It seemed like it might be useful to start a thread where we recorded all the canonical things that Howard tells us in one place, so that we don't have to go archive-diving later. This then, is that thread.
Everything here is canonical (i.e., appeared in a strip, a footnote, or was forum-blessed by Howard as "How it Works in the Schlockiverse").
Any mistakes are mine; please point so I can fix them.
Teraport and TAD:
- When you teraport, you are reduced to gravitic packets.
- The packets are then pushed through nanoscopic wormholes to their destination.
- The process takes a human-measurable amount of time, with the exact duration increasing based on the mass to be transported. It takes about 6 seconds for a ship the size of the PDCL to teraport.
- As per this post, modern TAD systems work not by shooting / disrupting the wormholes, but by suppressing them, using the same technology that the teraport uses to form them in the first place. Two posts later, Howard also states that there have been at least four generations of TAD.)
- According to this comic, there have now been at least 9 generations of teraport, and earlier versions were less comfortable for the passengers.
- TAD systems can be turned off.
- TAD systems can be tuned to recognize certain teraports as "friendly" and leave them alone
- Per Howard's comment (see below, in this thread), Petey defeats TAD systems, not through any clever tricks or superior technology, he simply has more power available (cf the core generator), and opens wormholes so large that the TAD system is not able to suppress them.
- Per Howard's comment every non-Petey teraport ever shown has required a teraport to "carry" the teraportee along. Petey is able to create a wormhole from anywhere to anywhere, thereby teleporting (not teraporting) an object without the need of a teraport device.
- It is possible, when teraporting, to convert the momentum of the teraportee into mass (and presumably vice-versa).
If a teraport's packets are hit by a grav pulse or a coherent beam weapon (e.g. laser) before they have fully reassembled, the person or object being teraported is destroyed. This is NOT how a TAD system works, however, as explained above.
Schlockiverse Gravity and GraviticsIn this thread, Howard stated that gravitational propagation is FTL in the Schlockiverse for purposes of detection, but not necessarily for all purposes. This obsoletes
this comment.
In
this post, Howard gave us several useful facts: 0) Gravitic drives (i.e., ship engines) can only accelerate you up to about 0.6c (*), 1) It can change your velocity enormously 2) but only within limits; (up to about 0.8c relative to your startpoint due to relativistic effects mucking up the teraport) 3) doing something that mucks up the teraport can cause you to die or blow up.
(*) Actually, he says that gravitic drives can't accelerate you faster that without you encountering practical limits such as running out of fuel. I speculate that if you had some way of resupplying via teleport, maybe you could keep accelerating.
THOOOOMMM! and Blam! In the footnote to
this comic, Howard explains how Schlock's plasma cannon allows him to fly.
In
this comment, Howard states that Schlock's plasma cannon is a 'stream', (i.e., not a bullet). (Note: the turret that Howard is referencing is
this one.)
In
this comment, Howard explains that good tracer ammo does not leave a trail pointing back to the shooter.
Communications, Travel, and Other InfrastructureHypercomms are FTL, as per the footnote here.Ships and ship sizes:The Athens
was a destroyer with
a pair of 60m primary annies.Petey has a class of ship called the
"Devastator" , about which we know nothing.
The
Plaited Daisies is an
"Extortionator" class ship and
has a 10,000 meter primary annie. So does the Cloak of Untrammeled Dignity(Picture)Neutronium, Annie Plants, and Power IssuesIn this forum post,
http://zoo.nightstar.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=17381&start=25 Howard says that annie plants make their own neutronium out of regular matter.
In this post, Howard explained the power requirements of a UNS destroyer. This demonstrates, as he says, that primary plants are needed for combat but smaller plants can easily handle everything else.
In this post, Howard told us that the power of annie-plants is not additive (at least, not in linear fashion). (That's a paraphrase.)
In this post, Howard said that you get more energy out of neutronium than it took to produce the neutronium from normal mass in the first place. (Note that this does NOT break the laws of physics...it just means that converting the regular mass into neutronium is an low-cost process that costs less than the e=mc^2 energy value of the mass in question.) Howard also said don't think too much about this because it's a "black-box plot device."
Thanks to everyone who pitched in links, corrections, and further explanation!
_________________
After 3 long, weaponless years, I became the wielder of the
Doobie/Dobie gun!