The Race Vs. Earth in 2010

[PeZook]

Detect how?

Their ships would shine like lightbulbs in a completely dark room. There's a lot of them, they generate power, ergo they can be seen with ease. Especially since they only have a limited number of trajectories to choose from if they actually want to intercept Earth, and they'd be doing a fair bit of maneuvering along the way for final corrections.

[Vendetta]

Why land? Why not build an orbital- do they have any pschological requirement to live planet side?

Other than not having the supplies to stay in space indefinitely?

Most of the supplies required to live in space would be easier to get from asteroids than planets, with their inconvenient gravities and other assorted nonsense.

[Simon_Jester]

Why land? Why not build an orbital- do they have any pschological requirement to live planet side?

Have they shown any capability to build a large orbital habitat?

They managed to build the ships.

I assume it is within their technical capability to build large orbital habitat. The Lizards' main problem is that they are utterly, utterly conservative by human standards: for them, innovation proceeds at negligible speed unless it's being actively mothered by Necessity. So they probably don't have plans for orbital habitats, and unless an outside power presents them with the choice "build orbital habitats or die!" they won't do it.

[Uraniun235]

Wouldn't living in an orbital expose you to considerably more radiation than living on Earth? I mean I guess you could pull an asteroid into orbit and use a few feet of rock as shielding, but then you're living in corridors and rooms all day long - so, yeah, open sky might well contribute towards a desire to live on a planet.

[PeZook]

Most of the supplies required to live in space would be easier to get from asteroids than planets, with their inconvenient gravities and other assorted nonsense.

That's great and all, until you learn you need a giant drilling rig and an entire industry to extract and process these resources and all you brought are to work in the open air inside a gravity well, because that's what they've been planning on doing when they go here.

Ooopsie...

I assume it is within their technical capability to build large orbital habitat.

The fact their civilization can build them doesn't mean the fleet can do it, too. The US has dozens of carrier battle groups around the world, but new ships can only be built in drydocks with the support of a gigantic industrial base.

[Simon_Jester]

That's kind of what I was getting at.

The Conquest Fleet probably does not have the resources to create orbital habitats. However, the Colonization Fleet seems to have been intended as a generalized seed-colony, one designed to be able to build pretty much anything (including space-based infrastructure). They probably could construct orbital habitats, at least in principle.

One interesting possibility would be for us to hail them when they're still passing the orbit of Pluto and say "Greetings unidentified starship. Wanna talk?" With the final deal being like: "Look, tell us how you built those fusion reactors and we will give you the basic materials to start building habitats. You can have the L4 point; we'll take L5."

[spartasman]

The only way the Race has of deploying nuclear weapons is through their aircraft, they have no nuclear missiles. Given that with our present-day fighters are more or less on par with or better than the Races killercraft, they would have a hard time doing anything more than high-altitude EMP and perhaps high altitude bombing.

also, their are several stations on Earth that constantly monitor activity in the solar system, like the Aricibo array in Puerto Rico, or the Very Large Array in the southwest U.S.

[PeZook]

The Conquest Fleet probably does not have the resources to create orbital habitats. However, the Colonization Fleet seems to have been intended as a generalized seed-colony, one designed to be able to build pretty much anything (including space-based infrastructure). They probably could construct orbital habitats, at least in principle.

It depends how their resource cycle looks like: seeing how the lizards view technological development, it's not unreasonable to assume they planned their colony development over a very long timeframe. Anyway, since they needed to conquer the planet (this was the main conflict in the book, after all), it's almost certain the colonization fleet isn't designed to support its entire population in orbital habitats from the get-go, even if they have some zero-g zero-pressure industrial equipment with them.

One interesting possibility would be for us to hail them when they're still passing the orbit of Pluto and say "Greetings unidentified starship. Wanna talk?" With the final deal being like: "Look, tell us how you built those fusion reactors and we will give you the basic materials to start building habitats. You can have the L4 point; we'll take L5."

I don't know if it would work ; They're fucking assholes, after all. It would certainly fuck with their heads, though, and perhaps make them a lot more cautious with approaching Earth.

After all, if we can detect them at range, it's possible - from the lizards' perspective - that we can defend ourselves, too. And we better scramble for the capability before they realize we can't do shit to a warship in orbit

[lord Martiya]

After all, if we can detect them at range, it's possible - from the lizards' perspective - that we can defend ourselves, too. And we better scramble for the capability before they realize we can't do shit to a warship in orbit

Probably we'd do exactly that: while I can't find them, I recall having read about some protocols for first contact mandating that, after confirmation, the UN would take charge and have the guy who sighted the aliens first make the announce.
In the case the first contact situation is the Conquest Fleet, we'd have the announce and, in the meantime, I bet the Outer Space Treaty would be emendated exactly to prepare for the case the aliens are hostile and our linguists would try and translate the Race's language from any ship-to-ship transmission we manage to intercept. And when Atvar arrives he'd have to face an (almost) united species armed with a few hundreds nuclear-armed ICBMs and whatever anti-spaceship missile we managed to build and knowing some of his language. In such a case I'd wish Atvar attacked: he'd be toasted, and then we'd be able to take on the Colonization Fleet, possibly capturing its ships.

[Simon_Jester]

The only way the Race has of deploying nuclear weapons is through their aircraft, they have no nuclear missiles. Given that with our present-day fighters are more or less on par with or better than the Races killercraft, they would have a hard time doing anything more than high-altitude EMP and perhaps high altitude bombing.

As I just asked guest yesterday: how do we know this? How do we know they cannot simply drop bombs from orbit, regardless of whether they have surface to surface nuclear missiles?

After all, if we can detect them at range, it's possible - from the lizards' perspective - that we can defend ourselves, too. And we better scramble for the capability before they realize we can't do shit to a warship in orbit

The Lizards would have a point: we could do shit to a warship in orbit, had we chosen to develop that capability during the Cold War. Instead we chose not to, with reason... but it's well within our technical capabilities.

[JointStrikeFighter]

How effective would the worlds military's be against a sudden invasion from space?

If they decide that destroying major cities/population centres is a better choice than losing their invasion force to occupation, there's nothing we can do to stop them. Realistically, they leave us alone, or they blackmail us and force concessions or we die.

we'd likely have detected them as they neared earth from the outer edge of the solar system.

Detect how?

Weren't their ships fusion torches? Good chance that will be visible even t the naked eye.

[spartasman]

As I just asked guest yesterday: how do we know this? How do we know they cannot simply drop bombs from orbit, regardless of whether they have surface to surface nuclear missiles?

-- The only time the Race dropped bombs was with their killercraft, even the initial EMP bombs were detonated from high orbit, where their planes are described as being capable of flying. No mention of nuclear missiles is made until years later during the Colonization series, in which I think the Germans made them first.

[Simon_Jester]

That's an indicator... on the other hand, since their fighters are canonically capable of being picked up by orbiting starships (!), they may be able to bomb from higher than we can intercept. They may also have really impressive performance envelopes, at least in terms of things like straight-line speed at high altitude...

[spartasman]

Since they were able to deliver the bombs at high altitude, I would imagine that they would be able to bombard from high-atmosphere. Though, I don't know how accurate that would be, as I don't believe they have guidance systems on their nukes. Also, given the anti-air capabilities of today, or in the 70's, any sort of aerial campaign would be extremely difficult, given the fact that the conquest fleet had few killercraft to begin with. Also, killercraft were designed to be able to be picked up from high orbit, but only in ground strips were unavailable, so I do not think that they would be particularly maneuverable at higher altitudes.

[Batman]

Well if we assume 'orbiting starships' to means ships in actual stable unpowered orbits that would require the killercraft to be able to reach orbital speed and altitude THEMSELVES, meaning they can basically operate outside our engagement envelope with impunity, and they don't even have to come CLOSE to orbit for that-barring our VERY few ground to space weapons I don't think we have anything, ground based or airborne, that can engage targets as little as 30 or 40 kilometres up.

[Simon_Jester]

Well if we assume 'orbiting starships' to means ships in actual stable unpowered orbits that would require the killercraft to be able to reach orbital speed and altitude THEMSELVES, meaning they can basically operate outside our engagement envelope with impunity, and they don't even have to come CLOSE to orbit for that-barring our VERY few ground to space weapons I don't think we have anything, ground based or airborne, that can engage targets as little as 30 or 40 kilometres up.

It's very possible that the orbiting starships would have to be in unstable powered "orbits" temporarily to rendevous with their targets, or that there are intermediate-sized shuttles that enter unstable powered orbits to dock with the killercraft.

But they can at least reach fringes-of-the-atmosphere altitude, though they may have effectively no maneuverability that high... so there's really no telling just how high they can drop nukes from. If they come down into our engagement envelope they're probably meat, but I strongly suspect they don't have to.

[spartasman]

Well if we assume 'orbiting starships' to means ships in actual stable unpowered orbits that would require the killercraft to be able to reach orbital speed and altitude THEMSELVES, meaning they can basically operate outside our engagement envelope with impunity, and they don't even have to come CLOSE to orbit for that-barring our VERY few ground to space weapons I don't think we have anything, ground based or airborne, that can engage targets as little as 30 or 40 kilometres up.

I believe that the U.S. military and the Chinese both recently shot down satellites using ABMs, given that necessity is the mother of invention, I would think that more ABM missiles would be fielded, anyway...

I've gone and hashed out a basic story, just from messing around with the thought in my head.

So the Race arrives near the solar system, and like the original story, Erewlo informs Atvar of the radio signals (though there would be alot more if it was today's world or the 70's). When the Race arrives in the solar system, they detect transmissions coming out towards space, along with several scanning devices searching the solar system. At the behest of Shiplord Kirel, Atvar places the conquest fleet inside the gravity well of Mars or something to mask its presence (this is probably terrible science, but whatever). Atvar eventually decides to invade, with Straha trying to convince the rest of the fleetlords and Atvar to use their nukes to dominate the planet quickly, Atvar however, like in the original story, is reluctant to use them.

So as soon as the Conquest Fleet shows itself, it's hailed by the various powers on earth (depending on when the story takes place, it could be the UN, or the UN with NATO and the Warsaw Pact trying separately. The Conquest fleet arrives in orbit and destroys all satellites (and, given the time period, captures the International Space Station). All earth-side forces are scrambled yadda yadda yadda, EMP decimates hardware (if its the 70's, in today's world an EMP would damage civilian electronics but military stuff and the power grid are pretty well guarded these days).

So the Race invades, proceeds to get its ass handed to it, ships destroyed/captured. Ultimately, Atvar is either displaced by Straha, or captured or killed. Straha attempts a desperate bet to nuke the planet, it fails (don't ask me how, ABM sites, interceptors, Star Wars) and then retreats with what is left of the conquest fleet back to warn the Colonization Fleet and to defend Home if necessary.

Earth Rebuilds, goes into space, goes to Home and kicks ass and then, well, the end.

possible human characters (viewpoints, yes, like Turtledoves system)

(if it's the 70's)

-Vietnam Vet (Rambo-like)

-African child soldier

-Rhodesian army corporal (f**k yeah)

-hippie commune leader who is captured by the Race in Ohio or something

-American Nat. Guard Tank commander (ubiquitous, I know, but I wanna see the M60A2 go against a landcruiser)

-American soldier stationed in Berlin

-Soviet Soldier

-Afghan Mujaheddin fighter (the irony would be palpable)

-Australian outback hunter (Crocodile Dundee)

(if it is 2010)

-Iraq war Vet

-old hippie commune leader/ ex military man whose commune is massacred by the Race

-American soldier stationed in Iraq

-French Foreign Legionnaire in Cote d'Ivoire

-South American villager

-Polish Army Lieutenant

-Aussie hunter

-fat American kid who likes video games who gets his ass kicked by the real world when he's drafted

I do not know if this is a good idea for a story, but it keeps churning in my mine, what do you think?

[Batman]

Well if we assume 'orbiting starships' to means ships in actual stable unpowered orbits that would require the killercraft to be able to reach orbital speed and altitude THEMSELVES, meaning they can basically operate outside our engagement envelope with impunity, and they don't even have to come CLOSE to orbit for that-barring our VERY few ground to space weapons I don't think we have anything, ground based or airborne, that can engage targets as little as 30 or 40 kilometres up.

It's very possible that the orbiting starships would have to be in unstable powered "orbits" temporarily to rendevous with their targets, or that there are intermediate-sized shuttles that enter unstable powered orbits to dock with the killercraft.

Which is why the 'if we assume' is there at the beginning. I agree that forced orbits, either by the starships themselves or parasite craft sent to collect the fighters are more likely as from what I gather those killercraft seem to be described as very performant but still atmospheric vehicles (note that having neither read the books in question nor knowing which books those even ARE I'm working purely from the information in this thread).

But they can at least reach fringes-of-the-atmosphere altitude, though they may have effectively no maneuverability that high... so there's really no telling just how high they can drop nukes from. If they come down into our engagement envelope they're probably meat, but I strongly suspect they don't have to.

If they can't be shot at as long as they can maneuver AT ALL it doesn't really matter how bad they're at it and there's a LOT of wriggle room between 'fringes-of-the-atmosphere' and 'safely out of our engagement envelope'. It doesn't matter if they take freaking forever to set up an attack run and/or have to do it a dozen times over due to lousy maneuverability if there isn't a thing we can do to stop them.

I believe that the U.S. military and the Chinese both recently shot down satellites using ABMs, given that necessity is the mother of invention, I would think that more ABM missiles would be fielded, anyway...

Eventually. That's going to take a goodly amount of time though. We're NOT going to it in the time from our noticing the Race coming for us to them hitting orbit unless they're SERIOUSLY pathetically slow for what appears to be a civilisation with interstellar travel capability.

[spartasman]

Eventually. That's going to take a goodly amount of time though. We're NOT going to it in the time from our noticing the Race coming for us to them hitting orbit unless they're SERIOUSLY pathetically slow for what appears to be a civilisation with interstellar travel capability.

Luckily enough their ships are pathetically slow for a space-faring species. Their trip to earth involved going at 1/2 the speed of light for 24 years (which is arguably not relativistically possible). Even in the books, the ships are described as little more than transports. In the book, the race had lost so many of their shuttle craft that they ended up having to land their ships on the ground to land troops, which resulted in 2 of them being destroyed by the Dora railroad gun. So a big, ponderous target would be slowly flying over earth, and given that its the Race were talking about, they probably would not change in telemetry and simply coast along without any changes in direction.

[Simon_Jester]

I believe that the U.S. military and the Chinese both recently shot down satellites using ABMs, given that necessity is the mother of invention, I would think that more ABM missiles would be fielded, anyway...

The problem is that satelites are painfully fragile and easy to knock out. Lizard starships are tough enough to shrug off anything less powerful than artillery shells.

I've gone and hashed out a basic story, just from messing around with the thought in my head.

A few comments:

So the Race arrives near the solar system, and like the original story, Erewlo informs Atvar of the radio signals (though there would be alot more if it was today's world or the 70's).

By 2010, radio signals would long since have reached Home, possibly before the Conquest Fleet even departed. Erewlo might not only inform Atvar of the radio signals from Earth... but of communications laser signals from Home, with orders from the Emperor about how to handle first contact with an unknown alien species.

When the Race arrives in the solar system, they detect transmissions coming out towards space, along with several scanning devices searching the solar system.

We mostly don't use active sensors to probe across interplanetary distances, so the "scanning devices" would not be detectable, any more than you can go "Wait! Someone is listening to our radio broadcasts!"

At the behest of Shiplord Kirel, Atvar places the conquest fleet inside the gravity well of Mars or something to mask its presence (this is probably terrible science, but whatever).

Ah... better develop that concept into something less terrible if you actually want to use it. Just throwing stuff in without thinking it over is fine for a rough plot sketch as long as it doesn't cause decisive trouble. It's not fine at all for the actual storyline.

Another problem is that given the size of Lizard starships, their engine flares will be visible from interstellar distances. We'd know they were there whether they tried to hide or not, unless they just coasted ballistically through our star system and off into interstellar space... which would be kind of dumb.

So as soon as the Conquest Fleet shows itself, it's hailed by the various powers on earth (depending on when the story takes place, it could be the UN, or the UN with NATO and the Warsaw Pact trying separately. The Conquest fleet arrives in orbit and destroys all satellites (and, given the time period, captures the International Space Station).

Capturing the ISS is kind of challenging; swatting it out of space would probably make more sense.

So the Race invades, proceeds to get its ass handed to it, ships destroyed/captured. Ultimately, Atvar is either displaced by Straha, or captured or killed. Straha attempts a desperate bet to nuke the planet, it fails (don't ask me how, ABM sites, interceptors, Star Wars) and then retreats with what is left of the conquest fleet back to warn the Colonization Fleet and to defend Home if necessary.

Colonization Fleet is unwarnable; they don't wake up until they reach the destination.

possible human characters (viewpoints, yes, like Turtledoves system)
...

For a Turtledove-style story, ubiquitous characters are GOOD. Remember how many of his people are basically "generic" front line soldiers? Even if they have some unusual ability that leads their character in new directions, they don't all have to be UBER-SUPER-AWESOME. In fact, as a rule none of his characters are uber-super-awesome.

I do not know if this is a good idea for a story, but it keeps churning in my mine, what do you think?

I think it's got the potential to be good, and the real challenge is going to be execution: can you, personally, write a good story based on this premise?

Of course, I say that a lot. Because it's true: good story ideas are much easier to create than good stories.

Which is why the 'if we assume' is there at the beginning. I agree that forced orbits, either by the starships themselves or parasite craft sent to collect the fighters are more likely as from what I gather those killercraft seem to be described as very performant but still atmospheric vehicles (note that having neither read the books in question nor knowing which books those even ARE I'm working purely from the information in this thread).

That's right. They're mainly atmosphere craft; maybe they have some kind of strap-on rocket boosters to throw them up to X-15 altitudes for pickup or something. Dunno.

However, there's not much evidence for them being very maneuverable in a dogfight; it's quite possible that at low speed and/or low altitude, an F-16 would hand a killercraft pilot his tail. They may well be optimized for high altitude high speed work (interceptors). And the fact that they can get anywhere near low orbit is another sign of that, I'd say.

Luckily enough their ships are pathetically slow for a space-faring species. Their trip to earth involved going at 1/2 the speed of light for 24 years (which is arguably not relativistically possible).

"Not relativistically possible..." would you mind coming out and arguing this? I mean, the fact that they can take off and land at all suggests that their main engines have 1g or better acceleration... in which case they don't need more than a few days to get here from the orbit of Pluto.

The really important point is that to slow down and park in our solar system, they have to start their deceleration burn from a very long way off. With their engines pointed conveniently right toward us. That makes them visible from extremely long distances if anyone's watching the skies at all... which honestly might give us the time to kludge together something decent for surface to space work.

Even in the books, the ships are described as little more than transports. In the book, the race had lost so many of their shuttle craft that they ended up having to land their ships on the ground to land troops, which resulted in 2 of them being destroyed by the Dora railroad gun. So a big, ponderous target would be slowly flying over earth, and given that its the Race were talking about, they probably would not change in telemetry and simply coast along without any changes in direction.

Ah... could you expand on this? "Big, ponderous target would be slowly flying..." What do you mean by "slow?" Slow compared to what?

[Batman]

Eventually. That's going to take a goodly amount of time though. We're NOT going to it in the time from our noticing the Race coming for us to them hitting orbit unless they're SERIOUSLY pathetically slow for what appears to be a civilisation with interstellar travel capability.

Luckily enough their ships are pathetically slow for a space-faring species. Their trip to earth involved going at 1/2 the speed of light for 24 years (which is arguably not relativistically possible).

Um-why? And the TOTAL length of the trip is completely irrelevant. It could take them a couple million years to do it and we'd STILL only have the time from noticing they're coming until they hit orbit to come up with some worthwhile antiorbit defenses. Even if we detect them as far out as the Kuiper belt (and I thoroughly doubt we have the sensor technology to do that) and their closing speed for the final leg averages to about one PSL that gives us all of a MONTH. Unless they take YEARS to go from where we notice them to actually being able to attack there's no way in hell we can set up any worthwhile orbital/suborbital defenses (DECADES, more likely).

[spartasman]

Ok, first of all, the Theory of relativity states, in layman's terms; that as one approaches the speed of light, time slows down for those in travel. So then, the lizards accelerating to 1/2 the speed of light would slow down time for them. Also, you must remember that in space there is nothing that causes friction or resistance, so the Lizards must simply speed up, and then slow down in time to be caught in the gravity of our solar system. This does not necessarily entail them burning their engines at us to slow down, it would be a gradual process taking possibly years, most likely using small thrusters to slow themselves down; after all, if you decelerate too fast from half the speed of light, you will be turned into a fine paste. If the Races slowing mechanism was so noticeable, why wasn't it that people didn't recognize a hundred twinkling new dots blinking brightly in the sky in 1938?

Um-why? And the TOTAL length of the trip is completely irrelevant. It could take them a couple million years to do it and we'd STILL only have the time from noticing they're coming until they hit orbit to come up with some worthwhile antiorbit defenses. Even if we detect them as far out as the Kuiper belt (and I thoroughly doubt we have the sensor technology to do that) and their closing speed for the final leg averages to about one PSL that gives us all of a MONTH. Unless they take YEARS to go from where we notice them to actually being able to attack there's no way in hell we can set up any worthwhile orbital/suborbital defenses (DECADES, more likely).

the races invasion took time, in the books they orbited earth for one of their years (half an Earth year) before invading, they needed time to wake up the troops and get everything ready. Now, if they noticed us tinkering with the communications systems that we have now from a long way off, like in the books, they would start waking up their troops earlier (or at least they will for the sake of the story). Given that we do in fact watch the solar system (if only with observatories) we should be able to spot them coming in while they are still preparing.

[Samuel]

Ok, first of all, the Theory of relativity states, in layman's terms; that as one approaches the speed of light, time slows down for those in travel.

I don't believe the effects are major at .5 c. Relativity calculator gives the time dialation factor as .866.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't believe the effects are major at .5 c. Relativity calculator gives the time dialation factor as .866.

That's going to be noticeable (six hours for me is five hours for you in your spaceship)... but I can't see how it makes any difference to what spartasman is talking about.

Ok, first of all, the Theory of relativity states, in layman's terms; that as one approaches the speed of light, time slows down for those in travel.

Spartasman, would you mind sharing what the theory of relativity states in non-layman's terms? Because I would very much like to check your math.

This does not necessarily entail them burning their engines at us to slow down, it would be a gradual process taking possibly years, most likely using small thrusters to slow themselves down; after all, if you decelerate too fast from half the speed of light, you will be turned into a fine paste.

...Excuse me. Can't they just decelerate at the same rate they accelerated? Presumably their main engines can boost them up to their cruising speed without killing the crew. I mean, speeding up too fast will paste you just as thoroughly as slowing down too fast.

And if they had to burn their main engines to get up to speed, how can they slow back down without burning those engines again?

If the Races slowing mechanism was so noticeable, why wasn't it that people didn't recognize a hundred twinkling new dots blinking brightly in the sky in 1938?

Because Harry Turtledove is a professor of Byzantine history, not physics.

Seriously, that's the most probable answer. Given the frequency with which people point telescopes in the general direction of Tau Ceti, they would definitely spot the drive flares of a bunch of relativistic starships decelerating to match course with our solar system.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm just gonna say it; Don't write this. I don't think you have the science background, creativity, or literary ability to do it right.