Fun With Faey tech

[Fiferguy]

True enough. Either that, or you have to use some non-metalic metal or other substance, but that has its own problems. I think it's a solution of balance; a good amount of equipment, a good amount of training, and a good amount of luck. Ultimately, people and ships are going to be lost. Such is the nature of warfare. The only constant of war is that people die. And without getting on a soapbox about it, no matter how good your technology is, people are still going to die.

I think a better solution would be similar to Jason's light absorbing technology. Though there are other ways of detecting the air skimmer, it's still very difficult to see it. But if you could find a way to cloak the ship better well, you can't hit what you can't see.

[Fiferguy]

And in relation to the magnetic field miniaturization, I was talking about putting it on a suit of combat armor, not necessarily on a large ship. You'd have to get it small enough to be efficiently carried.

[Wingsolution]

And sevarl small razored blades launced from rail gun at low power would chew through anyone without a helmet... (honor harington series)

Why do it at low power?

If you're going to kill them - use the biggest hammer you can reasonably use.

The Rail Gun is light, and can be used against armored persons and vehicles. Sure, it's a little "overkill" to take out a person - but unless you need a high rate of fire (which is where fletchettes would come in handy) - it's perfectly OK.

But how aerodynamic are fletchettes? I don't know enough to say when they would be torn apart by friction, you wouldn't want to fire them so fast that they explode once they hit the end of the barel or something, that's what I ment by 'slower' I mean 10% slower is still slower, but may be enough to turn a flechette cannon from a bomb to a usable weapon...

And where does a telepathic attack come from anyways, does it 'target' the head, or can it hit the person anywhere to attack their mind?

And I'm still trying to figure out how a magnetic field would help... after all, it has to be an ElectroMagnetic Shield to stop plasma cannons at low power... sure it could deflect weapons fire, but to do so would make it very large and rather bulky... but maybe I'm just being too literal, I'm an ass, so I do that from time to time...

[Fiferguy]

Well, as Fel explained it in one chapter the Faey encase their plasma projectiles in a magnetic "casing" of some sort.

“There’s an idea,” Tim chuckled. “MPACs are plasma inside a magnetic envelope to keep it from blowing up til it hits something, right? Just reverse the polarity of the matrix so it repels the magnetic envelope, which would make the plasma go with it. MPAC fire would just bounce off.”

“You couldn’t do that—holy shit,” Jason said, his eyes brightening. “We couldn’t do that with this, but that’s a hell of an idea, Tim! I think I could make something that could do that!”

“I think I could too,” Steve said with a laugh. “You couldn’t use an MPAC around it, but we could definitely build something that would bounce the magnetic envelope of an MPAC round.”

In that discussion, Tim and Jason were talking about the exomech, but I was talking about modifying it and building it into a suit of armor.

[Wingsolution]

oh, right, that, well it's just that later on, it's explained that you'd need to boost the power of the casing on impact or it will still explode, because the casings are designed to disrupt on impact, and that requires an electric charge, which is when the EM shield comes into play... and I'm too lazy to search for quotes, but I did read the story... umm at least twice... I think all but the latest chapter three times... I'll just re read it again to find the quote I'm looking for...

[Fiferguy]

I remember reading somewhere (may be here, maybe be the story, but somewhere) that the whole idea of using the magnetic field is that it won't disrupt the magnetics in the MPAC round. As for the force of impact, Jason and the gang's body armor is already good against that. Remember in the first part of the book how Fel describes the Faey soldier getting hit by a car and just getting up. And I think it was said, or maybe merely implied, that the armor was immune to anything that standard Earth weapons could throw at it. Maybe when Jyslin was describing the "century old pieces of junk" they were forced to wear. I can't remember exactly.

I think Tim's idea was expanded on somewhere, either here or in the book. If I remember correctly, it was hypothesized that the magnetic field wouldn't disrupt the integrity of the MPAC round, just reflect it back at the Faey.

EDIT

Found it.

That, and Tim’s idea was so promising. It was so simple, so elegant, attacking MPAC weaponry at a very basic level, by going after the magnetic envelope that encased the metaphased plasma, which kept the plasma coherent and in prevented it from detonating just from traveling through the air. All it took was some kind of magnetic shield, a solid layer of magnetic force that would cause the magnetic envelope of the MPAC charge to rebound off of it without disrupting. Solid magnetic field technology was, yet again, a tried and true Faey technology, because that’s how MPACs worked. The plasma was trapped in the envelope, it would rebound with the envelope, thereby rendering the shot harmless. And since all MPACs used the same basic technique for building a plasma charge and magnetic envelope, they could design one shield and not have to worry about magnetic polarity, since all MPAC envelopes had the same polarity. Damn clever. He had to admit to himself that he had never thought of that.

It goes on to describe it in a little more detail. My only thought is if it would be possible to modify that to cover the whole suit, and not just a small area in front of or on the side of the person.

[Quindo Ma]

You have to realize that that magnetic shield idea emerged while they were thinking about what else the active cloak on the skimmer was able to do. To implement such a shield on a custom fit, very small body armor has another issue alltogether: How the hell do you fit it?
With a skimmer or exomech, all he has to do is take off the plating, adjust it, and put it back on, and those are flat, square-ish pieces of armor.
The good Faye body armor is custom fit to every person they make, so that impact energy gets evenly distributed, and even the "normal" armor has generic fits that make it impossible to just take off the armor plates and put them back on with the shield components attached. Aside from the fact that it's not a flat surface but curved, and would require a lot more calculations, and probably emitters, to cover it properly, it would completely disrupt the fitting if these things weren't taken care of during the construction of the armor. Of course, Jason ain't gonna pass on that piece of information to the makers of the suits.

[Fiferguy]

Actually, the above quote was about when Jason was trying to figure out a way to protect his foot soldiers from an MPAC. The next few paragraphs in chapter 10 talk about it. As for the pieces of the suit, they're already there. The suit is disassembled and reassembled every time it's taken on and off. The only problem I see is where to put the emitters...

[Quindo Ma]

Which was exactly what I was pointing out
You can't fit the emitters in a suit of body armor without implementing them during the design and creation process at the manufacturer, unless you want to negate a large aspect of the armors impact defusing qualities.

[Fiferguy]

I disagree...on Jason's suit, there's a backpack like thing that contains the computer, power supply, etc. It would be easy to install the additional equipment for controlling the unit there, and it might be possible to put a downward facing emitter from the top of the helmet. And I bet that Fel will find a way to surprise us...he likes to do that.

[michaelsuave]

I disagree...on Jason's suit, there's a backpack like thing that contains the computer, power supply, etc. It would be easy to install the additional equipment for controlling the unit there, and it might be possible to put a downward facing emitter from the top of the helmet. And I bet that Fel will find a way to surprise us...he likes to do that.

Plus, we know that Jason has annealing technology. He can just anneal the emitters to the outside of the armor. If they are going against faey, then the only thing they have to worry about is mpac rounds. Its not going to damage the emmitters on the outside of the armor if the rounds can't get through the magnetic field.

[michaelsuave]

So a side area that hasn't really been talked about in this post so far...
How can jason take the faey medical technology that he now has access to, and turn it into weapons or just things that he could sell to help fund the rebellion? I know we don't have a tone of info on what jason can do medically, but what can we use from what we have?

Like Jason has developed devices that can cause an acid that only attacks the substance it is made of. Could he develop a device that goes after the protein molecules of certain tumors and causes them to melt and break down? Or melt cystic fibrous matter that causes all sorts of problems? Basically, jason could create a surgery method that just used wavelengths. Or since he knows the chemical make up of melting the armor, could he use some sort of wavelength to destablize it when debreeding a wound from shrapnel, or just to take out the enemy armor?

Or, eventually jason could design a computer to telepathy interface. He is going to have to figure out how to protect his troops from telepathy, so he is going to have to figure out what wave length they work at and can be measured. Once he does that its a bit of a jump, but he could figure out a way to use the telepathic waves to trip switches... then its not to far from creating a code (such as basic) which is just a series of on and off's to do a command. Anyway... its a thought.
~Michael

[Fiferguy]

I actually have a sneaking suspicion that that is what Jason is going to end up doing before the end of the book. The gem in his crown, as it were. He's invented all these other things, but his greatest acheivement, in my opinion, will be either a telepathy/psionic shield, or a computer/telepathy interface. Either would give his troops an advantage. Now THAT would be a great science project.

[Quindo Ma]

I disagree...on Jason's suit, there's a backpack like thing that contains the computer, power supply, etc. It would be easy to install the additional equipment for controlling the unit there, and it might be possible to put a downward facing emitter from the top of the helmet. And I bet that Fel will find a way to surprise us...he likes to do that.

Plus, we know that Jason has annealing technology. He can just anneal the emitters to the outside of the armor. If they are going against faey, then the only thing they have to worry about is mpac rounds. Its not going to damage the emmitters on the outside of the armor if the rounds can't get through the magnetic field.

True, but the deflection is (so far) a modification of the cloaking tech, and in that the emitters need to be behind the armor plate they are attached too. Also, they generate a lot of static that can otherwise be complicated. And no, MPAC isn't the only worry, hand-to-hand combat, as well as close combat weaponry (such as knifes) are also an issue.

[Fiferguy]

Actually, the shields were part of a description in chapter 10 when Jason was brainstorming an actual shield, like medieval knights wore. There's a very detailed description of it there. The only thing that Fel talks about being involved is a small box, four arms, and that's it. He thinks about adding a glove or something to give it a place to hold on, but other than that, it's a VERY simple design. I just wonder what modifications would be necessary to put them on a suit of armor.