Drone warfare vs manned spacecraft in sci-fi

[Spoonist]

1) In SciFi the narrative is more important than realism
2) Jamming and hacking
3) Predictability
4) Adaptability

So I don't think that authors need to worry about why its manned vs drones, instead they should just have a plausable reason why and if a long series or such then mention a failure in universe to give the reader the needed feed.
I don't like it when a fad enters a universe that isn't handled in the universe. Like suddenly adding AI drones when they didn't "exist" before and then not continue to use them.

It takes a particularly good breed of authors to make a mix of individuals and drones interaction interesting. Ian Banks comes to mind.

[Lord of the Abyss]

There is a good old episode of Star Trek TOS where Kirk and his crew face the possibility of an experimental computer taking over their jobs. In the end, the computer goes haywire because it was programmed to be a little too human, and ends up blowing up an also unmanned civilian craft as a mistake during its test run. It then fires upon other allied vehicles because it fears for its own safety after the first incident. Kirk ends up using its sense of guilt after it kills real people to make it suicidal so they can unplug it (because somehow in Star Trek there is never a convenient off switch or power cable you can just pull out when the computer goes insane).

Actually IIRC they did try that and the guy trying to unplug it got disintegrated.

[Stofsk]

There is a good old episode of Star Trek TOS where Kirk and his crew face the possibility of an experimental computer taking over their jobs. In the end, the computer goes haywire because it was programmed to be a little too human, and ends up blowing up an also unmanned civilian craft as a mistake during its test run. It then fires upon other allied vehicles because it fears for its own safety after the first incident. Kirk ends up using its sense of guilt after it kills real people to make it suicidal so they can unplug it (because somehow in Star Trek there is never a convenient off switch or power cable you can just pull out when the computer goes insane).

Actually IIRC they did try that and the guy trying to unplug it got disintegrated.

Yep, this is true. The M5 was supposed to be a hugely powerful computer system, interlinked with all the Enterprise's systems (it was supposed to take over a huge number of jobs, not just the Captain's). It not only zapped the poor redshirt going to unplug him, but it secured itself a power supply to prevent them from starving it, erected a force field around itself, and cunningly fooled the crew when they tried a roundabout way of defeating it.

'The Ultimate Computer' was a really good humanist themed episode. Kirk wonders if his objection to the idea of the M5 computer stemmed from a feeling of insecurity towards becoming redundant, which is a very relevant theme then and today especially, as people's jobs become obsolete due to increased technological progress. M5 was depicted initially at making quicker and better assessments than Kirk could with regards to an away team consignment. Even Spock, the guy who often said how frustrated he felt having to work with us crazy humans, said he preferred us to serving an actual machine: 'Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain ... the starship also runs on loyalty ... to one man, and nothing can replace it or him.' And as Formless says, the computer was only defeated, ironically, because it was too human and felt regret over his killing people.

[SAMAS]

I prefer the idea of synthesis. Instead of asking Man or Machine, why not have Man and Machine?

Rather than just manned or unmanned Space Fighters, why not put the Human pilot in a large Corvette-sized vessel that deploys the unmanned drones to fight alongside him, like the Options of Gradius or the Bits/Funnels/DRAGOONS/etc... of Gundam on a larger scale?

A ground team can be equipped with a vehicle that deploys drones for combat (and has AI-controlled turrets), but if the situation demands advanced decision-making or person-to-person contact, the crew can get out and handle it.

[lPeregrine]

This begs the question: how do we rationalize the very heavy reliance upon manned spacecraft and away missions in science fiction? Is there some point where we must simply give up and say that the writers didn't see it coming?

That depends on whether you're writing a new story, or trying to explain the existing ones.

If you're dealing with existing ones, in a lot of cases you probably do have to fall back on some kind of social factor, a reluctance to let drones off the leash without a human to supervise them, an AI rebellion that resulted in a ban on AI with the decision-making ability that relying on drone spacecraft would require, etc. It's hard to argue that, say, Star Wars has figured out droids with obvious human-level intelligence, but lack the technology to make a drone starfighter and have to send living pilots to their deaths on suicide missions. Of course the problem is that the history of these universes tends to be very well established. For example, you can't talk about the great AI war in Star Wars when it's obviously not included in the canon history.

If you're writing a new one, you have to think carefully about what technology you want to include. Besides the obvious things like "don't include human-like robots", you have to think about the consequences of other technology. For example, it's a lot harder to argue against drones on the grounds of needing human repair and maintenance crews in a universe with easy FTL where mission durations are in minutes or hours, and repair bases are always easily available.

Edit: I would also say its not quite true to say 'humans are always ore interesting than robots' as far as story goes, because this is once more a matter of 'how the author envisions the setting.' sci fi is chock full of interesting robots who have character or even are humanlike (from C3-PO and R2-D2 to R Daneel to Robbie the Robot, and there are countless others.) so it is quite possible to construct a story around 'likable' robots if the author wished to. It may not be precisely 'realistic' to do so, but you can have a story that doesnt involve humans that remains interesting and characterful.

Exactly. Consider the Culture novels: the AIs run everything (and have to, with entire battles happening in fractions of a second) and humans are pretty much kept around as glorified pets, but there are still interesting stories and the AIs themselves are the most memorable characters in the setting.

Rather than just manned or unmanned Space Fighters, why not put the Human pilot in a large Corvette-sized vessel that deploys the unmanned drones to fight alongside him, like the Options of Gradius or the Bits/Funnels/DRAGOONS/etc... of Gundam on a larger scale?

IMO, this is the most likely scenario: you cross interstellar distances with a drone carrier, then the human-crewed command ship stands off at a safe distance while the drones do all the work. Given the "no stealth in space" issues things probably aren't going to be happening so quickly that the drone can't radio back for orders if it needs to make a complicated decision, even if the command ship is far out of weapon range on the edge of the system.

The only downside is that the battles might be less interesting than if human characters were at risk, but you can still write the story so that all of the interesting plot elements happen aboard the command ships/planets/etc, and the actual fighting is pushed to the background.

You underestimate the appeal of sending humans to another world, i.e., the "drama." We celebrate human achievements, but will one by a creature of a different species be equally celebrated? If a remotely operated or AI-controlled vehicle set the land speed record, would we honor it the way we honored Richard Noble? If the machine was destroyed in a failed attempt at the record, would we mourn it the way we mourned Steve Fossett?

Sure, that addresses why we would keep human crews for exploration, but not for war. Of course we idolize the heroic soldier or ace pilot, but that respect only goes so far. Someone is going to be ruthless enough to decide that winning the war is more important than having "drama", so you need a reason why they didn't just start developing an un-heroic drone swarm and win. Or someone is going to decide that, in a world where budget cuts are a constant problem and science is undervalued by society it's better to have a drone fleet exploring the universe than a manned fleet sitting on the drawing board.

[Formless]

Given the "no stealth in space" issues things probably aren't going to be happening so quickly that the drone can't radio back for orders if it needs to make a complicated decision, even if the command ship is far out of weapon range on the edge of the system.

Actually, its been established before on this forum that stealth in space is possible, once you consider such factors as how optical sensors work and environment issues like clutter. Obviously its not like stealth in atmosphere, but then again neither is stealth underwater.

Drones might actually come into play here, in the form of IR decoys to confuse an opponent's idea of your vector at long distances.

Link for reference.

[Boeing 757]

*snip post for brevity*

No offense but I get this massive 'fucking stupid sci fi authors and their ability not to be more up to date on REALISM' vibe from your entire post. I mean, really? You're going to call authors 'unimaginative' simply because they don't read all the scientific updates to keep on the bleeding edge of what's possible?

I think that they can be some times, but it's not enough for me to hold it against anyone, nor am I branding a particular show writer or author. No one is perfect after all, and no body can forecast how our own technological progression will fare. And anyway, it's science-fiction, with strong emphasis on the fiction part. I watch and read science-fiction to be entertained first and foremost, not to compare whose story-telling incorporates the latest or greatest technological realism.

[lPeregrine]

Given the "no stealth in space" issues things probably aren't going to be happening so quickly that the drone can't radio back for orders if it needs to make a complicated decision, even if the command ship is far out of weapon range on the edge of the system.

Actually, its been established before on this forum that stealth in space is possible, once you consider such factors as how optical sensors work and environment issues like clutter. Obviously its not like stealth in atmosphere, but then again neither is stealth underwater.

Drones might actually come into play here, in the form of IR decoys to confuse an opponent's idea of your vector at long distances.

Link for reference.

Yeah, I suspect the "no stealth at all, period, no matter how you try to explain it" side is going to be proved wrong, but what I mean is that it's harder to hide and the time scales get longer. You aren't going to have a potential threat jump out of a bush next to your drone and have just a brief moment to analyze the threat and decide whether it's an enemy ambushing it and about to attach a bomb to the hull, or just some civilian who was scared of your drone and about to run away, and force the drone to decide whether to shoot and risk the consequences if it guesses wrong. With long detection distances in space it's a lot more plausible to think that you'll have minutes, or even hours, for the drone to radio back to a human command ship and ask what to do before it has to commit to firing.

[Formless]

Oh, I understand what you are trying to say. Most of the functional proposals for space stealth that I've seen serve far more strategic purposes than tactical ones. I just thought it was interesting to consider decoys as an application which drones would be perfect for.

Though while I'm talking about stealth proposals, there is also the "truck bomb in space" idea; basically terrorism/asymmetric warfare tactics, which force drones and other military spacecraft into preforming more police-like duties which do require on the fly decisions.

[Stark]

While the idea of assessing the quality of fiction by how 'realistic' it is might be really sad, but the OP was just asking why scifi in general and popular scifi in particular doesn't use drones more, when they're a huge part of the public idea of the military these days. Its not about 'omg must be realistic science accurate or it sucks', its just that you'd expect such a contemporary and technical thing to be reflected in art and fantasy more than it is (especially in pop scifi).

And it made me re-watch Unicorn ep 1, and watching how the drones zip around in zero gravity and fire with pinpoint accuracy on the move and then struggle align in a built-up area with gravity was cool. Attention to detail > slavish adherence to current perception of 'correct' 'science' 'fiction'.

[Ford Prefect]

While the idea of assessing the quality of fiction by how 'realistic' it is might be really sad, but the OP was just asking why scifi in general and popular scifi in particular doesn't use drones more, when they're a huge part of the public idea of the military these days.

Well it's funny you mention that, because Metal Gear Solid arguably picked up on drone proliferation before the real world did. Cyphers, Gun-Cyphers and most spectacularly the Metal Gear RAYs spoke to the changing face of warfare. Admittedly this only fully comes through in Guns of the Patriots with unmanned weapons like the Gekko, the Sliders, the Dwarf Gekko etc. This stuff was so good that one of Liquid's PMCs was exclusively made up drone weapons.

[Stark]

Maybe its not surprise that the drones that are in the news every night haven't captured the imagination the way rockets and lasers and supercomputer brain replacement androids have - they are only seen to kill brown people. The public consciousness doesn't seem to treat them as a technology group or a technology with multiple uses; its a cheap and risk-free way to blow up poor people we don't like (and possibly spy on your civilian population).

Who wants a book about that?

When fiction catches up, we'll get Drone Top Gun, which will be exactly the same as Top Gun, only drone operators instead of pilots, and narratively and thematically there will be no difference. I just don't think people see anything glorious or TOP about being a drone pilot, for whatever reason. Obviously drones have been used for decades in fiction, but since they're so high in public view of military operations, you'd arguably expect to see more or more widespread examples.

[Zinegata]

And it made me re-watch Unicorn ep 1, and watching how the drones zip around in zero gravity and fire with pinpoint accuracy on the move and then struggle align in a built-up area with gravity was cool. Attention to detail > slavish adherence to current perception of 'correct' 'science' 'fiction'.

Actually, now that you mention it, wouldn't Gundam funnels / bits also count as drone weapons?

[Ford Prefect]

Actually, now that you mention it, wouldn't Gundam funnels / bits also count as drone weapons?

Of course, though they represent a somewhat different conception of what drones are for. More traditional UCVs would be the mobile dolls from Gundam Wing.

[Connor MacLeod]

The description I read reminded me a bit of Elly's Aerod attack from Xenogears. Except in non-special-attack form. lol

[Zinegata]

Actually, now that you mention it, wouldn't Gundam funnels / bits also count as drone weapons?

Of course, though they represent a somewhat different conception of what drones are for. More traditional UCVs would be the mobile dolls from Gundam Wing.

Yeah, that's why I didn't make the connection immediately. The real-life drones tend to be more of an autonomous surveillance units with some combat capbility, like the stuff you mentioned in MGS or other near-future games (i.e. Ghost Recon).

The Funnels/Bits tend to be much more an extension / special attack of an individual mobile suit.

[Stark]

Local defence or assistance is conceptually the easiest role to fit drones into a story, because it allows the user to still be in danger. Long-range remote control requires the story to be set up with failure or loss being dramatic by itself.

Using drones to hugely multiply the attack power of some craft can be bolted on to almost any story, but a really speculative transhumanist story about teleoperation and shared consciousness requires its own narrative.

[Omeganian]

There might be the concept used by Robert Sheckley and in Mass Effect. The AI's give a perfect, predictable strategy. If both sides have them - there is a stalemate, or at least no way to defeat a superior enemy. An element of chaos is needed.

Sheckley, BTW, also has a story where robotic armies are sent to fight the Armageddon. Guess what? The robots are the ones taken into Heaven afterwards.

[Starglider]

There might be the concept used by Robert Sheckley and in Mass Effect. The AI's give a perfect, predictable strategy. If both sides have them - there is a stalemate, or at least no way to defeat a superior enemy. An element of chaos is needed.

That is based on a hopelessly naive concept of how software works. If you need an 'element of chaos', a hardware random number generator has far better randomness than a human being. The utility of 'unpredictability', in the sense of randomly selecting from a set of options with suboptimal expected utility when considered in isolation, is a basic part of game theory that will feature in any serious AI analysis; a strategy that did not include analysis of enemy response would hardly be 'perfect'. Furthermore the entire premise of AIs being able to perfectly simulate something as complex as space combat sufficient to reach an objectively optimal solution is speculative. It's a premise I personally agree with, but in the majority of science fiction where systems are human equivalent at best, the emergent complexity of numerous different limited-intelligence systems being used in a combat situation is enormous. There may still be predictable patterns that can be exploited, but no moreso than human experts with years of specific training and doctrine.

[lPeregrine]

Local defence or assistance is conceptually the easiest role to fit drones into a story, because it allows the user to still be in danger. Long-range remote control requires the story to be set up with failure or loss being dramatic by itself.

Using drones to hugely multiply the attack power of some craft can be bolted on to almost any story, but a really speculative transhumanist story about teleoperation and shared consciousness requires its own narrative.

Of course you could say this is a good thing, since it means more focus on compelling characters and plots instead of just "ooh shiny" space battles as a substitute for a story.

[Ford Prefect]

The description I read reminded me a bit of Elly's Aerod attack from Xenogears. Except in non-special-attack form. lol

AERODs are part of a long lineage beginning with a certain tricorne hat in Mobile Suit Gundam. In Xenosaga III, you can equip ES Zebulun with 'Airds' which should sound familiar.

[Cykeisme]

Local defence or assistance is conceptually the easiest role to fit drones into a story, because it allows the user to still be in danger. Long-range remote control requires the story to be set up with failure or loss being dramatic by itself.

Using drones to hugely multiply the attack power of some craft can be bolted on to almost any story, but a really speculative transhumanist story about teleoperation and shared consciousness requires its own narrative.

Well, if drones are just going to be carried into battle on a manned ship, and then deployed only a relatively short distance from their manned carrier craft (close enough that the carrier is still in danger), don't we lose out on a lot of the advantages of having drones in the first place?
Plus, that'll add the mass cost of carrying the drones and their fuel/ordnance supply, as opposed to just carrying more ordnance and armouring instead.

There are other reasons we can write into the technology I suppose, similar to the possible reasons that I've seen for starfighters.. perhaps defensive technology (active point-defense or passive sci-fi "shields") that are highly directional, so deploying drones to attack from multiple angles is beneficial to penetrating those defenses.

[Stark]

Or maybe its a civilian ship that only needs an autonomous defence system for unskilled 'oh shit' moments without lugging around guns and crew and crap for the 99.9999% of the time its useless? Its fucking fiction, if you don't have an imagination don't talk about it.

In a low-tech scifi situation, drones deployable for defence would immediately shift any attacker from 'trivially blow up the defenceless ship' to 'have to engage all the drones or get trivially blown up', and their mere presence would be a deterrant to many dangers.

Man this 'fiction' business is pretty easy hey? Imagine if 'in danger' could mean 'is 50 AU away' because science fiction has super long range death missiles or something! :V

[Cykeisme]

Or maybe its a civilian ship that only needs an autonomous defence system for unskilled 'oh shit' moments without lugging around guns and crew and crap for the 99.9999% of the time its useless? Its fucking fiction, if you don't have an imagination don't talk about it.

So instead of lugging around guns and crew and crap, they lug around drones with guns and crap. Got it, that makes sense.
The same sort of sense where apparently my lack of imagination has led you to fail to read my second paragraph

[Imperial528]

Actually, drones make a lot of sense for a civilian freighter. Especially since it's more likely to deploy the drones to distract whatever's attacking it long enough for it to get away.

Drones will take up much less room than fighter crews or mounted weapons. With fighter crews you need life support and living space for them plus the storage for the fighters, or at least you'll take the mass penalty if they're just docked outside. Likewise with mounted weapons you need to have a few more hands on board to maintain and use them, lest you strain your existing crew. With a dozen simple point-and-shoot drones a freighter that comes under attack can just release some of them and while the attacker is stuck dealing with what is little more than a gun and a targeting computer with maneuvering rockets the freighter can accelerate away and call for some help.