How powerful could a hard sci-fi civilization be?

[Imperial528]

Well, it all depends on a lot of properties of both the laser and the armor really. A 5cm spot can make a 5m hole if it all plays out right. However, there is evidence that SW has things like super-strong metals that are thermally superconducting and radiate away heat fast enough to go from white-hot to normal in seconds.

Still even a 50m hole isn't much on an ISD, and I seriously doubt his laser will be able to penetrate the reactor core in a short burst and a lucky shot.

[gigabytelord]

I don't know if this has been brought up, but if the hard sf civ is really as big as we all seem to believe then why waste resources on one or two or even ten thousand giant lasers of doom, and just mass produce millions (or billions) of tiny (and old fashioned) disposable x-ray satellites, they go off once, dumping their load, they aren't very effective by them selves which is why you would deploy them by the thousand to millions, they could be programmed with a (comparatively) very basic AI, just something good enough to maintain their positions and receive instructions and/or talk to each other, and if the civ has quantum entanglement, then that makes coordinating when and where to fire even easier.

Think about it, if they can effectively mass produce Dyson Spheres, then what exactly is preventing them from producing a shit tonne of small one shot satellite weapons, and deploying them en masse?

[Batman]

Hasn't it been quite convincingly established that you can't produce Dyson Spheres (leave alone mass produce)? And what exactly are you going to do with your gazillion of grazer satellites? Since you're hard SciFi and thus don't have FTL you can't get them anywhere in time to make a difference even if they had the firepower to hurt SW ships (which is going to take some doing).

[gigabytelord]

Hasn't it been quite convincingly established that you can't produce Dyson Spheres (leave alone mass produce)? And what exactly are you going to do with your gazillion of grazer satellites? Since you're hard SciFi and thus don't have FTL you can't get them anywhere in time to make a difference even if they had the firepower to hurt SW ships (which is going to take some doing).

Why would you move them anywhere extra solar in the first place? have them be produced in system and setup like a system wide mine field, we're all acutely aware of how strong SW shields are, but if you've got tens of thousands or millions of pre-placed units spread all over high hell, and each one is powered by a high yield nuclear warhead (e.g. hundreds of gigatonnes, which is producible with modern tech), then logic would dictate that something bad would happen to the target.

Also, why does it seem like everyone is assuming that this defense system wasn't already in place before Ms. Impy and his merry Stardestroyer of Doooom came bumbling about? I don't know about you, but the humanity I know seems to have a very unhealthy tendency to leave rather copious amounts dangerous weaponry of sitting around "Just in case random enemy B decides to attack." because "Damn those blue blooded bastards, you can never be to sure." and then its "Oh shit what the hell is that! FIRE EVERY THING!"

[Simon_Jester]

Quantum entanglement is not a viable way to communicate information. About the only thing you can send with it is encryption keys, and you do that by choosing whether to lie or tell the truth to the other person about what bit you read. Then they go "lie, truth, truth, lie, lie, truth, lie... ah-ha, the encryption code is 0110010!"

They can tell if you told the truth, because their particle is entangled with yours. But you can't send a signal directly through the entanglement.

[Batman]

Hasn't it been quite convincingly established that you can't produce Dyson Spheres (leave alone mass produce)? And what exactly are you going to do with your gazillion of grazer satellites? Since you're hard SciFi and thus don't have FTL you can't get them anywhere in time to make a difference even if they had the firepower to hurt SW ships (which is going to take some doing).

Why would you move them anywhere extra solar in the first place? have them be produced in system and setup like a system wide mine field, we're all acutely aware of how strong SW shields are, but if you've got tens of thousands or millions of pre-placed units spread all over high hell, and each one is powered by a high yield nuclear warhead (e.g. hundreds of gigatonnes, which is producible with modern tech), then logic would dictate that something bad would happen to the target.

Um-no? The MTLs on a measly Clone Wars era troop transport are 200GT apiece, I really look forward to how you intend to get hundreds of gigatons out of modern tech warheads, and why exactly would logic dictate that something bad would happen to a target the defenses of are designed to deal with far worse?

Also, why does it seem like everyone is assuming that this defense system wasn't already in place before Ms. Impy and his merry Stardestroyer of Doooom came bumbling about? I don't know about you, but the humanity I know seems to have a very unhealthy tendency to leave rather copious amounts dangerous weaponry of sitting around "Just in case random enemy B decides to attack." because "Damn those blue blooded bastards, you can never be to sure." and then its "Oh shit what the hell is that! FIRE EVERY THING!"[/qute]
Fire everything-hit nothing. The number of mines needed to even blanket Earth's orbit (leave alone the entire solar system is absurd.
Regardless of your firepower, you're not hitting anything more than 10 or so ls out due to being limited to c speed sensors (and that's with me assuming the near-crash in ESB is the upper limit for ISB maneuverability).

[gigabytelord]

Quantum entanglement is not a viable way to communicate information. About the only thing you can send with it is encryption keys, and you do that by choosing whether to lie or tell the truth to the other person about what bit you read. Then they go "lie, truth, truth, lie, lie, truth, lie... ah-ha, the encryption code is 0110010!"

They can tell if you told the truth, because their particle is entangled with yours. But you can't send a signal directly through the entanglement.

Which means that you can effectively "send", using that term very loosely here, a binary code instantly from one particle to another identical particle that is entangled with the first, regardless the distance. Can't letters, words, books, or even video be translated into binary? This information then fed into a machine which can directly effect the state of the particle in question, a machine that is much faster than a human being mind you, which then instantly effects the state of the second particle, where yet another machine records and then translates these changes back into binary, and then back into the original message?

Enter message into computer A > computer A translates message into binary > message is then fed to machine A which alters the state of particle A one digit at a time > this instantly effects the state of particle B for every single digit > machine B then records these changes, converts them back into binary and feeds them into computer B > computer B then translates the binary code back into your message.

Also, wouldn't it be a logical step to suggest that if said civilization has attained the ability to utilize Quantum entanglement, that it also has attained the ability to use Quantum CPUs? Which would mean that all of this would happen very nearly instantly?

Is it not also true that all known computer code on earth is stored, at is most basic level, as binary code, e.g. 1's and 0's ?

I'm sincerely not trying to be a dick, I'm just kind of confused here, as that's how I've always been told Quantum entanglement communications would work.

[Simon_Jester]

Quantum entanglement is not a viable way to communicate information. About the only thing you can send with it is encryption keys, and you do that by choosing whether to lie or tell the truth to the other person about what bit you read. Then they go "lie, truth, truth, lie, lie, truth, lie... ah-ha, the encryption code is 0110010!"

They can tell if you told the truth, because their particle is entangled with yours. But you can't send a signal directly through the entanglement.

Which means that you can effectively "send", using that term very loosely here, a binary code instantly from one particle to another identical particle that is entangled with the first, regardless the distance...

No, that's the opposite of what I said. Sorry, I didn't make it plain enough.

An entangled pair of particles comes out of some process that ALWAYS creates, say, one particle spinning left and one particle spinning right. It's a tossup which particle gets which spin, but it's always one of each.

Now if somehow I can take that pair and separate them widely without looking at them, the entangled state is preserved. Each of us now has a single particle that, if we look at it, has a 50/50 chance of spinning right or left. But, and this is the important part, if mine is spinning left I KNOW yours is spinning right, and vice versa.

Thing is, I can't just make my particle spin left in order to make yours spin right. I can't teleport information to you that way; any attempt to manipulate my particle breaks its entanglement with yours. So no, you can't send data that way.

What I can do is read all my particles and know what all your particles are doing. Say, I read my particles and they are "left left right right." Then I know that your particles are "right right left left." No other person could possibly no this, because the entangled pairs are pairs, not trios, and we're the only ones who own members of the pairs.

Then you send me a message saying "left right right left." I can read that and say "aha, he gave me a true spin, then a false one, then a true, then a false." So I translate your message (using the results of the entanglement) as "true false true false" or "1010."

BUT you had to send me that message by some normal means, like radio or the Internet or guys running really fast. The entanglement itself is not a means of communication. It's just a means of generating a 'fact' that is known to the two of us and only to the two of us, with no possible way to steal the secret of the fact from us without our permission.

Also, wouldn't it be a logical step to suggest that if said civilization has attained the ability to utilize Quantum entanglement, that it also has attained the ability to use Quantum CPUs? Which would mean that all of this would happen very nearly instantly?

Quantum computing is a very different thing from quantum entanglement encryption. While entanglement plays a role in quantum computing, it's over short distances and scales- designing the computer so that if it sends a 1 to one place it automatically sends a 0 to the other, and vice versa.

Also, note that quantum computing isn't automatically better than digital. It can do certain things very easily compared to a digital computer, but that doesn't mean it will consistently be more efficient. Right now we're still having trouble convincing quantum computers to tell us that three times five is fifteen, or things like that...

[gigabytelord]

Um-no? The MTLs on a measly Clone Wars era troop transport are 200GT apiece, I really look forward to how you intend to get hundreds of gigatons out of modern tech warheads, and why exactly would logic dictate that something bad would happen to a target the defenses of are designed to deal with far worse?

Truth is I'm an idiot and got my mega mixed up with my giga, I was going to reference Tsar bomba and then realized that it detonated with the force 50 MT not 50 GT like I mistakenly thought, but here's a link anyway, even though it proves useless to the discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

However, I do remember a nuclear physicist, I think his name was Edward Teller, stating that is might be possible to push the explosive force of modern nukes much, much higher using various amounts of tritium, I believe the term used for it is boosting, but I have no idea if achieving gigatonne levels of power is possible

Fire everything-hit nothing. The number of mines needed to even blanket Earth's orbit (leave alone the entire solar system is absurd.
Regardless of your firepower, you're not hitting anything more than 10 or so ls out due to being limited to c speed sensors (and that's with me assuming the near-crash in ESB is the upper limit for ISB maneuverability).

Read above, the "logic would dictate" part, fell apart,... when I discovered my own mistake.



EDIT: Thanks for the clarification Simon_Jester, never to old to learn something I suppose.

[Solauren]

You're right about Tritium.

Tritium Nuclear Weapons

If I'm reading it right, all it does is increase the efficiecy of the reaction. The few tests done with it indicated it wasn't worth pursuing, as most of the reaction still comes from the initial Nuclear Fission reaction.

[Simon_Jester]

Uh, I don't think you're reading it right.

For high-end nuclear weapons most of the energy comes from fusion. This is what makes it possible to make them really big.

[PeZook]

Blanketing a system with mines sounds really good until you realize that a weapon is only as good as its command, control and targeting sensors, no matter if its a rifle or a nuclear bomb. In space, even more so. If you're going to dump trillions of nukes inside your own system, then that becomes even more important because you'll probably want to keep them from randomly incinerating your own traffic - but the enemy won't just sit there and oblige you, they'll actively try to subvert the entire system, either with electronic warfare or tested and true method of "blow up the sensor arrays and command centres".

And that would be okay, no defences are invulnerable, after all, if your enemy didn't have FTL drives and FTL sensors, too.

[Batman]

Targeting sensors at least can be placed on the actual mine. Command and control are the real issue. Even insystem we're talking hours of signal transit time.

[gigabytelord]

Targeting sensors at least can be placed on the actual mine. Command and control are the real issue. Even insystem we're talking hours of signal transit time.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about mines in the sense that if you get to close it goes boom, I'm talking about nuclear weapon powered x-ray laser satellites, I always thought that the idea of a 'space mine' that just sat there waiting to be exploded was kind of dumb.

Yes light lag will still be an issue though. Damn you quantum physics! Dasher of all my hopes and dreams...

[Batman]

Um-when I think space mine in 'hard' SciFi situations I pretty much think bomb-pumped laser (X-ray, gamma or other) by default. The number of conventional nukes (leave alone chemical explosives) you'd need to seed a system with for them to be a credible deterrent is even more ludicrous than the number of laser heads you'd need.

[Blayne]

'Nuclear weapon powered x-ray laser satellites' are a good idea because of a major weakness of Soft Scifi Civilizations is the arbitrary maximum range of even their largest warships, while realistically a laser's maximum range is probably closer to a light minute to target.

From Project Rho and (also I think the math is at this page)quoting from TvTropes:

Project Rho considered the limits of beam weapon technology grounded in real-life physics. A 10 megawatt X-ray laser could quite conceivably kill spacecraft out to at least a light minute... sure, most things that were actively evading would be hard to hit due to lightspeed delay but consider this: such a weapon in orbit around the Earth would be able to vaporize well armored satellites in orbit around Mars when the two planets were at their closest, and thoroughly frazzle the electronics of any unarmored device fifty times further away (over twice the distance between Earth and Mars when they are furthest apart). So, yeah, no maximum range, but maximum *effective* range.

A solar system with a million for instance might not be a nice place to sortie through carelessly.

[gigabytelord]

'Nuclear weapon powered x-ray laser satellites' are a good idea because of a major weakness of Soft Scifi Civilizations is the arbitrary maximum range of even their largest warships, while realistically a laser's maximum range is probably closer to a light minute to target.

From Project Rho and (also I think the math is at this page)quoting from TvTropes:

Project Rho considered the limits of beam weapon technology grounded in real-life physics. A 10 megawatt X-ray laser could quite conceivably kill spacecraft out to at least a light minute... sure, most things that were actively evading would be hard to hit due to lightspeed delay but consider this: such a weapon in orbit around the Earth would be able to vaporize well armored satellites in orbit around Mars when the two planets were at their closest, and thoroughly frazzle the electronics of any unarmored device fifty times further away (over twice the distance between Earth and Mars when they are furthest apart). So, yeah, no maximum range, but maximum *effective* range.

A solar system with a million for instance might not be a nice place to sortie through carelessly.

That's actually the point that I was try to imply, is it perfect? No, would it insta-kill a SW ship? definitely not, but it would certainly make attempts to just barge in willy nilly, uncaring for the consequences very dangerous, and might make the aggressors thinks twice before attacking, if nothing else if would force them spend extra time, time they may, or may not have, going around knocking out each and everyone of the satellites, or at least be more strategic in their attacks.

I mean if nothing else, it would at least slow them down, making the prospect of conquering such a wide spread STL civilization that much more unappealing.
Of course it would also suggest that the Civilization in question probably has a fair number of enemies, to have a wide spread defense system already setup.

[Blayne]

They have an easily justifiable peacetime use for zapping stray asteroids and other space junk that might mess with space habitats/installations.

[Formless]

Also, why does it seem like everyone is assuming that this defense system wasn't already in place before Ms. Impy and his merry Stardestroyer of Doooom came bumbling about? I don't know about you, but the humanity I know seems to have a very unhealthy tendency to leave rather copious amounts dangerous weaponry of sitting around "Just in case random enemy B decides to attack." because "Damn those blue blooded bastards, you can never be to sure." and then its "Oh shit what the hell is that! FIRE EVERY THING!"

When the OP specifies "a socially, politically, intellectual [sic.] and morally enlightened civilization," that tends to contradict the idea that the HARD civ people are just sitting there sharpening their proverbial knives waiting for someone to give them an excuse for a good old fashioned bloodbath.

Plus, this view of humanity tends to leave open the valid future history concern "how the hell did we get to space without blowing ourselves up first?" We're not exactly out of the water on that point. There could always be room for another cold war between superpowers in the future, even if the battle lines have yet to be drawn or factions to be identified.

And if they have enemies in their own universe to worry about, let me introduce you to a little political game called "Lets You and Him Fight". Or as its more often called, Proxy War.

They have an easily justifiable peacetime use for zapping stray asteroids and other space junk that might mess with space habitats/installations.

No, that's just wasteful. In real life, Nasa types and other rocket scientists tend to agree that the better method of dealing with asteroid threats would be to gravity tractor them off their collision path, because their orbits are predictable enough you should be able to identify dangerous asteroids months or even years before they hit anything. Blowing them up with nukes is sheer Hollywood cheese. On top of that asteroids are a valuable source of mineral wealth for an interplanetary civilization. And on top of that, your minefield might just be as much of a navigational hazard as the asteroids, or more so when you consider the probability that some of them will malfunction and target friendly ships occasionally. This is just a really bad, and really telling excuse for strewing bombs all over the heavens.

[Batman]

Um-a 10MW laser is going to be hard pressed to hurt Wars civilian craft, leave alone capital warships. Ignoring the fact that with a range of a lightminute, the Wars ship has a whole minute to just get out of the way thanks to having FTL sensors (two if they don't wait for the laser to actually fire). Heck, since your hard SciFi civilisation is limited to c speed sensors, it'll be a minute from the time your mine noticed there's a target to the laser arriving. Using modern day technology the target can be out of the way of the laser. Something with FTL sensors and thousands of gs worth of acelleration?
Also, since Wars warships can hit targets from lighthours out, imagine the number of mines you'd need to be sure any of them are in range.

[bilateralrope]

Also, since Wars warships can hit targets from lighthours out, imagine the number of mines you'd need to be sure any of them are in range.

They'd need to cover the universe in them. Otherwise any attacker can just start picking off the outer mines until they can safely hit something important.

[Batman]

Why in Valen's name would they bother? There's nothing in intergalactic space for them to want to keep the Empire's hands off, and the Empire doesn't have the technology nor the desire to go there on a whim. Wars hyperdrive is fast but it's not that fast and it has limited range. There's no point to the HSF cilvilisation trying to mine intergalactic (or even interstellar) space as there's nothing there needing protection, and there's no point to Wars getting rid of the mines there as they can safely be ignored.

[PeZook]

You know, I did some rough calcs and it wouldn't actually take THAT many mines to blanket a system like ours: if you want them evenly spaced around the entire system one light minute apart, it would only require 381,5 million devices.

Of course that's a little sparse, you might want several mines per light minute because A) They won't stay in place but will actually orbit the star and B) you want overlapping coverage.

So, say, 3-4 billion devices to cover overlap, malfunctions, servicing etc.

I'm still not sure it's a very good idea, seeing as you will need an entire complex C&C network just to ensure they don't malfunction and blow up your own ships and space stations, plus of course a maintenance system using tens of thousands of starships just to keep them operational.

Another question is, of course, if there even is enough fissile material available to build 3-4 billion bombs in the first place.

[Stark]

Given lag and the likely desire to avoid communication there's a good chance large numbers will fire at individual targets, which (if moving in not a straight line especially) have a good chance of simply being missed.

[PeZook]

Given lag and the likely desire to avoid communication there's a good chance large numbers will fire at individual targets, which (if moving in not a straight line especially) have a good chance of simply being missed.

Yeah, even hard sci-fi starships might be able to be largely immune to these mines if they just "jink" (fire thrusters at random intervals), since sensor data for the mine's firing solution will suffer from lag. If the attacking ship just assumes the mine fired the moment it is detected and moves ever so slightly, it should be okay.

So...you might want to add missiles to said mines, so that the bomb laser can get closer. Should work against invaders without FTL sensors.