[karajorma]

Okay a couple of points to make here

1) Re: dyson spheres. Just had a though about this. The gravitational pull inside a sphere is zero. The only gravitational pull inside a dyson sphere would be that of the sun in the centre.
 This could explain why the shivans built a dyson sphere. If they have adapted to being zero G creatures they would have trouble living on a planet but maybe they still need large nearly flat areas to build things on.
 
 Another point. Who says they live on the inside of the sphere? Maybe they use the inside for energy collection and live on the outside (which would have gravity!)

Re: Capellan supernova

I`ve heard two explainations for why a star goes nova. One said it was due to the build up of iron in the core making the star to heavy. The second said it was due to the star losing energy through the fusion of iron rather than gaining it. Either way could you make a star go supernova by jumping a large iron asteroid into its core? Maybe that's how the shivan's did it. (shouldn`t cause a large increase in mass either since the asteroid goes right into the centre of the star)

[Pavonis]

 

Originally posted by Ace:
Correction on a misconception in the thread: The node chart is designed to show how the sub-space node "network" is arranged, nothing more and nothing less. Relative travel times may also be within this framework, but this is not proven.

Alpha Centuari in the FS universe is still 4 lightyears away, no "compressed parsecs" or other odd phenomenon then the fact that no nodes lead directly to Sol.

So it stands that Capella's shockwave wavefront by the time this story concept would occur would have negligible effect on the GTVA within 6 years. (unless a GTVA star is within 6 lightyears from Capella)

The misconception is yours. Read the thread. These topics have been covered in detail, and the folks who commented aren't saying what you say they're saying.

It's common knowledge that Volition wasn't very interested in stellar topography when they put together the FS "universe". And there's no reason why they should have been. It's a game for fun, after all. But the dialogue, the node stuctures and the references to other systems indicate a local structure that doesn't exist in reality. "Short parsecs" was an expression that recognizes this fact. The guy/gal was using a metaphor, not describing an actual condition. And since distance is not a "known" factor in FS doctrine, people can pretty much play around with this factor to make the story interesting.

As far as a Capella shockwave, Ascraeus is right. There has been some work done on FTL neutrinos, they would have different, more active characteristics than neutrinos, more like hard EM, if they exist, they could fry planetary environments out to the parsec range, and they do provide an interesting twist to the shockwave theory. But you miss the point if you think it's all about the Capella supernova. It's about the effect of a diabolical Shivan weapon on GTVA civilization, and that's what's interesting here. Let's discuss that, rather than shut the conversation down by trying to pose as an authority.  

[Pavonis]

 

Originally posted by karajorma:
Okay a couple of points to make here

1) Re: dyson spheres. Just had a though about this. The gravitational pull inside a sphere is zero. The only gravitational pull inside a dyson sphere would be that of the sun in the centre.
 This could explain why the shivans built a dyson sphere. If they have adapted to being zero G creatures they would have trouble living on a planet but maybe they still need large nearly flat areas to build things on.
 
 Another point. Who says they live on the inside of the sphere? Maybe they use the inside for energy collection and live on the outside (which would have gravity!)

Re: Capellan supernova

I`ve heard two explainations for why a star goes nova. One said it was due to the build up of iron in the core making the star to heavy. The second said it was due to the star losing energy through the fusion of iron rather than gaining it. Either way could you make a star go supernova by jumping a large iron asteroid into its core? Maybe that's how the shivan's did it. (shouldn`t cause a large increase in mass either since the asteroid goes right into the centre of the star)

Better comment.  

On gravity in a Dyson Sphere: surface "gravity" would be provided by centrifugal force as the sphere spins around the "common point" (where the star would be parked)at center. The star would "anchor" the spin. If you don't spin the sphere, you'd have stability and drift problems.

On Shivans living outside, and collecting energy inside: interesting idea. Why don't you develop this a bit further.

On iron, stellar cores, and asteroids: a star fuses hydrogen into helium until that "fuel" runs out. Then it compresses, because fusion energy is no longer there to "hold up" the immense mass. At some point in the comression, the energy level soars, and fusion of helium into heavier elements begins. When all the helium is converted, the star compresses again, and these heavier elements began fusing into still-heavier elements, until the "iron horizon" is reached. Nothing except extremely exotic conditions can convert iron into heavier elements, so the star collapses catastrophically under its own mass. If it's the mass of the sun or less, it becomes a white dwarf. If it's several times the mass of the sun, the collapse "rebounds" when the "strong force" horizon is reached, when the star can no longer compress without distorting the strong force that holds the internal components of its atoms together. That rebound will blow off about half the star's mass into space, and that's your supernova.

So an iron asteroid won't do it. Even dropping a chunk of iron the size of Jupiter into a small star like the sun wouldn't have an appreciable effect.

[Pavonis]

One futher point on stellar fusion: if the star has a bit more mass than the sun, the rebound will blow material into space, and what's left will compress into a neutron star or pulsar. That's a star about fifty kilometers in size, with the mass and gravity of a good size star, a wicked spray of radiation, and a composition of degraded or "crushed" atoms. It'll be surrounded by a nebula. The Crab Nebula in "real life" is such a structure.

If the star has a lot more mass than the sun, nothing will stop compression, and the it'll bend the geometry of space to infinity, becoming a black hole. Black holes suck of lot of their rebound nebula back in.

[joek]

 

Originally posted by Ace:
Correction on a misconception in the thread: The node chart is designed to show how the sub-space node "network" is arranged, nothing more and nothing less. Relative travel times may also be within this framework, but this is not proven.

Alpha Centuari in the FS universe is still 4 lightyears away, no "compressed parsecs" or other odd phenomenon then the fact that no nodes lead directly to Sol.

So it stands that Capella's shockwave wavefront by the time this story concept would occur would have negligible effect on the GTVA within 6 years. (unless a GTVA star is within 6 lightyears from Capella)

Very true. Like the London tube maps, the FS nodemap represents node relationships rather than star locations (although I think they could have done a better job of this).

Needless to say, if you want to put the issue of who's going to get hit first by Capella's supernova (and how long it's going to take), I've created a 3D starmap in FRED2 representing the actual star locations. See this thread. It should help to put Capella-supernova-radiation arguments to rest (at least I hope)  .

Joe.

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[Shrike]

 

Originally posted by Pavonis:
One futher point on stellar fusion: if the star has a bit more mass than the sun, the rebound will blow material into space, and what's left will compress into a neutron star or pulsar. That's a star about fifty kilometers in size, with the mass and gravity of a good size star, a wicked spray of radiation, and a composition of degraded or "crushed" atoms. It'll be surrounded by a nebula. The Crab Nebula in "real life" is such a structure.

If the star has a lot more mass than the sun, nothing will stop compression, and the it'll bend the geometry of space to infinity, becoming a black hole. Black holes suck of lot of their rebound nebula back in.

More than a bit more mass, the supernova remnant has to be at least 1.4 solar masses to form a neutron star.  I think the minumum for a natural supernova is having a parent star of at least 8 solar masses, possibly more.  I can look at my astrophysics book when I get home.

[karajorma]

 Rather than blaming radiation from capella for the financial ruin of the GTVA why not blame the COST of preparing for the radiation.
 All the cities near capella have to be buried, shielded or evacuated. The drain on the GTVA would be immense.

[karajorma]

 

Originally posted by Pavonis:
Better comment.  

On gravity in a Dyson Sphere: surface "gravity" would be provided by centrifugal force as the sphere spins around the "common point" (where the star would be parked)at center. The star would "anchor" the spin. If you don't spin the sphere, you'd have stability and drift problems.  

Stability problems can be dealt with by mounting bussard ramjets on the inside of the sphere (or better yet poking through the shpere!). It's a brute force method but a lot easier than trying to rotate a sphere that size at the speeds needed to generate centrifugal force (not to mention having the the sphere not rip itself apart when you try to spin the sphere up).
 You`re going to need ramjets or some other type of engine on a dyson sphere anyway or else a solar flare will push the sphere out of it's orbit (yes I`ve read Ringworld Engineers!)
 Secondly if you spin the sphere you get variations in the gravity. The equator would be under full G but the poles would be weightless. While that might be useful, the majority of the sphere would be under less than full G and largely useless.  

 

Originally posted by Pavonis:
So an iron asteroid won't do it. Even dropping a chunk of iron the size of Jupiter into a small star like the sun wouldn't have an appreciable effect.

opps my bad. I was under the impression that fusion of iron into heavier atoms was the cause of a supernova when in fact it's mearly a side effect.  

[SS_Bones]

Damn, this is way over my head   I need to study more. Very good reading material though  

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Cdr, Satans Soldiers
"Kill em all & let GOD sort em out"

[SS-Blue Lion]

Yea, I got lost like a dozen posts in   Bones, email me, uh...now!  

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Fastest Man Alive
Let's Go Terps!

[jonskowitz]

Uh, kaj, hate to be the one who points this out but Bussard ramjets only work at significant percentages of c.  

Besides, the object would have to be rotating from the time of it's construction (read: the components would need to maintain an orbit while the bits are being built and joined together).

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I told you that It would be done by November, well, mostly anyway...

[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 11-16-2001).]

[karajorma]

Build them big! Accelerate the protons up to high speed in the ramjet itself.
 Remember that unlike a ship (the usual use of ramjets) you`ve got an entire stars energy at your disposal so the energy reqired to generate large magnetic fields isn`t a problem. Build them over 1000km in size and it won't matter what speed the ionised hydrogen goes in at.  
 Your ramjet is going to have to be huge anyway because you wouldn`t want the exhast gases anywhere near your dyson sphere.
 An added bonus is that you could use the exhast as a weapon! (especially if you can figure out how to make it lase like they did with the meteor defense system in Ringworld)  

Yes the parts of the sphere would have to be orbiting the star so you wouldn`t have to spin the sphere to make it rotate but at 1AU the orbital rotation speed is around 9km per second (back of an envelope calculation). Assuming Larry Niven did his sums correctly when he wrote Ringworld you need 770miles per second for nearly 1G. That would put a lot more strain on dyson sphere.

BTW I found a great website about dyson spheres here http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/dysonFAQ.html

Apparently living on the outside of a dyson sphere would give some gravity but not a huge amount  

[Nico]

Spheres would not fit with shivan design, no?
Why not a ... Dyson grid? mmh... wait, that's my idea, so: why not a Venom Grid (   )?
replace the sphere by a weblike structure, that would use much less resourcs to build it (imagine a geosphere in wireframe). in the holes, shivans could put some kinds of salar sails that would receive all the solar energy. The shivans wold live inside the wireframe, rather than on one side of it. The wire structure would allow the construction to be much more flexible, and it could be able to sustain much more easily all the gravital forces and stuff like that. And it would look better for a shivan structure  

[TDM/JM]

Great stuff, people! Ramjet stabilization, Shivan-Dyson Grids, etc. I'm taking notes, keep it up!

Need clarifying: what's everybody's opinion about Shivan psychology, as might be expressed in their habitat designs?  

Ascraeus

[aldo_14]

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
Great stuff, people! Ramjet stabilization, Shivan-Dyson Grids, etc. I'm taking notes, keep it up!

Need clarifying: what's everybody's opinion about Shivan psychology, as might be expressed in their habitat designs?  

Ascraeus

I reckon they have pretty much no psychology - basically driven by an urge to kill, and all their emotions / actions are driven by that.  I think Shivan designs would be very 'simple', bare bones, nothing for comfort, just functionality.  I.e. nothing that could be interpreted as artistic.... also, their installations should look as 'wierd' as possible, as they are suppossed to be totally alien in technology, ships, etc......  so have things that would never be on a Terran / Vasudan installations, but which serve an (possibly unspecified) purpose.

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[Nico]

for my grid, imagine lots of rakshasas ( veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery big ones of course) stuck the one with the others  

[joek]

 

Originally posted by venom2506:
Spheres would not fit with shivan design, no?
Why not a ... Dyson grid? mmh... wait, that's my idea, so: why not a Venom Grid (   )?
replace the sphere by a weblike structure, that would use much less resourcs to build it (imagine a geosphere in wireframe). in the holes, shivans could put some kinds of salar sails that would receive all the solar energy. The shivans wold live inside the wireframe, rather than on one side of it. The wire structure would allow the construction to be much more flexible, and it could be able to sustain much more easily all the gravital forces and stuff like that. And it would look better for a shivan structure  

Yeah, like Shivan ship yards so huge that they are the size of Dyson spheres (it would help explain how they build so many Sathani  ).

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
Need clarifying: what's everybody's opinion about Shivan psychology, as might be expressed in their habitat designs?  

Shivan psychology?

As for what we've seen of them, that could very well just be their military branch. Imagine some alien thinking that all humans walk around with big backpacks, camoflage, rifles, and eat drab means in plastic bags.

Who knows, the entire rest of their civilization could live in some form of subspace, making music and art, etc; and they come into our space to war with us because we keep going into their subspace.

But that's not what I really think as part of the Grand Scheme idea I've come up with. To me, the Shivans are afraid of us (hence why they're so bent on destroying us).

Joe.

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[Su-tehp]

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
Great stuff, people! Ramjet stabilization, Shivan-Dyson Grids, etc. I'm taking notes, keep it up!

Need clarifying: what's everybody's opinion about Shivan psychology, as might be expressed in their habitat designs?  

Ascraeus

There's a theory in the FS2 database saying that Shivan psychology is probably similar to an ant or insect colony. If I remember correctly, it was called the "hive mind" theory. Basically, a group of Shivans can only function when there is a central leader giving orders; once that leader has been eliminated, the rest of the group begins to break down and cannot coordinate their actions. This was evidenced by the behavior of the Shivans during the First Great War after the SD Lucifer was destroyed. After the Lucifer was destroyed, the Shivans couldn't coordinate their fleet effectively and the GTA and PVN were able to separate, corner and eventually destroy the Lucifer fleet over the course of several months.

This is in the "Shivans" entry in the "Intelligence" section of the FS2 technical database. I've paraphrased it some, but you can look it up yourselves.

Hope this helps, Ascraeus.

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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC

"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God

[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 11-17-2001).]

[Nico]

 

Originally posted by Su-tehp:
 There's a theory in the FS2 database saying that Shivan psychology is probably similar to an ant or insect colony. If I remember correctly, it was called the "hive mind" theory. Basically, a group of Shivans can only function when there is a central leader giving orders; once that leader has been eliminated, the rest of the group begins to break down and cannot coordinate their actions. This was evidenced by the behavior of the Shivans during the First Great War after the SD Lucifer was destroyed. After the Lucifer was destroyed, the Shivans couldn't coordinate their fleet effectively and the GTA and PVN were able to separate, corner and eventually destroy the Lucifer fleet over the course of several months.

This is in the "Shivans" entry in the "Intelligence" section of the FS2 technical database. I've paraphrased it some, but you can look it up yourselves.

Hope this helps, Ascraeus.

yes, that's what's wrotten, but don't assume it's true. remember, it's a possiblilty thought off by the GTVA scientists, and not a proof.

[Su-tehp]

 

Originally posted by venom2506:
yes, that's what's written, but don't assume it's true. remember, it's a possiblilty thought off by the GTVA scientists, and not a proof.

True.



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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC

"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God