<Snipped quote by Willy Vereb>
I am fully aware there is not a single ounce of experimental data on negative energy, but I have accepted it's existence as a must for the RP so we can have the warp drive and handicap FTL as needed, not that I am restricting anyone to the warp drive however.
I am also aware the LHC has produced antimatter, but that is in such minuscule amounts that I don't think that justifies having antimatter in a space-faring Empire. Also, as far as I am aware, we don't have data on the strength of the electromagnetic fields we need to contain antimatter.
Again, antimatter tends to be a very powerful tool in Sci-Fi and at least in my mind does not fit with a young nations mindset.
You made negative energy which only theoretically supposed to exist okay for a low tech nation by what is essentially GM fiat. And then consider limited use of antimatter to which we actually have scientists working on and have known examples of as "too powerful".
Seriously, read over what you wrote and then consider the implications.
Antimatter is a staple of hard science fiction and for a good reason. Yes, it's energetic as hell. But also you don't have metric fucktons of it so that means they're not a power source, they are closer to a "battery". Or a capacitor if you want a simple way to unleash a lot of power for an energy-demanding application. Actually that's their simplest and most important use which is also studied in real life. Generating antimatter requires more energy than it provides, this cannot change unless you use some kind of pseudoscience in the setting. Antimatter can be extracted from the "nature", though. Only in a very limited amount,mind you. It's suggested that the Jupiter's orbit attracts enough antimatter we can perhaps get a few miligrams of it per year. That might seem small but when currently the cost of antimatter is at billions per gram it's acually a worthwhile enterprise.
Anyways, in my case Todderstern is actually producing much more antimatter due to its eccentric nature after the Kilonova Disaster. I agree it's a slight stretch to accept it but basically my people live in suffering from it so things seem to be balanced out. My aim is that making antimatter my trade goods as well as a potential resource others might wish to conquer me. As for how much? A lot more than miligrams but you'll be hard pressed to run a single small reactor with all the antimatter I produce. Which means it's pointless to be used that way since you can just have a trillionth of that amount to start up a large nuclear reactor which outdoes it.
What I can change that I can alter lore so antimatter nukes were never used (I don't even intend to use them in game anyways since they're wasting too much resources for a bang that can be nearly matched by a thermonuclear device). I can also nix PASERs albeit I find them unique and atmospheric as they are pitifully weak against almost any kind of shielding or countermeasure while giving a bit of WW1 feel to my infantry. Even if there are no special protection against it PASERs don't one-shot or even seriously threaten armored vehicles like tanks. So they should be safe.
But sure, I can nix those.
Antimatter capacitors? There's no point. Basically anyone can have that and may even do since you need lots of peak power for FTL and there's hardly any lower tech method that can fit the bill. If your negative energy alone can do that then by nature they're perhaps like antimatter in power, BTW. So yeah...
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salamimike
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