Zack, Ash, Paul, anybody, question about Nova Bombs. G-man Nietzschean OK, we've heard about them, seen them used (TLtFL, TWG, TFU), and roughly understand how they work. They negate/reverse the gravity that would otherwise hold the star together. IIRC. But when were these things developed? Was during the time of the Vedran Empire? Was it during the reign of the Systems Commonwealth? Why were they developed? What were they being used for to counter/overcome/overawe? Was it the Kalderans, and Nova Bombs were the only way to cow this race of beings? This would actually be consistent with what was stated in AAF, "the Commonwealth never used Nova Bombs in combat," instead it was the Vedran Empire. Thanks for all your help. /s/ Gloriosus the G-man Himself Orpheus Nietzschean That's an excellent question. I'm a wee bit too tired to give it the thought it deserves (long day) but it definitely gives me something to think about. I thought Ash told me in chat back in S1 that Nova Bombs had never been used in war, despite having been known for thousands of years. I might have overlooked "by the Commonwealth", but whether I did or not, it dovetails very nicely with a theory I've been writing up about the last few decades of the CW. I feel I have a fairly strong case that the SC was engaged in a massive (but possibly secret or deliberately underplayed) military buildup. Look at the three most potent HG classes: 1) XMC - Andromeda, whose keel was laid just 2 years after Brandenburg Tor IIRC, was only the tenth Glorious Heritage built - it's a new class of ship 2) DSA-2 - Wrath of Achilles and Balance of Judgement were the only two Wrath of Achilles class built, and they were so new that, IIRC, Dylan and Andromeda the computer didn't know about their existence prior to Star-Cross 3) AAC - the Planetfall Readiness Group equiv of the XMC. It's not particularly good for much beyond assaulting planets (per the ASU AAC entry itself - the PRG entry gives it a bit better PR, which I address in the essay I'm writing) But would the High Guard have attacked planets often enough to justify the cost of a fleet of dedicated planetary assault groups prior to the Magog? That would paint a very different picture of the Syatems Commonwealth, especially since the XMC can be fairly formidable against planets. Given this basic premise (I'll try to get the essays finished and posted tomorrow ), it would make perfect sense that the nova bomb might have been *known* for thousands of years -- but not routinely deployed on High Guard ships of the line until the Magog. It'd be a little odd for the High Guard to carry around a weapon for 10K years, if they never used it, and didn't have any particular use in mind. (they trusted their systems implicitly -- but those things are dangerous in the wrong hands, and High Guard ships weren't invulnerable, as the Kalderans and Admiral Munro demonstrate Has anyone heard anything from the staff about he class(es) of ships that the XMC (et alia) replaced? We see no indication of what they were like in ASU, nor have we had any mention or indiction of them in the show, AFAIK. Any tidbits would be appreciate Must go. Too sleepy Odd thought: *if* "HG" was so-named by the Consensus of Parts, because he was designed and tasked to contact the High Guard, then what might VX's name mean? G-man Nietzschean Thanks for the thoughts, Orpheus. I admit, looking at the warships is the ASU. I, too, was kind of wondering what came before them. And how long the expected service life of any given vessel was at the height of the Commonwealth. Because it looks as if the fleet break out and later designs were to allow the biggest bang for the buck, and generally managing to do more with fewer assets. Not an unreasonable development, especially given that you're still trying to guard a million worlds, and ward them from harm. And certainly by the end of the old Systems Commonwealth, the High Guard Argosy and Lancer Corps could still pose a credible threat to any and all who would oppose them, and did, it is implied, manage to successfully contain the Magog after a while. But, the only time a weapon is not used in combat is that there is a very good reason not to use it (MAD). If the Vedrans had developed it (please see my thread on "A couple of quick questions" to get a feeling of just what these things do) it had to be in response to *something*. And then, if there was no counter to this ultimate weapon, I'd be willing to bet they actually used it during hostilities. The later versions were refinements of the first models, but I'd be willing to bet that it was through the use of Nova Bombs that the Vedrans finally conquered the Kalderan Alliance. And this is probably a very good reason behind the Kalderan's reference to the Vedrans as "the ancient blood enemy" (TFU). /s/ Gloriosus the G-man Himself Ogami Artificial Intelligence G-Man asked: Why were they developed? I suspect much like the h-bomb and the neutron bomb, to show that we could. My question is why the Andromeda has dozens of them ready for the battle 300 years ago. Were all High Guard ships equipped thus? Imagine if the Imperial Armada of Emperor Palpatine had 40 nova bombs on each Star Destroyer. Would the Rebel Alliance have had so many supporters, then? I suspect the more we think about this the less we'll like the Commonwealth, even before Dylan considered them corrupt from his "pure" vision. -Ogami G-man Nietzschean Ogami -- You raise a valid point. If the Commonwealth was "Paradise" why were Nova Bombs deployed on ships of the line? Of course, how would you dispose of them, and could a Million System Government, now that it had Nova Bombs developed, simply get rid of them, otherwise they may fall in the hands of rebellious or hostile systems. Kind of like the Soviet Nuclear Arsenal. However, if you look at te development of the Hydrogen and Neutron Bombs, this was done in a Cold War environment against anoher power that also had Atomic Weapons. And Atomic Weapons were first developed in the anticipation that should the enemy have one, we should as well. Now, with an imperfect understanding of how Nova Bombs work (see above), I could see them being an outgrowth of the Vedrans AG Sciences, and possibly Slipstream Technology. But even then, there'd have to be somekind of wartime cause to engender their development. Thus, I'm asking what were the circumstances that forced their initial development, choosing to ignore why the Commonwealth continued to employ them on their ships. /s/ Gloriosus the G-man Himself Ogami Artificial Intelligence Now let's hope the writers assert this was the premise all along, and go with it. It would be a more interesting premise than what we have now, that because the Commonwealth has people like Uncle Sid, it's bad. Give us some meat here... And yes, if the old Commonwealth was paradise as Dylan claims, why did every High Guard ship have dozens of nova bombs on board when we're told none were ever used? That would be more interesting to explore than Marduk, you'd think that planet would be supplying nova bombs to the new Commonwealth on the side. -Ogami Orpheus Nietzschean Incidentally, I just saw our first candidate for "old wave" High Guard Ships in this week's "The Leper's Kiss". The "private prison" was an old High Guard "Battleship" (I put that in quotes because Dylan used it while pretending to be an ordinary gawking civilian, presumably born centuries after the Fall of the High Guard) As regards the active life of HG ships, it may be significant that AIs seem to have a design life on the order of centuries (S-C, DotM, etc) to possibly millennia (LALS). While this may reflect the inherent independence of the AIE from a body, it may also reflect the design life of the ships on which they served (man, a senile AI would be a bummer, eh?) By the time the previous generation of ships was built, the SC would already have been thousands of years old, and would fully expect to enjoy the full benefits of investing in long-lived class of ships, especially given what I see as a strong preference towards high reliability over innovation in the SC. I'm fairly certain that the history of the Nova Bomb was established early in S1, if not before the show, based on these notes in my (still sparse) tidbits section. first written within a year of the conversation. There's not a whole lot new there, but I'm pleased that something -anything- confirms the "fine mist sprayed accros the walls" that passes for my memory. Though I'm still not sure if the Nova Bomb had been routinely deployed before Brandenburg Tor, that had been my general impression at the time. CJAEGIS was in that chat too, so I hope he'll jump in on this. I wonder if/how the possible presence of strategic weapons on HG ships played in the fairly close (defeated 52%-48%) referendum to disband the High Guard in CY 9760, just six years before Brandenburg Tor. Remember all the conspiracy theories we had on *that* juxtaposition? (Now, of course, most of them seem highly unlikely, given all we've learned in- and out- of channel about the SC and M86) As regards the Kalderans: the ASU timeline records the devastation and subsequent ecological restoration (or was it simply vedraforming?) of Kalderash, but certainly a few NBs could have played a role in strategic battles. The nonlinearity of Slipstream gives me a headache, but since ASU takes specific note that the Kalderan Alliance pushed the Vedrans out of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, I presume that the LMC didn't have too many "strong" Slipstream connections to, say, the Andromeda galaxy, and represented a defensible position. I have little hard evidence to support this, but I've always felt that a 'back door attack' (previously unsuspected Slipstream route) made more sense than a frontal counteroffensive. I've noted this before, but I don't feel it's any concidence that the Kalderans were 'strip-mining' Ral Parthia. Maybe it was just symbolic revenge for what happened to their own planet, but I think there was much more. But that's a whole 'nuther set of unfinished essays, and I haven't finished the ones I promised in my last post. --------------------------- (BLATANT BEG: if anyone has any logs, saved files, copies of old threads, etc. I'd love to catalog their contents (with full atttribution, of course). Please check your system backups, especially the browser cache folders and email me. Rangie: My attempts to send you an Archive password, using three different SMTP servers and Hotmail, all bounced. I respect your privacy, so might I suggest that if you post your public PGP key, we can use it to post brief encrypted messages to you?) I'd also appreciate any specific info on the history -inception to production- of the various eps. I'm afraid I don't follow the 'News' section and updates) For example, there was a recent controversy over whether STDOW deliberately echoed the US-IRaqi situation (in Law and Order's "ripped from the headlines" style), and it might be interesting to know if it was conceived before 9/11. BAMSR, which had originally involved Bobby crashing a ship into a planet at relativistic speeds had been in process for about a year before 9/11 forced a last-minute total re-write, Paul Woodmansee had the basic premise months before the show premiered, as documented [i]before the show even premiered in the US in "Living with Fast Ships" (September 26, 2000 -only the 12th thread posted in AU!)