950 replies to this topic

[Quathos]

I must say, this is a great thread. There are a few things I would like to chime in on:

Yes, you couldn't see an extremely long range laser strike coming in unless you had FTL sensors. You also couldn't aim an extremely long range laser strike without FTL sensors. Also, at some point, non-naval class lasers would still attenuate under a dangerous energy level at a certain range. In a society that has trouble feeding and watering its people, I don't see too many lasers getting very well tuned.

Yes, you could build a heat-seeking missile, but you couldn't fit the IFF computers into the warhead without losing enough power to damage Mech grade armor. Again, they have trouble feeding and watering their people.

Yes, one armor would stop energy, kinetic, electric, and explosive munitions. That armor would be a multi-layer composite with the various layers being more effective at stopping specific types of armor. This should sound fairly reasonable today, since How Its Made and various Military channel shows have examined the M1A1 Abrams armor, which is good example of this kind of armor tech.

As for the weapons and computer sizes, remember, this is after 3-4 apocalyptic wars depending on how you consider the 3rd Succession War. Even Star Trek had humans losing tech after one apocalypse. The other thing that many seem to over look is the sheer loss of life that the wars entailed. 52 Million died just in the Kentares Massacre. That is more then twice the number of casualties in WWII.

Edit: sorry, I hate spelling in the wee hours of the morning.

Edited by Quathos, 05 August 2012 - 11:36 PM.

[Theodor Kling]

Elsydeon, on 05 August 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

Finally, the Catholic Church was not opposed to technology as such, but toward anything that opposed its nearly omnipresent power (they disprove God exists, nobody listens to the church anymore since they no longer have divine backup), including discoveries such as the Earth revolving around Sol (our star) instead of everything spinning around us.

I might have misformulated that. Of coures they were not against technological advance as such. But technological advance mostly comes from critical thinkers, and those were very dangerous to the chuch ( or just about every power relying on people simply do as they are told without questions).
And just to be clear: I don´t want this to be about religion realy. The church diduse eligion of course.But another example for forcibly slowed technological progress to enforce the status quo are the Japaneese Shoguns, who effectivly managed to get Japan not only not forwad ( yeah..bad fomulation), but also a bit backwards by taking firearms out of the picture despite having used them already.

[Felix the Cat]

Personally, I always thought thought this was the biggest glaring error to the BT universe.
- Visible light lasers capable of doing enough heat damage to vaporize armor/structures

A good CO2 laser on the other hand...

Edited by Felix the Cat, 05 August 2012 - 11:20 PM.

[Bloodweaver]

Quathos, on 05 August 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

As for the weapons and computer sizes, remember, this is after 3-4 apocalyptic wars depending on how you consider the 3rd Succession War. Even Star Trek had humans losing tech after one apocalypse. The other thing that many seem to over look is the sheer loss of life that the wars entailed. 52 MILLION died just in the Kentares Massacre. That is more then twice the number of casualties in WWII.

I'd say that this is actually understood by everyone, but the simple extent of it is just ridiculous. When was the last time a 1,000-pound gun could only fire 300 feet? That's the statistics for a BT machine gun. And it's not a slightly-less-than-current tech level. It's not even 19th or 18th century tech level. I can't imagine a half-ton cannon's range being that low since the 1500s.

Not that I'm complaining - it definitely makes killing more fun when you can actually see what you're shooting at But it is indeed ridiculous.

[Theodor Kling]

Bloodweaver, on 05 August 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Technological development in Europe was not hindered by the Church. The crossbow example [ ...]

Similarly, the idea that the Church suppressed knowledge is mostly bunk. The Church was the source of knowledge.

The crossbow WAS banned at one point ( althoug hI am too lazy too look it up now). That tha bann didn´t hold is no the same as the whole thing beeing a "myth".
And of course the church was the source of knowledge. Like a warhammer 40k slogan says: Knowledge is power: guard it well!
They were the source because they were real carefull about it. And of course, they and the high nobiltiy were the only ones with enough time on their hands. Your average farmer might have find writing and mathematics somewhat usefull ( if he was a free farmer that is) for tade. But even if the churhcwould have been willing to educate him in it, he simply didn´t have the time for it.

As for say advances in metalurgy, smithing and other crafts: they were often not distributed, because the church was not the only group keeping their secrets. A smith developing a new better process o make harder armour usually did not go to other smiths and toldthem how it´s done. Just like Apple and Micosoft don´t share software developments.

[Elessar]

Felix the Cat, on 05 August 2012 - 11:16 PM, said:

Personally, I always thought thought this was the biggest glaring error to the BT universe.
- Visible light lasers capable of doing enough heat damage to vaporize armor/structures

A good CO2 laser on the other hand...

Was the wavelength at which the lasers operated mentioned in any battletech novel (or sourcebook)?
(or at least, that the laserbeams were visible to the naked eye)

[Bloodweaver]

Theodor Kling, on 05 August 2012 - 11:15 PM, said:

I might have misformulated that. Of coures they were not against technological advance as such. But technological advance mostly comes from critical thinkers, and those were very dangerous to the chuch ( or just about every power relying on people simply do as they are told without questions).
And just to be clear: I don´t want this to be about religion realy. The church diduse eligion of course.But another example for forcibly slowed technological progress to enforce the status quo are the Japaneese Shoguns, who effectivly managed to get Japan not only not forwad ( yeah..bad fomulation), but also a bit backwards by taking firearms out of the picture despite having used them already.

I know next to nothing about pre-modern Japanese culture, except that katanas have supernatural abilities The Church was not only unafraid of critical thinkers - it was full of them. Augustine and Aquinas both led to a number of revisions in theological discourse. Now, you said you don't want to make this about religion, so let's just focus on tech. When speaking purely of technology, there simply wasn't any hindering of progress. At all. Examples are numerous, as I said, but even without them you can see why the concept is flawed using nothing more than logic - if the Church wants to be powerful, why would it prevent itself from gaining access to better technology, a.k.a. more power? In the BT parallel (ComStar) this is resolved somewhat by having them possess their own military, R&D, etc. Which of course is rather silly in and of itself - the BT universe asks us to believe that ComStar is both enormously powerful AND doesn't use its power directly.

[Theodor Kling]

Felix the Cat, on 05 August 2012 - 11:16 PM, said:

Personally, I always thought thought this was the biggest glaring error to the BT universe.
- Visible light lasers capable of doing enough heat damage to vaporize armor/structures

A good CO2 laser on the other hand...

I dont remember reading any clear wavelength meontined in BT. The visible aspect is jsut that no matter waht wvelength the laser got, from a ceatina energy density on ( somewhere in the TW/cm^2 regime) any laser beam is visible due to complete ionization of air in the beam path.

[Bloodweaver]

Theodor Kling, on 05 August 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

The crossbow WAS banned at one point ( althoug hI am too lazy too look it up now). That tha bann didn´t hold is no the same as the whole thing beeing a "myth"....
As for say advances in metalurgy, smithing and other crafts: they were often not distributed, because the church was not the only group keeping their secrets. A smith developing a new better process o make harder armour usually did not go to other smiths and toldthem how it´s done. Just like Apple and Micosoft don´t share software developments.

I'm not sure it was actually banned. I've heard the story, obviously, but I haven't seen the proof myself. Not saying that it doesn't exist, but in the end it doesn't matter, because the point remains the same. The reason the crossbow ban was originally mentioned here was as an example of the church limiting technological progress. If the ban didn't take hold, progress was not limited.

Technological progress actually spread quite quickly, considering how much slower trade and communication were at the time. Armor is one of the most prominent examples of this. Regional variations abound, of course, but trade secrets were apparently quite difficult to maintain. Plate armor developed, and spread, extremely rapidly throughout Europe in the space of about 50 years(approximately 1300 through 1350). Plate armor could only be reliably produced using several technological breakthroughs, such as the water-powered trip hammer.

[PaintedWolf]

Bloodweaver, on 05 August 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Similarly, the idea that the Church suppressed knowledge is mostly bunk. The Church was the source of knowledge. It wasn't just a religious institution, as it is today; the modern world is much more interested in compartmentalization than older cultures were. This applies to a lot of different phenomena, but the role of the Church in the medieval world is a good example of it. In addition to being the spiritual leader of whatever community it inhabited, it was also the educational institution, the banking system, a balancing check against the local nobility's power, and a calendar service. I understand you're mostly referring to the fact that you wouldn't find a lot of turnip farmers filling the ecclesiastic vestures, but you have to bear in mind that the main reason for this is because these same farmers wouldn't have found the idea beneficial to their lifestyle. What would they gain from learning to read and write, if the only way to make use of that skill is to read and write more? A modern comparison would be studying philosophy, or art history. A degree in either is, generally speaking, only useful if you intend to become a professor in the same subject. They're not widely applicable subjects.

Oh come on now. The "Church" was not some absolute, hivemind organism. Different Popes had different policies, different Bishops had different policies, different Kings and Princes had different policies.

Isaac Newton banned competing scientific theories, are we debating about whether the British Monarchy outlawed certain technologies or sciences for political benefit?

To think that the Catholic Church could block the development of all science and technology is naive. Especially with respect to military technologies that the feudal lords would want to use against each other.

To think that the Church was always in favor of all technological development is also naive. Just like they adopted various Pagan Holidays for political reasons, and sanctioned the "Divine Right" of Kings, they would have to likely at some point, either to preserve their own image, or because of political favors/economic interest might interfere with scientific or technological development.

Also many "Natural Philosophers" at the time were Church Leaders. Powerful, influential people, and maybe they could at times feel threatened by a rival scientific or philosophical theory.

I mean think of some local priest just declaring some random discovery "wtch craft". How many variables are there for deciding if the Church goes against this person? Is he popular or unpopular, does he have connections with the local Lords, how important is it to protect this discovery? There are always zealots around to declare something new "evil" for any insane reason, and the Church could certainly not stop all of them. And only the most idealistic person would honestly believe Holy Mother Church would never try to profit by them.

I mean for most of that time science wasn't even around. The most they had was Natural Philosophy. And the Church was very busy declaring the "Vampire warding" powers of Garlic "Witchcraft" so they could make money selling crosses as the Official and Holy and Proper way to keep a Vampire or the Devil or an Evil Spirit away.

Mlost of the Church leaders did not know a darned thing about sciences and did not care. If any policy was made regarding such, it was likely for political expediency at the moment and often times swayed back and forth.

And this isn't even including the times the Church was divided into 3 different Popes and such.

And keep in mind back then, the Dark and "Medieval" Ages we are dealing with some really, REALLY backwards people. Most of these people cannot even read or write or do basic math. Many barely bathed.

How in the heck do Church leaders even tell a "true" Natural Theory from a false one?

To give an example, before the general acceptance of Occam's Razor there were serious debates about whether certain waterfalls could get horses pregnant. Many an "educated man" back then based their entire work as "Natural Philosophers" back then to maintaining propositions like these- staking their reputations on such. These could be Nobles or Priests, and if they had enough power and were very vain, and you "debunked" their theories or attempted such they would not be very happy. All they might have to do is talk to the local Bishop, and we got ourselves a "heretic" or "witch" or devil worshipper or whatever.

It takes a lot of progress to build up social institutions which allow for the kind of free speech and knowledge, and progressive research that we see today. Not only with material and society, but philosophical principles like those of modern empiricism and principles of parsimony and coherence (logic- formal and informal) have to be developed and maintained.

People basically lived as cavemen for hundreds of thousands of years, and after that for centuries as basically dirt farmers with a few specialists here and there. Our modern day high-tech system is the exception.

Edited by PaintedWolf, 06 August 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[Elessar]

Bloodweaver, on 05 August 2012 - 11:37 PM, said:

I'm not sure it was actually banned. I've heard the story, obviously, but I haven't seen the proof myself. Not saying that it doesn't exist, but in the end it doesn't matter, because the point remains the same. The reason the crossbow ban was originally mentioned here was as an example of the church limiting technological progress. If the ban didn't take hold, progress was not limited.

Technological progress actually spread quite quickly, considering how much slower trade and communication were at the time. Armor is one of the most prominent examples of this. Regional variations abound, of course, but trade secrets were apparently quite difficult to maintain. Plate armor developed, and spread, extremely rapidly throughout Europe in the space of about 50 years(approximately 1300 through 1350). Plate armor could only be reliably produced using several technological breakthroughs, such as the water-powered trip hammer.

Well, one of the popes IRC forbid its use against christians. But this still allowed their use against muslims and other heathens

[Rokhelh]

Quietly Crazy, on 31 July 2012 - 12:36 AM, said:

-Though the entire galaxy has been searched, only the human race managed to become sentient. No other star system produced what can be considered even semi-intelligent life.

I do beleive there once was an alien race mentioned in one of the twilight of the clans book series that was killed off by the clans after they seperated from the inner sphere, i could be wrong tho.

[Melcyna]

Quathos, on 05 August 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

I must say, this is a great thread. There are a few things I would like to chime in on:

Yes, you couldn't see an extremely long range laser strike coming in unless you had FTL sensors. You also couldn't aim an extremely long range laser strike without FTL sensors. Also, at some point, non-naval class lasers would still attenuate under a dangerous energy level at a certain range. In a society that has trouble feeding and watering its people, I don't see too many lasers getting very well tuned.

Yes, you could build a heat-seeking missile, but you couldn't fit the IFF computers into the warhead without losing enough power to damage Mech grade armor. Again, they have trouble feeding and watering their people.

Yes, one armor would stop energy, kinetic, electric, and explosive munitions. That armor would be a multi-layer composite with the various layers being more effective at stopping specific types of armor. This should sound fairly reasonable today, since How Its Made and various Military channel shows have examined the M1A1 Abrams armor, which is good example of this king of armor tech.

As for the weapons and computer sizes, remember, this is after 3-4 apocalyptic wars depending on how you consider the 3rd Succession War. Even Star Trek had humans losing tech after one apocalypse. The other thing that many seem to over look is the sheer loss of life that the wars entailed. 52 MILLION died just in the Kentares Massacre. That is more then twice the number of casualties in WWII.

Few things off... the attacker in a laser strike scenario DOES NOT NEED an FTL sensor because the target ship does not realistically have the capability of moving at such acceleration that it needs one.

All it means is that when calculating the targeting solution, the attacker needs to introduce further delay into the calculation ie: the positional information of the target will always be seconds or minutes off depending on how far away it is...

This DOES mean that there will be some degree of error on the final solution, but unless the target is quite agile and fast (of which neither dropship or jumpship are exactly), essentially hitting them with laser based weapon within a million kilometer or more is still within reasonable area.

Second is that IFF is NOT the bulk of the mechanism in a smart guided munition, not sure where you get that idea since most munitions don't carry the IFF, the firing platform sensor normally is the one carrying it.

and even in the case where the munition itself carry an IFF transponder and interrogator their size is trivial compared to the rest of the components, the IFF is nothing more than a transponder that has to respond in a pre determined manner when given the interrogation signal by another transponder, THAT'S IT... answer wrongly and the other transponder identify you as FOE, answer correctly and they identify you as FRIEND, THE END... there's nothing complicated and their tech is so simple and straightforward that the device size is limited only by how far away the interrogation signal and answer from the transponder have to be emitted.

For example a toll gate automatic signal device that civilians use nowadays the size of a small wallet? That's a transponder with exact same mechanism as an IFF except on smaller scale and different answer signal.

Incidentally, on the subject of ARMOR,

Tank composite armor, of which abrams uses chobham based composite armor works under the assumption that one can FOCUS and mass the bulk of them, the abrams for example is nearly impenetrable frontally, but not quite nearly so from the flank or rear.

On a bipedal or other walking machines however this makes little sense overall since that essentially means you have to focus and mass the armor over the ENTIRE frontal section at least.

Even more nonsensical is that this armor is apparently supposed to be ABLATIVE in nature...

composite armor incidentally =/= ablative..
in fact that defies the whole purpose of the composite armor design since if the armor ablates itself then the composite function is lost... as the whole purpose of composite armor is that the combination of it's material yield stronger resistance than individually for the same weight or the same volume.

[Bloodweaver]

PaintedWolf, on 05 August 2012 - 11:41 PM, said:

To think that the Church was always in favor of all technological development is also naive. Just like they adopted various Pagan Holidays for political reasons, and sanctioned the "Divine Right" of Kings, they would have to likely at some point, either to preserve their own image, or because of political favors/economic interest might interfere with scientific or technological development.

Elessar, on 05 August 2012 - 11:41 PM, said:

Well, one of the popes IRC forbid its use against christians. But this still allowed their use against muslims and other heathens

You both seem to be misunderstanding the actual purpose of my point. Remember that this is a thread about BT ridiculousness, and the discussion of the Roman Catholic Church is in relation to that. More specifically, to ComStar. It does not matter whether or not the Church wanted to limit technological progress; what is ridiculous about ComStar is that it did limit progress, not that it merely wanted to. As an example, even if the Church banned the use of crossbows against Christians, it had little to no effect. The weapon never fell out of use until gunpowder became common on the battlefield. And that is why, on top of warfare leading to tech loss being ridiculous, ComStar's successful suppression of tech progress is equally ridiculous.

[PaintedWolf]

Bloodweaver, on 05 August 2012 - 11:28 PM, said:

I know next to nothing about pre-modern Japanese culture, except that katanas have supernatural abilities The Church was not only unafraid of critical thinkers - it was full of them. Augustine and Aquinas both led to a number of revisions in theological discourse. Now, you said you don't want to make this about religion, so let's just focus on tech. When speaking purely of technology, there simply wasn't any hindering of progress. At all. Examples are numerous, as I said, but even without them you can see why the concept is flawed using nothing more than logic - if the Church wants to be powerful, why would it prevent itself from gaining access to better technology, a.k.a. more power? In the BT parallel (ComStar) this is resolved somewhat by having them possess their own military, R&D, etc. Which of course is rather silly in and of itself - the BT universe asks us to believe that ComStar is both enormously powerful AND doesn't use its power directly.

Comstar is enormously powerful and does not use its power directly because it is outnumbered 100s or 1000s to 1. It is basically waiting for the Great Houses to destroy each other and then rush in as the religious Saviors of Humanity.

People really underestimate how resilient the Great Houses really are. If you starting looking at the numbers, it becomes apparent for that reason alone why the Clans and WoB never really had a chance. They are Intergalactic Super-States after all. The Four Succession Wars didn't destroy them.

If a simple disaster was all it took to end a Feudal State, well then France, England and Spain would not have survived the Black Plague or Byzantine invasions.

[Bloodweaver]

Melcyna, on 05 August 2012 - 11:47 PM, said:

Few things off... the attacker in a laser strike scenario DOES NOT NEED an FTL sensor because the target ship does not realistically have the capability of moving at such acceleration that it needs one.

All it means is that when calculating the targeting solution, the attacker needs to introduce further delay into the calculation ie: the positional information of the target will always be seconds or minutes off depending on how far away it is...

This DOES mean that there will be some degree of error on the final solution, but unless the target is quite agile and fast (of which neither dropship or jumpship are exactly), essentially hitting them with laser based weapon within a million kilometer or more is still within reasonable area.

It all depends on how far away the target is. If you were to fire your laser at a star from Earth, for example, you would almost certainly miss - when you look at a star, you're not even seeing its current position. You're seeing where it was located however many light-years ago its distance is(man that's an awkward sentence...). Likewise, if a target is five "light-minutes" away, your laser beam is going to take five minutes to reach him. Unless he's sitting still, relative to you, you will miss. And you won't even know whether you've hit or missed until another five minutes goes by - how long it takes for the light from him to reach you. The speed of the target doesn't necessarily matter

[PaintedWolf]

Bloodweaver, on 05 August 2012 - 11:50 PM, said:

You both seem to be misunderstanding the actual purpose of my point. Remember that this is a thread about BT ridiculousness, and the discussion of the Roman Catholic Church is in relation to that. More specifically, to ComStar. It does not matter whether or not the Church wanted to limit technological progress; what is ridiculous about ComStar is that it did limit progress, not that it merely wanted to. As an example, even if the Church banned the use of crossbows against Christians, it had little to no effect. The weapon never fell out of use until gunpowder became common on the battlefield. And that is why, on top of warfare leading to tech loss being ridiculous, ComStar's successful suppression of tech progress is equally ridiculous.

Why can't it be that war can promote technological development in the short-term, or if contained/controlled, but in the long-term be damaging to such?

I mean the Succession Wars see entire planets wiped out and Infrastructure collapse.

Consider a Nuclear War now. If we launched the bombs- full scale- would our technological progress really accelerate so rapidly?

Edited by PaintedWolf, 05 August 2012 - 11:58 PM.

[Bloodweaver]

PaintedWolf, on 05 August 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

Comstar is enormously powerful and does not use its power directly because it is outnumbered 100s or 1000s to 1. It is basically waiting for the Great Houses to destroy each other and then rush in as the religious Saviors of Humanity.

People really underestimate how resilient the Great Houses really are. If you starting looking at the numbers, it becomes apparent for that reason alone why the Clans and WoB never really had a chance. They are Intergalactic Super-States after all. The Four Succession Wars didn't destroy them.

If a simple disaster was all it took to end a Feudal State, well then France, England and Spain would not have survived the Black Plague or Byzantine invasions.

Actually, the Black Plague was by far the major cause in the downfall of the feudal class system

Anyway, there's a contradiction. If the Houses are that powerful, then ComStar's power can't really be called "enormous," can it? And if it is enormously powerful, then it shouldn't have much of an issue putting the squeeze on its subjects. It can't be both one thing and its own opposite, at the same time. "Realistically" speaking, there's nothing preventing ComStar from just cutting off all communications to/from a world, inventing its own explanation, and then making it its own. I suspect the WoB was introduced to fill in this gaping hole of logic by making a splinter group of bad guys do it, so that nobody would ask why ComStar themselves hadn't done it yet.

[Melcyna]

Bloodweaver, on 05 August 2012 - 11:55 PM, said:

It all depends on how far away the target is. If you were to fire your laser at a star from Earth, for example, you would almost certainly miss - when you look at a star, you're not even seeing its current position. You're seeing where it was located however many light-years ago its distance is(man that's an awkward sentence...). Likewise, if a target is five "light-minutes" away, your laser beam is going to take five minutes to reach him. Unless he's sitting still, relative to you, you will miss. And you won't even know whether you've hit or missed until another five minutes goes by - how long it takes for the light from him to reach you. The speed of the target doesn't necessarily matter

Indeed, but that's fine because what we're concerned with is the distance from the habitable planet or important planet to the NEAREST jump point since that's pretty much the only areas the ships in BT can travel from and arrive to in a system from an FTL travel do they not?

thus far, ALL of their distances indicate that this is within reasonable distance to acquire a firing solution for the massive ships with a light based weaponry.

and incidentally in the case of aiming with 'lag' on their distance based on light speed, calculating the CORRECT LEAD to hit the target is TRIVIAL since the movement is predictable, all you need to know is how far exactly is he to calculate the correct offset.

He does NOT NEED TO BE still relative to you, all that we need is that his movement vector is STABLE from our point of view until the laser either hit or almost at range to hit the target. He could be 10 LIGHTYEARS AWAY from us and we can STILL HIT HIM 100% of the time if we know the exact pattern of where he will be in 10 years from now.

That is what the original argument the poster had about 'random evasive movement' came for....

basically randomizing the pattern to ensure that no lead can be calculated on the firing solution to realistically hit the target... but to do this within a million kilometer at least require that the ship is capable of sufficient acceleration to move the entire bulk of the mass out of the way within seconds.

Edited by Melcyna, 06 August 2012 - 12:11 AM.

[Bloodweaver]

PaintedWolf, on 05 August 2012 - 11:57 PM, said:

Why can't it be that war can promote technological development in the short-term, or if contained/controlled, but in the long-term be damaging to such?

Because history has shown, time and time again, that war vastly accelerates technological development. Would you consider a hundred years long-term? The Hundred Years' War (which wasn't really a single conflict, nor exactly 100 years, depending on which parts of it you consider to apply) covered one of the most dynamic periods of European cultural and technological development.

You have to consider what war actually is. The blood, killing, violence, these are parts of it. But at its core, all warfare is a cultural exchange. Our guys interacting with their guys, who have different tools, customs, languages, ideas, and habits. The addition of violence is what separates warfare from immigration or trade, but it is the element of cultural exchange that separates warfare from crime. And with cultural exchange comes technological development.