Official "Discuss the latest page" thread

[Aegis J Hyena]

Imagine if Bob might not be controlled by the Collective, but sympathize with them anyway and go "Sorry, Kari. You won't win."

Nah.

Although I think Mr. Creed will be in Bob's position before this chapter is over, trying to ruin things for our heroine...

[CygnusX1]

Although I think Mr. Creed will be in Bob's position before this chapter is over, trying to ruin things for our heroine...

But there is also Whisper on-board that noone knows about (or at most - only Bob knows about). So, this change of power - even if it happens - might not be that easy for Mr. Creed.

[NefariousDrO]

Whenever I think I have a terrible plan I stop and sit down.
And remind myself that someone made a movie called "Santa Clause v.s. the Easter Bunny" (yes, they really did) and that it barely even has Santa, OR the easter bunny in it for more than a few minutes.

No matter how bad my plans might be, they'll never be THAT bad.
I hope.

[CygnusX1]

Terrible plan? Is he going to attack the destroyer!?
He only needs to take down the device that is jamming the signal.
And then... survive...

I wonder, maybe Sapphira is merely a lightminute away, observing how it all develops from a distance. That would be smart.
If so, she may join the battle the moment she knows who is who and when she has an upper hand.

[CygnusX1]

An technological idea came to my mind. Wouldn't it be possible to communicate through low-intensity laser beams? Radio can be jammed, but direct laser beam should be more discreet (as you can't really see laser beams in space, only a spot at the receiver's end).
Even Today military is able to detect that someone is aiming at you with a laser beam (usually to fire a guided missile or such).

Now, imagine you start fluctuating a beam, even a morse-code would do...

[CorvusCorax]

I was going to suggest the very same thing. The highest bandwidth and most precise communication technique that we have today is inter-sattelite laser communication.

- It's light through vacuum - so as far as light speed communication is concerned, you can't get much faster.
- It works over thousands of kilometers - as long as you have direct line of sight and allows for communication between sats/ships in different orbits around the same planet. (In theory could work star-system-wide if your optics are good enough)
- It has the same bandwidth as fibre-optic communication - much much higher than radio over lower frequencies.
- The only effective way to jam it, is to get an eclipsing object in between the sender and receiver that is larger than the beam-width - and keep it there ( which is near impossible if both objects are in motion ) it's immune to jamming signals that come from any other direction.

Only downside is, it not omnidirectional. The sender needs to know the exact location/orbit/trajectory of the receiver and the receiver needs to know the exact location/orbit/trajectory of the sender. Any mismatch and the signal doesn't get through.

So - in practice, you'd use an omni-directional radio beacon to initiate communication, which allows the laser to "home in" on that beacon. Once the laser has locked, it could keep the lock unless disrupted by high frequency shock (some sort of impact on one of the involved ships for example)

In theory, you could have that laser link a standing wave - quantum entangled with something on both sides - so you get all the advantages of quantum cryptography - preventing eavesdropping and signal manipulation and all. But due to the difficulty to intercept the signal with such a small, focused aperture, it's almost not necessary.

[CygnusX1]

Only downside is, it not omnidirectional. The sender needs to know the exact location/orbit/trajectory of the receiver and the receiver needs to know the exact location/orbit/trajectory of the sender. Any mismatch and the signal doesn't get through.

I wouldn't call it a downside
Any third party from a side might not even notice that you are linked!

And they do have a direct line of sight at the moment. All parties see each other.

[CygnusX1]

- The only effective way to jam it, is to get an eclipsing object in between the sender and receiver that is larger than the beam-width - and keep it there ( which is near impossible if both objects are in motion ) it's immune to jamming signals that come from any other direction.

A fictional way to interrupt such a beam would be to bend the space between the ships.
We already have gravity waves in RL, and in a space opera like Crimson Dark where ships have FTL drives, having a device that could ridge the space in a large area just enough that you can't really target anything with laser beams isn't that far-fetched.

[NefariousDrO]

We previously saw them pulse their reactor to send a basic signal. It wouldn't be very secure, but then the goal is to spread the information as wide as possible.

[CygnusX1]

We previously saw them pulse their reactor to send a basic signal. It wouldn't be very secure, but then the goal is to spread the information as wide as possible.

I think simple text messages via EPC is not the most convenient way for a serious communication where you want to convince someone of something. Especially if it involves potentially betraying your own commander...