I have figured out how to write my book (see through earlier topics in this section), STILL be in it as Nova Ex-O, AND put it during the period of the Vzuhan Vong !
Im da MAN !
Watch this space for details as I release them - and trust me - this is gonna be good !
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
How about if, during a botch job on the Vong side, we discover an unexpected weakness, which a B-Wing is best developed to take advantage of...
Imagine this - a Vong spy finds out about a large gathering of ships above Man Calamari, thinking it is a strike force, and so suggests that they should be struck down fast before they get a chance to launch.
Meanwhile, Akbar is at Mon Cal. for a special ceremony, as the large number of assembled ships are actually ships that, despite the current war, are simply too old for service, and are to be decomissioned. But the Vong dont realise this, and so appear, and assault the group. They are get hammered, and only a few ships manage to get their weapons online, but most offensive systems were deactivated and dismantled. Among the few who can get some weapons working are a flightgroup of Y-Wings and 2 lancer frigates. Unfortunatly, only the ions come on-line on the lancers, but much to everyones suprise, ever hit the ions scores also scores a kill !
As such, the New Republic look in to it, as it is no the first time this has happened, as when they attempted to capture a Vong ship with ions, they assumed it 'self destructed', but this sheds new light.
IN order to take full advantage of this new theory, the call in a veteran of the Zsinji wars, a friend of Solos.
As Solo puts it - 'Another relic for the collection !'
'Heh - antique at most !' says Commander Jon Adamson of Nova Squadron.
Well, with THREE ion canons, B-Wings are now best equipped to deal with the Vong.
And if you think that the ions idea is dumb, ill add another post after this when Im free to explain why it is actually feasable...
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
[This message has been edited by Cmdr_DFMD (edited September 19, 2000).]
Well - here goes :
The following is to explain the 2 main problems people will have with my idea...
P1) "Nova's Ex-O WASNT called 'Jon Adamson'"
A) No, your right, but then again, in the X-Wing series, Wraith and Rogues were the focus, and Ive read enough to know that Pole-arm and Nova only had 3 people named between the two, NOT including Nova's EX-O, and I will call my Clan 'Nova Squadron' (as you can see in my signature) when it begins, so it seems kinda fair. Plus - come on - like you would pass up the chance to have a character in the SW:Uni named after !
PS - this will be a 2 part story, and I intend to be killed of in part 2 (But not before putting the 'White Witch' through her paces....!)
P2) "Ions taking out Coral skippers and other Vong craft - yeah - RIGHT!"
A) Err - yeah right. Im gonna go deep and geeky on you for a mo, but trust me, it rarely happens...
What is a Blaster bolt ? - an shaft of hi-energy light with a sighter beam of red or green gas to make it visible. What can blasters also fire? Stun bolts.
Stun bolts are VERY low level blaster shots, or special bolts, and are designed knock out biological organisms. The Vong thrive on biological 'technology', but it is of such a level that a stun bolt aint gonna work. But we have also been told in the stories that blasters are not that effective, and they it can take some to dish them some.
Now, what is an Ion Cannon ?
The ion cannon is an offensive, NON-LETHAL weapon system designed to allow the capture of ships for study, boarding, or for a bloodless escape.
It was design to work against the computer system with in a ship to knock it out in much the same way a stun bolt works on organisms.
It fries the circuitry, rendering system useless, and the ship relatively helpless.
The 'technology' of the Vong use large organisms, that in order to carry out their tasks must have a large brain and neural network.
Electrical impulses are carried along the network, so it is simply a large organic circuit and system. And due to the large amount of energy in the bolt, it should fry quite a bit of the 'circuitry' in a Vong ship, rendering it useless, and because the ships ARE organisms, they would be brain dead, and therefore leaving them for picking off at will, ie - dead !
If you STILL have some problems with this idea - say - thats why I posted it !
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
you still forget about the Dovin Basels and thier mini balck holes.
Also the exterior of all Vong craft is CORAL which is the next best thing to a Rock. Rocks do not conduct electricity very well.
And yes a Ion would work on a living creature (Mara Jade got hit by one) in Heir to the Empire Trilogy.
But would ions be enuf? you would have to get past the Dovin Basels, and the coral Coral first.
Good point, but....
1) DovinBasal would be one of the first things to be fried once hit, because whilst they deflect/absorb shots, the republic has been able to destroy Vong craft, meaning some shots get through and ions have the same chance of gettinf through, and as apposed to needing a large number of blaster shots to get through, it could take as few as 2 Ion shots to get through to nail it, meaning that the probability and odds are in our favour (apologise to all corellian-wannabes out there for telling you about odds)
Coral - um, kinda didnt think about that one....
But Ions are not pure electricity them selves are they, yet they still travel through starship hulls... They are, well, I dont quite know their composition, but they are not electricty, as you cannot fire electricity across such distances like that in that form.
Plus - heh - its fiction, how about a little artistic licence ! lol !
But thanks for raising the points - keep 'em coming folks...
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
[This message has been edited by Cmdr_DFMD (edited September 26, 2000).]
I knew it was somwhere...
In Hero's trial they specifically state ships were using Ions ... um.... page 180-184 with the battle of Ord mantell
THey were even using B-wings. So i dont think there is any Crippling weakness exposed on Vong ships by using Ions on them
Also, the Dovin Basils (which is their biggest assest) are the engines and the shilds of the crafts, those would be underneath the Yorrik COral. And would be safe from Ion fire.
There might be a weakness, with using Tractor beams, in Onsalught, an Interdictor Crusier was VERY effective in disabling a Vong ship. Too bad there are not many Interdictors around.
maybe you coudl devlope some sort of EMP missle that is sort of liek a HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) anti-tank round. THe "missle" would peirce the YOrrick coral, and then set off a EMP Burst inside the Vong ship.. and if the missle was fired close enuf to the Dovin basils, the ship would end up being toast
All SW ships use hardend systems to prevent instentanious shut down due to Ion fire. It would make sense that Vong ships would be simularly hardended against the same.
DOH !
Ah well, its still an idea worth following up...
I have Hero's Trial, and I dont remember the mention of Ions OR B-Wings, so Ill have to read it again I guess as I missed it !
What about Ion Pulse Warheads ?
Or, actually swap out Ions for Hiu-Power Turbo-Stun blasters ?
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
[This message has been edited by Cmdr_DFMD (edited September 26, 2000).]
as a said, it might do well to create a 2 stage, or 3 stage warhead
As far as i ahve read, once laser fire starts hitting the Coral, shortly thereafter the ship breaks apart
The frist stage of the warhead would be a Primary launch mode, with Visual and gravic sensors. using visul mode to see the target, and then as it tdetects a mini-worm hole, detonates the 2nd stage
The Second stage is a Mirv sytle mutli warhead that runs a Tangent parbolic course away from the wormhole, and towards the enemy vong craft. this could be done with hardend auto systems.
The warhead then hits the craft, and a EMP style warhead burrows thru the coral with a shaped charge, the EMP goes off (similar to the ion pulse) and wrecks havock with sship systems
Seems knida quick for such a development.
Couldnt we play on the fact that all that was mentioned was tghat ions were fired. I doubt taht they would have been the primary weapons being fired.
Il go in to more detail in my next post, but I am not gonna go down with out a fight on this one !
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
Firstly - I noticed your comment about how some SW ships shut down if they are hit by Ion fire.
What if the Vong had a similar system. If they 'shut down', the Dovin Basal (aka DB) should, in theory 'shut down' too..... Or may be they rate their bio-technology so much, they they have programmed/trained the ships to blow up if they detect 'capture'/non-lethal fire incase of potential capture....
We could again vcapatalise on that - if they shutdown, then they would be EXTREMLY vulerable to blaster fire - sittnig ducks ! In which case, Ions still give us an adavantage.
Plus, I may be we could get around the mention of ions in Heros of Chaos 1 by simple dismissing it as a very hectic and extreme battle, and so may be no-one was really in the position to look and see that this was happening. And before you cry - 'cheap', its not exactly impossible - if you were fighting in that battle, would you notice. And as for the mention of B-Wings, chances were that in order to do enough damage with each hit, their weapons were on Full Link - Ions and blasters - and who would notice which weapon was doing the damage under the circumstances ?
So, this would allow the original story line idea to occur..
PS - As I said, if I do go through with this, it'll probably be a two parter (To follow the trend if nought else), and in the end, we can have it so that the Vong get around it, and so the odds are even again (well, back to what they were...)
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
[This message has been edited by Cmdr_DFMD (edited September 27, 2000).]
I got it.
Other than its trio blasters and ions, what else has made the B-Wing a good anti-capitol ship ?
Above 'Bomber level' speed, manoveurability, and a greater war head payload...
Your idea of a new warhead had me thinking for a while, and during a physics lesson, the teacher was talking about sound, and frequency, resonance etc - and told a story of how you can destroy even rock with a sonic pulse....
May be we could use a sonic burst warhead which would explode, giving of a huge sound wave, or a 'thumper' - attaches to the ships, and thumps at it in order to produce the yorrik corals natural frequency, which would cause the ships to begin to break apart, and FAST, alot faster than from blaster fire.
But we cant rely on warheads casue of limited supply problems, so may be we could fit out some fighters with sonic pulse blasters ?
And the two problems I see people having with this are :
1) Sound doesnt travel in space.
Yeah, but how many sci-fi battles have you seen that take place in all out silence ?
2) So, that still doesnt make the B-Wing the best choice.
No, because being able to carry 12/14 sonic pulse warheads, 6 sonic pulse blasters AND be able to mix it up with the Vong and survive is not really a great asset to the fleet.
And this then means we can bring a K-Wing unit in to it - for helping the Novs when the BIG ships arrive.
And this then gives a way for me to die...
In part two of the story, the Sonic equipped fleet could find a MAJOR strong hold - a big yorrik coral farming planet, and they could caryr out an assault, only to find it was a trap, and have difficulty. And just to add to it - a Worldship appears ! Novas are among the few flight groups and capitols who manage to get free to take on the worldship, and when it finnally goes (with help of a modified, yet fatally crippled Lancer firing its Sonics to the end, when it crashes into the worldship) and explodes, and Im caught by a big chunk of coral whilst Im fleeing the blast.
Well - even if you don't accept the idea, you've got to adimt - I have a certain amount of flair for this Sci-Fi writing / idea colating !.
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
[This message has been edited by Cmdr_DFMD (edited September 27, 2000).]
If you really want to come up with a super weapon to use against the Vong, think logically. If they use biological equipment, what are they most vulnerable to? A Virus. Come up with some horrible thing that kills them off. (Return of the Krytos virus maybe? They could take Coruscant and when they're reducing the planet's cities to rubble they expose some hidden water reserve that hadn't been purified of the virus...) Just an idea...
The thing about the Ion cannons is that it's too easy. Think of all the battles the New Republic and even the Empire have fought against the Vong. Surely SOMEONE must've fired they're Ion cannons before. At Ithor maybe? When ALL those ships were there?
Just my two cents...
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Rogue 9's words of wisdom
No - I agree. It was kind of a long shot, but their are some good new ideas coming through - chuck in what ever cents worth you have.
The krytos virus....
Um - could have it so that whilst is does give an adavantage, it starts to head back their way (like mustard gas in the WW1 trench wars), and so have to stop using itdirectly, the Vong become heavily infected, as so it spreads through them for a while longer.
Im trying to find an adavntage that we can use, yet still have being negated for some reason.
any how - ust out of interest - why isnt the sonic weapon idea logical ? I thought that kinda good !
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')
um... FYI sonic weapons dont work in space, and are usually limited to close range
You might read Harry Harrions "Eden" series, it is a good dicotomy of Man using technogly (granted it is very low tech) and a civilization based on Bio technology.
I am using that for some hints to the eventualy Vong Demise. Elementsw of non-vong galaxy taking thier toll (we hae allraedy seen thier Big ships are in disrepair, and they are having a hard time keeping up w/ thier loses) Maybe a Sith Poison or viruse that infected Ulic Qel Droma in the "Tales of the Jedi" series. Be interesting for the Jedi having to use a Sith weapon to defeat the Vong.
Maybe that is the NR salvation, using forbiddon, dangerous sith technology
But the starfighters' effots came too late.
A hellish explosion pushed outward form a rift in the hull of the Mon Calamari vessel, splitting it in half. Escape pods launched, vectoring toward Ord Mantell like drops of radioactive rain, while the battlecruiser became a ballooning sphere of roiling incandescence, then exploded brilliantly.
The Star Destroyer emerged from between Ord Mantell's moons with main and auxiliary thrust nozzles flaring. Throwing itself headlong into the fray, it fired repeatedly as its pointed bow swung in the direction of the warship. Thread-fine against its enormous bulk, blue lines of energy from aft turbolasers and ion cannons stabbed unrelentingly at the black ship.
The Erinnic braced for return fire, but the plasma and projectiles rever arrived.
Abruptly the warship changed course, accellerated, and began to unleash its fury on Ord Mantell, cutting loose with all forward guns. Blinding missiles streaked toward the planet's surface, burning seething tunnels through the atmosphere. Detonations on the ground lighted the undersides of ragged clouds.
From Hero's Trial. The ions didn't seem to work...
Well - ions are DEFENETLY out then !
I like the idea of the Jedi being the Vongs demise, as the Vong see thtem as the biggest threat / target. And using a sith weapon - um - considering that the new Jedi order is still new, that could have interesting repercussions later.
Or may be we could have a rogue group of jedi that turn dark, but only attack the Vong, and dont attack the others - taht manage to control the dark side... for a time. This would then bring the Sith back for some books later, so that the old Good vs Evil is back in its original form, as if was from the start - Ligh vs Dark.
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Nove Squadron, Elite B-Wing flight group stationed aboard the MC Oracle, home of the tech library.
'No capitol too large, no corvette too armed. NOVA squadron, for ALL your extermination needs. Our special at the moment - Eclipse Star Destroyers !'
Commander Jon 'DFMD' Adamson - leader of Nova Squadron (B-Wing ID = 'The White Witch')