Another plot puzzler

[dag'karlove]

All ships have such a thing... the bridge, pretty much what they whacked on the planet killer. I suspect that it wasn't brought into play until the planetary defenses were brought down. Besides, no one is perfect

Modern naval warships have VERY few single points of failure. Hitting the bridge of a carrier will not render any of the ships primary functions, anti-air, aircraft launch, navigation, etc, disabled. While it would be demoralizing and crippling, possibly impairing many aspects of the ship, it would not take it out of the fight. It would be akin to having your star player taken off the field. The team has others that can do his job. Maybe not as well, but the team doesn't forfeit.

Even mankind can build a system better than that. Nuclear missile ranges are interconnected, with each control facility linked to all the other silos. The control facilities don't just watch their own missiles, they watch everyone else’s. So, when the curtain goes up and that big red button is pushed, if one of the control facilities has been destroyed, over run, or the operators have either fallen asleep or decided they don't want to push the button, someone else already has and all the balloons go up.

To say that an advanced civilization can't build a device capable of destroying a planet without incorporating some sort of weak point is just silly.

Its not like the Shadows were a race composed entirely of mad scientists who, by their very nature, have a tendency to build devices of unimaginable power without thinking things through and including simple devices like a battery backup for when the hero unplugs their doomsday machine. The shadows are a race that pre-date some solar systems and have mastered hyperspace.

It’s almost as bad as those species that travel across star systems to invade planets only to find out they have no tolerance for the common cold. Or a civilization that becomes a galactic power despite the gas which it uses to breathe being explosively reactive to radiation...

Also, while its been a while since I watched ACTA, wasn't there a 'decoy' control station, or multiple? If you are going to go through the effort of building a decoy control station, why not make it a real one?

I mean, you do have an UPS for your computer, right?

*Actually to highlight something you said, Modern Naval warships do have a single Point of Failure. Its Know as The Combat, Information or direction (dpending on what ship you are on) Center. You kill this portion of a ship it cant fight Period. no weapons No nothing. Its Blind and toothless.

 

[David Anla Shok']

All ships have such a thing... the bridge, pretty much what they whacked on the planet killer. I suspect that it wasn't brought into play until the planetary defenses were brought down. Besides, no one is perfect

To say that an advanced civilization can't build a device capable of destroying a planet without incorporating some sort of weak point is just silly.

Also, while its been a while since I watched ACTA, wasn't there a 'decoy' control station, or multiple? If you are going to go through the effort of building a decoy control station, why not make it a real one?

I mean, you do have an UPS for your computer, right?

Take a chill pill baby. All we know is what we saw. Heck, the damn thing might have been a disposable weapon, used once then chucked. Not being a ship, I suspect that they might not engineer it like a ship. I have seen sillier things in real life.

 

[l33tpenguin]

this post is addressing multiple others, without specification

No worries, no one is getting up in arms.

I'll give you that on the CIC, although I believe loss of it will not totally cripple a ship. Many of the shipboard functions can be done from remote parts of a vessel.

I've been mulling it over, and then remembered what bugged me so much about the whole deal with 'a call to arms' Greg did a good job of reminding me.

Its a very 'star trek' victory. I loath star trek for solving a vast number of their problems through techno-babble or other 'gee wiz' style solutions. This didn't happen very often on Babylon 5. I hate deus ex machina and the victory in ACTA felt very much like that to me.

Compare it to the Earth Civil war where it was the personal sacrifice and struggle of many of the characters that brought about the defeat of Clark and return of Earth to its people. Not some 'oh, we found the lynchpin in his regime!'

 

[dag'karlove]

this post is addressing multiple others, without specification

No worries, no one is getting up in arms.

I'll give you that on the CIC, although I believe loss of it will not totally cripple a ship. Many of the shipboard functions can be done from remote parts of a vessel.

I've been mulling it over, and then remembered what bugged me so much about the whole deal with 'a call to arms' Greg did a good job of reminding me.

Its a very 'star trek' victory. I loath star trek for solving a vast number of their problems through techno-babble or other 'gee wiz' style solutions. This didn't happen very often on Babylon 5. I hate deus ex machina and the victory in ACTA felt very much like that to me.

Compare it to the Earth Civil war where it was the personal sacrifice and struggle of many of the characters that brought about the defeat of Clark and return of Earth to its people. Not some 'oh, we found the lynchpin in his regime!'

Yes you can steer the ship from somewhere else but thats it. CIC is gone and you effectively have no ship. Especially on A Carrier because of where it is located. If you wreck the CIC/CDC youve destroyed the cats and the flight deck which makes an A/C carrier worthless.

 

[silashand]

The ships were "living", yes. The planet killer looked to be a simple, mechanical structure.

I don't know the source for the information, but b5tech has the cloud listed as entirely biological entity comprised of bio-nanites. It was the destruction of a planet and the subsequent stripping of the entire biosphere and thermal energy that "fed" the cloud.

http://www.b5tech.com/shadows/shadowships/shadowcloud.html

Cheers, Gary

 

[l33tpenguin]

Yes you can steer the ship from somewhere else but thats it. CIC is gone and you effectively have no ship. Especially on A Carrier because of where it is located. If you wreck the CIC/CDC youve destroyed the cats and the flight deck which makes an A/C carrier worthless.

yeah... any sort of an attack that is going to destroy the CIC/CDC is going to destroy enough of the ship to make it pretty much useless.

 

[LaranosTZ]

I crew member the merged pilot. Shadows use the Eye to keep the ships in control

Interesting thought. Speculative on your part of is there some basis?

This is not speculative...in the 'passing of the technomages' trilogy they go into some detail about the Eye, how shadows interact with their minions, their ships, etc.

 

[dag'karlove]

Is This a JMS written Book? or authorised by JMS? If it isnt then it cant really be considered source material to determin anything from IMHO.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Is This a JMS written Book? or authorised by JMS? If it isnt then it cant really be considered source material to determin anything from IMHO.

Its in print and published, so its been authorized by JMS

 

[dag'karlove]

Is This a JMS written Book? or authorised by JMS? If it isnt then it cant really be considered source material to determin anything from IMHO.

Its in print and published, so its been authorized by JMS

Not Nessecarilly (SP)? Mongoose itself had some problems with JMS and some of the fiction that they published.

 

[LaranosTZ]

Actually, with Mongoose, they -wanted- to publish some novels set in the Bab 5 universe, but JMS has review and release rights on all work set in his universe, at least he keeps them locked down for novels. He never approved them, so they never were written. Everything that is a Bab 5 novel in the stores right now is approved by JMS as canon.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Not Nessecarilly (SP)? Mongoose itself had some problems with JMS and some of the fiction that they published.

They never made it to print because they didn't have the approval of JMS

 

[Taran]

Yes you can steer the ship from somewhere else but thats it. CIC is gone and you effectively have no ship. Especially on A Carrier because of where it is located. If you wreck the CIC/CDC youve destroyed the cats and the flight deck which makes an A/C carrier worthless.

The reactor. Much more complete ship kill if you can take that out. Especially if you managed to force a super-critical reaction (sabotage the control rods?)

On a sub (much more akin to a space-based fleet's issues), you have the structural integrity issue, the missiles, the torpedoes, the reactor...
Granted, there are several (dozen) safeguards to prevent any one of those from instantly killing the ship, but the fact remains, detonate a missile or a torp or the reactor (or just shut this one down), or much more easily, just breach the hull enough, and you've killed the boat...

With the Shadow Cloud, remember, it was the Drakh running it, not the Shadows. They may not have known how to stop the device once it had been triggered (I imagine the Shadows would have kept a Few secrets from their servants to protect against treachery)...

 

[dag'karlove]

Well I stand Corrected

 

[David Anla Shok']

this post is addressing multiple others, without specification

No worries, no one is getting up in arms.

I'll give you that on the CIC, although I believe loss of it will not totally cripple a ship. Many of the shipboard functions can be done from remote parts of a vessel.

I've been mulling it over, and then remembered what bugged me so much about the whole deal with 'a call to arms' Greg did a good job of reminding me.

Its a very 'star trek' victory. I loath star trek for solving a vast number of their problems through techno-babble or other 'gee wiz' style solutions. This didn't happen very often on Babylon 5. I hate deus ex machina and the victory in ACTA felt very much like that to me.

Compare it to the Earth Civil war where it was the personal sacrifice and struggle of many of the characters that brought about the defeat of Clark and return of Earth to its people. Not some 'oh, we found the lynchpin in his regime!'

So, the Victory scored a coolster critical hit. Looked great on screen. Saved time in the story. Call it good.

 

[dag'karlove]

Yes you can steer the ship from somewhere else but thats it. CIC is gone and you effectively have no ship. Especially on A Carrier because of where it is located. If you wreck the CIC/CDC youve destroyed the cats and the flight deck which makes an A/C carrier worthless.

The reactor. Much more complete ship kill if you can take that out. Especially if you managed to force a super-critical reaction (sabotage the control rods?)

On a sub (much more akin to a space-based fleet's issues), you have the structural integrity issue, the missiles, the torpedoes, the reactor...
Granted, there are several (dozen) safeguards to prevent any one of those from instantly killing the ship, but the fact remains, detonate a missile or a torp or the reactor (or just shut this one down), or much more easily, just breach the hull enough, and you've killed the boat...

With the Shadow Cloud, remember, it was the Drakh running it, not the Shadows. They may not have known how to stop the device once it had been triggered (I imagine the Shadows would have kept a Few secrets from their servants to protect against treachery)...

Well One If you can ever get to the reactor on a carrier with a conventional weapon then The issues with the carrier being any kind of usefull are well past a simple making it combat inneffective. Itd take such a swarm of missiles/torpedoes that most 2nd world militaries would be out of ammo. As for a submarine Thier reactors are designed to Scarm instantly at any sign of serious trouble. It was a safeguard that was put in after the K-19 incident.

 

[dag'karlove]

Well I stand Corrected

To leet and laranos

 

[David Anla Shok']

Yes you can steer the ship from somewhere else but thats it. CIC is gone and you effectively have no ship. Especially on A Carrier because of where it is located. If you wreck the CIC/CDC youve destroyed the cats and the flight deck which makes an A/C carrier worthless.

The reactor. Much more complete ship kill if you can take that out. Especially if you managed to force a super-critical reaction (sabotage the control rods?)

On a sub (much more akin to a space-based fleet's issues), you have the structural integrity issue, the missiles, the torpedoes, the reactor...
Granted, there are several (dozen) safeguards to prevent any one of those from instantly killing the ship, but the fact remains, detonate a missile or a torp or the reactor (or just shut this one down), or much more easily, just breach the hull enough, and you've killed the boat...

With the Shadow Cloud, remember, it was the Drakh running it, not the Shadows. They may not have known how to stop the device once it had been triggered (I imagine the Shadows would have kept a Few secrets from their servants to protect against treachery)...

Well One If you can ever get to the reactor on a carrier with a conventional weapon then The issues with the carrier being any kind of usefull are well past a simple making it combat inneffective. Itd take such a swarm of missiles/torpedoes that most 2nd world militaries would be out of ammo. As for a submarine Thier reactors are designed to Scarm instantly at any sign of serious trouble. It was a safeguard that was put in after the K-19 incident.

.............. or even scram.................

 

[dag'karlove]

yes scram as you well know david im a bit retarded when it comes to typing

 

[Taran]

...Well, I did mention the multiple safeguards...