“ZOOT” standing, of course, for “Zaffric Omnispectral Obscurant Technology.”

I like the way this is going.

I wonder if niven and pournelle started this way?

I don’t know.

It was your description of the blast doors and missile destruction objective in the previous installment that inspired me to use ELF waves in the detonation device—if the doors were that intricate, it was obvious that they’d shield the room from stray EM waves (at least, that’s kind of what I figured).

And, obviously, they would (correctly) reason that ships couldn’t transmit when the antennae required were so large, but also reasoned that they would never experience ELF transmission in flight. Enemy FAIL.

Actually the mechanical interlocks can be quite simple. I had to go through such doors to enter the armored car company i worked for.

ELF for those of you that don’t know is a real system for communicating with submerged submarines. If you want to see what an ELF antenna complex looks like look up the town of Exmouth in western Australian in google or yahoo maps. Follow Murat rd north to the end of the peninsula and the large antenna complex is easily visible.

Is it the group of buildings that is actually on the peninsula, the construct off over the ocean, or both?

I need to figure out why they’re boarding to destroy the ship when they can shoot peeps at it with a railgun. ¬_¬

The antennas towers are on the star shaped device at the end of the peninsula. the distance between antenna on one side and the other is about 8000 feet. You can see how tall the antennas are by looking at the shadows they cast on the ground.

White hat, to answer your question, I dont know. The first story in the series had this guy being ejected by rail gun. he said he was enroute to “the target”. I just took it from there and ran. sometimes that happens, sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad one. I just wanted to try a little descriptive writing, and the choices for leaving logically seemed to me to be either a rescue, an escape or an attack. The word target seemed to indicate an attack. Now would it be a ship or a planet? The description of hitting an arm on the way in seemed to indicate being exposed to space. This meant no re-entry preparations. So the target is in space, so probably a ship.

From there it was just follow along to see what happens.

Why no railgun weapons?

Ship shields? If I were designing a railgun to use as a weapon in space, I would use a non-magnetic ceramic as the projectile with a magnetic sabot to carry the projectile down the barrel, that way magnetic shields wouldn’t be able to stop/deflect the projectile. You could still stop the projectile with plasma shields, however. But if the ship had those, how did Spec Ops get through? They carried strong magnets with them to open holes in the plasma shields, that’s how.

… Maybe. I mean, how strong a magnetic field do you need to contain the plasma and keep it in place when it gets hit? And what’s better, a lower energy cold plasma or a hot plasma? A hot plasma could possibly incinerate projectiles, but takes a lot more energy to maintain.

Also, lasers might just be the prefered weapons of the Spec Ops ships, in the continually evolving world of War. They are probably much more compact and aimable than immensely powerful railguns.

No one has mentioned railguns yet, so they theoretically could be extant in this timeline, just not deployed at this particular time. I made mention about a severed limb; this could possibly be derived from a mass driver projectile. (Or they’re launching men, instead of weapons.)

I think you’re confusing “plasma shield” with “plasma curtain.” Plasma curtains are used in the present day for vacuum-welding; the plasma keeps the air and vacuum separate. Material objects, however, can easily pass through. Ship shields would require plasmonics. To deploy other ships, you’d have to drop the plasmonics, which would not only cause the plasma to dissipate but leave the ship vulnerable to fire. The magnetic fields associated with plasma curtains are much less powerful.

Maybe, maybe not. How powerful would the laser have to be? You’ve got to figure that there is some tough metal, plus there would be constant movement which could misalign a laser. Plus, other detritus could get in the way (including friendlies).

Would the lasers be more delicate as well? One bad jostle could render them inoperable, right?

A laser of the power you’re speaking of would most likely self-destruct anyway. I envision an assembly consisting of an X-ray laser and copper or tungsten rods. The rods would channel the laser beam to the desired location but it would destroy itself in the doing so.

Just thought of this: Would the mass use of railguns kick back with enough of a delta vee that it could change the trajectory of a ship appreciably?

It would clearly have some effect, and the vacuum means it would have to be compensated for. A simple plasma curtain can keep a vacuum for welding, huh? Would it take a much stronger system for an opening as large as a docking bay?

Have you seen what the U.S. military is currently using on a modified Boeing 747? A massive air-to-air laser that has successfully blown up missiles in flight. So no, I don’t think a laser large enough would destroy itself. Delicacy is a good point. I suppose you could attempt to protect the laser with a plasma shield that you have to drop before you fire, perhaps.

Just googled plasmonics. I don’t think it’s what you think it is. No, I definitely meant something like a souped up plasma curtain.

I was figuring that the plasma curtain would simply need to be scaled up for the ship, yes. If you’d have enough argon (or other noble gas), it should work.

I’d heard about the 747 but am wondering if it would be powerful enough for a space-based war. To be effective against advances in defense technology, a laser would probably need higher energy. I thought of the EXCALIBUR system that Arthur C. Clarke mentioned (or was it Edward Teller?).

About the plasmonics: If I screwed it up (which I’d believe), the fault is totally mine. I rented Michio Kaku’s (I probably butchered the name; it’s that guy who’s on the History Channel’s The Universe) book from the library, and he talked about them and plasma curtains in the same chapter, but that was some weeks ago.