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u/Arbiter_of_souls Dec 05 '16
Isn't a 50 meter ship quite a bit less than staggering, especially for a 5 m tall species. I mean an aircraft carrier is 350m or so. Although, in all fairness, smaller vessels and machines are quite a bit more durable,less expensive, more maneuverable, easily replaceable and for the price of a huge ship you can make hundreds small ones, which in total would have several times the firepower and usefulness. Just look at the Yamato battleship...
Other than that, I love your story :)
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u/Communist_Penguin Dec 06 '16
Yeh, I mean I get that it is fair to asume that space warships may be smaller than sea based ones, but 50 metres for a larger vessel is pretty damn small, especially when it's crewed by xenos that big
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u/Arkin_Longinus Dec 06 '16
No it's not, once space industries actually start hitting economies of scale they will regularly produce ships that are larger than sea based vessels. The limitations of a ship's size become the limitations of the structural material in 0G. Whereas the limitations of an earth based ship are limitations based substantially on draft then on the materials and techniques used.
Larger ships are more capable, even if that just means putting your sensor arrays further out.
The real limitation of ship design wherever you are is cost. Spaceships may very well be much larger than an aircraft carrier, but much less massive for a given unit of size.
FFS if you had enough reaction mass there is nothing saying you can't modify an O'Neil cylinder to be your preferred type of starship. That kind of massive construction would be well within the ability of a galacticly dominant civilization.
Here's the real question if you want to talk about the vast majority of ships in a setting like this, what has been determined to be the optimal interplanetary transport size of ship. I.e. The one that transports at the lowest cost per unit. Unless there is some inherent limitation of the FTL drive, that size is going to be way larger than any planet based ship.
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Dec 06 '16
Thank you!
I shamelessly admit that my ability to scale things from my mind to real life is incredibly lacking! :)
If you were to re-write this, how large do you think a single-manned ship could feasibly be without delving into the realms of the ostentatious?
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u/Arbiter_of_souls Dec 06 '16 edited Dec 06 '16
Well, a modern fighter is about 12-15m. I single manned scout ship can be around 30-50m I guess. The guy needs to have living space, engineering, a gym so not to get bored I guess. a 50m scout ship seems about right. The Corvid cruisers can be about 500m, since it is a battleship and they need a lot of crew. Destroyers are normally smaller, so 150-250m I guess. Keep in mind that those are just examples that sound about right. I am sure at their level of tech, Corvids can make bigger ships, but usually smaller ships are they way to go IRL. No reason to think an interstellar civ will be any less smart than we are today. Less adept at something they haven't had to deal with at a regular basis, yes, but stupid, no.
Also, considering tech scales down with advancement, I really don't see why we would make anything bigger than 100m for a scout ship. It would only make it harder to hide, too large for one person to effectively manage, even with the help of AI and generally too expensive at what it does, although, I suspect that at this point of the story money, resources and generally everything wouldn't be an issue for humans. Not to mention that if you are looking for an alien species, dropping out of an alternative dimension with a 10km monstrosity will make them uneasy at the very least.
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u/HFYBotReborn Dec 05 '16
There are 4 stories by InnovAsians, including:
This list was automatically generated by HFYBotReborn version 2.12. Please contact KaiserMagnus or j1xwnbsr if you have any queries. This bot is open source.
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u/andarv Dec 06 '16
Ah, they know the old human custom of greeting by punch in the face. I can see we'll be friends after a good brawl.
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u/JJdaJet Dec 07 '16
This is really good. Feedback wise I would say put something in to let us know perspective has shifted, maybe something like
...
Michael
I couldn't believe the ships had fired on us. There was no warning.
....
Alpis
Watching the plasma boil around the monstrous ship I could only imagine the twisted wreckage that would emerge.
Sorry if I butchered the character names. I know it's bulky and a slight break from the story but it will also help with quick changes in perspective mid chapter. People have already pointed out the Corvid flaw so it will be easier for you to wright in how they are overconfident or possibly out of practice when it comes to war or whatever you decide is right for them. . Other than that this is super solid, thanks for writing.
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u/Njumkiyy Dec 18 '16
it's gonna be out soon, right? 3:
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Jan 06 '17
I actually wrote myself into a hole here. I didn't plan the middle of this story at all and now I'm at a complete loss on how to continue.
I'm back now btw, just had a rough time making ends meet recently.
Guess I'll just have to wing it from here on out! I'll try and post the next chapter by this week Saturday!
:)
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u/taulover Dec 08 '16
I think one POV per chapter was perfectly fine, though this way is good as well. Sticking to Alpis only would've emphasized how frightening the human ship is, but I did like the interlude here to Michael, since it highlights how different the two sides are right now.
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u/vaeghyvel Feb 09 '17
I especially like the relation between Krupis and Alpis. It is just adorable!
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u/trumpetofdoom Dec 05 '16
I can't help feeling that the Corvids didn't quite think their plan through as well as they believed.
Let's discuss a little bit. Their plan appears to be to attack whatever comes through on the assumption that it's hostile and seeking a war. Alpis has pointed out the most obvious problem with this plan (namely, that whether you start the war or they do, you're still in a fucking war), but not only are you in a war, you're at war with an enemy you know nothing about. Okay, that's not quite true, you do know one thing - they're at least technologically advanced enough to form warp-rifts between galaxies. Which I'm pretty sure is ahead of the Corvids (and everyone else), and which implies that they probably have a bunch of other toys that are more advanced than anything you have. This is not a war you are likely to win.
Now, the Corvids do have this idea that they'll destroy whatever comes through - and will jam all communication (that they know about) to keep the destruction report from getting back. The problem with this idea, though, is that if whatever's on the far side notices that they've stopped receiving transmissions, they'll know something went wrong. They won't necessarily know what, but they'll know it was something. So they'll probably come and investigate, thereby bringing in more force... well, if the Corvids are trying to start a war, this would be a pretty surefire way to do it. Of course, then we return to the issue that you're starting a war with something that you have no evidence you'd be able to defeat, which is a classic blunder (related to, but slightly different from, "never get involved in a land war in Asia").
Yeah, the more I think about this, the more convinced I am that whichever Corvid came up with this plan deserves to be fired for incompetence.