[Dark Hunter]

Had another interesting thought about subspace today.  Maybe the whole reason for the use of jump nodes is that we can't actually travel in subspace.  We have to create an artificial conduit through subspace then use that for travel.  It would explain the tunnel type effect.  The "tunnel" is a temporary normal space corridor through subspace.   It allows the physics of normal space to work while in transit between the two nodes.  Basically you can maneuver and fight just like if you were in regular space because you are still in normal space. 

As I understand it, that's exactly how it works. A realspace "bubble" is pulled into subspace along with the ship, which creates the tunnel effect.

I know what about the shields not working.  Maybe it has nothing to do with subspace travel but the energy it takes to open the "tunnel"  That energy disrupts or drains the shields. 

I agree with Lobo on this part however. Energy consumption is only large when performing inter-system jumps. Normal subspace jumps within a system require very little power (hence why fighters were able to perform them while unable to make inter-system jumps on their own in FS1). While the quote Lobo quoted suggests that shields never work in subspace. So it's obviously not a matter of power consumption.

[karajorma]

Well it's obviously not just us. The Shivans can't do it either. Or otherwise we'd never have been able to kill the Lucifer.

[Jeff Vader]

Another thought just hit me as I was speculating the shield disruption.  Maybe the "tunnel" is actually some form of shield.  Could be that is why the Shivans have shields in the first place.  If they are native to subspace then they would naturally have the ability to travel there.  The shield is that natural ability when used in normal space. 

After giving more thought to this theory of yours, it occurred to me that, if subspace was some form of a shield, the Lucifer would have once again survived. I mean, if the subspace were a shield, wouldn't it have nullified every single shot the Terrans and Vasudans threw at the Lucy during the subspace transit?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

The whole tunnel is one big shield protecting a bubble of normal space.  You are fighting inside it so all the shots would be inside the shield.  They don't have to penetrate anything.   

As for the energy thing I said it could be the energy required could disrupt shields.  Required energy could simply be the form of the energy not necessarily an amount.  Maybe the tunnel's energy frequency and the regular shield energy cancel each other out.  So if you tried to use shields in subspace you would collapse the "tunnel" on yourself. 

That would make one heck of a weapon.  A missile that is nothing more than a shield generator.  When fired it attaches to the hull of a ship and begins a count down.  When that countdown hits 0 it fires up it's shield generator.  If the ship it's attached to enters subspace before the countdown hits 0 subspace disrupts and kills the target. 

[Jeff Vader]

The whole tunnel is one big shield protecting a bubble of normal space.  You are fighting inside it so all the shots would be inside the shield.  They don't have to penetrate anything.

Fair enough.

As for the energy thing I said it could be the energy required could disrupt shields.  Required energy could simply be the form of the energy not necessarily an amount.  Maybe the tunnel's energy frequency and the regular shield energy cancel each other out.  So if you tried to use shields in subspace you would collapse the "tunnel" on yourself. 

That would make one heck of a weapon.  A missile that is nothing more than a shield generator.  When fired it attaches to the hull of a ship and begins a count down.  When that countdown hits 0 it fires up it's shield generator.  If the ship it's attached to enters subspace before the countdown hits 0 subspace disrupts and kills the target. 

But I once again stress that they said "Shields don't work in subspace", which implies that they persistently tried to use shields in subspace, with poor results. Not much canon information about the subject, but I am making the assumption that surely the GTA and PVN tried to get the shields online in subspace. I mean, why not? I know I would have. But no mentions about subspace tunnel collapses due to attempts to use shields in subspace.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well a subspace tunnel collapse would be a poor result.

[WMCoolmon]

I remember something about ships having to vibrate to a certain frequency when entering subspace; I believe it was the FS reference bible. At any rate, something like that could easily disrupt the shield. But I think how it's implied in FS2 is that it's impossible to use shields in subspace, not merely difficult.

I think it's more akin to submerging something in water and having it dissolve, when it would normally be solid in air.

[Retsof]

Your weapon idea could use a small subspace drive to disrupt the ship though, if not destroying it it will at least strand it in the middle of nowhere.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Just had another interesting theory.  First go back to my crumbled paper as a galaxy analogy.  Assuming gravity has an effect on subspace think of each crumble in the paper as a gravitational influence of some kind.  What would happen if you suddenly removed one of those influences?  Lets say by blowing up a star.  Could it remove or reshape the crumble in the paper?  If so what happens to the area around the crumble?  Lets say that star was Capella and the crumble around it are the Capella and nearby systems jump nodes.  Could the nodes then disappear or move to a new location either instantly or over time?  Would the destinations be the same?  If you knew what you were doing could you reroute a node to a new location?  Maybe a new Capella to Sol node?  Or maybe the GTVA fleet is now stuck without anyway to move between any systems.

[karajorma]

I've often wondered if blowing up Capella wouldn't only affect nodes to and from Capella only. It's a possibility that it could affect the whole subspace network, stabilising and destabilising nodes  all around the area.

The interesting thing about that is that depending on how subspace works the effects might not be instantaneous. As far as Epsilon Pegasi and Vega are concerned Capella is still there. Since according to relativity gravity travels at light speed it might take years before they even find out that Capella is gone.

That doesn't mean that the Shivans didn't blow up Capella to change the node map. But that maybe it's a longer term plan than we thought.

Of course where nodes form and where they lead to might depend only on local gravitational conditions (or not on gravity at all for that matter) in which case the effects of blowing up Capella on the jump nodes would be very quick.

[FSW]

The interesting thing about that is that depending on how subspace works the effects might not be instantaneous. As far as Epsilon Pegasi and Vega are concerned Capella is still there. Since according to relativity gravity travels at light speed it might take years before they even find out that Capella is gone.

When the star explodes, that mass doesn't just disappear (or could some of it be converted into energy?). It's still there, but dispersed. Surely, from the perspective of a faraway system, the material would have nearly the same gravitational effect as an intact star?

So, I don't think it matters that Capella's gravity takes many lightyears to get to other systems. If Capella's destruction had any effect on GTVA nodes, I think it would act through subspace itself (which could be at any speed, as far as we know) rather than through long-range gravity in normalspace.

[IceFire]

Indeed the destruction of Capella may have rearranged the node network in some way.  My thoughts on the matter are that the local effects may be negligible...a couple of unstable nodes may have been disrupted and a few new ones formed.  Further away the whole network may have subtly been rearranged in a much larger fashion (a few minor changes here and there on a local scale but much more significant changes elsewhere).  We don't know how subspace nodes work closer to the galactic core for instance...I mean...in terms of their arrangement.  My suspicion is that they are all stitched together.

[Mura]

Well, it has to be taken into consideration what are the remains of the Capella supernova, the remaining star (if any or if not turned into a black hole) should create greater gravity caused by it due the high density, then the whole subspace thing that needs gravity would be seriously disrupted.

Now, maybe as Kara said, for Epsilon Pegasi and Vega, the Capella nodes are the same, but maybe now have a completely different exit point if any at all!

Of course i have no idea if there can be such thing as a subspace passage if there is no exit at all at the other side, but i don't know of anything proving the opposite.

[Retsof]

Natural supernovas happen relatively often on cosmic scales, wouldn't that mean that the network would be constantly changing?

[karajorma]

The game said that we could expect the nodes the GTVA used to stay stable for a long time. I don't think it ever said the nodes were permanently stable. Perhaps the GTVA simply weren't expecting any supernovae for a while.

So, I don't think it matters that Capella's gravity takes many lightyears to get to other systems. If Capella's destruction had any effect on GTVA nodes, I think it would act through subspace itself (which could be at any speed, as far as we know) rather than through long-range gravity in normalspace.

That's the thing. How can you be certain it would it propagate via one rather than the other? One theory I've heard a lot of people state is that jump nodes form at the Lagrange points within systems. A further expansion of this is that they connect stars that are themselves Lagrange points (on a galactic scale). It's one possibility amongst many but for the sake of argument let's say it's the correct one. In that case the nodes would only shift once the effect of Capella's destruction reached the nearby stars and stopped them being balanced any more. At which point the network would shift.
 The changes wouldn't propagate through subspace since the effect that causes the link between two stars affects subspace rather than the other way round.

Like I said though, one theory amongst many. It depends on whether local gravitational effects or ones on the galactic scale determine which stars are linked together by nodes. Depending on which one you pick you can make quite different campaigns based on the effect.

When the star explodes, that mass doesn't just disappear (or could some of it be converted into energy?). It's still there, but dispersed. Surely, from the perspective of a faraway system, the material would have nearly the same gravitational effect as an intact star?

Yep. I glossed over that a little earlier but it's one of the interesting aspects of the whole matter. The Crab Nebula for instance has increased to 11LY in diameter in the thousand years or so it's been expanding. Since I'm not a physicist I'm not quite sure at what point you'd have to stop treating that as a point mass where the star used to be.

Well, it has to be taken into consideration what are the remains of the Capella supernova, the remaining star (if any or if not turned into a black hole) should create greater gravity caused by it due the high density, then the whole subspace thing that needs gravity would be seriously disrupted.

It's a common misconception that black holes have stronger gravity than the stars which created them but it's obviously not true if you sit down and think about it. Gravitational attraction is proportional to the distance between body's center of gravity and the mass of the objects. When Capella went supernova it obviously lost mass while keeping the same CoG so any black hole formed would actually have a weaker attraction than Capella did.

What causes the confusion is that black holes have a much greater tidal and gravitational effects on objects close to them. But you would only notice this effect once you were within the radius of where the star used to be. Since none of the nodes are actually inside Capella you wouldn't get an effect due to stronger gravity although ironically you might get one due to the new black hole having a weaker gravitational field than Capella did.

(Oh and for those who don't believe me, and it took me back a little when I first learned this, here's a link on what would happen if the sun magically became a black hole.)

[FUBAR-BDHR]

One thing that this could explain is the discrepancies in the node maps between FS1 and FS2.

[karajorma]

One thing that this could explain is the discrepancies in the node maps between FS1 and FS2.

Even more so if you take the theory that changes can propagate through subspace. The destruction of the Lucifer supposedly destroyed all 3 nodes to Earth in FS1. You can probably say that the destruction had a knock on effect that took out the other nodes that changed.

That said I'm not a fan of that one so much. seem to have gone to some effort to try to claim that there was only one node into Sol.

[NGTM-1R]

On the other hand, the worry that blowing one node would destroy all of them makes the fact the Bastion was deployed from inside Capella much more rational.

[karajorma]

The reason for the Bastion is actually somewhat simple.

To demolish the Knossos portal, we will detonate the meson bomb, an experimental new weapon under development at the Hideki Institute in the Vega system.

Preparations are now underway to collapse the Epsilon Pegasi jump node. A Great-War-era destroyer, the GTD Bastion, will contain multiple meson warheads that will detonate inside the node.

The Security Council has authorized the deployment of the $f GTD $f Nereid. The destroyer will depart from the Vega system and collapse the node in fifteen minutes.

Meson bombs are made in Vega. They need to collapse the Vega and Epsilon Pegasi nodes. The quickest way to get the Bastion to the Epsilon Pegasi node is via Capella. The alternative is to go Vega->Deneb->Sirius->Regulus->Polaris->Epsilon Pegasi.

Unless you're saying it explains why they sent the Nereid to the Capella end of the node before blowing it up. Cause if they feared an effect on their own nodes I could see why they'd do that rather than just blowing the Vega end.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Unless you're saying it explains why they sent the Nereid to the Capella end of the node before blowing it up. Cause if they feared an effect on their own nodes I could see why they'd do that rather than just blowing the Vega end.

They didn't. The Nereid came from the Vega end of the node.