Tell that to Richard Gatling, Hiram Maxim and the many other weapons designers throughout history who thought more lethal would make war so devastating and unappealing that people would give up their murderous warlike ways.
It never works. Even if biosphere elimination is a possibility of space powers (and we can theoretically annihilate Earth's biosphere today) it will not lead to an end to conflicts be they rebellions, civil wars, interstate conflicts or otherwise.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."Your both right and wrong there Tom, war being more lethal doesn't prevent war, but the possibility of mass devastation contains it.... See nukes.
They have made the concept of an all out war between nations unthinkable to any one with half a brain, but have done nothing to stop proxy wars and rebellions.
You would get much the same thing, but in space.
People will continue to prepare for war, and trying their best not to fight one.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."It's not just nukes. War is far more expensive as well. Total War is basically impossible in the modern era, because modern equipment requires specialized manufacturing processes, and they can't be replaced as fast as, say a P-51, can during WW 2. Although Lockheed projects they can build an F-35 in three days, this essentially ignores the long supply chain, red tape, and installing critical software components, avionics, etc. There are millions of individual parts as well, driving up the cost, and thus, lessens the desire to go to war.
Of course, if we really wanted to be able to fight a total war again, we could go back to the F-4. But the point is that the possibility is considered so remote, no major world power is even trying to prepare for one.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."Right, and that will continue if/when we move into space. Total war is so destructive and costly to both sides that there will be no will to attempt it. Most conflicts will be fought by proxies over relatively minor stakes.
Edited by Fighteer on Jul 30th 2019 at 10:24:02 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Until one happens. In 1910 it was all but unthinkable that the great powers of the world would actually go to war with each other. Too much trade, war too expensive, entangling alliances that made conflict too risky politically, many reasons why a Great War would never happen.
Then a man named Gavrilo Princip changed history and in August of 1914 well...
And we said we learned our lesson after that. Well a few months after one Marshall Foch's prediction deadline at Versailles in 1918...
I wouldn't put too much stock in the idea that interstate conflict is eradicated. All it takes is a spark to ignite a worldwide conflagration.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."Here's an interesting idea: One of those unsustainable Total Wars breaks out, but rather than either calling it quits or escalating to nukes, the belligerent powers begin switching to equipment that is easier to mass-produce. Prop-driven fighters carrying air-to-air missiles and the like (I assume that Sidewinders are much easier to produce than fighter planes, but I could be wrong).
As for the pros and cons of a space station capital, may I suggest a pro: The Rule of Cool. Ditto goes for space station military installations and the like. I figure that on a high enough tech scale, such as any involving Casual Interplanetary Travel, the difference between a KKV that can knock down a space station and a KKV that can knock down a city dirtside is relatively trivial, like the difference between a bullet that can knock down a soldier or one that can knock out a tank: Neither being particularly difficult for any second-rate army to field effectively.
Sometimes you just gotta decide what kind of story you wanna tell, and have the setting conform to that.
That would probably be a given. Both World Wars were fought that way.
If today had such a thing happen, say Russia and America have a really high-intensity (non-nuclear) war the shiny expensive equipment of both sides would likely be depleted within six months. Anything after that is either a survivor of the early war and well-invested in keeping it around (like for example an aircraft carrier) or trying to innovate a new weapon that'll win the war (whether it's a Wunderwaffe style project or practical). Everything else produced and adopted during the war would be built with economics of scale in mind to replace the expensive lost early and keep it going assuming the political and civilian resolve is there to keep it up. Thus a lot of cheaper gear.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."Switching over is not so easy. Manufacturers have invested significant capital into the machines and technology that they have in their factories today. Someone would have to rebuild the kind of equipment that is used to manufacture a different type of aircraft, ship or armored vehicle. More likely whoever ended up with the last handful of high-tech weapons would win the war. The loser would be prevented from retooling, and the victor wouldnt need to.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."Okay, So we know how the US military during the Cold War strategically chose to where to build foreign bases (i.e Germany for a hub to the Middle East and Africa, Japan and SK for access to SE Asia, etc)
How would this apply to garrisons on Colonies? Let's assume colonies "Let" their Parent interstellar government build as many military bases on their planet as they want within reason. How would said military organization choose where to build its bases? What criteria would they choose when space war is a thing?
New Survey coming this weekend!You would build a base in such a way that there is ideally some isolation from the local populace but close enough they can respond quickly to any immediate threats. That is at least in terms of a local garrison whose duty is to protect a colony or outpost. You can have a larger mustering force further out that can sally larger forces from other locations if needed that sort of thing is more or less selected on a strategic need kind of thinking. That is more in line with the US bases in places like Germany, Japan, the Middle East etc. They existed to respond to local problems but also to serve as larger strategic assets if needed.
Who watches the watchmen?I kind of disagree with this. Ideally, you'd want the local colonies to feel as much autonomy as possible, while still feeling a "part" of the interstellar government. I'd say only a few bases should be "close" to major cities. The rest however? Should be their own communities scattered across the planet, seeing as it'd be hundreds of years before any of the colonies come anywhere close to being as developed and urbanized as Earth is.
Strategically, you'd do like real military forces do. Place them in strategic and/or defensible locations (say a spaceport or a major mountain pass) and potentially along the "frontier" border e.g. areas that have yet to be terraformed or settled or built up or etc.
Nobody's going to build their major bases out in the boonies away from cities and infrastructure and in such a way that makes them perfect targets for (limited) Orbital Bombardment.
The stuff is going to be more like Cheyenne Mountain, Pearl Harbor, and stuff like that is in and near civilization and less like Groom Lake (Area 51) that is located far from anything.
A few forts and camps here and there for training, deployment and contingency purposes or defending traveled areas would exist but they wouldn't be the primary garrisons.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."Tom: No, they frequently build military bases away from population centers because they are targets and having a lot of purposely unpopulated area around you that you can more easily control and limit movement in makes defense a lot easier. You don't put the bullet magnet near the thing you're trying to not get shot. You put some buffer space around the area. The issue in the US is that military towns inevitably spring up around bases especially ones that have been around for a long time. There are quite a few bases still out in the boonies and being out in the boonies makes it easier to defend not harder. In a city or settlement, you have to be far more aware of where your shots go and may land. You also have to worry about what happens if you shoot something down, where does it fall?
Being near a city won't prevent you from being targeted by orbital weapons any more than being out in the open will and it is far more likely being too close to a population center is a far greater risk. Just because it is an orbital weapon doesn't make it a giant fuck-off city-destroying weapon. You can literally scale a number of options that range from possibly targeting something like a person or single vehicle up to blasting the whole city. There is a lot of range of in-between.
Who watches the watchmen?i think one of the Korea air bases is the exception to the "near population centers" rule, depending on your personal definition.
New Survey coming this weekend!Even if you don't build your bases near cities, wont cities near them just kind of happen on there own? They offer a substantial boost to the economy, and the movement of money and demand for services from base crew seems like it would cause a small city at least to naturaly pop up near by.
Kunsan is sort of out in the sticks, and there's still a bunch of stuff outside the main gate.
Francis E. Warren is still out in the sticks, despite the city of Cheyenne growing around it, but that's just what Wyoming is like.
Immy: Only if they let them. There are reasons several bases have a sort of dead zone around them in regards to civilian townships popping up around them. Most bases that allow them close tend to have the towns take decades at best to build up.
Who watches the watchmen?Wouldnt the equivalent here be locating it on a moon or something?
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."Even bases that don't have an attached town will end up with one in driving range. You want somewhere that off-duty soldiers and contractors can spend their money and towns often pad the deficit on goods like toiletries.
Many bases have a sort of shuttle service, allow buses, taxis, and other things on the base during weekends to permit troops to go out on the town. So ya, an hour or two out tops is good.
Who watches the watchmen?It's supply and demand. So unless the base leadership enforces an exclusion zone around the base for whatever reason (typically security), enterprising folks will set up camp to help the soldiers with their excessive pay.
Genuinely perplexed as how any of the above relates to an interstellar military tbh. Like even remotely
But long winded explanations is what we specialize in here at TV Tropes!
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."