Perimeter Defense
12-10-2007, 13:42
So then the Professor said, "Given two parallel lines. Prove their congruence."
And He (not the Professor) said, "There are no descriptors for the lines. Proof is impossible."
The Professor said thus, "Describe them, then." And He did.
Couple of months ago I had an idea for a story. It's a classic alien invasion that is told from both the aliens' and humans' perspectives, totally side-by-side. I then thought, how about twin threads in the II or NS forums? Each participant would have one character in each thread, an alien and a human soldier, leader, journalist, or whatever. The start, basic structure, and end are all guidelined by the outline, but in-betweeners are free for players to tweak.
Aliens in this story are humanized. Their names consist of compensated translation difficulties in the form of average nouns such as Warrior Mount, or Trader Fist. As we humans call ourselves "mankind" or "humanity" with no distinct designation for the race itself, they make no reference to race names. It will never be heard on either side.
The storyline begins with a prologue: In a PMT timeline, 2027 in my outline, an alien colony is going to be rendered unfit for life. The local star, a white dwarf, has gone on a rapid shutdown process. Unfortunately, it would be a logistical impossibility to distribute the 1.3 billion occupants among existing colonies, not to mention that no space exists at the moment for them. Therefore, the ambitious plan to move the whole planet to a different star system is launched.
The advanced FTL technology of the aliens uses null-acceleration; it skips the limit of c to bypass the issue of infinite mass and energy at that particular speed limit. The null-acceleration is effected within an isometric field that has to be tailored to fit the object that is to move. This is the method by which they are to transfer the planet; a string of field generators and null drives will be daisy-chained in orbit and on the ground, to encompass the world and send it off to a pre-scouted system wherein the most apropos distance from the sun is not taken by any significant body. Gravity well issues are already fixed and no problems are foreseen.
The commander of this operation is TEMPLE HILL, a military officer whose rank is equivalent to human colonels. He oversees the planetary transfer operation, which is the first of its kind, and checks that everything is in order. On the day itself, under a lot of pressure to start the procedure, he dismisses a possible inconsistency within the field generators and greenlights the operation. The planet rockets off at a hyper-constant 143,986c, or 143,986 times the speed of light.
Just over an earth-month into the travel time, one of the planet's field generators, which has been accumulating an error in field consistency, malfunctions, resulting in a huge section of the planet traveling at 143,985.99997c. This section leaves the field and immediately decelerates to 75 kilometers per hour, due to the converse effect of null-deceleration. There is no inertial damage to the planetary fragment, but 23 million people live here and the sudden loss of atmosphere kills them quickly. Gravity is just enough to keep their bodies attached to the rock. They hurtle towards Earth, and hit Australia. The extreme mass of the fragment impacts at a rather low speed, so instead of a worldwide shockwave that totally cripples civilization, the crust buckles in a radius from that point, tidal waves from the fragment's gravity rush out, and Australia is depopulated. Whoever of the aliens remained die at this point.
It's 49 years later, 2056. Nine massive ships are in orbit on the far side of the moon, masked from human sensors. Commanding this fleet is Temple Hill, remorseful at his actions in the planetary transfer incident. While he was not charged with anything, he took it as an obligation to do something. Outside of military orders, he spent the last 10 years tracking down the fragment, and got to Earth, which now looks like a blue gem with a large splinter on one side.
Hill's plans are as such:
1) Deploy Intimidators in major population centers. These are towering, anthropomorphic, quadrupedal mechs that are intended to inspire fear in the populace. Precedents indicate that such weapons are highly effective against less advanced civilizations. Intimidators are slow and inefficient, and the damage they deal is more frightening than truly destructive; their psychological effect is their true deal, though.
2) Deploy more efficient attack forces after noted loss of composure in local military. Cripple their ability to defend against what we're going to do next.
3) Begin construction of a Psycholathe in the vinicity of the crash site. The souls of our comrades are embedded in the rock; as we are a race powerful in psionic ability, we can assume that many are still in a recoverable state. Those of the Earth/Terra planet are noted to have some form of psyche that fortuitously makes them compatible with the Psycholathe. By harvesting the souls/essences/consciousnesses of an equivalent number of humans, it shall be possible to revive our dead brothers and sisters.
4) Leave the planet with minimal losses.
The greatest problems to this plan are that his people have little experience in war, and while all other aspects of their technology soar high above the humans, their weapons tech is a meager thirty or so years ahead only. While they have high-end plasma weapons, particle beams and primitive disruptor-like devices, the humans have midrange plasma, and very powerful projectile weapons. Some directed-energy weapons exist in the human arsenal also. Nuclear weapons are very popular.
This, coupled with superior numbers, tactics, and terrain advantage, the humans are only minorly dazed by the Intimidator attacks...before they take them down with surprising speed and efficiency. Then they start switching from defense to offense, taking out key alien strongholds. Soon, they're on the run back to the Australian main base where the Psycholathe is constructed. Eventually they are destroyed.
they make no reference to race names. It will never be heard on either side.
Temple Hill wants to send another, but he argues with his council and advisors. Suddenly, a human spacecraft is seen towing a particle weapon to the moon. The weapons signature is consistent with their own. The humans adapted technology from the rock because the aliens built their machines to be extremely durable; hence their survival of the impact. Temple Hill's ships react to destroy the incoming weapon, but soon their weapons systems are disabled by a strange ECM-type tool from the humans. As the light of the first alien ship's destruction blooms, ten more particle cannons are seen incoming...
The humans are demonized here. Seen as belligerent, cruel things who really love the war with the aliens from the looks of it. They hang the dismembered bodies on flagpoles and parade them around bases. They laugh at disarmed aliens and shoot them in nonvital areas or torture them for fun. This is in contrast to the aliens, whose physical characteristics are never even to be mentioned.
Any thoughts? Tweaking for the plot? Destruction of the ending altogether so that the storyline can be more free? What's up?
And He (not the Professor) said, "There are no descriptors for the lines. Proof is impossible."
The Professor said thus, "Describe them, then." And He did.
Couple of months ago I had an idea for a story. It's a classic alien invasion that is told from both the aliens' and humans' perspectives, totally side-by-side. I then thought, how about twin threads in the II or NS forums? Each participant would have one character in each thread, an alien and a human soldier, leader, journalist, or whatever. The start, basic structure, and end are all guidelined by the outline, but in-betweeners are free for players to tweak.
Aliens in this story are humanized. Their names consist of compensated translation difficulties in the form of average nouns such as Warrior Mount, or Trader Fist. As we humans call ourselves "mankind" or "humanity" with no distinct designation for the race itself, they make no reference to race names. It will never be heard on either side.
The storyline begins with a prologue: In a PMT timeline, 2027 in my outline, an alien colony is going to be rendered unfit for life. The local star, a white dwarf, has gone on a rapid shutdown process. Unfortunately, it would be a logistical impossibility to distribute the 1.3 billion occupants among existing colonies, not to mention that no space exists at the moment for them. Therefore, the ambitious plan to move the whole planet to a different star system is launched.
The advanced FTL technology of the aliens uses null-acceleration; it skips the limit of c to bypass the issue of infinite mass and energy at that particular speed limit. The null-acceleration is effected within an isometric field that has to be tailored to fit the object that is to move. This is the method by which they are to transfer the planet; a string of field generators and null drives will be daisy-chained in orbit and on the ground, to encompass the world and send it off to a pre-scouted system wherein the most apropos distance from the sun is not taken by any significant body. Gravity well issues are already fixed and no problems are foreseen.
The commander of this operation is TEMPLE HILL, a military officer whose rank is equivalent to human colonels. He oversees the planetary transfer operation, which is the first of its kind, and checks that everything is in order. On the day itself, under a lot of pressure to start the procedure, he dismisses a possible inconsistency within the field generators and greenlights the operation. The planet rockets off at a hyper-constant 143,986c, or 143,986 times the speed of light.
Just over an earth-month into the travel time, one of the planet's field generators, which has been accumulating an error in field consistency, malfunctions, resulting in a huge section of the planet traveling at 143,985.99997c. This section leaves the field and immediately decelerates to 75 kilometers per hour, due to the converse effect of null-deceleration. There is no inertial damage to the planetary fragment, but 23 million people live here and the sudden loss of atmosphere kills them quickly. Gravity is just enough to keep their bodies attached to the rock. They hurtle towards Earth, and hit Australia. The extreme mass of the fragment impacts at a rather low speed, so instead of a worldwide shockwave that totally cripples civilization, the crust buckles in a radius from that point, tidal waves from the fragment's gravity rush out, and Australia is depopulated. Whoever of the aliens remained die at this point.
It's 49 years later, 2056. Nine massive ships are in orbit on the far side of the moon, masked from human sensors. Commanding this fleet is Temple Hill, remorseful at his actions in the planetary transfer incident. While he was not charged with anything, he took it as an obligation to do something. Outside of military orders, he spent the last 10 years tracking down the fragment, and got to Earth, which now looks like a blue gem with a large splinter on one side.
Hill's plans are as such:
1) Deploy Intimidators in major population centers. These are towering, anthropomorphic, quadrupedal mechs that are intended to inspire fear in the populace. Precedents indicate that such weapons are highly effective against less advanced civilizations. Intimidators are slow and inefficient, and the damage they deal is more frightening than truly destructive; their psychological effect is their true deal, though.
2) Deploy more efficient attack forces after noted loss of composure in local military. Cripple their ability to defend against what we're going to do next.
3) Begin construction of a Psycholathe in the vinicity of the crash site. The souls of our comrades are embedded in the rock; as we are a race powerful in psionic ability, we can assume that many are still in a recoverable state. Those of the Earth/Terra planet are noted to have some form of psyche that fortuitously makes them compatible with the Psycholathe. By harvesting the souls/essences/consciousnesses of an equivalent number of humans, it shall be possible to revive our dead brothers and sisters.
4) Leave the planet with minimal losses.
The greatest problems to this plan are that his people have little experience in war, and while all other aspects of their technology soar high above the humans, their weapons tech is a meager thirty or so years ahead only. While they have high-end plasma weapons, particle beams and primitive disruptor-like devices, the humans have midrange plasma, and very powerful projectile weapons. Some directed-energy weapons exist in the human arsenal also. Nuclear weapons are very popular.
This, coupled with superior numbers, tactics, and terrain advantage, the humans are only minorly dazed by the Intimidator attacks...before they take them down with surprising speed and efficiency. Then they start switching from defense to offense, taking out key alien strongholds. Soon, they're on the run back to the Australian main base where the Psycholathe is constructed. Eventually they are destroyed.
they make no reference to race names. It will never be heard on either side.
Temple Hill wants to send another, but he argues with his council and advisors. Suddenly, a human spacecraft is seen towing a particle weapon to the moon. The weapons signature is consistent with their own. The humans adapted technology from the rock because the aliens built their machines to be extremely durable; hence their survival of the impact. Temple Hill's ships react to destroy the incoming weapon, but soon their weapons systems are disabled by a strange ECM-type tool from the humans. As the light of the first alien ship's destruction blooms, ten more particle cannons are seen incoming...
The humans are demonized here. Seen as belligerent, cruel things who really love the war with the aliens from the looks of it. They hang the dismembered bodies on flagpoles and parade them around bases. They laugh at disarmed aliens and shoot them in nonvital areas or torture them for fun. This is in contrast to the aliens, whose physical characteristics are never even to be mentioned.
Any thoughts? Tweaking for the plot? Destruction of the ending altogether so that the storyline can be more free? What's up?