The opposite of minamalism

[Srelex]

Once, when I was in a kid in school, I once wrote a crappy little sci-fi story as part of a creative writing assignment in which I depicted a spaceship 'kilometers' in length fitting 'billions' of fighters and 'millions' of weapons batteries. Now, having recalled this, I'm wondering if this sort of thing is present in any published science-fiction--essentially, figures and numbers that rather being absurdly minamalistic are huge to the point of being ludicrous. Now, Trekkies would claim that the AOTC figures would fall into this, predictably, but is there anything legitimate?

[adam_grif]

I can't for the life of me remember where it was (perhaps Stargate?), but I seem to recall something about a WMD being deployed on a planet that would wipe out all life, and the person saying "how can you do this, it will slaughter thousands!"

[Starglider]

I can't for the life of me remember where it was (perhaps Stargate?), but I seem to recall something about a WMD being deployed on a planet that would wipe out all life, and the person saying "how can you do this, it will slaughter thousands!"

If it was Stargate, that line wouldn't be out of place, as that universe has lots of planets that only have a few villages on them.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Once, when I was in a kid in school, I once wrote a crappy little sci-fi story as part of a creative writing assignment in which I depicted a spaceship 'kilometers' in length fitting 'billions' of fighters and 'millions' of weapons batteries. Now, having recalled this, I'm wondering if this sort of thing is present in any published science-fiction--essentially, figures and numbers that rather being absurdly minamalistic are huge to the point of being ludicrous. Now, Trekkies would claim that the AOTC figures would fall into this, predictably, but is there anything legitimate?

I have always found the "floating fortresses" in 1984 to be ridiculous from a technical point of view. They are implied to be many times larger than than WW2 battleships, which would mean that their displacement is at least several hundred thousand tons (Nimitz class aircraft carriers are just a tad over 100,000 tons) if not millions of tons. Of course their whole reason for existence was to waste resources, so in that way they certainly do make sense.

As for space opera, I can't think of any really good examples. Galaxy spanning civilizations such as the Galactic Empire or the high level involveds of Cultureverse would quite naturally have very large resources and the capability to make huge numbers of ships and big megaconstructs. Some might say that the Time Lords are ridiculously powerful, but then again that's the whole point of them, even if it introduces its own set of problems from the point of storytelling.

[Ford Prefect]

Just go peek into a versus debate; they will generally be filled with people trying to find the absolute maximum. More seriously, this is what you're looking for: to use a Star Wars example, if 'minimalism' is Zahn's two hundred dreadnaughts, then 'maximalism' would be the quintillions of droids which get a mention in the RotS ICS.

[Simon_Jester]

I have always found the "floating fortresses" in 1984 to be ridiculous from a technical point of view. They are implied to be many times larger than than WW2 battleships, which would mean that their displacement is at least several hundred thousand tons (Nimitz class aircraft carriers are just a tad over 100,000 tons) if not millions of tons. Of course their whole reason for existence was to waste resources, so in that way they certainly do make sense.

Hmm. I imagine you could build something that large, if you were committed enough. It might even be marginally useful in a world that faces the technical limitations of 1984: no guided weapons, so building something so gigantic that any plausible air-dropped torpedo or bomb is a fleabite might actually help.

Of course, still a colossal waste of money; as you say, that's the point.

[The Yosemite Bear]

how about Haviland Tuff's "Modest" space ship....

oh and he gets bonus points for sterilzing 95% of the population of a Fundy Planet....

[Zor]

I have always found the "floating fortresses" in 1984 to be ridiculous from a technical point of view. They are implied to be many times larger than than WW2 battleships, which would mean that their displacement is at least several hundred thousand tons (Nimitz class aircraft carriers are just a tad over 100,000 tons) if not millions of tons. Of course their whole reason for existence was to waste resources, so in that way they certainly do make sense.

Hmm. I imagine you could build something that large, if you were committed enough. It might even be marginally useful in a world that faces the technical limitations of 1984: no guided weapons, so building something so gigantic that any plausible air-dropped torpedo or bomb is a fleabite might actually help.

They do have atomic weapons in 1984 though.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Crap. You're right, and I was wrong. Floating fortresses would be the nuke-target to beat all nuke targets.

[Junghalli]

I don't think they actually use them though. I remember it being mentioned in the book that nukes just keep getting built and stockpiled for the final offensive against the enemy (which according to plan will never come).

I strongly suspect 1984's conflicts are essentially ritualized flower wars. Nobody uses missiles or nukes on the floating fortresses because the agreed-upon rules of warfare forbid it.

[PeZook]

I strongly suspect 1984's conflicts are essentially ritualized flower wars. Nobody uses missiles or nukes on the floating fortresses because the agreed-upon rules of warfare forbid it.

Ooor...there is no actual war. It's entirely possible that the world looks nothing like what we see in Oceanian propaganda, after all.

[Broomstick]

I don't recall actually reading the books, but didn't EE Doc Smith's "Skylark" series feature absurdly large ships? Or just absurdly powerful?

James Blish wrote a number of stories in "Cities in Flight" series, in which entire cities took to space. Would that be applicable?

And, of course, ringworlds and Dyson spheres would seem to be in that category.

[loomer]

On a smaller scale than things like the Culture, but far from minimalist, take a peek at basically any piece of 40K fluff that involves orks, tyranids, Necrons, or the Imperial Guard. The other forces tend to go a bit more minimalist, but this is a setting where swarms of barely sentient aliens eat entire galaxies and then sail to another in a near eternal sleep (the hive-queens are probably literally billions of years old), where indescribably ancient star-gods swim between systems, eating hope and entire suns, where the sheer volume of ecstatic and agonized screams from a species tore open a massive hole in reality that still rages millenia later.

[Teleros]

I don't recall actually reading the books, but didn't EE Doc Smith's "Skylark" series feature absurdly large ships? Or just absurdly powerful?

Both actually, the largest ships were spheres ~1,000km across, and which could be manned by a single person. Real-time beam battles take place over hundreds of thousands of lightyears, ships accelerate at up to something like 127c in normal space, etc...

[Eviscerator]

Does anime count??? If so... TENGA TOPPA GUREN LAGAN!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUJzYSswcj0

Epic win on size!

[Tornado Ninja Fan]

The Perry Rhodan series had the alien "Endless Armada" (in issues 1100 to 1299). At one point of its history it consisted of about 500,000 fleets and 1 billion ships, but their real number during their encounter with the people of the Milky Way was never stated.

Because of its long history (when they arrived in the Milky Way, the fleet was already 100 million years old) there are a some "dead" fleet numbers, confusing the issue further.

They also used a "diffusor field" to conceal their true number and the dimensions of their fleet.

The central control unit (Armada Unit 1 or Armada Heart) is the Loolandre a flying object the size of a solar system created from a brown dwarf.

[CaptHawkeye]

Just go peek into a versus debate; they will generally be filled with people trying to find the absolute maximum. More seriously, this is what you're looking for: to use a Star Wars example, if 'minimalism' is Zahn's two hundred dreadnaughts, then 'maximalism' would be the quintillions of droids which get a mention in the RotS ICS.

I think the clearest example of "Maximizing" is old Star Trek fans who used to make up loads of facts about the Federation's military capabilities without a shred of evidence to back them up. Things like Phasers being able to blow up planets, the Feds having like, a gazillion more Constitutions, huge armies, warp drive being much faster than the shows portray it, etc. Basically a glorified "No Limits" fallacy. It's much easier to disprove this kind of thing though simply because the main source simply doesn't ever show it happening. Absence of evidence being evidence of absence.

Alternatively an example is Nazi Germany, and all of the "massively armed" horseshit that surrounded its armed forces for years. They got like, a billion Panthers!

[takemeout_totheblack]

Does anime count???

If so, I nominate Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Two spiral arms of the galaxy wage war in protracted, bloody stand-offs with several hundred thousand .8-1km long ships sitting anywhere from a couple lightseconds to a just couple hundred kilometers away from each other and exchange blue-white pew-pew lasers and the odd Macross missile barrage. Major bases are moon-sized balls of laser refractive liquid metal with massive pink-white fleet killing 'fuck-you' laser guns. Oh, and most ships explode in a photogenic cloud of blue gas after one hit and the third dimension is possible but rarely used due to the toe-curlingly slow sublight speed of the ships.
Considering the blasé reactions most Admirals have to losing tens of thousands of ships, I'm under the impression that these two organizations have fleet reserves in the low millions with a nearly limitless ability to replace lost equipment and manpower.
It's a great series, and many of the battles are listed on youtube in fan-sub format. While not unrealistically huge in it's scale, neither side puts much credit into the 'conservation of men and equipment' ideology.

That said, what would be a realistic fleet size for a fairly militaristic organization that controls a significant potion of the galaxy (1/5th or more) 40 000 000 ships over a km in length? More? Less? How much?

[Simon_Jester]

Another point: not every star need be militarily useful. We're still not sure how many stars harbor planets that it would be worthwhile to try to terraform. Unless you're willing to carpet the galaxy with von Neumann machines and start dismantling all those hot Jupiters, a power which "controls" half the galaxy may only occupy one in ten, one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand star systems scattered through that volume. As long as they can prevent anyone else from using the remainder, they are very much in control of the territory.

[takemeout_totheblack]

There's 300 billion stars in the galaxy. Each star could support up to hundreds of trillions of people. One ship per a million people is a lowball number - I'd expect it to be much higher, but this is about the size of the US Navy now, so it gives a ballpark.

That's millions or billions of ships per star. Now, multiply that by 50 billion stars.

I'd saw quadrillions is the low end of reasonable numbers, even if the ships are a kilometer long.

Now, this assumes hard sci-fi technology. Given how soft sci fi treats star systems (lol a small city on a planet is all you see in the whole system!), the number would slash off several zeros.

But it is still a huge fucking number. The galaxy is BIG.

The wankiest absurd numbers in fiction are nothing compared to the sheer scale of nature.

I was thinking along the lines of middle road, or as I like to call it 'Apatite' level SF hardness. FTL is possible and allows for easy and quick travel between stars, as such, fewer ships can cover more area within an absurd amount of time. But what would be a sustainable population for an earth-like solar system? 1 or 2 trillion? More?
An organization on the scale I mention earlier need not populate all it's systems, but merely lay claim to them and keep them until the society's demands require their utilization, you know, thinking in the long term. On a scale like this, the population will be the limiting factor for once!

[starfury]

damm this truly a case of truth being stranger then fiction the Wankistic numbers for the Both the Galactic Empire and Imperium actually seems rather pitiful even if only used this method to count the mere Destroyers and escorts of Both powers

[Stark]

Hello punctuation, meet starfury. He randomly capitalises words to show his poor understanding of English.

[takemeout_totheblack]

What kind of domination would a numerically realistic type 2.8-3 civilization* wreak upon existing franchises?

By that I mean a fairly militaristic type 2.8 to type 3 civilization occupying a 5th of the galaxy with a suitably vast population. Extremely low end estimations on ship numbers in the mid hundreds of billions and a standing army in the high hundreds of trillions. The only franchise I can think of that could have a hope of defeating that is The Culture, they're a, what, Type 3.99999999 civilization? Or Type 4? Or do the petty scales of man not apply?
Also the Xeelee.


*Kardashev scale

[Teleros]

What kind of domination would a numerically realistic type 2.8-3 civilization* wreak upon existing franchises?

Depends a lot on their tech: if it's hard sci-fi then (leaving aside the question of how this civilisation functions without FTL) I a lot of settings will just be able to stomp all over them piecemeal. I know of two properly-developed civilisations like the kind you're on about though - the Chlorans from Doc Smith's "Skylark DuQuesne", and also his Civilisation from the Lensman series.

[takemeout_totheblack]

What kind of domination would a numerically realistic type 2.8-3 civilization* wreak upon existing franchises?

Well, the scale is staggering, and the power they have available in theory is obscene (a Death Star blast every second!).

But, there are practical problems in actually bringing it all to one place. With everything spread out evenly across the galaxy, supplying that massive fleet is no difficulty; massive fleet, but equally massive numbers of bases housing and supplying them.

If you need to focus your force, you also need to supply it all in that one point. Imagine a 50,000 light year long logistical train!

The outcome in a battle with other franchises would depend on what the goal is (genocide? some kind of concession?) and other tech aside from the scale. A Star Wars hyperdrive could be a real upset, for example.

Well, a society with that kind of power and numbers would need a few things perfected beforehand in order to operate on the scale that they do from day to day, i.e. a fast reliable FTL, advanced strategies in regards to supply and movement of forces, the ability to concentrate said forces, and fast efficient establishment of authority and control over conquered peoples/industries in order to exploit them to their advantage. It's my opinion that any society that has survived and fought long enough to reach this stage is entering this hypothetical battle with their strategies and technologies already perfected in relation to their battle plan.
Which brings us too... (fanfare)...the goal!!!

The goal? Ehhh... gold? Battlefield Earth, you continue to be ridiculed to this very day!

As with anything the goals would be complex and layered. Here's a summarized list of basics.

1). : Bring these savages into the warm and loving embrace of the :insert silly name here: Empire/Conglomerate/Commonwealth/whatever while also learning what this 'Force' thing is and how to exploit it. (since we're talking about SW in this instance correct?)

2.) : Copypaste option 1 but with an 'all savages will be enslaved, of course!' stuck on the end.

3.) : EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!! DA-LEKS CON-QUER AN DES-TROY!!! DA-LEKS CON-QUER AND DES-TROY!!! (disjointed, irritating chant begins)

4.) : Cuz you got an' we want it, kay? AKA because it's there AKA why not? AKA For S'n'G!

5.) : Alien thought processes :insert interpretation here:

All of the above are dressed up ways of saying 'land grab'