Gateworld Virtual Fleet 4.0 - Discussion thread

[immhotep]

Having said that, I thought we agreed Sol's gate terminal is on the Moon, could we not simply split the terminal into a smaller passenger part and a bigger cargo part? One gate each, operating at alternating intervals?

The moon should just be reconned, it is an awful idea. Like propperly the most cringe worthy moment in the whole of the series. I was shocked at that idea. Why go to the mood, it is unbelievably pointless. We can go, quickly and for free to millions of Earth like planets with multiple sources of natural resources and ample ability to hide that location from a huge variety of enemies, our Iris protected us enough for only 4 enemy fleets to actually come in to our solar system, in the whole of the galaxy, that iris could put our bases in a massive haystack. A haystack we can protect. The moon on the hand, we have no base there, we have no resources we need from it, we have no way to defend it, we have no way to get there without ships, we have no access to the gate from Earth, we have to shuttle people from the moon to Earth and Back. There is NOTHING the moon offers the stargate universe in any context besides relative isolation, which in the context of the fleets and expanding our empire in to the galaxy is huge disadvantage. The only threads the gate poses can be dealt with, and after the past decades on the shows, we have dealt with virtually all of them, and with revelation we would have much greater resources to contain or deflect any incursions or threats coming from the gate. We also have the technology and knowledge to make Earths gate virtually exclusive, through the Iris (which hasnt done too badly after all), Call forwarding, isolation shields (which the SGC is equipped with (see the road not taken)) beaming technology to get the gate out, not to mention enough personel on earth to take on virtually any size force able to make it through the gate.

Sorry but if you put a base on the moon its absurd. Put some sensors, a missile silo and some rail guns strategically on the moon, sure, whats the harm. But putting the gate on the Moon is stupid beyond any comprehension. RAGE.

[morrismike]

we have 47 from the Gate Bridge




true. that is one of our "powers".

some time ago i proposed a thing i codenamed "the Nexus"


in essence it was a space station and the logistic center of Earth's "empire".

the idea was that Earth established it's own Gate Network with it's colonies and planets, and that nobody outside it could access the private network.

the Nexus had, in my original idea, 8 Stargates. but 2 works fine too. the Nexus is the entrance and exit to the private network. it also has large storehouses and sorting systems to quickly get the cargo from a planet to the destination.

a maglev "shooting" and "catching system solves this. it uses inertia to shoot the train straight through the gate, so the last, say, 15 cm or so are travelled by the train through the air, and the first 15 are too.

The train idea rocks. I agree each planet should be self sufficient and produce a finished products. Diversify what is made on each planet to make them less attractive to world beating races and you're good to go.

[morrismike]

The moon should just be reconned, it is an awful idea. Like propperly the most cringe worthy moment in the whole of the series. I was shocked at that idea. Why go to the mood, it is unbelievably pointless. We can go, quickly and for free to millions of Earth like planets with multiple sources of natural resources and ample ability to hide that location from a huge variety of enemies, our Iris protected us enough for only 4 enemy fleets to actually come in to our solar system, in the whole of the galaxy, that iris could put our bases in a massive haystack. A haystack we can protect. The moon on the hand, we have no base there, we have no resources we need from it, we have no way to defend it, we have no way to get there without ships, we have no access to the gate from Earth, we have to shuttle people from the moon to Earth and Back. There is NOTHING the moon offers the stargate universe in any context besides relative isolation, which in the context of the fleets and expanding our empire in to the galaxy is huge disadvantage. The only threads the gate poses can be dealt with, and after the past decades on the shows, we have dealt with virtually all of them, and with revelation we would have much greater resources to contain or deflect any incursions or threats coming from the gate. We also have the technology and knowledge to make Earths gate virtually exclusive, through the Iris (which hasnt done too badly after all), Call forwarding, isolation shields (which the SGC is equipped with (see the road not taken)) beaming technology to get the gate out, not to mention enough personel on earth to take on virtually any size force able to make it through the gate.

Sorry but if you put a base on the moon its absurd. Put some sensors, a missile silo and some rail guns strategically on the moon, sure, whats the harm. But putting the gate on the Moon is stupid beyond any comprehension. RAGE.

We need off network bases for sure.

[Gormagon]

I have not been able to catch up on all the posts yet, but I would think there would be smaller ships used my smugglers or for private charters, medium sized ones, and then the big shipping vessels used by various companies. However, the only reasons we would need ships to haul cargo are as follows....
No Stargate were the cargo is needed, I.E a secret base or a planet/moon/asteroid in the same system as the world with the Stargate.
Too big to fit through the Stargate.
The Stargate would be used for too long for one thing, clogging other uses for it. Only so much can go through at a time.

Here is how I would design my freighters.
A large, mostly hollow shell of armor and hull over structural supports (Made of trinium alloy.) like a skeleton. Power core near the engines in the most armored section. A small crew area, no more then 20-40 people. It could even be fully automated or a drone. The cargo space would be adjustable, between transporting live cargo, like colonists, and holding processed metal. Cargo like grain or plants would be kept in stasis crates. My freighter would have a intense magnetic deflector, but also light conventional force field generators and point defense weapons. Missile type weapons would be optional as they take up space, but I would like them for independent offensive power against pirates.

They would still need escort vessels of course.


I was thinking about the Beliskner class ship, I think it has these for weapons...
6 blue plasma turrets.
1 very heavy ion cannon.
Or, perhaps the other way around.
6 ion turrets.
1 heavy plasma cannon.
I think the first one makes more sense though. They should have some sort of ion weapon/weapons, "Ion neutrino generators".
They should also have some sort of Asgard designed bomb weapons.

[thekillman]

I have not been able to catch up on all the posts yet, but I would think there would be smaller ships used my smugglers or for private charters, medium sized ones, and then the big shipping vessels used by various companies. However, the only reasons we would need ships to haul cargo are as follows....
No Stargate were the cargo is needed, I.E a secret base or a planet/moon/asteroid in the same system as the world with the Stargate.
Too big to fit through the Stargate.
The Stargate would be used for too long for one thing, clogging other uses for it. Only so much can go through at a time.

the stargate can only transport so much.

there IS no special class for smugglers. the "delivery men", express delivery people and smugglers would use tel'tak and Al'kesh

They would still need escort vessels of course.

i doubt that actually. i doubt any cargo ship going from "heliopolis world" to heliopolis world will have an escort. i mean, massive freighters move past Somalia each day and none of them have an escort.


yes, cargo ships to non-heliopolis worlds will have some form of escort, but more likely a warship that was meant to be there anyway and keeping an eye on things from a distance than a side-by-side escort.

I was thinking about the Beliskner class ship, I think it has these for weapons...

the use of this?

The moon should just be reconned, it is an awful idea.

i'd put the moon base a few miles under the surface. also it's completely nation-neutral.

[immhotep]

the stargate can only transport so much.

I just did some maths. I shouldnt but turns out that is ALOT.

A gate train of theoretically infinate lentgth travelling at slow speed through the gate (in comparison to engines demonstrated by the PJ's) in a cyclender the size of the gate, could transport 1^9 Litres during a 38minute window. Thats roughly half a million litres. If you convert that in to say Iron, then its 1Ton of Iron per 127Litres. Thats 2.228 Million Tons of Iron shipped. In 38 minutes. It is a phenominal amount of material to be transport for free. I cant even imagine these figures when you use the densities of trinium and naquadah in the equations. Obviously these are the theoretical limits, but the point stands that the ONLY part of that statement is invalid.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

Uh, 'tep ... the GateHub from 2.0-3.0 also falls prey to all those issues you mentioned ... so kinda' shooting yourself in the foot, don't you think?

Plus, you know, at least a moon-base already has something, you know, there already (namely, this big giant chunk of rock we call the Moon). And the moon-base was already being built, so why not use it for something practical? The GateHub y'all built from scratch, in space.


The moon offers the ISGC something it dearly needs: isolation (Cheyanne's big door in the roof above the gate, anyone?) and neutrality. Politics is a far bigger issue than it's often given credit for.

Plus, you know, we really went over all this a while back. We had our naysayers and our doomsayers and those in favor ... and those in favor won. Can we just let it go?



EDIT: And, just to be nit-picky, transport through the 'gate isn't technically "free": it costs enormous amounts of power (traditionally speaking). No free lunch -- though admittedly it might still be fairly cheap on a relative scale.

[fugiman]

I thought we were only going to be using the gate for military and political reason not for the economy.

Plus who gets to control the gate gets a lot of economic power so I don't know if the other countries would be ok with whoever gets the gate getting such a huge economic weapon

[immhotep]

Uh, 'tep ... the GateHub from 2.0-3.0 also falls prey to all those issues you mentioned ... so kinda' shooting yourself in the foot, don't you think?

Plus, you know, at least a moon-base already has something, you know, there already (namely, this big giant chunk of rock we call the Moon). And the moon-base was already being built, so why not use it for something practical? The GateHub y'all built from scratch, in space.

This reboot and 3.0 are very different situations. The Earth infrastructure when the gatehub was built, is radically different from anything we putting in place now. The gatehub was built when we were effectively rebuilding Earth after the wraith invasion. We put in vast infrastructure project to enable something like the Gatehub to replace our existing facility (which was base in Antartica, as a primarily military and research function) in order to allow more trade and civilian uses (which had be marginalised offworld) under the guise of military uses being a priority. This infrastructure included a global integrated network of beam based transport taking people and cargo almost continuously from the station to depots and terminals around the globe. The Gate hub was a massive project not to be understated. It was also far far closer to Earth than the move.

The moon base is a completely different kettle of fish. We dont need a giant chunk of rock. Besides its function as a remote sensor point, experimental nuclear testing ground, weapons research and testing im fine with, oh and keep our orbit stable. It has no function in any measure as any point our gate program. ATALL. As to it already being built, downgrade it, use it for something else. They only said moonbase, nothing about putting the gate there or anything like that.

The moon offers the ISGC something it dearly needs: isolation (Cheyanne's big door in the roof above the gate, anyone?) and neutrality. Politics is a far bigger issue than it's often given credit for.

Plus, you know, we really went over all this a while back. We had our naysayers and our doomsayers and those in favor ... and those in favor won. Can we just let it go?

I wasnt there, and I wont leave this. Its just stupid. Sorry it is. If you want to use the gate for any purpose atall then you keep it on Earth. Putting it on the moon is wrong. You cant say politics is the enemy here, and shipping the gate to the moon will do nothing to solve that (who controls it on the moon?) There are locations on Earth that are netural, are isolated, and are much more viable. Antartica is the prime example, but there are several others. CERN for example, has the neutrality, international cooperation, technology, personnel, power production, and space to house a gate program.

I thought we were only going to be using the gate for military and political reason not for the economy.

Plus who gets to control the gate gets a lot of economic power so I don't know if the other countries would be ok with whoever gets the gate getting such a huge economic weapon

Economy is a big part of it. If we only use the gate for military and politics then the SGC is fine, has been for along time. Would just need to base it around a special arrangement like Atlantis, a mix of military and international science personnel.

Also regardless of who controls the gate on Earth. Private corporations WILL get offworld. When they do, any control of the Earth gate will be pointless. They dont need to export back to Earth, they have billions all over the galaxy to sell too, including our enemies which they wont care about as long as they pay. And they can implement all of these infrastructure projects regardless of who controls the Earth gate. We can only maintain control over that infrastructure, and enable us to produce our fleet and maintain and grow our civilization within the stargate context by providing the incentives and the opportunity for business to expand in this context whilst being on our side. Under our control. Otherwise we will just be sending capitalist Earth in to a marketplace that they will dictate everything we do economically, rather than from any strategic or military perspective as is the nature and basis of the fleet.

Either the expanded gate program does it, or the private sector will. It would happen regardless, its just who benefits.

[Crazy Tom]

'Tep, Calm. Down. We are not having this discussion if all you want to do is yell at us.

Firstly, the gate is one of the easiest access point to Sol, as the SGC has experienced in the past, it's a huge security risk, as it stands right now, the plan was to keep it in a deep underground departure area beneath the northern peak of eternal light where it can be isolated easily in case of an security risk, yet where its is very easy to ship material via long range ring platforms, which is how most travel is actually done.

Secondly, as mentioned, it is politically neutral ground, and nobody "controls" the gate, the UNE maintains and services it's facilities, but it's a commercial facility comparable to an international airport or railroad nexus. The gate level itself is a military facility, but in relative size to the commercial spaces, it's tiny, and it'd very behind the scenes.

All of Earth offworld sorties are now done from other planets.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

And, of course, there's nothing to prevent us implementing your train idea on the moon either. People buy a ticket, beam up, board a train, and ship out.

...All of Earth offworld sorties are now done from other planets.

To avoid misunderstanding here, Tom is referring to military sorties. He's not saying no civilian travel.

[Crazy Tom]

And, of course, there's nothing to prevent us implementing your train idea on the moon either. People buy a ticket, beam up, board a train, and ship out.



To avoid misunderstanding here, Tom is referring to military sorties. He's not saying no civilian travel.

Yes and yes. Through, once again, civilian travel going off the "main grid" so to speak would probably be filtered through a few planets until it reaches a volume where the gate could be dialed for small groups of individuals, depending on the popularity of the destination. These centers would get less and less sophisticated the further down the chain you went.

[immhotep]

I can't not yell. It's just not right at atall. We dont even have access to long range beaming technology. Let alone enough to provide enough global cover to service all the planet. Sure rings to the terminal may be needed down the line but initially we will not want to go to the mOon and back everytime we want to go through the gate!! I can't believe you ALL agreed to this...if I ever write anything it will be from an off world base. The moon is just unbelievably stupid in the stargate context. *expected more*

For the record, we can defend the hate in such a complete way that it is by far the most secure access point to sol. Only two weapons, a black hole and a ancient built gate Destroyer have actually got through the iris in 10 years. It's the entire solar system and earths general position in space that we will struggle with. Hence the main objective for building a fleet!

Also how do you expect to defend the mood base? How do you fit unconventional goods through a ring platform ( forget trains on the moon )
I find it absurd that we get a tech level 40 years ahead of our own and instant travel to planets and yet we still think the moon is note worthy. It's not. It's a giant useless piece of rock in sg terms. One we can replace with any number of habits lee resource Rich moons or planet we like through the stargate.

[thekillman]

I can't not yell. It's just not right at atall. We dont even have access to long range beaming technology

cough.


tep you are mistaken about one thing: the moon is, in galactic terms, right on our asses.


assuming most ships are in Geosynchronous orbit (they don't appear to circle round the earth REALLY fast), they would already be about a quarter of the way to the Moon. while i strongly believe we have hardly begun to understand Ring Tech, there's NOTHING to prevent us from ripping the "matter recievers" and "matter transmitters" or whatever equivalent from the Rings, enlarging it as far as we can with our current tech and then linking other such "deprived" rings to these large transmitters and just increasing the range 10fold.


the moon is not "long range beaming". i am not certain what the longest distance ever beamed was, but Geostationary orbit to surface has been done on a regular basis.

to my knowledge, the biggest distance beamed would be Sheppard in "Intruder" since he was almost outside beaming range.


the moon is 384000 Km from earth (barycenter). you need to remove some 7500km for surface-to-surface.


Geosync orbit is some 40000 km. not exactly 1/4th, but you understand that the distance is not all that much further compared to other distances.

[fugiman]

Tep more then jus two times has the Iris and security at the SGC been taken out.

I mean the Wraith took over the gate bridge, when the Mimic aliens took over the SGC, when a computer virus took over the SGC, Sokar's laser weapon that heated the gate, the replicators, the asgard just opened the Iris, the Tollan just walked through it, a goa'uld assassin got through and that's just to name a few others that have gotten past the the Iris.