Extra drive problems

[LordRamage]

Like Ender, I am writing a Sci Fi tale and need a "reliable" or, more accurately, a believable method of getting around.
Thanks for your posts here as I found them illuminating, entertaining and interesting. Now then... I like the Alcubierre Warp
Drive for the same reasons Gene Roddenberry liked a close relative of it developed by Calif physicist Kip Thorn specifally for
the TV show. (And if you didn't know, that's who invented it.) In any case, the added scenarios of the drive's use as a planet
buster, a sort of ulimate strategic weapon versus worlds puts paid to the old quote from Poul Anderson in one of his nonfiction
books: "A starship is a poor weapon compared to the power of a planet and no spaceship willever threaten a world
successfully." Oh well, there goes THAT theory... Frankly I wrote around the technical and scientific problems by use
of a trio of gadgets I named (Sorry, I need the names (copyrights) so I won't use them here) call them the X and Y and Z
gadgets that make A-Drive possible.

Suffice to say I am positing the development in the future of those gadgets that make the A-Drive work and my real problem,
ironically, is "What the HECK does the ship that use it look like?"

I have worked through spheres, cubes, bullets, cylinders, Flying Wedges such as the USAF's new Hypersonic Fighter designs
and even the reliable old "Submarine in Space" concept and more. So I'll just ask: What do you all suggest?
And BTW: Thanks in advance.

[kinnison]

A few observations:

Barring advances in physics that we can only dimly glimpse at best (for one idea, see "Moving Mars") - any civilisation that can travel between the stars in short subjective time has enormous resources, and any macroscopic ship that does the travelling will be a devastating strategic weapon in its own right because of the energies involved.

One way of lowering power requirements might be to make the ship smaller - a LOT smaller, in size and mass. Imagine a ship the size of a grain of dust, containing the informational content of the minds and/or bodies of the crew in an extremely information-dense matrix - made of nanotubes or something even better. If the crew want their bodies back at the end of the trip - well, any solar system has enough material to manufacture them from scratch.

To make the ship even smaller, if not any less massive, then possibly go with the interesting concept that I found in Orion's Arm (yes, I know!); that of magmatter. Basically, this is matter made of magnetic monopoles rather than the quarks and leptons that constitute ordinary matter; apparently, because of the enormously greater mass of such monopoles the range of the interactions is much shorter, and typically magmatter structures would be on the scale of femtometres rather than nanometres. I admit that my physics knowledge is too limited (and too rusty - it's 30 years out of date!) to be able to tell whether this stuff is technobabble or actually feasible. Anyway; combine this and the approach above and you end up, possibly, with an interstellar ship that would fit comfortably into the space taken up, ordinarily, by an atom - and thus the bubble size for a warp ship becomes much, much less.

I have to admit that this approach does not lend itself well to ship-to-ship combat. How do you even find something the size of an atom at interplanetary distances?

[LordRamage]

I am a fan of British period naval adventures. They work, they are fun and they are something few novels are today: very re-readable. At least to me. But I like Philly Cheese Steaks from the original inventor: Geno's on South Street, too. And, while several writers including the writer of the Honorverse, who has to his added credit the invention of a working and popular science fiction interstellar wargame system, claim to want to write or to have written the definitive "Horatio Hornblower of Space", including Gene Roddenberry, in fact none have. I intend to, but then I am that rarity a real fan who knows ALL the works involved. Plus I have a background that lends itself to a working knowledge of HOW things worked then as well as why. And the A-Drive suits my purposes and lends some added story potential as well. My characters are not James Kirk, they don't have Star Princess Girlfriends show up conveniently every week. They should have called it "James Kirk, Interstellar Ladies Man". I prefer plots with meat on their bones, I know, picky of me. I don't intend to copy anyone else's ship designs, but I am not a ship designer. Borg Cubes work well because in space, as long as it stays out of atmospheres, shape and size don't matter except from an engineering and maneuvering standpoint. Too, a Borg Cube can be laid out like an office/apartment building with shops and - oh yeah - guns... :> However, starships meant for combat are going to more closely resemble a modern submarine, especially the Hunter-Killers, complete with a totally useless sail... just add wings for scraping gas giants. Why? Have you seen the design for the new hypersonic fighters? It is a cross between an envelope and the Flying Sub from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.". So frankly I am looking for designs TODAYS readers will be able to appreciate which are at least believable and which make good engineering sense and which fit my story. I can't use characters reduced to electrons, try writing a dramatic scene with THEM. :> Frankly I LIKE the Winged Attack Sub design and the useless Sail - which most landlubbers call a Conning Tower. That design was used by Pournelle and Niven, however for "Mote in the Eye of God" and they got it off an old 1950's "Space Cruiser" plastic toy model named the "Lief Ericson". I like the model. Too bad it's been done. :> So! What do you all think?

[kinnison]

Right - so this is essentially a story about naval combat, then. Well - One problem with warp drives, certainly of the Trek variety and probably of the Alcubierre type, and also with hyperdrives of various types such as the stardrives in the Dorsai series, is that it is all too easy to simply bug out if you are losing. Also, no-limits hyperdrive makes it impossible to keep any political structure in existence, as no settlement or installation can be effectively defended. This sort of problem was addressed by Pournelle quite some time ago.

There needs to be some sort of limit on the hyperdrive. This could be long calculation times (Foundation), a "hyper limit" around stars and planets (various places, including several SF roleplaying games and Known Space), very large energy and/or fuel requirements (various, including Traveller) or fixed-point travel (CoDominion sequence, Orion's Arm, Forever War).

To actually get around inside solar systems, one needs very large amounts of power along with extremely efficient reaction drives and preferably inertial compensation - or alternatively some sort of "pseudospeed" drive such as Bergenholms or the stutterwarp from Traveller 2300. Otherwise naval engagements will take years.

Another requirement is adequate, but not perfect, defense - such as force shielding or clouds of material used to either destroy missiles or absorb energy beams. Otherwise, winning a battle will be a matter of who shoots first. Either nuclear weapons or kinetics travelling at cometary speeds will destroy just about anything likely to be loftable into space, unless you get to something like the scale of 5th Imperium.

And finally, there has to be some sort of limit on AI and nanotech - or the humans in the story will be a sideshow and ought to know it. AI breaks stories, at least of the sort you want to write.

Of course, all this is just my opinion; but hopefully it will give you some ideas.

[LordRamage]

True, good points. My one serious problem with the A Drive is that it comes complete with a perfect force field, the Warp Bubble places the ship in its own personal universe and nothing fired at it will hurt the ship and sudden high speed right hand turns do not send coffee cups sailing off tables and people do not fly out of seats, etc. To attack a ship inside an Alcubierre Warp Bubble you need intensive explosives such as multigigaton nuclear missiles. And that was a point made, if I recall, by more than one physicist who has worked on the math. That mandates nuclear tipped missiles to take each other's bubbles apart. But, now we have a story complete with ships that can lay waste to worlds without really trying unless of course - and I had to introduce this for story value - you posit a 'warp bubble' for cities. You use everything except the drive and therefore, unless you drop many multigigaton nuclear weapons on a city it won't get hurt - but it will eventually starve to death and run out of air - unless you come up with replicators to supply all that. Meanwhile the planet will have been ruined and they better stay inside that bubble forever. Yeah, I do have a few problems, but it is a better drive than the other main choice, the Bussard Interstellar Ramjet ship. Especially since science has established the universe just doesn't have enough dust floating around for the drive to work. But ANY starship is a terrible weapon against a world that isn't geared for war since it can drop ANYTHING including large rocks on the planet and what can they do??? They have gravity against them as well as the ship. Either way the story is chaos and no coherent government is possible except world by world. The only way to posit a tale where that doesn't happen is to have one world - Earth - and we don't have spaceships or starships... But I think that's called real life and I never go to movies to watch THAT... :> Hehehe

[Modax]

How about spherical ships? If an Alcubierre bubble needs to be spherical, it makes sense for the ship generating it to be the same shape. Spherical ships have an advantage in space combat compared to elongated designs in that they can point their weapons in any direction quickly. As spaceships go, though, they're not exactly sexy.

[kinnison]

We appear to agree. Interstellar travel by any means we currently know or can speculate about involves astronomically huge energies - literally. Which means that an interstellar ship is in itself an incredibly powerful strategic weapon - powerful enough to mess up a type I and cause at least considerable inconvenience to a type II. Man-Kzin Wars came up with an example; postulate that you have the location of the enemy home planet, and also robot ramscoop ships capable of 100+ g acceleration. Then send said ship off towards the enemy home sun. After 20 lightyears or so, I really don't know what the tau factor might be - but it's enough to cause a lot of problems at the other end. The ramscoop fields probably aren't going to be healthy to be around, either, to say nothing of the exhaust.

Writing a naval adventure story (Hornblower-esque) with starships is going to need some heavy application of handwavium - I see no way around it. Good luck; I'm waiting for the story!

[LordRamage]

Yeah, I tried spheres, and am still trying to figure out how to lay out everything. On a traditional ship things are laid out in a rather simple matter. On a sphere every deck closes on itself from every direction. I like the sphere because I rather like H. Beam Piper and his ships were always spheres.

I like the idea of having layouts to work with so I know how my characters get from place to place aboard, it's part of the homework. Guess I need to hunt up someone who does CAD. :> Posit a form of artificial gravity and you have a traditional Jules Verne heads up, feet down apartment building style ship. Up is outward and down is toward the center.

The handwavium starts with the posited idea of a working starship as part of an interstellar civilization. However, given that and that A Drive works... We have a story BECAUSE: Think like the leader of a world in that era. It is called a systemic defense system which might have robotic systems, computerized systems, satellites and manned warships in a complex network Not to mention minefields across likely avenues of approach. And yes, mines work - which is why we still use them.. All of a sudden the lone starship isn't so formidable. And we have an exact parallel to the "Hornblower" period...

hehehe! New problem: I'd really like to see the plumbing in such a ship. Okay the waste goes DOWN - there is only so much DOWN in a sphere :> And it has to be pumped out even if they shove it into a fusion reactor which they brought along for exactly that purpose. Then with replicators feeding off it they can make other things with the waste - and IF you have a tough stomach and no imagination you could even eat dinner regularly. :>

Anyone see other problems?

[Modax]

I think the best form of artificial gravity for something like that is to have the ship constantly accelerating at around 1G through normal space, so that like an elevator going up, your feet stay pinned to the floor. You could even have a redundant set of furnishings and controls on the ceiling, so that when the ship needs to decelerate, or when it changes directions, the crew can just change sides. No idea how you can incorporate that with the FTL drive, though, but like you said, its complete handwavium.

Not to nitpick or anything...okay so this IS nitpicking, but still: I don't think space mines are realistic at all. I don't think I have to tell you this, but its worth repeating. Space is HUGE. and its 3D. You could set millions of mines out into space and the chances of them coming into contact with something you want destroyed are essentially nil. Just look at the asteroid belt: even with literally trillions of pieces of debris floating around, the chances of bumping into something on a trip through the belt are very small.

As for recycling wastes, astronauts on the ISS are already drinking recycled urine--when the machine is actually working, that is--so I don't see this being a serious problem.

[LordRamage]

Okay, the two main points we are dealing with at the moment seem to be mines and artifical gravity. Google "Magnetic Well " for me and you will see why artificial gravity will be a reality. It has other uses as well, it provides inside its event horizon a space without time, it is a side effect. It also is seen as a method of making cheap, realible, fast flying cars. Too, it makes desktop supercolliders possible. For my purposes having one in the center or core of the ship causes everyone to experience gravity at controllable rates and provides a place for safe storage of things that would normally require freezing. Too, a crewman injured sufficiently to be in danger can be placed there in a timeless state and fetched out to medical help safely later. No time has passed for him. That is being developed, it is not Sci Fi, its NASA Tech.

As for mines, you are thinking of a wide open galaxy with nothing out there. In fact if you want to enter our solar system you have asteroids and comets and moons and planets and a star to dodge. You have to stay at a certain distance from each, not just outside the atmosphere. It is a place where mines work IF you think about what you are doing. I am talking SMART Mines... basically HAWK satellites... (Homing All The Way Killer). And a field of them, talking to each other and ground control, provides the ability to block approaches. For example: A station on a moon of a gas giant. There are only so many safe approaches to the place that do not involve instant detection. First dodge the gas giant's envelope and its moons, Then dodge the detection systems and ships of the station. The straight approach works only if surprise is not a factor. Thus: Where you want smart mines is where you and your electronic surrogates can't see. A smart mine is bascially a missile sitting in wait for a target, then it is pure HAWK with sufficient power that nothing will run away from it. It was on passives and was undetectable because it HAD no electronic or life or heat signature. And it can correlate its attack with others of its kind and with defensive ships. It is like the game of tag Subs play with each other and which in war gets one killed and the other a commendation. Any 3-dimensional environment can be constricted and restricted that way. Between 1945 and 1950 the US Military produced 14 THOUSAND Nuclear Bombs - a rate of 28 a day. Stick 'em on missiles and give them limited AI's. Since 1950 the US Military has kept up its production although it did slow down. While you won't catch this many places we have something on the order of a conservative estimate of a quarter million nuclear bombs in storage or on missiles last I heard. You could seed one hell of a 3-D field with that many bombs. And in the case of a Nuke: Close is good enough, just like in horseshoes.... Remember, they can be a light minute apart and they can maneuver as needed. A repair ship can come refuel and maintain them as needed until they are used. That duty is done to this day for all deployed warheads... it has to be for safety and guaranteed usefulness. A quarter million smart HAWK nuke missiles would cover an area of 63 light minutes cubed a light minute apart - that is an area of 8 CUBIC AU's. It is only 8 light minutes to the Sun from Earth... Center the field on the Earth and it spreads out 31.5 light minutes on all sides... roughly Mars... and is three dimensional. You may want to avoid pissing off the guy who runs it :> Mines work... The field would be an area equal to 4 AU from Earth in all directions, one HAWK every light minute and every one of 'em is smart, mobile and wants your ass... :> Up the total to 250 Million HAWKs and you can put a thousand of them in each cubic light minute over that area. That is a density of one HAWK for every 0.06 light seconds. If my mental calculator is working that's about 11 thousand miles between 'em. And they move, fast. You MIGHT get through such a field with them going off like fireworks all around and all of them in your area seeking you with all their electronic snooper might and power, but I wouldn't want to have to pay the insurance premiums on your life if you try. Plus of course the HAWK Missile-mines were there just as squealers to let the big guns know where you are. Of course anyone approaching without proper codes would get blown up... a precaution against Nuke thieves. Like I said, Mines work. :> And some of them would be X-Ray Lasers, not just big Booms waiting to happen. And the X-Ray Laser beams would be centered on your ship and would have a range well over your possible distance - an average of 5,500 miles maximum from any or all. Give the missiles fusion reactors and they can sit there for years doing nothing, powered down on mimimal support with passive systems waiting to sense something. Hmm! I'd sleep safe at night if I were leader of that well defended planet. :>

Oh yes! Why have I said DODGE Planets and Moons? You are flying a Warp Drive Ship and its motive power is the leading and trailing edges of creation - the Big Boom. Pass through a planet's atmosphere in THAT and see what goes Boom. ANY Matter in front of the leading edge is converted to less than atoms instantly. Even a planet. That's why the ship IS the weapon. And what if your warp bubble reaches out and touches all those Nukes??? (They ARE HAWKs - closing in constantly after all) Your Warp Bubble pops if ONE of them targets you. If say 8 target you, forget it: The first one drops your bubble and its 7 sisters turn you into a very radioactive crispy critter. Nasty! :> By then of course the systemic defense folks have scrambled space fighters and space-going (Not Interstellar) warships to take care of what may remain. And a planet with a population of say 10 billions with only 3% of its people in the military would have 300 million soldiers, sailors and marines. Now if it's a PARANOID world with a warlike government lets say 10% and maybe even 30% (People's Republic of China) -or like Israel: Everyone who can stand up and carry a rifle. They'd have plenty of defensive space forces to back up their smart mine fields. That big bad starship is starting to look awfully small again. :> So I rather expect a few Hornblower style tales are waiting to be told. Now I just have to FIND 'em :> LOL ! But I am enjoying this conversation so let's please proceed.

[Modax]

A few questions for you:

what kind of propulsion system does each of these mines have? How many G's acceleration does it give? What is the delta-v? Do they have FTL drives? How much does the propulsion system cost? What sort of warhead is in these things? Thermonuclear? Antimatter? What is the yield for the warhead and how much does it cost to build? Wouldn't a fleet of ships be a more cost effective defense? At least ships don't explode the instant they are used to defend something.

One light minute apart means there is a 11 MILLION mile gap between mines. For a random entry vector, there is a minimal chance of coming anywhere near one of these mines. A fast travelling ship will simply outrun any mines that chase it, or shoot them down with point defense lasers.
If destroying them from a distance causes the warhead to go off (which is very unlikely at least for modern nukes) the lack of atmosphere means that the mine's destructive energy will mostly be wasted. Never mind the fact that a highly relativistic ship could be only a few seconds behind its own light, thus denying any possible warning.

[Teleros]

Yeah, I tried spheres, and am still trying to figure out how to lay out everything.

A few things to consider then:
-Bury the bridge somewhere deep in the ship to protect it during battle.
-Are you having your reactor (if any) in the centre of the ship, or near the hull for easier access during repairs etc?
-What about supplies (eg water) under the outer skin as an additional defence?
-What firepower are we talking about? The existence of multi-gigaton lasers pretty much requires either unobtainium hulls or shielding... but then means you may not want to bother putting your water near the hull, because as a defence it'll be next to useless.

And yes, mines work - which is why we still use them..

Perhaps Honorverse-style bomb-pumped x-rays? Given how big space is unless you've got a convenient choke point (DS9's wormhole for example), you'll need defences that can target ships a good distance away. More on this below.

Google "Magnetic Well " for me and you will see why artificial gravity will be a reality.

Granted I'm no physicist, but I'm... suspicious of some of those claims. If you want artificial gravity like that it'd probably be easier just to say scientists developed a machine that lets you put electricity in and get gravity out . Artificial gravity is so commonplace that I doubt many readers will mind if you just stick it in. If you want it done more realistically, then you want to go over Destructionator's post about it again.

As for mines, you are thinking of a wide open galaxy with nothing out there. In fact if you want to enter our solar system you have asteroids and comets and moons and planets and a star to dodge.

No, you don't. The distance between asteroids in our asteroid belt is so big that for all intents and purposes even if you decided to enter alone the plane of the solar system (and not just bypass most of the planets etc by coming from "above" or "below"), you'd be exceptionally unlucky to have to change course due to just about anything being in the way.

By way of example, let's assume that the solar system is 100 AU across. This gives it a total volume of 1.75e36 cubic kilometres. Meanwhile, in our 100 AU diameter star system, the sun is a whopping 1.4e6km across... or 0.0094 AU across. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has a diameter of just 1.4e5km. In short, it's mostly empty space.

It was on passives and was undetectable because it HAD no electronic or life or heat signature.

How is it powered? It has to be if it is able to, for example, interpret the information it receives from its passive sensors . Remember, there is no stealth in space.

Remember, they can be a light minute apart and they can maneuver as needed.

Remember the speed of light limit and inverse square rule then. It'll take several minutes for the furthest mines to be issued orders, all the while the enemy is closing in, getting a fix on these HAWK mines, and so on.

Now you need to consider the blast intensity of your mines. Fortunately there's a nice one up on the internet already: BabTech blast intensity calculator. In short though, you need either really big warheads or really small distances (and ideally both).

Finally, because your nukes are giving off some detectable signals, if the invaders' sensors are good enough they can pinpoint the nukes and then take them out, either with their own or with lasers. Unless your nukes are extremely well protected (and thus more expensive, accelerate slower, etc etc etc), they'll be much easier to take out than a warship.

You are flying a Warp Drive Ship and its motive power is the leading and trailing edges of creation - the Big Boom. Pass through a planet's atmosphere in THAT and see what goes Boom. ANY Matter in front of the leading edge is converted to less than atoms instantly. Even a planet. That's why the ship IS the weapon. And what if your warp bubble reaches out and touches all those Nukes??? (They ARE HAWKs - closing in constantly after all) Your Warp Bubble pops if ONE of them targets you. If say 8 target you, forget it: The first one drops your bubble and its 7 sisters turn you into a very radioactive crispy critter.

1. So anything the lead edge touches is converted into energy. 1kg of matter = 9e16J, or 21.5MT of TNT. So 1 tonne of matter = 21.5GT of TNT... really you don't need armed mines at all, just a big debris field, unless your mines' warheads are greater than 21.5GT apiece. Note that the bomb-pumped ones will probably be more efficient, as an omnidirectional blast will of course waste a lot of energy.

2. The nukes will only "pop" your warp bubble if they are close enough (see above). Too far and the blast will be too weak.

3. If high-energy weapons can "pop" the warp bubble, why keep it up when you're attacking an enemy? Enter the solar system, turn it off, and fly in, using your weapons to clear a path. It's even easier if you can see out of your warp bubble, because you can stop well inside the enemy system but well outside the effective range of their mines. And if you can fire out of your warp bubble as well as see, you can probably just wipe out those pesky mines without even turning off your warp bubble.

4. If the warp bubble can lay waste to a planet like that, what's to stop someone just engaging in missile spam? Strap one of these warp drives to each missile, set it moving, and even if it blows up in the atmosphere the EMP will do a lot of damage.

5. Also, if you can create an Alcubierre drive, why not build a few relativistic missiles as well? From what I've read about the drive it requires a hell of a lot of power, so can you use this power to accelerate a missile instead? The faster you can travel the harder it'll be for any defences to hit you...

[LordRamage]

Ok, I dropped a few zeroes there. :> However. Can you picture the scene you just laid out? A ship with its warp bubble on and its drive sending out the largest and most easily seen fireworks display anywhere from both ends. If you have the mines seeded every .06 light seconds then it takes .06 second for the missiles to spot you and not just one missile. (Half the distance between missiles: 0.03 Sec doubled.) They won't just sit there, there will be intelligence, albiet limited and artificial, behind the sights. If they can't intercept they will tell those ahead that can. You have to stop sometime unless you whizz on through.

From what I have read you can't see out. You CAN use, if you posit them, miniature wormholes to open communications outside, but you still can't see. You are in a diferent universe and are flying blind. You may zip inwards through the system a fair distance off the ecliptic but at some point you NEED to drop the drive to navigate and steer. That is the limit: You can't steer a private universe from inside it relative to another universe outside. Therefore you are not moving at relativistic speeds as you enter the minefield. You could remain in the bubble, but you'd pass through without being certain where you were. That's the weakness of the drive that forces a ship to be relativistic with respect to a star's inner zone where the habitable worlds are found. Now you may be moving at high relativistic speeds but you are still under C. 8 Light minutes from the world you are headed for, you will be spotted because the sun is at a distance of 8 light minutes as an example of distance. Forget stealth for another reason as well, sensors can and will pick up your thrust and vector and can, from other things, calculate everything except the identities of the crew, that's just good use of existing technology now. That applies to radio and other forms of telescopy. And if we are in a future where the A Drive was developed then the detection systems advanced as well.

Ok, now you are moving relativistically and the mines detect you at a distance of .03 light second and react in .06. Some would decide they can't catch and others ahead would be told. If you are going to do it this way then give the mines the same wormhole commuications as you have and they can talk to each other real time and to the world and decisions about interception points can be made well in advance so you will run into a reception committee of nukes and bomp pumped X-Ray lasers. The world you meant to invade will be able to send out a ship later to search the debris of who ever tried that trick. If you don't posit the ability of the mines to react then of course it doesn't work, but never hire a guard dog that can't run. They might sit still and use batteries fed by solar power - and if they are inside Mar's orbit then it would work. When they start moving they draw power from a shielded (and you can shield 'em) futuristically miniaturized fusion or other plant and the ion jets carry them along after you a good clip. These are Robert Heinlein's pet missiles. This won't be tomorrow or even in the time of distant great (add many greats here) grandchildren. Let's say a millennium? And while all that alertiing and figuring is going on the among the AI mines, the world has a chance to scramble whatever defenses they mean to send out after you. At the least forget surprise and stealth.

And even if you posit a perfect computer able to hold all the orbits and speeds of every smallest speck of dust in a volume of 400 light years cubed, containing some 4 million stars, give or take, then you still can't be sure your data is perfect. You can't come into dock at warp speed... you CAN, but it will be one HELL of a docking maneuver. So you must drop the warp bubble and re-enter the real universe to maneuver in the inner system you took all that trouble to get to. Otherwise, why go? If you enter the system above the ecliptic and move half way in that still leaves about 25 AU to travel at relativistic speeds. Even arguing you had a super Dean Drive for in-system maneuvering it still takes time to cover 25 AU, at C that's 400 minutes. At the speeds you can achieve by physical laws regarding rockets of any kind you'd be going a small percentage of that using a brachistochrone course (ie: straight line, aim and blast off). Ok, assume you are going at one gravity of acceleration constantly and that means 25 days to cover the distance. (from Earth at 1G in 50 days you pass Pluto's orbit.) 25 days... during which your approach is seen and well calculated and your very motion gives away not just your existance and location but doing a few basic calculations your size, mass, life signs, etc and the computers can sort it out and decide what class ship you are, it just can't - well, maybe can - pick the likely captain's name out. Even if you come out of warp directly above the ecliptic headed down (Or up) to the world, your interstellar light-shows front and back will attest to your drive system and location. You can't sneak up on a world - or it's defense system. And if you aren't sneaking you can be killed.

The reason WE can be killed by even a dumb ROCK is because we HAVE no defense system except "Oh look A ROCK!" and by that time - sit down, put your head between your knees and kiss your a&& goodbye. :> A spaceship is a poor thing next to the defenses of a prepared world. At the very least you enter with a fleet from above the ecliptic and swoop in and when you stop - otherwise WHY GO? - those really pissed off missile-mines catch up and all go BOOM at once. And you have drop warp and stop to do ANYTHING to a world. What's left can be chewed on by defense ships of whatever sort you design. Even a fleet in most cases is a poor thing next to an entire world's possible defense net and military power. And imagine a planet named Israel for example. They'd BE ready... And so would their prepared war forces on their moon Masada. And so would their Jericho Line. Even a Palestinian Fleet has only a small chance. By the By, Author's Copyright Jan 1, 2009 on that idea and the names, I think I see a book coming.... MINE! Go get your own. :>

The point is the force you have to devote to TAKING a prepared world is overwhelming and what it costs is more than overwhelming. You won't do that for every jackleg colony as the returns don't justify the investment. And trust me, the Imperial Secretary of the Treasury is watching all this closely. Even in war, someone has to pay the bills. Let's say only a billion bucks a starship and you send a hundred of them in the fleet, a hundred billions plus the cost of the men and other stuff aboard including training. Current training costs for ONE Fighter Pilot exceeds $2 Million before he is ever assigned to a combat unit. Same goes for a new officer assigned to a Nuke sub. A crew of 500 each is another billion a ship. Double that for guns and radios and galley supplies and... Ok, that's about 400 Billions invested so far plus time. Now in WAR, YEAH! DO IT! But it still has to be paid for. And how many fleets does the empire need? It would be a significant amount even for a wealthy interstellar empire with lots of treasure house worlds. A warlike maniac -and they exist: Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler - would do it in a heartbeat. He's gonna pay for it out of YOUR treasury. So: he picks profitable targets. That brings us back to the target world, if it IS valuable then it has the resources to make taking it expensive and nasty and long, drawn out and bloody. And you can't just grab a rock ten miles across and hurl it at the planet... Do the math.

So, okay, you finally clear out the defense system and are in orbit. So you just call down and say "Surrender or we drop Nukes... or leaflets or whatever... They tell you "Anthony MacAuliffe" (WW2, Bastogne: "Nuts") NOW you drop the Marines. You better have a LOT of them and they WILL be chewed on going down. Now you have a planet named IRAQ or possibly Viet Nam... have a nice day THERE! Eventually YOU are assassinated by your TREASURY Secretary who seizes power and calls off the war 'cause he's broke... Or your people threw you out of office 'cause they HATE the war... And it just happened, so it DOES happen. Looking back through history, NO Emperors ever died of old age... Nor did many of their generals or admirals. Ok, but Queens Victoria and Elizabeth I were the exceptions that prove the rule. " :>

That is why a Hornblower type tale works, that's what was happening in their time, France and England plus the occasional other, all defending their turf while trying to take the other fellow's. Ships sailed around doing not much except taking the occasional merchantman and fighting almost set-piece battles at just about pre-arranged locations and times and once in a while they get to take on a small foe like an island that isn't well defended. It is "glorious" and gives off sufficient tales for a thousand Hornblower novels. But the emperor ain't having a fun day. Think of Flandry and HIS Emperor, He had a GREAT time, his Boss's life SUCKED! That's why the tales work despite poor political logic and bad financial math at the imperial level. Soldiers, sailors and marines DON'T CARE what it costs if they get to go KILL SOMETHING! And neither do the kind of admirals and general's you'd want to hire. So that's the kind of "universe" my tales will be set it. But still, the poor bastard on the throne ain't having a great day. Which is why MOST Privates say "Promote ME and I'll shoot YOU!"

[Teleros]

A ship with its warp bubble on and its drive sending out the largest and most easily seen fireworks display anywhere from both ends.

If travelling at FTL speeds however, won't there be, ah, difficulties in, you know, seeing the thing coming ? You'll need either FTL sensors or a BIG network of your wormholes to deliver the information back to base fast enough, otherwise I can see them suddenly popping into your solar system without any prior warning at all. If the drives are cheap enough, you could even do a sort of missile spam like this: the missiles stop just outside the atmosphere, get into range, and then detonate their nukes for a nice big EMP blast. If a few hit things en route and don't make it, well no matter, because they were cheap and unmanned.

If you have the mines seeded every .06 light seconds

Which means you're spending a lot of money on building millions of the things. In addition to your fleet. And any orbiting structures. And planet-based weapons. And army / airforce / navy forces.

From what I have read you can't see out. You CAN use, if you posit them, miniature wormholes to open communications outside, but you still can't see.

If you can open a wormhole to talk through, you should logically be able to see something by using sensors through wormholes too. Heck, if you can communicate through wormholes you should be able to fire a laser through them as well. And what's the range on these wormholes? Can I hide out in the Kuiper Belt and lay siege to the planet with lasers from there? How about from my home system? What happens if I open a wormhole between the core of their sun and a spot just above their capital city?

Forget stealth for another reason as well, sensors can and will pick up your thrust and vector and can, from other things, calculate everything except the identities of the crew, that's just good use of existing technology now. That applies to radio and other forms of telescopy. And if we are in a future where the A Drive was developed then the detection systems advanced as well.

Just checking, but does that mean the defenders' sensors can penetrate the warp bubble that stops the guy inside from using his sensors?

They might sit still and use batteries fed by solar power - and if they are inside Mar's orbit then it would work. When they start moving they draw power from a shielded (and you can shield 'em) futuristically miniaturized fusion or other plant and the ion jets carry them along after you a good clip.

Still going to be detectable, even running on batteries. If they're close to an inhabited world or somesuch it may be possible to mask their presence somewhat though - it'd depend on the quality of the attacker's sensors and such.

The reason WE can be killed by even a dumb ROCK is because we HAVE no defense system except "Oh look A ROCK!" and by that time - sit down, put your head between your knees and kiss your a&& goodbye.

Why? Doesn't anyone have point defences?
If you mean planets... well it's not hard just to chuck lots of rocks, missiles and such at a planet. Suppose we're targeting urban areas with upwards of a million people... if this site is to be believed you've got a choice of ~400 targets on Earth. So you can happily sit back blockading a planet: the defenders have to be lucky every time to stop these missiles - or send their fleet out to attack yours. If they do, all well and good, because you'll presumably have brought enough ships to deal with them anyway, and with their fleet gone they've only got fixed defences (mines don't count, as you can be so far away from them they'd never reach you in one piece). With between 1.1 and 1.9 million 1km+ diameter asteroids in our solar system's belt (if Wikipedia's accurate, anyway), it's not as if the attackers won't have plenty of raw materials to work with.

A spaceship is a poor thing next to the defenses of a prepared world. At the very least you enter with a fleet from above the ecliptic and swoop in and when you stop - otherwise WHY GO? - those really pissed off missile-mines catch up and all go BOOM at once.

You mean: "... those really pissed off missile-mines try to catch up and are blown away by your fleet's point defence guns" .

The point is the force you have to devote to TAKING a prepared world is overwhelming and what it costs is more than overwhelming. You won't do that for every jackleg colony as the returns don't justify the investment.

Of course not. You just threaten to drop rocks, unpowered missiles, and laser beams on them until they surrender / call your bluff and get killed . Especially true for the poorer worlds, because they'll presumably have fewer defences than the big, rich ones. Heck, in some cases you could even get away with not occupying them: so long as they can't build much in the way of anti-orbital weapons, they're at the mercy of your warship-supported tax collectors.

And you can't just grab a rock ten miles across and hurl it at the planet... Do the math.

Assuming there are ten mile rocks around, why not? You're already investing by your figures 400bn dollars or whatever it is you use on a 100-ship fleet, so a few rocket drives and whatnot to accelerate some asteroids is going to be peanuts by comparison. Let's say we can accelerate an asteroid at just 10m/s^2 from stationary (relative to the target planet)... after just an hour, it's bombing along at 36km/s. Of course, your spacefaring civilisation will probably be able to achieve far higher accelerations than this, and if they can reach relativistic velocities...

NOW you drop the Marines. You better have a LOT of them and they WILL be chewed on going down. Now you have a planet named IRAQ or possibly Viet Nam... have a nice day THERE!

If an enemy is stupid enough not to surrender to someone with overwhelming orbital superiority then they probably deserve to have rocks dropped on all their cities. In other words, they'll almost certainly surrender - especially when your ships take a few pot shots at any military targets, threaten to drop more rocks, and so on. A better comparison might be Vietnam with wide open plains instead of mountains & jungle, and with the USA nuking the place until the Viet Cong surrendered and promised to be nice towards the occupying troops...

Ships sailed around doing not much except taking the occasional merchantman and fighting almost set-piece battles at just about pre-arranged locations and times and once in a while they get to take on a small foe like an island that isn't well defended.

The analogy isn't quite the same however:
1. The idea behind the British campaign during the Napoleonic Wars (and similar) was to blockade France, fund her enemies, grab her colonies and in the case of Portugal & Spain, tie up lots of soldiers. It was not a campaign to conquer France.
2. There's no sea currents & wind in space. Thus, ships and fleets have can move around a lot more freely.
3. Not even the Royal Navy could hurl multi-ton rocks at several km/s at Paris. The "Royal Space Navy" or whatever you want to call it however...
4. Most of France's war machine, economy and population was land-based, whereas if Britain had lost its navy, it would have been effectively out of the war, at least until it could build another one. In space, everyone is in Britain's position, assuming you need starships to move around at least.

[LordRamage]

Actually it WAS a campaign to take France and return a "decent" royal government. Check out the non-military action, England had many spies and funded many Royalist initiatives. The French had better counter-spies. Finally a place called Waterloo happened. Anyway, the kind of worlds you can take with a single ship because they are too poor for defense are the kind of places you want to skip... like robbing a beggar. Not much profit and you have to PAY for all those expensive war toys you brought along.

I SAID that in order to actually see to stop at a world you need to drop the bubble and return to teh real universe before entering the inner world zone of a system. That means you are NOT doing a million C through the backyard, but only maybe .1C The smart mines can and will catch you - or more likely WAIT for you ahead of where you have to go since travel in space is not all fast lefts and rights but long periods of straight line or more likely Hohmann orbital approaches. Where you will be at a given speed is easy to figure out and the smart mines would talk to each other and their controller and the best plan of nailing the ship would be used. Point defense... ok, BLOW UP my Nuke... and you can set the things to NO safety and specially TO blow if attacked... of course they start their runs close in and are moving fast. Modern ships have point defense and it's easy to take them out, even a kid in a cigarette boat loaded with mines can: "ALLAHU AKBAR! BOOM!" It happened already...actually three times in the last two decades. Once ISRAEL shot up one of our destroyers and killed quite a few men as I recall. In return the US point defense took out NO incoming hits. And even if you posit a Super Aegis (If you don't what it is, read the Navy websites) for the ships then there is an upper limit on what it can keep track of at a time and an even smaller number of things it can aim at at once.

By the by, even Alcubierrre admits the Bubble is not a good defense because it can be merged with by another bubble. Ok, equip some mines with bubbles and let them enter the ship's space, drop their bubble and detonate... I know... point defense again. Yes, but I have LOTS of mines that can do that and ONE will get through and that's all I need. Heck! maybe just a crazed teen in a space-going cigarrette boat loaded with a nuke or two with no safeties and set to blow for any reason... He enters your bubble with his and drops his and goes boom. And if you have your bubble up you HAVE NO POINT DEFENSE. You are in a DIFFERENT UNIVERSE! The first time you have a shot with point defense is after my mines hit your bubble and drop it or enter your bubble in which case GO AHEAD AND BLOW THEM UP! That IS the whole idea anyway... :> And if you are not in your bubble, I can target you with lots of other things including a ship exactly like yours that does not NEED warp drive and all that extra space is weaponry. It is also a lot cheaper, so I have more of them. Plus all those kids and their mad-bomber speedboats. :> And why doesn't the world just build its own point defense system on a scale to match the world as compared to those on your ship? My! The world can have a LOT more point defense than you can. Plus orbital point defense and long range attack weaponry. Plus defense stations on moons - even if you have to haul them into place to achieve it. Besides, go ahead and drop things on, let's say, Earth's top 400 megamillion pop cities and kill 70% of the world pop. That leaves you exactly what in the way of conquered peoples and profits? You can't rule a radioactive crater and it doesn't reap profits to pay for your expenses either. And if you send the world into a nuclear winter or an ice age... and we are doing that WITHOUT rocks being dropped, all by ourselves... well, who wants to be governor of the planet Super Antarctica?

Napoleon tried to invade England exactly the way Hitler tried and BOTH failed because the Brits sank their barges while still in harbor ... :> Plus the wind is almost always blowing INTO their harbors and when it isn't there are killer storms... ask any Spanish Armada Captain. England at the time had a tiny army and it was disrepected for cause. They tried for a quarter century to raise a coalition (sound familiar, Mr Bush?) to GIVE them forces that could invade and everyone said "YOU FIRST!" (again: Sound familiar, Mr. Bush?). Finally one genius figured that even ENGLISH troops could take SPAIN and he was right. To be fair, english troops of the time fought well, shot faster and farther and hiot what they aimed at more often. However, their discipline stank and their unity didn't exist and they had a trulty bizarre and unworkable high command. the Spanish outmarched the Brit's... but then so did a party of Spanish NUNS - ON FOOT! And the Brit's really DID travel on their stomachs and had to have regular and predictable breaks for "HighTea" and such. Guess when the Spanish hit them? Yep! But the Spanish couldn't sail well either and eventually the Brit troops prevailed. Then everyone wanted to add forces to the "coalition" and they found the place named Waterloo... And that is how it would go in the future. You can not hold ground with a navy... you can only bomb the crap out of it. But THAT doesn't give you CONTROL. THAT is only achieved by soldiers on the ground. Once a WW2 Admiral said that they didn't need the army or marines anymore because the navy could do it alone... so the Army commander said, "Okay, I want the Navy to capture the SAHARA DESERT... There ended the argument. Now... about getting troops ALIVE on the ground of an enemy world... remember all that planetary point defense??? Hmm! Can you say TARGETS? And if it is easy for a Higher Tech Force with LOTS of Men and LOTS of Money and Lots of ships and LOTS of expensive toys and Nukes and bullets that do tricks to achieve control on the ground against a "primitive and Backward and poor" enemy world, then: EXPLAIN IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN please... :> Hmm!

[Teleros]

Actually it WAS a campaign to take France and return a "decent" royal government. Check out the non-military action, England had many spies and funded many Royalist initiatives. The French had better counter-spies. Finally a place called Waterloo happened.

Had Britain not had various continental powers to help, it would not have been able to defeat revolutionary France with the tactics it used during the Napoleonic Wars: France simply wasn't dependent enough on overseas trade, whatever the British leader at the time may have thought or hoped.

Anyway, the kind of worlds you can take with a single ship because they are too poor for defense are the kind of places you want to skip... like robbing a beggar. Not much profit and you have to PAY for all those expensive war toys you brought along.

Only in the short term. In the long term, new planets means more building space, resources, population, a larger economy... depending on the timescale a faction thinks on, and assuming the planets aren't utterly resource-empty or something silly, grabbing minor colonies can be good in the long run.

Point defense... ok, BLOW UP my Nuke... and you can set the things to NO safety and specially TO blow if attacked... of course they start their runs close in and are moving fast.

1. If they detonate when attacked... big deal. Generally modern nukes don't explode when damaged in case of accidents though, but anyway they're still only a threat when in range.
2. For the mines to start their runs "close in" requires either that the invaders appear close to the mines or that you have a ridiculous number of the things.

Modern ships have point defense and it's easy to take them out, even a kid in a cigarette boat loaded with mines can

I bet the kid in the cigarette boat wouldn't be anywhere near successful if the modern warship was expecting him the moment he appeared on the horizon . Generally, the reason attacks like the one on the USS Cole are successful is because of guerilla tactics.

And even if you posit a Super Aegis (If you don't what it is, read the Navy websites) for the ships then there is an upper limit on what it can keep track of at a time and an even smaller number of things it can aim at at once.

Just how many mines are you planning on having in orbit around a planet? All the invaders need to do is track those mines within X km of their ship. Even if you have a million mines per cubic lightsecond (1 per 0.01 lightsecond), all the invading ship will need to do is keep track of (a) distance from ship and (b) velocity. Sure it can be overwhelmed with targets, and electronic warfare can screw things up, but both of these will mean spending more and more on the mines.

And if you have your bubble up you HAVE NO POINT DEFENSE. You are in a DIFFERENT UNIVERSE!

Rather implies that you won't be able to see in or out either, without using wormholes. Which then makes one wonder how detonating a nuke outside the warp bubble can pop it, because I'd've thought that it'd mean effecting the ship's drive... although the ship's in another universe. I'm wondering if the drive's properties need clarifying for this scenario?
1. Can you see out? Can you see in? How? Radar pulses and laser beams are "made" of the same stuff, so what you can see will, barring handwavium, also determine whether you can communicate and fight through the warp bubble.
2. Can physical objects exit the warp bubble? Can they enter?
3. How might a weapon collapse or "pop" the warp bubble?
4. What happens to the thing inside a warp bubble if said bubble "collides" with a physical object? What happens to the object?

why doesn't the world just build its own point defense system on a scale to match the world as compared to those on your ship?

How much money does your target world have exactly? Now yes of course I realise that planets can be armed and all that, but they are still static defences. Thus it's much easier for an attacker to move around firing, and much harder for the planet to respond. If you're able to fire your lasers from a lightminute out, how the hell is a planet supposed to hit you?

Besides, go ahead and drop things on, let's say, Earth's top 400 megamillion pop cities and kill 70% of the world pop. That leaves you exactly what in the way of conquered peoples and profits? You can't rule a radioactive crater and it doesn't reap profits to pay for your expenses either. And if you send the world into a nuclear winter or an ice age... and we are doing that WITHOUT rocks being dropped, all by ourselves... well, who wants to be governor of the planet Super Antarctica?

1. First of all, there's the mere threat of having asteroids launched at the planet: the defenders may well decide to surrender instead.
2. Assuming they don't surrender right off the bat, and you start dropping rocks on them, how many cities will need to be destroyed before they do surrender?
3. If they STILL don't surrender... well in the short term you've lost a lot of money, but in the long term you can still claim their planet (see above), and either way that's one more planet that won't be a threat to your interstellar empire. And quite frankly given how stubbornly they resisted even whilst their cities were being blown to smithereens, it's probably a good thing too.

And that is how it would go in the future.

No, because everyone would need a navy to deploy their soldiers anywhere if we're talking about interplanetary wars. During the Napoleonic Wars, if Prussia wanted to invade France it marched its troops to France. No ships involved. Having a navy means, if nothing else, less money to spend on the army. Having a navy that can transport your army just about anywhere it needs to go, AND support it with overwhelming firepower, AND clear out the worst of the opposition beforehand... that changes the rules of the game somewhat.

can not hold ground with a navy... you can only bomb the crap out of it. But THAT doesn't give you CONTROL. THAT is only achieved by soldiers on the ground.

In a universe where you can fire relativistic warheads and have orbital supremacy, warships practically are as good as troops on the ground. The nearest modern equivalent would be a US carrier group parked off the coast of a tiny hostile island, but willing to bomb the hell out of the islanders if they dare raise a fist. You may want some ground troops of course (it'd depend on the circumstances), but as these troops would be backed up by the warships, you could probably get away with far fewer than any modern occupation force.

Now... about getting troops ALIVE on the ground of an enemy world... remember all that planetary point defense???

"Attention all defence force personnel. We are now deploying troop transports in numerous small waves to your major military installations - at least, the ones we didn't reduce to rubble earlier. For every transport shot down we will nuke one major city. The first wave of transports will be in five minutes. Good day."
At which point, the sensible defender switches to guerilla tactics if anything, because his job is to protect the civilians and having a major city nuked in return for a single transport is obviously not how you do this.

And if it is easy for a Higher Tech Force with LOTS of Men and LOTS of Money and Lots of ships and LOTS of expensive toys and Nukes and bullets that do tricks to achieve control on the ground against a "primitive and Backward and poor" enemy world, then: EXPLAIN IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN please...

A poor analogy. Afghanistan is landlocked and Iraq nearly so. The USA isn't willing to reduce either country to irradiated rubble (or even a city or two). Neither country can be completely isolated from other countries in the same way that a planet can be isolated by a blockading fleet. For that matter, the US isn't even trying to conquer either country, and it cares about what the locals think a lot more than any conqueror.


Another thing I want to take issue with here is this seeming insistence that large, rich worlds will have ridiculous amounts of defences compared to the attacking fleet - and will have their own ships and such as well. Now the ships I can understand - nobody will want to leave their worlds completely unguarded, and one faction might even be fighting a purely defensive war - but surely the better defended the target, the more ships will be committed to the action? Surely if a world relies heavily on its billion-strong fleet of mines, any attacker will evolve their tactics so as to account for this? I'm not sure if you mean this, but I just get the impression that whatever advantages the attacker will have, it'll be met with "ah but the defenders will have more mines / orbitals / whatever", or "the mines can have wormhole comms, and Alcubierre drives, and... and...", all free of charge apparently .




Moving on for a moment, here are some of the ways I'd answer those four points about the drive earlier. It might not be realistic (in fact I'd bet money it isn't, but it's 2am and I'm not about to hunt down what research has been done on this ), but for a story it should work well:

1. You can neither see in nor out - thus, communicating and shooting through the warp bubble is impossible. Or rather, whilst a laser beam can pass through the warp bubble, the way space is warped means you haven't a hope in hell of anything intelligible (or destructive) emerging, and certainly not where you want it to. However, it also means that the defenders do not know exactly what they are facing. A smart attacker may clump his fleet together to hide his true strength for example. Never mind wormholes - if the attackers are flying in on multiple vectors, they can't communicate. Similarly though, the defenders will get very little, if any, warning, because any lightspeed signals from the approaching fleet will be outpaced by the fleet itself. Thus constant battle readiness is a fact of life for all defenders.

2. Physical objects cannot enter the warp bubble, unless they're within their own warp bubble.

3. The only way you could conceivably collapse a warp bubble would be with some sort of gravity beam. Whether such weapons exist even theoretically in your universe is another matter.

4. Much like when black holes warp space-time, objects that come into contact with the warp bubble undergo spaghettification and are ripped apart. Any energy released from this is as likely to go into the warp bubble as out of it though, so it is not by any means a safe ramming weapon. Unfortunately for anyone after planet-busting missiles though, strong gravitational fields (such as those found around planets, stars and the like) will overload the drive and cause it to fail long before it can reach its target. This also makes it impossible to safely activate the drive when near or on a planet, but does make interstellar debris, asteroids and such more or less irrelevant for a ship.

5. One final note: it takes time to activate the drive - you can't pop it on and off every half a second to avoid incoming fire etc.

Hopefully, such a system will allow for plenty of interesting stuff. For starters, the attackers are coming in blind - but the defenders may be caught unprepared. Once the battle begins however, it's a case of ships vs ships - more interesting I feel than ships v planet (the latter can't move for starters). Finally, there's the more unusual situations - escaping from a planet and having to clear the gravity well first, accidents (a collision with an asteroid perhaps?), a suicidal ramming, and so on.

[LordRamage]

Ok, you must be thinking of a million Star Wars Star Destroyers. Fact is the Alcubierre Drive has a maximum size for the ship inside the bubble and that is calculable. The limit is 100 meters. A hundred meter diameter sphere. That is comparable to the power of the largest, best armed warships in the US's future planned inventory. There is a limit to the number of crew and missiles and food and... that can be carried aboard.

I believe I have said a number of times you can't navigate INSIDE the bubble with respect to the Real Universe because of the bubble so you are flying blind. Assuming sufficient data to calculate your course TO the target system before you put the bubble up, then you have to DROP the bubble to navigate through the target system to a world. THAT means you are moving SLOWER than light and thus you will be anticipated and met.

Also while you can't be HIT inside the bubble a sufficient explosion will cause it to drop but meanwhile you can't SHOOT at anything either...UNLESS you merge your bubble with the target - HOWEVER! Please remember that INSIDE the Bubble you can't SEE OUT so how did you find that target to merge with it?

In fact if you are sending out fleets of capitol ships to sieze worlds to colonize you need to do some math. There are as currently calculated, some 17 THOUSAND systems in side 450 light years that most likely have one or more Earthlike or terraformable worlds. So instead of spending your investment on a new world NO ONE owns, you go wipe out a current population and start a war. Brilliant, remind me NOT to invest in your operation.

Besides, since worlds do not colonize themselves and since ALL HUMANS come from, EARTH that means you wiped out a world belonging to another Earth nation... great excuse for a real nuclear war on the motherworld... Once again, remind me NOT to invest in your plans.

And we will NEVER have enough ships to evacuate everyone from Earth and it will ALWAYS have a larger and more powerful population and economy. Even if we make Oneill Colony ships and use them as arks, that's 2 million people each at a cost of several trillion bucks a pop. THAT will take the starch out of your national economy... Say you send out a thousand arks at a cost of a few thousand trillion bucks: WOW OUCH! Are Your people going to be paying TAXES! That is still only 2 billion people and by 2038 we will have 10 Billions and by 2050 it rises to 12 Billions... see the Club of Rome for more statistics on that. Using arcologies and orbital stations, etc, we can support 100 BILLION people "on" or around or under Earth. (Club of Rome statistics) That all assumes future developments in medicine and agriculture, etc. Earth will always be the powerhouse unless of course the next ice age that Global Warming usually triggers hits us, lasts 100,000 years and leaves Conan as the highest tech wariror in the universe... - But that's another genre and I don't DO Swords and Sorcery :>

[Teleros]

Fact is the Alcubierre Drive has a maximum size for the ship inside the bubble and that is calculable. The limit is 100 meters. A hundred meter diameter sphere.

Except when, as you point out, warp bubbles merge. Could such a system be used to build larger ships in your universe?

sufficient data to calculate your course TO the target system before you put the bubble up, then you have to DROP the bubble to navigate through the target system to a world.

Given how we're finding extrasolar planets already, it should be possible to plot a course that will take you much further in, bypassing any planets on the way. Worst case scenario, you send scouts into various systems first (perhaps even before declaring war or whatever). The point however is that with sufficient intelligence an attacker does not need to fly very far at STL speeds before actually engaging the defenders, which makes it easier for them to achieve surprise.

In fact if you are sending out fleets of capitol ships to sieze worlds to colonize you need to do some math. There are as currently calculated, some 17 THOUSAND systems in side 450 light years that most likely have one or more Earthlike or terraformable worlds. So instead of spending your investment on a new world NO ONE owns, you go wipe out a current population and start a war. Brilliant, remind me NOT to invest in your operation.

1. Another power's colonies will presumably be either terraformed, partway through terraforming (less money to invest for you), or have something on it valuable enough to be worth the expense of all the life support equipment an otherwise inhabitable world would require.

2. There may be fewer worlds than that, at least in this particular neighbourhood. Maybe a gamma ray burst irradiated most of them a few million years back or something. Anyway, the result now is increased competition for land.

3. There may be other reasons for the war, and grabbing lots of land for your faction is either (a) a nice side-effect or (b) required for island-hopping tactics.

Besides, since worlds do not colonize themselves and since ALL HUMANS come from, EARTH that means you wiped out a world belonging to another Earth nation... great excuse for a real nuclear war on the motherworld... Once again, remind me NOT to invest in your plans.

Sure, if you want to put in strong ties to a disunited Earth, that will obviously affect any plans for war. On the other hand, it's quite different if you're dealing with say two factions independent of Earth.

it will ALWAYS have a larger and more powerful population and economy

Says who? Depending on the way colonisation proceeds, Earth could easily find itself outstripped by newer colonies. It all depends on time, resources, social norms (what if contraceptives and abortions are banned on colonies, but medical science is more advanced than today? Cue big population boom), and so on. And if enough of these worlds are prosperous enough, Earth's population could even stay static or shrink as people leave the homeworld for new lives elsewhere. Anyway, the point is it depends on the setting.



One other thing I should probably have mentioned as things to consider as far as the fiction-writing part is concerned is this: stacking the cards too heavily on one side all the time will make it harder to write well. If the attacker has no element of surprise, is almost always outgunned and outnumbered by mines & other defences, etc etc etc then there's a real disincentive to any sort of warfare beyond blockading worlds and attacking from extreme range. Never mind the effect this'll have on the reader. The five points I suggested should make it more even-handed.

Incidentally, we seem to have moved on from the original talk about the drives: is it worth moving this to OSF?

[LordRamage]

That's what sets the competition level at about the same place as Hornblower would have experienced. France couldn't invade England and Englad couldn't invade France but they kept up sniping at each other militarily, politically and economically the entire time. Only when England finally got a sufficient coalition going did the tables turn for France. And even before that, England had fought against Royalist France for a long time and only sided with them in the end because they had no country and were exiles and made a great political excuse to attack France all over again. Hornblower was a hero in the tales only because the guys running things were greedy, pushy, stupid, corrupt and in charge... And what's changed? :>

[Teleros]

Only when England finally got a sufficient coalition going did the tables turn for France.

Ie, a coalition full of countries with armies big enough to take on France . Alone, England could only control the seas - it could only put an army down on the Iberian peninsula because France couldn't concentrate the rest of its army there. Take away those other countries with their big armies and what you've got really is little more than a stalemate.

[LordRamage]

Exactly! Now posit that situation in an extended interstellar duel of sorts... :> The tale requires not a single empire but a batch of smaller ones, some will have colonies, some won't. None will be easy run-overs except for those already overrun by the aggressor bad guy parallel of Napoleonic France. And the parallel of England would have virtual control of extrasystemic space and some control over Napoleonic systemic space, but not enough troops to do any good taking a system... retaking some lesser colonies perhaps though. Hmmm! And "France" would be troop heavy and ship-weak, basically using them like so many interstellar troop barges and not as a fighting force. That's dumb on their part, but we've seen leaders and nations do dumb stuff before...

The bad guys would use mines probably, the good guys are the good guys, they don't need to. Even the guy who ends up chracterizing Napoleon wouldn't be stupid enough to try to take the England parallel system without help. Interesting. :> And I will be crediting Stardestroyer.net and y'all. But let's not stop here... bcak to the ships...Ok, 100 meter sphere is perfect for an A Drive warp bubble... would there be only a single class or all the same size but different tasks and classes? Whatcha all think?

[Teleros]

And the parallel of England would have virtual control of extrasystemic space

How? Part of the reason Britain could do this in the age of sail was due to prevailing winds and such - is there something analogous to this in your universe?

And "France" would be troop heavy and ship-weak, basically using them like so many interstellar troop barges and not as a fighting force. That's dumb on their part, but we've seen leaders and nations do dumb stuff before...

"Following the revolution on New Paris, the Interim Revolutionary Council felt the need to reinforce its power throughout the new Republic. Accordingly, it began a sustained campaign to build up its planetside forces so as to better maintain control of the various worlds under its control. As events during the war were to show however, this policy was to make it much easier for the Royal Interstellar Navy to cut off individual worlds, as the Republican Navy had been considerably weakened as a result of the new focus and lack of investment."

The bad guys would use mines probably, the good guys are the good guys, they don't need to.

But should anyway, if they have smart commanders and the mines are that good. After all if they're as good as you say it would free up a considerable number of ships (and men) for offensive actions. If they still don't, then they should have a credible reason for not doing so. An example of this is the lack of planetary bombardments in the Honor Harrington universe - the "Eridani Accords" or something basically state that if anyone fires a missile at an inhabited world, the Solarian League (the local hyperpower) will come and curbstomp those responsible.

But let's not stop here... bcak to the ships...Ok, 100 meter sphere is perfect for an A Drive warp bubble... would there be only a single class or all the same size but different tasks and classes? Whatcha all think?

1. Large ships will presumably cost more and require larger crews. Is there any point in building scout ships as large as your battleships?
2. How hard is it to destroy a ship? If a one man starfighter can disable or even destroy a battleship crewed by two hundred, one might expect large fleets of carriers.
3. What of supply lines and interstellar comms? If FTL comms are impossible then ships will be used to ferry messages about for example. Even if supply ships are unarmed and unarmoured, you'll need a good number of them, because you can't just cram everything onto a few massive ships.
4. Why 100m? Why not 104m? Or 101.002m? What research is being done to expand this limit in-universe, and what advantages will it confer to the first side to do it (see previous points).

[LordRamage]

Teleros said: How? Part of the reason Britain could do this in the age of sail was due to prevailing winds and such - is there something analogous to this in your universe?

A: You answered it in the next question perfectly, actually. Wise investment as opposed to paranoid investment.

Teleros said: "Following the revolution on New Paris, the Interim Revolutionary Council felt the need to reinforce its power throughout the new Republic. Accordingly, it began a sustained campaign to build up its planetside forces so as to better maintain control of the various worlds under its control. As events during the war were to show however, this policy was to make it much easier for the Royal Interstellar Navy to cut off individual worlds, as the Republican Navy had been considerably weakened as a result of the new focus and lack of investment."

A: Exactly! :> and TYVM

Teleros said: But should anyway, if they have smart commanders and the mines are that good. After all if they're as good as you say it would free up a considerable number of ships (and men) for offensive actions. If they still don't, then they should have a credible reason for not doing so. An example of this is the lack of planetary bombardments in the Honor Harrington universe - the "Eridani Accords" or something basically state that if anyone fires a missile at an inhabited world, the Solarian League (the local hyperpower) will come and curbstomp those responsible.

A: Hmm, you have a point. And a minefield that covered a sphere 8 AU in diameter would spread out beyond the asteroid belt toward Jupiter itself. That is a lot of advance warning, even if all the mines accomplish is to send a yell forward, like a series of interstellar horsemen carry word between posts: "An enemy ship is here!" with details as to size, speed, etc. And that covers the regions above and below the ecliptic to the same density and distance. Destroying them would be an exersize in futility since there would be somany yelling their heads off electronically, nothing would be conmcealed and valuable time and energy wasted taking them out one at a time. They don't need to be mines...warning satelites would be sufficient as long as they had FTL comlinks to the homeworld. But SOME could be genuine mines - basically swelf-operating Smart Missiles deployed in order to recieve the advance warning, plot a closest interception course, wait for the moment and strike. And which one or ones is it? At that point an invader sitting still to chew on satellites just gives the real thing the chance to nail them.

Teleros wrote:
1. Large ships will presumably cost more and require larger crews. Is there any point in building scout ships as large as your battleships?
2. How hard is it to destroy a ship? If a one man starfighter can disable or even destroy a battleship crewed by two hundred, one might expect large fleets of carriers.
3. What of supply lines and interstellar comms? If FTL comms are impossible then ships will be used to ferry messages about for example. Even if supply ships are unarmed and unarmoured, you'll need a good number of them, because you can't just cram everything onto a few massive ships.
4. Why 100m? Why not 104m? Or 101.002m? What research is being done to expand this limit in-universe, and what advantages will it confer to the first side to do it (see previous points).

A:
1: It isn't a question of there being a point, my question was can such exist? The math I have seen requires a 100 meter diameter sphere, not 99 or 101. Why has to do with energy requirements, a 100 meter diameter sphere requires 1,065 grams of negative energy to operate its' warp bubble. other sizes do not offer this comparatively minimal amount and are therefore harder and more expensive to operate. I haven't seen any math to argue with Kelvin Long's conclusions. In fact, Van Den Broeck's work confirms the number while arguing for a complex sort of downsizing of the ship into an atom basically. Not going there, as a method of travel it lacks the romance needed for such a tale as a Space-going Hornblower requires. :> If it is POSSIBLE to have a ship of another size: a 1 kilometer super ship carrier or battleship, a ten meter fighter, a thousand meter yacht... I'd love it, but I have no data it is possible. We maybe stuck with one size fits all by the nature of the warp drive itself and its requirements. THATS a story limit and will be interesting to try to deal with. ANy ideas anyone?
2: It would be impossible for a fighter to carry sufficient weapons to destroy such a ship. A modern fighter, or even a flight of them, coming against an Aegis Cruiser for example: The fighter loses, the cruiser MIGHT be damaged. Since they never sail alone anymore, the interweave of the massed Aegis systems and the total firepower means a modern Battle Group is Lord of All it Surveys.
3: I think we have established from Dr A's math and that of others that no FTL communications are possible with an A Drive ship even if you can tie WORLDS together, real-time, instantly and constantly with such things as Pinhole-sized Wormhole links. When it drops out of warp drive it can use its wormhole to call home or be called, but when in drive they are in a separate universe and you can't call home. You have to drop out of warp drive to navigate as well... Supply lines will be important but I rather imagine a Battle Group getting in place and perhaps deploying its own field of Smart Missiles and Aegis Satellites and then having the convoyed transports follow along behind. It would take escorting forces to create a safe corridor along which transports and merchants can travel safely. Thus the France-parallel has no chance at stopping them because, as you posited, they are army-strong and navy-weak. And the England-parallel intends to keep it that way. This posits Home Defense Groups, Escort Groups and Battle Groups as part of the overall fleet.
4: Answered above in #1, Long, Van Den Broek and Alcubierre's math says so apparently, but I'd like a physiicist's opinion on that. If I CAN have ships of other sizes that would be great.

[Teleros]

my question was can such exist?

Presumably if you can fit the A-drive into a smaller size of ship, yes. You could have a 100m warp bubble with a 20m scout ship, which would save on materials, crew size etc.

a 100 meter diameter sphere requires 1,065 grams of negative energy to operate its' warp bubble. other sizes do not offer this comparatively minimal amount and are therefore harder and more expensive to operate

If larger ones are simply more energy intensive (or whatever), does that mean larger / smaller warp bubbles are not impossible, but merely (very?) impractical?

You answered it in the next question perfectly, actually. Wise investment as opposed to paranoid investment.

No but I mean, if you want to send a ship from star A to star B, what can someone else do to stop you? It's easy with blockades of course, but without them...?

A modern fighter, or even a flight of them, coming against an Aegis Cruiser for example: The fighter loses, the cruiser MIGHT be damaged.

The difference is that a starfighter can be armed with considerably more powerful weapons than a modern fighter can - nukes being the obvious example. Okay, so a modern fighter CAN use nukes, but dropping them willy-nilly on ocean-going vessels is a sure way of pissing off everyone. In addition, if weapons are powerful enough then no plausible physical armour will be able to stop (short of having tons and tons and tons of armour - ship size is now the problem).

And a minefield that covered a sphere 8 AU in diameter would spread out beyond the asteroid belt toward Jupiter itself.

If wormholes can be used for communications between mines, it might be easier to have mine launchers or clusters in specific areas, and then seed the rest of the solar system with dirt cheap sensor platforms. Enemies approaching near the mine launchers would be swiftly dealt with, whereas if they bypass them then they face the prospect of attack from several directions. Distance between sensor platforms would depend mostly on sensor quality and the speed of incoming ships (FTL or STL), because if it takes 10 seconds to send a signal from the Kuiper belt to Earth, but the attacking fleet can be at Earth before the signal, sensors that far out may as well be more widely spaced: they can't stop a surprise attack but can be used to locate ships trying to hide or avoid your system defence ships.

As for the ship size limits - I don't know enough about the physics or engineering problems. It's just that the nice round 100m figure seemed rather convenient.

[LordRamage]

Quote:
Presumably if you can fit the A-drive into a smaller size of ship, yes. You could have a 100m warp bubble with a 20m scout ship, which would save on materials, crew size etc.

A: Hmmm! Interesting idea, I like it.

Quote:
(a 100 meter diameter sphere requires 1,065 grams of negative energy to operate its' warp bubble. other sizes do not offer this comparatively minimal amount and are therefore harder and more expensive to operate)

If larger ones are simply more energy intensive (or whatever), does that mean larger/smaller warp bubbles are not impossible, but merely (very?) impractical?

A: Yes, that is my conclusion from available data, but Irather like your approach in the first quote above.

Quote:
No but I mean, if you want to send a ship from star A to star B, what can someone else do to stop you? It's easy with blockades of course, but without them...?

A: Ok, you can have interstellar stealth while you are FTL inside a warp bubble and perfect defense. Once youge tin-system the cheap sensor platforms you recommend below would be able to detect a ship in warp after it passed... Then, with sufficient density and size the weapons platforms can launch pursuing smart missiles at FTL speeds on interception courses. That will work because Hohmann did in fact get his math right.

Quote:
The difference is that a starfighter can be armed with considerably more powerful weapons than a modern fighter can - nukes being the obvious example. Okay, so a modern fighter CAN use nukes, but dropping them willy-nilly on ocean-going vessels is a sure way of pissing off everyone. In addition, if weapons are powerful enough then no plausible physical armour will be able to stop (short of having tons and tons and tons of armour - ship size is now the problem).

A: My point that planets have better and more point defense than a ship includes the fact that a ship has more better point defense than a fighter. And the larger target,world or ship, has better internal communications as well as better computing power.

Quote:
If wormholes can be used for communications between mines, it might be easier to have mine launchers or clusters in specific areas, and then seed the rest of the solar system with dirt cheap sensor platforms. Enemies approaching near the mine launchers would be swiftly dealt with, whereas if they bypass them then they face the prospect of attack from several directions. Distance between sensor platforms would depend mostly on sensor quality and the speed of incoming ships (FTL or STL), because if it takes 10 seconds to send a signal from the Kuiper belt to Earth, but the attacking fleet can be at Earth before the signal, sensors that far out may as well be more widely spaced: they can't stop a surprise attack but can be used to locate ships trying to hide or avoid your system defence ships.

A: WOW! I like that. :> It makes all sorts of story possibilities.

Quote:
As for the ship size limits - I don't know enough about the physics or engineering problems. It's just that the nice round 100m figure seemed rather convenient.

A: Yeah, and I like your first idea, bigger engine, smaller ship, same size bubble. But then Iask Why? Okay, it saves material and cost, but for the same engine (Most of the cost) you can build the larger ship and have more of everything when you get there. Just have different classes of ship for different purposes. And being standard, like WW2 Liberty ships, you can mass produce them more cheaply and faster. So I rather like the standard size multi-purpose mass produced design.

BTW: Where did my Post go??? It was truncated. Did someone manage to delete large parts of it? You quoted the missing parts perectly but still, how did that happen?