The fact that you know all this is awesome.

Dude! please don't break my EP with a bunch of relevent facts. I'm kidding I love relevent facts. So there are 6 relatively easy ways to exterminate a nano swarm. (Relative to creating a nano swarm in the first place.) Given that Titan nano swarms are a big part of the reason that we left earth instead of just popping them in the microwave. I'm gonna have to say that you're wrong (or that we're just missing data). But I do enjoy haveing new tools to take care of those regular Swarminoid bastards. Perhapse we're gonna need rules for this.

I'm not argueing. I'm simply jumping to conclusions based on cursory examinaton of the evidence. My conclusion is that Titan nanoswarms are tougher than the nanoswarms transumanity can create. (this way I get to have my pie and eat it too. Titan nano swarms are scary but synth nano swarms can get swatted if they annoy people.) I'm not sure, but I think the conclusion you're proposing is that we lost a whole planet partly because we had multiple ways to beat the opponent but were just too stupid or lazy to apply them effectively. (Sad, but seems to be a common theem.)

Good point. For all we know some swarms might organize based on chemical signaling like ants or bees rather than RF communication. Seems that might limit the level of complexity in the activity of the swarm tho.

Not at all. In order to do all the things nanoswarms are described as, mechanosynthesis has to work out. That essentially involves using Atomic Force Microscopes to move molecules. There's no conceivable way this can be built from biological structures. We have biological based nanites -- they're called virii and bateria. Ever seen one build a plasma gun? Or anything made of metal? No, they're limited to organic chemistry structures, so bone, keratin, etc. Heck, even the bushbots described in the rulebook need bucktube or saphiroid substrates. These are all subject to EMP due to their size compared to the characteristic wavelength of TEM modes (consult Wikipedia for a definition, or Jackson for details). Chemical signals are limited to ~ 100m/s. That sounds like a lot until you consider that a fractally branched bushbot/nanoswarm has hundreds of kilometers worth of signal path to traverse. Meaning, they would act rather slowly (and certainly no faster than biological organisms). Even if you cripple your nanites by using chemical signals (making them slow) their energy storage will still be susceptible to EMP, unless you go all the way biological and use ATP. But then what you really have is a slime mold type organism, not something that can fly, fabricate any object, or make razor wire. Finally, building nanites out of biological structures ensures that the usual arsenal of tricks: strong acids/bases, UV, lasers, microwaves -- will continue to work.

Wrong. You can wave your magic wand all you want, but that does not abolish the laws of physics. We're talking about a technological singularity, not a physical singularity. Pre- or post-singularity, stars continue to shine, entropy continues to increase, and the laws of physics work as before. Pre- or post-singularity, biologically-based structures don't have the energy budget to construct inorganic structures in the timeframes depicted in EP.

My point was, to Newton, Mercury's orbit (had he known about such things) is physically impossible, it does not obey the laws of physics. Well, until we realized that his model of physics was wrong, and when applied more generally needed a different model. Quantum computing is physically impossible, and does not obey the laws of physics to a pre-quantum mechanics physicist. Well, until we realized that the current model of physics was wrong, and that when applied to specific cases needed a different model. My point being, given that the Titans have created functioning wormhole technology, maybe, just maybe, their understanding of physics (which is, let's not forget, fictional) allows them to exploit a couple little tricks that your version of physics doesn't allow. I realize that it's a slippery slope towards a deus ex machina magic wand that solves everything, but to a degree it's also the premise of the setting.

No. One side with equal or slightly superior technology can defeat its opponents given logistics, strategy and tactics. In WWII the U.S. defeated Japan with logistics (e.g. production capacity and supplies) aided by strategy (e.g. island-hopping), tactics (Battle of Midway, etc.). The superior technology of the atomic bomb hastened the end, but didn't really change the outcome. It's easy to imagine that the TITANs, with superior logistics, strategy, and tactics, could defeat collective transhumanity, especially if the conflict was short and sharp (which by all indications, it was) and didn't give much time for transhumanity to learn from its mistakes.

Decivre wrote:

I understand that everyone is trying to come up with a hard explanation as to why TITAN technology works the way it does, but that's near impossible. Eclipse Phase, while a hard sci-fi transhuman setting, is also a sci-fi take on the Lovecraftian horror genre (replace eldritch abomination and impossible geometry with post-singularity AI and basilisk hacks, and you've pretty much got it). Thematic to the genre is the idea that certain things are unknowable, or at least far beyond our capability to understand.

Is not part of it also that Transhumanity, despite existing post-Singularity is not, entirely, post-Singularity itself? One could, in fact, argue that only the TITANs are truly post-Singularity, as there is much of the stuff in Eclipse Phase that we can still conceive of, and even have a rough idea of how it could work, but then, we get to the TITAN's stuff, and it is just beyond our ability to understand how it works?

EMP may cut electromagnetic communication, but won't nanobot's Faraday cage shield nanobot itself from EMP?

Combat nanobot could extend arms only when needed and keep them hidden in the cage most of the time (let's say it is flying type). That could shield nanobot from inducing currents inside its vital parts. I guess you are right about UV - nanobots have very large surface area. I wonder if even EMP is needed to destroy them - maybe strong UV flashlight would suffice. Microbots would probably do better against UV part.

acgetchell wrote:

All nanobot designs so far are made of carbon buckytubes, which are not conductors. The closest carbon buckytubes get to being conductors are ballistic conductivity, but that requires a driving voltage (which would be interfered with by EMP).

Well - it appears, that EP writers weren't aware of that, in their world carbon nanostructures can be superconductive. But putting that aside - are you really sure there is no physical possibility for adding conductive shell to nanoitems?

Quote:

Microbots would still take surface damage against UV, and would be even more vulnerable to EMP in the microwave regime due to resonance effects (the natural resonance of a microscale object coincides with the wavelength of microwaves).

Forgive me for my ignorance in the field of physics, but what would be effect of that resonance when considering Faraday caged microobject? Vibrations? Heat? As far as I see effective combat swarms, they have to be composed from bots at least micro big - maybe even bigger. These bots could be used as nanobot carriers, or standalone units.

Can't get a page reference at the moment, but I remember a section on TITAN nanoswarms that suggest they are very hard to kill, because even if you wipe out 99% of them, they will self-replicate until they're strong enough to come back at you. Also, because they can change their own structure so that they can adapt to weapons used against them, perhaps after knocking out a nanoswarm with an EMP grenade, once they've finally regained their strength, they may have rebuilt themselves with a faraday cage design. Also, to preface this idea, I'm going to come out and say my knowledge of physics is about on the level of a liberal arts major who never learned his multiplication tables but likes his Arthur C Clarke and his Asimov - But what about grounding? Could a nanite swarm, sensing that they're about to get hit with an electromagnetic wave, stick to the ground to conduct the energy away from themselves? (Makes me wonder how a nanoswarm would perform in a surprise test)

First I must say that I am happy to see a hard-science discussion on this board. For the sake of gaming one can always wave the GM "don't ask it just work" mind trick but it is nice to let the suspension of disbelief take the path of less effort.

acgetchell wrote:

A basic undergraduate E&M problem is to show that the electric field inside a conductor is zero.

I have done this one as well a few years ago. Two years later, I got a (very light, almost an introduction) to the physics of materials. Then one discovers what an approximation things like resistance is and how non-trivial is the fact that resistance is isotropic. One dreams of the funky reactions that could be created in a material assembled at the molecular level. The isotropy or linearity of resistance is only an approximation we make when doing calculation on metals, but more interesting materials can be made. I don't see it that far fetched that in EP settings, nanobots be made of such materials that would become almost immediately conductive under an exposition to a wide range of high-power emission (the 'almost' immediately is handy to say to GMs that swarms take damage from EMP but are not utterly fried immediately) Whether these materials can be made by transhumans or just TITANs is just to the GM's discretion. I personally think that transhumans should know how to do them. TITANs have far more tricks in their sleeve.

acgetchell wrote:

No micro- or nanobot can be constructed in this way. Firstly, because the very principle of their operation (manipulation of individual atoms using mechanosynthesis) requires the equivalent of an atomic force microscope, which is designed to concentrate EM fields sufficiently to break chemical bonds (that's the working definition of mechanosynthesis).

I may have a munchkin or engineer mindset, but here is what I would do, if I were to design a nanobot to resist EMP (or just the regular discharges that are bound to happen in any habitat). I would have a Faraday cage encompassing as much of the vital parts of the nanobot as possible with only the impossible parts (the nano manipulators) protruding. On an EMP surge, the protruding part would be lost and a spare, sheltered in the Faraday cage, would be put in position to replace the lost one. The first task of the swarm will then be to repair and replace the fried part to build a second set of spares.

acgetchell wrote:

There are no known superconductors that can be used to construct nanites.

I would go further by saying that there is no known model to predict what kind of superconductor can be built according to the laws of physics. Haven't we, as of 2010, broken two times what was believed to be the upper theoretical bound of temperature where superconductivity could exist ?

acgetchell wrote:

Next, even if "titanic nanobots" could reconfigure themselves this way, how would they respond to a speed of light threat? The signal that they should do something to protect themselves is the signal that destroys them. If they are able to protect themselves, then they can't interact with the outside world.

Who said anything about speed of light ? Most characters will throw a grenade, launch a missile or pull the trigger of a micro-wave gun. The TITANs are supposed to be very smart, I guess that by the time the trigger is pulled, the handful of microseconds during which the weapon reacts gives them the time to understand what kind of weapon it is and to adapt accordingly. Even positioning a satellite will give them a clue. Seeing how today's magnetohydrodynamics is only beginning to get results, I am fairly wild on imagining how TITANs would use this. Who said a Faraday cage can't be made of ionized conducting air whirling around the nanobot ? Who said that having a burst of electrons rushing into the nanobot will fry anything instead of being canalized in an anticipated way ? (after all, one man's EMP fryer is another man's induction power source)

acgetchell wrote:

Knowing the realm of what's possible was a lot of my (and others) motivation for getting into physics. We can describe all sorts of neat things (wormholes, ultimate computers) that are beyond the resources of any current civilization to construct.

I wholeheartedly agree ! Let's try to keep the handwavium part to the minimum in order to have a game interesting as well to science-minded people.

I would probably run EMP against nanoswarms as doing direct damage without the 1d10 limitation. Let's say that a EMP grenade does 3d10 damage on a nearby nanoswarm. This might go for ionizing radiation, ultraviolet lasers and other anti-nano weapons too (there are probably EM wavelengths that have fun resonances with standard nanoparts - if you know what kind of nanite you want to mess up, you can perhaps tune a weapon for it). Another way of handling it is as if EMP grenades were Overload grenades - they stun the nanoswarm and give it -30 modifiers that last for a suitably long while.

Having gaming groups quarrel over physics is great. Last big quarrel in my group was about glaciology - would the valleys of the fantasy mountain range be U- or V-shaped? My usual response after we have aired all sensible arguments is "This is a game, and as mere human GM I can never get the physics/geology/constitutional theory perfectly consistent. Let's settle for {this solution}, because it makes the game work." Usually that makes the players spend a lot of time afterwards coming up with an amazingly convincing physical/geological/sociological explanation for whatever solution we decided.

Nietzchean Slime Mold wrote:

I hate to break the suspension of disbelief myself, but we're talking about a setting where people have [i]psychic mind powers[/i] (not to mention stargates). Hard Science Fiction this is not. I enjoy nitpicking gaffes and oversights in sci fi as much as anybody, but seriously, once you've got people running around with the Force, criticizing the durability of the droids vs EMP seems like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Actually, Eclipse Phase is mostly hard science fiction. What people forget, however, is that it also mixes that hard sci-fi with Lovecraftian horror. You can't apply hard science fiction explanations to those horror aspects (essentially anything associated with the TITANs or ETI, up to and including Psi). It's somewhat similar to Shadowrun, which if stripped of all references to magic would fit quite well in the hard sci-fi/cyberpunk genre. As for the topic at hand, the latest errata has fixed this for us, and has noted that EMP does hefty damage to any and all swarms (page 329).