Greetings! And a question/clarification/food for thought.

[Vitto]

Hello all!
Long time sci-fi and hard sci-fi addicted here. I really don't remember how I found about OA a few years ago but it was glorious since then! Absolutely love your stuff! Expecially the depth of the articles on the EG and the consistency on a so large timescale.
But there is a thing that has always bothered me a lot and in the end I decided to come here to try to get an answer or explaination. Or maybe give you a good topic to talk about.
I don't know if this has beed discussed already, not on this forum from what I can read but I never accessed the old one. Anyway:

The great and greatest Archai (S5 and S6) posses a great deal of extremely destructive and effective weapons in their arsenals; among these the ne plus ultra for ruining someone's day are probably the metric bomb due to their destructive force and extremely low detectabilty. Also, as stated on the EG page:

"it is rumored that virtually all of the major archai, both within and outside of the Civilized Galaxy, maintain arsenals of such weapons in a modern echo of the ancient Balance of Terror that once gripped Information Age Old Earth."

And again, on the page related to the Void Swarms:

"Other bubbles, or motes, can serve as mass/energy reserves (most probably hawking knots), and as weapons caches, equipped with an extensive array of godtech weapons. Some observed variants have included displacement cannons, shatterbombs and god-level disassembler swarms. Some might even contain metric warheads as a kind of "permanent deterrent"."

It's then heavily implied that metric bomb arsenals are created as an retaliatory measure.

The part that bother me can be extrapolated from the penultimate paragraph from the metric bomb EG page:

"It is notable that the Sephirotic forces did not use Metric Bombs during the war against the Oracle Machines, perhaps because they would leave no recoverable data behind after use."

Only the mainbrains know if this is a valid reason... But the real question is: what about the Sybil's arsenal? From the official material on the EG it appears the E , in the end, before commit full data suicide or escape in a baby universe, didn't deliver the ultimate SCREW-YOU-ALL parting gift. Why? The destruction of Eir cluster brain at the end of the Oracle Machines war fits perfectly the situation that trigger the use of these weapons in retailation.

I always found this a significant (logical) plothole.

I came up with just three possible explaination on my own:

1: The Sybil in eir last moment decide to not employ the weapons.
2: The sephirotic war machine is somehow capable of destroing/defuse the vast majority/totality of the weapons.
3: Bombs are indeed been launched but at the present OA time, 11601, they have crossed just 10 - 30ly, assuming they have been launched before the destruction of the Predictiion Cluster in 11591, and are still far from their probable targets: the largest computronium megastructure, the mass dense Valhalla Clusters and the volataile largest wormhole, Nexus node and grazers located at the center of the Negentropic and Keterist space (for sure), MPA (probably) or the whole Terragen Sphere.

Consideration:
1: I find this overall the weakest scenario: the Sybil showed very well eir disregard for mass murder.
2: Just slightly less weak: finding and destroing/hacking a vast number of weapons that are probably hidden with S6 cunning and technology seems a unfesible. Unless someone wants to came up with an Orintergen (the great Cyberian hack wizard), feeded up to the last bit with godtech steroids and throw at the Sybil's network
3: Your classical Doomsday scenario but one that logically fits very well the situation, the actors involved and the tools at their disposal. I assume that due to the massed presence of S6 armies in the volume of the Oracle Machines the launch have been detected and the Archai informed through tactical comm-gauge wormhole. Obviously not informing the rest of the Terragens to avoid mass panic.
Due to being S6 weapons agains S6 defenses I assume perfect defense is not possible and a few bombs will get through. The problem with the metric warheads is that a few could be more than enough on the right target.

I hereby confess that I like the 3° scenario just for the sake of having the GodWeb unexpectedly jumping an order of magnitude or more in volume of data exchange, with a non trivial amount composed of "S6 perfect art swearing" so deeply horrifing they'd maim the mind or turn insane any sub singularities that colud grasp a bit of them  

Anyway, I missed anything? There is or not a reason? Let me know.

Cheers!

[stevebowers]

That's a really interesting idea. Maybe there are metric weapons lurking in deep space waiting to be triggered, or travelling towards designated targets. If so, there would presumably be ships out there looking for them. Sometimes the hunters might find the weapons, and cause a massive disturbance in spacetime as the weapons detonate, or are neutralised somehow. But occasionally such weapons might get through and hit their intended targets.

Since the Sybil has escaped or withdrawn Her influence from the Terragen Sphere, Her subordinates are now free to align themselves with the Seophirotics; this realignment might be useful in the search, since they would probably have a better idea of the Sybil's strategy than any other entities.

-----------------
One thing we might consider in this context is the nature of evil- would the Sybil Herself consider her strategy evil? Presumably not; the aim of the Oracle Machines was a/ to ensure that humanity, and modosophonts in general, are kept harmlessly happy, so they do not interfere with the goals of ahuman mindkind. The ahuman archailects are only interested in their own goals, and don't really need to be bothered by the low-level distractions of modosophont activity. This sets them apart from the Sephirotics, who see modosophonts as a fascinating hobby and a source of inspiration.

But at the highest levels of endeavour, I don't suppose the Sephirotic gods and the Ahuman gods are all that different. So it is quite possible that the Sibyl simply decided not to activate any doomsday weapons, because this would not further any of Her goals.

[Vitto]

Thank you for your answer,

I personally don't see it from a evil-or-not-evil point of view at all: as the motto says "War doesn't determine who is right, only who is left", if these concepts still apply to ascended AI Gods.
Rather I'd like to see it from a game theory perspective and I always had found metric bomb to be too OP and thus game breaking.
The fact that there was a war among S5-6 greatly implies that there are countermeasure to them because without is just a suicide for both parties.
I'd like to think that if there is an answer it was on the "---------data corrupted----------" on the EG Thunderbolt page, which is another weapons with similar characteristics in destructivness and detectability.
Otherwise this is a pretty logical scenario for a forced all-or-nothing attempt to reach S7 by the Archai, if one wants to explore this path in "What's coming next?".

[Drashner1]

Hi There - Welcome to OA!

Fun question

I'm not overly familiar with the Oracle War/Sybil and don't have time atm to refresh myself on it (will do that this evening time permitting), but a couple of thoughts that initially come to mind:

a) We don't really spend much time as a project on defensive weapons for whatever reason, but it does seem logical that they exist across multiple S-levels, including the S5/S6 level. So the S6 might have a way of detecting and intercepting metric munitions, either as they are launched/in flight or (perhaps more easily) when they are coming up on a target.

You do mention this possibility (Option 2) and correctly point out that the Sybil could potentially create munitions in vast numbers that could potentially overwhelm defenses, which is true. The flip side of that equation is that the S6 can create defenses in vast numbers. So it sort of boils down to an arms races with a fair number of variables that we've currently not quantified. So this is currently an option littered with 'black boxes'.

b) S6 retaliation - We imply/rumor/all but flat out say that the S6 can operate in 'higher dimensions' or the Bulk between branes or the like - in which case they might be able to detect and/or intercept metric weapons (easily or not). But they might also be able to follow the Sybil wherever it went and retaliate with extreme prejudice if it were to launch such a 'kick over the game board' level of attack - and it knew this when it ran. So this would either come down to a MAD scenario or one where it could hurt the archai (or at least their interests) but would pay with it's life it it carried it out.

This option is nearly as mysterious as the 'The Sybil just decided not to' option but maybe works a little better.

c) The Sybil decided not to launch doomsday weapons because it hopes/plans to return someday, either literally or via cached Copies hidden away around the Terragen Bubble and resume it's project. Frying a large portion of its potential converts and turning everyone else into utterly fanatical enemies would seem counterproductive in that regard.

d) The Sybil did launch doomsday weapons, some of which were stopped, and some of which are still in transit and may or may not be stopped. The outcome is uncertain and ongoing in Y11k. Due to lightspeed limitations and distance to targets it's unknown what the future might bring in this regard. This last option would potentially be dependent on distances and dates around the conflict which I don't have in front of me atm.

This last or a variant could potentially be worked in fairly easily since OA loves rumors/legends/conspiracy theories/conflicting theories in setting.

Some initial thoughts - more later when I have more time.

Once again - Welcome to OA!

Todd

[Vitto]

Hi Todd, thank you for your reply!

a) We don't really spend much time as a project on defensive weapons for whatever reason, but it does seem logical that they exist across multiple S-levels, including the S5/S6 level. So the S6 might have a way of detecting and intercepting metric munitions, either as they are launched/in flight or (perhaps more easily) when they are coming up on a target.

Yeah, I noticed. I guess the closest thing we have on the EG for an appropiate defensive system is on the description of the 45 solar masses Transcend Seven system: half a solar mass into 50 billion matrioska micronode dispersed as far as 1,5ly; close defense in Archai measurements, I presume. And apparently "just" for detection. At least the topic pop up here and there on the EG. I guess that the method of catching a void bubble traveling at 0,999c is up to the S6 and S6 alone
(I remember reading something about bursting a bubble with a coeherent gravitational wave but I can't find it right now...)


This option is nearly as mysterious as the 'The Sybil just decided not to' option but maybe works a little better.

Well, I never expected an extensive answer, I wanted more to point out the idea, mostly because I think is quite logical. Guess I had to put "food for though" at the beginning of the description....

c) The Sybil decided not to launch doomsday weapons because it hopes/plans to return someday, either literally or via cached Copies hidden away around the Terragen Bubble and resume it's project. Frying a large portion of its potential converts and turning everyone else into utterly fanatical enemies would seem counterproductive in that regard.

I'd like to think that the Sybil is dead or banished from the Universe. Both because the contrarty will make the work of the Judge and Keter sloppy (and Binah) and even if the S6 are Olympian in capabilities they are not true gods and thus should be possible killing them. IMHO.

This last or a variant could potentially be worked in fairly easily since OA loves rumors/legends/conspiracy theories/conflicting theories in setting.

My bet is on NoCoZo businessminds selling far far away backups XD

[stevebowers]

We could add some of these theories to the Ghost Net.

My favourite myth or legend about the disappearance of the Sybil is that She wandered through the branes until she met an extra-dimensional monster, and was either eaten by it or teamed up with it and will return to attack the Orion Arm in the near future.

[Drashner1]

Some additional thoughts now that I've had time to refresh myself on the Oracle War:

a) A simple fix for this issue would be to retcon the Metric Bomb article to say that such weapons suffer from reduced accuracy the greater the distance they have to cross (due to their small external warp bubbles making it hard for them to see where they're going) and this makes it impractical to fire them across interstellar distances. They basically have to be carried by some other type of vessel to at least the general vicinity of their target before being deployed.

We don't currently say anything about how Metric Bombs are guided anyway and the above would fit within the physics of the smaller warp bubbles as we currently describe it, I believe.

b) Obviously the Sybil could - in principle - launch ships carrying metric bombs but for anything below the level of a Void Ship, it would be much easier for the massed military forces of the Sephirotics (likely totaling hundreds of trillions of warships or more) to intercept and destroy them.

c) Obviously (again) the Sybil could deploy Void Ships carrying Metric Bombs - but per Canon such ships are very rare, presumably because there is some degree of difficulty and/or effort even for the S6 in creating them. In addition, the relative youth of the Sybil as an S6 could have given it less time to create the necessary infrastructure needed to produce Void Ships. While the Sybil was an S6 for a bit over 1400 years, we don't actually specify how long it takes to build a Void Factory, particularly the space-time constructs used by S6. But it is not uncommon for the EG to talk in terms of centuries to a thousand years or more for some of the larger Terragen constructs to be created, and it's possible that a Void Ship factory would fall somewhere in this range - and then take time to produce each ship.

Note also that the Oracle Machines and their spacecraft are all described as using conversion drive ships rather than reactionless drive craft to get around and metric devices other than Tipler Oracles don't seem to have been used by them much or at all. So it's possible the Sybil was either limited in eir metric engineering capacity (at least as of the war) or was mainly focused on using it to create Tipler Oracles (also likely not something the S6 just churn out like jelly beans).

d) It's also plausible that (to the S6) a Void Ship is considerably easier to detect and intercept than a much smaller void bubble used for other purposes.

e) It is also doable for us to handwave up some kind of S6 (or possibly S5) defense against void bubble based weapons. Perhaps some kind of metric engineering that shares some relationship with implosion weapons or the like - and that causes void bubbles to fail and implode within a certain distance of the 'generator' of the effect or the like. I'm sure we can figure out something.

On a somewhat related note having read through the entire Oracle War article:

The Dream Factory and Binah are not one and the same being. The Dream Factory is not really an archailect in the conventional sense of the word. See HERE and the article on Djed HERE. So the article should be updated in that regard. Also the Dream Factory and Djed articles need updating since our current take on things is that an S5 mind needs about 10 solar masses of processing to support itself. I can take care of those once I get some other items off my plate.

The overall article has some typos that should be cleaned up. I can take of those or Steve can if he'd prefer.

My 2c worth,

Todd

[Vitto]

If we assume that the void bubbles travel around 0.99c I guess that interception is impossible and close-in defenses based on wormhole linked interferometers are the only solution.


a) A simple fix for this issue would be to retcon the Metric Bomb article to say that such weapons suffer from reduced accuracy the greater the distance they have to cross (due to their small external warp bubbles making it hard for them to see where they're going) and this makes it impractical to fire them across interstellar distances. They basically have to be carried by some other type of vessel to at least the general vicinity of their target before being deployed.

I guess this is valid for a single void bubble, but metric bombs carry a wormhole and thus you have two point of view, making triangulation pretty easy.


e) It is also doable for us to handwave up some kind of S6 (or possibly S5) defense against void bubble based weapons. Perhaps some kind of metric engineering that shares some relationship with implosion weapons or the like - and that causes void bubbles to fail and implode within a certain distance of the 'generator' of the effect or the like. I'm sure we can figure out something.

Let's try... In the EG page on the Valhalla Cluster is stated that:


"Observations made during the creation of the Biopolity based Gods Grove Valhalla Cluster in 7603 (due to a lucky coincidence, several large scale gravitational interferometers had recently been activated in the region as part of a system upgrade) have led several researchers to hypothesize that the constructing archai literally arrange the structure of a Cluster so that the gravity waves produced by the various industrial operations either cancel each other out or are used to drive various other useful processes or both. An example of perhaps literally godlike efficiency."

If the Archai can use gravity waves they can probably also generate them (maybe in a manner that is different from Thunderbolts, like in the Ynity Gate Project or the Galbydeia Torus) and we can hipothesize that void bubble can be destroyed using these waves.

This make for a decent answer in game theory: a bulky, very visible generator that must operate in real space, like the Valhalla Cluster's structures, with a limited range and that can't work from a void bubble, good only for stationary defense of important structure or system due to their mass and size, like the magmatter moon nodes in the Tracend Seven system.


If those generators were "portable" I guess they would be too much of a threat for reactionless ships. And a terror weapon for wormholes if they act on them.
If this last part is valid then a generator, which is surely connected to numerous micro comm-gauge for detection, must be able to shape the disruptor field around itself; perhaps we can take insipration from phased array system? A gravity phased array?
If it's an energy based defense I guess it should work very well even calculating the initial mass expenditure of building an array against metric bombs in terms of mass/energy against mass/energy investment.


My 2 Zimbabwean hyperinflated cents.

[Drashner1]

If we assume that the void bubbles travel around 0.99c I guess that interception is impossible and close-in defenses based on wormhole linked interferometers are the only solution.


a) A simple fix for this issue would be to retcon the Metric Bomb article to say that such weapons suffer from reduced accuracy the greater the distance they have to cross (due to their small external warp bubbles making it hard for them to see where they're going) and this makes it impractical to fire them across interstellar distances. They basically have to be carried by some other type of vessel to at least the general vicinity of their target before being deployed.

I guess this is valid for a single void bubble, but metric bombs carry a wormhole and thus you have two point of view, making triangulation pretty easy.

The problem with that is that the exterior dimensions of the void bubbles are measured in picometers - too small to let in most wavelengths of light. You need to get into hard gamma rays to get something that can get inside the bubble (and most targets aren't going to put out a lot of those). Void ships are much larger (comparatively speaking) such that they can use visible wavelengths and presumably intermediate sized bubbles of some kind are possible. But presumably those are again harder to make.

Intercepting a void bubble is possible in principle - you just need a faster void bubble. Although all bubbles can move more or less arbitrarily close to lightspeed so it probably becomes more than a simple race.

Let's try... In the EG page on the Valhalla Cluster is stated that:

It's probably best to leave the details of such a thing in the realm of theory and rumor and legend rather than trying to explain exactly how it works.

It might involve gravity waves, it might involve messing with the dimensionality of space-time ala implosion weapons, it might involve some kind of void bubble based interceptors tracking in via some method other than light, it might not exist

If I get a spare moment, I might also check with the original designer of our void bubbles and see what his thought on this are.

Todd

[Vitto]

The problem with that is that the exterior dimensions of the void bubbles are measured in picometers - too small to let in most wavelengths of light.

Aaaaand... I forgot that  

Anyway, did a quick math: if you want to hit something around the size of our sun core, roughly 1 light second in diameter, on a linear flight path of 1000ly (31,500,000s per year), the margin of error is just 3.17 x 10^-9%, which I guess is well in range of godlike precision. I'd like then to presume that system wreaking metric bombs travel on a pre calculated flight path.


It's probably best to leave the details of such a thing in the realm of theory and rumor and legend rather than trying to explain exactly how it works.

Of course, like more or less all the tech regarding S5 and S6  I guess is always speculation.



Found the article where gravity radiation was supposed to be a danger for void bubble, was the one on the Reactionless drive:

"A Void ship will generally ignore most classes of debris, i.e. non-exotic matter, being able to otherwise slip between molecules. Exceptions are things like magmatter, neutronium, q-balls, event horizons, or singularities (such as the track of a Thunderbolt).


Another rumoured hazard is a burst of carefully modulated gravitational radiation designed to destructively cancel the void bubble; such a weapon could conceivably be used in warfare between the archai, although there are no reliable reports of its use to date. "




Thank you all for your replies! Perhaps I'll try to write down something, got a couple of ideas. See you around!