graymask1120
SOC-9
So, I've been thinking...You tend to do that when you have a boring day job. IAC.....
I've always had issues with missiles in Trav. The reason is that, given current understanding of anti-missile tech, you either have to barrage-fire thousands of missiles at once to get past the CIWS -- not that conventional (TNT/RDX/etc) explosives are going to do a great deal of damaged to a buttoned-up merchantman -- or throw nukes with abandon, in the hope that they get into fireball-radius before the CIWS kills them. (Nukes in space is a very separate issue.)
Obviously, I don't like that.....But I need to account for everybody and their brother having a missile rail or forty...
So the other day, as I pondered this, I hit on the idea of "naarmilii"...Which suddenly made several apparently-unrelated things in Trav click into place.
Naarmilii is a transuranic 'Unobtanium' -- it has an atomic number of 186, for instance -- that has no use other than in missile warheads and as a hideously volatile and unstable fuel, that anyone has discovered in c.15,000 years.
In fact, in its natural state, naarmilii doesn't really do anything at all. While a tiny bit (say, the size of a standard d6) of refined naarmilii should irradiate the Continental United States for the next ten millennia or so, it just sits there...until you bring that refined naarmilii into contact with a similar amount of refined potassium -- at that point, you'd better not be on the same city block, because the explosion is about equal to a 155mm artillery shell.
Thus, standard missiles IMTU -- meaning those on civilian ships -- use a warhead of roughly 5lbs of naarmilii-potassium...the scaling makes this roughly equal to a 2000lbs bomb...It's important to remember that there is an upper limit to blast yields: naarmilii-potassium cannot go nuclear...but you will hit a point of diminishing returns.
While having one of these 5lbs bricks of joy hit your Free Trader would be...unpleasant...most warships worthy of the name would likely notice it before, you know, killing you. That brings me to the difference between 'missiles' and 'torpedoes'.
Missiles are fairly easy to grasp, given the above as well as numerous canon-artwork, as being about the size of a modern-day TOW missile: about 5ft long, maybe 8in in diameter. But what good are these things against capitol-ships? Answer: not much. Enter the torpedo.
Torpedoes, IMTU, are still the prime cap-ship killer, after c.12,000 years, or so: about 10ft long, and 600mm in diameter, they carry a five-hundred pound warhead of naarmilii-potassium (this is the upper limit; more of either material will not produce a bigger bang).
Don't get in the way of one of these things. Trust me.
So, what is naarmilii, exactly, and where does it come from? The most popular speculation by scientists in the 3I (and the Zhodani Consulate, note) is that naarmilii is the product of a reaction generated by an Ancient experiment. Why? Because the "Saudi Arabia" of naarmilii is Vland -- surrounding sectors have rich deposits of this stuff, but nowhere is it more prevalent then on the Vilani homeworld. (NB: the further from Vland you get, the deeper in geological strata naarmilii goes...yet another of its mysteries...)
The problem with that is that naarmilii happily attaches to most organic matter. It doesn't alter it, but a rather complex and involved process (albeit needing only TL0 or -1 equipment and facilities) is required to separate the naarmilii from the organic material...
...Hence, the development of the shugilii caste of Vilani culture -- these people specialize in making something "edible" (to be polite) out of native Vland plants and animals, because the naarmilii in the plant and animal matter will cause 1st Degree burns to the mouth and throat, and will be rejected by the body, if it doesn't kill the person, first...which is why you almost never see a Vilani chewing on a blade of grass. The shugilii's ritual involves everyone trying a spoonful of the now-"edible" product before flavoring begins....IW-era Terrans identified the taste as "...something between tofu and wallpaper paste, mixed with rancid potting soil and moldy sweat-socks..."
For thousands of years, the vile sludge produced by the shugilii's was dumped in waste pits, until technology progressed far enough that Vilani scientists refined it, and started experimenting...the survivors reported their findings, and the Vilani military adopted the waste product-turned-explosive component wholesale.
Needless to say, naarmilii made quite an impression on Terran fleet elements for the first couple of interstellar wars, until we captured our first naarmilii mine...
...So, why is this stuff not found in Terran space? Because, if you drop a Jump-10 map around Earth, there might be two commercially-viable naarmilii deposits...which, coupled to thin zuchai deposits in the same area, meant that there was no pressing need, as the Vilani saw it, to go in and try to civilize a (sometimes literally) howling wilderness when there was little to be gained in even the mid-terms.....
Thoughts?
I've always had issues with missiles in Trav. The reason is that, given current understanding of anti-missile tech, you either have to barrage-fire thousands of missiles at once to get past the CIWS -- not that conventional (TNT/RDX/etc) explosives are going to do a great deal of damaged to a buttoned-up merchantman -- or throw nukes with abandon, in the hope that they get into fireball-radius before the CIWS kills them. (Nukes in space is a very separate issue.)
Obviously, I don't like that.....But I need to account for everybody and their brother having a missile rail or forty...
So the other day, as I pondered this, I hit on the idea of "naarmilii"...Which suddenly made several apparently-unrelated things in Trav click into place.
Naarmilii is a transuranic 'Unobtanium' -- it has an atomic number of 186, for instance -- that has no use other than in missile warheads and as a hideously volatile and unstable fuel, that anyone has discovered in c.15,000 years.
In fact, in its natural state, naarmilii doesn't really do anything at all. While a tiny bit (say, the size of a standard d6) of refined naarmilii should irradiate the Continental United States for the next ten millennia or so, it just sits there...until you bring that refined naarmilii into contact with a similar amount of refined potassium -- at that point, you'd better not be on the same city block, because the explosion is about equal to a 155mm artillery shell.
Thus, standard missiles IMTU -- meaning those on civilian ships -- use a warhead of roughly 5lbs of naarmilii-potassium...the scaling makes this roughly equal to a 2000lbs bomb...It's important to remember that there is an upper limit to blast yields: naarmilii-potassium cannot go nuclear...but you will hit a point of diminishing returns.
While having one of these 5lbs bricks of joy hit your Free Trader would be...unpleasant...most warships worthy of the name would likely notice it before, you know, killing you. That brings me to the difference between 'missiles' and 'torpedoes'.
Missiles are fairly easy to grasp, given the above as well as numerous canon-artwork, as being about the size of a modern-day TOW missile: about 5ft long, maybe 8in in diameter. But what good are these things against capitol-ships? Answer: not much. Enter the torpedo.
Torpedoes, IMTU, are still the prime cap-ship killer, after c.12,000 years, or so: about 10ft long, and 600mm in diameter, they carry a five-hundred pound warhead of naarmilii-potassium (this is the upper limit; more of either material will not produce a bigger bang).
Don't get in the way of one of these things. Trust me.
So, what is naarmilii, exactly, and where does it come from? The most popular speculation by scientists in the 3I (and the Zhodani Consulate, note) is that naarmilii is the product of a reaction generated by an Ancient experiment
The problem with that is that naarmilii happily attaches to most organic matter. It doesn't alter it, but a rather complex and involved process (albeit needing only TL0 or -1 equipment and facilities) is required to separate the naarmilii from the organic material...
...Hence, the development of the shugilii caste of Vilani culture -- these people specialize in making something "edible" (to be polite) out of native Vland plants and animals, because the naarmilii in the plant and animal matter will cause 1st Degree burns to the mouth and throat, and will be rejected by the body, if it doesn't kill the person, first...which is why you almost never see a Vilani chewing on a blade of grass. The shugilii's ritual involves everyone trying a spoonful of the now-"edible" product before flavoring begins....IW-era Terrans identified the taste as "...something between tofu and wallpaper paste, mixed with rancid potting soil and moldy sweat-socks..."
For thousands of years, the vile sludge produced by the shugilii's was dumped in waste pits, until technology progressed far enough that Vilani scientists refined it, and started experimenting...the survivors reported their findings, and the Vilani military adopted the waste product-turned-explosive component wholesale.
Needless to say, naarmilii made quite an impression on Terran fleet elements for the first couple of interstellar wars, until we captured our first naarmilii mine...
...So, why is this stuff not found in Terran space? Because, if you drop a Jump-10 map around Earth, there might be two commercially-viable naarmilii deposits...which, coupled to thin zuchai deposits in the same area, meant that there was no pressing need, as the Vilani saw it, to go in and try to civilize a (sometimes literally) howling wilderness when there was little to be gained in even the mid-terms.....
Thoughts?
