Aarons thoughts on the expanding shield were similar to my own. It does remind
me of the Langston field or the Black Globe Generator Traveller ripped off
from Niven and partner. That field absorbed energy and then attempted to
disapate it over time. If it got overheated you could get localized
overheating where the radiant energy would damage the hull of the ship
underneath, or general overheating where the entire field would collapse and
vaporize the whole ship... By the way, the Langston field was discovered in
the First Empire of Man after the CoDominium collapsed. Mote In God's Eye
takes place in the Second Empire of Man. That is where the Moties created the
expanding shields...
Excerpts from FT: 3-Apr-97 Expanding Shields by Phillip E. Pournelle@nps
> Aarons thoughts on the expanding shield were similar to my own.
Oh, is *that* what this is! I'd heard a reference to a BGG, but figured it was
some kind of play on the "black globes" that many games use to refer to
unknown sensor contacts....
> That field absorbed energy
Well, I don't think they got any total collapses until they layered the ships
with superconductor, but that's another story....
> By the way, the Langston field was discovered in the First Empire of
Urf, yeah. Sorry, I just tend to think of all those books as the "CoDo
timeline" or something to that effect....
> That is where the Moties created the expanding shields...
Hmm, yeah, I guess that does show a basis for expanding shields... of course,
I don't think any ship could fire out of the shield except the one controlling
it; the ships had to open "holes" so that their shots weren't absorbed by the
shield. Not to mention, a ship could fly inside the shield, and then open fire
on the ship inside... at least, I think they could....
Later,
> At 02:50 PM 4/3/97 -0500, you wrote:
> That field absorbed energy
There are total collapses, but ship's usually surrendered when the amount of
heat in their Langston Field prevented them from extending any sensors out, as
the sensor stalk would get vaporized. Read the opening battle in Mote. Don
Hawthornes work in the War World Series expanded on how Langston Fields
operated. Before Motie Super conductive material you would usually get a fatal
burn through before general collapse. But then a catastrophic burn through can
result in total vaporization...
> Hmm, yeah, I guess that does show a basis for expanding shields... of
Given the size of the field, etc. only ship's boats and fighters could hide in
the Langston Field. There were boarding boats that would attempt to coast
through the field to make a breach, but you wouldn't want to do that on an
enemy whose field was already heated.
Excerpts from FT: 3-Apr-97 Re: Expanding Shields by Phillip
Pournelle@nps.na
> There are total collapses, but ship's usually surrendered when the
?? Where did you find that? (I'm assuming you're referring to the battle
between MacArthur and the Defiant, which was cut... I thought.) Besides, if
the shield is too hot to extend a sensor stalk, you're not going to be able to
extend a communications stalk either....
> >Hmm, yeah, I guess that does show a basis for expanding shields... of
Well, you made me re-read the beginning of _Mote_, so now you can go
re-read the end. ^_^ "[MacArthur] was 500 meters inward from [the
collapsing Langston Field]." OK, it's more like the late middle... regardless,
you could easily fit other cap ships inside the field radius, which means
they'd be able to fire on the generating ship *very*
easily....
> You wrote:
That was with the Motie expanding shield. MacArthur became a larger target
because of the size of its sheild. From what Niven has told me, the Langston
Field expanded only when heated, although the Moties I'm sure were looking for
ways to do it normally.