Dreams of Revenge
Hey, you were the one who brought 'em up. 
Anyway, though I'm chiefly referring to attempts to use FTL for RKV (since that's the one you brought up first), the treaty also covers other methods of using object A to obliterate planet B (such as crashing asteroids into it). So that and related methods would also be outlawed.
Perhaps, but in such cases it results in the losing side getting their teeth pushed in even harder because they simply would not have the surviving resources for a "tit-for-tat" style attempt to wipe out their opponent. It would make them a pariah beyond compare that would have the rest of the stellar community out for their blood. What had hitherto been a normal conflict would turn into Them Vs. The Galaxy, which is a fight nobody can win, much less if they're already losing the war.
So it would be a losing proposition - given that the choice would be between "lose, but continue to survive as a functioning state" or "lose and cease to exist except as a little known war criminal who damned their civilisation to destruction" and I think the logical option would be obvious.
The simple fact of the matter is that when you're dealing with potential WMDs, you sober up very quickly. Though the webpage is offline now, I remember a quotation from a website that covered nuclear warfare to the effect of "madmen rapidly become very rational [when they acquire nuclear weapons]". No-one wants to rule over a pile of radioactive ash, after all, no matter how fanatical they are. I wish the webpage was still up, because then I could quote the entire passage since it was very relevant to what we're discussing.
Yep, I'm not really aiming for hard science (verisimilitude, however, is a different story).
There are multiple types of FTL in the setting - the main reason why this state's FTL is so important is simply that it has several advantages over "conventional" methods.
MAD for the space age?
Locking you up on radar since '09
I did say they can't reach orbit under their own power. Suborbital, yes; stable orbit, no. To go up there, they need someone else to ferry them. Most of the time, that someone is a 743-meter carrier - which itself is just barely capable of SSTO with auxiliary boosters (larger ships exist but are not reetry-capable).
The space forces the first example fighter serves in are centered around carrier groups - but unlike real life CGs, the combat doctrine is centered around long-range (preferably BWR) bombardment using coilguns (both spinal and turret-mounted) and cruise missiles, with the carrier primarily serving as a command and control platform. Accordingly, the primary heavy hitters are 325-meter guided missile destroyersnote assisted by 968-meter battlecruisersnote and 96-meter anti-air frigatesnote ; there's also a mostly-unarmed support ship for carrying fuel/reaction mass for the others but doctrine states when hostilities break out, the support ship is to use the heavily-armored battlecruiser as a shield. The fighters only fulfill a support role because they can't realistically carry enough ordinance to put a serious dent in capital ships (the Hayabusa fixes that with a Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon); in fact, the opponents they were designed to fight use fighter-like strike craft launched by the hundreds as terror weapons whose primary means of attacking is to kamikaze into the target. The carrier groups do have dedicated anti-air frigates but these can't be everywhere at once - hence the fighters to plug in holes and reinforce weak points.
The reasoning behind having a universal aeorspace fighter instead of specialized units is that if the space defense line falls, the fighters can retreat into the atmosphere and regroup for another round. They might look like fixed-wing aircraft and can be set to still behave like fixed-wing aircraft while in space but it's not really fuel-efficient. They CAN go full-Newtonian and from what I can tell, the lack of aerodynamics in space means the shape of a spacefighter is actually irrelevant; in this situation, the wings mostly serve as mounting points of verniers for faster roll and yaw (due to the verniers being further away from the center of mass, hence the same amount of force translates into more torque).
edited 7th Jul '14 8:48:13 AM by amitakartok
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I think it kind of funny that an RKV is not really a threat or that impressive and then you turn around comment how "rock chucking" is a devastating weapon. They work on the same general principle launch something with mass at high speed.
The thing with a RKV is by the time you see it it is long past where you saw it. Even a small projectile traveling at that speed would be absolutely devastating at impact. An object moving at FTL speeds would hit before you knew it was even there.
Check this out 100 foot diameter diamond meteorite
Atomic rockets adds some more info
It would at best be difficult to accurately detect the projectile itself rather then its passing much less intercept it.
Who watches the watchmen?
Anyway, though I'm chiefly referring to attempts to use FTL for RKV (since that's the one you brought up first), the treaty also covers other methods of using object A to obliterate planet B (such as crashing asteroids into it). So that and related methods would also be outlawed.
Limited war is a very, very risky business if mutual genocide is only one decision away. This is again the reason why powers in such circumstances never fight each other directly, but instead go for proxy wars where there are easy cutoffs and clearly visible lines that can't be crossed.
edited 11th Jul '14 5:23:57 AM by mckitten
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
No you wouldn't. Even if you are firing from Jupiter to Earth at only a small percentage of the speed of light you might at best have few hours. At 10% you have 5 hours fair bit of time sure. At 50% from Jupiter to earth just about an hour and 10 minutes. At 75% 46 minutes. That is the distance from earth to Jupiter. Not a small distance. Move that distance up to Mars to Earth is even better. at 10% you have about 2 hours at best. At 50% about 41 minutes. At .75% you have less than a half hour.
You could even potentially get closer using things like Q ships, drones, suicide ships and other potentially fun options. Pick your poison its the sci-fi thread.
Even better you can do your orbital bombardment from further out and for a lot less mass then you would need to drop from orbit to surface. Even if it converts to spray of energy in atmosphere it would be fairly destructive.
Also last I checked NASA was seriously considering the prospects of FTL being a real achievable thing poking at the Alcubierre drive. From just the early looks it could easily be turned into a horribly devastating world killer. One of the believed side effects was a massive dumping of particles that get trapped in its warp bubble. Yes one of the thoughts is there is no known limit to how much energy it could shed by just stopping. Even worse is they believe the further it travels the more it would build up. You wouldn't even have to hit your target just be pointed in it's general direction.
Someone explain to me this obsession wit "just dropping rocks". Even at 11km/s you would need a really damn big rock to achieve something comparable to the Tsar Bomba. Even at higher velocities you still need a lot of rock for it to survive atmospheric entry.
edited 11th Jul '14 12:46:35 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
Dreams of Revenge
This doesn't quite work as a comparison - up until the AirLand/AirSea Battle doctrines were developed, NATO worked from the assumption that any war in Europe would by necessity go nuclear, as NATO simply could not hope to match the USSR on a conventional battlefield. Post-AirLand/AirSea Battle, it was felt that it might perhaps be possible to have a war in Europe that didn't immediately lead to a nuclear exchange. In turn, the Soviets did have plans to cut short a potential WWIII. The idea (if memory serves) was that by advancing as swiftly as possible (and knocking out NATO tactical and theatre level nuclear weapons via conventional means) the Pact could cut off Western Europe from REFORGER reinforcements and hence make it a fait accompli.
In the scenario we are discussing, there are even fewer influences that make the use of such tactics an imperative. In fact, as I have repeatedly pointed out it would be self-defeating; it would simply hasten the defeat of your own side and make said defeat absolute with comparatively little damage to your victim. There would be no benefit whatsoever to even trying it. And that's leaving aside the safeguards I've delineated elsewhere that make it an impossibility even if you were suicidal enough to try it.
It's only "optional" if you have absolutely zero sense of self-preservation (either as a state or as a person).
And this is a proxy war, effectively - the two largest states never face each other directly, only via the cipher of the small one. And a proxy war is almost by definition a limited war.
Does someone else mind weighing in? I'm starting to get frustrated.
Locking you up on radar since '09
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
We have limited warfare in the form of Proxy wars now and in the past. The option of the two major super powers USSR and the USA going at it was far worse. There were tense moments but the war never got to we are fragging each other off the face of the earth. 'Toeing the line" was much more preferable.
edited 11th Jul '14 4:02:09 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
Who Am I?
@Flanker: You are saying that the reason the smaller power cant RKV the larger one (or vice versa) is that there is a coalition of other states out there that will RKV them. I see nothing about that scenario that strikes me as unrealistic. (Although I'm of the school that RKV's arnt really all that effective anyway. Your version of FTL is a bigger game-breaker).
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
No kidding. That FTL certainly makes things rather interesting.
Who watches the watchmen?
Eye'm the cutest!
There's also one other issue. If you have the technology to create FTL RKV's, you have the technology to intercept and stop FTL RKV's.
For example, did you know Moscow air defenses in 1964 had an anti-ballistic missile capable of shooting down stuff like the Polaris? All without relying on a nuclear warhead in the ABM? (Which was in the West considered impossible at the time.) (Intercontinental) Ballistic missiles hadn't been operational for a decade yet and yet there it was, fully functional ABM technology pretty much right after the ICBM was invented.
edited 11th Jul '14 8:31:51 PM by MajorTom
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
It could shoot some not all. The system wasn't perfect and no system is.
If you ever reach the point where you can casually drop really big rocks on a planet of an FTL society you are long past the point where they could reasonably intercept a RKV. At that point you could quite easily sit out as far as Jupiter fire your shot, have a nice conversation and then when the timer reaches zero watch a planet glow.
Who watches the watchmen?
Eye'm the cutest!
But it existed when the technology it counters was still in its infancy. At the time most ICBM's weren't expected to even reach their targets one way or another that's why so many were to be launched.
The same would happen with FTL RKV's. If the technology has been around for any length of time you're gonna have some level of countermeasures be developed. If this interstellar Cold War has been around for a while then there may be capabilities for total defense.
Remember the arms and armor (offense and defense) arms race. If one guy makes A Better SwordTM you make A Better ShieldTM.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
True to a point but unlike nukes which requires several to wipe out countries like the US and Russia it only takes a single RKV to kill the whole planet. We are talking completely different scales of damage.
Who watches the watchmen?
Eye'm the cutest!
Not really. The objective is to destroy A Single Thing. It matters not the scale whether it's a battalion of tanks or an entire planet. Your mission with the weapon is to destroy The Single Thing be it the tank battalion or planet in one strike. One nuke can destroy the tank battalion just as one RKV can destroy the planet.
Everything else is just semantics.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
No it isn't semantics and yes scale matters a lot. Especially when we are talking about a scale of destruction so extremely different. This is the same kind of consideration of scale of difference between the Tunguska event and the Chicxulub impact. The difference in the two is not semantics by any stretch of the imagination.
Or for you a nice fire arms comparison. Its the difference between shooting 3x3x3 gelatin block with a .22 lr point blank and shooting with .50cal bmg point blank. If you were trying to keep the block from being destroyed you could likely take quite a few .22lr hits so a few getting through is not a big game over deal. Defending against the .50 cal bmg all it takes is one hit. One gets through that's it. Unlike the .22 lr you can't let any of the .50 cal get through. That isn't semantics its simple logic. Not only is the defensive picture drastically different between the two but cost of something getting through is drastically different.
Again huge world of difference between a single nuclear ICBM warhead striking something the size of a country like the US or Russia vs a RKV which kills the entire planet. The country in question is sill relatively intact is still there as is most of what makes it a country. With the RKV the entire planet is dead. There is a big scale of difference. Especially when it only takes a single hit to achieve that kind of total destruction of all civilization and likely a big chunk of life on that planet.
Who watches the watchmen?
Eye'm the cutest!
Actually yes it is semantics. Here's an example.
A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is part of the test of A Better Sword and A Better Shield.
Its main threat is the Anti-Ship Missile. The Anti-Ship Missile is unlikely to destroy a Nimitz in conventional form in a single strike. However the ASM does have A Better Sword equivalent, the nuclear-tipped ASM.
In space combat at the planetary or bigger level, simply dropping a rock on a planet at 20 km/s is a major threat and will do damage like the ASM does a Nimitz. Dropping a rock has A Better Sword equivalent in the RKV.
Now on the Nimitz, its armor and structural build to survive hits make it have a basic "shield" of sorts. However the nuclear-armed ASM will completely annihilate a Nimitz upon impact, nobody's leaving that ship alive. The Nimitz therefore must gain A Better Shield. It does so by being built (or retrofitted) with point defenses like the Phalanx CIWS and the Rolling Airframe Missile both creating A Better Shield to stop A Better Sword in the form of the nuclear-armed ASM.
At the planetary level to stop rocks being dropped on it, it can gain A Better Shield in the form of planetary missiles and railguns and all kinds of things to break up the rock and prevent damage to the planet. Likewise it could step up its existing defenses to create A Better Shield against A Better Sword that is the RKV.
But the concept of A Better Shield doesn't stop there. With the Nimitz it can further upgrade to A Better Shield by having escorts that can do what its own Shield can do and spread those escorts out to cover a massive sensor and interception umbrella. Conversely on a planetary defense, it can have space fleets, satellites and space stations that serve as the planet's "escorts" like the Nimitz and further upgrade the planet's defenses.
Therefore because the field was leveled against A Better Sword by way of A Better Shield it requires a major revision in tactics. In the case of the Nimitz and ASM's it requires more ASM's than either the Nimitz or its escorts can handle. Likewise with the planet and its fleets and defenses it requires more RKV's than that can handle.
Now, with a Nimitz with a big enough battlegroup and good enough defenses to form A Better Shield, it will require more missiles than most opponents would feasibly have to penetrate through even if they were A Better Sword in the form of nuclear-armed ASM's. Same deal with the planet, you can build a system to where you can require more mass for RKV's to get through than either the enemy has which makes RKV usage impractical or more mass than the Universe which makes RKV usage impossible.
Since A Better Sword is always being countered by A Better Shield over time it would eventually reach the point where with a certain weapon or tactic it becomes impossible or beyond impractical to employ thus forcing a revision in tactics, technologies and doctrine thus starting the arms race over again.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Dreams of Revenge
Okay, that's a relief to hear. And the reason I brought up RKVs is because I interpreted an earlier comment by McKitten to imply the use of FTL equipped ships as a "projectile" of sorts, and so I felt it was necessary to address it, regardless of its effectiveness.
I'm glad to hear it! A sub-plot in my work will probably regard the effects such a radically different form of FTL would have on an enemy unprepared for it (and the consequences thereof).
Though the recent discussion of RKVs between Tuefel and Major Tom make me wonder if it would effectively be the interplay of nuclear warfare writ large. Or if the issues we discussed previously would make it effectively a non-issue in military planning.
Locking you up on radar since '09
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
No it is isn't semantics its statistics. We are not discussing the meaning or difference of a word we are discussing a notable difference in damage, threat, and capability of a weapon. It is a matter of scale and a significant difference in destructive capability.
No matter how you try to dress it up or word it the end result is the same. The threat posed by a weapon that causes the destruction of a target is significantly greater than the one that only damages it.
There is a huge world of difference.
To use the Nimitz again.
Lets say the Carrier group can stop 9 out of 10 of the unnamed ASM. The Nimitz can take four hits from the ASM with the fifth hit being enough to sink it. The attackers can only fire 10 missiles at a time. The screen intercepts 9 of the 10 the Nimitz is only damaged. The attackers would need to expend about 50 ASM's in five attacks to take out that Nimitz.
Now same effectiveness for defense 9 out of 10 only this time the ASM's all have a nuclear warhead that can one shot the Nimitz. They still can only launch ten at a time. They intercept the 9 out of 10 and the one that gets through sinks the Nimitz in one hit. It only takes one attack for them to succeed.
The nuclear tipped ASM's are a significantly greater threat because it requires a lot less effort to achieve the goal of destroying the target.
The presence of those nuclear tipped ASM's drastically alters the strategic picture. Those ten ships are now a much bigger threat than their comparatively conventionally armed counterparts.
The comparative effectiveness is 1 to 5. To match the effectiveness of the ASM Nuclear attack the conventional attack would need to fire more missiles at once in a single attack. The balance of the threat is firmly in the hands of the more powerful weapon.
The same would apply for difference in dropping rocks to a one hit RKV.
This would apply to any scenario or situation that is even remotely similar.
Who watches the watchmen?
Something occurred to me.
Wouldn't "bailing out" in a Space Fighter be...impossible? There'd be no way to pick you up, especially in the middle of a war zone where the fleet can't risk the lives of many for one pilot who god lucky. That's assuming you don't have any sort of breathing mechanism (star wars style) and a flight suit that can survive the vacuum of space.
New Survey coming this weekend!
Eye'm the cutest!
^ Ejection pods. Being a parachutist without an atmosphere to parachute in would suck so you need those.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Eye'm the cutest!
Not necessarily. Sure the effectiveness might be that now, but not so in the future. As mentioned over time countermeasures will emerge bringing defenses up and up. In 1964 intercepting a missile was almost blind luck, 20% success rate would be damn good. In 2014 intercepting 90% is good. If in 2114 we can't achieve a 100% kill rate for a certain amount of ammo/power it'd be damn surprising.
Same occurs in this interstellar cold war. If anti-RKV technologies can only stop them 10% of the time in the early years that's damn good but if it's been going on for a long while anything more than 90% is possible. Which would then bring back A Better Sword vs A Better Shield. In the long run you head towards absolute defense over that of absolute offense.
Put even shorter it's the same analogue as missiles and nukes of today vs missile defenses of today. We are rapidly seeing the technological obsolescence of the nuclear weapon today because countries with active anti-missile programs are headed for absolute defense in the long run. In the next 30 to 50 years if not sooner the concept of a missile getting through will be laughable at best.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
It's not absolute defense they still want the offensive nuclear weapons but they want to tip the balance in their favor. Its like two fleets in a cruise missile duel. Both have similar capabilities in a broad sense but however has best chance of stopping the other guys missiles gains the upper hand. Incidentally it would make your attacks more effective since you need fewer shots then the enemy.
This is why the US missile shield is controversial it pushes the balance to our favour and some are worried it will restart the cold war.
Speaking of chucking rocks.
Aside from the impact that is believed created the moon and a maybe a couple other events, one of the biggest impacts to hit the earth was Chicxulub. A rock/iron asteroid estimated to be about 10km in diameter. Estimates put the speed of impact somewhere between 15-20 km/s. The energy it released is huge.
Hypothetically speaking say you have one of these mega rocks floating around in asteroid belt or orbiting a planet. How powerful an engine would you need to push it out of it's orbit at 20 km/s?
For this scenario the civ in question has no need to mine it, use it for anything, and it is only navigation hazard as far as they are concerned. So they are disposing of it by smashing it into a nearby unoccupied world so there is no large space born debris cloud. The world in question is basically their "asteroid junk yard"
Who watches the watchmen?
The Escape Pod page does raise the possibility that the most effective use of the Trope might be to just eject the troublesome parts of the ship and stay in what's left. Alternately I recall a book somewhere where the crew of a ship inflated emergency survival blisters, basically pressurized balloons they could shelter in if the ship lost atmosphere, but keeping them inside the ship.
For a space fighter, you could probably just eject the whole cockpit easily enough. I've seen that done in more than one TV show (Babylon 5 and Space: Above and Beyond both come to mind). The Wing Commander: Academy cartoon instead had the pilot's seat get enclosed in an escape capsule that was either ejected from the fighter or merely survived the explosion that was usually imminent (I think one or two prototype planes in Real Life attempted a system like this)
Eye'm the cutest!
^ The Space Shuttle had an ejection pod. There was apparently jack diddly time to use it on Columbia.
edited 13th Jul '14 3:21:49 PM by MajorTom
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Well, FTL travel is kinda a prerequisite in order to have an interstellar empire, so we are kinda working with soft science to begin with. It really depends on the kind of FTL available. If it's a Mass effect type FTL, RK Vs on that scale is going to be childs play compared to the kind of speeds required for regular travel between solar systems.
Of course, it's already been established that we are talking about a warp-gate/ stutter warp FTL, in which case the first scenario still stands. In fact, since there's a larger chance of the RKV being shot down mid flight, saturation bombing is going to be all but required in order to guarantee a MAD or a First strike scenario.
edited 7th Jul '14 6:16:59 AM by CannonGerbil
ALL HAIL THE WARGERBIL!