Poll: If you had your own spaceship what would it be?
- Thread starter JupiterBase
- Start date
I don't want to turn this into a vs thread, but I will say this:Altheus_Necron said:
Gridfire works by remotely manipulating the fabric of Space-Time. Ie: Traditional and phasic shields are useless. Cue blowing it up. As for directed energy weapons: the culture considers a plasma handgun capable of vaporizing an unshielded city or when fired from groud to orbit destroying a shieled vessel, a weapon not worth tracking or being concerned about, because it is concidered woefully inadequate to cause any real harm. To say this blunty: the Culture can manifacture handguns that have the destructive potential of photonic torpedoes and these weapons are regarded in the same manner we think of tazers.
Also, the borg cube would either be hacked by the three Minds in control of the GSV before it got within a lightyear, thus compromising the entire collective. Each Mind is a hyper-intelligent AI that can exists only by circumventing that awfully limiting speed of light: the computer core that the Mind recides in is constantly in partial state of hyperspace to allow for FTL-thought, literally. Each Mind is magnitudes of order more capable as a Borg Queen, and also much, much faster. A Culture warship uses its electromagnetic effectors to hack into a computer light years away in one book. Hacking the Borg collective from range and subverting it would take at most a few minutes.
Understand, these people have the ability to change quantum states of electrons within a star, from another star system away. In a pencil, they can construct a artificial intelligence of almost human level intelligence and sophistication, anti-gravity drive and an effector field that severs bonds between atoms at short range: these are called Knife-missiles. A single knife missile would be capable of conquering a Borg Cube. They have no need for outer hulls in starships, they can build an open-sky park in space that can fly trough a star unharmed. The Culture considers death somewhere between an inconvenience and an interesting experience, as no citizen dies unless they want to.
The Borg... are nothing in comparison.
Sorry, but they don't. The Mind in charge of the ship could simply shunt the explosive energy of the demo-charges to hyperspace a hundreth of a millionth of a second after the explosion occurs. They can stop nuclear rections from occuring from range, thus disabling nukes not by preventing the detonation but by making the physics of it impossible within a limited area. And a single Mind, in charge of a Space Habitat in one book holds over a million simultaneous conversations with humans and aliens, while controlling the station AND playing 6th-dimensional chess against anoth Mind. They can't be distracted. They can read thoughts by analysing the states of molecules within your brains, from lightyears away if need be: they only reason they do not do so is because they consider it unethical.VioletZer0 said:
Any infiltration team would be allowed on board, simply because the Mind would find them amusing...
Also should be noted: At their tech level, they can fit Warp-engines to an intelligent drone that is slightly smaller than a human fist. A Knife-missile is in size and mass smaller than pencil and has anti-gravity drives, almost human-level intelligent computer core and force ffectro fields to cut bonds between atoms from short range. These are people that consider lava-surfing on a planet around a star that could explode into a supernova any minute, an extreme sport. Partly because tradition dictates that one does not make a full mind-copy of oneself before trying this. That is, their extreme sport is extreme only because it has a real element of voluntary permanent death added to it.
Don't worry, I hate vs threads as much as the next reasonable carbon based life form.SakSak said:
You asked for a ship that could defeat yours. I provided what I thought might have a chance. You explained why that wouldn't work.
Hmmm...
Mine would either be some kind of Imperial ship... (W40K, not Star Wars.)
Or...
The original BattleCruiser I had... or perhaps a host of other ships, like my old Prism Last Chance. That ship got quite a reputation... I miss them all...
Mine would either be some kind of Imperial ship... (W40K, not Star Wars.)
Or...
The original BattleCruiser I had... or perhaps a host of other ships, like my old Prism Last Chance. That ship got quite a reputation... I miss them all...
That would be the Heart of Gold.SirDeadly said:
But do you mean the one from the original Hitch Hikers Guide or the new Movie? (Everything is too round in the movie...)
This was one of my secondary choices for what ship I would choose. Why, you ask?hittite said:
No, considering the only one who knows everything is the Mind in control of it. Some people might leave it between now and then, but most are equipped with neural whatchamatchacallits that link them to the ship: if they are captured, the Mind knows of it instantly. And will respond accordigly.Altheus_Necron said:
But even assuming that the inner workins of the ships could be divined from leaving personnel without alerting anyone, what could they possibly do to even partially damage it? This ship is at least 25km in all dimension, possibly as much as 200km in a dimension. Equalling over 8 Borg Tac Cubes in all directions in the minimum, 65 at max, armed with weaponry that would make entire Star Fleet (of any era) doing an alpha strike followed by a suicide run pale in comparison to energy released, protected by shields that would allow it to travel to the heart of a star and stay there for a prolonged duration, controlled by a Mind capable of manipulating and creating effector fields that freely manipulate the four basic forces (Electromagnetism, Gravity, Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear) at range by the equipment at its disposal, with a ridiculous capability of multitasking.
Banks' Culture is pretty much the Ultimate Utopia when it comes down to technological capacity. And in its ridiculousness lies its strenght: Banks writes more of ethical and cultural conflicts and ideas than armed ones. A technologically 'perfect' society greates a good background: with no technological limitations, the actual issues of philosophy, ethics, behaviour and so on are clearer to see.
The new movieGreyfox105 said:That would be the Heart of Gold.SirDeadly said:
But do you mean the one from the original Hitch Hikers Guide or the new Movie? (Everything is too round in the movie...)
This was one of my secondary choices for what ship I would choose. Why, you ask?hittite said:
Yeah, that's how to do it.
I have two which I use in most of my sci fi stories.
One is a sort of Millenium Falcon/Firefly cross called 'Eos'
The other is an Enterprise/Tantive IV cross, usually called something heroic like 'Freedom.'
Not very original, but I like the idea.
One is a sort of Millenium Falcon/Firefly cross called 'Eos'
The other is an Enterprise/Tantive IV cross, usually called something heroic like 'Freedom.'
Not very original, but I like the idea.
So the original? That didn't go well for them.Rachet922 said:
I'll take mine with torpedo-proof as well please.
[small]don't hate me, I couldn't resist[/small]