Requiem
02/21/19 02:13 AM
58.175.193.140
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In the new alt. history I am working on where the SLDF remain within the IS and had taken over the Terran Hegemony rather than running away (Just hit page 60 and are just near the 4th SW).
A universe where all WMDs as well as all Orbital bombardments have been outlawed;
A universe where, rather than technology disappearing, it has flourished;
Where in a battle in 2893 the first Omni ‘Mech was used within the IS – where they killed off the 5th Sword of Light - (Thus by the 4th SW all special forces house units are made up of Omni + clan weapons, regular units Star League Mechs + Clan Weapons, Mercenaries all IS Mechs + all advanced Inner Sphere Weapons – etc up to 3075 design);
Where Warships are in abundance;
Think very futuristic with all the mod-cons type of society;
And ComStar is the largest Corporation throughout the IS - and it not a sudo religious cult; and
Also Terra is the smallest independent state within the IS with just one system.
One of the more interesting changes would be …….
The Beta Regulus Miracle: Gibraltar Citadel
In 2899, a rogue planetoid, roughly one thousand kilometers in diameter, was detected on a collision course with the planet. Grimly named at the time as Grande Diablo, the panic-stricken Beta Regulan government desperately called for assistance, in either evacuating the planet's population or somehow protecting it from the planetoid's imminent impact in 2901.
When word reached Tharkad, an emergency meeting of the Estates-General was held on Great X where a massive evacuation effort was already under-way. Securing every commercial cruise ship and Drop-Ships within the Lyran Commonwealth as possible during the ongoing Third Succession War, the evacuation of the entire population of eight million was made possible prior to impact.
With revised astronomical projections indicated the planetoid would impact on the northern continent of Brasillia, the most advanced scientists advanced their plan to save Beta Regulus. When on the 6th October 2901 over one hundred warships were able to utilize their combined firepower and their engines to divert the planetoid's course into a geo-synchronous orbit above the planet at approximately half the distance from their existing moon.
Having successfully stabilized the planetoid the Lyran Government slowly returned the population of Beta Regulus and undertook a feet of engineering that has seldom been eclipsed. Renamed as the Gibraltar (“The Rock”) Citadel the planetoid which was converted into both a massive Naval fortress and its academy for Naval graduates (warship crews and fighter pilots) but also as a civilian city for the military and mining personnel who work on The Rock, but also for the tourists who come to visit this marvel of technology and on their way to more interesting destinations.
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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Cray
02/21/19 06:34 PM
97.101.136.19
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Quote:
When on the 6th October 2901 over one hundred warships were able to utilize their combined firepower and their engines to divert the planetoid's course into a geo-synchronous orbit above the planet at approximately half the distance from their existing moon.
It's your alternate history so you can be as cinematic as you want, but a 1000km diameter planetoid would not be budged by 100 WarShips in a short time.
Assuming a lunar density, it's mass would be 1.8x10^18 metric tons. Assuming you got 100 McKennas together (which have the largest engines in the Star League era), you'd generate 1.93 million tons x 100 x 2.5Gs thrust = 4.82 x 10^8 tons of thrust (482 megatons).
The resulting acceleration delivered to the planetoid would be (4.82 x 10^8) / (1.8x10^18) = 2.63x10^-10 m/s/s. After a year of unbroken thrust, the 100 McKennas would've accelerated the planetoid by not quite 1 centimeter per second (8.3 millimeters per second). Meanwhile, a geosynchronous orbit around Beta Regulus would be about 2000-3000 meters per second. The McKennas would have several millennia of work left to pull that off.
While I was helping edit the Beta Regulus tragedy, the thought was that if the Star League had been around then a) it would've spotted the planetoid a lot sooner, like decades in advance, and b) would've been able to impart a minimal velocity to it (like a few centimeters per second) years in advance so it missed Beta Regulus. Something involving a custom mega-engine from the Star League Department of Mega-Engineering seemed likely or, as a backup plan, everyone could've been evacuated because the vast JumpShip fleets of the Inner Sphere had been annihilated by the Succession Wars.
A second problem with capturing Grande Diablo and making it a moon is that two large-ish moons are unstable around small objects like a terrestrial planet. Some of the theories about the formation of Earth's moon suggest that two moons might've been formed by the Theia impact, but the situation was only stable for a few thousand years before they collided and merged. Jupiter can dominate the heck out of its moon system and keep four planet-sized moons in line. Terrestrial planets aren't that powerful.
Anyway, two suggestions about your scenario:
1) Suggest DoME (Star League Department of Mega-Engineering) spent a decade rigging a set of giant engines to nudge Grande Diablo a bit to miss Beta Regulus and then a few more changing its orbit enough so that it never endangered the world again.
2) Ignore my color commentary and stick with your scenario as written. The key part is that the Star League survives, right? 
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Requiem
02/21/19 08:18 PM
58.175.193.140
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rewrite .....
The Beta Regulus Miracle: Gibraltar Citadel
In 2847, a rogue planetoid, roughly one thousand kilometers in diameter, was detected by the commercial Jumpship Diva Queen upon her translation into the system. Calculations postulated that there was a high chance the planetoid was on a collision course with the planet. Grimly named at the time as Grande Diablo, the panic-stricken Beta Regulan government desperately called for assistance, in either evacuating the planet's population or somehow protecting it from the planetoid's imminent impact in 2901.
When word reached Tharkad, an emergency meeting of the Estates-General was held on Great X where an evacuation effort would be established over the next 50 years. Tharkad secured a commercial cruise liner’s ships and Drop-Ships with a contract to ensure a safe and orderly evacuation the entire population of eight million was made possible prior to impact.
Tharkad then, in conjunction with the Marseille Government, spent the next decade in a joint project with the Star League Department of Mega-Engineering rigging a set of giant custom made mega-engines to slowly nudge Grande Diablo methodically over the next forty years.
Previous astronomical theory suggested that the problem with capturing a planetoid, such as Grande Diablo, and converting it into a moon considered the the effects of stability implications of an object like that of a terrestrial planet. However, revised astronomical projections indicated that a planetoid of this size could be stabilized if its location remained within a ‘pirate-jump point’ – as the same fluctuations within space that would allow a jump ship to materialize within a pirate point would also allow for the stability of of the planetoid.
Then on the 6th October 2901 the mega engines fired for the last time as the planetoid diverted into its geo-synchronous orbit within one such pirate jump-point above the planet at approximately half the distance from their existing moon, a feat of engineering that has seldom been eclipsed.
Having successfully stabilized the planetoid the population of Beta Regulus slowly began to return home. Renamed as the Gibraltar (“The Rock”) Citadel the planetoid began to be converted into both a massive Naval fortress and its academy for Naval graduates (warship crews and fighter pilots) but also as a civilian city for the military and mining personnel who work on The Rock, and for those tourists who come to visit this marvel of technology.
[NOTE: Gibraltar Naval Academy is open to citizens of both the Lyran Commonwealth and the United Republic of Marseille as a testament to the ideals of the Star League.]
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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