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The story of Jefferson Clay
OOC: A special thanks to Lebermac for his help tremendous with my poor writing abilities.
First off you should understand that I am dead, yes, rigor mortis dead. My name was Jefferson Clay and this is my story.
My story begins with my death. I died in combat near the Sol system, yes the original Sol system with Earth. Now you may be wondering how I am able to tell you this being dead. The short answer is that I live inside a computer now, this will be explained better later on.
Earth technology is a lot different than the technology that you Exiles have. It is obviously advanced, but we took a different direction. While you were busy fixing your planet, then nearly destroying it, we were building. While the Serco were happily bashing their heads open in the arenas and the Itani were pondering the meaning of life, we were inventing all kinds of mind-bending works of engineering.
Since we had no stable worm hole area we had to come up with a different method of FTL travel. First we invented the Linear Displacement System, this was near light speed travel. It wasn't great for interstellar travel but thanks to relativity packing enough provisions for a 5 or 10 light year drive at 80% of the speed of light wasn't too hard, so it got the job done.
After figuring out things like vacuum energy and how to actually tear pieces of spacetime asunder and re-attach them, our engineers came up with the Capsule Drive. True faster-than-light travel, this doesn't have the limitations of the WH drive of having only one destination per WH. The Capsule Drive can go between any two Lagrange points 4 or 5 as long as there weren't any large masses between the two allowing it to be used for both inter stellar and intra stellar travel.
Our technological progress wasn't just limited to making things go fast. Naturally since we could travel space, we wanted to kill each other in space too. Fortunately there was little damage to the R&D areas allowing us to come up with all kinds of new ways to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate each other. We beat the crap out of each other with everything from hammers and bats to devastatingly powerful Antimatter weapons and aimed EMP weapons. Fortunately the destruction was almost completely limited to spaceships and the occasional station. The sect that controlled Earth was fighting off a guerrilla space war against a bunch of pissed-off outer rim colonists.
The first installment of the story begins shortly after the collapse of the worm hole to Sol II.
OOC (yes again): I do not say much about Clay's life in the story. He was a good captain in his life, earning a near record number of kills, but he was only extraordinary in the final moments of his life. Also during his digital life he mostly worked behind the scenes, acting as an adviser to the new captain of the Dreadnought and others later on. Questions, comments, and constructive criticism are welcome.
First off you should understand that I am dead, yes, rigor mortis dead. My name was Jefferson Clay and this is my story.
My story begins with my death. I died in combat near the Sol system, yes the original Sol system with Earth. Now you may be wondering how I am able to tell you this being dead. The short answer is that I live inside a computer now, this will be explained better later on.
Earth technology is a lot different than the technology that you Exiles have. It is obviously advanced, but we took a different direction. While you were busy fixing your planet, then nearly destroying it, we were building. While the Serco were happily bashing their heads open in the arenas and the Itani were pondering the meaning of life, we were inventing all kinds of mind-bending works of engineering.
Since we had no stable worm hole area we had to come up with a different method of FTL travel. First we invented the Linear Displacement System, this was near light speed travel. It wasn't great for interstellar travel but thanks to relativity packing enough provisions for a 5 or 10 light year drive at 80% of the speed of light wasn't too hard, so it got the job done.
After figuring out things like vacuum energy and how to actually tear pieces of spacetime asunder and re-attach them, our engineers came up with the Capsule Drive. True faster-than-light travel, this doesn't have the limitations of the WH drive of having only one destination per WH. The Capsule Drive can go between any two Lagrange points 4 or 5 as long as there weren't any large masses between the two allowing it to be used for both inter stellar and intra stellar travel.
Our technological progress wasn't just limited to making things go fast. Naturally since we could travel space, we wanted to kill each other in space too. Fortunately there was little damage to the R&D areas allowing us to come up with all kinds of new ways to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate each other. We beat the crap out of each other with everything from hammers and bats to devastatingly powerful Antimatter weapons and aimed EMP weapons. Fortunately the destruction was almost completely limited to spaceships and the occasional station. The sect that controlled Earth was fighting off a guerrilla space war against a bunch of pissed-off outer rim colonists.
The first installment of the story begins shortly after the collapse of the worm hole to Sol II.
OOC (yes again): I do not say much about Clay's life in the story. He was a good captain in his life, earning a near record number of kills, but he was only extraordinary in the final moments of his life. Also during his digital life he mostly worked behind the scenes, acting as an adviser to the new captain of the Dreadnought and others later on. Questions, comments, and constructive criticism are welcome.
Basic info:
Name: Jefferson Clay
Born: 2475 AD, Died (yes, this man is dead): 2602 AD, Built: 4325
Place of Births: New Philadelphia-Earth, and Aroan Executive L11 Dau
History:
AD 2310:
Wormhole travel between Sol II and Sol I is abruptly cut off.
AD 2453:
After millenia of abuse and waste the natural resources of Earth are running out. The Earth simply can't support 45 billion people. Things normally taken for granted like iron, aluminum, and copper are becoming scarce because there simply are no mineable deposits left on Earth. Even with advanced technology, recycling can only do so much; something is lost every time you melt it down. Some mining is done in space but it's slow and inefficient at best due to slow space travel. This causes manufacturing of essential equipment for agriculture, transportation, and power generation to all but come to a halt.
Without properly working equipment, food production plummets. What’s worse is what little food can be produced can't be distributed well. People are dieing in the streets of starvation and diseases that normally couldn't fell a healthy well feed human. Across the planet food riots break out. The slain quickly outnumber the fallen. There are wide spread instances of cannibalism as parents struggling to feed children sometimes hunt the most abundant edible animal left - their neighbors. At the rate people are dieing the overpopulation will sort itself out by the end of the century.
AD 2456:
As always, people explore the frontier looking for a better means to survive. And even in this maelstrom of decay discoveries are made. The most important is the discovery of massive amounts of marine life in the ocean under the ice that covers the entirety of Callisto - a moon of Jupiter. Immediately a colony is established to exploit this food source. Space travel is still since the best propulsion humans have are archaic fusion reactor driven ships that simply vent hot plasma into space that work great for maneuvering, but are not the best for top speed due to diminishing returns. Even with that limitation a continuous conga line of remotely piloted transports made entirely from materials mined in space makes a giant loop from Callisto to Earth to feed the 42 billion people (the population has been steadily falling due to famine and violence). The food from Callisto helps but still it is not enough.
AD 2459:
An interesting but seemingly useless discovery is made when a bronze bell is found by some colonists on Callisto. The bell was clearly made by humans as it had the number 1938 on it. The colonists, mostly interested in trying to supply Earth's 36 billion people with food, scan the bell, send the data to Earth and melt it down for wire.
AD 2475: It is discovered that the bell found on Callisto was actually the ship's bell from the WWII Philadelphia experiment in which a ship was made to disappear only to re-appear with parts missing and people melded with bulkheads. A few people quickly realize the potential for a new transportation system based of this ancient experiment.
AD 2476:
After extensive research and experimentation based on the ancient Philadelphia experiment a new method of space ship propulsion is invented, the Linear Displacement Drive System. In effect, it uses large oscillating EM fields to move things just below the speed of light. The limitation however is it can only go about a billion miles before the local EM radiation requires a recalculation. The effective top speed of this system is about 95% of light speed. Using this new LDS drive Humanity is no longer limited to Sol but can travel (albeit slowly) to other stars and also across the solar system in a matter of minutes or at most an hour or so (thanks to relativity). This allows humanity to massively speed up delivery of food from the vast seas of Callisto to supply Earth's seemingly unfeedable 26 billion people. Mining stations are built near some of Jupiter's smaller moons to gather much needed resources
AD 2525:
Experiments begin on Faster Than Light travel (FTL) Using a modification to the old Wormhole drive once used to travel from Sol to Sol II. The new system is called Capsule Drive. Basically its a modified and much more powerful Wormhole drive. When activated at LaGrange points 4 or 5, you are able to jump to another system or another LaGrange Point in the same system. The workings of this drive center around the creation of a spacetime “bubble” not connected to our dimension around the ship and reconnecting it at another LaGrangian Point via a mostly clear line of sight.
AD 2540:
Over all, things have been going well. Humanity has spread to about a dozen systems, mostly living in stations built in orbit of planets being terraformed, some on domed cities in planets, and a few in hollowed out asteroids. At the centre of known space lies the Proxima Centuri system with the Tolomin LaGrangian Points being a major travel hub.
AD 2551:
After much colonization of many systems the colonies want self-government. Earth, of course, says no. A few of the more radical and pissed-off colonists then begin to retrofit weapons to their ships and launch a guerrilla war against the Commonwealth.
AD 2575:
At age 100 (considered to be still in his youth at that time) Jefferson Clay joins the Commonwealth (Earth) Navy
AD 2600:
The Indie cause is gaining momentum, building up a vast fleet of Parole Combatants, (Patcoms for short) various mining vessels retrofitted with weapons, and a few Corvettes stolen while being serviced at a low security service station. The Indies amass their rag-tag militia and ambush a Navy Destroyer, the Harvard. With mostly a lot of luck and suicidal bravery they manage to capture the ship (1 of the 20 the Navy had) and rename it the "Under New Ownership".
AD 2601:
The Indies have been making raids on shipyards for ships, parts, and machinery with the help of their shiny new destroyer. For the most part they have been quite successful managing to capture approximately 100 Patcoms, 50 Corvettes and numerous utility vehicles and supplies. The Indies are starting to go head-to-head with the Commonwealth Navy. Despite the Navy having many times the number of ships and weapons the Indies aren't doing too bad. Since they don't have to defend a large area they can use all their ships at once giving them locally better numbers, allowing them to hit hard, steal what they can and leave before the Navy can bring the hammer down. Some of their success is also caused by their propensity to add extra missile launchers by simply welding them to the hull and wiring up the controls. The Navy on the other hand prefers to do thing "the right way".
AD 2602:
Clay is sent to patrol a LaGrange point that is suspected to be occupied by ships of the Independence movement. The Commonwealth intel is correct; the Indies are going to make some kind of assault on the point itself. Just scant minutes after Clay arrives on the scene the entire Indie fleet arrives. Little little did Clay know the Indies plan to physically block the Tolomin jump point. Unfortunately, by the time Clay realizes this he has already summoned reinforcements and they cannot be told to turn back since they are already in Capsule jump. Taking drastic measures, Clay rams the unarmored back of the blocker and punches a hole in it large enough that most of the reinforcements survive. The Indie fleet was all but wiped out in the ensuing battle, however their flagship the UNO survived.
OOC: More to come as I finish editing the rest.
Name: Jefferson Clay
Born: 2475 AD, Died (yes, this man is dead): 2602 AD, Built: 4325
Place of Births: New Philadelphia-Earth, and Aroan Executive L11 Dau
History:
AD 2310:
Wormhole travel between Sol II and Sol I is abruptly cut off.
AD 2453:
After millenia of abuse and waste the natural resources of Earth are running out. The Earth simply can't support 45 billion people. Things normally taken for granted like iron, aluminum, and copper are becoming scarce because there simply are no mineable deposits left on Earth. Even with advanced technology, recycling can only do so much; something is lost every time you melt it down. Some mining is done in space but it's slow and inefficient at best due to slow space travel. This causes manufacturing of essential equipment for agriculture, transportation, and power generation to all but come to a halt.
Without properly working equipment, food production plummets. What’s worse is what little food can be produced can't be distributed well. People are dieing in the streets of starvation and diseases that normally couldn't fell a healthy well feed human. Across the planet food riots break out. The slain quickly outnumber the fallen. There are wide spread instances of cannibalism as parents struggling to feed children sometimes hunt the most abundant edible animal left - their neighbors. At the rate people are dieing the overpopulation will sort itself out by the end of the century.
AD 2456:
As always, people explore the frontier looking for a better means to survive. And even in this maelstrom of decay discoveries are made. The most important is the discovery of massive amounts of marine life in the ocean under the ice that covers the entirety of Callisto - a moon of Jupiter. Immediately a colony is established to exploit this food source. Space travel is still since the best propulsion humans have are archaic fusion reactor driven ships that simply vent hot plasma into space that work great for maneuvering, but are not the best for top speed due to diminishing returns. Even with that limitation a continuous conga line of remotely piloted transports made entirely from materials mined in space makes a giant loop from Callisto to Earth to feed the 42 billion people (the population has been steadily falling due to famine and violence). The food from Callisto helps but still it is not enough.
AD 2459:
An interesting but seemingly useless discovery is made when a bronze bell is found by some colonists on Callisto. The bell was clearly made by humans as it had the number 1938 on it. The colonists, mostly interested in trying to supply Earth's 36 billion people with food, scan the bell, send the data to Earth and melt it down for wire.
AD 2475: It is discovered that the bell found on Callisto was actually the ship's bell from the WWII Philadelphia experiment in which a ship was made to disappear only to re-appear with parts missing and people melded with bulkheads. A few people quickly realize the potential for a new transportation system based of this ancient experiment.
AD 2476:
After extensive research and experimentation based on the ancient Philadelphia experiment a new method of space ship propulsion is invented, the Linear Displacement Drive System. In effect, it uses large oscillating EM fields to move things just below the speed of light. The limitation however is it can only go about a billion miles before the local EM radiation requires a recalculation. The effective top speed of this system is about 95% of light speed. Using this new LDS drive Humanity is no longer limited to Sol but can travel (albeit slowly) to other stars and also across the solar system in a matter of minutes or at most an hour or so (thanks to relativity). This allows humanity to massively speed up delivery of food from the vast seas of Callisto to supply Earth's seemingly unfeedable 26 billion people. Mining stations are built near some of Jupiter's smaller moons to gather much needed resources
AD 2525:
Experiments begin on Faster Than Light travel (FTL) Using a modification to the old Wormhole drive once used to travel from Sol to Sol II. The new system is called Capsule Drive. Basically its a modified and much more powerful Wormhole drive. When activated at LaGrange points 4 or 5, you are able to jump to another system or another LaGrange Point in the same system. The workings of this drive center around the creation of a spacetime “bubble” not connected to our dimension around the ship and reconnecting it at another LaGrangian Point via a mostly clear line of sight.
AD 2540:
Over all, things have been going well. Humanity has spread to about a dozen systems, mostly living in stations built in orbit of planets being terraformed, some on domed cities in planets, and a few in hollowed out asteroids. At the centre of known space lies the Proxima Centuri system with the Tolomin LaGrangian Points being a major travel hub.
AD 2551:
After much colonization of many systems the colonies want self-government. Earth, of course, says no. A few of the more radical and pissed-off colonists then begin to retrofit weapons to their ships and launch a guerrilla war against the Commonwealth.
AD 2575:
At age 100 (considered to be still in his youth at that time) Jefferson Clay joins the Commonwealth (Earth) Navy
AD 2600:
The Indie cause is gaining momentum, building up a vast fleet of Parole Combatants, (Patcoms for short) various mining vessels retrofitted with weapons, and a few Corvettes stolen while being serviced at a low security service station. The Indies amass their rag-tag militia and ambush a Navy Destroyer, the Harvard. With mostly a lot of luck and suicidal bravery they manage to capture the ship (1 of the 20 the Navy had) and rename it the "Under New Ownership".
AD 2601:
The Indies have been making raids on shipyards for ships, parts, and machinery with the help of their shiny new destroyer. For the most part they have been quite successful managing to capture approximately 100 Patcoms, 50 Corvettes and numerous utility vehicles and supplies. The Indies are starting to go head-to-head with the Commonwealth Navy. Despite the Navy having many times the number of ships and weapons the Indies aren't doing too bad. Since they don't have to defend a large area they can use all their ships at once giving them locally better numbers, allowing them to hit hard, steal what they can and leave before the Navy can bring the hammer down. Some of their success is also caused by their propensity to add extra missile launchers by simply welding them to the hull and wiring up the controls. The Navy on the other hand prefers to do thing "the right way".
AD 2602:
Clay is sent to patrol a LaGrange point that is suspected to be occupied by ships of the Independence movement. The Commonwealth intel is correct; the Indies are going to make some kind of assault on the point itself. Just scant minutes after Clay arrives on the scene the entire Indie fleet arrives. Little little did Clay know the Indies plan to physically block the Tolomin jump point. Unfortunately, by the time Clay realizes this he has already summoned reinforcements and they cannot be told to turn back since they are already in Capsule jump. Taking drastic measures, Clay rams the unarmored back of the blocker and punches a hole in it large enough that most of the reinforcements survive. The Indie fleet was all but wiped out in the ensuing battle, however their flagship the UNO survived.
OOC: More to come as I finish editing the rest.
i like it.
not a lot of little details, but the story is good and pretty much makes up for it
keep it up :)
not a lot of little details, but the story is good and pretty much makes up for it
keep it up :)
Ah yea I forgot about that. I bumped the speed to 95% of light speed to drastically increase the time dilation effects. I didn't actually run the numbers but off the top of my head it should be a factor of a little more than 3, about double the effect of 80%c. So a true time of roughly 6 hours to travel from the sun to Pluto (way shorter than earth to Jupiter) and a ship time of only an hour and 45 minutes I think (though I could be wrong, anybody care to run the math?).
About time dilation, i think you may have a bit of a contradiction here, because first you say that LDS drives makes things 'disappear and reappear' which implies that it doesn't actually *move*, but rather only changes position, in which case relativistic effects wouldn't apply.
Though later you said that it 'uses EM fields to move things' which on the other hand suggest more hmm 'normal' type of drive, but it rather wouldn't propel anything from Earth surface to Callisto.(or actually maybe it could, but seeing as it wasn't succesful experiment i doubt it would later slow down meaning there wouldn't be much left after it hit Callisto.)
Oh and i'm not criticising, just trying to understand what you mean :)
Though later you said that it 'uses EM fields to move things' which on the other hand suggest more hmm 'normal' type of drive, but it rather wouldn't propel anything from Earth surface to Callisto.(or actually maybe it could, but seeing as it wasn't succesful experiment i doubt it would later slow down meaning there wouldn't be much left after it hit Callisto.)
Oh and i'm not criticising, just trying to understand what you mean :)
"About time dilation, i think you may have a bit of a contradiction here, because first you say that LDS drives makes things 'disappear and reappear' which implies that it doesn't actually *move*, but rather only changes position, in which case relativistic effects wouldn't apply."
I didn't say the LDS drive made things disappear. I said the Philadelphia experiment made things disappear and come back all kinds of screwed up. oviousley thats useless for transporting anything you want to remain intact. The LDS drive is based on the Philadelphia experiment, it's not a carbon copy of it.
Actually now that I think about it the Capsule Drive sounds more similar to the Philadelphia experiment.
EDIT:
"i doubt it would later slow down meaning there wouldn't be much left after it hit Callisto." see my first paragraph, Philadelphia experiment resulted in instant transport, a botched teleportation if you will. hopefully this clarifies everything for you.
EDIT2:
also as for why you cant use LDS at full lightspeed, the simple answer is when doing that time stops. This makes it impossible to avoid other objects or even decide to stop, the computer also has to make course corrections to avoid ramming into things and adjustments to the output of the drive to maintain a stable LDS field, this requires the ability to see whats there. I can only assume with radar of some kind. I'm not sure if you sent out radar waves from a ship traveling at near light speed if they would only keep up with the ship or travel faster than light. And if they did exceed the speed of light would the quickly cease to exist from time going backwards for them to a point where they didn't exist?
I didn't say the LDS drive made things disappear. I said the Philadelphia experiment made things disappear and come back all kinds of screwed up. oviousley thats useless for transporting anything you want to remain intact. The LDS drive is based on the Philadelphia experiment, it's not a carbon copy of it.
Actually now that I think about it the Capsule Drive sounds more similar to the Philadelphia experiment.
EDIT:
"i doubt it would later slow down meaning there wouldn't be much left after it hit Callisto." see my first paragraph, Philadelphia experiment resulted in instant transport, a botched teleportation if you will. hopefully this clarifies everything for you.
EDIT2:
also as for why you cant use LDS at full lightspeed, the simple answer is when doing that time stops. This makes it impossible to avoid other objects or even decide to stop, the computer also has to make course corrections to avoid ramming into things and adjustments to the output of the drive to maintain a stable LDS field, this requires the ability to see whats there. I can only assume with radar of some kind. I'm not sure if you sent out radar waves from a ship traveling at near light speed if they would only keep up with the ship or travel faster than light. And if they did exceed the speed of light would the quickly cease to exist from time going backwards for them to a point where they didn't exist?
Hmm, ok then, i just assumed that if something is based on teleportation, it is... well teleportation-like. Nevermind then.
"I'm not sure if you sent out radar waves from a ship traveling at near light speed if they would only keep up with the ship or travel faster than light. And if they did exceed the speed of light would the quickly cease to exist from time going backwards for them to a point where they didn't exist?"
The speed of light is relative, as such it is the same from every reference point. If you are moving at 95% the speed of light and shoot a beam of light out of every side you would see it moving at the speed of light in every direction you shot it in (and that speed is 100% the speed of light). Someone looking from stopped reference frame (stopped of course is relative in this case) would see you moving at 95% the speed of light, the beam behind from you would be moving at the speed of light in that direction (thus away from you at 195% the speed of light, but only at 100% the speed of light from the stopped frame, and the beam in front of you would be moving at 100% as well (or 5% faster than you).
Weird huh? But all true and well proven.
Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity for the relative light speed aspects (Special Relativity).
Or if you are feeling adventurous go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity and learn about General Relativity (which includes all the fun gravitational effects, time dilation, length compression, etc...)
The speed of light is relative, as such it is the same from every reference point. If you are moving at 95% the speed of light and shoot a beam of light out of every side you would see it moving at the speed of light in every direction you shot it in (and that speed is 100% the speed of light). Someone looking from stopped reference frame (stopped of course is relative in this case) would see you moving at 95% the speed of light, the beam behind from you would be moving at the speed of light in that direction (thus away from you at 195% the speed of light, but only at 100% the speed of light from the stopped frame, and the beam in front of you would be moving at 100% as well (or 5% faster than you).
Weird huh? But all true and well proven.
Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity for the relative light speed aspects (Special Relativity).
Or if you are feeling adventurous go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity and learn about General Relativity (which includes all the fun gravitational effects, time dilation, length compression, etc...)
"And if they did exceed the speed of light would the quickly cease to exist from time going backwards for them to a point where they didn't exist?"
Please note I did say IF, I was speaking hypothetically while fully aware of the postulates of special relativity, I just thought it was something fun to think about and imagine. We can test the theory by shooting a beam of light from in front of an aircraft and a ground station at two targets the same distance from their relative light sources, if the time it takes the light to reach the target is the same then the theory is correct. I'm sure by now this has already been tried, and we would have heard of it by now if the results went agenst special relativity.
EDIT: lets try and keep this thread on topic from now on please.
Please note I did say IF, I was speaking hypothetically while fully aware of the postulates of special relativity, I just thought it was something fun to think about and imagine. We can test the theory by shooting a beam of light from in front of an aircraft and a ground station at two targets the same distance from their relative light sources, if the time it takes the light to reach the target is the same then the theory is correct. I'm sure by now this has already been tried, and we would have heard of it by now if the results went agenst special relativity.
EDIT: lets try and keep this thread on topic from now on please.
Ok, I should just drop it and leave it be... but I'm feeling adventurous...
"Please note I did say IF, I was speaking hypothetically while fully aware of the postulates of special relativity, I just thought it was something fun to think about and imagine."
You said, "if they did exceed 'c' would the quickly cease....", but you also said,"I'm not sure if you sent out radar waves from a ship traveling at near c if they would only keep up with the ship or travel faster than light." Thus you comment was on-topic and valid.
Second, is not answering your uncertainty and providing links to where you could find these answers 'on-topic'? As for the 'on-topic' nature of this comment, I leave that up to the reader to decide ;)
EDIT: sorry for my tone of voice "writing", I mean no disrespect, just strongly feel that I was being on-topic and got the impression from you that I wasn't.
As for your "light speed testing" hypothesis, it is actually much easier and was done in 1887. The experiment in question is/was the Michelson–Morley experiment ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley ) which was used to disprove the existence of a Luminiferous Aether ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether ) and led to Einstein's discovery of SR and GR. Just though you might like to know ;)
PS. IAAAAP (I am almost an astrophysicists), and feel qualified to say these things =)
"Please note I did say IF, I was speaking hypothetically while fully aware of the postulates of special relativity, I just thought it was something fun to think about and imagine."
You said, "if they did exceed 'c' would the quickly cease....", but you also said,"I'm not sure if you sent out radar waves from a ship traveling at near c if they would only keep up with the ship or travel faster than light." Thus you comment was on-topic and valid.
Second, is not answering your uncertainty and providing links to where you could find these answers 'on-topic'? As for the 'on-topic' nature of this comment, I leave that up to the reader to decide ;)
EDIT: sorry for my tone of voice "writing", I mean no disrespect, just strongly feel that I was being on-topic and got the impression from you that I wasn't.
As for your "light speed testing" hypothesis, it is actually much easier and was done in 1887. The experiment in question is/was the Michelson–Morley experiment ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley ) which was used to disprove the existence of a Luminiferous Aether ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether ) and led to Einstein's discovery of SR and GR. Just though you might like to know ;)
PS. IAAAAP (I am almost an astrophysicists), and feel qualified to say these things =)
I posed that hypothetical question fully aware of special relativity because I thought it would be interesting to think about, sorry it bothered you so much, I'll not post any more of them.
EDIT: the above was written before your edit was posted.
The experiment I mentioned earlier was just what I came up with off the top of my head.
Second, is not answering your uncertainty and providing links to where you could find these answers 'on-topic'? As for the 'on-topic' nature of this comment, I leave that up to the reader to decide ;)
by on topic I meant talking about the story, the entire relativity discussion was a tangent.
EDIT: the above was written before your edit was posted.
The experiment I mentioned earlier was just what I came up with off the top of my head.
Second, is not answering your uncertainty and providing links to where you could find these answers 'on-topic'? As for the 'on-topic' nature of this comment, I leave that up to the reader to decide ;)
by on topic I meant talking about the story, the entire relativity discussion was a tangent.
OOC: I kinda let this slide a bit longer than I intended but heres the next section of the story.
AD 2604:
With most of their fleet destroyed The Indies spend most of their time simply trying to rebuild their fleet. They are only partially successful, conducting rather small raids on refueling stations, but they never fully recover from the losses they took in the battle for the Tolomin jump point.
AD 2607:
The hulk of the Dreadnought is recovered as salvage. When the crew powered the ship up they start getting yelled at by a mysterious voice. It turns out to be Jefferson Clay... well at least a digital version of him. Right before he was killed in the battle for the Tolomin jump point his mind was copied into an experimental computer, the idea being that sometime in the future the Navy could put him in command of another ship due to his high success rate with the Dreadnought. Clay managed to convince the new crew of the Dreadnought not to tell the Navy about his existence.
AD 2608:
The Dreadnought is sent out to patrol an area where travelers have been reporting strange moving lights. After a while they chance upon one of the moving lights and discover it's actually an alien ship. The alien ship introduces itself as "Narima" and asks for assistance fighting "chaos". Before the crew of the Dreadnought can react the aliens remotely take over control and fly them off to somewhere still unknown. There the Dreadnought's crew sees what they can only assume to be a Chaos alien restraining a Narima ship with something resembling lightning. Not knowing what to do, the crew of the Dreadnought shoots the weird looking chaos ship and it simply disappears. The Narima aliens reward the crew by amending their ship with a capsule space tracker. The also give them something called the Nova loop, which isn't seen for 400 years.
AD 2604:
With most of their fleet destroyed The Indies spend most of their time simply trying to rebuild their fleet. They are only partially successful, conducting rather small raids on refueling stations, but they never fully recover from the losses they took in the battle for the Tolomin jump point.
AD 2607:
The hulk of the Dreadnought is recovered as salvage. When the crew powered the ship up they start getting yelled at by a mysterious voice. It turns out to be Jefferson Clay... well at least a digital version of him. Right before he was killed in the battle for the Tolomin jump point his mind was copied into an experimental computer, the idea being that sometime in the future the Navy could put him in command of another ship due to his high success rate with the Dreadnought. Clay managed to convince the new crew of the Dreadnought not to tell the Navy about his existence.
AD 2608:
The Dreadnought is sent out to patrol an area where travelers have been reporting strange moving lights. After a while they chance upon one of the moving lights and discover it's actually an alien ship. The alien ship introduces itself as "Narima" and asks for assistance fighting "chaos". Before the crew of the Dreadnought can react the aliens remotely take over control and fly them off to somewhere still unknown. There the Dreadnought's crew sees what they can only assume to be a Chaos alien restraining a Narima ship with something resembling lightning. Not knowing what to do, the crew of the Dreadnought shoots the weird looking chaos ship and it simply disappears. The Narima aliens reward the crew by amending their ship with a capsule space tracker. The also give them something called the Nova loop, which isn't seen for 400 years.
AD 2610
The Indies have made a resurgence of frightening scale. They have been making surprise attacks on fleets many times larger than they would have previously with much larger numbers of ships. This has the Navy confused because they know how many of any ship was built and how many were destroyed or captured and it doesn’t add up. Rather it more than adds up, by a lot. It appears as if the Independence movement has managed to setup a shipyard, something the Navy never thought would happen as the Indies don't have any long term bases. Also the Indies seem to have gotten their hands on better weapons and shielding systems. Then something completely unprecedented happens, the Indies make a surprise attack on Navy's fleet in the Xi Bootis system. The attack wipes out the Navy's presence in the system and the Indies claim control over it. This is probably the only system they could possibly defend because there is only one stable interstellar Lagrange point. Fortunately for the Commonwealth the system is of little interest because it was mostly empty containing a lone planet and a small asteroid field that did not have valuable resources in quantities that attracted only a few freelance miners.
AD 2612
The Dreadnought is sent on a mission into the Xi Bootis system to gather intelligence on what the Indies are up to. Using the Capsule space tracker they follow a freighter and find out that the Indies are jumping to a system that nobody knew had a LaGrange point. It wasn’t very far from the Xi Bootis system and it had only a small nearly burned out white dwarf star with no planets. Apparently a group of arms and ships manufacturers managed to haul enough materials there to create a station so heavy it had it's own gravitational field and thus a LaGrange point with the nearby star. Immediately it becomes clear where the Indies have been getting their extra ships and new weapons. Alone the Dreadnought appears doomed by the large hostile force that has yet to discover them due to the interference from the freighter they followed in. In a moment of blinding stupidity the Dreadnought's crew asks Clay what to do to which he replies "uhh, hide?!". The crew gets the hint and hide behind the freighter while it is being unloaded and reloaded with cargo that's outbound and manage to follow it to a slightly safer system.
A few months later the Navy mounts a massive surprise assault on the station. 14 Cruisers, 25 Destroyers, 50 Corvettes, and nearly 100 Patcoms descend on the station keeping well out of range of it's massive built in defenses. The arms makers calling themselves COSA tell the Navy they have no jurisdiction here and must leave at once, warning the Navy that they have much more advanced weaponry. The Navy ignores the request and manage to destroy the majority of the COSA fleet with minimal losses as COSA doesn't yet manufacture anything larger than Corvettes. The crew of the Dreadnought commandeer an Indie Mega-freighter, (a giant two kilometer long transport ship) and sets the autopilot to ram the COSA station. The Navy makes one last offer that If they surrender nobody will be harmed. The station immediately tells the Navy to go to hell. Hearing that the autopilot is remotely activated and the Mega-freighter slams into the station at several kilometers per second, punching a hole clean through the other side.
AD 2613
With the COSA shipyards destroyed, their sole purpose being to perpetuate the war for financial gains of the many corporations that rely on the war for their livelihoods, peace talks are finally underway. After much debate and discussion, some of the outer rim colonies are given independent control over most internal affairs. This allows the colonies many freedoms while still ensuring the people of Earth are able to get the supplies they need. In return the Indie fleet acts as an ally to the Navy, helping maintain order and stability throughout known space while still remaining autonomous. This sets up a totally new government, one supposed to allow free trade and self determination to flourish, the New Alliance.
The Indies have made a resurgence of frightening scale. They have been making surprise attacks on fleets many times larger than they would have previously with much larger numbers of ships. This has the Navy confused because they know how many of any ship was built and how many were destroyed or captured and it doesn’t add up. Rather it more than adds up, by a lot. It appears as if the Independence movement has managed to setup a shipyard, something the Navy never thought would happen as the Indies don't have any long term bases. Also the Indies seem to have gotten their hands on better weapons and shielding systems. Then something completely unprecedented happens, the Indies make a surprise attack on Navy's fleet in the Xi Bootis system. The attack wipes out the Navy's presence in the system and the Indies claim control over it. This is probably the only system they could possibly defend because there is only one stable interstellar Lagrange point. Fortunately for the Commonwealth the system is of little interest because it was mostly empty containing a lone planet and a small asteroid field that did not have valuable resources in quantities that attracted only a few freelance miners.
AD 2612
The Dreadnought is sent on a mission into the Xi Bootis system to gather intelligence on what the Indies are up to. Using the Capsule space tracker they follow a freighter and find out that the Indies are jumping to a system that nobody knew had a LaGrange point. It wasn’t very far from the Xi Bootis system and it had only a small nearly burned out white dwarf star with no planets. Apparently a group of arms and ships manufacturers managed to haul enough materials there to create a station so heavy it had it's own gravitational field and thus a LaGrange point with the nearby star. Immediately it becomes clear where the Indies have been getting their extra ships and new weapons. Alone the Dreadnought appears doomed by the large hostile force that has yet to discover them due to the interference from the freighter they followed in. In a moment of blinding stupidity the Dreadnought's crew asks Clay what to do to which he replies "uhh, hide?!". The crew gets the hint and hide behind the freighter while it is being unloaded and reloaded with cargo that's outbound and manage to follow it to a slightly safer system.
A few months later the Navy mounts a massive surprise assault on the station. 14 Cruisers, 25 Destroyers, 50 Corvettes, and nearly 100 Patcoms descend on the station keeping well out of range of it's massive built in defenses. The arms makers calling themselves COSA tell the Navy they have no jurisdiction here and must leave at once, warning the Navy that they have much more advanced weaponry. The Navy ignores the request and manage to destroy the majority of the COSA fleet with minimal losses as COSA doesn't yet manufacture anything larger than Corvettes. The crew of the Dreadnought commandeer an Indie Mega-freighter, (a giant two kilometer long transport ship) and sets the autopilot to ram the COSA station. The Navy makes one last offer that If they surrender nobody will be harmed. The station immediately tells the Navy to go to hell. Hearing that the autopilot is remotely activated and the Mega-freighter slams into the station at several kilometers per second, punching a hole clean through the other side.
AD 2613
With the COSA shipyards destroyed, their sole purpose being to perpetuate the war for financial gains of the many corporations that rely on the war for their livelihoods, peace talks are finally underway. After much debate and discussion, some of the outer rim colonies are given independent control over most internal affairs. This allows the colonies many freedoms while still ensuring the people of Earth are able to get the supplies they need. In return the Indie fleet acts as an ally to the Navy, helping maintain order and stability throughout known space while still remaining autonomous. This sets up a totally new government, one supposed to allow free trade and self determination to flourish, the New Alliance.