Photo by: Al Forbes
Hyperspace has many levels. The “deeper” you travel in hyperspace the faster you travel. This dominated alien warship design, always striving to go deeper, thus faster. The alien Intralagi, helping Earth to oppose the G’Alin, shared their crudest hyperspace technology while Earth rested on the front lines of interstellar war.
Earth started building warships with the obsolete “shallow hyperspace” (e.g., “slow”) technology. Another project produced something no alien antagonist ever expected…
The G’Alin assault force was easily smashing the Intralagi picket force defending Earth. During the battle, a volley of missiles launched from Earth satellites.
Aboard the G’Alin cruiser, Lesser Technician Evitti said, “Human missiles are attacking!”
“Relax,” said Sub-Commander Gur. “Just three missiles? Three? Our laser defense will destroy them.”
“Our lasers are missing them!”
“Eh?”
“Look! Even in ‘shallow hyperspace’ lasers can’t hit the missiles. The missiles quickly disappear and reappear, over and over. By the time our lasers re-target, they’re gone again! It’s shallow hyperspace tech, but humans use this deviously!”
One missile got through and a five-gigaton nuclear bomb crushed the cruiser’s shield.
“Report!” shouted Gur.
“The good news is our shield returned at 40% strength.”
“So there’s bad news?”
Evitti shuddered. “Forty more human missiles are attacking.”
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Written for Sunday Photo Fiction: https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/sunday-photo-fiction-august-20th-2017/
Author’s Notes:
A kilo-ton nuclear bomb smashed Hiroshima. A mega-ton bomb is considered a modern city-killer. A giga-ton nuke is one thousand times stronger than that!
This isn’t the first time such blunders in design have happened. In the late 1950s, aircraft designers were obsessed with speed. They theorized that aircraft were becoming so fast that dogfights would never happen again. So when designers invented the very fast F-4 Phantom, they failed to put a gun in it. Guns were “too slow” and why bother when no one would dogfight anymore? And then during the Vietnam War, the F-4 Phantom wound up fighting in…wait for it…dogfights without a gun!
EagleAye
Ooh, those devious humans! It serves the G’Alin right, for not learning the lesson of the F-4 Phantom, and bringing a dog to a missile fight. Or… I may have been a bit confused there. 😉
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Hahaha! I think it’s perfect. 😀 Thanks Joy!
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I’d have thought the deeper you go into hyperspace, the harder it would be to get out again, sort of like a submarine going deeper and deeper into the ocean.
Yes, we humans are quite clever. Dumb aliens. 😉
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Actually, you’re spot on, at least the way I imagined it. Nobody knows how hyperspace “really” works. Still, I imagine entering hyperspace is similar to opening a wormhole which scientists say requires all the energy contained within Jupiter. A LOT of energy. I imagine practical hyperspace travel will still take a lot of energy and the deeper into it you want to travel, the more time it takes for the engines to spin up. Let’s say 30 – 45 mins. Not practical during a battle and certainly not possible within the small size of a missile.
But what if you weren’t using hyperspace to travel fast, and were using it as protection? A missile that doesn’t need to go deep into hyperspace could enter and exit quickly, and while in hyperspace is invulnerable to lasers fired from normal space. Such a weapon might survive long enough to hit. Thus when low tech is properly applied, it can sometimes outperform high tech. 😉
Yeah, we humans can be very clever, when it comes to weapons anyway. 😉 Thanks James!
Lets say you
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Trouble is you have just prewarned the aliens how devious we humans can be. 😉
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*Gasp* You’re right! I’ll have to put a disclaimer at the end: “No humans in this work of fiction are actually that smart. Please feel comfortable in underestimating us as much as possible. Rampaging aliens may send only your most incompetent and your family idiots who advanced through political favor and nepotism. It’s perfectly safe here. Trust me.” 😀
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I reckon, that so long as any aliens out there keep watching our politicians, we’ll be okay. They’re probably shaking their heads in bewilderment 😀
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Yeah, the aliens are probably wondering why we humans find the least honest and the least capable, name them politicians, and put the very worst of our species in charge of things. They probably haven’t contacted us yet because they’re afraid to share any technology more dangerous than a pencil sharpener. A politician might get a hold of it. 😉
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Even a pencil sharpener in the hands of a politician can be dangerous 😀
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As you point out, Eric, we are geniuses at killing.
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Humans doing what no one expects them to do. Kill.
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What a shocker, right?
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Funny story and fascinating explanation. Accidentally creating even better technology then the aliens thought they’d be able create with ‘old’ technology. Quite a shock I’d imagine.
Some weapons, I think, should never ‘accidentally’ or on purposebe created. Although those bombs effectively ended WWII in Japan, the results were and are still devastating.
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It’s happened before. Someone with a technological disadvantage can sometimes produce a simple solution that outperforms high tech. You just gotta watch out for those scrappy humans. 😉 Thanks so much! 🙂
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