Dead Star Dockyards

The longer Titanyana watched Donovan's movements, the more she began to realize how much skill he possessed. There was a smoothness to his motions, or maybe it was more correct to say those of the craft, that betrayed how used to this simulation he was. Calm, collected, practiced, and confident, he executed maneuvers and altered his acceleration so swiftly that Titanyana could barely register the changes, and it was clear to her that he could do so much, much faster without sacrificing control.

"What does the fifth order simulation look like?" Titanyana's curiosity could not be sated with something like this. She wanted to see the extents of Donovan's capabilities, she wanted to see his limits.

"It's not that much more interesting, not for something of this size at least." Two clicks followed Donovan's comment, the locks for horizontal and vertical movement having been disengaged. "Bump it up to five for a minute, Arc."

An immediate shift in intensity followed. The frequency of applied forces and moments drastically increased while the shaky nature of the on-screen elements told her how much larger they were in comparison. Even then, Donovan did not appear to break much of a sweat, though he certainly displayed a much higher level of concentration. As for what was on screen, well, Titanyana wasn't quite sure what to make of it. 

Those same circles she had seen before, the ones that were concentric in nature, no longer nested within each other. Instead they seemed to be placed at random on the screen in front of him, and they very clearly moved in relation to Donovan's inputs. He would 'slide' through these hoops sideways, almost backwards in one instance, already adjusting his angle and velocity to pass through the next hoop . . . no, he was planning his path through the circle after the next one, sacrificing momentary efficiency for a faster overall route.

Unfortunately, the sixty seconds Donovan had afforded her to watch his display ran out before she could truly grasp his specific motions and why they were performed.

"That's enough for now. We need to get back before Diana chews me out."

Titanyana did not immediately respond. It seemed she had found herself in a similar situation to Donovan when they first met. She, an amateur with just about as much experience in the field as the Donovan of the time if not more, had been given a brief demonstration of what a professional - nay, a master - could do. This was enough to make Titanyana think about her own demonstration, which she vaguely remembered being an exposé on why shields and armor were ineffective.

"What makes that uninteresting?" A brief reflection on the matter informed her that she wasn't a terribly effective teacher. 

Unlike Donovan, who incorporated elements of a technical display alongside a practical approach and easily understood instructions on how to replicate his demonstration, Titanyana only blasted a hole through the plate and told him armor didn't work. Sure, she might have elaborated on some of the specifics and reasons such as how it offered a hindrance to movement and slowed her down, but she hadn't provided a practical example. 

To go further, Titanyana herself was beginning to have reservations about the effectiveness of armor. Heavy armor wasn't a good idea for someone reliant on speed and agility, but what about something lighter? Donovan had stressed the importance of some things being 'good enough' to perform a task to avoid sacrificing capabilities in other fields. Would a piece of lighter armor, perhaps a vambrace made of hardened leather or a light metal to cover her forearms open up opportunities in combat?

"A ship this big can only move so fast, and therefore does not have the same freedom of pathing. I'll admit the Noah isn't a good benchmark given it sits comfortably at the top of the most maneuverable craft ever produced, but even older fighter models have a tougher time on the fifth order sims." Donovan hoisted himself out of the hole. "I suppose it would be interesting to someone who hasn't seen it before though."

"So . . . does it get more difficult to handle than that?"

"Than the simulators?"

"Yes."

"The belt navigation and combat simulations are technically more difficult, though that's only because there is more to worry about outside of movement. You won't need them for the time being, if at all." Titanyana's ears flattened. It didn't surprise her that 'more' would eventually be on the table, but the prospect of more being put on her plate while she could barely digest the fundamentals irked her. "Hey, stop worrying about it. You are months away from trying something that complicated. Besides, you will get a copilot."

"Did you-"

"As I understand it, there was some level of doubt as to the level of Arc's completeness at the end of my training. I wasn't even given someone in the back seat marking waypoints for me, only guidance software."

"Oh." Titanyana didn't know what that entailed, and she wasn't about to ask. Despite Donovan not taking a boastful stance on the subject matter, she could tell that this feat of his was impressive. Impressive, but almost certainly complex beyond her current comprehension. Instead of wasting time confusing herself, Titanyana would prefer to contemplate concepts she could understand -

"Like I said, don't worry about it. If you can handle the landing, takeoff, and third order OVC sim, you'll be fine."

- which immediately made her wonder if there was something about armor that she didn't understand. Obviously there would be something basic she didn't know, Titanyana didn't use or face armor often enough to learn much about its use, but her current concern was more about the limits of what was possible. 

"Um-" Titanyana held her tongue immediately after making to speak. How was she even supposed to ask the question? What was it she wanted to know? Would Donovan even understand what she was trying ask? What did he know about armor?

"Do you have a question?"

"It's, well, not about controlling the Pegasus."

"That's fine."

Titanyana, even when given the go-ahead, had to think about how she should couch this. Even if Donovan didn't seem to care about it, she still had an interest in maintaining her image as a mentor. Incompetence would not make her look good.

"I've been . . . reflecting, on everything, pretty much, since you brought me inside of the Pegasus."

"Reflecting?"

"Yes. This all, um," Titanyana gestured towards her surroundings, walls of metal and a floor of an unknown material with some strange form of lighting in the ceiling, "breaking my understanding of everything. It makes me wonder if there are maybe things I think I know a lot about that I really don't."

"Mhm?" Donovan opened the door to the kitchen and immediately got to work on the soda. 

"In particular I was wondering about armor." whiiiiiiiish "I considered what makes armor impractical, like being heavy, and the benefits it provides, and wanted to know if maybe you had anything that would work."

"Alright, but what would you need? Different materials react to different stresses and forms of impact in different ways. Some can block small objects moving three times the speed of sound repeatedly but offer relatively little resistance to a slowly moving blade. Some will effortlessly bring objects moving faster than you can imagine to a halt and withstand absurd levels of heat and pressure but chip or shatter like ice when dropped on the floor. Some of them are lighter than steel and many times stronger, others derive their useful qualities from weight, and a few of them have more unique properties." whiiiiiiiish "I'd need to know what you are looking for in order to give a suggestion, and I don't exactly know how to design body armor, but we can look into it."

"O-oh?" Titanyana was already confused. How could something be strong and weak like that? Was there a secondary purpose to it? "Um, hm, how should I start?"

"The failure point." Donovan screwed the head on the bottle. "In the case of armor that's going to be penetration, so when does armor get penetrated?"

"That's, hm. It kind of depends, but usually it's a thrust, but it has to be a special kind of thrust."

"I take it this special thrust has to do with that brief moment you were still before you charged?"

"Yes!" Donovan having an idea of what she was talking about helped a lot. "We do that because it is hard to thrust really fast using the normal method-"

"The strings of split in the limbs?"

"Correct! Instead of pulling the arm straight, we imagine something like a pillar of split pushing the arm out. It's really strong, which is how it can penetrate so much, but it can take a moment or two to build up enough split to actually ensure it works. I should also mention that, because the pillar doesn't return to the core, a lot of that split is lost afterwards."

"So it's a piston rather than a pulley, interesting."

"I don't know what that means, but I will assume I don't need to. Anyways, I think that the only reason that you would even get this opportunity in a fight is because the armor that would require this move in the first place is heavy enough to give it to you."

"Because it slows you down." whiiiiiiiish

"And armor that isn't heavy enough to slow you down will be soft enough or have large enough weak spots to not require it. Additionally, once you reach the higher echelons and everything becomes focused on speed, even a little bit of armor slows you down so much the protection isn't worth it."

"Which is why you wonder if there is something hard enough to require a thrust to pierce, but is light enough to not retard your actions to an unacceptable degree. Do I have that right?"

"Yes." whiiiiiiiiish "Though I should say it doesn't have to be a full body armor like Wall's. I've thought about it a bit, and I think that the only parts of my body that would need something like that are my sword arm, upper body, and maybe my neck."

"The parts of your body closest to the enemy's sword when you engage."

"Precisely."

"Is there a reason you don't want to protect your head?"

"Hm?"

"Your head. You didn't mention protecting your head. Is it just an awareness thing?"

"That's, um . . . no?" Titanyana's heart sank a little bit. Had she not said anything about it? Surely she had demonstrated it before, right? Didn't Bije hit her . . . Donovan wasn't there when she fought Bije. "Do you have a knife anywhere?"

"Why?"

"I want to show you something." This was a kitchen. It would be strange if there wasn't a knife nearby.

"Okay. . ?" Donovan screwed on the caps of the bottles and opened a drawer.

"Not a serrated knife, please."

"Sure." Donovan handed her a knife of middling size, one with an edge that seemed razor sharp at a glance.

"Thank you." Titanyana grabbed it and inspected it a bit more closely, just to be sure there were no serrations or bumps. Satisfied, Titanyana kept it in her primary hand while she grabbed a lock of hair and brought it down to her neck, right by the jugular, spreading it out a bit to cover a wider area. "Don't panic, please."

Titanyana brought the knife up to her neck, pressing down on the lock of hair pretty hard, and slashing it across her jugular. It was over before Donovan could do anything, and he was doing something, He was doing something so fast that Mercedes had also barked, assuming something was wrong. 

Titanyana did not resist Donovan grabbing her hand and squeezing the knife out of it. She also allowed him to place his thumb at the base of her jugular in an attempt to stymie the flow. She only brought a hand up to pry his hand off once Mercedes started to jump on her.

"I'm fine." She couldn't get his hand off, he was too strong. "It didn't break the skin. I'm not bleeding." 

Donovan, probably recognizing a lack of blood, released Titanyana but maintained intense eye contact.

"My hair, um, protects against slashes. It's protected the Strapper line for generations, and is one of our symbols of authority." Titanyana started to shy away from Donovan. Thinking about it for a second revealed just how bad of an idea that was. What would she have done if the blade went further than the lock of hair? Or if she had spread the hair too thin? "I don't need a helmet. . ."

". . ."

"I'm sorry."

"Please don't do that again."

"I won't." Donovan was still holding her hand (which made her feel a little woozy by itself) and had pulled her closer. She had averted her eyes and flattened her ears subconsciously, nervously wondering if a punishment was on the way.

"So you need a light but hard armor to deflect slashes . . . I never did much with polymers, but I imagine hard plastic, layered polymer and ceramic, or quasi-ceramic plates affixed to some textile sleeve will do." Donovan released her and picked up the bottles of soda. "Given our objective is to prevent slashing damage, most likely with some degree of perpendicularity to the length of the arm, an array of metal bars suspended on the surface of a plastic matrix, or maybe even attached to a textile of sorts, could also work."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing much. I was just contemplating which materials and component layout would provide the most relevant protection for the lowest weight." Just like that, he had returned to his previous demeanor. "That first set of materials are hard, good at deflecting impacts, preventing penetration, and are overall relatively light, the tradeoff being their propensity to shatter, however keeping them contained in a textile pouch of sorts would keep them in place for subsequent hits. Alternatively, putting bars of metal along the length of your forearm in a softer but much tougher material could save some weight and increase integrity at the cost of reduced protection against thrusts and longitudinal slashes. Hell, a thin layer of Titanium bonded to a plastic backplate might be enough for your purposes."

"Huh?" Was Donovan already trying to come up with solutions?

"I'd need to do some dedicated research on the topic, as well as ask your opinion on how certain attachment methods and weight distributions feel, but I think there's definitely something that fits your description. Whether or not it will actually be effective isn't something I could tell you at the moment though."

cakeonfrosting

Ladies and Gamers, give it up for materiel science!!! For real though, armor science is a wild field, even just within the field of infantry. You have to take into consideration what you are defending, the most likely dangers to it, the weight and ease of use of the armor, how much of an impulse the protected region can withstand, and how many hits the armor can take before being rendered ineffective.

Obviously designing something against sword and spear is a bit easier given lower velocities and the lower resulting impulses, however I would like to point out that the total energy being played with is still much higher than a single bullet. The energy equation for kinetic also accounts for mass, and weapon+arm+body>>>>a single boolet. As for the types of armor, I think you'll find that I am an equal opportunity lover.

Ceramics are precious babies, the "either I completely block this thing or not at fucking all" of protective options, while metals cover the "I want to cover at least everything, and can accept a bit of deformation to do it. Plastics/polymers, on the other hand, are my favorite example of "Rejoice, for I have turned this shear equation into one that may be solved by tension and compression" with the fiber shenanigans and serving as fodder for drastically increasing the moment of inertia and the area of applied force when something hits a hard surface at a speed roughly equivalent to mach fuck. 

Of course, we have our more niche, vehicle specific or esoteric armor classifications, such as active (hit the missile first), passive (slat armor/extreme sloping - break the warhead/penetrator without activation), reactive (exploding legos - this one may be applied to humans for offensive purposes), spaced (defeat explosions with the god like power of not being near them), ablative (disintegrate and halt the penetrator with FRICTION) and electric (disrupt penetrator geometry with electric current and subsequent magnetic shenanigans- very experimental atm).