Battlezone: The Re-imagining

[Axial]

The mechanism through which biometal produces the ability to float can, for all intents and purposes, be classified as "unknown" at present. The only reason we have what we assume to be gravity impellers on our present vehicles is because the memories present in the biometal also had them, and it therefore shapes itself into such a device when we prod it into building the propulsion system. I suspect that the general mechanism for anti-gravity lies with the impellers pulling in the gravitational field and the ship directing that force downwards, perpendicular to the plates. It's a chicken and egg situation: the impellers have to work for the plates to push, but for the impeller to work, the plates have to push. I therefore conclude that a current is run through the biometal coils inside the plates, and the resulting force "turns" the impellers, which supply the coils with the necessary force. This explains how each vehicle maintains a constant height over the ground no matter which world they are on, and it also explains why we need to install a conventional power source in each vehicle. I'm sure my discussing this puts my classified status at risk, but we must reach out to minds outside of the Facility if we are to gain some insight into how this material works.

[Ded10c]

Since the information I have is gathered from classified sources, it is somewhat sketchy (parts of documents referencing other parts of documents I have not yet seen). I shall continue digging - as shall the rest of the Society - and we shall see what we can turn up.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

That fallacy assumes that the bio-metal munitions are unrecoverable. Assuming they are not converted to raw energy, they would just be reclaimed as scrap, either from the wreckage of the target or from where the projectile landed. You also have to remember that for some of the fantastical things biometal does, it has to be consumed. It can't produce anti-gravity indefinitely.

Couple of points here.

* * *
Bio-metal is certainly recoverable if used as, or in, some form of projectile. It's just a heck of a lot more difficult to 're-collect' the stuff when it's been spread all over God's universe in smaller volumes. Identifying where bio-metal is, is far and away the easy part. Recovering it is not. Once it was discovered that the metal responds to ordinary coherent radio waves with a temporal coherent return and producing a moire-type pattern on an ordinary oscilloscope, finding the stuff was straight forward, if within a few dozen kilometers of a directional broadcast. The logistics and support of sending equipment, men, life support, fuel, etc., searching a ~30 kilometer radio swath all over suspected areas on the moon was the HARD part.

Sci-fi movies and books have portrayed traveling and living in space appear easy and routine. Extended duration in a vacuum and zero or low g is not easy now, it was many times more difficult in the early 60's. Add to that, the technology pulled from the substance in the late 50's and early 60's was not a smorgasbord of whimsical magic as most of those that have heard of the metal's discovery and resulting conflict with the Soviets have made it appear in the grandiose stories we have read about in the last 50 years since the leaks.

* * *
Bio-metal does not intrinsically produce "anti-gravity" per say. It produces an ultra-high (in the upper terahertz) standing wave that repels mass similar in property to diamagnetism, but with the added ability to not require ultra low temps and does not exhibit the functionality limitations of Lorentz force curvature. And the reason we are all not flying around in vehicles three feet off the ground is we STILL do not know how to reproduce the field without the metal. There was research and several attempts to reproduce the standing wave since the late 1950's with the inventions of the gyrotron, FIR lasers and QCL lasers to no avail. As I have said, the metal that DID survive the conflict and made it back to earth, is primarily with the US (~60%) and the Soviet Union (~35%), with the remainder distributed among the Japanese, Israelis, U.K. and French (as of 1972). I honestly have no idea who else as of 2011. I highly suspect you are seeing recent research with the metal when you read reports of the so-called black triangles spotted throughout the world. The relatively slow and fast silent movement, the incident particle illumination, etc. all fit.

[Axial]

The development and existence of "Sky Eye" solves the problem of locating the biometal. We are certainly capable of beaming a radio wave strong enough via satellite to locate loose biometal.

You also have to remember that biometal is only valuable precisely because it produces great weapons, similar to nuclear devices. They build a tank out of biometal, we have to build a weapon out of biometal to defeat it because a conventional arm capable of doing so would be too unwieldy. Normally, it would simply be an extension of the Cold War, however neither side has enough of the material and both sides know where to get more. Basic human psychohistory: one resource, two interested parties, not enough to share, competition results. Competition is almost always a synonym for "war" in this case.

As for the anti-gravity, I don't expect it to "produce" it, neither do we at the Facility consider it "anti-gravity." Your findings and those we have here at the facility are not in conflict, but rather they are two parts of a similar theory. We have found that the mechanism seems to warp gravity around it in such a way that it redirects it to emanate from the ship. The result is not too dissimilar from a rocket engine. Perhaps the frequency of standing wave is actually the EM signature gravity would produce if it had one, and the reason we are seeing it is because the mechanism itself must produce an EM wave in that spectrum in order to redirect the ambient field. A standing wave by itself repelling mass without the negative side effects seems too far-fetched, which leads us at the Facility to conclude that the wave is a byproduct, not the intended goal.

As for the "Black Triangle" incidents, those are likely experiments from our Russian counterparts, attempting to see just how far they can push the levitating mechanisms. They are attempting the gravitational/waveform equivalent of "thrust-vectoring" as well as using the energy density of previously mentioned "red mercury" solution to jump their vehicles higher off of the ground. Of course, these are officially "unidentified flying objects," but the reason that military interceptors are redirected is out of the interests of peace, not because the Triangles are dangerous.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

We have found that the mechanism seems to warp gravity around it in such a way that it redirects it to emanate from the ship. The result is not too dissimilar from a rocket engine. Perhaps the frequency of standing wave is actually the EM signature gravity would produce if it had one, and the reason we are seeing it is because the mechanism itself must produce an EM wave in that spectrum in order to redirect the ambient field. A standing wave by itself repelling mass without the negative side effects seems too far-fetched, which leads us at the Facility to conclude that the wave is a byproduct, not the intended goal.

I've explained a couple of the significant side effects in the past;

"'Combat dirty' in that the field has a magnetic hysteresis resonance with photons in the upper infrared and lower visible frequencies. . .making the transmitters 'glow' red in darker environments exciting incident local particles, thus making all vehicles using the technology easily spotted without the use of a skirt or shroud. This very slight resonance heating and visual signature of the local environment also limits vehicles to brief hovering times over liquefied, lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium I. Attempting to transit over Helium II can be catastrophic if a tank were to suddenly splash into a deep HII pond, causing the Uni-Mass field to collapse from the instantaneous spike in the thermal conductivity, and eliminates any attempts at restarts."


But illustrating why it is believed the standing wave has some residual or dimensional phase-shift component that has yet to be replicated without bio-metal, is something I found in an October 1961 log transcript from a field comparison from the OXCART facility at Skunkworks. It compared craft repulsion efficiency and height/energy input at the facility to the limited data obtained from the first craft using the technology on the moon. It was found that of the reduction in efficiency as the atmospheric density increased correlating with a paper submitted by two of the more famous particle physicists at the time.



Where:
L is the passive mass in slug, being held or "levitated"
p is the local fluid density of the atmosphere lb/ft^3
c is the standing wave transmission speed (basically light speed)
the odd squiggle is a static variable worked from a paper by E. Teller and E Lawrence in the spring of 1958 when the first nano nodes displayed a terahertz emitter capability.
a is the cross sectional area in square inches perpendicular to levitation.

I must say, it was and still is, odd to see an old equation in imperial units. Since the wave field is static or standing, the mass can be taken outside the differentiation operator by the constant factor rule in differentiation.

Basically the resultant 'effect' in an atmosphere environment if the field remains static, but the craft's lift is much more "spongy" as the atmosphere gets thicker. There are variations to the above work as the field transits through variations in mass, such as grass, debris, leaves, etc. In a side note in the log, one researcher puts his hand in the field and describes what he at first thought was going to be a hard repulsion downward, thinking it would follow Newton's third law, but was shocked to find the sensation was more like placing the hand between layers of highly statically charged and tightly compressed pillows. His hand was held stationary with considerable force.

That's enough for now, I'm sure I am severely pushing my luck.

[Axial]

It would seem to us at the Facility that that description and equation of the mechanism that you have provided precludes its use in a vacuum, else I have misinterpreted it. All manner of vehicles were operating in vacuum during the lunar campaigns of 1951 and 1969, and they did so without any unexpected fuss. An electrohydrodynamic thruster, which is essentially what you have suggested, is therefore not a possible hypothesis for how the mechanism works. Unless you are suggesting that the fluid medium is contained within an electric or magnetic field under the vehicle, but then that would render a vehicle useless should a stray round pass under it and disrupt said field, as any projectile is likely to be metallic and induce magnetic or electric fields of its own as it passes through the containment field. Again, this did not occur during any of the campaigns on record. The only malfunctions were the result of catastrophic failure due to combat damage or fatigue.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

An electrohydrodynamic thruster, which is essentially what you have suggested, is therefore not a possible hypothesis for how the mechanism works. Unless you are suggesting that the fluid medium is contained within an electric or magnetic field under the vehicle, but then that would render a vehicle useless should a stray round pass under it and disrupt said field, as any projectile is likely to be metallic and induce magnetic or electric fields of its own as it passes through the containment field. Again, this did not occur during any of the campaigns on record.

No, all that was hypothesized as early as the fall of 1959, well before any craft was built and the system and effect was still on benches in labs at LLNL and the OXCART facility*. The efficiency IS considerably higher in vacuum. Incidental mass passing through the field does not drop the field, it merely drops the response or recovery time of the max height of the field emitter. . . as the equation shows.

Essentially what was found with the Uni-pulse was there is no lateral shear forces perpendicular to the field vector/God's g. That's the hard mystery and has been the mystery for 52+ years. On one hand, it appears the primary repulsion medium is the local incident mass, as the system requires the local mass to repel. But what has been the on-going mystery, and the reason why all non-bio-metal attempts have failed, there is indeed a God's g vector component to the system.

All non-bio-metal emitters attempting to match the modulated field have the crippling effect of ultra tight Lorentz force curvature, resulting in inefficiencies so extreme, they are essentially useless.

So let me attempt it in layman terms, and believe me, it took me years to comprehend what I've yet to understand. The Uni-pulse emitter is much like a skater on ice. . . but on a super fluid-like ice. The lateral or perpendicular attraction to gravitational mass, (mountain range, large water bodies) is entirely removed (with the caveat to some residual hysteresis resistance of heavy metals in the local repelled medium) The 'skater' remains on a frictionless medium laterally, but CAN 'bottom-out' if enough higher density medium is passed between the emitter and the higher inversion mass surface quickly enough to cause the 'sponge' effect to drop the emitter/ship to the surface. Essentially an overpowering of the emitter's capability to respond. This is not so much a problem when a craft is stationary, (hard to imagine where this would be an issue while stationary. . . a shallow, but fast rock slide, waves braking under the craft, etc?) but can be devastating if the craft is moving, causing it to impact the surface before it can recover OR find an area where there is no longer incident lower mass between the emitter and the higher inversion layer mass (ground).

* I'm really putting the forum at risk now.

[Axial]

But the equation you have shown me indicates that lift "L" is directly proportional to the local fluid density. If fluid density "P" is 0, then lift "L" is also 0. By extension, that means that as "P" approaches some infinitesimally small number towards zero, as in a vacuum, then the lift "L" will correspondingly decrease. Even riding on a cushion of an ionized gas, the system cannot work. It's not mass passing through the field that would destroy it, it is the presence of a high-velocity metal. Specifically, metal.

Also, craft had been built during the late 40s by the Germans and by our own people starting in mid-1946. We have several surviving examples here at the Facility, including twenty-one XP-73 prototypes with varying configurations as well as a T-6X (also called M4x) "Bobcat" chassis, lacking its propulsion system though it were. We also have on-hand a dozen evolutionary T-46X "Bobcat" chassis as well as the entire Cold-War lineup through today's most advanced machines. We are fully aware of how to build the levitation mechanism at this late state, but we do not fully understand how it works still. Even then, the only way to build the mechanism is through the use of biometal, with more conventional materials forming the framing and non-essential parts.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

You're right . . .kinda.

I looked again at that folder. Lsub-p is the inertial mass resistance. I said 'passive mass', which you may have justifiably assumed was Passive gravitational mass

And remember, this is the result in the wave emitter cone/beam. The "mass resistance" is negligible in a vacuum. So yes indeed, the efficiency in the column goes to a hair under 100% in a vacuum. The Teller & Lawrence variable adds some tensor gradient system utilizing a Lorentzian manifold, which is very hard to follow, but addresses the spike in density after a specific resonance-count distance, (basically the distance the cone/beam is tuned) working around ~1.2-~2 meters, depending on the emitter designs that were developed and improved from 1959-1967.

As to not working, you may someday soon get the chance to explain that to one or several dozen old bio-metal vets who used them from '60 through '71. Hopefully when the emitter is brought out of the dark when bio-metal is no longer a required component.

[Nielk1]

I would think biometal allows for many possible methods of anti-gravitation. Each would have its advantages and deficits.

I personally don't like a lot of the stuff Psychedelic Rhino writes for Battlezone, mainly because it is in the scope of his own alternate history and not how it is in the games. More specifically, it is part of his 'making it more possible to be reality' work, which I think we can just use biometal as unobtainium and move on from there.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

A lot of the descriptions of biometal I see after the '98 release are so far removed from any science, it might as well go ahead and be a Star Wars-like flight of fancy. Add to that the idea or premise of using it in projectiles, stuff that billions was spent to collect, then anything is acceptable. The functionality or ability of biometal goes so far off the deep end, it leaves science long behind and is well into the fantasy realm. . .which is fine, since it's the game.

It's been a long hard road of years of deciphering, but I'm merely sharing information gleamed from my cc collection, and maybe a touch of science-based speculation thrown in.

[LtFEED]

[quote="Axial"]

quote]


this is a GREAT concept sketch. I really like the old world technology look combined with the concept of a hover tank. This would look absoultly SIC as a high poly model with a full set of parts and anims. Great work with that, got any more of those little gems?

[Zenophas]

In relation to the powerplant spec listed in there, how would biometal function with Liquid Micro Pulsed Plasma Thrusters? Assuming there's a conversion process or something. Not a rocket scientist obviously...

Zeno's trying to create a few engines for BZ3. Been watching them make things aimlessly based on the 'feel' rather than the function. It's getting under Zeno's skin, really.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

As was discussed a couple posts above, I have no idea how someone wants to incorporate it in the game(s) premise.

However in late 1965, as I noted in the Turret thread specifications, -The following MPS has been superseded by two 40 gal. H20 tanks and a Bio-metal heating lattice for the Mark III- Boeing/Grumman Mark III Badger uses simple water as its propellent mass, and it is charged to electrolyze the H20 to get 4H2O + 4e^- ---> 2H2 + 4OH^- at the cathode and 2H2O ---> O2 + 4e-+ 4H^+ at the anode, then heated with a Bio-metal terahertz modulated transmission, then recombined in the exhaust chamber for ultra high exhaust velocities, making for extremely efficient, high specific impulse thrust.

These early discoveries and research were to be used many years later on non-biometal designs, two of which are commonly known as the Ion Thruster or Drive and VASIMR.

Also remember, this was used ONLY for lateral thrust. . . perpendicular to god's G, and NOT for Uni-Mass assisted lift, which remained chemical.

[Nielk1]

According to BZ1 documentation the ship frame is constructed with a laser lattice that holds the engine parts in place while the biometal parts of the ships are fabricated around it. Thus in BZ1 everything from the engines for movement down to hovering is probably mostly a chemical force. In BZ2 one would think that Biometal took on a more unobtanium style ability while in BZ1 it was more just the armor and advanced tech portions.

I want to see what you come up with for the early Badger that is prone to falling over.