Opinions on a Sci Fi Story, Something I am working on the background for Options

[SubRosa]

I recently got inspired to write a science fiction story, and have been working on both the setting and plot lately. Given the scope of the story, it will be big, probably be a trilogy. I have most things worked out by now, but wanted to get some other people's opinions, and possibly ideas, on how I might do a few things.

My basic inspiration is not really unique. I am going to be recreating the WWII Pacific Campaign in space. So I am working toward having technologies that make that possible, along with a galactic geography that is basically the same. It is not going to be Hard SF, but more of a space opera. My main focus here is on the character and events she is witness to.

First off, some very basics. I am using the Greek language (transliterated into Roman characters, or Greeklish) for the main character's race/nation - The Pelasgian Alliance. I am drawing most of my Pelasgian place names from Bronze Age Greece, and character names from both ancient and modern Greek. The Pelasgians themselves are actually an alliance of two main cultures, the Tritons and the Dorics. The Tritons are loosely based on Athenian Greeks, being extraordinary starfarers, merchants, and artists, with a democratic government. The Dorians are loosely based upon Sparta, with a very hierarchical class system, dominated by a warrior aristocracy and an oligarchic government. The two states see to their own internal politics, but share a common coinage and are formally joined in a federation. I have not worked out the details on the central government of the Pelasgian Alliance. If anyone has any ideas on how it might work, I would love to hear them. I am also looking for a new, permanent name for the Dorics.

How much Greek is something I would like opinions on. Right now I am giving everything Greek names, from starfighter classes to capital ship names. I am drawing the starfighter types from Greek mythology, with names like Basiliskos, Mantikhoras, Drakone, Erinys, etc.. Their code names for the enemy fighters will use regular person's names, male for the fighters and female for the bombers, so Kalidans, Arianas, Elektras, etc... Right now the main character's ship is the carrier Epixeirhs, which is one of several translations I have found for Enterprise (As IRL CV-6 was a huge inspiration for this story). I like the flavor this gives the names of the fighters, but I am uncertain about going that far with the names of individual ships like the Epixeirhs. I do not want to overdo exotic names and make it difficult for the reader to easily remember what is what. OTOH it might seem strange to have capital ships named the Indefatigable, Dauntless, Surprise, etc... along side with Basiliskos starfighters.

On a similar note, I have not worked out rankings yet. I do not know if I want to use IRL naval ranks, or use Ancient Greek military rankings (which were a lot less developed and specific). If I do go with IRL rankings, I am not sure if I want to use the titles in Greeklish, or in English. Probably in English as I think it would just confuse the reader too much if the Episminagos was giving orders to the new Anthyposminagos, while the Antisminarchos, and Antipterarchos stood by.

For the same reason, I am uncertain about the names I should use for Pelasgian month names. January, February, March are a lot simpler for the English reader than Gamelion, Anthesterion, etc... But I worry it will seem strange that an alien race has the same months as the Gregorian Calender.

I am using Hindu for the names of the antagonists, and will keep with those, as I will not really be seeing too much of the names, really just for individual ships and placenames. Sometimes the names of individual commanders. This is in keeping with IRL WWII as well, as we know the Japanese carriers as the Akagi, rather than the Red Castle, and so forth.

On Technology, I am working to try to keep things so they work in the context of the Pacific Campaign. So no teleporting from one place to another like in Star Wars. I decided to go with Alcubierre Drives for the FTL component. I like this because it is a IRL possibility (although not with 21st century technology!). I also like that it does not actually make a ship travel faster than light (which would break the law of Einstein's cop on the beat), but rather it warps the spacetime around it, sort of like scrunching up a sheet to make the distance from one end to the other shorter. Yet at the same time, one does not disappear from spacetime and reappear somewhere else. You still have to travel the intervening distance. So this means regular shipping lanes, which can be interdicted, etc...

To complement the Alcubierre Drives, I decided to go with Bias Drives for conventional speeds. Again, this is a IRL proposal for space travel, although not likely to actually work if the Universe works the way most people think it does. Basically it increases gravity in front of the ship, and decreases it behind the ship. So you basically "fall" forward. The reason I settled on this is that it ties in nicely with the Alcubierre Drive, in that it manipulates gravity and spacetime. I am calling both of these graviton technology, with the idea that both the Bias Drives and Alcubierre Drives work by manipulating gravitons.

Graviton Drives are only about 200 years old, and before that the main propulsion was Ion Drives using Hydrogen Fusion Reactors to power them. That made starships really big. Graviton Drives have gone through many generations, getting faster and smaller every time. It was only 60 years ago that a new fuel source was discovered on Pelasgia and other worlds. This is an oil extracted from special aioroumai trees. These trees literally cause the ground around them to float in the air, creating huge tracts of land that literally float miles above the surface of their worlds. The main character Eleni grew up on an aioromai tree farm in fact.

I resisted the idea of using an exotic fictional fuel source for a long time. Originally I was going to use matter/antimatter. But that had two problems for me. First, the combination of that and an Alcubierre Drive is too much like Star Trek (as in exactly). The second is that I want resources to matter in the story, as the antagonists - The Ajunta - need to be driven to acquire resources, just as the IRL Japanese were driven to gain the oil and rubber deposits in the East Indies. While antimatter does appear naturally in the Universe, it does not last for long. So you cannot mine it. You have to create it in a lab. So that put the nail in the antimatter coffin for me.

15 years before the story begins, a new generation of graviton drives came out that were smaller than ever, for the first time allowing them to be used with one and two man ships, albeit with much shorter ranges than a capital ship. So the starfighter and the carrier were born at once. This all works fine for me.

The next thing I am working on settling is detection and stealth technology. I figure Radar has long since been rendered obsolete as a detection system by radar absorbing materials and devices. My thought is that it has been replaced with a gravity based system, that detects changes in the gravity fields in the area. Basically, it picks up things with mass large enough to warp the local gravity. So good for detecting capital ships, not so good for individual starfighters. Although a group of hundreds of the latter would create a large enough local mass to detect. Still not settled on this, and do not have a name for it. There will also have to be some kind of stealth system against it, as I would like to have the equivalent to submarines "cloaked ships", on a small scale (as in not many of them, and small in size, no cloaked battleships).

Torpedoes are my final area that still needs work. It is something I do not want to gloss over, because the main character is a torpedo bomber pilot. Since this is space, there would be no distinction between dive bombers and torpedo bombers. There would just be torpedo bombers. At the beginning of the story, the Pelasgians are using smart torpedoes that lock onto a target, and change course to match it, so it literally cannot miss. The Ajuntans have an anti-torpedo technology however, that detects the lock on, and downloads a virus into the torpedo, tricking it into thinking it hit the target. So the Pelasgian torpedoes will all explode within seconds of their fighters locking onto their targets. After the first time of that, the Pelasgian solution will be to disable to homing mechanisms and target their torpedos the old fashioned way. The flight engineer/bombing officer will plot a firing solution of distance, speed, direction, etc...and send it to the pilots hud, and they will line it up in their sights and release the torpedo.

I have also been thinking that torpedos are all stealth-rigged, to prevent point defense systems from shooting them down. But a torpedo that homes in on its target, making course corrections with thrusters, would seem like something easy to detect because you would see those burns. My thoughts are that this was not accounted for by ether side at the start of the war, since no one has ever fought with this level of tech before. The Pelasgians are not really affected by this as they will disable their smart torpedoes anyway. But they will also go so far as to have it only make a single burn when it is released, and then essentially 'glide' to the target. So it would be detected at the moment of firing, but then only be seen by visual contact. The Ajuntans will do the same thing when they find their own smart torpedoes are always being blown up by Pelasgian point defense guns (which are figure are highly advanced).

Another option would be to use wire-guided torpedos, with a camera in the front that the pilot can see the feed for. Then they manually make course corrections. The Pelasgians might try this, and find that the Ajuntan point defense systems shoot down their torpedoes when they make the course-correcting burns.

I am also not sold on the warheads of the torpedos. My thoughts so far as something along the lines of a gravity/spacetime device, as that would be in keeping with the rest of the gravity-centric tech I have developed. My basic idea there would be something that so warps spacetime that it literally rips apart whatever matter is in that spot. But it seems overdone. Creating a singularity would be in keeping with the tech, but it would just be too much. I might do that to replace the Atomic Bomb at the end of the story though.

Sorry that this dragged on, but it is much briefer than my notes. If anyone has any thoughts on what I might do for the several areas I pointed out, I would love to hear them. Often a different point of view is exactly what you need to see what is right in front of your nose.

So basically, what I am looking for are answers to these questions:
How much Greeklish terminology to use?
What kind of calendar should I use (and in what language)? H.e.r. pretty much answered this already.
How should the central government of the Pelasgian Alliance work (just in the broadest strokes, the main character is not a politician, just a farmer)?
what ought the warheads on torpedoes be?
What is the name of sensor technology? Just how does it work? Can it be jammed? Have chaff used against it? Wild Weasels?

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 14 2011, 03:04 AM

[ghastley]

Are these Earth-derived human races? If so, the "tradition" of month names, or any other names, from that ancestral planet is easily explained. It would be amusing to have 12 months in a longer year (or shorter days) so you could have a 35th of February!

I assume the Greek city states will map to individual planets. That lets you have different planetary masses and climates produce differences in strength, heat/cold tolerance etc. The Ajunta need not overlap on their choice of habitable planets if the main contention is over resources, which will probably be found on uninhabitable worlds anyway. However, if they're also a human race, they'd compete for living space too.

With the control of gravitation you describe, you can collapse matter into neutronium - well short of a black hole, but strong enough gravity to be disruptive in its locality. That may give you a warhead that "implodes" taking its surroundings with it. Nasty problem of cleanup, as it will continue trying to suck in more mass, but maybe not if tractor/pressor beams can move the resulting lump and send it into the nearest sun (where conditions are similar at the core).

Tractor beams also give you the chance to do grapple and board naval warfare in space, once the long-range stuff has proven ineffective. That in turn gets the protagonists face-to-face on the boarded vessel, which is always useful for a ripping yarn.

[SubRosa]

I have not decided on whether humans are earth-derived or not yet. I have considered both ways. What I am leaning toward now is that Earth is a mythical place, sort of a cosmic Atlantis, that some religions believe human life originated from, but was destroyed millions of years ago. This lets me play both sides without fully committing either way.

I have established that humans are widespread, and that the only known alien race are the Xia. A race of creatures essentially looking like giant praying mantises. They live on the far side of Ajuntan space, and were once a great space empire. But they have grown lethargic in the last few millennia, grown corrupt, inward-centered, and lost pace technologically. There is a conspiracy theory that humans were once enslaved by the Xia, and it was them who seeded them throughout the known galaxy. Then when their empire contracted, they just abandoned the humans where they were, creating numerous human planets, many with pre-starflight tech, and no knowledge of the rest of the galaxy.

I am shying away from tractor beams right now, and Napoleonic boarding actions especially. I want Bull Halsey, not Horatio Hornblower.

Neutronium is an interesting idea, one with many uses in SF, anywhere from neutron star material (as you suggest) to super-hard metal. Material from the core of a neutron star would make a big boom, as it would be a fluid, and once released from the intense pressures at the core of such a star, it would expand explosively. That could make for a really neat superweapon.

One idea I have toyed with is having a galactic version of the World Calender. This might be something originally created by the Xia. Then I thought it might be more interesting if it was used on some worlds, but was rejected by the Pelasgians because it would conflict with the dates used for their religious ceremonies (just as the U.S. rejected using the World Calender).

Resources are important to this story, which is one of the reasons I decided to go with an exotic fuel source rather than something simple and plentiful like hydrogen. Without it, there is no basis for the events in the story. But with the need for exotic resources, like oil in IRL, then there are plenty of reasons for fighting wars.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 14 2011, 12:12 AM

[D.Foxy]

Rosa. this is JUST up my alley! I will need some time to digest this..but will get back to you! Hard Science Fiction, especially the "Space Opera" genre so well done by the Lensman series by Doc Smith and the Trantor/Empire series by Assimov, was what I grew up on as a kid!!!

[haute ecole rider]

My kind of story too! As a matter of fact my magnum opus is a space opera as well.

I have struggled with some of same things you have as well.

In mine, FTL travel isn't really faster than light, but it cuts pretty close to that barrier. The doppler effect comes into play at ultra high speeds, and of course the ships manipulate spacetime. Wormholes are so much more likely, IMHO, than true FTL travel (like hyperspace in Star Wars). I mostly stayed away from that stuff, though, except to acknowledge that it takes a long time to travel from one planetary system to another. And I'm mostly in our home galaxy - I figure crossing intergalactic space is something not humanly possible.

I've used derivatives of ethnic names for my different alliances. The Dianté use Arabic first names and surnames derived from Earth mountains (i.e. Hamza F’jiyama); the Confederates use more typical European names with a few other ethnicities mixed in and there is a fair sprinkling of made-up names throughout. I've followed a convention of naming Confed ships after US cities (hence Rockford and Belvidere, both Illinois cities), while the Dianté ships (both war craft and civilian barges) get contractions of certain Pacific locations (Marines will recognize B'hai and T'rawa for example).

For dates I use the numbering system. I figure it's easier to use for a standardized calendar, as everyone pretty much shares the same base 10 numbering system. I'm not that mathematically inclined to go with a different base (I've read stories where characters count in base 12, for example).

And Foxy, I didn't know Issac was a boat? I always thought he was an Asimov!

[Cardboard Box]

My immediate thoughts revolve around the torpedos.

Rather than bombers, I'd think of the pilots as torpedo carriers - rather akin to a K-9 handler. I suspect that the AI in a torp would be enough to refer to a torp ship as some variant of a Lycaeus.

Such a ship could be a single or two-seater vessel, mostly automated, acting as a sort of mobile den for prepping torps, programming and retrieving them.

As a Lycaeus pilot, your torps aren't just dumb weapons to throw away. Their smaller size, smaller grav sign and sensor packages mean that you can send a torp or two out as scouts - but check your ROE and tell your torps. They're smart, but you're pack leader.

In your study plans, you'll learn about how torps were used as message relays in one engagement. You'll learn how to mass array your torps to maximise both damage and defence - because there's nothing scarier than seeing an whole bank or two of torps just waiting for the signal.

Just remember to respect your torps and they'll respect you.

What this means is that from a combat perspective, there's a lot of posturing and probing with differing formations and launches of torps, before finally launching offensives that hopefully outthink the opposition's defences.

Not that such smart weapons preclude the "dumb" uses, i.e. direct intercept courses, but they offer more interest in terms of how combat might work.

Boarding actions - if such things do happen - would probably happen offstage for a Lycaeus pilot. Leave that crap to those low foreheads in the Trojans.

With the drives out, the Hanuaman was dead in the water. We all knew what was coming next, so I called my pups back and watched as the first wave of Trojans glomped onto the airlocks.

Once the Trojans launch, the battle's over and everyone knows it. All that remains is to sit there and wait for one of two things: the captured ship's transponder to switch to our codes, or the signal for an immediate bugout before the damn thing's scuttled.

Yeah, I know, everyone loves the image of the brave boys in the Trojans charging into the enemy vessel to capture it; with shotguns and combat knives at the ready. Well farg that image. I've seen raw footage from the helmet cams, and it's not fun at all. It's cramped, in-your-face, loud and messy, because our boys are on alien soil and those other lidgies know their damn ship's guts like the backs of their hands.

I'm not trying to dismiss the job those Trojans do. But the next time you're watching footage of some footsoldiers waving the flag on the enemy's bridge, just remember they owe their success to wolfpacks like mine.

If you need further assistance, check out Atomic Rockets - it's got some useful information on there.

[SubRosa]

Rosa. this is JUST up my alley! I will need some time to digest this..but will get back to you! Hard Science Fiction, especially the "Space Opera" genre so well done by the Lensman series by Doc Smith and the Trantor/Empire series by Assimov, was what I grew up on as a kid!!!

Well, I am not really looking for Hard SF like Asimov of Arthur Clarke. I do not want something real, but something with just enough verisimilitude that people can ignore the technical impossibilities and just like the character and hopefully be swept up in the story.

My kind of story too! As a matter of fact my magnum opus is a space opera as well.

I have struggled with some of same things you have as well.

In mine, FTL travel isn't really faster than light, but it cuts pretty close to that barrier. The doppler effect comes into play at ultra high speeds, and of course the ships manipulate spacetime. Wormholes are so much more likely, IMHO, than true FTL travel (like hyperspace in Star Wars). I mostly stayed away from that stuff, though, except to acknowledge that it takes a long time to travel from one planetary system to another. And I'm mostly in our home galaxy - I figure crossing intergalactic space is something not humanly possible.

I've used derivatives of ethnic names for my different alliances. The Dianté use Arabic first names and surnames derived from Earth mountains (i.e. Hamza F’jiyama); the Confederates use more typical European names with a few other ethnicities mixed in and there is a fair sprinkling of made-up names throughout. I've followed a convention of naming Confed ships after US cities (hence Rockford and Belvidere, both Illinois cities), while the Dianté ships (both war craft and civilian barges) get contractions of certain Pacific locations (Marines will recognize B'hai and T'rawa for example).

For dates I use the numbering system. I figure it's easier to use for a standardized calendar, as everyone pretty much shares the same base 10 numbering system. I'm not that mathematically inclined to go with a different base (I've read stories where characters count in base 12, for example).

And Foxy, I didn't know Issac was a boat? I always thought he was an Asimov!

I love the names you use! Especially those contractions for place names. I hit on the idea of using IRL ethnic naming conventions back in my Pen and Paper RPG days. Several gamemasters I knew created worlds doing that. One using North African names, another using Polish and Hindu, etc... I fell in love with the idea, because unlike with purely made up names (and I hate making up names), you instantly have a common feel to all the names of every culture, so that once a player/reader hears a name, they know they belong to culture A. Great for adding consistency to world-building.

Well, true FTL travel is impossible, given the laws of physics as we understand them. Even getting close to it means bending time so much that while you were gone for 20 minutes, that 20,000 years went by everywhere else. So definitely ideas that sidestep that lightspeed law are best, if you want stories outside the solar system that is. That is what I like about the Alcubierre Drives. They let you travel from point A to point B faster than light can get there but without actually going faster than light does. Crossing galaxies is really big of course, like you said, that is best for those wormholes, or tachyon drives, that could theoretically put you anywhere else in the Universe in an instant. So just like you, I am keeping the action in one galaxy, and really in a small corner of it, spanning a cross-section of two galactic arms and a spur that links them.

I love the idea of a numbering system for dates! I think I will go with exactly that. As you said, 10 is pretty universal for humans, given our 10 fingers, or 10 toes. Fives too, given our 5 appendages that radiate from a single mass (something a lot of creatures share). I think I will go with a 10-based calendar for the Pelasgians.

My immediate thoughts revolve around the torpedos.

Rather than bombers, I'd think of the pilots as torpedo carriers - rather akin to a K-9 handler. I suspect that the AI in a torp would be enough to refer to a torp ship as some variant of a Lycaeus.

Such a ship could be a single or two-seater vessel, mostly automated, acting as a sort of mobile den for prepping torps, programming and retrieving them.

As a Lycaeus pilot, your torps aren't just dumb weapons to throw away. Their smaller size, smaller grav sign and sensor packages mean that you can send a torp or two out as scouts - but check your ROE and tell your torps. They're smart, but you're pack leader.

In your study plans, you'll learn about how torps were used as message relays in one engagement. You'll learn how to mass array your torps to maximise both damage and defence - because there's nothing scarier than seeing an whole bank or two of torps just waiting for the signal.

Just remember to respect your torps and they'll respect you.

What this means is that from a combat perspective, there's a lot of posturing and probing with differing formations and launches of torps, before finally launching offensives that hopefully outthink the opposition's defences.

Not that such smart weapons preclude the "dumb" uses, i.e. direct intercept courses, but they offer more interest in terms of how combat might work.

Boarding actions - if such things do happen - would probably happen offstage for a Lycaeus pilot. Leave that crap to those low foreheads in the Trojans.

With the drives out, the Hanuaman was dead in the water. We all knew what was coming next, so I called my pups back and watched as the first wave of Trojans glomped onto the airlocks.

Once the Trojans launch, the battle's over and everyone knows it. All that remains is to sit there and wait for one of two things: the captured ship's transponder to switch to our codes, or the signal for an immediate bugout before the damn thing's scuttled.

Yeah, I know, everyone loves the image of the brave boys in the Trojans charging into the enemy vessel to capture it; with shotguns and combat knives at the ready. Well farg that image. I've seen raw footage from the helmet cams, and it's not fun at all. It's cramped, in-your-face, loud and messy, because our boys are on alien soil and those other lidgies know their damn ship's guts like the backs of their hands.

I'm not trying to dismiss the job those Trojans do. But the next time you're watching footage of some footsoldiers waving the flag on the enemy's bridge, just remember they owe their success to wolfpacks like mine.

If you need further assistance, check out Atomic Rockets - it's got some useful information on there.

Some interesting ideas for torpedo planes, but way too overpowered for what I need to fit the story. Remember, I want WWII in space. This, and This are the kind of craft, with the right kind of weapon. Just in space. I need a big, bulky, single shot device that more often than not misses, and even when it hits, might not go off! For example, the main character Eleni's first torpedo shot against an enemy carrier hits, and is a dud. Yet two or three hits that go off will cripple a big armored ship, and a few more destroy it. Anything more powerful would basically break the story. I want the ship versions of those Trojans. The ugly, unsung heroes who die in droves but win the war.

What I am looking for ideas on with torpedoes is what kind of warhead it ought to use, that fits in with the already established gizmos in this universe (which is why I keep looking toward something gravity-based, given the gravity drives already out there).

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 14 2011, 03:26 AM

[Captain Hammer]

Okay, have read through this, and so I'll add my initial first thoughts, and come back with some more.

First, ranks. We aren't Greece. We don't speak Greek. (Actually, I do, sorta, only so far as I had to learn it with Latin for the Classics program, and when I got the choice of which to focus on I dropped the Hellenes for the Glory of Rome. But that's neither here nor there. Watching Caprica was fun, though.) When it comes down to the wire, any type of military force needs a clear system of rank and Chain-of-Command for when things get hairy (read: Normal Situations).

To this end, I generally default on contemporary or historically recognizable military ranks (general, admiral, colonel, lieutenant, marshal & centurion, pilus prior, Consul, etc.) depending on the type of story, and more importantly, the sense of the command structure I want to convey. For the modern-tech or post-modern-tech, I usually use what exists in the real world, i.e, NATO-equivalent command structures since that's what people are familiar with. For more historical works, I will try to use period-authentic roles, if known.

Future-tech, I generally default to modern systems, unless I have a true mastery of another command structure and its conventions (in my case, I have successfully used the Roman Army command structure, post-Marius, but with appropriate modifications for larger military bodies).

My advice is to go with Naval rank structures (or possibly Aerospace Forces, they can do in jiffy). BUT, if you do want to go with your own rank structure (or a modified Greek Rank structure), then do so. But first, and this is important, create a special Appendix on Military for your work, and print yourself up a large version of it when its done, then go in and use that. Get your system set-up first and memorize it. Put in on your wall next to your desk, so when you need to all you have to do is look up and see the guide. Consider having some form of equivalency to modern ranks for those who need it.

Glad that's out of the way. On to the next part. Naming structure.

This is subjective, and please take this only as one idea in a hat full of ideas. I will not be upset if this doesn't work for you. Some people like Rum, some people like Vodka, and some people like Whiskey. Just because I prefer the third isn't a reason to knock the other two (apart from the inherent less-awesome nature of the two...I kid, I kid!).

Use the Greek names for Class Names, opting for words that describe the ships' duties for any particular line, and then use English naming (Indefatigable, Dauntless, Surprise, etc.) for individual ships, but only for the shorthand. The full name would be something with "Dauntless Mantikhoras" or "Mintikhoras Dauntless" and the allegiance letters just beforehand (just as US Navy ships are 'USS Whatever').

For the antagonists' ships, follow your current conventions. Keeping their names untranslated would help, especially if a translated name would equate two enemy ships with the same word.

Whether I need to add more will remain to be seen. As you're not looking for super-hard Sci-Fi, I'll not go all engineer-of-no-fun on you. You've got a sound concept and some great ideas, and I expect to be notified about when I can read it.

Cheers!

[Cardboard Box]

Some interesting ideas for torpedo planes, but way too overpowered for what I need to fit the story. Remember, I want WWII in space. This, and This are the kind of craft, with the right kind of weapon. Just in space. I need a big, bulky, single shot device that more often than not misses, and even when it hits, might not go off!
...
What I am looking for ideas on with torpedoes is what kind of warhead it ought to use, that fits in with the already established gizmos in this universe (which is why I keep looking toward something gravity-based, given the gravity drives already out there).

OK, I see what you mean.

Let's assume that the torps need to be able to run down a vessel; that means a 'gravity ramp' drive comparable to that of, say, the torp carrier itself. Depending on how scalable the drive technology is, we're probably looking at something almost the size of the carrier.

Any on-board AI the missile has in terms of guidance will probably be made en masse and obviously disposable, so it'll be cruder than I originally envisioned. Probably capable of taking basic directions along the lines of 'hold station relative to carrier here', 'move on this bearing', and 'intercept this (ship's) signature.'

This makes the carrier much more of a target, since it's the brains of the outfit.

As a gravity ramp powered machine, I suspect that if it was to even 'shave' a target, we're talking interference between its drive gradient and that of its target. Effectively, if you had the time and/or quick enough targeting systems, you could use a torp to deflect another's path. Alternatively, a cunning torp jockey might 'shave' the site of a previous strike to put extra stress on damaged structure.

In terms of warheads, the simplest would be kinetic-kill - your torp is a mass propelled into the target. That way, depending on what sorts of shielding a target might have, even a direct hit mightn't do much more than hole the outer skin. OTOH, at space speeds there'd still be an awful lot of whammo involved.

How do you feel about nukes? Or a deliberate overload of the torp engine to make a gravity pulse, which would probably play merry hell with any other gravity fields around (not to mention put all sorts of stresses on a target vessel and its contents)?

Ooh! Such an overload could be used to propel a kinetic payload even faster towards a target as well - a twofer! Better still...

Back in the 1960's, rocket scientist came up with the infamous "Orion Drive." This was basically a firecracker under a tin can. Except the tin can is a spacecraft, and the firecracker is a nuclear warhead.

Anyway, they realized that about 90% of the nuclear energy of an unmodified nuclear device would be wasted. The blast is radiated isotropically, only a small amount actually hits the pusher-plate and does useful work. So they tried to figure out how to channel all the blast in the desired direction. A nuclear shaped charge.

The nuclear device is encased in a radiation case of x-ray opaque material (uranium) with a hole in the top. This forces the x-rays to to exit from the hole. Where they run full tilt into a large mass of beryllium oxide (channel filler). The beryllium transforms the nuclear fury of x-rays into a nuclear fury of heat. Perched on top of the beryllium is the propellant: a thick plate of tungsten. The blast of heat turns the tungsten plate into a star-core-hot spindle-shaped-plume of ionized tungsten plasma. The x-ray opaque material and the beryllium oxide also vaporize a few microseconds later, but that's OK, their job is done. The tungsten plasma jet hits square on the Orion drive pusher plate. With the reference design of nuclear pulse unit, the plume is confined to a cone of about 22.5 degrees. About 85% of the nuclear devices's energy is directed into the desired direction, which I think you'd agree is a vast improvement over 10%.

About this time the representatatives of the military (who were funding this project) noticed that if you could make the plume a little faster and with a narrower cone, it would no longer be a propulsion system component. It would be a directed energy weapon. Thus was born project Casaba-Howitzer.

Details are scarce since the project is still classified after all these years. Tungsten has an atomic number (Z) of 74. When the tungsten plate is vaporized, the resulting plasma jet has a relatively low velocity and diverges at a wide angle (22.5 degrees). Now, if you replace the tungsten with a material with a low Z, the plasma jet will instead have a high velocity at a narrow angle. The jet angle also grows narrower as the thickness of the plate is reduced. This is undesirable for a propulsion system component, but just perfect for a weapon.

Scott Lowther has done some research into a 1960's design for an Orion-drive battleship. It was to be armed with naval gun turrets, minuteman missiles with city-killing 20 megatons warheads, and Casaba-Howitzer. It appears that the Casaba-Howitzer charges would be from subkiloton to several kilotons in yield, be launched on pancake booster rockets until they were far enough from the battleship to prevent damage (several hundred yards), whereupon they would explode and skewer the hapless target with a spear of nuclear flame.

And once spent, the warhead could be propelled into the damaged area for a one-two 'ship-killer' punch...

[SubRosa]

Captain Hammer: Thank you Hammer, that is exactly the kind of opinion I was hoping for on naming. That helps me very much on deciding which way to go. I will definitely go with the modern naval rankings. Even when I put the modern Greek ranks up a few posts ago, I found myself being confused.

I never would have thought of the dual-naming system you suggested, of class/ship name. I love that. Unfortunately I have not thought up any capital ship class names yet (aside from the generic destroyer, cruiser, battleship, etc...). But obviously I will have to do that for at least some of the ships.

Here is another question, what should the Prefixes for the nations be? I think AIN sounds right for Ajunta (as in Ajuntan Imperial Navy). Then PAS for Pelasgian Alliance Ship?

So now I also have to decide what the name of the the main character's ship will be. It is based off the IRL Enterprise (CV-6). I am even using the IRL unit logos for the bomber squadrons she will be assigned to, VT-6 and later VT-3. But I do not want to call it Enterprise because there is a very popular sci-fi series that uses that name for their flagship. I am thinking Endeavor, as it has a similar meaning, and keeps the 'E'. That way I can still use nicknames for it like "The Big E" or "Lucky E".



Cardboard Box: The gravity drive overload is just brilliant! That is perfect for the setting. I am going with that, and that the torpedoes will be shaped essentially like an arrow, with a very hard, narrow head so they will pierce a ships armored hull. Then they will explode inside the ship, based off a fuse set when the torpedo is fired.

I remember the Orion Drive from watching (and reading) Cosmos years ago. I don't want to use nukes in space though. I cannot say exactly why. It just does not 'feel' right for the story. Maybe because it is such a common theme.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 14 2011, 05:49 PM

[Ahrenil]

Well I think I can put forward some ideas as far as the governing of the alliance is concerned. It seems to be a close situation to the end of the Persian war in Greece, where Sparta and Athens were in an uneasy alliance along with a coalition of smaller nations who basically paid Athens to maintain a fleet to defend them.

A first note on the way Athens was governed, Athenian Democracy not being the same as modern democracy. Literally every citizen male was able to hold position, and every citizen male would at one point serve on the council. Athens was split into 10 tribes and each year they put forwards 50 representatives to form the council of 500, of these one tribe would hold lead position and this would rotate yearly. Since the council was run by the army, since every citizen was a soldier, this meant the people got direct ability to control where and when they went to war. Of course people were swayed by the big public speakers, but no one went to war if they didn't want too. This really meant Athens only went to war when they were sure they could win, or when they really needed too.

As far as the tribes go it'd be simplest to have them split up by section of space, I don't know how big these areas are, but perhaps each system of collection of planets could be clustered into one tribe. They would have internal votes on local matters, but be allowed their say in larger events through a larger voting method. The internet could be pretty useful here, or whatever the space equivalent is, as it would be able to keep up to date census information, and thus prevent much misvoting on these matters. The council of 500 could of course be larger or smaller as needed, and could remain pretty similar to the ancient method, I don't see any problems arising there.

Sparta on the other hand, having such a dedicated military force, ruled in a more traditional sense. They only joined with Athens when they had too, and even then they were pretty damn reluctant to do so, after they'd been at war for so many years. Thanks to Athen's league with local city states they were able to match Sparta and so a stalemate was forced. Still, their monarchy lead them to being far more militaristic and they literally ruled their lands, were not in a simple alliance with other states as Athens was.

With the two cultures being so different they rarely actually looked to each other beyond asking for troops if need be and deciding on a leader. This is likely the biggest place to have the politics of the alliance playing out. Since each side governs it's own in a different manner their method of deciding who takes overall command of the army and other sections of the federation has to be a bridge of the two to keep them both happy. I'd suggest an Autarchy, where the most skilled and valued of each side are put up as candidates, and then it's decided upon by the leaders and influential figures as to who should get each position. This preserves both the heirachy of the Dorics, as well as the democracy of the Tritons. Perhaps each tribe would vote on a kind of lead figure who would represent their interests (As in modern democracy).

Not sure how useful all of that was, but I hope it does help.

[Olen]

Looks like it should be good. Being a physicist by trade (albeit specialising in quantum and condensed matter...) I can poke at the physics and make suggestions there. If you have any physics based questions I'll probably be able to produce an answer too. Saying that I'll start with politics:

I have not worked out the details on the central government of the Pelasgian Alliance. If anyone has any ideas on how it might work, I would love to hear them.

Depends on the time required to get communication between planets I'd say. If you're looking at weeks it's going to be much looser by definition with planetary (or solar system) 'councils' which are close enough to react quickly answering to a central government which is rather more distant from the day to day running of it. Something along the lines of the British Empire of the 1800s would be an example (or any other disperse empire before cable/radio based communications).

The dealings between the Dorics and Tritons will of course be similarly dependant of the sped of communications. How close are they? Are they essentially two sections of a single whole, if so are they more or less equal (for example two states of the US) or does one hold more power? Or are they more separate with only a loose body holding them together, more like two EU countries? Or more like allies with little say over one another's politics but with communications between armed forces? With politics it's probably best to start with something which has existed in RL and fit it, just about everything sane, and several ridiculous concepts, have been tried already.


On the subject of Greek names. It's a matter of taste really but nothing turns me off faster than names I can't easily and instantly pronounce. For example 'Anthyposminagos' is going to take me several seconds to work out the first few times which rather breaks the flow. Making it 'Greekesque' without being overpowering would be my suggestion.


On physics - I'm not big on relativity and especially not general relativity. I'd say the wiki article on Alcubierre Drives isn't great in the few bits I do fully understand. Certainly I doubt they are possible (if you want a more exact list of reasons I could have a read and ask some people who do know GR). Likewise the Bias Drive looks improbable in reality but I agree fits well with the Alcubierre. As you said it's not meant to be Hard SF, but if you want suggestions of issues to come up with fictional solutions to I could provide some. I'd also suggest shying away from any deep description of how they work as it would have to be something which does not in fact exist.

I'd also ask about data, how does it travel FTL? Is it carried on Ships, or special ones which somehow go faster? Certainly conventional radio would be useless over distances like that. You could have instant communications based on quantum entanglement which has been demonstrated to be an instantaneous process (though doesn't violate relativity as it appears correlation cannot be observed without examining both sets of data - look up EPR paradox if you're interested).


On detection and stealth technology - for ships travelling in their FTL bubbles radar would be no use anyway because presumably radiation cannot interact with the bubble or it's contents. Likewise a ship going FTL may well not have any gravitational field in front of it (gravity probably propagates at light speed) and might not have any due to the nature of the Alcubierre bubble. You could easily enough say that this made some sort of 'bow wave' behind it, though I have no idea how correct this is. Of course the SF might be getting harder then you intended here, but I thought I'd point it out. Outside an Alcubierre bubble gravity sounds like a good call, I could see the local distortion of G which a Bias drive seems to effect showing up quite well which might make them more detectable when accelerating hard. I suppose the stealth system would be to have low mass, which obviously limits offensive power and speed, or to fire lots of heavy flack so they don't know where you are, just that you're there. This is somewhat like the British broadcasting high power radiowaves from bombers to saturate German radar detectors in WW2. Thermal IR imaging might work at closer ranges (eg by satellites spread out in space) given that the ships will have to be warm enough to support life and space is cold.

Warheads of the torpedos - well *grins*. Antimatter would be an option, throw it in and watch it go. As a reference to get a similar effect as the Hiroshima bomb you'd need 370 micrograms of antimatter. You could also try neutronium (the stuff neutron stars are made of), it's stupidly dense and literally eats any matter that touches it (so try shooting that down without giant lasers (which have their own problems which I shan't bore you with). I've no idea if it's stable outwith a neutron star though, probably not.

Simple kinetic energy rounds are also an option, a 100kg shell (a uranium sphere 20cm across for example) travelling at 3km/s (the speed of a geostationary satellite) would have the same energy as 100kg of TNT. Obviously it could be made to go significantly faster, and energy rises as velocity squared (until you go quite fast).

Of course some sort of gravity distortion fits well with the setting. It could be like a giant sacrificial Bias drive which tears the enemy ship apart with fluctuating gravitational fields, or you could try to open an Alcubierre bubble within the enemy ship. What that might do and whether it's possible would be down to you.

As an aside a black hole with a mass of less than about Mount Everest would 'evaporate' almost instantly, so making a black hole in someone's ship will require a lot of mass. Also what do you do with it then?

Anyway there's some ideas I had reading this. I hope the story goes ahead, it sounds fun and if you have any more physics based questions ask.

This post has been edited by Olen: Jun 14 2011, 09:10 PM

[Captain Hammer]

Ahrenil brings up very good points, which I will now consider to be further evidence that what I am about to say is a good idea.

Namely, determine whether your protagonists are part of an alliance, or a confederation.

An 'Alliance' occurs when two sovereign states or entities enter into a treaty of some sort, but both retain independent military commands. Even when working together (Allies of WWII) the two nations will form joint operational commands, but units, commanders, and organization will remain separate. Thus, while men like Eisenhower, Patton, and Montgomery commanded unified campaigns with forces that included multi-national troops, Ike and Patton were answerable to George C. Marshall and Montgomery had to report to Alan Brooke.

When you have a formally integrated military structure and diplomatic relations office, it's either a 'Confederation' or a 'Federation,' depending on the relative supremacy of the unified body versus the constituent members. Not to point out too many more parallels to Star Trek, but consider the Federation of Planets, which has a supreme Federation Council, President, and unified service (Starfleet). Individual members have separate security forces, but in any foreign action a Starfleet Captain would have precedence over a Vulcan Defense Fleet Captain. Additionally, you typically see a limited number of flag officers outside the unified military service to ensure command primacy.

The differences between a Federation and a Confederation are a bit more detailed, but can usually be taken as a measure of how unified the constituent members are. Consider the U.S.A., which is a Federal Republic, and even stipulates that in cases of conflict between state and federal law, federal law stands unless in a matter not governed by the federal government.

On the other hand, the short-lived Confederate States of America (Civil War Confederacy) gave far fewer power to their national government, utilizing some of the weaker powers from the early Articles of Confederation that were superseded by the U.S. Constitution. Members can leave on their own, and certain acts or treaties require the unanimous approval of member-states, but once approved, are binding (unless the provisions of a law or treaty require periodic renewal, in which case, one no-vote can theoretically veto the whole thing).

Since this may affect naming, I'd suggest you take a second look.

That said, using the word "Alliance" in the name, when in fact it might be a Federation or Confederation is perfectly legitimate. There's nothing "People's Republic" about the People's Republic of China. And the terms 'Liberal' and 'Conservative' don't mean the same in the USA as the rest of the world, nor do they mean the same today as they did a century ago. But it's definitely something to look at when determining your fleet's prefix.

Also, consider whether you want to use the Greek words for the formal title, since that affect's the ship's prefix as well. NATO uses the first letter, Latinized if necessary, for ship prefixes. Polish ships, for instance, are listed with "ORP-" prefixes, for "Ship of the Republic of Poland," since the Polish word for 'ship' is 'Okret.'

[King Coin]

On the subject of Greek names. It's a matter of taste really but nothing turns me off faster than names I can't easily and instantly pronounce. For example 'Anthyposminagos' is going to take me several seconds to work out the first few times which rather breaks the flow. Making it 'Greekesque' without being overpowering would be my suggestion.

I agree strongly here. Keep the names pretty simple. Anything complex, and I don't even bother trying to figure out what it says. I'm lazy that way and I'm sure there are many other people out there like that.

[SubRosa]

Ahrenil & Cap Hammer: Thank you for the ideas. Both of your posts helped me coalesce the governments of Tritonis, Eurotas, and the Pelasgian Alliance as a whole. It will be a confederation, whose main points of intersection are in a shared coinage, and military cooperation. I have not said it here yet, but the Pelasgian Alliance was created 60 years before the story begins, in response to an invasion from the Mogollon League (who are roughly approximate to the European Union). So military necessity is what brought them together, and what continues to hold them together. For now at least (I am saving the Peloponnesian War for a possible sequel trilogy... )

I still have a few points to iron out, but I will get them. Right now I could use some suggestions for a few names. The Tritons will have two military branches, The Starforce and their army (which I am thinking of simply calling The Groundforce). The Agiads (whom I changed the Doric's name to) have a single military branch, which I need a name for. I would like something that sounds at least as cool as Starforce. The three would work together in much the same manner as the U.S. Navy, Army, and Marine Corps did/do. Each branch is separate, but operate under the umbrella of a unified high command. Btw, I could use a name for that high command as well. Or perhaps the name of the headquarters, as saying "The Pentagon" is synonymous with saying the U.S. Military high command. I like the latter idea. Maybe something like "The Strategon"?


Olen: Interstellar communications is one of the things I have not had a chance to tackle yet. I skimmed over the EPR Paradox, and while I am no physicist, I did see the part you are doubtlessly thinking of: that one particle is somehow communicating with another instantly across space. But later on in the wiki article it says that there is no demonstration that faster than light EPR signaling is possible. Granted, that is not a big deal for this story, as it is not hard sf anyhow. All I really want is something that is sounds good and is consistent with the rest of the world I create. So I could have EPR Comms, or Quantum Signaling, and not delve into how it works. I am not planning to go into deep analysis of the other technologies either. Perhaps I could even use some derivative of this for a sensor system?

Like I said before, I thought about antimatter, but decided not to use it for several reasons. Kinetic energy weapons are something I have. I have not mentioned it because that is something I have firmly imagined. I started out thinking of railguns, but after reading up on them, and seeing IRL railguns and coilguns, I decided to go with coilguns as the standard kinetic weapon of the fleets (and ground pounders). All starfighters would have a couple of coilguns, some fighters as much as 6 or 8. While they would be the capital ships main armament. Imagine a 16 inch solid shot fired from a magnetically accelerated cannon? I think that falls under: "Please don't point that at my planet!" Of course warships would all have some form of enhanced armor plating to resist such awesome weapons, just as battleships did in the 1940s.


King Coin: Yep, that is what I am decided to use. Simple, and keep the greeklish to only certain things, with English for ranks, and ship types "destroyer, cruiser, starfighter, etc..."

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 15 2011, 01:12 AM

[Olen]

'EPR Comms' and 'Quantum Signaling' amount to the same thing. I'll try to explain with an example (I wrote a more general explaination - it was horrible).

Certain events create pairs of identical particles, for example the decay of certain nuclei produces pairs of photons which are emitted in exactly opposite directions with the same polarisation due to conservation of angular momentum. However when they are produced their polarisation is undefined, all we know it that it is the same for both.

I should mention that undefined is not the same as unknown, there is not some 'hidden' internal perameter which tells each photon what it's polarisation is, rather they are in multiple polarisations simultaniously. If you want to know how we know this google Aspect's Experiment (or ask - depends if you're interested really).

When the polarisation of one is measured it forces it to 'choose' a polarisation (known as collapsing the wavefunction) and, as they are the same, the other also takes this polarisation and does so instantly. So we have instant communication, or not.

The problem is that there is no way of choosing how the wavefunction collapses so when we make the second measurement it appears totally random and it's only when both data sets are compared that we can see the wavefunction collapsed. If you could somehow force the wavefuntion to collpase in a particular way without breaking the entanglement then using this to communicate would be trivial. Certainly no one currently knows how to do this, but I don't think it has been proven impossible (though it does violate relitivity, though it seems likely relitivity is itself imperfect).

Anyway the upshot of this from a narrative perspective is that the particles would probably have to be made in the same place initially and then seperated so you couldn't contact some distant unknown civilisation wihtout first discovering and visiting it to swap particles. Likewise if some ship lost all its particles (or someone broke the entanglement) it would need to visit another to get back on 'network' which obviously creates a weakness in communications. I'm not wholly sure how much that explaination made sense, depends on how much science you're done possibly, feel free to tell me it made no sense and to shut-up or the explain better

Good call on coil guns, certainly they are already a reality. One downside of coilguns compared to railguns is that they practically require a projectile made of ferromagnetic material (like iron for example). However iron seems a fairly logical choice of munition anyway seeing as it's dense enough and plentiful.

[SubRosa]

'EPR Comms' and 'Quantum Signaling' amount to the same thing. I'll try to explain with an example (I wrote a more general explaination - it was horrible).

Certain events create pairs of identical particles, for example the decay of certain nuclei produces pairs of photons which are emitted in exactly opposite directions with the same polarisation due to conservation of angular momentum. However when they are produced their polarisation is undefined, all we know it that it is the same for both.

I should mention that undefined is not the same as unknown, there is not some 'hidden' internal perameter which tells each photon what it's polarisation is, rather they are in multiple polarisations simultaniously. If you want to know how we know this google Aspect's Experiment (or ask - depends if you're interested really).

When the polarisation of one is measured it forces it to 'choose' a polarisation (known as collapsing the wavefunction) and, as they are the same, the other also takes this polarisation and does so instantly. So we have instant communication, or not.

The problem is that there is no way of choosing how the wavefunction collapses so when we make the second measurement it appears totally random and it's only when both data sets are compared that we can see the wavefunction collapsed. If you could somehow force the wavefuntion to collpase in a particular way without breaking the entanglement then using this to communicate would be trivial. Certainly no one currently knows how to do this, but I don't think it has been proven impossible (though it does violate relitivity, though it seems likely relitivity is itself imperfect).

Anyway the upshot of this from a narrative perspective is that the particles would probably have to be made in the same place initially and then seperated so you couldn't contact some distant unknown civilisation wihtout first discovering and visiting it to swap particles. Likewise if some ship lost all its particles (or someone broke the entanglement) it would need to visit another to get back on 'network' which obviously creates a weakness in communications. I'm not wholly sure how much that explaination made sense, depends on how much science you're done possibly, feel free to tell me it made no sense and to shut-up or the explain better

Good call on coil guns, certainly they are already a reality. One downside of coilguns compared to railguns is that they practically require a projectile made of ferromagnetic material (like iron for example). However iron seems a fairly logical choice of munition anyway seeing as it's dense enough and plentiful.

So would the EPR Comms essentially be a closed loop then, that no one outside could eavesdrop on? I was hoping for the latter, so breaking an enemy's codes would be a useful way of gaining intelligence (such as at the RL Battle of Midway).

[Lady Syl]

I have been peeking in on this thread since you posted it, but haven't had much time to post. Most of what I would have said has already been mentioned by others, so I'll just give my two cents' worth!

Normally, I'm not very much into the futuristic, or space-genre of stories. There are some that have captivated me--Star Trek, Avatar, and a few others. I'm more into historical. However, I do like your idea to make a sort of blend of space and history. It seems you are creating a story all your own, and I love what I have read about it thus far.

Your idea to use Greek names and the like is, I think, a great idea! It sounds foreign enough, and yet it is also somewhat familiar, which is what I think it needs to really captivate your readers. I, for one, would love to read it, if you ever post or publish it.

Pretty much everything else I could think of to say has already been said, so I'll leave it at that so as not to make a long post of basically repeating what everyone else has said. I like your ideas, and I endorse your Sci-Fi story! :thumbsup:

[Olen]

So would the EPR Comms essentially be a closed loop then, that no one outside could eavesdrop on? I was hoping for the latter, so breaking an enemy's codes would be a useful way of gaining intelligence (such as at the RL Battle of Midway).

In short: yes I suspect so (though obviously I'm commenting on a technology which doesn't exist based on a concept which isn't exactly simple). There's two ways you could set up the technology I'd think. The harder SF one would be every entangled particle on the ship being capible of transmitting or recieveing one bit (or possibly trit (a 0,1or2 value)) of data after which it is spent. Obviously as each of the two particle is only in one place designing the most efficent network for this between ships would be awkward and data limited by how many particles the ship had. Possibly more conveniant from a narrative point of view would be to assume that somehow the particles remained entangled and could be infinitly recycled. In this case more particles would allow a higher bandwidth.

Neither would allow listening in (as far as I understand, see warning above), in fact it seems unlikely any FTL communication would as the data has to essentially teleport (probably, unfortunatly there are many crazy theories floating about, as you might imagine, and I don't understand any of them). Obviously if you obtained one of the particle sets you might recieve stuff until the sender realised you had it, or even try to send something.

[SubRosa]

Lady Syl: Thank you Syl. I have never actually written any sci fi before, but I have always been a fan. Starting with the original Star Trek when I was little. They used to have the reruns on every Saturday, and my brother and I always watched it. Star Wars too, I remember seeing the first movie when it came out.


Olen: am not going to use the EPR signalling then. It doesn't fit the story. I will either come up with something else, or just leave it deliberately vague. Since I started looking for technologies for this story, I have come to find that a lot of sci-fi shows and books do not go into any real explanation for how things work. The original or reboot of Battlestar Galactica for example.

*****

Right now I am thinking of calling the first book Steady Nerves and Stout Hearts, after a quote from Bull Halsey's Battle Order Number One. Or perhaps just Stout Hearts as there is already a book out by the same name (about Pearl Harbor).

I am working on the plot for the beginning of the story, and want to work in an attack on a cloaked ship. I am looking for ideas on detecting one. I do not want the cloaking technologies to be perfect, otherwise it is overpowering. With WWII submarines, they had to surface every day or so to run their diesel engines and recharge their batteries. Maybe there is something similar with the cloaks, that they have to deactivate them every day or so for a few hours? Or maybe active sensors can read them, but just get odd readings, rather than the normal ones, and it takes a skilled operator to recognize it? Right now I was just thinking that you can see a odd blur in the space where the cloaked ship is. That in itself might do.