FTL Civilization Meets STL Civilization

[Sky Captain]

While interstellar relativistic weapons would be of little use against civilization that has spread into the solar system they still would work well against planet bound civilizations. Suppose right now from a star system 20 light years away someone launches RKV against Earth. Even if RKV is detected few years or months before impact there is nothing humans could do. Technology to destroy or divert it just isn't there.

Or if you have FTL then you can jump to interstellar space few light months away from target system and launch from there and have targeting information that is not decades or centuries out of date.

[jwl]

I think the RKE projectiles should be made invisible if you want to make this sound really practical. Even for the STL civilizations, they would be able to sense them long before they arrive if they have FTL sensing (if not it will depend on how relativistic you want to go). They could subsequently redirect the projectile, or even move the planet's orbital path if they are that powerful.

Also, if it interacts with the EM force (which it will do, if it is visible), then natural phenomena that the engineers couldn't predict could throw the thing off course. What would work better is a projectile set to not interact with anything until it almost reaches its destination, at which point it will suddenly become visible, just before it crashes into the planet (because you'll want something that can interact with the EM force to maximize the damage done, and of course to accelerate the thing in the first place).

You could also have instances where civilizations use similar tech to set traps for other civs, which the FTL civilization may encounter.

[Corvus 501]

The whole point behind the Pathmaker's little total war is to carve out the sort of terratory where all core systems are so far away that it would take thousands of years to get there, plenty of time to intercept any incoming ISBMs. Terratorial gain is just a bonus.

[Corvus 501]

With their warp drive, you are forced to crash into stars or supper Jovian gas giants to exit the warp bubble (using black holes to do this isn't a good idea) In fact, interstellar travle is kind of like Hyperdrive travle from Star Wars, except that you haft to hit strong gravity wells, and avoid them when moveing around.
This means that ships have an effective range depending on the navigation computer's quality, and the amount of time before the drive field's picked up eanough energy to fry the ship. That's a side effect of warp drive travle, according to physics, as photons slowly get into the bubble, and flash out when the drive field collapses. This makes it obvious whenever a ship gets into a star system, alerting the defenders, of just Customs and Immagration.

[Purple]

I have a seemingly random question on this topic. And I feel it will expose a rather big flaw in your plans. Or at the very least give you something to think about. Say you and me are both leaders of STL only civilizations. We both build RKVs and in a paranoid fit of whackamole decide to strike first. Now you and me inhabit star systems which are 100 ly away from one another. That sounds reasonable in space. Assuming our missiles both fly at 90% C that means we will both hit each other after about 111 years. Well swell. Chances are both me and you are going to be dead by then. And our children might not appreciate the war we started in their name. Or one of us could develop faster shops that can intercept the others missile. Or our civilizations might become best friends and now have to deal with a 100 year old missile crisis. Or some third party might spot us doing it and send out their own missiles to make finish the job if we fail. There are just so man things that can go wrong that make the whole attack seem foolish. And the more either of us thinks about this the less we are likely to actually do it. Because ultimately weapons of any kind are only really useful if they produce results in a meaningful time frame.

Also, sorry if this reads a bit mangled. It's late but I had to post it now lest I forget by morning.

[Simon_Jester]

Corvus? Would you mind checking your spelling a bit more carefully?

While interstellar relativistic weapons would be of little use against civilization that has spread into the solar system they still would work well against planet bound civilizations. Suppose right now from a star system 20 light years away someone launches RKV against Earth. Even if RKV is detected few years or months before impact there is nothing humans could do. Technology to destroy or divert it just isn't there...

...Precisely because Earth in real life is too primitive to pose much of a threat.

Any civilization with the production and technical capability to be seriously threatening with relativistic strategic weapons* also has the production and technical capability to disperse and survive being hit by such weapons.

*(The term 'kill vehicle' just offends my aesthetic sensibility)

Also, if it interacts with the EM force (which it will do, if it is visible), then natural phenomena that the engineers couldn't predict could throw the thing off course. What would work better is a projectile set to not interact with anything until it almost reaches its destination, at which point it will suddenly become visible, just before it crashes into the planet (because you'll want something that can interact with the EM force to maximize the damage done, and of course to accelerate the thing in the first place).

It is not a foregone conclusion that any race will ever have the technology to say "this object is not going to interact with normal matter for a period of years" or "this object is immune to electromagnetic forces for a period of years." At that point you're talking about bending the laws of physics rather sharply.

[Corvus 501]

STL civilizations are built in clusters, in star systems only a few dozen light years apart, each cluster conected by transversable wormholes. FTL civilizations, on the other hand, given time, spread out in a more homogenized way.
Frankly, the "extinction levle threat" may have just been political hype, but few sentient species really like loosing planets, even if they have the capability for Massive Retalation (a Truman doctoring that called to nuke the ever living f__ck out of the Soviets if they moved into the rest of Europe)

[HMS Sophia]

Massive Retalation (a Truman doctoring that called to nuke the ever living f__ck out of the Soviets if they moved into the rest of Europe)

Ignoring the rest of whatever the hell this is:
1) Retaliation.
2) Eisenhower, not Truman
3) You realise MR, like MAD, is a deterrence based doctrine, wherein the intention is to force the enemy to not attack in the first place by being threatening in your own right. And is also intended to be used in the face of conventional warfare, like a land invasion.
In fact you might be better of referencing MAD, if it wasn't for the FTL empire having the mother of all missile shields in the form of, you know, FTL Travel.

[Corvus 501]

Massive Retalation (a Truman doctoring that called to nuke the ever living f__ck out of the Soviets if they moved into the rest of Europe)

Ignoring the rest of whatever the hell this is:
1) Retaliation.
2) Eisenhower, not Truman
3) You realise MR, like MAD, is a deterrence based doctrine, wherein the intention is to force the enemy to not attack in the first place by being threatening in your own right. And is also intended to be used in the face of conventional warfare, like a land invasion.
In fact you might be better of referencing MAD, if it wasn't for the FTL empire having the mother of all missile shields in the form of, you know, FTL Travel.

Thanks for the corrections, but what I was referring to is the idea that you don't need a large army if you have eanough nukes. The idea fell through after the Soviets devaloped their own nukes.

[Corvus 501]

Furthermore, the FTL system would only be useful for deterrence, not defense. However, seeing that the FTL civilazation gained allies, and have warp drive, they would have near light, STL interceptor systems.

[HMS Sophia]

Thanks for the corrections, but what I was referring to is the idea that you don't need a large army if you have eanough nukes. The idea fell through after the Soviets devaloped their own nukes.

*FTL Civ uses FTL sensors to spot inbound RKV* *FTL ship jumps out to just in front of it* *Ship dumps shrapnel in RKV's path* *Ship jumps away, RKV strikes shrapnel, RKV atomises*
See? It's a defence mechanism as well as one of deterrence.

As for the 'have enough nukes' thing, bullshit. The USSR developed nuclear weapons in, what, '51? Development of ICBM's came in '57. The US did have a large nuclear force yes, and that did scare the USSR, and that's why they focused on the development of ICBM's. You are conflating Strategic and Tactical weapon use. MR is essentially a Tactical response, MAD is a Strategic response. The FTL/STL fighting is strategic in scale and you need to consider strategic level responses like deterrence.
I'm rambling a little. It's late and I'm tired. What I'm trying to say is that this premise is, in several ways, a complete mess. Don't start comparing it to early Cold War strategic doctrines unless you really know what you're talking about, not around here. Stick to space ships.

[Corvus 501]

Thanks for the corrections, but what I was referring to is the idea that you don't need a large army if you have eanough nukes. The idea fell through after the Soviets devaloped their own nukes.

*FTL Civ uses FTL sensors to spot inbound RKV* *FTL ship jumps out to just in front of it* *Ship dumps shrapnel in RKV's path* *Ship jumps away, RKV strikes shrapnel, RKV atomises*
See? It's a defence mechanism as well as one of deterrence.

As for the 'have enough nukes' thing, bullshit. The USSR developed nuclear weapons in, what, '51? Development of ICBM's came in '57. The US did have a large nuclear force yes, and that did scare the USSR, and that's why they focused on the development of ICBM's. You are conflating Strategic and Tactical weapon use. MR is essentially a Tactical response, MAD is a Strategic response. The FTL/STL fighting is strategic in scale and you need to consider strategic level responses like deterrence.
I'm rambling a little. It's late and I'm tired. What I'm trying to say is that this premise is, in several ways, a complete mess. Don't start comparing it to early Cold War strategic doctrines unless you really know what you're talking about, not around here. Stick to space ships.

First off, THE FTL DRIVE DOSN'T WORK THAT WAY! You CANNOT exit a warp bubble without hitting a powerfull gravaty well. That means that even when you use conventional sensors wit FTL comms, you still need to intercept it at sunlight speeds.

[Esquire]

That makes intercepting the missiles less convenient, not less doable. If you can see something coming at FTL speeds you can send your own STL interceptor (or bundle thereof) off to kill it with a high probability of success; something that has to impact a planet at high-C-fractional speeds doesn't have a lot of maneuvering options.

[Corvus 501]

That's the point, to get the space to see and intercept incoming c fractional weapons, long before they become a threat. Gaining the sort of space that makes hitting them from sub light speeds something impractable (as it would take thousands of years) is the point, as is territorial gains, and the unique oppertunity to carve out a huge empire without much direct combat.

[Corvus 501]

Gaining the sort of space that makes hitting them from sub light speeds something impractable (as it would take thousands of years) is the point, as is territorial gains, and the unique oppertunity to carve out a huge empire without much direct combat.

[Esquire]

How much space do you think that is? Proxima Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor at 4.2ly from Earth; if I have a sensor technology that propagates at 10c and a robust-enough space capability, that gives me well over* 3.78 years to see an incoming missile from those darned Centauri and put something in its (very predictable) path. If that weapon doesn't also have FTL sensors, there's no way it can see an also-relativistic interceptor in time to take evasive action against something that does - if it had the trajectory wiggle room and spare fuel to do so in the first place, which is not a given. If that interception fails for some reason, I can always send more because, again, FTL sensors.

While that's going on,a fleet of FTL warships will be bombing the attackers' planet to dust. STL attacks on an enemy with FTL ships and sensors are an expensive way to commit planetary suicide, not a credible ingredient for a MAD scenario; the FTL side will always have tactical surprise, can never be surprised in turn, and is nearly impervious to attack. Not that there's no way to create such a scenario, or that there's no storytelling merit in it - just that STL missiles isn't the way to do it, not if you want these aliens to have FTL travel and communication. All the FTL aliens have to do to un-MAD themselves is built a bunch of FTL sensor platforms and a few standby interceptors.

*And I do mean well over; the missile will have to accelerate from 0 and won't reach lightspeed anyway. Plus, the FTL sensors might be even faster.

EDIT: spelling.

[bilateralrope]

Corvus, how are these relativistic missiles getting up to speed ?

There was a thread that included a lot of discussion about RKVs. Including calculations about how long any gun would need to be.

The conclusion was that relativistic planet killers were not a practical weapon. Even after various assumptions in favor of them.

[Corvus 501]

First off, there's no true FTL sensors. (except gravaty sensors) All sensors are EM, particle, or gravaty sensors, all networked together by FTL COMMs. Secondly, the reason that they want so much space, well, politics.
During WW2, Americans feared air raids, so AA guns desperately needed as tank killers on the front lines where diverted to protect American cities, despite the fact that NO HOSTILE NATIONS HAD THE ABILITY TO HIT ANYTHING BUT COSTAL CITIES IN AMERICA.

[Corvus 501]

In short, the FTL civilazation may be made up of aliens, but they arn't very alien in behavior. Many times in human history, it would be easy to find cultures that would respond exactly in this way, and many probably could stil be found today.

[Simon_Jester]

First off, THE FTL DRIVE DOSN'T WORK THAT WAY! You CANNOT exit a warp bubble without hitting a powerfull gravaty well. That means that even when you use conventional sensors wit FTL comms, you still need to intercept it at sunlight speeds.

Control your temper, and control your spelling.

It can sometimes take a few repetitions to convey the idea that your FTL drive is point-to-point rather than go-anywhere. Most of the famous FTL drive systems in fiction (Star Trek, Star Wars, just about every Golden Age SF setting I can think of) are go-anywhere drives.

Drives that are limited to traveling to specific points... the earliest example I can think of is the Alderson Drive from Niven and Pournelle's CoDominium setting, which goes back to no earlier than the 1970s. Further examples have arisen in the decades since (Mass Effect comes to mind, as does Hemry's recent Lost Fleet series). But the popular imagination still tends to be stuck on the idea of FTL drives providing full freedom of navigation.

That's the point, to get the space to see and intercept incoming c fractional weapons, long before they become a threat. Gaining the sort of space that makes hitting them from sub light speeds something impractable (as it would take thousands of years) is the point, as is territorial gains, and the unique oppertunity to carve out a huge empire without much direct combat.

Not really. You need a network of 'listening posts' placed ten to twenty light years from your homeworld (deep space is acceptable for this, assuming you can support a deep space listening post logistically). Each listening post needs a couple of FTL courier packets, which will make a one-way journey to the threatened star system, providing them with lots of advance notice.

The more courier packets you have, the more precisely you can refine your targeting data to launch your intercept missions.

First off, there's no true FTL sensors. (except gravaty sensors) All sensors are EM, particle, or gravaty sensors, all networked together by FTL COMMs.

It's spelled "gravity."

Also... Oh, right, you have FTL communications! Even better. That means you don't need FTL courier boats to use early warning stations to detect incoming relativistic missiles!

Which means anybody can gain years of advance warning of an attack by prepositioning sensor outposts and sending a message back to the homeworld.

Secondly, the reason that they want so much space, well, politics.
During WW2, Americans feared air raids, so AA guns desperately needed as tank killers on the front lines where diverted to protect American cities, despite the fact that NO HOSTILE NATIONS HAD THE ABILITY TO HIT ANYTHING BUT COSTAL CITIES IN AMERICA.

It's spelled "coastal."

All caps makes you sound like a screaming loony. Try using italics; in bbcode you have a [ i ] followed by a [ / i ] at the end of the italicized passage. (delete the spaces)

Anyway. You will note that there is a huge difference between deciding to use a fraction of your nation's total artillery output to secure the coast against improbable enemy air raids, and deciding provoking numerous apocalyptic interstellar wars. It's a matter of scale. Nations do small-scale things relative to their own size for political reasons, but usually don't do major world-shaking things without a very solid reason to do so.

The US could afford to spare those 90mm gun barrels, so it did; sure, this meant its tank crews took marginally higher casualties in the European theater, but on the scale of the total US war effort that wasn't a very significant consequence.

The consequences of the kind of warmongering strategy you describe are far more significant. The nation doing it needs a better justification than "we did it because politics;" it needs to be a strategy they seriously expected to work, and to work more cost-effectively and safely than the competing strategies.

Human societies rarely chose of their own free will to provoke wars on a vast scale purely to secure themselves when there was a cheaper, simpler way of achieving that security. The exceptions were mostly those with very distorted perspectives (e.g. 1941-era Japan), so distorted that they might almost be considered 'alien' in their own right.

[HMS Sophia]

During WW2, Americans feared air raids, so AA guns desperately needed as tank killers on the front lines where diverted to protect American cities, despite the fact that NO HOSTILE NATIONS HAD THE ABILITY TO HIT ANYTHING BUT COSTAL CITIES IN AMERICA.

That's the Germans. The threat of strategic bombing diverted 88's into defending cities and industrial areas instead of them being shipped to the front lines where they could be used as anti-tank guns.
They were responding to an actual threat to their cities.
If you have a source, I'll gladly admit my mistake, but I'm pretty sure on this one.

[Corvus 501]

First off, THE FTL DRIVE DOSN'T WORK THAT WAY! You CANNOT exit a warp bubble without hitting a powerfull gravaty well. That means that even when you use conventional sensors wit FTL comms, you still need to intercept it at sunlight speeds.

Control your temper, and control your spelling.

It can sometimes take a few repetitions to convey the idea that your FTL drive is point-to-point rather than go-anywhere. Most of the famous FTL drive systems in fiction (Star Trek, Star Wars, just about every Golden Age SF setting I can think of) are go-anywhere drives.

Drives that are limited to traveling to specific points... the earliest example I can think of is the Alderson Drive from Niven and Pournelle's CoDominium setting, which goes back to no earlier than the 1970s. Further examples have arisen in the decades since (Mass Effect comes to mind, as does Hemry's recent Lost Fleet series). But the popular imagination still tends to be stuck on the idea of FTL drives providing full freedom of navigation.

That's the point, to get the space to see and intercept incoming c fractional weapons, long before they become a threat. Gaining the sort of space that makes hitting them from sub light speeds something impractable (as it would take thousands of years) is the point, as is territorial gains, and the unique oppertunity to carve out a huge empire without much direct combat.

Not really. You need a network of 'listening posts' placed ten to twenty light years from your homeworld (deep space is acceptable for this, assuming you can support a deep space listening post logistically). Each listening post needs a couple of FTL courier packets, which will make a one-way journey to the threatened star system, providing them with lots of advance notice.

The more courier packets you have, the more precisely you can refine your targeting data to launch your intercept missions.

First off, there's no true FTL sensors. (except gravaty sensors) All sensors are EM, particle, or gravaty sensors, all networked together by FTL COMMs.

It's spelled "gravity."

Also... Oh, right, you have FTL communications! Even better. That means you don't need FTL courier boats to use early warning stations to detect incoming relativistic missiles!

Which means anybody can gain years of advance warning of an attack by prepositioning sensor outposts and sending a message back to the homeworld.

Secondly, the reason that they want so much space, well, politics.
During WW2, Americans feared air raids, so AA guns desperately needed as tank killers on the front lines where diverted to protect American cities, despite the fact that NO HOSTILE NATIONS HAD THE ABILITY TO HIT ANYTHING BUT COSTAL CITIES IN AMERICA.

It's spelled "coastal."

All caps makes you sound like a screaming loony. Try using italics; in bbcode you have a [ i ] followed by a [ / i ] at the end of the italicized passage. (delete the spaces)

Anyway. You will note that there is a huge difference between deciding to use a fraction of your nation's total artillery output to secure the coast against improbable enemy air raids, and deciding provoking numerous apocalyptic interstellar wars. It's a matter of scale. Nations do small-scale things relative to their own size for political reasons, but usually don't do major world-shaking things without a very solid reason to do so.

The US could afford to spare those 90mm gun barrels, so it did; sure, this meant its tank crews took marginally higher casualties in the European theater, but on the scale of the total US war effort that wasn't a very significant consequence.

The consequences of the kind of warmongering strategy you describe are far more significant. The nation doing it needs a better justification than "we did it because politics;" it needs to be a strategy they seriously expected to work, and to work more cost-effectively and safely than the competing strategies.

Human societies rarely chose of their own free will to provoke wars on a vast scale purely to secure themselves when there was a cheaper, simpler way of achieving that security. The exceptions were mostly those with very distorted perspectives (e.g. 1941-era Japan), so distorted that they might almost be considered 'alien' in their own right.

Thank you for that lecture, I got a little pissed off about the FTL drive.
Basically, the reason I had the FTL civilazation grab huge amounts of space was simple politics. No one likes getting planets blown out from under themselves, and given the oppertunity to score huge amounts of political capitol by securing the border and gaining potential colonies, politicians responded in a predictable way. The military would have, of course, prepared contingency plans, including, of course, FUBAR plans, which consisted of "spam out colony ships, than glass, dust, and otherwise destroy every enemy planet you can find."
Modified, you end up with the plan to end galacitic civilazation as it was currently known, with the help of a few likeminded, former STL civilazations, ones who could provide the most advances STL drives, which make a STL warp bubble behind the ship, accelerating it to near light speed rather quickly.

[Corvus 501]

Thank you for that lecture, I got a little pissed off about the FTL drive.
Basically, the reason I had the FTL civilazation grab huge amounts of space was simple politics. No one likes getting planets blown out from under themselves, and given the oppertunity to score huge amounts of political capitol by securing the border and gaining potential colonies, politicians responded in a predictable way. The military would have, of course, prepared contingency plans, including, of course, FUBAR plans, which consisted of "spam out colony ships, than glass, dust, and otherwise destroy every enemy planet you can find."
Modified, you end up with the plan to end galacitic civilazation as it was currently known, with the help of a few likeminded, former STL civilazations, ones who could provide the most advances STL drives, which make a STL warp bubble behind the ship, accelerating it to near light speed rather quickly.

[jwl]

Also, if it interacts with the EM force (which it will do, if it is visible), then natural phenomena that the engineers couldn't predict could throw the thing off course. What would work better is a projectile set to not interact with anything until it almost reaches its destination, at which point it will suddenly become visible, just before it crashes into the planet (because you'll want something that can interact with the EM force to maximize the damage done, and of course to accelerate the thing in the first place).

It is not a foregone conclusion that any race will ever have the technology to say "this object is not going to interact with normal matter for a period of years" or "this object is immune to electromagnetic forces for a period of years." At that point you're talking about bending the laws of physics rather sharply.

To me it doesn't sound any more far-fetched than "exotic matter" with its negative gravity thing, even without having to solve the whole mass-energy-of-Jupiter problem. Also, invisible things are cool-sounding, which is always a good idea when this is fiction you are talking about.

But an alternative idea a bit closer to real life might be some highly relativistic neutron beam (obviously it'll have to be fast enough to not decay before it gets to the planet). You won't be able to see it because it's electrically neutral, that will help it to interact less with EM fields and photons on the way, but when it gets to the enemy planet, it deposits all its energy with the strong force.

[Simon_Jester]

That's the Germans. The threat of strategic bombing diverted 88's into defending cities and industrial areas instead of them being shipped to the front lines where they could be used as anti-tank guns.

Oh, the Germans did it on a vastly larger scale. But arguably, even having AA gun defenses anywhere except maybe the west coast was a complete waste of time for the US. I could have sworn some were mounted.

Also, the Germans faced a real strategic bombing threat that could have crippled them if they hadn't been able to use (among other things) the flak threat to force bombers to fly high and bomb inaccurately, even by the standards of WWII bombing technique.

Basically, the reason I had the FTL civilazation grab huge amounts of space was simple politics. No one likes getting planets blown out from under themselves, and given the oppertunity to score huge amounts of political capitol by securing the border and gaining potential colonies, politicians responded in a predictable way. The military would have, of course, prepared contingency plans, including, of course, FUBAR plans, which consisted of "spam out colony ships, than glass, dust, and otherwise destroy every enemy planet you can find."

The problem is that provoking huge numbers of wars is risky and complicated and very very expensive in certain ways. It creates hundreds of civilizations already embroiled in genocidal war who would all kill you if they knew what you'd done... and who surely have the means and skill to do so.

The alternative is to post early warning networks and make sure the neighbors know you have a deterrent force in place that will definitely annihilate their planets and very probably annihilate their space habitats and so on too. And that you will probably be able to stop their counterattack without even being wiped out by the attack so that trying for a preemptive strike is utterly stupid and pointless beyond all possible belief.

*With FTL drive they can emplace batteries of relativistic missiles in literally any star system they please, and coordinate the launches very precisely so that a target is met with huge salvoes coming from many directions all at once.

Modified, you end up with the plan to end galacitic civilazation as it was currently known, with the help of a few likeminded, former STL civilazations, ones who could provide the most advances STL drives, which make a STL warp bubble behind the ship, accelerating it to near light speed rather quickly.

Why would these races cooperate with the plan? Again, it is very risky.

Also, SPELLING, man! Or woman. Whatever.

To me it doesn't sound any more far-fetched than "exotic matter" with its negative gravity thing, even without having to solve the whole mass-energy-of-Jupiter problem. Also, invisible things are cool-sounding, which is always a good idea when this is fiction you are talking about.

To me, stuff that weighs less than nothing is less improbable than stuff that has its interactions with outside matter subject to an 'off switch.' I'm not that much of an expert but I have at least residual physics background.

But an alternative idea a bit closer to real life might be some highly relativistic neutron beam (obviously it'll have to be fast enough to not decay before it gets to the planet). You won't be able to see it because it's electrically neutral, that will help it to interact less with EM fields and photons on the way, but when it gets to the enemy planet, it deposits all its energy with the strong force.

That would involve... a... improbably big particle accelerator, plus the nontrivial problem of even accelerating neutrons in a coherent beam in the first place at all.