SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread VIII

[Beowulf]

[ooc]Yup, it looks like a comm sat. Congratulations on sending your men on a suicide mission. Maybe you should look up terms I use before you do something stupid, like go take a look a satellite that goes between about 29k km and 56k km over Terra with a manned orbiter. Brilliant. (My math may be a bit off, but it's pretty close). Not only that, but that's right in the outer Van Allen Belt. It's fine for a couple days, but you'll eventually gain a large enough rad dose to end up dead.

Oh come on!

We have boosters heavy enough to loft a Silver Streak and an extra service module for it into a high-inclination orbit, so there's no need for it to be a suicide mission, other than your say-so. It's not going to be standard mission profile, but then again, we're not at war yet, are we?

First off, Beowulf, you don't get to RP my orbiters. Secondly, I've had restartable upper maneuvering stages and transfer vehicles for orbital refueling for years so I've got oodles of Delta-V to spare. Thirdly, I've long since developed the long-range StS missiles required to blow up satellites at long range if I so desired. SIM-147 is essentially designed to get at the GPS constellation.

But first and foremost you don't get to RP my orbiters. So yeah, that's total bullshit and I'm merrily going to ignore it.

PS: And if it looks like a comm satellite and acts like a comm satellite, then it's a comm satellite and I'll call bullshit on any hypothetical "lol hidden strategic weapons platform" later. Just so you know.

It's not just the high inclination, but the extraordinarily high altitude of the satellites. They're in fucking geosync! I can understand having enough dV to get to even rather high LEO orbits, at high orbital inclinations. But that's still going to be tens of thousands of kilometers below the orbit of these satellites. You don't get to ignore physics. You don't get arbitrarily large amounts of deltaV. Otherwise my MS-1A will be able to reach the moons and back. Also, I don't remember seeing any evidence of a orbital refueling capability for you.

You do something stupid, and I'm going to hammer you for it. If that involves RPing other's assets, there's no rule against it, so long as it is a direct consequence of what you do. You ordered an orbiter to go check them out. I'm showing the results. The crew expected to find a comm sat, because that's what makes sense for the orbit, and they find what they think is a comm sat. And of course, it's verbal dialogue, which doesn't necessarily indicate reality. Like the difference between dialogue and visuals when analyzing SW and ST. Post stands. Unless you decide to not be retarded, and not go check out the satellites.

They look like comm sats because they have giant solar panel arrays and a parabolic dish, with no other distinguishing features aside from a overly large body to the satellite. Which makes sense, since comm sats are pretty much the only type of satellite that really makes sense for that orbit. Example: Mr Bean's weapon sats from last game were in LEO. Surveillance satellites are in LEO (better resolution). Space observatories are in LEO (no reason to boost them higher). Earth observing sats (such as weather) are typically in either LEO or geostationary. Even if they were anti-space assets, it'd make more sense to keep them in a similar orbit to the possible targets. So, why are you paranoid about them?

Oh, and calling the MESS a belligerent alliance? Bad idea. It implies that we're at war, which makes it use in an official statement a de facto declaration of war.

[Siege]

You do something stupid, and I'm going to hammer you for it.

So because President Hank, who is no expert of orbital mechanics, uses a particular phrase in a briefing you immediately assume we're going to be sending astronauts to their deaths? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense . If it's not a viable plan, then what the Rocket Forces would logically do is assume the President meant something workable, like sending the orbiter up to a sustainable altitude, training a telescope on your sat, and blowing it up from a distance if it's determined the thing is a weapon.

Now I admit I made a mistake in ordering what I did, and if I'd actually written the damned orbiter going up there I'd have to live with the consequences, but I didn't do that and you certainly don't get to do it for me when there's plenty other explanations.

Post stands.

Fuck off. Who appointed you the arbiter of what happens and what not in this game?

So, why are you paranoid about them?

Let me think about that for a moment... Why, because fucking Tian Xia is orbiting something over my head with a particularly long loitering time of course. At this stage it doesn't matter what you do, we're going to assume it's some dastardly plan. You've got yourself to blame for it.

Oh, and calling the MESS a belligerent alliance? Bad idea. It implies that we're at war, which makes it use in an official statement a de facto declaration of war.

You know what, if you want to interpret it that way then do so and let's get it over with. You seem to be gunning for war anyway.

[PeZook]

I agreee, however your diplomats calmly ignored that the law of the sea includes the Exclusive Economic Zone out to 200mi and the OICAS and its member state are more than free to ban commercial shipping within that sphere. Moreover since the OICAS could consider itself a colelctive Archipelagic state then it would, under Part IV, retain toal control of the entire inner volume of the Archipegalo. So yeah, what they did was perfectly legal so long as it extends no further than 200mi outward from the IC and encompasses the internal volume as well.

I did remember the exclusive economic zone: however, the inner sea of the ICA is more than 1160 nautical miles across.

Part IV doesn't apply either, since archipelagic baselines can't exceed 125 miles in length, and must encompass an area where the ratio of water to land is between 1:1 and 9:1

Have your justices read the convention more closely

You do something stupid, and I'm going to hammer you for it. If that involves RPing other's assets, there's no rule against it, so long as it is a direct consequence of what you do. You ordered an orbiter to go check them out. I'm showing the results. The crew expected to find a comm sat, because that's what makes sense for the orbit, and they find what they think is a comm sat. And of course, it's verbal dialogue, which doesn't necessarily indicate reality. Like the difference between dialogue and visuals when analyzing SW and ST. Post stands. Unless you decide to not be retarded, and not go check out the satellites.

1) He did establish developing orbital refuelling capability, and

2) It wholly depends what he used to launch that orbiter. Technically, there's nothing preventing him from using a Saturn III or even V/Energia to do it (though using a Saturn means four months or so for preparations)

also, 3) If the missions involved death of the crew and losing an orbiter, it would be reasonable to expect that two days later, a RF generals comes to Sidney Hank's office and tells him it can't be done, not that they go ahead anyway.

"Oh the President told us to do X"

"But that's suicide!"

"Well, he told us to do it"

"Doe he know it's suicide?"

"Well, no. Should we tell him?"

"Nah, let's go ahead with it."

Does it sound reasonable?

[Siege]

He seems to be operating under the assumption that President Hank has a sway over his minions akin to that of Hirohito. Whereas in reality if I really insisted on deliberately sending astronauts to their deaths, not only would the generals protest but the member governments would have my head for offing the NFT's finest. I'm still distantly accountable to them, after all.

[DarthShady]

Roleplay another player's assets without permission and expect it to stand!?

[PeZook]

On another note, this game really picks up the pace once horrible nuclear holocaust is on the horizon

[Bluewolf]

Heh should I start building Vault Tec vaults? But anyway when I flesh out my country a bit I think Cialan is just going to stay out of all this for now, for saftey's sake. I honestly would be squashed in such a situation and I have other things I want to do.

[Beowulf]

You do something stupid, and I'm going to hammer you for it.

So because President Hank, who is no expert of orbital mechanics, uses a particular phrase in a briefing you immediately assume we're going to be sending astronauts to their deaths? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense . If it's not a viable plan, then what the Rocket Forces would logically do is assume the President meant something workable, like sending the orbiter up to a sustainable altitude, training a telescope on your sat, and blowing it up from a distance if it's determined the thing is a weapon.

Now I admit I made a mistake in ordering what I did, and if I'd actually written the damned orbiter going up there I'd have to live with the consequences, but I didn't do that and you certainly don't get to do it for me when there's plenty other explanations.

There's nothing you're going to be able to see from an orbiter that you're not going to be able to see from the ground just as well. In fact, you're probably going to have a better view from the ground, since you can use a larger telescope. Not that it makes a difference. You can't make a mirror big enough to get the details you'd want. And your missiles still wouldn't be able to get that high, since they're tens of thousands of kilometers higher than the MESS GPS system.

You're going to need to loft something with a camera up to the same orbit, and you're still not going to see anything other than what looks to be a comm sat with an overly large body. After all, if I'm going to be putting up an undeclared weapon system up there, I should at least camoflague it as something people would expect in that orbit. In game, you will expect to see a comm sat, because that's what makes sense for the orbit. That's the only thing that makes sense for the orbit. The only odd thing is that it was lifted by a Atlas Heavy, indicating that it weighed alot. Oh, and it'll plausibly take a couple months to get a inspection sat built up and launched. Good luck.

Post stands.

Fuck off. Who appointed you the arbiter of what happens and what not in this game?

And who appointed you? Change the basis for my post, and I'll change my post.

So, why are you paranoid about them?

Let me think about that for a moment... Why, because fucking Tian Xia is orbiting something over my head with a particularly long loitering time of course. At this stage it doesn't matter what you do, we're going to assume it's some dastardly plan. You've got yourself to blame for it.

Great! Now I know that I can make you waste tons of money! Really, weapon sats are best in a LEO orbit. You get half an orbit to figure out that somethings falling on your head, and LEO has a orbital period of minutes, as opposed to one full day.

Oh, and calling the MESS a belligerent alliance? Bad idea. It implies that we're at war, which makes it use in an official statement a de facto declaration of war.

You know what, if you want to interpret it that way then do so and let's get it over with. You seem to be gunning for war anyway.

Then do it.

Roleplay another player's assets without permission and expect it to stand!?

Worked for the basis of this whole crisis. *shrug* I'm just plotting the logical course of his decisions.

[Siege]

And who appointed you? Change the basis for my post, and I'll change my post.

There is no basis for your post. There never was. It's just a load of presumptive crap on your part, not to mention incredibly bad form. I honestly don't give a toss whether you change your post or not, because like I said earlier I'm just going to merrily ignore it anyway. As far as I'm concerned it never happened.

Then do it.

Do WHAT? One of my officials just called you a belligerent alliance. Now are you going to draw conclusions from that or was all that 'declaration of war' crap you gave me just more of your inane posturing?

Worked for the basis of this whole crisis.

Bull-fucking-shit. Lonestar pitched the setup to me and Coyote, and I gave him permission to roll with it. You can bet your ass that if he hadn't I'd've been screaming bloody murder too.

[Beowulf]

And what the hell is with these: "violations of NFT airspace?" Airspace ends where you can't use aerodynamic lift to support yourself, in the opinion of Tian Xia. And even the most ridiculous claims for airspace that aren't "to infinity and beyond" end well short of geosync (Japanistan claims what, 10k km?).

[PeZook]

Worked for the basis of this whole crisis. *shrug* I'm just plotting the logical course of his decisions.

Oh for fuck's sake, this is not the logical consequence of his decisions! It would be if his people were mindless lemmings who always do literally what you tell them to.

[Beowulf]

Worked for the basis of this whole crisis. *shrug* I'm just plotting the logical course of his decisions.

Oh for fuck's sake, this is not the logical consequence of his decisions! It would be if his people were mindless lemmings who always do literally what you tell them to.

Result: Ante-up! I don't know what the hell Tian Xia just sent up there but we weren't notified, and now we're going to check it out--with an orbiter loaded to the brim with space-to-space missiles. If that damned thing looks hostile, we're going to blow it out of the skies post-haste. So, what's it going to be, Huang-Di?

Hey look! Exactly what he intends to do. He needs to retcon before I will. Maybe have his handy high commissioner of defense point you the orbiters can't get that high. He should know. It's his job.

[Siege]

It's not going to happen, and you've been given all the reasons why.

[Beowulf]

It's not going to happen, and you've been given all the reasons why.

If you do not retcon you sending a manned orbiter up to visit the satellite (and there no feasible way to look at them besides that, and take a couple months to mock up a inspection satellite), then I will continue to maintain that post is an accurate representation of the events. It's a semi-plausible result of your intentions. I require you to post a change of intentions (most likely your defense chief, or someone lower refusing to order/carry out a suicide mission), before my post will change.

You do not get to break physics in this game. You do not get arbitrarily large amounts of delta-V. You have two choices: call off the inspection for a while, or send up a suicide mission. There is physically no way to do a remote inspection from orbit or the ground. There do not exist mirrors large enough (even if they did, you couldn't get them to track fast enough).

[K. A. Pital]

And your missiles still wouldn't be able to get that high, since they're tens of thousands of kilometers higher than the MESS GPS system.

Frankly, this makes sense if you ask me. The satellite is in a Tundra orbit - very high in both apogee and perigee (20000 km plus at all times). Of course, you can hit it with a missile, but that would be a very large missile, possibly a ground-to-space one.

Investigating such a satellite in a meaningful manner is possible by probing it, say, with a light laser or something from the orbiter (makes sense). The sat is nigh useless as a weapon platform (but useful as a "delayed vengeance" weapon to avoid ASAT strikes with such a high orbit), but might be useful as a recon sat.

P.S. Though frankly, given the confusion between HEOs, and the fact that Tundra is one of the few HEOs with such an obscenely high perigee, I'm not surprised. It's as if you deliberately chose it to dick with Siege

[Siege]

It's a semi-plausible result of your intentions. I require you to post a change of intentions (most likely your defense chief, or someone lower refusing to order/carry out a suicide mission), before my post will change.

This is fucking pathetic. Fine; if it bothers you so much I erased the entirely OOC "RESULTS!" bit. Now we can all assume that after the briefing COMDEF quietly informs me that it isn't gonna work. Christ. What a load of crap.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, that's stupid. Sidney's advisors would've told him a space-to-space mission with anything other than lasers is not possible. This is not a strategic decision error but a physical infeasibility.

[Beowulf]

Editted. So how would you probe the satellites with lasers? You still can't map them, because you'll come to the same problems with making a mirror big enough to image it: you simply can't make one big enough to have a usefully small angular resolution. I suppose you could try ISAR, but that's still going to be a dozy of a job. And you still have the problem of only seeing a big bodied sat with solar panel wings and a parabolic dish.

[CmdrWilkens]

It's a semi-plausible result of your intentions. I require you to post a change of intentions (most likely your defense chief, or someone lower refusing to order/carry out a suicide mission), before my post will change.

This is fucking pathetic. Fine; if it bothers you so much I erased the entirely OOC "RESULTS!" bit. Now we can all assume that after the briefing COMDEF quietly informs me that it isn't gonna work. Christ. What a load of crap.

While I disagree with Beo posting the results as IC rather than OOC I have to agree that what you are asking of your forces is ridiculous. With you available boosters and the weight of available orbirters for the SDRA you aren't going to make it up to a reasonable distance from this sate without retrofitting your architechture. This means you would have to compeltely re-test your orbiter on a new booster, you would have to obtain, site, and prep such a booster. In other words a couple months at best even if you forced everything into high gear. At a minimum your oribter wouldn't get results for another TWO WEEKS in real life time.

I did remember the exclusive economic zone: however, the inner sea of the ICA is more than 1160 nautical miles across.

Part IV doesn't apply either, since archipelagic baselines can't exceed 125 miles in length, and must encompass an area where the ratio of water to land is between 1:1 and 9:1

Have your justices read the convention more closely

The individual baselines cannot exceed 100nm excepting the 3% rule of 125nm. However that is for EACH line. The line's connecting the various islands of the OICAS are individually less than 100nm excepting only the southernmost joint. Drawing the lines such that it encompasses the greatest area will more than keep the ratio under the allowable limit and increase the effective distance from shore of the EEZ. This distance in turn reduces the international waters of the archipegalo. The following image DOESN'T use that logic (instead goign with 200nm from the shore of existing states):




However this distance also includes the continental shelf of all the nations so to a distance of 350nm from all points they have exclusive mineral access though not sole acces to fisheries (though any which cross from the EEZ into international boundaries would be of some question). Attached is a shaded map showing some, but not all, of the extens of the 350nm zone:


Everything else within the archipelago is, obviously, within that same zone.

So even if Lonestar only treats things within the narrowest definition (that is not using the boundary lines to define most of the Archipelago as continuous) the anti-mineral zone is almost total and the anti-fishing zone is still exhaustive of a significant chunk.


Now going way back to the first point about baselines:

1. An archipelagic State may draw straight archipelagic baselines joining the outermost points of the outermost islands and drying reefs of the archipelago provided that within such baselines are included the main islands and an area in which the ratio of the area of the water to the area of the land, including atolls, is between 1 to 1 and 9 to 1.

2. The length of such baselines shall not exceed 100 nautical miles, except that up to 3 per cent of the total number of baselines enclosing any archipelago may exceed that length, up to a maximum length of 125 nautical miles.

Since the land area of the OICAS includes all of the islands and any reefs that may be included in such it is VERY likely that you can draw a et of baelins which encompass the entire archipelago at which point the only quesiton is whether the total landmass of the entire OICAS at least 1/10th of the total area so enclosed. Now going back the archipelago itself comprises (roughly) an ellipse with a major axis of 1900nm and a minor axis of 1775nm for a total area enclosed of 2,647,263 nm^2. Assuming that I'm off by at least 10% would give a maximum size of roughly 3.2 million nm^2 and a minimum area of roughly 2.15 million nm^2. The principal body of water is the internal sea which I estimated at a major axis of 1664 nm and a minor axis of 1406 nm for a water area of 1,837,831 for a max of 2.2 million nm^2 and a minimum of 1.5 million nm^2.

If I go with the minimum total size and the maximal water size then I get a nonesense answer. Minimal total size and median water size yields 83% water or a sufficient land basis for consideration of the OICAS as a single body enclosed. In other words aside from the extreme end of my estimates it is HIGHLY likely that the OICAS is, all told, at least 10% land. Moreover since each individual baseline may be drawn from shore to reef no individual line is likely to run greater than the 100nm limit.

In other words it is a defensible position that the OICAS could hold the entire water spce to be within the internal waters of the archipelago...BUT the real question is whether the organizaiton can be considered a state actor or whether it is solely an organization for co-ordination of multiple states who form an enclosed or semi-enclosed sea under the meaning of Part IX. THAT is the real quesiton. If the OICAS is a state actor then Lonestar's postion that the entire sea is internal waters is defensible and if it is not then the positon is indefensible outside of the EEZ and continental shelf zones.

[CmdrWilkens]

PeZook, so far as I know we don't have anything like an actual "Law of the Sea".

From here:

Total aside but I know I specifically requested that we accept as fiat for the game that any treaty or international obligation signed before WWII in the real world applies to this world. So far as I'm concerned this would include any salvage precedent from that period or even the concept of precedent within international maritime law.

As far as I know we've been operating under that presumption since the start of the game. Which would at the very least include the concept of 'freedom of the seas'.

You do realize the same statement also means free navigation of space is part of the international law and which means any attack on TX assets out in GeoSync, regardless of their contents, is a belligerent act on your part. Just figured I'd point that out.

But on the main point while I'm happy to argue under the guise of the law of the sea as we know it it doesn't fall into the category of pre WWII thus the reason why I am pointing to the Outer Space Treaty as being just as valid as UNCLOS III (effective 1994) or even UNCLOS I given their relative ratification dates. If we stick just to pre-1945 treaties then "freedom of the seas" is a general conept which would allow the OICAS to claim the entire enclosed sea as being territorial and thus legal for them to exclude vessels by choice since there is no governing treaty defining what is territorial versus international waters.

[Lonestar]

They have no right to restrict innocent or military passage outside of territorial waters but they do have the right to restrict commercial ventures in both zones and military traffic in Archipelagic waters.

And, in fact, I specifically did not restrict merchant access, rather it was commercial resource extraction.

[Lonestar]

Heh should I start building Vault Tec vaults? But anyway when I flesh out my country a bit I think Cialan is just going to stay out of all this for now, for saftey's sake. I honestly would be squashed in such a situation and I have other things I want to do.

The Old Dominion already ha a company called Vault-Tec.

[RogueIce]

As things continue apace, I'm just going to have to invoke the dreaded Unreal Time for me and PeZook's conversation, I suppose. Anything happening after my story post won't be taken into account, therefore. Also, since my meeting isn't secret in the sense that nobody knows about it (we're just keeping it from the media) I'm going to assume that Wilkonia and Canissia were given a heads up that we'd "be talking to" PeZookia, although they wouldn't know what's being said (hence how Arik and that Imperial Defense Council knew about it). I suppose if PeZook is cool with it, a similar heads up can be given to whoever in CATO.

[Raj Ahten]

There certainly have been lot of developments over the last few days and I'll be posting my responses shortly.

[CmdrWilkens]

While RI is going to unreal time I think we all need to remember the slowdown, its going to take several days to reposition assets that aren't already on scene and a week or more for major diversions of resources. Modern military forces can move small units quickly but it still takes a LOOOONG freakin time to project significant force. (Notably even at a speed of advance of 30 kn allowing for refueling a TF will still take two days to transit acrosss the ICA or from dawn until dusk in real time and that is a speed run for any force which operates on conventional power).

The assets I alluded to in my IC post are still well outside the tension zone except for the single TF already there. The Marines I'm recalling should be home by tomorrow night by comparison.