Conviction chapter 3, spoilers

[betatester]

CMS is basically a thin layer of neutronium applied over the hull which hosts the interphasic field that generates the effect that allows it to absorb light waves and sensor and background radiation.
It can't handle any weapons fire as that would cause a feedback to the phasic emitters and generators; who can't absorb that energy resulting in them resetting to avoid an explosion. which leads failure of interphasic field that enables stealth. Thus making you visible to sensors. At that time only your armor is your only protection; which for the Karinnes is a lot as they have compressed Neutronium hulls

They're not keeping this to themselves. Like with the other military tech they've developed, they're developing their own version of it, and they'll then try to develop a generic form that doesn't use biogenic technology for the Confederation to use.

The "recipe" for the Neutronium alloy is common knowledge. What makes Karinne armor different is how they process raw Neutronium to turn it into compressed Neutronium, and that won't be revealed to RDX during the project. But, you're right that if they have to develop a new armor alloy compatible with the interphasic field, then RDX will most likely know what it is. However, she's a Ruu, and in the realm of science, they're relatively trustworthy when it comes to keeping secrets. If they swear her to secrecy, she'll keep those secrets. That's the Ruu way.

Fel I thought only the Faey Imperium knows how to make Neutronium as every other empire uses some other form of armor composites.

Even if RDX is trustworthy when it comes to keeping secrets; she will still tell her own government about the new Karinne breakthrough armor material

[SoronelHaetir]

A question I've had, how is it that the new engine can go across the Milky Way in ~20s but takes 50+ days to reach Andromeda?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way the Milky Way is 180,000 light years across at its widest, while Andromeda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy) is more or less 2.500,000 light years distant. That is only about 14 times the widest path across the Milky Way.

Using those numbers the new engine would only need about five minutes to get a ship to Andromeda.

[kyli]

The CMS system can't for some reason be installed on anything larger then a frigate. I'm assuming that this new armor will not have that limitation once they are done. So my question is, will this new new powered armor be capable of stealth mode, and if so, won't giving it to the Confederation be like giving away the CMS. There really is no reason not to give them cloaking tech since they are capable of building it technology wise, but it would let them find vulnerabilities in the system.

Fel I thought only the Faey Imperium knows how to make Neutronium as every other empire uses some other form of armor composites.

Even if RDX is trustworthy when it comes to keeping secrets; she will still tell her own government about the new Karinne breakthrough armor material

I believe the Faey have their own more advanced version of Neutronium just like the karinnes. I suspect that the "more basic" neutronium that the other empires are capable of making isn't as strong as some other alloys they use.

As for RDX keeping her goverment informed; I don't think I'd worry about that. Not because I trust RDX, but because I think I trust the Ruu from what I've heard of them. I look at it this way--- if the karinnes trust the Ruu with some secret technology, then the Ruu might return the favor. I'm almost convinced the karinnes should give the translight drive to the Ruu.

[betatester]

A question I've had, how is it that the new engine can go across the Milky Way in ~20s but takes 50+ days to reach Andromeda?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way the Milky Way is 180,000 light years across at its widest, while Andromeda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy) is more or less 2.500,000 light years distant. That is only about 14 times the widest path across the Milky Way.

Using those numbers the new engine would only need about five minutes to get a ship to Andromeda.

That's something I have been wondering as well

[Fel]

A question I've had, how is it that the new engine can go across the Milky Way in ~20s but takes 50+ days to reach Andromeda?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way the Milky Way is 180,000 light years across at its widest, while Andromeda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy) is more or less 2.500,000 light years distant. That is only about 14 times the widest path across the Milky Way.

Using those numbers the new engine would only need about five minutes to get a ship to Andromeda.

Firstly, I'm typing this on my phone, so forgive the typos.

So. When I sat down and did the math for it, admittedly nothing exact, I took what I felt was a reasonable time for the plot to reflect a ship's ability to get anywhere in the galaxy in 20 seconds and divided that by the distance to get the speed, then applied that to the Andromeda trip.

From this, it looks like I must have seriously screwed up when I did that calculation and never noticed my error. I must have misread the distance to Andromeda as billion instead of million when I put it in the calculator and didn't notice, because it didn't seem overly out of place to me that travel within the galaxy would be so disparate compared to travel outside of it.

But, after redoing the math myself, I see you are indeed correct. By using the pan-galactic travel speed as a reference, it does indeed mean that getting to Andromeda would take about five minutes, taking the longest estimated disance as an estimate.

Well. Never let it be said that I refuse to admit science is correct. Or that numbers mean something other than what they are. I'm honestly not sure how I butchered the math that bad. My college calculus teacher would kill me.

You get a cookie. And this means that to fix this, I'll have to heavily edit the last few chapters to reflect the true speed.

And that speed will be five minutes.

So, needless to say, I'll have to do some extensive editing all all four Conviction chapters, including rhe one I'm working on now, and the last chapter of Secession to reflect the proper math.

This will also affect the plot if Conviction and the future stories, but I can roll with that. What matters for the plot as I envision it is that translight drives go that fast, give the Karinnes the ability to go anywhere in the galaxy in 20 seconds. If that means they can get to Andromeda in five minutes, well, that's just more plot points to ponder. It truly opens up the entire galactic CLUSTER to the Karinnes and Kimdori. Andromeda and the home galaxy aren't the only ones relatively close togethwr in a cosmic sense, after all.

And in a way, I'm glad I was wrong. It actually fits much more into my future plans if the translight drives can get to Andromeda in minutes instead of days.

What this means is chapter 4 will be "retconned" to reflect the proper math, and then I'll go back and fix the other chapters and release updates as I finish them.

And keep it up, people. Keep me honest. I never get mad when people point out my mistakes. In a way, you guys ARE my editors.

[SoronelHaetir]

Well, that's certainly going to be even more of an open-mouth staring moment when it's announced. 5 minutes isn't even an inconvenience. It truly puts the invaders within reach,

[MartinK]

A question I've had, how is it that the new engine can go across the Milky Way in ~20s but takes 50+ days to reach Andromeda?

I wondered the same thing, but then i asked myself if I would rather have Fel write more stuff for me to read or correct what i've already read. I decided i wanted something new to read more than correct science.

It truly opens up the entire galactic CLUSTER to the Karinnes and Kimdori. Andromeda and the home galaxy aren't the only ones relatively close togethwr in a cosmic sense, after all.

Huh, you are still thinking too small. Let's see...

180k ly / 20 seconds = 9k lyps [light years per second]
13,000,000k ly / 9k lyps = 1,444,444 seconds = 2.7 years

So, it will only take 2.7 years to go from earth to the edge of the observable universe. Hey, we might finally find out if the observable universe is all there is or what else is there to see but those light just hasn't reached us yet and might never reach us. Is the universe finite or infinite?

Oh, within those 2.7 years travel time there are about 100 billion galaxies to visit. So, let us not stop with our local group (or local cluster, 10 million ly), the Virgo supercluster (110 million ly), or even the Laniakea Supercluster (520 million ly) that it belongs to. Literally the entire universe is in our reach, how marvelous is that? I'm wondering at which point people realize that and think about how many bad guys there must be out there and what might happen if the drive technology ended up in even one of those bad guy hands, spreading ever wider and keeping us busy fighting. Maybe it is better burried or destroyed, to avoid those frightening nightmares.

On the other hand, if the natural instinct of the Kimdori is the maintain balance between warlike races to keep peace and avoid what happened in Andromeda, then I guess they just got a whole lot more work to keep them busy.

And yes, i know it is more like 13.8 billion light years to the edge of the observable universe. Since it took 13.8 billion years until that light actually reached us those galaxies will naturally have moved from where we can see them and changed drastically. All that I consider minor details not worth discussing in this place... or getting headaches over.

[GBLW]

Okay, what happens if you accidentally hit a black hole at 9000 lyps, because at that distance there's no way you could tell that it was there?

[kyli]

You get a cookie. And this means that to fix this, I'll have to heavily edit the last few chapters to reflect the true speed.

And that speed will be five minutes.

Wow!!! Just wow!!! Thats almost too fast for my liking. Almost but not quite.

[Fel]

Almost done with the edits...didn't take as long as I thought, since I don't mention the drives except in 3 chapters. But, it did let me introduce something in the edited chapter 3 I was going to introduce later in the story...the reason the story is named Conviction. It's not about the war. It was always about the engines.

I should have this done by tomorrow afternoon, and will post new chapters for secession13, conviction1, and conviction3. Conviction2 needed no edits.

[kyli]

Almost done with the edits...didn't take as long as I thought, since I don't mention the drives except in 3 chapters. But, it did let me introduce something in the edited chapter 3 I was going to introduce later in the story...the reason the story is named Conviction. It's not about the war. It was always about the engines.

I should have this done by tomorrow afternoon, and will post new chapters for secession13, conviction1, and conviction3. Conviction2 needed no edits.

Looking forward to it...... also you mean Inception, not secession

[betatester]

Okay, what happens if you accidentally hit a black hole at 9000 lyps, because at that distance there's no way you could tell that it was there?

They have hyperspace telescopes to scope and map out empty space; they can verify if their arrival points are empty space or not. Also they can jump in a series of smaller jumps to verified locations to travel long distances.

Hell they can send out their scout/science ship detachments first in shorter jumps to map space.

Also Kimdori are their partners in this enterprise; they would definitely use their considerable resources to map and verify space lanes for translight navigation

[GBLW]

Okay, what happens if you accidentally hit a black hole at 9000 lyps, because at that distance there's no way you could tell that it was there?

They have hyperspace telescopes to scope and map out empty space; they can verify if their arrival points are empty space or not. Also they can jump in a series of smaller jumps to verified locations to travel long distances.

Hell they can send out their scout/science ship detachments first in shorter jumps to map space.

Also Kimdori are their partners in this enterprise; they would definitely use their considerable resources to map and verify space lanes for translight navigation

Right, I wouldn't expect them to do anything else and each cautionary step effectively slows their real travel time.

Pelle

[betatester]

Right, I wouldn't expect them to do anything else and each cautionary step effectively slows their real travel time.

Pelle

Ya but once you have a length of the route verified; you can make that jump in a single instance. They could just send automated translight probes to map a galaxy; just like their hyperspace probes.

There are plenty of ways to enable fast translight travel

[SYED]

I wonder if they would secure those location where hyperdrive is limited, like that nebula the consortium used. They could be great locations to place catapults or relays.

I wonder if the duke might use some legion tactics, not just destroy ships, but cost them money and embarrass them.