War and piracy in scifi; a brainbug?

[Stofsk]

Is war in space a scifi brainbug?

What are some of the causes of war? Territory and resources are two, major causes. When your territory is small but the next door neighbour's is big, jealously creeps in. Why not steal a bit of land from them? They surely couldn't use it all. Resources are another one: wars for oil, farmable land, mineral wealth (diamonds, gold, opium etc). Do both of these reasons make sense, when in scifi territory literally means the 'Sky's the limit'? Want to be rich? Go to the asteroid belt.

So what other reasons are there to go to war? Ideology? Religion? Discuss.

Also the portrayal of piracy seems to be a brainbug as well. Larry Niven made the famous quote "Anyone who thinks he can make money on piracy in outer space would make ten times as much by working legitimately." Discuss. What would be 'realistic' piracy, in a scifi setting? What are some of the reasons piracy might come about? Would it be a kind of 'industrial espionage/sabotage' affair?

[Gunhead]

Ideology is the number one reason for war in SF.
Second would be capturing important resources under the pretense of ideology.
Fighting in deep space would at any rate be once in a blue moon occurance.
Space superiority should be established over a system, since controlling empty space is worthless. "Orbit is the ultimate high ground" is a good way of putting it.


I think pirating in universes where space travel is difficult, and FTL comm. doesn't exist is, feasible, but not necessarily worth the effort. If FTL is easy and readily available, but still no FTL comm. pirating would be a pretty good way to make money, provided that there is a sufficient amount of targets to raid with high enough value.
Common FTL and FTL comm is bout the same as above except pirating is far more dangerous as retaliation can be swift and creating an ambush is easier thanks to FTL comm.

-Gunhead

[Companion Cube]

I remember some piece of WH40K fluff stating something to the effect that almost all wars in space are fought over inhabitable worlds, which makes sense. Nothing wrong with having a bit more lebensraum, at any rate.

[harbringer]

Most if not all wars begin for 1 or more of three main reasons 1)wealth 2)power 3)land. Of the three power is the most common (even if someone is sayng they are doing it for their god the person telling them to is doing it for power) for example WW2 and all of the colonial conflicts were over power, the punic wars was power and money ditto troy.

Wealth is always a compelling reason due to the fact that even in space you still have to obtain material somehow and taking it from someone's stockpile is easier than digging it and refining it yourself. There may not even be in all places abundant resources. Food would be a primary resource in asteroid belts and could start wars. Power will always be at the heart of most conflicts due to the fact that the lust for it lives in every dictator. Sometimes war itself is an expression of power. For every man willing to fight for power over his own destiny (otherwise known as freedom) there is at least 2 that want to take it away. Land is less compelling in space it would largely depend on the abundance of habitable planets and the living conditions of those planets.

Piracy will pay as long as a) it is efficient to do so and b)there are those with the skills, training and equipment to do so. The main form any piracy could take is a privateer. As such it is more an extension of the above and not done to be profitable - more to annoy the crap out of someone. You would probably see an almost infinate amount of smuggling and so forth though since space is so vast stopping a determined and skilled smuggler would be difficult.

Just my opinion ... but hey I don't think I'm that far wrong.

[Stofsk]

I remember some piece of WH40K fluff stating something to the effect that almost all wars in space are fought over inhabitable worlds, which makes sense.

I can see a battle taking place in deep space, over an asteroid or something, which nevertheless had some strategic value (attackers are hitting some kind of secret base, or asteroid mining team, or something like that)

Nothing wrong with having a bit more lebensraum, at any rate.

So wars over inhabited planets are not about capturing and acquiring territory, but as a means to assert national dominance over other's territory?

[NecronLord]

Also the portrayal of piracy seems to be a brainbug as well. Larry Niven made the famous quote "Anyone who thinks he can make money on piracy in outer space would make ten times as much by working legitimately." Discuss. What would be 'realistic' piracy, in a scifi setting? What are some of the reasons piracy might come about? Would it be a kind of 'industrial espionage/sabotage' affair?

... Naquadah ...

[Stofsk]

Wazzat, Necro?

[Gunhead]

The usefulness/uselessness of uninhabited system depend greatly on the type of FTL used. In 40K FTL travel is no means easy or fast, they could use almost any system with planets as base for their fleet, if it's within striking distance of several key systems. In BTECH the reason why a military district is at a maximum of 30ly across, is that's the maximum jump distance of a ship. In SW there's little or no need to keep bases in remote systems because they have FTL comm. and sensors. Their ships are fast and can perform multiple jumps without a reload period or similar hinderances.

-Gunhead

[Stofsk]

Unless you're of course a rebel organisation who's intent on hiding.

[Gunhead]

Unless you're of course a rebel organisation who's intent on hiding.

-"You rebel scumm." <--- Greatest SW line ever.

One more thing about pirating. In a universe where FTL jumps or whatnot are instantenous, and there's FTL comm. pirating is very dangerous. If the attacked ship can get a message out and there's a military vessel nearby, things could get tricky for the pirates.

-Gunhead

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Is war in space a scifi brainbug?

War in space only works if you have at least one of the following enablers:

A) Fast, cheap FTL technology. Though this is mainly for big interstellar wars. You could concievably have small brushfire wars within the confines of a single solar system. Though such a war, realistically, would end really quickly, with the forces of one side breaching the habitats of the opposition, or managing to slip an asteroid past the opposition's defenses to wipe out a major city or three.

B) Limited resources to compete for. This only works if you have species of comparable biochemistry that would want to settle fairly similar planets. From what we know of biochemistry, this is actually fairly plausible. And, while planets in the galaxy are commonplace, those capable of supporting life like ours may be remarkably rare. But would they be rare enough to fight over?

C) Bizarre, contrived ideological fights. Hey, they're aliens. We shouldn't expect them to act and believe as we do, right? There's no reason to go to war just because the Xalrons of Volak III believe that the creator of the universe is a giant jellyfish. We'd have nothing in common with them otherwise. Though, you could contrive it so the Xalrons of Volak III are engaged in a Space Jihad, furthering the cause of the giant jellyfish by killing all the infidels, regardless of what species they happen to be

D) Politics. Miscommunications between dissimilar species can create enough hostility that one believes that declaring war is the option that will allow them to best address the insult. However, this requires A and B to work.

So, really, for war in space to work, you need big, highly sophisticated civilizations with fast FTL, similar biochemsitries, thin skin, and poor terraforming abilities. Any other time, it won't work, except in unusual cases.

Also the portrayal of piracy seems to be a brainbug as well. Larry Niven made the famous quote "Anyone who thinks he can make money on piracy in outer space would make ten times as much by working legitimately." Discuss. What would be 'realistic' piracy, in a scifi setting? What are some of the reasons piracy might come about? Would it be a kind of 'industrial espionage/sabotage' affair?

If you wanted realistic piracy in sci-fi, you would look to the example of illegal filetraders on P2P networks, rather than Peg-Leg Pete leaping onto the deck of a hapless Spanish galleon with two pistols in his hands and a cutlass in his belt. With any sufficiently advanced civilization, you'd expect there to be an awful lot of intellectual property floating about. And you'd expect to find a lot of companies with a vested interest in protecting their IP, and individuals who'd rather get something for nothing. You could imagine this possibly being a reason for war in space, provided your universe meets the conditions outlined earlier. Imagine some massive intersteller RIAA against the 'little guy.' Except instead of sending hordes of lawyers with lawsuits in hand, the RIAA in Space might be sending squads of stormtroopers, or maybe squads of stormtrooper-lawyers who kill by shooting bullets engraved with subpoenas.

If you must have the space equivalent of Peg-Leg Pete and his cutlasses, you need the same starting conditions that make war in space possible. Otherwise, you're left with illegal theft of IP and industrial espionage/sabotage as the only realistic sorts of piracy in sci-fi. And frankly, realistic space piracy would be pretty boring to write, as the pirates would either by guys sitting naked in front of their computers, or mild-mannered men who spend years infiltrating SuperGalacticConglomerate and then just happen to get an offer they can't refuse from HyperGalacticCorporation.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Wazzat, Necro?

That would be that magical do-all version of Unobtainium found in Stargate: SG-1. It is surprisingly rare, has many properties that make it ridiculously desireable and worth fighting over.

[Companion Cube]

So wars over inhabited planets are not about capturing and acquiring territory, but as a means to assert national dominance over other's territory?

Bah, poor word choice on my part.

[NecronLord]

Wazzat, Necro?

That would be that magical do-all version of Unobtainium found in Stargate: SG-1. It is surprisingly rare, has many properties that make it ridiculously desireable and worth fighting over.

Prometheus Unbound Spoiler: A case of Refined Weapons Grade Naquadah carried by two humanoid aliens buys you a BC-303 on the open market.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Some sort of unobtainium is a good reason for war and piracy imho.

It would be stupid to fight over inhabited worlds if you can engage hostile ships lightyears away when they are still under FTL drive or if you have means to force them to sublight speeds.
Why fight over your own worlds if you can fight hostile forces without to risk of collateral damage?

[Xon]

Wazzat, Necro?

A material which is highly expensive to refine, ultra compact, shelf life in the millions of years, and generates energy like there is no tomorrow, relatively chemically inert.

It isnt overly rare due to the utterly inexpensive nature of FTL in stargate-verse. Refining it is the problem, not pulling it out of the ground.

[Xon]

However, the biggest thing for Naquadah is its utter trivialness to use.

This is the biggest differences to most bersions Unobtainium. Very hard to make, but trivial to use. Most versions of Unobtainium make it at least moderately complex to use.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Also the portrayal of piracy seems to be a brainbug as well. Larry Niven made the famous quote "Anyone who thinks he can make money on piracy in outer space would make ten times as much by working legitimately." Discuss. What would be 'realistic' piracy, in a scifi setting? What are some of the reasons piracy might come about? Would it be a kind of 'industrial espionage/sabotage' affair?

40k's Dark Eldar do it for an otherwise unacquirable resource: slaves.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

IIRC piracy on the sea still happens nowadays, except the pirates are using fast boats and AK-47s instead of cutlass and flintlock pistols. And no more Jolly Roger. Probably piracy in sci-fi is based on those of our real world?

[Stormin]

Piracy of goods could still happen in sci fi, a team of hackers/shippers stealing entire shiploads of expensive goods that simply vanish could be the basis of a decent story from even a moderatly talented writer.

[Patrick Degan]

Is war in space a scifi brainbug?

War in space only works if you have at least one of the following enablers:

A) Fast, cheap FTL technology.

B) Limited resources to compete for.

C) Bizarre, contrived ideological fights.

D) Politics.

So, really, for war in space to work, you need big, highly sophisticated civilizations with fast FTL, similar biochemsitries, thin skin, and poor terraforming abilities. Any other time, it won't work, except in unusual cases.

Ideology and politics are always only a minimal cover for the true motivation for war: the control of resources, territory, and labour-power. You could conceivably take over other star systems for their habitable planets, but if your civilisation already has the engineering capability to construct FTL starships, it seems not too difficult a challenge simply to build orbital habitats around any sun with a decent energy-output and a stable cycle. Resources? Asteroid belts and moons in any of those star systems should be packed with mineral wealth to supply the habitats for hundreds of millenia. And with no intelligent life in these systems, they're there for the taking. And robots should solve the problem of labour-power as well.

If you wanted realistic piracy in sci-fi, you would look to the example of illegal filetraders on P2P networks, rather than Peg-Leg Pete leaping onto the deck of a hapless Spanish galleon with two pistols in his hands and a cutlass in his belt.

The Cowboy Bebop episode "Bohemian Rhapsody" had a fairly good depiction of what you could call realistic space-piracy: criminals hacking their way into the tollbooth computers of the astral gates to skim off the collections to their own bank accounts. The scheme was devised years earlier by Chessmaster Hex, one of the original designers of the gate system and scheduled to be put into operation at the time the first upgrades on the gates were to be carried out —when the hacking hardware could be installed under cover of the maintenance work.

[tharkûn]

There are numerous reasons to fight wars even with almost limitless economic potentia. First and foremost it gives you someone to blame for all that is wrong in society as well as a reason to curtail civil liberty and consolidate power.

Having an enemy means you can blame the shortcomings of your regime on them rather than on the flawed practices that actually caused them. Likewise having an enemy gives you an easier shot at censoring the press, silencing dissidents, and otherwise whitewashing your regime. And things that would normally send the populace up in arms will be readily accepted as necessary measures for the duration of war. Even more fun you can use undesirables as cannon fodder - empty the jails, kill off uncooperative military units, and get rid of pesky ideological blocs.


Piracy with a starship is far easier: Extortion. Pull up alongside a passenger liner and threaten to nuke it if they or their relatives don't fork over wads of cash into the future equivalent of the Bank of the Caymen Islands. If society is sufficiently splintered you might even see the rise of a new Barbary where it is cheaper to pay off the pirates than to build a navy to hunt them down.

Or one could go for another simple tactic. Target an unarmed liner with a nuke and demand the surrender of the ship, demand a surrender (or they die grotesquely), and then sell off the quite valuable prize ship for somebody else to use legitimately.

Really the only time piracy is not plausible is when either a shipping industry itself is not plausible (why have ships when you can transmute the ground under your feet into whatever you like?) or when somebody has a sufficiently large navy with significantly quick enough response times. Without a navy that can prevent piracy you can always opt to extort money up to the point where entities beleive it is cheaper to build such a navy than to pay you off.

[Chmee]

Think of interstellar civilization as more like Earth in the Age of Exploration. Travel takes a long time ... there are vast unexplored regions that may contain highly useful resources or rare goods back home ... when something particularly valuable is found, multiple powerful empires might fight for possession of it.

Piracy isn't hard to imagine, because you've got long distances to travel -- eventually you're going to be far from the prying eyes of galactic Law & Order.

We think of competition as less likely because we think that the things we currently covet -- high quality ores, chemicals, etc. -- will be almost infinitely plentiful if you can scoop up asteroid fields. But something new will be made rare and sought-after as the technology to travel interstellar distances is developed, whether its Naquadah, magnetic monopoles, antimatter asteroids ... it'll be something.

[SCVN 2812]

Piracy in space is not too unimagineable. If space travel is made economical enough for a large enough amount of commercial traffic such that there are either enough ships roaming the void or established shipping lanes, piracy is a given.

A solar system seems tiny to us since we're used to talking about civilizations that span dozens to tens of millions of systems but if you have a large enough volume of commercial traffic comming and going even FTL sensors that can detect any moving object in a system would have a hard time keeping track of who are the sheep and who are the wolves.

Our solar system for example would be a pirate's playground. There are 9 planets, several dozen large moons, many dozens of smaller moons, asteroids, comets. All in all, a great many places for scoundrals to run and hide from 'the man' and to set up a small base to operate out of and plenty of wide open space to disappear into that would have to be searched. Enough that without FTL sensors, it would not be that hard to use silent running to appear at long range to be space junk.

[Jawawithagun]

Do not forget that a great part of historical piracy was not fighting Spanish galleons but raiding small and relatively defenceless coastal settlements.
This can be reflected by raids on young colonies etc. (provided a cheap and easy way to get out of the planetary gravity well exist)

Also, why not hit on robotic space freighters with only a minimal crew and changing their course to whereever you have got a customer for them?