spinning rig that can unfold around the inner segments, thats likely rocket powered with four attachable thruster packs onboard each side is no small order. :eek2:
Point is likely the GTVA didnt have any workable plan for saving the gate for later, by workable i mean with the time frame they had. So they fell back on the same universal plan Snipes did in Into the Lions Den when in doubt put the biggest bomb you got next to it and blow the forshnocker out of it.:D
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I think Volition's point was that the GTVA's selfishness (keeping a worthless system it thought of as theirs, by trying to blow up the Ancient portal) led to the downfall of Capella.
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Originally posted by Carl
yes, you could. as i've stated twice before: just hook up cables to each of the pieces and tow them perpendicular to the rotation plane in the direction of the axis.
I just explained why you couldn't. Read that again, please. Granted, it would be possible to tow the larger, exterior ring, but first you would have to match velocities and courses with it, an impossiblity with known FS technology. Attempting to tow it all at once is doubly impossible, because the components interlock and the inner ring's cables would be severed by the outer. Attempting to tow it without matching velocity and course so that you are moving in the same direction at the same rate is even more impossible, as it would require slack in the tow, which defeats the purpose and would overstress the cable as it snaps tight repeatedly, and also the cable would get taken out by the relatively topmost piece when the piece you are attempting to tow is at the bottom of the rotation.
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ngtm1r, you obviously don't understand what i'm saying.
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Trying to pull on the same plane as most ships are on in the missions that involve the Knossos wouldn't work either with a simple cable rig.
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Originally posted by Carl
ngtm1r, you obviously don't understand what i'm saying.
There are two possible ways to interpret what you are saying.
Either you mean to tow it like so
l
l---->
l
or like this
/\
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l
l
l
Both of them are impossible. I have proved this for both. Clarify your statements, you will find they remain wrong.
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/Carltheshivan/knossos.gif)
first you would have to match velocities and courses with it, an impossiblity with known FS technology
if you look at the CB animation with the faustus' scanning the knossos with the green beam thingy, they are matching it's speed. alternatively, you could shoot a grapling hook at it as it passes by.
components interlock and the inner ring's cables would be severed by the outer
not if the cables are attached to the bottoms of the inner ring segments and to the sides of the outer ring segments.
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Whoa, that would actually work! :eek2:
The only problem is that the cables would pull the segments toward the center, so rigid spokes would have to be substituted. But still, it would work. Well done. :yes:
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So in other words, what I was saying :rolleyes:
Edit: Oh, nm the :rolleyes:, I thought you said "no it wouldn't work" after my second to last post.
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Originally posted by Carl
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/Carltheshivan/knossos.gif)
And the GTVA are meant to build a ship with two counter rotating sections like that in the day or so they had before the Sathanas arrived? Somehow I doubt that a faustus could provide enough thrust to move the knossos.
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You could probably put a big collar onto a Sobek or something - it'd work just as well.
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Originally posted by Carl
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/Carltheshivan/knossos.gif)
if you look at the CB animation with the faustus' scanning the knossos with the green beam thingy, they are matching it's speed. alternatively, you could shoot a grapling hook at it as it passes by.
not if the cables are attached to the bottoms of the inner ring segments and to the sides of the outer ring segments.
If you tug it that way.... won't the Faustus be moving ahead of the Knossos? And if so, does that not mean that the dragged-behind segments may be getting pulled in closer together as the 'cone' tightens? And if so, wouldn't there be a collision or similar risk between rotating segments?
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/kdrag.jpg)
EDIT; Goober already said this, I think; you'd need rigid connectors, and you'd need to manufacture them (several hundred meters if not several km long).
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And I still think that the interface between the operational Knossos and the subspace vortex that it sustains would keep any simple physical method of moving it around from working while the device is active.
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Anyone else find it odd that the peices move inwards when the knososs detonates?
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Game Mechanics...
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Implosion...?
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Game mechanics doesnt make sense
The meson bombs were placed incorrectly for an implosion.
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Residual centrifugal motion?
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More like residual centripetal motion.
EDIT: That actually makes sense. The pieces are no longer rotating, so they're sucked toward the center by whatever force kept them in a circle.
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Originally posted by Carl
if you look at the CB animation with the faustus' scanning the knossos with the green beam thingy, they are matching it's speed. alternatively, you could shoot a grapling hook at it as it passes by.
Incorrect. The Faustus is holding posistion and scanning the segments as they go by.
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Originally posted by karajorma
And the GTVA are meant to build a ship with two counter rotating sections like that in the day or so they had before the Sathanas arrived? Somehow I doubt that a faustus could provide enough thrust to move the knossos.
I got the impression that the Knossos was (known) to be open for some time, and the GTVA knew there was a Shivan threat. The mere fact that the meson bombs were around seems to indicate to me that the GTVA was planning on the possibility of shutting down the Knossos. I can't see them really being practical for deployment against the NTF in the form that they appeared in Freespace 2.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
More like residual centripetal motion.
EDIT: That actually makes sense. The pieces are no longer rotating, so they're sucked toward the center by whatever force kept them in a circle.
Seems plausible, thoughh they dont accelerate towards the center i'l drop that off to engine limitations.
Possibly :V: originaly intended forr all the peices to collapse inot a subspace wormhole as does the bastions dbris... mabye, mabye not.
WMC, it's specificaly stated that the meson bombs used to destroy the portal were rototypes. They were being tested for effectiveness.
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You Can't Move a Knossos Because...
1. The thing is probably so darn high massed/heavy that you'd need incredibly powerful engines to move it one iota.
2. Moving a subspace portal stabilization device away from the node it's generating might cause undesirable weirdness.
3. You will be smacked by its spinning blade thingies and die before you EVER manage to attach cables or poles to it.
The Only Way that One Might Move a Knossos:
Take standard reactor cores, wire them to jump drives, encase in high density metal alloy and clamp to each and every part of Knossos. Then engage all these Strap-On Jump Drives simultaneously and see what happens.
Hang back 50 kilometers ... just in case.
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Or just blow it up
For once can we agree that, for once command was smart.
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Yeah, but that didn't work. The portal was stabilized already.
I wonder if reversing the rotation of the portal would close it...but...um...not like we can just "talk to the Knossos" and be like "can you spin the opposite direction please" :P
Ahh well, if only it were that easy.
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It's alpha 1's fault, he didnt protect the trinity well enough!
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No, it's that dumbass engineer's fault.
You:"Hey, could you turn on the weapons systems in this Shivan-infested nebula so we might live?"
Engineer: *Whines* "No, we need all power on engines!!"
What they were doing with all that power is anyone's guess, since the engines were completely disabled.
Besides, the Elysium pilot could've simply warped out after they docked to the Trinity. :p
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Or just evac the crew.
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
I got the impression that the Knossos was (known) to be open for some time, and the GTVA knew there was a Shivan threat. The mere fact that the meson bombs were around seems to indicate to me that the GTVA was planning on the possibility of shutting down the Knossos. I can't see them really being practical for deployment against the NTF in the form that they appeared in Freespace 2.
Not saying that I disagree with you but having a specially made ship turn up and move the Knossos would be a pretty f**king big clue that they knew about it. :p
The meson bomb could just as easily have been developed to shut Bosch into Sirius, Regulus and Polaris if they couldn't beat him though so I wouldn't say for certain it proves they knew about the Knossos.
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The meson bomb's simply a bloody big...bomb. Not something the GTVA would be averse to making even if they didn't have a planned use for it.
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I think it's pretty clear that the GTVA didn't know the Knossos was there beforehand. Now they may have moved the prototype Meson bombs into the region in order to shut it down, should the need arise, after the Shivan threat was first discovered. However, everything in the game simply points to Bosch finding out about the knossos and how to activate it from Ancient records and sending a special ship, previously ostensibly loyal to the GTVA, to turn it on and make contact with the Shivans. Bosch's prior knowledge of it is pretty clear, but I doubt he got any of that knowledge from GTVA command.
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I meant that the Shivan ships warped in and Command sent ships to investigate. I really doubt there was only 24 hours for Command to prepare for something *big* to come through the node.
Command may have been overconfident but it wasn't that overconfident.
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nah, i don't think it was overconfidence. just plain stupidity. all they could have done was shut down the portal, and the Gamma Draconis-Nebula jump node wouldn't have been stabilized and the Sathanas wouldn't have came to GTVA space.
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Originally posted by Cobra
nah, i don't think it was overconfidence. just plain stupidity. all they could have done was shut down the portal, and the Gamma Draconis-Nebula jump node wouldn't have been stabilized and the Sathanas wouldn't have came to GTVA space.
And just how do you shut down the portal Cobra? Bosch maybe knew how but he took the information into the nebula with him.
On top of that who says that the node wasn't stabilised during the thousands of years the knossos was in "power saving mode"?
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More like residual centripetal motion.
Not quite Goob. The existence of centripetal force is completely qualitative. i.e. There are no physical manifestations of centripetal force in the universe (as we know it anyway) and besides, you forgot about inertia:
Objects at rest want to stay at rest, objects in motion want to stay in motion.
And Newtons 2nd law (I think):
An object going on a set course will not deviate from that course unless acted upon by a net force.
When the Meson Bombs went off, they threw off the mechanical precision that kept the Knossos traveling in a circle, when this happened, the pieces would continue in the last direction in which they were going, and without the net force evident in the intact knossos, they should have flown off.
Its like spinning on one of those rotating things in the park and then letting go.
Finally, I believe that any "centripetal force" would be quickly overcome by the centrifigul force due to the fact that it is favored by the all powerful forces of thermodynamics.
It is easier for the pieces to spread outward than to try to congregate in one space, therefore, the thermodynamic process favors the flying of the pieces away from each other.
Ahhh... Macro chemistry...
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Originally posted by Boomer
Its like spinning on one of those rotating things in the park and then letting go.
They're called merry go-rounds. Yeah, they look nothing like them, considered dangerous nowadays. :p
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Oh, yeah. I realized that about five minutes after submitting the post and couldn't get to a computer. I was hoping to get back before anyone replied.....:o
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I always called 'em roundabouts, but then, we used to sit on the roundabout and sharpen ice-lolly sticks on the tarmac, kind of like sitting on a sharpening wheel and spinning the world ;)
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Ahh my daily dose of fine english slang.
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Originally posted by Boomer
Not quite Goob. The existence of centripetal force is completely qualitative. i.e. There are no physical manifestations of centripetal force in the universe (as we know it anyway) and besides, you forgot about inertia:
Objects at rest want to stay at rest, objects in motion want to stay in motion.
And Newtons 2nd law (I think):
An object going on a set course will not deviate from that course unless acted upon by a net force.
When the Meson Bombs went off, they threw off the mechanical precision that kept the Knossos traveling in a circle, when this happened, the pieces would continue in the last direction in which they were going, and without the net force evident in the intact knossos, they should have flown off.
Its like spinning on one of those rotating things in the park and then letting go.
Finally, I believe that any "centripetal force" would be quickly overcome by the centrifigul force due to the fact that it is favored by the all powerful forces of thermodynamics.
It is easier for the pieces to spread outward than to try to congregate in one space, therefore, the thermodynamic process favors the flying of the pieces away from each other.
Ahhh... Macro chemistry...
Centripital force indeed does exist and has many manifestations, the centripital force on our moon comes from earths gravity, on a roller coaster it comes from contact with the rails.
Centrifugal force, on the other hand, is not real, it's an imaginary force that is said to be equal to centripital force and in the opposite direction.
Though it's likely you just got the names confused.
And while the peices should spread apart, ingfame they dont, they fly together.
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Centripital force indeed does exist and has many manifestations, the centripital force on our moon comes from earths gravity, on a roller coaster it comes from contact with the rails.
Ouch. I need to learn to check my wording TWICE before a post. My bad. :nervous:
(That's what I get for reading a physics book from the 60's...)
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Originally posted by Boomer
Not quite Goob. The existence of centripetal force is completely qualitative. i.e. There are no physical manifestations of centripetal force in the universe (as we know it anyway) and besides, you forgot about inertia:
Objects at rest want to stay at rest, objects in motion want to stay in motion.
And Newtons 2nd law (I think):
An object going on a set course will not deviate from that course unless acted upon by a net force.
As FireCrack said, you may have confused centripetal force with centrifugal force (which is the force that "doesn't exist" as such). Having taken physics in high school and college, I'm quite familiar with both concepts.
And please read my comments in context. I wasn't arguing for a specific physical model so much as wondering why the Knossos acted the way it did.When the Meson Bombs went off, they threw off the mechanical precision that kept the Knossos traveling in a circle, when this happened, the pieces would continue in the last direction in which they were going, and without the net force evident in the intact knossos, they should have flown off.
This is what the pieces should have done. It's not what we see in game, and this is what FireCrack, aldo, and I (and others) were speculating about.
In suggesting "residual centripetal motion" I thought that the destruction of the Knossos caused the pieces to stop rotating. Since they came to a halt, they had no inertia keeping them from falling toward the center of the node.
Another possibility is that the Knossos was pushing the pieces outward rather than pulling them inward. In this case, the pieces would be moving much more slowly than their orbital velocity. If an unstable subspace node exerts a strong centripetal force, than the only way to keep the Knossos pieces at that radius is to 1) rotate them extremely quickly (which may not be conducive to stablizing a node), or 2) counteract that force to some extent and rotate them more slowly. Perhaps the Knossos counteracts that force when it's operating; therefore when it stops operating, the pieces are sucked inward.
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In suggesting "residual centripetal motion" I thought that the destruction of the Knossos caused the pieces to stop rotating. Since they came to a halt, they had no inertia keeping them from falling toward the center of the node.
I see what you mean now. I had to sketch it out to get the correct image. That would work. However, that doesn't explain why the shockwaves from both the Meson warheads and the explosion caused by the Knossos tearing itself apart didn't send it flying outward initially and then slowing down.
Another possibility is that the Knossos was pushing the pieces outward rather than pulling them inward. In this case, the pieces would be moving much more slowly than their orbital velocity. If an unstable subspace node exerts a strong centripetal force, than the only way to keep the Knossos pieces at that radius is to 1) rotate them extremely quickly (which may not be conducive to stablizing a node), or 2) counteract that force to some extent and rotate them more slowly. Perhaps the Knossos counteracts that force when it's operating; therefore when it stops operating, the pieces are sucked inward.
And 2 points I'd like to make on this.
1st) Isn't centripital force varied inversely to velocity? If so, then unstable jump nodes that appear at random (the tech room said that some only lasted a few seconds) would have a severe effect on ships nearby when they appeared. I'm not sure if the above assumptions are correct so let me know if I'm wrong.
2nd) There hasn't been any proof that subspace nodes (even unstable ones) interact with normal space in any physical way except when matter is vibrating at the n-dimensional frequency. And if they did, would the effect not be more pronounced with stable jump nodes?
While I'm putting forth rampant speculation, I would like to give an alternative that might plausibly support Goobers hypothesis:
The Knossos itself is vibrating at or extremely close to the n-dimensional frequency. They wouldn't go into subspace because they're not quite on the dot, but they'd be close enough to have an influence on subspace.
And.... Yes, for the moment I'm done rambling. Let the dissection commence!!
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Originally posted by karajorma
And just how do you shut down the portal Cobra? Bosch maybe knew how but he took the information into the nebula with him.
On top of that who says that the node wasn't stabilised during the thousands of years the knossos was in "power saving mode"?
if you recall, Admiral Petrarch said that they would keep the portal active while prof. hargrove's team studied the knossos, so they must have at least known how to shut it down.
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Originally posted by Boomer
And 2 points I'd like to make on this.
1st) Isn't centripital force varied inversely to velocity? If so, then unstable jump nodes that appear at random (the tech room said that some only lasted a few seconds) would have a severe effect on ships nearby when they appeared. I'm not sure if the above assumptions are correct so let me know if I'm wrong.
I'm not sure which 'velocity' you're talking about, but given F=ma (or F=mv/s) it's not inversely proportional. An unstable node would, however, generate a strong effect when it appeared, according to the second theory. That's another gap in our knowledge that we're currently unable to fill. Whether it's more or less pronounced for stable vs. unstable nodes is anyone's guess.
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Originally posted by Cobra
if you recall, Admiral Petrarch said that they would keep the portal active while prof. hargrove's team studied the knossos, so they must have at least known how to shut it down.
Or he simply meant that they wouldn't call in half the fleet and blow it to kingdom come.
It would hardly be active after the fleet reduced it to dust.
Besides let me ask you one thing. If command knew how to turn off the Knossos why bother trying to blow it up in the first place? Surely they would have tried flicking the off switch. :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by High Max
Also, I think it's funny when a fighter hits a Knossos and gets knocked away:D. I wonder what the outcome would be if someone used FRED to place a cruiser or larger ship in front of one of the moving parts of a Knossos. Like if I started a mission and 2 seconds into it, a Knossos component hits the warship that is in its line of travel. Someone should try that and see what happens:D
Tried that, the ship vibrates a lot, then it just pops out from inbetween the "blades."
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Centripital force = ( Mass*Velocity^2 )/Radius
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Originally posted by karajorma
Besides let me ask you one thing. If command knew how to turn off the Knossos why bother trying to blow it up in the first place? Surely they would have tried flicking the off switch. :rolleyes:
They wanted to be sure.
"For strategic and scientific reasons"; perhaps they were attempting to gain data that might be useful for their attempts to build a Knossos in Delta Serpentis. It seems the most probable reason to tack a "scientific" on there, since they seemed quite sure the node would destablize.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
"For strategic and scientific reasons"; perhaps they were attempting to gain data that might be useful for their attempts to build a Knossos in Delta Serpentis. It seems the most probable reason to tack a "scientific" on there, since they seemed quite sure the node would destablize.
Read the briefing again. The "strategic and scientific reasons" were why they used the meson bombs instead of the main guns on their capital ships. They were going to blow it up regardless.
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How bout this as a crazy thought mabye a knossos could block off or seal a node as one of its features. If it could collapse a node then it could trap anything on the other side. Now for all that Shivans had lots of tech they weren't all that creative over all, they did have the bigger and badder thing down. So i wonder if they could reaverse(sp) engineer a knossos. Hell they wasted the race that built the Knossos and the supspace detector had all the spoils and didnt make a steath system for subspace. Maybe all they can do is identify what something is (if that even) and reproduce it using their methods, not nessisarily make something from another race work for them.
Just some thoughts
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
They wanted to be sure.
So turn it off then blow it up. Command might be stupid but I don't believe that they are stupid enough not to realise that they can place the meson bombs much more easily and effectively if they've turned the Knossos off.
Not to mention that turning the Knossos off would have prevented Shivan ships coming through it to mess up their attempts to blow it up.
On top of that if the Knossos is that easy to turn off it probably would have been fairly simple to turn on too but Bosch's adventures in Deneb show that it was actually hard to turn on. After all if you put in password protection etc to make the Knossos hard to turn on because of its strategic value then it makes just as much sense to make it hard to turn off for the same reasons.
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Personally, I suspect the problem Bosch had was simply he had to know what the "on" switch looked like first, and for that, he needed a standard for comparison.
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That's pretty much what I think the problem was too but if it was so hard to find, wouldn't the GTVA have similar problems finding it in order to turn it off again?
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How bout this as a crazy thought mabye a knossos could block off or seal a node as one of its features.
It's an interesting thought. If it can stabilize, it should be able to destabilize too. But if it could destabilize a jump node, why didn't the Ancients just seal all the entrances to their space that the Shivans were using?
I don't think that the Knossos can completely seal a node that it has stabilized, but I imagine it could easily be retrofitted (means of doing so aside) to destroy any ships that came out of the Node. That would suck.
Shivan- "Coming out of subspace... now, Captain"
Shivan Captain- "Where is that glow coming from? Navigator? Navigator?!"
*Turns around, sees empty space*
SC- "Oh, %^&$"
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Originally posted by Boomer
It's an interesting thought. If it can stabilize, it should be able to destabilize too. But if it could destabilize a jump node, why didn't the Ancients just seal all the entrances to their space that the Shivans were using?
Maybe they did, maybe they got jumped thru the back door in ross 128 like when the shivans jumped the GTA/PVN in FS1.
Another thought does anybody remember in the begining of FS1 you couldn't target the shivans. They also popped up in more then one system with in hours to days of each other. Tacticaly this means that they moved in to many systems from where ever there entrance was before they attacked in force. Likely the first encounters with the shivans were earier then they had planned and befor they had their fleet set up for their attack(sanitization) plan. Who knows what system the Luci fleet actualy jumped in from.:nervous:
Perhaps the Ancients sealed the portal off just minutes or seconds to late. Long enough for the Shivans to send in their most effective weapon the Luci, who gets sealed off in our neck of the woods so after smashing these last systems of the anchients the Luci went on tour, only after building a small fleet from the raw remains of the Ancients last systems.
Note in the Ancients monolog something was said,"we could forgo one system, but still they came for us" or some such. The Ancients would have known if they just left the system they would be at least subject to recons and skermishing likely they would have done what the GTVA did and seal off the system. Esspecialy with enough working knowledge of subspace to even stablize a node in the first place. Odds are if you know how to build something you know how to destroy it. And they would have figured another race wouldn't stabilize a node just to get them. Only the shivans did keep coming so maybe the knossos is for holding a node shut and then reopening when it might be safe or to check whats up on the other side.
Point is the Ancients could have unwittingly cut shivan space into many pieces.
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Originally posted by High Max
Actually, it wouldn't have mattered if they turned it off, moved it, or turned it off and blew it up because the node would have already been stablized, thus if you turned it off, Shivan ships would still come through. Plus, Shivan ships can travel through weak and unstable nodes. Meaning, they can travel through collapsed nodes. They just chose not to for some reason.
I was speaking from commands point of view. I know that turning off the Knossos wouldn't have made a difference but Command obviously didn't know that or they would have realised that blowing up the Knossos was a huge waste of time.
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Weak != to colapsed.
It is my belif that if ever a terran/vasudan knossos was built it would include built in meson bombs with a self destruct feature to destabilise the node.
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Originally posted by High Max
I think the larger Shivan ships are capable of traveling through collapsed nodes or making inter-system jumps without using nodes. But for some reason, they use these methods of travel very rarely. Maybe it is because using these methods might somehow harm the fabric of subspace and the Shivans protect subspace. Some even believe that they come from subspace.
Also, I wish someone would've made a campaign in which we go beyond Knossos 3. Kind of ironic that it's been almost 6 years since FS2 has been released and not one person to this date has made a campaign that involved going beyond the Knossos in the binary system.
Wait for the english Version of Revenge - Final Conflict, it's from 2001 and there you come to the Knossos 3 System.
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Originally posted by High Max
I think the larger Shivan ships are capable of traveling through collapsed nodes or making inter-system jumps without using nodes. But for some reason, they use these methods of travel very rarely. Maybe it is because using these methods might somehow harm the fabric of subspace and the Shivans protect subspace. Some even believe that they come from subspace.
I don't think there is any evidence for that.
In fact Petrach says that most of the GTVA scientists catagorically state that they can't and that although they can use unstable nodes they are unable to even use collapsed nodes let alone travel without them.
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Thats what is stated more or less in addition the most thats inferred is that the shivans can rebuild jump nodes. That could be a process very much like the Knossos and could take quite some time depending on how unstable the node is to begin with for all we can imagine. After all what is time to a hive mind.
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If an node is collapsed it ceases to exist. It is not there anymore. It's gone.
If it would still be there and could be used then the universe would be full of nodes. Since there are nodes forming and collapsing all the time, remember?
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Originally posted by Prophet
If it would still be there and could be used then the universe would be full of nodes. Since there are nodes forming and collapsing all the time, remember?
Yes however logic dictates that there are outside factors that come into play for jump nodes to even exist in the first place, Ie gravitational fields and the like. For instance most subspace drives on fighters and other small craft are limited to intrasystem travel, they require a strong gravitational field to function. Likely all a node is is where the gravitational field of a far off star and the home star intersect and interact in some fasion.
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Se there are conditions for the node to form again. But that doesn't mean there is a node. Let alone hole capable of supporting travel.
Another theory comes to mind: If sufficently advanced jump engines could act as a miniature knossos device only requiring the right conditions (mentioned above) to form intrasystem jump corridor that could barely allow a ship to pass trought...
But when we remember the relative fragility of a jump node and the size of the knossos, such a device could be either large, power hungry or unreliable. Or all of them. And finding the right conditions depends on how precise must the gravitational field be in order for a door to open.
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But when we remember the relative fragility of a jump node and the size of the knossos, such a device could be either large, power hungry or unreliable. Or all of them. And finding the right conditions depends on how precise must the gravitational field be in order for a door to open.
There is no precision to gravity at all. All gravitational fields in the universe overlap and exclude each other. Making a Node producing jumpdrive would be as simple as finding a way to make two particular gravitational fields interact. In this way, you could jump anywhere that there was enough matter to make a viable gravitational field.
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hmm...sa anyone just thought of getting something really hard...and stickin it in between the blades of the knossos...knda like a spanner in the works..
another thing is...remember what happens in space...how many of you adjust the rotation of your ship so you are looking at something "the right way up"....in space..there is no right way up since this is a gravity thing of an up and a down. you could simply make one of the parts of the knossos tip a bit from a nice kenetic cannon hit of some sort..and it should destroy the whole device by itslef.....technically the whole spinning is practically impossible in space....
another thing i would like to say is..notice when the peices seem to "implode" into the middle...none of the bits collide with each other...if your theorys are correct about centriturnal or whatever you said force..(i know what it is...and understand it..but forget the name and cant spell very well) and also the actually plane it is on....would this not result in a massive collision when they go into the centre...but somehow they all miss...
anyway..im a bit of an idiot :) i think im right in saying that though