The Culture versus the UFP & Allies

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Who wins, then?

Federation
4
24%
Culture
13
76%
 
Total votes: 17

GStone
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Posts: 1016
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:16 am
Location: Undercover in Culture space

Post by GStone » Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:11 pm

herzeleid
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Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 29

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:04 am Post subject:


GStone wrote:
I would think that with any kind of nonaggression pact/peace treaty situation, some amount of information is exchanged,
even if it isn't the whole truth. There can also be interactions the Federation has with others of the Culture'verse side of
things. So, the general idea that the Federation would know that the Culture is more advanced than them seems okay.



And it's equally likely that the Federation will be led to believe the Culture has parity with them, or is even somewhat inferior.


Quote:
Well, in the worse case scenario, there is a chance some people would want to change Culture society instead of just
leaving to start a new one.



I don't see how this worst case scenario is realistic. Even if some of them did want to change it, they would be virtually powerless to do so.



Quote:
This is why I mentioned the relatively fast pace of technological development of the Federation. We do know the "modern"
(late 24 century) Federation knows that in a few hundred years they will have reliable time travel tech. If this was
discovered by the higher ups in the Culture, either through interaction with the populace of the Federation or if it was
mentioned off the cuff during the initial exchange of information or it slipped out or whatever, since Starfleet people are very
relaxed and not so secretive about Temporal Investigations existing and interacting with their modern world without trying
to keep it a secret, it could be something that makes them wonder.



So, what? The humans somehow manage to use time travel technology to enslave the Minds without any resistance from pro-Mind humans
or machines?


Quote:
There is much that is objective that's doing what's right. It's the subjective part that's a real bitch.



And what will they see subjectively in the Federation that would trigger such radical changes?


Quote:
Using Culture technology gives them a better chance of succeeding. Using the tech of their neighbors would stretch out the
investigation because it would be easier for them to detect the less advanced tech, which would send them on fact finding
missions and covert ops into other territories. The tests done on those that would be coming back from meeting the Cuture
could be done on them, too.



How are they going to distinguish espionage by the Culture via local proxies from genuine operations by those other powers?


Quote:
1. Motivation: If changelings are found to have replaced certain individuals in key positions, top secret intelligence has been
accessed, effectorizing the negotiations/ambassadoralial team/ship crew. All of this paints the picture of attempting to take
over the Federation and cover their tracks.



This still doesn't explain why they would adopt a single nonstandard armament to defeat capabilities they are ignorant of.


Quote:
2. The operation of the phase drive I've proposed alters the resonance phase frequency of matter/energy. This allows
transitions between parallel realities. This also means that you don't have to be totally "integrated" into the reality to interact
with it. This was also seen done by those that were doing experiments on Voyager's crew. The less you are integrated into
a particular universe, the less you are bound by its particular laws and restrictions of time and space.

There will be some interaction necessary, you can't get around that, but keeping it to a minimum will increase things, such as
engine speed, sensor range, etc. Continuum distortions are used for engines, shields and presumably for
sensors/communications, but, as shown in Equinox, they can make distortions that are phased, which they used for their
shields to keep out the spirits of good fortune that were attacking.

It will take "time" from their perspective, but being able to phase with space-time means you can move through time and
that can increase the ranges of Federation technology.



To what degree will these things be increased?


Quote:
3. If the Culture used other species from the Trek galaxy, how they discover that it was the Culture can easily be done
through the investigation. There can be psychic scans of witnesses the Culture overlooked, sensors readings from their own
outposts and ships and those of other species. There's a lot of ways to potentially find out. Which ones could be used
would be determined by just how some of the Culture's tech worked, but there is limited info on some of it.



The Federation would be far less likely to discover any overlooked witnesses than Minds would be to leave witnesses overlooked in the
first place. Even if they did find some, they wouldn't automatically know what the Culture is or of their involvement.


Quote:
If it was something, like brainwashing with romulan or klingon equipment, if the people involved did it without being
manipulated, there would be evidence in their memories. If those involved are of a species that was resistant to
telepathic/empathic scans, then their memores can still be read the same way doctors on ships remove memories of people
from pre-warp civilizations. And, as shown in later years of the TNG era, telepathy/empathy can be used on areas where
strong emotions have occurred.



Examining the people involved won't do them any good if they believe - without being tampered with - that they received orders to do
what they did from their superiors.

And none of this explains how they'll find all of the Culture's assets spread throughout the Local Group, how they'll get their weapons to
stick with mobile assets under way, how they're going manage to produce and emplace enough of their weapons (which you still haven't
shown to be powerful enough to do any good) to accomplish their goal, how they'll keep up with new construction...


Quote:
I agree, not just spies. It would come from the type of information the spies were gathering (either finding what is on their
bugging devices, where they were planeted and/or from telepathic/empathic scans), finding changelings have replaced key
individuals.



How will they determine what is on any bugging devices they find?


Quote:
They aren't above genocide. That Admiral was upset with Picard because he prevented them from getting rid of the borg.
The top brass of Starfleet were willing to not do a thing when they knew Section 31 had created a virus to kill the
Founders.



The Borg and Founders also represented very real, very direct, immediate threats to the Federation; in the case of the Culture, they'd have
only speculation based on circumstantial evidence, assuming they can link any of it to the Culture in the first place.


Quote:
But, are they gonna "use a miniscule portion of its forces...to utterly obliterate the Federation at once", while still gathering
intelligence and before the actual war fighting starts? This seems the opposite of what you said before, that the Culture will
try to avoid going to war at all, if they can. Infiltrating and subverting have been what seems to be the way they'd go first,
even if they would be stockpiling weapons and ships, while they're gathering intelligence.



I'm not saying it's likely to happen, just that they have the numbers for it.

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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:32 pm Post subject:


Captain Hat wrote:
Holy leap in logic Batman!

You assume too much, for starters. Just becasue you can tell something's from another time or scan something down to the
quantum level when it's inside your ship, stationary or whatever does not mean you can do it across space against a hostile
craft that is moving far faster than it has any right to and using ECM fields that are so strong it can melt steel with them (ref:
Zakalwe's plasma gun).



Then, you are not understanding what being phased means. Take the mirror'verse and the main universe of Trek. Why do they not interact
unless a deliberate process is involved? Because the matter and energy of the 2 universes is phased to each other. Only by adjusting the
phase of the energy from one universe will it only then interact with the other universe.

Take the interphasic organisms that were feeding off the E-D crew and only Data was picking them up at first. Crusher used an interphasic
scanner, showing they were on the crew and they didn't even know they were there.

The extent of interphasic scanning I'm aware of that the Culture uses is used in grid/trapdoor systems, displacers and hyperdrive units.
That's a very limited set of phase frequencies to be scanned out of all the possible ones with some interaction of any universe.

You keep leaving out the temporally phased part. There has been no evidence of being able to skip around time with Culture tech. It won't
matter how fast they can go in their ships when your opponent is able to move back and forth through time because they (the Culture) will
just continue into the future.

Any use of ECM would have a not as strong interaction with something that's partially phased and an increasingly weaker interaction the
more it is phased. The level of interaction would be determined by how much in phase the Fed ship was and them being in the area of
effect the ECM, but Culture ECM is not always on.

Quote:
In fact, I would consider such a scenario extremely unlikely, especially given that according to you transphasing works
through rather than across the skein in five-dimensional space, so that the majority of the culture's four-dimensional
hypervoilume is not accessed by it directly unless you can move in that direction anyway, which the Federation has shown
no capability of.



The phasing done by the Culture is one type, an in universe phase. What I am talking about for the drive is that they can use in universe
phasing, but also extrauniverse phasing, where you can switch between parallel realities. I am defining parallel realities, as, to use an
example, the mirror'verse and the main Trek universe. The phasing used by the Culture can be described, as phasing between different
areas of a single universe.

Quote:
Add to that the fact that Culture ships actually spend very little time in the skein itself and that the Federation hasn't yet even
shown the ability to scan upwards and downwards in four dimensions, and you have a problem of epic proportions.



Back in Equinox, Voyager showed the ability to adjust their shields to keep out the interphasic openings caused by the spirits of good
fortune that were attacking by having the shield emitter project multi-phasic frequencies. Where the spirits came from exactly, I don't
know, but there is a good chance that they can do something. They were also able to detect that Riker and them were being transported to
another universe back in Schisms. This was a universe connected to their own, so they can scan universes/areas of space that are
related/connected to their own. They are also able to scan areas where subspace starts to enter real space, such as the incident just before
they got the orders to restrict warp travel to warp 5 unless it is an emergency. Subspace, whatever it is, is another part of the universe
connected to real space.

Quote:
You need to transphase to exactly the right state and position yourself at exactly the right point in five-dimensional space to
catch a single point in four-dimensional space and you need to do it inside what, a ffraction of a microsecond? Even if you
are phasing across time, you still need to get so lucky that "astronomical" doesn't even begin to desribe the odds against
you.



It shouldn't be as difficult, as you are making it out to be. I don't see why you're objecting to the idea. Each point in space-time is an
energy value. You just keep scanning the energy values of space-time till you get it right. Then, you move in. This requires, presumably,
quantum level scanning.

herzeleid wrote:
I don't see how this worst case scenario is realistic. Even if some of them did want to change it, they would be virtually
powerless to do so.



Which is where an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively short time is a factor in the scenario. Because of the nonaggression
pact/peace treaty situation, being on even semi-good terms with them and the tendency of the Federation to help those in need, even
enemies, like the romulans during the TNG era and the klingons in the TOS era, could potentially lead to it.

Quote:
So, what? The humans somehow manage to use time travel technology to enslave the Minds without any resistance from
pro-Mind humans or machines?



I wouldn't say enslave and there would be resistance, of course, but, in the future, with an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively
short time, the disparity between their technological deveopments wouldn't be, as large as it is. It's also hard to figure how some people
get, what'll set things off, even when they normally try to avoid fighting, as much as possible.

Quote:
And what will they see subjectively in the Federation that would trigger such radical changes?



I'm not saying it has to be something they see in the Federation necesarily. It could be something they see in their own society or some
combination of both. With the subjective view of 'doing what's right', you have to get into individual experiences that are both good and
bad, which happen in both the Culture and the Federation.

Quote:
How are they going to distinguish espionage by the Culture via local proxies from genuine operations by those other
powers?



If local proxies are used that have been brainwashed, a change in tactics when looking for certain pieces of info can be a red flag. They
have had years of experience with the proxy powers and their infiltration methods (a particular device, a way a device is used, etc.).
Certain orders can lead to a variation of what is used and how it's used. If there is no brainwashing involved, it can lead back to those that
have been in contact with the Culture, if the actual spy that's caught had no contact. This individual(s) will have this information about
contact with the Culture for this purpose in their memory, which can be read by a telepath/empath and/or read with medical technology.

Quote:
This still doesn't explain why they would adopt a single nonstandard armament to defeat capabilities they are ignorant of.



Are they ignorant of it? They don't have to be. Information exchange on history and technology in a nonaggression pact/peace treaty
situation can provide some info.

Quote:
To what degree will these things be increased?



The potential is quite high, like crossing crossing the distance between the Milky Way and a galaxy 150 thousands galaxies away and more
in half a second (from the perspective of someone not phasing at all). Many of the advancements are limited to what you can come up
with. As was shown by the krenum, rewriting history, even short term histories, to give you an advantage in a fight, weapons that shift
through time to get around defenses. The krenum may or may not be using the same kind of phasing tech, but the underlying ideas of the
potential are the same.

This kind of technology has both incredible pluses and devastating minuses. The Temporal Cold War from ENT is just one example how it
can be.

Quote:
The Federation would be far less likely to discover any overlooked witnesses than Minds would be to leave witnesses
overlooked in the first place. Even if they did find some, they wouldn't automatically know what the Culture is or of their
involvement.



Nope, not necessarily immediately know, but, like I said above, it can lead to them discovering it.

Quote:
Examining the people involved won't do them any good if they believe - without being tampered with - that they received
orders to do what they did from their superiors.



See above where I talk about people being brainwashed versus people not being brainwashed.

Quote:
And none of this explains how they'll find all of the Culture's assets spread throughout the Local Group, how they'll get their
weapons to stick with mobile assets under way, how they're going manage to produce and emplace enough of their
weapons (which you still haven't shown to be powerful enough to do any good) to accomplish their goal, how they'll keep
up with new construction...



1. See above where I talk about equipment ranges increasing. With faster FTL equipment, they can search a larger area in a shorter time
than normal.
2. Being not restricted to time and space, as they were, torps can be moved around quickly and "dropped off" are certain points in sace
and time to interact with them at the time and place of the phased ship's choosing.
3. Again, when you can travel through time and space and to parallel universes, while your opponent isn't gonna be doing that, you can
make all the equipment you need (replicators are fast, industrial replicators can make a lot), they will continue forward in time, while you
are going back in time.

You have the advantage and control of when and where engagements take place. But, that doesn't mean anything, if you don't have the
armament to cause their destruction and the knowledge of where and when to put the armaments, which they get from scanning through
space and through time and the gravimetric warheads in torps that can phase.

But, let's say there is an initial miscalculation of how many torps would be needed for total success. They find this out by scanning through
space and through time to see, if the plan was successful, while they stay phased. Seeing it didn't go, as planned, the ship stays phased, so
the Culture can't touch them and adjust their plan. If they found that it wasn't the level of destruction they wanted, they can do it again and
keep doing it till they get it right.

Quote:
How will they determine what is on any bugging devices they find?



They've had past interactions with bugging devices before. If we are talking about using spies from the proxy powers, such as romulan,
klingon, etc. it isn't gonna be that hard, if they are using their indigenous technology that the Federation is already familiar with. The Culture
would have a better chance, if they gave them Culture tech, but we've long since dropped that idea.

Quote:
The Borg and Founders also represented very real, very direct, immediate threats to the Federation; in the case of the
Culture, they'd have only speculation based on circumstantial evidence, assuming they can link any of it to the Culture in the
first place.



See everything I've said in this post, the one right before it and the one where I gave the latest scenario. It's all in there for this point.

Quote:
I'm not saying it's likely to happen, just that they have the numbers for it.



Ah.

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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 3:41 pm Post subject:


dakarne wrote:
Excuse me...

But do you have any evidence that phased ships in Trek are "Temporally" phased, or just "Materially" Phased?

Simply put: You didn't provide any evidence of that.



Everything naturally has a specific resonance phase frequency for all the energy that makes it up, wheher it is matter or energy. When we
say something is phased, we are talking about the resonance phase frequencies are different from something else, where we need a second
point of reference for the comparisson. In this case, the mirror'verse is phased to the main Trek universe and the main Trek universe is
phased to the mirror'verse.

They are already phased both temporally and materially at a specific point in time and space, as long as they don't have the nature of their
resonance phase frequency changing on its own, either randomly or not. The phasing I'm talking about here is a deliberate alteration of the
resonance phase frequencies for both time and space.

Quote:
And also: it takes time for a ship to be able to perform a "Timewarp" (as seen in ST:IV)



The phasing I'm proposing in this scenario doesn't use the same method, as what is used in that particular example.

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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:36 pm Post subject:


Captain Hat wrote:
Two things: One, you still haven't provided any evidence, you're basically just making shit up with that temporal thing.



Then, it should be very easy for you to go through my posts and explain why I haven't provided evidence. Making generalized statements,
like that does nothing.

Quote:
Two, Trek "phasing" is blatantly a movement across a completely different set of four-dimensional parameters to Culture
Hyperspace.



It's "blatantly" not the same because each side is not supposed to use the other side's stuff, like Fed ships using Wars' hyperdrives. Plus,
I've never said they would use the Culture's hyperspace.

Quote:
Look at it this way. The standard Culture model of "2D-world moving into 3D" can be applied to their 4D space, where
hyper- and infraspace are above and below the "sheet of paper" that represents the skein of reality.

Right? So that' simple enough. There are universes above and below the Energy Grids that are in turn above and below the
skein in hyperdirections as far as the Culture understands them.

However, in Trek alternate realities work in a completely different way. You just sort of "phase" there through some
treknobabble crap involving frequencies, which seems to be pretty much standard for treknobabble crap.



Trek parallel realities work off of variances of resonance phase frequencies. The Culture'verse has a series of older/younger universes,
which would all correspond to 1, or at least 1 small grouping of resonance phase frequencies. This view helps us to understand the
relationship of what is going on with what we, especially me, are talking about.

Quote:
Now, there are two ways we can reconcile this. One os to say that they're just different, hold our fingers in our ears and
pretend we know what we're talking about. The other is to apply common sense.

For example, what if you introduced another physical dimension, a fifth dimension. Reality as we know it could then be
represented as a single line on a sheet of paper. Above and below that line you have Hyper- and Infraspace, followed by
other universes, to either side you have alternate versions of the same universe as in Trek and the length of the line itself
represents time. Altering your "phase" would in this case move you sideways along the plane, but not upwards or
downwards away from the skein, which is perfectly consistent with everything we've seen Trek phasing do: It would also
move you diagonally to conventional time, in theory at least, which might have some effect on your "temporal phase"
assuming time is only an area and not, as I personally suspect, a volume in this model. I'll get back to that later, though. The
problem with this from your end is, of course, that you still can't go back in time simply by "phasing" and the Trek side still
can't "phase" into Hyper or Infraspace because phasing doesn't work like that. You still have to interact with the exact spot
on that area of time that the Culture ship is passing through.



There are two "directions" you can go in phase. Going up and down in the intensity phase frequency and the second is altering the
resonance phase frequency. Going up and down moves you through different areas of the same universe. Changing the resonance phase
frequency will take you out of the group you were going up and down through and into another set you can go up and down through. The
nature of what it means to phase means there are varying degrees of "being out of phase/being in phase" with something else.

Quote:
That's just the start of this post, though, that whole thing was a big preamble leeading up to the hammer blow.

Because if anything in Star Trek can phase itself across the plane, or travel in time, or dance a bizarre and arcane jig that
destroys spaceships by simple act of happening, the Culture will know about it in such intimate detail that they could build
one for you from raw Grid energy in less time than it takes a Trek captain to give the order to use it.



Provide the relevent passage(s) that show that the Culture already has knowledge of this kind of phasing, transphic torps and gravimetric
warheads that are the same, as the Federation's prior to meeting/interacting with the Federation at all. In a versus debate, each side is not
allowed to use the tech of the other side. Using their tech differently to counter the other side might be used, but not the actual device.

Quote:
The reason for this is simple, and has been touched on already in the thread: Effectors.

A Culture ship has to come within maybe a lightyear of a planet to be able to effectorise and thus read every possible scrap
of data from all of the computers on it. It only has to find one ship that has the relevant data and BANG, you have Culture
ships with time travel devices.

So either way, even if you COULD do this, by the time you get around to thinking of it the Culture will have already
perfected a set of countermeasures bigger than you can shake a Sovereign at and/or done it to you.



This goes against the rules of a versus debate, see above.

Okay, Hat. I'm giving you an ultimatum. Either provide reasonable questions/counterarguments in your next post or I am going to ignore
your posts until/unless you do. The point of the debate is to see which said could beat the other using their own tech. This means that no
Culture ship is gonna go around, searching for a phase drive to put on their ships.

Coming into Federation space, effectorizing a whole planet to search for intelligence would be an act of war. This is the opposite of the
Culture avoiding war at all costs, if it can. So, either stop your fanism or I am ignoring you on this topic.

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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:41 pm Post subject:


Doesn't matter. Otherwise, it wouldn't be Culture v Trek. It'd be Trek v Trek. Makes the debate pointless.

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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:03 pm Post subject:


It still does not matter.

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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:52 pm Post subject:


Since you are unable to conduct yourself properly in a debate, I will ignore your posts on this topic unless you start to do so. This will be
my final response to you on this.

Quote:
Dakarne is absolutely right.

See, the thing is that Trek doesn't have the CAPABILITY to copy any Culture tech, whereas the Culture certainly DOES
have the capability to replicate anything it finds in Trek.



Copying is irrelevent. The Federation can scan a piece of Culture equipment, replicate it from the pattern and use it. Some of it just needs a
button pushed to work. But, that doesn't mean the Federation is allowed to do it. It makes no difference, if the Culture can do it quickly.
This rule is not open for any negotiations what so ever. It is total fanism.

Quote:
The difference here is mostly due to effectors.

In addition, it is SOP for the Culture to scan everything, even from their allies. In fact, in Use of Weapons, the Culture does
a bit of "creative accounting", plays with all kinds of personal info and all sorts, in an interstellar nation it is ostensibly allied
with. In fact, the Culture effectorise everything as SOP on first contact, let alone negotiation.

This is seen in The State Of The Art, where a Culture ship visits 1990s Earth and basically scoops every single mite of data
from its entire surface prior to a judgement from the crew of the ship (all Special Circumstances operatives) on whether to

a) make first contact

b) not make first contact, leave the society until it matures a bit or

c) Blow up the planet.

So all I'm using in my argument is the Culture's standard operating procedure.



Dakarne has set up a versus debate that uses the standard rules. Any tactics/operating procedures that a side is capabale of, when in direct
violation of the rules of a scenario (determined by the proposer at the beginning of the thread) are ruled, as 'not gonna happen'. Bitch to
Dakarne, he set it up this way unintentionally. If you want to start another thread with varied rules, that's up to you. I'm sticking with this
one.

Quote:
Besides which, Culture ships very rarely enter the skein of real space at all: If you already concede that the trek forces have
neither knowledge of nor ability to access or scan in the Culture's four spatial dimensions, then you concede the debate by
default, because the most a Trek ship is ever going to see of the ROU that destroys it are flashes a couple of Planck
moments in length every now and then as it traverses reality.

In addition, your assertion that the hyperdimensions can be explained in terms of phase frequency are absolutely wrong,
sionce phassed objects still occupy the same space in the skein, but in a different way. A Culture ship moving in four
dimesnions isn't even on the skein any more.



This shows you have not read all my posts and have an incomplete understanding of my stance.

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GStone
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Posts: 679

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject:


dakarne wrote:
Actually...

My Opening Post wrote:
You see the title... only one rule: No Godlike Beings Allowed... that is the one and only rule



Everything that they can do, no godlike beings allowed is the ONLY debating rule.

So essentially Mr. GStone... the Reverse Engineering IS allowed.



Yes, you made one specific rule = no god-like beings allowed. You've had ample time to bring this up, yet you're doing it now?
Considering that you've said that the only info that you have had about the Culture is not from reading the stories, but from other sources,
it's doubtful you actually had this in mind. Otherwise, you could have brought up the reverse engineering thing much earlier before we
decided to agree to disagree.

Besides, you've even told me that all you wanted to do with this thread is see, if you could find anyone that would wank Fed tech, so it is
even more likely that you had no serious intention about reverse engineering being allowed. It's much more likely you felt any opposition
would have been shouted down by now and this thread would be dead and not have reached almost 12 full pages.

To mess with the rules and take a new stance on what you want for the opening post to mean after saying all this is very unsportsman like.
We may have agreed to disagree, but taking a new stance for an interpretation and intention of your opening post to try to wipe out my
argument in one giant swing without actually providing a decent counterargument to the scenario I've provided in the structure that we have
been in agreement on until Hat's desire to use a copying schtick is an underhanded tactic.

Have a serious intention about the next thread you make.

GStone
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Post by GStone » Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:19 pm

GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 10:12 pm Post subject:


You contested that, but you've also said the Culture can wipe out systems from far outside and expected that to be the end of the debate.
I've remembered how you've acted in this thread. You're trying to be sly to get the copying thing in. My debate with herzeleid has never
needed the god-like beings. It's been using the standard structure of debates, an assumption that you have never corrected till now and I'm
supposed to believe that this was your intention all along and not some way to win the debate?

I have asked in the past has the Culture shown having a particular technology and nowhere was there mention of reverse engineering. I've
asked that question many times and now you're acting, like you meant that this the whole time?

There was also this little bit from you, dakarne.

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:04 pm

dakarne

GStone wrote:
2. The proof I would need would be evidence the Culture can scan things in different realities other than their
hyperspace and maybe, if they had the tech to bring phased things out of phase, such as when 7 brought that
scientist back in phase that was part of the group doing experiments on them. The Culture can't use Fed
equipment, because that violates the rules of the v debate. There are known limits to what they know and can
do, otherwise they'd find a way for the trapdoors to shunt gravitational force, too.



The Federation can't use Culture tech either...

The point is, the Federation won't see them coming until it's too late... I've seen trekwanking before, but this is rediculous... no one agrees
with you, not even the Pro-Trek debators or Darkstar agree with you... You're making reasonable up to justify that Trek is supposedly
unbeatable... Why didn't they use the Phase Tech to beat the Scimitar? Also, you have no proof that the Torpedoes were even phased
besides the NAME!!! And we all know how unreliable weapon names are... look at Turbolasers.

****** emphasis mine, found on page 4

If the Feds aren't allowed to use the Culture's tech, that falls under the default rules. The fact you wrote the word "either" says that you
agree with my statement that the Culture can't use Federation tech. This clearly shows you intention.

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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:16 am Post subject:


dakarne wrote:
Loophole for you to consider:

Not being able to use it directly doesn't mean they can't find a way to circumvent it...

Case Closed.



reasonable.

I've shown how you viewed the situation before you revised your stance. There is no circumventing.

I'm done discussing this. You screwed up, get over it.

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herzeleid
User


Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 29

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:38 am Post subject:


Quote:
Which is where an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively short time is a factor in the scenario. Because of the
nonaggression pact/peace treaty situation, being on even semi-good terms with them and the tendency of the Federation to
help those in need, even enemies, like the romulans during the TNG era and the klingons in the TOS era, could potentially
lead to it.



Quote:
I'm not saying it has to be something they see in the Federation necesarily. It could be something they see in their own
society or some combination of both. With the subjective view of 'doing what's right', you have to get into individual
experiences that are both good and bad, which happen in both the Culture and the Federation.



Of course, I could just as easily say that the same thing will happen to the Federation.



Quote:
If local proxies are used that have been brainwashed, a change in tactics when looking for certain pieces of info can be a
red flag. They have had years of experience with the proxy powers and their infiltration methods (a particular device, a way
a device is used, etc.). Certain orders can lead to a variation of what is used and how it's used.



Any potential problem or point of failure you can think of such as this would be blatantly obvious to any Mind. There's no way they would
let their operational security be threatened by letting such a thing happen without their proxies having a reasonable explanation for the
change.


Quote:
If there is no brainwashing involved, it can lead back to those that have been in contact with the Culture, if the actual spy
that's caught had no contact. This individual(s) will have this information about contact with the Culture for this purpose in
their memory, which can be read by a telepath/empath and/or read with medical technology.



You're still assuming the Minds will give their local proxies any useful information about themselves.


Quote:
Are they ignorant of it? They don't have to be. Information exchange on history and technology in a nonaggression
pact/peace treaty situation can provide some info.



Can provide info. You're assuming they will even though they have a history of specifically keeping other societies ignorant, if they actually
decide to make contact, which they cannot reasonably be assumed to do by default.


Quote:
The potential is quite high, like crossing crossing the distance between the Milky Way and a galaxy 150 thousands galaxies
away and more in half a second (from the perspective of someone not phasing at all). Many of the advancements are
limited to what you can come up with. As was shown by the krenum, rewriting history, even short term histories, to give
you an advantage in a fight, weapons that shift through time to get around defenses. The krenum may or may not be using
the same kind of phasing tech, but the underlying ideas of the potential are the same.

This kind of technology has both incredible pluses and devastating minuses. The Temporal Cold War from ENT is just one
example how it can be.



What evidence do you have that such severe increases are possible?


Quote:
1. See above where I talk about equipment ranges increasing. With faster FTL equipment, they can search a larger area in
a shorter time than normal.



Assuming a skein-Grid distance of one thousand kilometers, they would have to search approximately 2e74 m^4 to reliably find all of the
Culture's assets. How long would that take?


Quote:
They've had past interactions with bugging devices before.



So have most of the governments on Earth. That doesn't mean any of them could actually read the data on the bug, decrypt it, and
understand the message.


Quote:
See everything I've said in this post, the one right before it and the one where I gave the latest scenario. It's all in there for
this point.



I'm sorry, but I don't see anything in any of those posts explaining why they would abandon their pattern of only attempting to destroy
those powers which have already openly offered them violence. Could you be more specific?




+++++++++++++++++++++++




Quote:
Coming into Federation space, effectorizing a whole planet to search for intelligence would be an act of war.



That's one of the first things they did upon noticing Earth's emission shell in The State of the Art, before they had decided whether or not to
make contact.


Quote:
This is the opposite of the Culture avoiding war at all costs, if it can. So, either stop your fanism or I am ignoring you on this
topic.



I never said they avoid war at all costs, just that it's not something they take lightly. The majority of the resistance to going to war with the
Idirans came from the public, and then it was only relevant because it was a society-wide issue. The Minds of Special Circumstances are
very willing to use violence if they believe it necessary, and they are equally willing to not tell the public a thing about what they're doing.
However, the public of the Culture seems less anti-war in later centuries; one of the reasons stated for not making the existence of the
Empire of Azad public is the fear that public opinion would force them to perform a high-profile military intervention and occupation with
undesirable long-term consequences. Whether this was their actual reason or just a cover story, it wasn't rejected outright as being too
implausible.


Something else I've just remembered about:

Quote:
2. A Culture ship went to Earth, getting every bit of info. Star Trek was there and they would learn about it.

Answer: Maybe, but as of today, Trek has never explained just how transphsics torps work. I've come up with lots of
theories for Trek and Wars, most of them standing the test of time so far, but that doesn't mean Trek uses those same
theories. I could be horribly wrong, but we will never know with 100% accuracy until it is said on screen.



Of course, since it's established that the Culture universe is identical to our own in regards to Earth's history, that they recorded all the data
on Earth upon discovering our level of advancement in 1977 and continued to observe us after the ship in question left the system, and that
Earth is not contacted until roughly a hundred years from now, they would certainly know about this thread.

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herzeleid
User


Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 29

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:00 am Post subject:


Some corrections for Captain Hat:

Quote:
A regular ROU is the smallest ship to have Gridfire inducers mounted as standard, IIRC, with three of them in Field
bubbles around the nose in modern variants.



There has never been any reference in any of the books that I am aware of to any ship smaller than a Systems Vehicle carrying a functional
Gridfire Impulser. The only time any warship has been described as having three weapons bubbles around its nose was the Idiran War era
Murderer class GOU Limiting Factor in The Player of Games. Those three bubbles contained large effectors and certain subsidiary
weapons.

Quote:
Hells, the Sleeper Service built a huge fleet and generated several hundred (if not several thousand or even several hundred
thousand) cubic kilometres’ worth of engine mass inside a few hours in Excession, though it had been tooling up for the
previous few centuries to do it.



The Sleeper Service built at least 128 but not more than 4664 km^3 of engine, it had only been "tooling up" as you put it for 40 years, the
duration of its time as an Eccentric, and its fleet was built over the duration of those 40 years rather than all at once at the end.

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GStone
User


Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:34 pm Post subject:


Quote:
Of course, I could just as easily say that the same thing will happen to the Federation.



Yep, that's true. Another kind of scenario.

Quote:
Any potential problem or point of failure you can think of such as this would be blatantly obvious to any Mind. There's no
way they would let their operational security be threatened by letting such a thing happen without their proxies having a
reasonable explanation for the change.



I'll buy that, but if it ended up that the klingons needed to bug a Federation burger joint because a couple people thought it'd be a good
idea to talk covertly there because no one would suspect it, this would show up to be quite a strange thing to the Federation people
investigating. Burger joints aren't your typical thing you bug.

Quote:
You're still assuming the Minds will give their local proxies any useful information about themselves.



Actually, I'm going with the full range of possibilities, from full disclosure to get collaborators to lying through hiding who they are and
providing limited info towards certain items. With less resources/capabilities (comparing the proxy powers to the Culture), it's better to
focus the activities. Though, to be fair, it isn't entirely necessary for that to happen for them to find out it was the Culture. I'll explain below.

Quote:
Can provide info. You're assuming they will even though they have a history of specifically keeping other societies ignorant,
if they actually decide to make contact, which they cannot reasonably be assumed to do by default.



No, they can't entirely be assumed to make contact, but it'd be very tough to have any kind of versus debate, if there is no contact made.
So, I saw, let's assume contact is made somehow just to get the ball rolling, since the Culture isn't entirely xenophobic.

Quote:
What evidence do you have that such severe increases are possible?



As far as canon, nothing specific. But, this can be infered quite easily from other principles in physics. When you have two energy waves
that have their peaks and valleys match, they will have a greater wave from this combining (interacting). Now, separate them back into
their 2 pieces and "shift" one, so it's a little "behind the other on the display of the waves". Here, the energy waves are still interacting, but it
isn't as strong an interaction because the peaks and valleys are not in the exact same location.

Translate this into the discussion and you have energy that is interacting (the "not phased" and the "partially phased" objects), which
translates into the partially phased object not restricted to the laws of physics, as the not phased object is because the partially phased
energy is not interacting as much with the rest of the energy of the universe, as the not phased energy is.

If you move the second energy wave again, so it's peaks and valleys are set up on the opposite ends of the central line both energy waves
cross, the only place the energy waves interact is at the crentral line. This central line has an intensity value of zero, which means that when
both waves of energy meet at this line, there is no interaction.

This phase I'm talking about is the resonance frequency the energy is vibrating at on the quantum level. Having the phase comparisson here
is equal to no longer being in the same universe because you have phased out of it. You are not bound by the laws of the universe you
were just in and bound by whatever physics you are subjected to there, most likely that of another universe.

Both time and space have unique energy signatures occurring simultaneously. What needs to be done is directing yourself (or an energy
pulse, like when using sensors) to a particular energy value that is a combo signature of both a temporal and a spatial coordinate.

Bringing it back to the scenario again, as you decrease your interaction with the energy of the universe, you are less restricted by it because
you are less subjected to the energy of the universe.

Quote:
Assuming a skein-Grid distance of one thousand kilometers, they would have to search approximately 2e74 m^4 to reliably
find all of the Culture's assets. How long would that take?



I don't know. It would depend on you how out of phase with the energy of the universe they get when they'd phase, though. Also, basic
sensor distance/volume has been presented with differeing values without much explanation why beyond the thickness of the energy
projected. If it's EM/etc. energy scanning with an electrogravitic continuum distortion to propel it FTL, variable environmental conditions
(with the specifics not told entirely to the viewer) can be a factor. Other things, like using them just before they would be shut down or
whatever they do for maintenance can be another explanation, as opposed to having maintenace just done on the equipment.

Quote:
So have most of the governments on Earth. That doesn't mean any of them could actually read the data on the bug, decrypt
it, and understand the message.



Modern Earth doesn't have the technology the Federation does.

Quote:
I'm sorry, but I don't see anything in any of those posts explaining why they would abandon their pattern of only attempting
to destroy those powers which have already openly offered them violence. Could you be more specific?



Sure, the infiltration of the Federation by the Culture is by its nature a covert attempt at conquering. The overt attempt is flat out, public
fighting. Now, a lot of the evidence may be on the circumstantial level, but there can be evidence that is independent confirmation and it is
tied to the investigation. As far as possibilities in the investigation, there could be anything that pops up to give them intel, like a defecting
Mind maybe. Without a Mind defecting, there are still ways.

Telepaths/empaths are used in investigations. Vulcans, who are naturally telepathic, have their own intelligence operatives (Gambit). Troi
was used when that klingon was smuggling secrets from the Enterprise by injecting them in coded form, as inert proteins to be decoded
later. Saben, later in the ep (The Drumhead), was an aide to that Admiral woman who progressively went more and more off the deep
end, as she investigated. Kes in VOY1 and Troi and that guy that jumped into the plasma stream showed that telepathic/empathic scans
work on areas/objects, too.

We know the Federation has spies in other territories, and they'll even go into an enemy's territory for at least quasi-security reasons that
could be major security problems (Data and Picard hitching a ride on a Bird of Prey and posing, as romulans to get to Spock in romulan
territory).

If the Culture had communicated with someone in a proxy territory with an effector, whether they were deceiving the person they were
communicating with or not, there is a chance the psychic could pick up something. Back in Descent, Troi said she could pick up emotions
from Data after Lore had been feeding him emotions and he was fully artificial. A Culture ship getting into a territory and talking
face-to-face with them would prove a greater risk of discovery.

Unless the Culture is able to remove psychic/emotional energy of mechanical/organic origin from objects/areas (which I've never heard
them doing), there is a chance they will be discovered, if the path of the plot goes this way.

Quote:
That's one of the first things they did upon noticing Earth's emission shell in The State of the Art, before they had decided
whether or not to make contact.



Post nonagression pact/peace treaty planet wide effectorizing would be.

Quote:
I never said they avoid war at all costs, just that it's not something they take lightly.



'At all costs' and 'not take it lightly' have just a small amount of difference, especially when they are sometimes used interchangably, so the
confusion. But, to be fair, I did read what he wrote, to see if he could separate his fanism from the debate, even if he failed to meet my
ultimatum. Every statement had a response that was in my posts before.

Quote:
Of course, since it's established that the Culture universe is identical to our own in regards to Earth's history, that they
recorded all the data on Earth upon discovering our level of advancement in 1977 and continued to observe us after the
ship in question left the system, and that Earth is not contacted until roughly a hundred years from now, they would certainly
know about this thread.



Yes, that's true. But, I've never explained how the phasing works specifically. The krenum use temporal phasing and that could use a
different method than what the Federation might use. The Culture has phasing tech, but it has never shown the capacities shown in Trek
with Federation technology, as far as I know.

I could also say that this particular thread is the nugget that gets in the Culture's craw and sets off the whole thing. Trek's Earth history is
much the same, as ours, but, it would all depend on what happened before the nonagression pact/peace treaty, which I haven't given much
to beyond just some. The Culture trying to determine just what the Feds could do for phasing/time travel would seem to be limited.

With the second contact, there is an obvious divergence because many of the technologies in Trek don't exist in the Culture and many of
the techs in the Culture don't exist in Trek, especially since the realities are structured differently. Wasn't time travel outlawed by Banks?
This means there was a divergence, since the computer revolution on Earth came from tech centuries in the future, which was before they
showed up the first time. Even if the Culture had observed these instances, they would probably thought some Mind had visited before and
screwed with the computers of chronowerx or whatever that company was called and effectorized people to make them believe it, if
Minds are supposed to be so knowledgable.

Would they even view this technology, as something factual or serious, since they aren't supposed to be using Fed tech and their tech's
methods? It could be viewed, as what the Culture does, misinformation and manipulation of the public, so the people of the Federation or
just Starfleet (depending on who is told) thinks it actually works when it doesn't.

The Federation, in the late 24th/early 25th century, is the one that makes 'official contact' after discovering them, while on an intel op with a
ship with a phase drive. The Culture thinks they got to their territory some how, even though the Feds claim phase drive tech, which the
Culture continues to think is more misinformation. As I've mentioned before, there can be some info exhange with it being limited and this
disbelief in the supposed misinformation and the reasons I said before could lead to the bugging via the proxy powers.

The Culture wouldn't have believed in the future tech that Braxton had with him that got cannibalized by that hippy because time travel is
supposed to be impossible. It is something that conflicts what they know and can't duplicate Fed tech (per the standard rules). In versus
debates from different franchises, you run into a problem when their respective realities are structured differently, such as with Trek and the
Culture. That's why I go with them being in a "neutral universe" that responds and acts to each side's tech, so it can be used, but since each
side has only their tech, they only make their 'universe effects'.

Can a side duplicate effects or counter the other side's movements with their own tech, MacGuyvering or whatever? That's the big
question.

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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683

Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 2:02 pm Post subject:


This is only 6 weeks or so necromancy, so it didn't seem right to start a whole new thread just to add these two things.

A couple months ago, I saw Time's Arrow and have been kicking myself ever since for forgetting it. Let's take a look at the dialogue:

INT. MAIN BRIDGE

Picard reacts as...

RIKER'S COM VOICE
Troi's convinced they're human...
they may be trapped somehow...
we're not sure...

Data moves from the aft station...

DATA
Captain, the results of my
temporal analysis may be
pertinent...

Picard nods, go ahead.

DATA
It indicates a synchronic
distortion in the areas emanating
triolic waves...

INTERCUTTING:

21 EXT. PLANET SURFACE - NIGHT

GEORDI
That explains a few things. How
much, Data?

DATA'S COM VOICE
A positive displacement of point
zero-zero-four percent.

GEORDI
(off Riker's look)
Whatever or whoever's there...
is out of phase with us... [/b]But
we're only talking about a
fraction of a second[/b]...

21 CONTINUED:

WORF
A fraction of a second would make
them invisible?

GEORDI
A millisecond, a year... it
wouldn't make any difference...
If what we're reading is accurate,
we're occupying the same space...
but in a different time...

RIKER
How do we compensate?

22 INT. MAIN BRIDGE (INTERCUT CONTINUING)

DATA
Commander, we might be able to
manipulate the synchronic
distortion...

GEORDI
(nodding)
Maybe. If we created a contained
subspace forcefield. But to get a
point zero-zero-four variance,
we'd need an incredibly sensitive
phase discriminator, Data... I
don't think we've got one that
would come close...

DATA
Yes, we do. It is built into my
positronic decompiler.

Reactions all around.

DATA
It would be necessary for me to
join the away team, Captain.

Picard looks at him. A long beat. So much for cheating
fate.

PICARD
(beat)
Proceed.

As Data EXITS... a last look by Picard and...

23 EXT. PLANET SURFACT - NIGHT (OPTICAL)

The away team reacts as Data MATERIALIZES... he is
wearing a phaser, carrying a small generator and other
tech gear in a carrying case...

RIKER
(grim)
Mister Data...

DATA
Sir.

GEORDI
Let me give you a hand here,
Data...

Geordi quickly moves to assist him in preparing...
turns on the generator... checks that it is functioning
properly...

DATA
(to Riker)
Once I have adjusted the
forcefield, I will no longer be
visible, Commander... however,
I have taken steps to ensure that
you will still be able to hear
me. If you would assist me in
a test of the com system...

Data presses his combadge... Riker follows suit... and
now as Data talks there is an echo over the com...

DATA
(continuing)
My voice will be transmitted on
a delay correlated to the phase
adjustment... it should allow me
to maintain verbal contact...

RIKER
Will we be able to talk to you?

DATA
Nossir, that will not be possible.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Let's stop for a moment. For another method transphasic tech could be made is with a contained subspace field with tech that has existed
for centuries, where things, like the discriminator have been around for some time. Data's engineering has been studied for decades, since
he was found and the only problem was recreating the positronic brain, as a whole. The dicriminator was never mentioned as the main
problem when Maddox came aboard to break him down and study him and Lal was made by Data about 60 eps before Time's Arrow, so
the discriminator is around and available.

External forces to the field can't effect what's inside the subspace field, but a delay can be sent to send energy to a recipient outside the
field. And the generators used for the phasing in the ep are not that much bigger than a couple shoe boxes individually.

Back to the ep.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


GEORDI
You're ready to go...

He hands Data a hand control and the mobile generator
(which should have a handle). Data turns it on with
the hand control. There is an optical zap between the
generator and the remote control...

23 CONTINUED:

GEORDI
Subspace field is established...

Data moves toward the slab... working the hand
controls...

DATA
Adjusting for synchronic
distortion... point zero-zero-one...

23 CONTINUED: (2)

And with each count he begins to fade... and so does
the echo...

DATA
Point zero-zero-two... point
zero-zero-three... point zero-zero
four...

And he's gone... his com voice is our only reference
point...

DATA'S COM VOICE
I have made visual contact...
(beat)
There are lifeforms here...

~~~~~~~~~~~

PICARD
(nods)
We have to operate on the
assumption that there is a
threat... if not to us then to
19th-century Earth. Our first
order of business is to determine
what that threat may be.
(turns to Geordi)
In order to do that, Mister La
Forge, we must find a way to
communicate with these
life-forms...

GEORDI
It's not going to be easy to
reproduce what Data did. We can
create a contained subspace
field... but we'd need an
extraordinarily sensitive phase
discriminator to get that point
zero-zero-four variance.

PICARD
Can you build one?

GEORDI
It won't be as good as Data's...

RIKER
Will it be good enough?

GEORDI
I don't know. I can try... it's
going to take a while...

PICARD
I don't want anyone else going
in alone.

GEORDI
I should be able to create a
subspace field large enough to
encompass everyone. Adjusting
the phase inside the field will
be the hard part.

PICARD
Make it so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PICARD
Proceed, Mister La Forge.

Riker accepts the inevitable. Geordi is holding a
modified tricorder...

GEORDI
(for Picard's benefit)
I've modified this tricorder to
interface with the subspace
generator... It should allow me
to control the phase
discrimination... assuming it's
going to work at all...
(off Picard's nod)
I'll need everyone within the
field...

Everyone passes between the relays... another optical
flash as they pass through the invisible line...

GEORDI
Adjusting for synchronic
distortion... point-zero-zero-one...

And with each count, there is a continuous lighting
change... slowly being bathed in a blue light...

88 CONTINUED: (2)

GEORDI
(continuing)
...point-zero-zero-two...
point-zero-zero-three...

And as the blue hue increases, now figures begin to
APPEAR...

89 ANGLE (OPTICAL)

a group of ALIENS in reclining positions on the ground,
arranged loosely in a circle... each of them is
silver-gray, a vaguely humanoid shape with very round
heads, no facial features to speak of... except a
blowhole where the forehead might ordinarily be... in
their center, built into the ground, is a TRANSLUCENT
HOLDING CHAMBER, glowing and flashing from within (like
a light ball spinning inside). On the side of the
chamber is a techno-organic, nipplelike projection.
Periodically, the chamber DISPENSES an energy segment
from its lower recesses... and as it emerges one of
the aliens on a rotating basis sucks it into his
blowhole...

90 THE AWAY TEAM (OPTICAL)

reacts... a beat as the aliens continue to ignore
them.

PICARD
Why can we see them when they
can't see us?

GEORDI
The phase displacement might not
bring us far enough into their
perceptual range.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


So, with TNG era parts, a sensitive enough phase discriminator can be built and put into a tricorder.

So, a subspace field...something that's used in propulsion, shields, communications...and all you really need is the right phase discriminator.

There's also We'll Always Have Paris and the trend Manheim was having to make extraordinary advcancements, but that ep would only
support in a very limited way for showing science advancement trends. And we also know that the phase cloak was built in secret many
years before Time's Arrow (well after Data was found) and it could have used the same or similar method. With both the phase cloak and
this phasing in the cavern, they are forced phasing states that end when the field is off/not interacting with what's inside.

So, I feel even more confident with my argument.
_________________
But, hell, in my scenario, one ship can take out the entire Culture, leaving them with time travel and a FTL drive that gives them unlimited
speed in a universe and between any universe.

--GStone, a lone ship in the Culture -v- Trek war

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GStone
User


Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:13 pm Post subject:


Quote:
There are still several assumptions that you've made that need be overcome before your wankery can go any farther than
your own pants:



I've gone over the points you've brought up before, but since it's been a while and this thread's up to 13 pages already, I'll go over it again.

Quote:
1. That any warhead Trek will be able to make will be enough to overcome the compensators on any Culture ship when
any Culture easily makes more energy than significant portions of the entire Federation and most Culture ships make more
energy than the entire thing several times over. You detonate some kind of gravitational warhead inside a Culture ship and,
since the gravitational distortion propogates at c (which Culture Minds find embarressingly slow), the Mind in charge of the
ship catches it in action and uses its artificial gravity systems to compensate.



1. Not warhead, singular. Warhead, plural = warheadS.
2. Those compensators didn't help during the Idrian war. G still traveled at c and the trapdoor couldn't help.
3. How much energy the Culture generates is immaterial right now.

Quote:
2. Every instance we've seen of transphasic or similar technology shows them still under the influence of things like gravity
and, in this particular case, air vibrations and the like. This is hardly un-detectable.



So? When you phase the bomb into the universe, you can choose when it could be detected. There would be some amount of particle
interaction with the amount of phase 2 objects have, but the Culture has never shown the kind of phasing detection Trek has. And in the
midst of writing that sentence, it hit me.

Data sent energy on a delay correlated to the phase adjustment. The gravitational waves could be sent the same way and it would just
appear.

It's gravitational gridfire!!!!!!!!!!!

God dammit, I'm good.

I thank you immensely for saying that. There's a good chance I never would have noticed that.



This incident in Trek canon involved time travel, which they feel is impossible, so there's a very good chance they'd dismiss this incident,
which just kicks their ass.

My confidnece in my argument has skyrocketed trillions of times higher now.

Quote:
3. How will the Federation reach most of the Culture's assets before it is destroyed? When the best your ships can pull is in
in the range of ten thousand times c, you're going to have a difficult time contending with a power that is spread across the
entirety of the Milky Way in four spatial dimensions.



The more you phase out of a universe, the less you are restricted to its laws. It's similar in thinking where you can throw a ball into the air,
as a car is moving and the ball won't just fly backwards, but fall, like you were standing still.

Quote:
4. If transphasic technology truely removes something from interaction with the outside universe, that means will retain the
same relative velocity it had at the start. That means such tactics will only be useful against such things that are moving at a
constant, unchanging velocity. Even a moment of acceleration in any way removes the object from the area the torpedo
effects.



When you can choose when and where something appears, you can "compensate" for moving targets because you can decide when and
where they interact, especially with Trek's new gravitational gridfire!!!!

Quote:
When you consider that the only objects this really applies to is things like orbitals (which the Indrians found out the hard
way are not THAT important to the Culture) and these individual orbitals produce more joules per second than the entire
Alpha Quandrant has in 200 years, you're going to have a DAMNED hard time overcoming their ability to simply absorb
the blow and move on.



The Culture ships that got their asses kicked by the gravity weapons during the Idrian war completely obliterate this thought.

Quote:
Still, though, your entire point is still predicated upon non-canon fan speculation, so it's moot anyway.



No shit it's noncanon. Neither is the Culture meeting up with the Feds. That's why versus debates are entirely "speculation". But, the
scenario following the routine ideas of how they interact require such speculation, especially with the way things have gone by the end of
DS9 and Voyager.
_________________
But, hell, in my scenario, one ship can take out the entire Culture, leaving them with time travel and a FTL drive that gives them unlimited
speed in a universe and between any universe.

--GStone, a lone ship in the Culture -v- Trek war

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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:32 pm Post subject:


Scoote wrote:
Answer me this question GStone, Just answer it.

Is there a single weapon in the federation that could cause more damage then sitting in the outerlayers of a Star for more
then half an hour?



I'm not sure just how much is released, but I'd say weapons that make stars go supernova ought to be good. I'm also not sure about the
output of that flare O'Brien, Bashir, Worf, etc. on the klingon ship made (I think with the tractor beam) that wiped out that Dominion
instillation.

Quote:
Well, you do realise that doing this is nothing to culture? The GSU managed to sit in the star ((Long enough for them to land
down, storm the building, take Horza and the Culture agent captive, have, get back onto the ship, Debrief then breif Horza,
and then allow him to speak to the culture agent for a while, and then finally the ship emerges.



This hasn't been an issue, since gravitational energy is not the same as the energy you are refering to.

Quote:
And the ship had taken little to no damage, it still managed to destroy the Idiran ship ((To quote, "The only reason the ship
was destroyed was because it tried to take them alive")). Even when weapons capable of damaging them are let off inside
((The Scene where Horza is ripping through the GSV on engines, blowing holes in the walls with a weapon that makes
Phasers cry, but is easily avalible on civilian craft)), it doesn't do damage.



I wasn't explicit in all details, but I'll say it. The last time I used the theory, the torps phased and detonated 'between the fractions of
seconds'. I don't need that now. Now, with this new idea of 'gravitaional grdifire', the torps don't have to unphase, just the gravitational
energy set to a rephasing delay. The gravity appears...kaboom.

Quote:
Give me weapons that are mass produced and able to do massive amounts of damage, until then, sucks.



Becoming mass produced is as easy to be a reality as telling a replicator to make lots more.

Quote:
Oh...and You won't be able to affect gridfire with Graivty, its a rip in reality, not a line of energy.



I was being figurative. Gridfire makes the energy just appear. So does the delay of g in this scenario thats coming out of the contained
subspace field, whatever that means.

The point is, we've seen both space and time characteristics altered/manipulated with subspace fields being used with different processes
throughout the canon. Time Arrow here, metaphasic shielding, cloaks, warp, torps, phasers...etc.

ElderWyrm wrote:
So the Federation is going to pull several hundred trillion gravity warheads out of their ass before the Culture stomps them,
effectorizes Earth, learns everything they ever wanted to know about Federation phasing technology, and goes and takes
the torpedoes for their own?



A. I have never claimed to know how many would be necessary. I need two things:

1. The maximum yield a gravimetric warhead can have.
2. The strength of the gravity used to destroy the ships during the Idrian war.

When I have those, I'll be in a better position to have a more accurate estimate. All I need is 'multiple warheads'.

B. The Culture can't use Fed tech, as per standard rules. Plus, the events in the canon that use various phasing things often involve time
travel, too. TT is impossible to the Culture and probably would be believed to the Federation and/or Starfleet trying to control its people
with disinformstion. So, it probably would be thought of as a lie.

Blame Banks.

Quote:
The difference? The Idrians had power generation capabilities, while inferior, that were at least comparable to that which
the Culture weilded.



And it still didn't help them against the gravity weapons.

Quote:
The Federation hasn't used as much energy it its entire history as Culture civilian ships are capable of throwing around
easily.



Irrelevent.

Quote:
No, it's very material. In fact, it's central. You blow one of your non-canon pulled-out-of-GStone's-ass warheads up in a
Culture ship, whatever gravity waves it releases will be counteracted by the artificial gravity systems of said ship before they
can do virtually any damage at all.



AG didn't stop the ships in the Idrian war from going kaboom and trapdoors don't effect gravity energy.

Quote:
*Snore*

So, you done throwing incomprehensible, non-canon technobabble around or do I have to go get a pillow?

My confidence in the actual existance of your cerebrum has plummeted to levels previously thought physically impossible.

I'll be going to get that pillow now, then.

Seriously, how fucking far did you have to reach up your own ass to grab that one? Your hand probably came out of your
god damned mouth.



Weren't you ever taught 'if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all?' Meaning, this does nothing for your argument
and doesn't effect mine. Why bother yourself with typing it?

As for those last 2 sentences, you haven't been paying enough attention to the thread, have you?

Quote:
You don't choose when or where something appears, you put it at a spot in space and it stays there going the same velocity
relative to everything else as it started. At least, that's the jist I got from the episode where the Enterprise uses transphasic
shielding to hide in the corona of a star.



And this is using Time's Arrow as the latest bit of the whole. I'm not using the ep you are using. That was Descent and metaphasic
shielding. My guess is that it is multiple subspace field layers that push the energy around the ship, like a static form of warp.

You could have been partly mistaken about my argument with that.

Quote:
Seriously, I have never seen a bigger fucking moron in my life. Even those idiots who are putting PTs at several hundred
tons over at SDnet don't compare to the sheer stupidity you manage to generate. I'm surprised you haven't collapsed into a
black hole that sucks in and disappears all signs of intelligence (though your "theory" is well along the way to that particular
end).



Instead of calling me names, make sure you are thinking of the same tech I'm talking about before you speak. I don't need metaphasic
shielding. I don't think I mentioned it.

Quote:
The Idrians, a civilization that is also so mind-numbingly superior to the Federation in terms of power generation that the
supposed Type II civilization the Federation is often touted as is nothing more than a fire-fly next to a red supergiant.



Irrelevent.

Quote:
So wait, since vrs debates are non-canon, we can pull random reasonable out of our ass so our favorite universe can have the
largest cock on the block?



Reread the last sentence you quoted.

"But, the scenario following the routine ideas of how they interact require such speculation, especially with the way things have gone by the
end of DS9 and Voyager."

Patience and paying attention are virtues.
_________________
But, hell, in my scenario, one ship can take out the entire Culture, leaving them with time travel and a FTL drive that gives them unlimited
speed in a universe and between any universe.

--GStone, a lone ship in the Culture -v- Trek war

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GStone
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject:


I would just like to say...for those that are interested...that I have downloaded the entire thread and will be using it to turn it into the first
Culture v Trek site that I know of.

When will it be up? I don't have a fucking clue. I'm really busy right now, but before I die (and after I finished reading all the Culture
novels) the site will be up.
_________________
But, hell, in my scenario, one ship can take out the entire Culture, leaving them with time travel and a FTL drive that gives them unlimited
speed in a universe and between any universe.

--GStone, a lone ship in the Culture -v- Trek war

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GStone
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Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:12 pm Post subject:


You know, I'm kicking myself in the butt again. I'll probably do it again sometime in the future.

I'm not sure, if I mentioned this little bit before. I'm not gonna serach 13 pages right now, but I'll mention this bit from The Next Phase for
an intro to why I'm kicking my own butt again.

Geordie says to Ro that there's a molecular phase invertor or whatever it was called that was combined with a cloaking device. This made
them and the romulan partially phased (being able to pass through things, but not float, probably not phased to or phased enough from
gravity). Now, to be able to recognize this in romulan tech, he would have had to know the basic construction of how a device like that
would need to be, meaning that they probably have the tech themselves. The fact matter streams can go through solid objects might have
something to do with it, I don't know. Being phased during transport could lead one to think that an MPI is a part of a transporter and they
just linked up.

But, wait, you say. Let's assume that they did have the tech. This only happened to 3 people. 3 people is much smaller than a ship, even
one the size of the Defiant class. Well, that's the thing.

And we're back to me kicking my own butt.

Back in the Scorpian 2 parter, 7 uses the navigational deflector (an electrogravitic space-time distortion device) to open up a singularity to
fluidic space.

Let's check out the dialogue, shall we?

http://uk.geocities.com/chakoteya/S3/32 ... 0continued

KIM: I'm reading power fluctuations in the deflector array.
CHAKOTAY: Cause?
KIM: It looks like the Borg have accessed deflector control. They're trying to realign the emitters.
CHAKOTAY: Shut them out.
KIM: They've bypassed security protocols.
TORRES: We're emitting a resonant gravitation beam. It's creating another singularity.
CHAKOTAY: Reverse course.
PARIS: We're fighting intense gravimetric distortion. I can't break free!
CHAKOTAY: Bridge to Cargo Bay Two. Stop what you're doing, or I'll depressurise that deck and blow you out into space. This is your
final warning. Do it!
TUVOK: Decompression cycle complete.
KIM: I still don't have deflector control.
TUVOK: Commander, a single Borg has survived.
PARIS: We're being pulled in!
CHAKOTAY: Report.
TUVOK: We appear to have crossed an interdimensional rift.
PARIS: We've definitely left our galaxy. No stars, no planets.
CHAKOTAY: Let's see.
TORRES: I'm re-calibrating sensors. The entire region is filled with some kind of organic fluid. This isn't space, it's matter.
SEVEN [OC]: Commander Chakotay. We have entered the domain of Species 8472. Report to the Cargo Bay.
CHAKOTAY: Paris, re-pressurise Cargo Bay Two. Tuvok.

So, with some borg knowledge, an opening into another universe (phasing physically) can be jurririgged with approximately mid-DS9 era
tech of the deflector.

Later, Janeway is against the idea of using the deflector themselves to make another singularity.

CHAKOTAY: They lied. The Borg started the war with Species 8472. We've only got one Borg left to worry about. We should try to
disable her and get back to the Delta Quadrant. We might be able to duplicate the deflector protocols they used to open a
singularity.
JANEWAY: No. I won't be caught tinkering with the deflector when those aliens attack. There's no other way out of this,
Chakotay. It's too late for opinions, it's too late for discussion. It's time to make the call, and I'm making it. We fight the aliens in full
co-operation with the Borg.

Now, 7 opened another singularity later using the deflector and they returned to their own universe.

In Prey, Janeway did ask 7 to make another singularity to send that 8472 back to fluidic space. Attempting to recreate what she did when
they had an expert wouldn't have been a bright idea. Then, there was that whole thing about trying to get 7 in touch with her humanity.

We also know the beginning of peace negotiations with 8472, so there could have been some tech exchange, but the extent is unknown.

This kind of physical phasing demonstrated with the deflector could be a possible way the transphasic torps operate, as with all the other
possibilities I've mentioned so far.

And, back in the AC, there would be plenty of time to make protocal programs to make the rifts, since 7's work was recorded, a strong
indication of Chakotay in favor of trying to make one themselves.

A lot of implications for these new tidbits.

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Post by GStone » Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:21 pm

That's the last of the thread.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:56 pm

... huh. The editing makes many points hard to understand, since I often miss what the reply is adressing.

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Post by GStone » Mon Oct 01, 2007 12:40 am

Okay. I'll send you a PM about getting the files to you.

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Post by Narsil » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:55 pm

I said I wouldn't reply to this again, but, I've just been reminded of something by a friend;

You haven't proven, with quotes from the novels, that Culture ships are vulnerable to the gravity-based weaponry.

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Post by GStone » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:29 pm

So, that whole thing about the Culture-Idiran war and the Culture ships getting whooped by the gravity based weapons is propaganda? If I recall correctly, every time you and I have discussed Culture v Trek, you have never objected to it. Everyone more knowledgable that I when it comes to The Culture act like this is a given and it hasn't ever been in dispute.

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Post by Narsil » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:34 pm

Actually, I hadn't read all that much about the Culture-Idiran war, since it was most focused on in Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward, and I have only read the storyline of the former (in which no gravitic weapons were used, or even mentioned) and I've yet to read the latter.

I was honestly just assuming you weren't pulling things out of your arse, but I'd like the quotes which show that the Culture ships getting whooped by gravity-based weapons.

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Post by Narsil » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:41 pm

In fact, looking through my digital copy of Consider Phlebas again... there is absolutely no reference to gravity-based weapons whatsoever in that novel.

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Post by Narsil » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:44 pm

And now looking through Look to Windward in the same manner... only one gravity-wave weapon was mentioned. It was used by Chelgrian ships, against other Chelgrian ships, during the Chelgrian civil war. Oh yes, GStone, your argument just fell to pieces.

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Post by GStone » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:39 am

Oh, god. The first time this debate came up, you referenced The Culture blowing up stars with a glancing blow (originating from outside a star system and saying these distances would mean the Feds couldn't touch Culture ships) and these were the gravity based lineguns. Swede said they were the gravity based lineguns and you never corrected him after another 12 pages.

In Look To Windward, it was the GSV Lasting Damage that went behind enemy lines during the Culture-Idiran war to give escaping orbitals time to get away and one of the 2 Lasting Damage got destroyed by the Idirans. And wasn't it by lineguns?

However, it still doesn't remove the fact that my scneario doesn't require needing to go through the shields from outside them. The 'gravitational gridfire' passes through them effortlessly. And it doesn't remove the fact that trapdoors don't shunt gravitational force because it isn't defined, as 'energy'. Just 'force'.

Stop waffling. Either you're gonna participate like a normal person or I am not debating it with you.

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Post by Narsil » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:24 am

I hadn't actually read the Culture novels during our first debate, and was admittedly confusing them for the Xeelee. But now I have read them, well, most of them. The gravity-based lineguns are indeed in existence in the Culture, but they're used by the Culture as well as everybody else. Trapdoors are not their only form of defence and stop acting as if they are; their force-fields can protect against the event horizon of a black hole for fuck's sake, and they use black-hole based weaponry all the bloody time. You have got no argument.

And the destruction of the Lasting Damage was not mentioned as having been done by any weapon as lineguns are not mentioned at all in my copy of Look to Windward, and not mentioned surrounding the death of the Lasting Damage.

It might also interest you that Culture ships are themselves powered and propelled by anti-gravity. You also fail to realise that the Federation would have been defeated because of their now-complete lack of a homeworld, among other things.

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Post by GStone » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:03 pm

Narsil wrote:The gravity-based lineguns are indeed in existence in the Culture, but they're used by the Culture as well as everybody else.
So...it isn't just used by the Chelgrian.
Trapdoors are not their only form of defence and stop acting as if they are;
They are the only one of importance against gravitational gridfire.
their force-fields can protect against the event horizon of a black hole for fuck's sake
External defenses of The Culture mean nothing to gravitational gridfire weaponry.
and they use black-hole based weaponry all the bloody time. You have got no argument.
My argument is one that you aren't defeating. I even altered it to be more in line with the technological development of the Federation through the 31st century.
You also fail to realise that the Federation would have been defeated because of their now-complete lack of a homeworld, among other things.
Did the people of the Federation get a psychic link put on them that makes them fall over and die, if Earth (or any other planet in their territory) is destroyed?

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Post by Narsil » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:35 pm

GStone wrote:So...it isn't just used by the Chelgrian.
It's only ever mentioned as being used by the Chelgrian, but the Culture having lineguns is mentioned as an appendix in Consider Phlebas.
They are the only one of importance against gravitational gridfire.
Gridfire is pure energy, and is in no way gravitational. There is no such thing as gravitational gridfire. And force-fields can protect against gravity just as well as trapdoors protect against energy.
External defenses of The Culture mean nothing to gravitational gridfire weaponry.
A typical tactic of the Culture and its enemies is to displace a black hole aboard vessels, it isn't the only tactic ever used as effectors and CAM missiles are apparently more effective.
My argument is one that you aren't defeating. I even altered it to be more in line with the technological development of the Federation through the 31st century.
You're just ignoring my argument. This isn't a debate. There is no debate to be had. The Culture destroys the Federation, end of the bloody story. There's absolutely no way for the Federation to win.
Did the people of the Federation get a psychic link put on them that makes them fall over and die, if Earth (or any other planet in their territory) is destroyed?
If 90% of the USA's cities and resources were destroyed, the rest of the forces would have lost by pure morale and would be considering a bit of a surrender. Morale is an important deciding factor for living beings, and the Federation uses them all the time.

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Post by GStone » Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:40 pm

Narsil wrote:Gridfire is pure energy, and is in no way gravitational. There is no such thing as gravitational gridfire.
You remember that I started calling it that as a play on the name of Culture's gridfire, right? An 'opening' appears (the subspace field that's temporally phasing the gravitational explosives), which allows the energy to pass through (the same method used to temporally unphase Data's communications in Time's Arrow).
And force-fields can protect against gravity just as well as trapdoors protect against energy.
By keeping it outside the field.
If 90% of the USA's cities and resources were destroyed, the rest of the forces would have lost by pure morale and would be considering a bit of a surrender. Morale is an important deciding factor for living beings, and the Federation uses them all the time.
So, every one of those with 'fighting spirits' are gonna be the ones that die, leaving all the weak kneed sniffling children? Right, and things fall up.

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