08-11-2025, 10:10 PM
Just to add a couple things to the mix:
a) Re lasers - optical phased arrays - particularly those based on PQDA technology might allow the entire front of the ship to act as a laser emitter firing a beam as wide as the whole front of the ship (this rather than specific individual emitters firing overlapping beams or the like). It might also make the system more resilient in that damaging part of the array would still leave the rest intact while repairs are made to the damaged bits.
Power requirements might be challenging - how much energy would a laser protection system need to emit anyway?
Related random thought that just came to me - perhaps the laser system (or other onboard lasers) could constantly energize a plasma cloud ahead of the ship to help vaporize potential impactors rather than try to shoot them down directly.
b) Although we don't make a big deal of it (and perhaps should make more of one) - we've long said that shielding is a major limiting factor for both the speed and maximum range of OA ships - even up into transapient levels. From the sound of things so far, that element is likely to be one we want to keep. Note that this is not arguing that OA ships have to be 'slow' in the later timeline - just that they don't (usually) do hyper-relativistic speeds where time dilation becomes significant. But with biostasis tech this isn't generally a big deal.
My 2c worth,
Todd
a) Re lasers - optical phased arrays - particularly those based on PQDA technology might allow the entire front of the ship to act as a laser emitter firing a beam as wide as the whole front of the ship (this rather than specific individual emitters firing overlapping beams or the like). It might also make the system more resilient in that damaging part of the array would still leave the rest intact while repairs are made to the damaged bits.
Power requirements might be challenging - how much energy would a laser protection system need to emit anyway?
Related random thought that just came to me - perhaps the laser system (or other onboard lasers) could constantly energize a plasma cloud ahead of the ship to help vaporize potential impactors rather than try to shoot them down directly.
b) Although we don't make a big deal of it (and perhaps should make more of one) - we've long said that shielding is a major limiting factor for both the speed and maximum range of OA ships - even up into transapient levels. From the sound of things so far, that element is likely to be one we want to keep. Note that this is not arguing that OA ships have to be 'slow' in the later timeline - just that they don't (usually) do hyper-relativistic speeds where time dilation becomes significant. But with biostasis tech this isn't generally a big deal.
My 2c worth,
Todd
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