The Science behind
VALKYRIE…
Week 4, Month 9, Episode #12
No, not that one! Damn it CCP Games, why did you have to
name EVE:VR that… Although, if I was going to bet money on a name for it… That
would have been it.
I’m talking about this one…
If you’ve been following me at all, you probably have
noticed VALKYRIE, at least at some level.
Here I’m going to be talking about the science behind the science
fiction in VALKYRIE. In a lot of ways,
VALKYRIE takes some ideas that have been shown in other series and games (including
EVE Online… Damn you CCP!). I’ve just
decided to take them and run.
1.) The Pod Pilot
One of those things is the Pod Pilot. The idea behind the Pod Pilot is that if you
could directly connect a person to a starship (essential turning the ship into
an extension of their body) you could dramatically increase the combat
effectiveness of the ship. This is the
entire basis for the universe of EVE Online, with the addition of death in the
pod resulting in your consciousness transferring to a new clone.
*Ehm*
EVE Online takes place in a universe where technology has
progressed to the point that a ship’s armor can be rebuilt by nanites within
minutes and every ship flies a bit in defiance of Newtonian physics. Not to mention that they clearly have some
sort of inertial dampening system.
VALKYRIE does not.
This leads to the real reason anyone would use a pod filled
with shock absorbent fluid as a combat station on a starship. Inertia is a very lethal thing. Over 25 Gs of acceleration is likely to cause
death or serious injury. Accelerations
of over 5 Gs often result in ‘black out’ or ‘red out’ as the acceleration
forces shift blood away or two the brain.
In 1975 the Sprint anti-ballistic missile system went
operational. Each missile could accelerate at up to 100 Gs.
As a result, it’s quite clear that the technology exists for
starships and space combat vessels to accelerate at rates that exceed the human
body’s tolerance. In order to survive
such accelerations, let alone engage in combat the crews must be cushioned
against those accelerations.
Most Science Fiction uses the Inertial Compensator, a fictitious
device that through a combination of witchcraft, sorcery, and techno-babble
somehow negates the effect of inertia on the ships and their crews. If you want to do ‘Hard’ science fiction,
then the Inertial Compensator must go.
Hence the pod, holding a pilot or crew member in a
compressible fluid to absorb the shock of sudden accelerations and cushion them
during longer burns. In VALKYRIE the
absorbent capacity of the pod is roughly around 90% of the acceleration the pod
is being subjected to in a shock acceleration, though its effectiveness
decreases the longer the burn.
Considering that the ships are rated for around 40-50 Gs of
acceleration, this ends up subjecting the pilot to around 4-5 Gs during combat
maneuvers.
Now, this leads to a second problem… a person stuck in a pod
filled with goo is supposed to pilot a spacecraft… How?
The answer is a technology that is still in its relative
infancy despite being used in such ludicrous ways as…
Umm, yeah, I still can’t get that damn thing to work with my
brain.
EVE Online uses an ‘invasive’ form of Neural Interface for
the pilots in the form of a set of implants that the pilot is connected through. VALKYRIE uses a different system that isn’t
invasive or utilizes implants, instead the VALKYRIE utilizes a ‘full-body’
neural interface system made up of a suit which reads and transmits information
through the human neural system. Inputs
from the senses are overridden by the suit, allowing the pilot to see through
the ship’s eyes and so forth.
It also can be painful when a system fails, transmitting a
shock through the neural link to the pilot.
In VALKYRIE the transition from a human body to a starship
is too severe for an adult’s mind to cope, leading Earth to utilize teens. While this may not be an actual hurtle in
reality, it makes for a simple device to use teens as the pilots.
2.) The Enemy
The Ixo are the enemy for the VALKYRIE series, and while
hive minds and insects have been done before, each time I’ve read them I found
some pretty severe problems in their design.
Take for instance, Ender’s Game and the Buggers. As an aside, Orson Scott Card – Buggers?
Really?
The Buggers communicated with each other real time through
some sort of psychic link type thing that ended up being similar to Ender’s
command system and… *HEAD DESK*
Honestly, Ender’s Game is a great book in a lot of ways, but
the whole hive mind and psychic link thing really wasn’t one of the strong
points of the story. In fact, if you
read Ender’s Game you can see where I got some of the ideas.
Anyway, the problem with a hive mind as an advanced race of
evil alien life is twofold. Firstly, how
does the hive mind communicate across interstellar distances, and secondly how
does anything new get invented in such a society?
Most hives on Earth utilizes pheromones as a primary means
of communicating, and they really don’t have a ‘hive mind’ as we’ve come to
think of in science fiction. What they
have is a set of programmed responses to stimuli and pheromones from their
genes. Sapient life forms tend to be a
bit more thoughtful then that.
So, how is the insect race called the Ixo different? Well, I started out with a couple specific
aims for designing them.
Aim #1: The Ixo must
be naturally capable of piloting ships to much higher accelerations then
humans. Think of this as the cockroach
effect.
Aim #2: The Ixo must
be incapable of communicating with humanity.
Aim #3: The Ixo must
be capable of denying humanity the ability to use remote operated drones in
combat (and thus promoting the use of piloted spacecraft).
Aim #4: The Ixo must
be capable of FTL communications and travel.
Most of these are fairly biological imperatives. However, Aim #2, #3, and #4 are actually
partly related to the technology the Ixo use.
The Ixo evolved as one would expect as an insect hive which
ultimately became intelligent enough to be tool users and develop a
culture. They communicated with each
other through their pheromones, body language, and written languages until they
ultimately invented a communications system derived from the Quantum
Entanglement. This allowed instantaneous
communication between paired devices.
Eventually, the devices became implantable, linking the
queens with their children in a hierarchy that involved the majority of the
species. Thus a hive mind of sorts was
born, but one with a clear and understandable natural hierarchy. This combined with the natural instincts of a
hive evolution turn the workers of the species into creatures that act almost
like remotes for their queens and often utilize weaponry that is as lethal to
themselves as their foes.
As a result of the Quantum Entanglement Communications
network, the Ixo have no use for radio communications. Quantum entanglement devices allow them to
operate drones without relying on radio waves or hamstrung by light speed lag
as communications through Quantum Entanglement is instantaneous.
The Ixo have no qualms with totally flooding all radio
channels with powerful jamming, making it impossible for human radio dependent
drones to be utilized in combat. With
drones no longer an option, humanity has to put at least one human in every
ship.
3.) The Interceptor
Frigates
The ships utilized by the pod pilots in the series are
called Interceptor Frigates, thanks to the extremely high accelerations their
capable of and their relatively small size.
Each is around the size of an airliner and usually twice to three times
the weight of such a ship. Armament
varies depending on the ship but basically utilizes everything that Humanity
can construct. Most ships are
conversions of earlier ‘drone starship’ designs that were rendered useless
thanks to the Ixo’s jamming.
Some example ships…
Lockheed Martin YSI-1
Starfire Interceptor Frigate – Constructed by Lockheed Martin as a
conversion of their first generation RS-1 Drone Frigate. The Starfire is the first operational
Interceptor Frigate.
GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS
Crew: 1 Neural-Interfaced Pilot – Pilot Cadet Daniel
Logan
Length: 75.31 meters
Beam: 67.89 meters
Draft: 19.84 meters
Mass: 345,000 kilograms
Powerplant: 2x General Electric BC8-GE-77A Antimatter
Beam Cores (76,900 kN each)
PERFORMANCE
Max
Acceleration: 45.5 G
Max Burn
Duration: 53.8 hours
ARMAMENT
4x LaWS-M3A4 Laser
Turrets
2x General Atomics M3A1
Blitzer Railguns
2x General Atomics M1
Particle Beams
Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries NIS-X Shinshin Interceptor – Derived from the Lockheed Martin
YSI-1 Space Interceptor, the Experimental – Neural-Interfaced Ship or
‘Shinshin’ has a larger wingspan, more advanced scanning systems, and a
different armament then the American produced ship.
GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS:
Crew: 1 Neural-Interfaced Pilot – Pilot Cadet
Michiko Hoshimoto
Length: 77.61 meters
Beam: 75.86 meters
Draft: 19.07 meters
Mass: 383,000 kilograms
Powerplant: 2x General Electric BC8-GE-82J Antimatter
Beam Cores (81,600 kN each)
PERFORMANCE
Max
Acceleration: 43.5 G
Max Burn
Duration: 81.2 hours
ARMAMENT
4x J/LaWS-3N Laser
Turrets
2x Type 59 SSM-6
Missile Battery (5 Missiles per Battery)
4x Type 56 Chū-MMS
Micro-Missile Banks (36 Missiles per Bank)
Sounds like fun ships to fly, that’s for sure.
Anyway, I got to get back to polishing the actual book and
drawing up the cover art, so see you guys later.
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