The Race Vs. Earth in 2010

[Simon_Jester]

Well... Maybe as an idea to be kept on the back burner for several years while you pick up a lot more practice (and learn more about the way space travel works)

[Xon]

The EMP nukes would utterly rape modern-earth. The entire internet would crash from having a few vital supernodes taken out, and the global markets would go along with it as all the trading hardware just got turned into expensive paperwieghts.

Sure, the military would still function in most countries but that is about it. The civilian sector would almost completely meltdown.

[phongn]

Stuart's indicated that a surprisingly large amount of civilian stuff is EMP-hardened to one extent or another - financial market systems may be part of that, for example.

[Xon]

While it is reasonable common and even "cheap" to build faraday cages around datacenters, it will not stop systemic failure once you hit entire supernodes. Infact, it is the surviving nodes which actually will crippled the system. Also, the communication links for trade markets are the true weak points.

The modern internet and fiber cables(due to electronic repeaters) are decidedly not EMP proof.

There is then the fact that markets are non-rational, and the emotional shock of America being attacked would cause more damage than EMPing a single city. Never mind the Race hitting a few dozen to hundreds of cities in the span of minutes.

[TimothyC]

Xon - think about this for one moment:

Two weeks ago, while I was at work for the last time at my old job, the building that I work in was struck my lightning. The big-box electronics store that I worked at lost only 3 TVs out of several hundred in the store (all were plugged in and turned on). No TV had even a power strip protecting it Yes, several circuit breakers were tripped, but that was it. A lightning strike to the same building is going to deliver a whole lot more energy than a high altitude nuclear initiation is going to.

[spartasman]

...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?

Turtledove never states how it is they survive the acceleration, given that they do not have any sort of artificial gravity or inertial dampeners (that are ever mentioned), it would be my guess that the speeding-up process was done gradually while the crews were mostly in cold sleep. This does not really explain it, but as you said Turtledove is a history professor, not a physicist. This of course is even more confusing as Atvar and other Race crewmen are walking around during their approach to Earth. Of course, in the end, it did not matter HOW the Race got to Earth, only that they were there to invade (for the sake of the plot).

Ok, as for the relativity thing; first of all, I am operating on a shallow understanding of the concept, but I do understand the basic principles. The race moving at half the speed of light would slow down their perceived passage of time, not too much, but still enough that it would have some effects on them. How this really effects them, how they manage to slow down and reach earth, well, I don't know, I'm not a physicist either.

The simple fact is that science has little to do with how Turtledove wrote the book. I would like to make the story, but I would have to say that you are correct in saying I do not have the literary skill to accomplish something like this at the moment, though I would argue on the creativity part.

[Simon_Jester]

Turtledove never states how it is they survive the acceleration, given that they do not have any sort of artificial gravity or inertial dampeners (that are ever mentioned), it would be my guess that the speeding-up process was done gradually while the crews were mostly in cold sleep. This does not really explain it, but as you said Turtledove is a history professor, not a physicist.

What? It's a perfectly good explanation:

The ships accelerate at a rate equal to the gravity on their homeworld (their equivalent of 1g). They keep burning the engines for as long as it takes to get up to speed (months or years). They coast at their cruising speed for a while. When they get close to their destination, they turn the ships around and burn the engines in the opposite direction, slowing down at a rate equal to gravity on their homeworld.

Perfectly normal, and exactly the way we'd like to design interstellar spacecraft if we had a way to do it. How else would you have them do it?

Ok, as for the relativity thing; first of all, I am operating on a shallow understanding of the concept, but I do understand the basic principles. The race moving at half the speed of light would slow down their perceived passage of time, not too much, but still enough that it would have some effects on them. How this really effects them, how they manage to slow down and reach earth, well, I don't know, I'm not a physicist either.

But this matters if you're going to try and invoke it as part of an explanation for something, which it sounded like you were. If you're just saying "Uh, I heard that there's something called time dilation," then you're right, but that doesn't tell us anything.

Nor does it refute the point that if interstellar spaceships are trying to slow down from relativistic speeds to come to a stop in our solar system, we'll see them coming from months away.

The simple fact is that science has little to do with how Turtledove wrote the book. I would like to make the story, but I would have to say that you are correct in saying I do not have the literary skill to accomplish something like this at the moment, though I would argue on the creativity part.

Creativity is important because characters have to take on a life of their own. You can't just write "Rambo in an alternate version of Worldwar" and expect it to come across well.

Think about the characters Turtledove actually uses in his novels. Take the Worldwar novels as examples. Each character has something about them that makes them special, for good or for bad. Something that colors how they react to events and that makes their view of the situation different, somehow. They have specific troubles of their own that involve them in subplots. They're not just video cameras recording events for the viewer's benefit.

And Turtledove isn't even an especially good writer when it comes to characterization, at least not when it comes to his multi-viewpoint novels.

[Batman]

They're invading earth for SOME reason and apparently can fight under our surface gravity too so their home planet's gravity should be reasonably close to ours. Accelerating to/decelerating from .5c at one earth g, incidentally, would take 177 days (not figuring in time dilation).
That seems reasonably compatible with a 24 year travel time in a boost/coast/unboost scenario.

[phongn]

While it is reasonable common and even "cheap" to build faraday cages around datacenters, it will not stop systemic failure once you hit entire supernodes. Infact, it is the surviving nodes which actually will crippled the system. Also, the communication links for trade markets are the true weak points.

I'd actually expect the IXPs to be hardened, if only due to transients in the power supply, lightning, etc.

The modern internet and fiber cables(due to electronic repeaters) are decidedly not EMP proof.

Shouldn't optical amplifiers actually be fairly resistent to damage?

There is then the fact that markets are non-rational, and the emotional shock of America being attacked would cause more damage than EMPing a single city. Never mind the Race hitting a few dozen to hundreds of cities in the span of minutes.

Well, yes. The fact that there's an alien invasion would have negative effects on the market

[Ford Prefect]

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.

Though I'm not exactly an expert, the larger colony designs have billions of tons of air in them, which apparently acts as insulation (setting aside the loads of actual metal and shit that the colony would also be made out of). In any case, the reason why the Race want a new planet is a) because turtledove wanted to write a story about alien invasion and b) that's the only real reason. It makes the Race come off as being pretty dumb, but that was apparently the intent.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The Race feels it has a duty to conquer/rule other worlds. Basically, they're conquering planets because they can.

[Xon]

A lightning strike to the same building is going to deliver a whole lot more energy than a high altitude nuclear initiation is going to.

You completely fail at understanding how EMP effects electronics.

Also the resulting power grid failure from multipule EMPs would make the Northeast Blackout of 2003 look tiny. Drop a major city out, and it's feeder stations will cause massive issues of the rest of the grid it is connected to. Kill multipule cities worth of power and whatever grid they are attached to will definitely fail.

The very mechanics of how electrical substation work, mean an EMP would baddly damage them. Nevermind the kilometers of electrically active cabling for the EMP to endue wacky surges in.

I'd actually expect the IXPs to be hardened, if only due to transients in the power supply, lightning, etc.

The hardening for surviving lightning strikes is radically different (stick a large metal poll on a the building with a copper path to ground) to what you need to survive an reasonable size EMP. Most datacenters concentrate on filtering the power as it comes in, the actual equipment itself normally is unshielded beyond what the building provides.

Remember, it only takes a few supernodes to fail for the entire internet infrastruct will come crashing down. And any sustained EMP attack would cause almost complete disruption to the nations power grid.

Shouldn't optical amplifiers actually be fairly resistent to damage?

The optical amplifiers are fairly sensitive electronics, it doesn't take much in the way of power surges to break or damege them. The undersea cables aren't so much the issue as the connection points.

[Samuel]

The Race feels it has a duty to conquer/rule other worlds. Basically, they're conquering planets because they can.

How do you get such a belief in the first place? Aren't interstellar ships incredibly expensive?

[Mystikal]

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.

Though I'm not exactly an expert, the larger colony designs have billions of tons of air in them, which apparently acts as insulation (setting aside the loads of actual metal and shit that the colony would also be made out of). In any case, the reason why the Race want a new planet is a) because turtledove wanted to write a story about alien invasion and b) that's the only real reason. It makes the Race come off as being pretty dumb, but that was apparently the intent.

Maybe because a planet would have more room to live one and it is easier from a comfort stand-point to exploit resources on a planet with a preferred enviroment than to rsik all the crazyiness in an asteroid filed? Maybe they don't want to have to worry about laosing there entire oxygen supply? Maybe because by conquering a planet instead of building habitats you are getting a net resource gain?

You might make the arguement that it cost too much in money but that's only if you view it like NASA or such. Anthropomorphisizing an alien species' culutre and economy is a fallacy due to, oh I don't know, the sheer innumerable level of possible differences, no matter how human they appear. They could have very easily just paid workers wages while transporting and using exploitable resources. In a command economy like they could easily have, paying for resources IE metal, fuel, whatever, is unneccesary when you control everything. Since they control entire worlds (two or three) they owe nobody for mining rights or purchasing resources or even power that they provide. The only real pay they need to be doing is labor pay, both Blue-Collar and White-Collar along with military training. Resource wise, it is obviously that the expenditure wasn't massively draining to the point of near collapse or anything approaching it.

Plus, you forgot that Sentients don't always go for the smart and logical choice. They may not like that choice for whatever reason and choose the less pratical but still doable choice simply because they prefer it for comfort, or for the simple fact that it is more appealing and familiar.



Now, having thought about it more and remembering the EMP blast, yes, civilian communications could take a major hit but Militarily, it is still a stomp. The only hope they would have would be to concentrate there forces on a most desired area like say the Sahara, the Mideast, or Australia. If they do what they did in the original, their forces will be spread too thin and will be whittled away in individual engagements. If they get clever and dicide on a diplomatic course of action while leveraging there military and nukes against potential hostiles while concentrating forces in a specific area, then I can see them and humanity making out fairly well and potentially ending up as allies. If not...rapestompery will prevail.

[Ilya Muromets]

The Race feels it has a duty to conquer/rule other worlds. Basically, they're conquering planets because they can.

How do you get such a belief in the first place? Aren't interstellar ships incredibly expensive?

You have to remember that the Race Homeworld has been unified under a single, stable theocratic empire for millennia. Belief that the Emperor is some infallible god is so ingrained even the most cynical Lizard can't even think that he might be mistaken about anything.

Now couple that with the fact that, somewhere in their history, some Emperor decided that it was manifest destiny for the Race to spread their peace and stability to other civilizations once they found out such other civilizations existed (this was offhandedly mentioned in one of the books, but I can't quite remember which). God-Emperor thinks they should do something, the Race do it. Yes, it's silly and cliche, but that's all their reasoning amounts to.

[Simon_Jester]

The Race feels it has a duty to conquer/rule other worlds. Basically, they're conquering planets because they can.

How do you get such a belief in the first place? Aren't interstellar ships incredibly expensive?

So far, the only planets they've conquered were still in the Iron Age.

In effect, their "conquest" is a normal planet-to-planet interstellar colonization effort. It just comes in two phases:

1) Heavily armed first contact group arrives, numbering... several million? They have limited industrial capability, but lots and lots of weapons. This group prepares territory for the arrival of the main wave of colonists. This is the "Conquest Fleet."
2) Unarmed main body arrives, sets up a full industrial base on the planet.

The first wave isn't really expecting to have to fight a war against a credible opponent as we understand the term. At most, they're expecting to have to do some unusually violent pest control in the process of securing the choicest bits of the planet for the Colonization Fleet.

As for why they can afford to do this: they have an incredibly stable world government; they can do whatever the hell they want with their industrial surplus.

[spartasman]

Ok, here is a more complete pot idea.

WorldWar: Throwing the Balance

-The Race approaches Earth's solar system, picking up radio transmissions an their way in. they are arriving more than 10 years than in Turtledoves book, due to some altercations with equipment, and an increase in the number of Killercraft to the fleet.

-Arriving in the solar system in 1952, the Race studies the planet, preparing for the invasion, but Fleetlord Atvar decides to contact the Emperor before going ahead with an invasion

-the conquest fleet is brought into orbit around Tosev 6 (Saturn) and most of the crews are put into cold sleep (including Atvar), however, a large contingent of personnel are left awake to monitor the situation on Earth, including Shiplord Straha, who is being punished for his earlier outbursts.

-after 24 years (12 Earth years) the fleet receives word from the Emperor to go ahead with the invasion, however, Straha has been monitoring the progress of humans on Earth, and knows that if they attempt to attack with simply conventional means, they will fail.

-The rest of the fleet personal are woken from cold sleep and briefed on the situation. Atvar, realizing how far the Tosevites have progressed since he has gone into cold sleep is immensely worried, and hesitates to act whilst the Races invasion force is prepared.

-in 1967, The Race is in position over Tosev 3, prepared to invade. With the colonization fleet only 11 years behind them, they must act quickly.

-Several sensor systems detect the fleets ships in orbit, but it is mainly hacked up to being an anomaly in the recently added systems. However, governments on earth have known of a possible alien threat for many years (several probes had been brought down in years past, including one over New Mexico, along with others over Russia and Cuba).

-Even with their fore-warnings, the governments of Earth are too busy amongst themselves, and the information too top-secret, to be bothered toward allocating funds to develop possible weapons to defend the earth other than conventional, and new, ICBMS.

-The race invasion is sudden, with dozens of nuclear bombs detonated in orbit to disrupt communications and other hardware. This has great effect, eliminating most civilian hardware. Military hardware is effected also, but to a much lesser extent. Regardless, NORAD and other NATO and Warsaw pact stations and facilities are left blind and unusable.

-The Race quickly expands in several theaters, Africa becomes a major source of fighting, with several nations (South Africa, Rhodesia) holding their own against race forces. Most of the other areas of Africa are overrun, but with many rebel groups conducting severe guerrilla raids. The attack in the U.S meets much resistance, however, with their central command effectively out of actions, along with alot of hardware fried and the National Highway System which, ironically, helps the Race expand quickly, the U.S National Guard forces are pushed back, though they do inflict heavy casualties to Race forces. In Europe, many of the Races landing sights are eliminated quickly. The only exceptions are several sights in the isolationist fascist Spain, and the large landing areas in Poland. The USSR quickly begins to counterattack, swamping the Races landing zones with Polish and Soviet troops, holding them back from making any significant gains. In South America, the Race makes great conquests early on, but quickly become entangled by the vast jungles and severe partisan activity in the northern part of the continent. In Asia, several landing sights are secured, and Race forces expand in all directions, despite heavy partisan activity. In China however, immediate, massive attacks by millions of PLA troops throw the Race back on their heels, driving them back. Australia is equally frustrating. The terrain, which is to the liking and comfort of the Race, is defended guerrillas and bushmen, as well as regular Australian army units.

-As the initial attacks bog down, Atvar slowly loses his grip on the situation. While many large areas are conquered initially, there is no place on Earth where the Race has been entirely successful. As a result, he orders the nuclear bombardment of several major population centers, mostly in Asia, to help the faltering ground operations. This is made very difficult due to the fact that the Race has only managed to secure air superiority over territory in which they control, due to large numbers of enemy fighters. Because of this, the bombings are conducted from high orbit, making them slightly inaccurate. Chicago, Kansas City, Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Nanning, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Caracas, along with several other cities are destroyed. However, in order to conduct this mission, the Races killercraft must fly in the upper atmosphere and be picked up by the Races ships. The powers on Earth fire their operable ICBMs at the low-flying ships, destroying 3 of the fleets ships, including the 56th Emperor Jossano, which was actually his when several nuclear tipped missiles missed one of the low flying ships. This eliminates 80% of the Races nuclear ordinance, which causes Atvar even more woes.

-the Race is pushed further in as the nations of Earth begin to recover from the initial shock and damage of the invasion. Despite the nuclear bombardment, most of the infrastructure is left operational, and the Races forces soon begin to be overrun in several areas. The Chinese are the first to drive off the Race, sacrificing over 2 million soldiers in the effort. The Russians are next, utterly crushing the landing zones in Poland. Next, the United States fires off several more conventional missiles to keep the fleet's ships out of orbit around the U.S, stranding the shrinking pocket of Race soldiers. Finally, after Race air superiority is totally denied (with the only reason they held onto it for so long being the anti-aircraft batteries in the Race-held territories), the Race attempts to extract the remaining troops in North America. This comes at a horrid price, 7 of the Races ships are brought down by missile attacks, despite the attempts to destroy the incoming projectiles. One ship, the 13th Emperor Poropss, a hospital ship, is downed within a small pocket of Race resistance. The ship and its surrounding troops are allowed to surrender, much to their suprise, and the ship is immediately defended with nearly a quarter of the entire U.S operable air force.

-As the last Race soldiers are either evacuated or captured, Atvar is displaced by Straha, who gains a vote of no confidence after the disastrous invasion. Straha immediately begins the evacuation of all territories not held firmly by the Race. Asia is abandoned, and all available Race troops are sent to either Africa, South America, or Australia. the destruction of the downed hospital ship is prioritized with 2 nuclear bombs. However, both fail to destroy the ships, as the killercraft carrying them are shot down before they can deliver the devices, the remaining nuclear devices are hoarded, too valuable to waste now.

-The troop surges in South America are largely successful, and much of the continent is occupied. However, in Africa and Australia, fierce resistance is given by the native populations, causing the Race to falter in many areas. With large amounts of support from other nations, along with their continued pressure on the Race, Southern Africa is eventually secured, somewhat. However, a major outbreak of disease in central Africa devastates the already weakened populations, leaving them unable to provide effective resistance. In Australia, large amounts of aid from NATO allows the Australian army to push the Race back, and the arrival of several U.S carrier and battle groups provides further pressure.

-in mid 1968, a massive attack by all NATO and the Warsaw pact devastates the fleet. thousands of converted ICBMS launch into the atmosphere, destroying 13 ships of the Race, crippling several others. Realizing the battle is lost, Straha withdraws his forces from Australia, using a nuclear bomb to cover his retreating forces.

-Resurgent insurrection in South America, along with massive amounts of supplies of weapons in a race between the Eastern Block and the West result in the Race dedicating a very large force to defend their tenuously held territory.

-A massive assualt, led by NATO troops, crosses the Mediterranean and drives the Race south across the Sahara. In order to allow his troops the time to retreat, Straha uses 3 nuclear bombs to cover their retreat, turning vast swaths of the Sahara into glass. However, the NATO units are equipped for a nulcear battlefield, and continue their push, to the dismay of Straha.

-Straha decides to cut his losses. All Race ground forces are withdrawn from from Earth, and Straha looses his remaining atomic ordinance on areas in South America and Africa, both to cover his soldiers retreat and for revenge. the conquest fleet flees earth, to warn the colonization fleet and to fall back to Home.

-1971. Despite the massive ecological damage to the planet, the nations of Earth rebuild. This is aided by a new method for cleaning up radiation and curing radiation poisoning, all derived from Race technology captured on the downed hospital ship.

-1998. Home is invaded, glory to the Master Race.

so, hows that for creativity?

[phongn]

Couple notes:

1. You can't hide that fleet. Nobody is going to overlook it - we'll SEE the ships coming, and the space-surveillance radar systems aren't going to be dismissed as buggy - not when they get verification.
2. Their EMP is going to do nothing to the major communications networks of the time. The military networks are hardened - and so is the civilian network (AT&T Long Lines was specifically designed to function in nuclear war, for example). For that matter, vacuum tubes are fairly resistant to the EMP.
3. On this board, at least, you're going to face people who are fairly well versed in military dispositions - you might want to do some homework here. Why would the Race land in particular positions X, Y, Z? Where are Earth's forces located? Same goes for the nuclear warfare aspect
4. Who the hell says "glory to the Master Race" in this day and age?

[starslayer]

One more point: if Atvar asks for confirmation, he will have to wait 24 Earth years for it, not 12, as Tau Ceti is about 12 light years away, not six. If they get here in 1952, they won't invade at least until 1976 or thereabouts, not '67. If you assume they would take three years to prepare (1952+12=1964), they'll be invading in 1979-80, perhaps during the initial days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

[Lonestar]

4. Who the hell says "glory to the Master Race" in this day and age?

People with "more complete" ideas about pot?

[spartasman]

O.K, first of all, please excuse the bad grammar. I wrote this at 12:30 last night and posted it without a second thought. The master race part was a joke that I thought was funny at 1 o'clock in the morning.

anyway, the Races transmission to home takes 12 years (Race years, which are roughly 1/2 an Earth year) to reach home, then 12 (6) years to get back.

[Samuel]

-A massive assualt, led by NATO troops, crosses the Mediterranean and drives the Race south across the Sahara. In order to allow his troops the time to retreat, Straha uses 3 nuclear bombs to cover their retreat, turning vast swaths of the Sahara into glass. However, the NATO units are equipped for a nulcear battlefield, and continue their push, to the dismay of Straha.

How do you retreat or advance across the Sahara? It is a massive desert. As for area denial, it wouldn't work- 3 nukes are not enough to cover the entire Sahara.

[spartasman]

The Race deployed millions of soldiers on Earth in the novels, and completely overran Africa. In this setting, they are using the troops they drafted from the other abandoned theaters to shore up their defenses. Also, the nuking is not area denial, it is to cover the retreating troops from the advancing NATO forces.

[Raxmei]

anyway, the Races transmission to home takes 12 years (Race years, which are roughly 1/2 an Earth year) to reach home, then 12 (6) years to get back.

Tau Ceti (the location of Home) is 12 light years away in earth units. It takes 12 Earth years or 24 Race years for signals to get there and another 12 earth years to return. The colonization fleet is scheduled to arrive two years before a reply could possibly reach the conquest fleet. This is mentioned in colonization series, when Atvar receives a reply to the message he sent to the Emperor about the situation on Earth when he arrived.

[spartasman]

I have not read the Colonization series, I didn't buy them and my library only carries the last 2. I would like to know what the Emperors reply was, if you know. All I know is that in the first WorldWar book, Atvar states that a transmission to Home takes 12 years (Race years) there, and 12 years back.