NationStates Jolt Archive

Ok Rather a weird Question I know but I have been researching and investigating ways into both defending against God Rods and strengthening the overall Offensive Capacity of Godrod weapons. My research has been centered around the Observation Satellite Communication Network (OBSAT) System of which I designed.

Anyway I have a few questions for the designers of the Thor Weapons Platform System are you their? If they no longer watch the threads then oh well nevermind.

For more detailed Information on OBSAT please see here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=521785)

lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Thor

Thanks Axis Nova but ive already read and studied it my questions are more aimed at the NS God Rod Version. Hence I would like to speak with the NS Designer I am led to believe its Dartia but I am unsure? Hence this Thread.

Moderators my apologies if this thread is in the wrong place

Dartia's gone.

Dartia's gone.

Was it Dartia Then?

Regardless of version, the principle is the same:

Drop something dense onto a target from low orbit.

Personally I've always been partial to using .8C planet-killing kinetic weapons really :rolleyes:

No single person came up with orbital KEWs. The tech has been around so long, and is common enough knowledge, for this to be analogous to asking who designed the NS CIWS. Heck, I stole mine largely from Shadowrun, not any player.

As Otagia says the use of godrods goes all the way back to the begining of NS combat, they were already being used before i started here...

Godrods were ripped from an article about a RL US project in 03/04. There is no "NS version" - as far as I am aware no one has ever actually posted a detailed design of a godrod satellite; people just assert that they own them and that they have vague conceptual capabilities. Asking who was the first NS designer of godrod sats is like asking who was the first NS designer of the lightbulb. The answer is no one.

God rods would be pretty unfeasible IMO. Possible yes, but still on the wiki page is states in the rods from god section that rods would "vaporize in Earth's atmosphere" if launched from space. Now that poses a problem- you have to use low orbits then. Using low orbits means you need a lot of satellites to ensure world coverage, which for a world the size of NS would probably be massive. Now, im not sure what the effects of the size of the planet would be in regards to atmospheric height (im guessing it would be much higher, but nvm) and the same with gravity(would i be right here?) but it would make having God rods expensive.

Well, possibly wrong to say unfeasible but expensive for sure, and i doubt exactly how successful such a weapon would be against NS targets because a) you'd need so many and b) NS nations are very secretive, so where do you launch the god rods? And won't command shelters etc be uber protected under uber NS sized mountains which would stop a good rod?

but still on the wiki page is states in the rods from god section that rods would "vaporize in Earth's atmosphere" if launched from space. Now that poses a problem- you have to use low orbits then.
No it doesn't, it says that they will vapourise if they move too quickly. This is true of anything. The re-entry vehicles for the Apollo missions re-entered the atmosphere in free fall without vapourising, whilst being much lighter and made of much less dense materials than a solid block of tungsten. Presumably, then, a tungsten rod would have no problem achieiving the same speed or indeed moving more quickly.

OOC: If Godrod=Orbital mass-drivers, the principle has been around since forever from a science-fiction point of view. Pretty much every FT nation since the beginning of NS has gone through a phase where their military is armed with gauss weapons. I for one have not moved out of the phase even though I RP FFT.


Another point, pure alloy metals wouldn't necessarily vaporize. Meteors and the like burn up because they are made of unrefined dust, ice, and brittle ores. Things such as space shuttles may brun up because they are designed to be aerodynamic. A ball of whatever your choice alloy is would merely heat up before impact.