age of the TeV9

[Arisaya]

how long have they been around? were they present during the syrtian war?

[Song]

I personally Imagine a shift from thermo weapons to particle weapons over the time leading up to the present day in transcendence, due to cost, ammo, logistics, friendly fire incidents..... that sorta thing.


I'd say the standard weapon before the TeV9 would be the Thermo Cannon. It says in the description that a lot were produced in the Syrtian war, and that implies they were in use a lot....which implies either fleet usage, or use as starbase defense weapons.

Since this was before many developments,, you'd have worse physics in the field of particle weapons, but plenty of knowledge in thermonuclear weapons. Orthosteel is still used as the armor of choice for the fleet, as the process of making Hexphase has not been discovered yet. The R1 is developed mid-way through, and is a state-of-the art shield.

Personally for the syrtian war, I tend to imagine bigger Capital ships (CCS?), armed with thermo-cannons and Fusionfires or Mk.5 howitzer type weapons, rather than the modern Carrier forces with TeV9s and Britannia/Centurion wings.

Would probably make a great mod.....a Fleet Reserve Base..on the scale of Battlearena Maximus...with line after line of withdrawn fleet ships, presided over by the great CCS ships of the Syrtian War.

Pity I can't do graphics, otherwise I'd spend a few months on that....

[Arisaya]

CCS? You mean CSC?

I'm not sure how big the ships of that day were...

[Atarlost]

There'd be no CSCs. If even hornets have interplanetary range, and they do, there's no need for a carrier when th combatants are the third and fourth planets from the same star.

I also think the FFH and Orthosteel are post-war.

The Ares superweapon was level 7, as was the highest confirmed CW weapon. Orthosteel is level 8 as is the FFH.

[george moromisato]

Fascinating topic!

Some of the initial battles of World War II in 1938 were actually fought by cavalry on horseback (who failed miserably against tanks). Only seven years later we were using atomic weapons. In between we developed radar, jets, and guided missiles.

I think the Syrtis War was the same way. The lightning cannons and thermo cannons were used almost at the end of the war. The beginning was fought with much more primitive weapons and ships.

I think it would be reasonable to expect that weapons development during the Syrtis War went from tech 4 (early particle weapons) to tech 7 (maybe 8 ).

BTW, if you're interested in some timelines, I have this from my notes:

Year 2230: Syrtis Conclave invades Asian Pacific colonies on Mars and UAS Belt colonies; start of Systis War.

2236: Earth Fleet (formed by the three major Earth powers) is destroyed in Martian orbit.

2238: Syrtis launches surprise attack on major Commonwealth NEOs.

2242: Commonwealth colonies occupied by Syrtis Conclave.

2243: Syrtis Fleet enters Earth orbit; nuclear bombing kills millions.

2251: Commonwealth invades Mars; nukes much of it from orbit; end of Syrtis War.

2251: Ares Sect driven outside of Commonwealth space; starts colonies on Ares Prime.

[Arisaya]

Whoo! Thanks for the info - I'm going to analyse this when I get back home this afternoon

[Arisaya]

So I also presume that the hornet project was very early in the war? like right around after the Earth Fleet got blown up?

[Song]

Looks like it, They're hardly an ideal ship...but thet are cheap, and not bad in numbers.

[LordSutekh]

The Polish cavalry never charged German tank crews, it's a myth. It most likely came from an incident during the Polish invasion when Polish cavalry came upon a German tank unit who were outside of their tanks and took the opportunity to charge. They won, by the way. Despite the many Pollock jokes, the Polish were never so stupid as to charge tanks with cavalry, although many countries still had cavalry at the beginning of the war, including the US.

[Arisaya]

and not bad in numbers.

If you have reserves.

[Song]

and not bad in numbers.

If you have reserves.

originally, they would have wanted to field thousands. At once.

The closest thing in history to the Hornet was the Heinkel He162 of WW2. The concept was partly that of a "Volksjäger"....that is, "people's fighter". It was designed to be cheap and quick to build, light, high performance, and capable of being flown by utter novices. Daft concept, but the plane was actually quite good...fastest WW2 jet fighter, and had it turned up earlier, it probably would have had quite an impact.

It was developed after the USAF managed to start sending bombers in virtually unscathed with fighter escorts,after the luftwaffe had been essentially smashed. At the same time, there was development of weapons and high-tech stuff, which wasn't finished in time.

Here's a little snippet from the Wikipedia article on the 162.

"....they suggested that a new design be built, one so inexpensive that if a machine was damaged or worn out, it could simply be discarded. Thus was born the concept of the "throwaway fighter"....."

That is essentially the point of the hornet. Very typical of the consumerist tendencies of earth to come up with it. But in fairness, they had lost milions of lives, thousands of factories, mines, infrastructure points......they were fighting a losing battle. they HAD to do SOMETHING.

Now, the Hornet is a machine designed for a similar purpose to the 162. Cheap and quick, and easy to fly. Also fast and agile. As those who have flown hornet playerships know, it's not that simple....hornets are brilliant things, but they are NOT easy to use. It's something concieved of at about the time of earth being bombed. At the same time, you have a weapons program. In this case, it is finished in time. Atomic weapons and a few prototype systems won out over the "zerg rush" tactics that were the only other hope for earth...and with the result that instead of a longer attrition campaign (which earth would have lost. Lightning cannons VS hornets is no contest)....a single massive show of atomic force was used to blast mars into submission.

[george moromisato]

The Polish cavalry never charged German tank crews, it's a myth. It most likely came from an incident during the Polish invasion when Polish cavalry came upon a German tank unit who were outside of their tanks and took the opportunity to charge. They won, by the way. Despite the many Pollock jokes, the Polish were never so stupid as to charge tanks with cavalry, although many countries still had cavalry at the beginning of the war, including the US.

I was actually thinking of the Russian campaigns in 1941. But as you said, at the beginning of the war, many countries (even the Germans) used cavalry. By the end I think none were using cavalry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II

[LordSutekh]

My mistake! To paraphrase a famous quote, the military is perfectly able to fight the last war all over again. In this case, the Syrtian/Ares conflict seems to have dragged on for so long with no clear victor that each side has become rather desperate.

[Prophet]

Year 2230: Syrtis Conclave invades Asian Pacific colonies on Mars and UAS Belt colonies; start of Systis War.

2236: Earth Fleet (formed by the three major Earth powers) is destroyed in Martian orbit.

2238: Syrtis launches surprise attack on major Commonwealth NEOs.

2242: Commonwealth colonies occupied by Syrtis Conclave.

2243: Syrtis Fleet enters Earth orbit; nuclear bombing kills millions.

2251: Commonwealth invades Mars; nukes much of it from orbit; end of Syrtis War.

2251: Ares Sect driven outside of Commonwealth space; starts colonies on Ares Prime

I assume that the syrtis recieved their 'Divine' inspiration prior to 2230 and began building their fleet to carry out the plan soon afterward, swiftly taking the entirety of Mars would have afforded them secrecy to amass a colossal fleet. When the Earth fleet showed up 6 years later they must have faced an armada of shiny new pimped-out warships with the biggest, meanest guns in the system. The next 7 years they moved practically unimpeded across the system, culminating in the nuclear bombardment of Earth. It took the CW another 8 years after that to be able to strike a successful counterattack and in the meantime, there was probably hundreds of skirmishes with the syrtis winning most.
The hornet plan would have been a last ditch effort by the CW, having already lost most of their battle fleet to the technologically superior vessels. Of course, you only need one hornet pilot to fire that one magical torpedo into the weak spot and the whole thing ... oh wait, that was something else