(Spoilers) Future technological developments.

tlb wrote:Let's get back to the real problem: how could or why would Beowulf build three massive orbital stations that lacked both defenses and a viable evacuation plan? A blocking wall for them would help some (I realize they are not military targets, but there is a need to prevent collateral damage). In the actual situation from UH, the only effective response would have been an evacuation; but that was considered impossible. I understand that Beowulf had been at peace for centuries, but that is no excuse for a lack of planning.
What if they had been built in a modular fashion; such that in an emergency they could split into mobile pieces, each effectively a very large freighter or passenger liner? Then they would have had the protection of the wedge and only the pieces containing the cargo storerooms would have blown up.

Theemile wrote:I don't think making an entire 50 teraton space station a transformer is a good idea. Now having pre-determined modules that are emergency modules, with ray - shielding and wedges for evac, spread about the ship would be a good idea, even if they are never used.

Galactic Sapper wrote:
My big question is why OB didn't target the deep space sensor arrays Manticore used to spot incoming hyper footprints. That alone would have made a second follow-up strike possible. The first attack wipes out the stations and shipyards; the second attack targeted on the repair and construction ships a couple months into the rebuilding process. With the sensor net down the spider ships could have rearmed and hypered back in basically wherever they wanted to, maybe a light day out to be out of range of the inner system sensors.

kzt wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:
My big question is why OB didn't target the deep space sensor arrays Manticore used to spot incoming hyper footprints. That alone would have made a second follow-up strike possible. The first attack wipes out the stations and shipyards; the second attack targeted on the repair and construction ships a couple months into the rebuilding process. With the sensor net down the spider ships could have rearmed and hypered back in basically wherever they wanted to, maybe a light day out to be out of range of the inner system sensors.

I asked that once and a Bu9 guy explained they are actually not the single object shown, but are a huge cloud of objects several KM apart from each other that carefully track their position relative to each other. Extremely difficult to destroy with a reasonable number of missiles.

Though having an invisible SD covered with grasers cruise through the formation would probably do a number on them in a couple of minutes of firing.

kzt wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:As long as you can get good pizza and Chinese food and can earn a good salary, why not? There was actually a book about that, can't remember the name but it focused on an arcology that held a quarter of a million people.

"Oath of Fealty", Niven and Pournelle.

kzt wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:
My big question is why OB didn't target the deep space sensor arrays Manticore used to spot incoming hyper footprints. That alone would have made a second follow-up strike possible. The first attack wipes out the stations and shipyards; the second attack targeted on the repair and construction ships a couple months into the rebuilding process. With the sensor net down the spider ships could have rearmed and hypered back in basically wherever they wanted to, maybe a light day out to be out of range of the inner system sensors.

I asked that once and a Bu9 guy explained they are actually not the single object shown, but are a huge cloud of objects several KM apart from each other that carefully track their position relative to each other. Extremely difficult to destroy with a reasonable number of missiles.

Though having an invisible SD covered with grasers cruise through the formation would probably do a number on them in a couple of minutes of firing.

tlb wrote:

kzt wrote:I think the orbital stations did have spherical sidewalls. They just were not up.

There was a lot of slackness in how the stations were managed. For example, apparently the first actual evacuation test in living memory was conducted right before they were blowed up. You know what happened before that the didn’t result in an emergency evacuation? The entire RHN 2nd fleet boring in on the station, and the response of the high command was “Huh, wonder what we should do about the millions of civilians in orbit when 2nd fleet gets there and blows it all up. Let’s commission a report from some retired flag officers.”

tlb wrote:Are you talking about Beowulf Alpha, Beta and Gamma or about Weyland and so on in the Manticore system?
I do not remember any description of sidewalls for the Beowulf orbitals. That is why I do not understand why there were blocking ships for the factories, but not the living spaces.

kzt wrote:Wayland etc. which among other things housed the main RMN bases.

The Beowulf stations were not militarily valid targets.

True, the Beowulf stations were not valid military targets; but there should still be planning to prevent collateral damage. The discussion of blocking was for orbitals that did not possess a built-in defense capability. Weyland did not need blocking buoys when it could just turn on its sidewalls.

Oyster Bay was a bolt from the blue that no one could have predicted. The Havenite attack was completely different. Do we know whether or not the sidewalls were active on the Manticoran orbitals during the battle? I do not believe that trying to evacuate while in an active shooting situation would have been a good. Better to ride it out and not add to the confusion, trusting in the protection of the sidewalls.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:Just remember Gene Roddenbury's rule: Whatever weapon you have, there has to be a defense or there is no story.

Chances are there won't be THAT many new tech items...missiles will go longer, will be more accurate. And there will be whole group of new toys.

I prefer the Kzinti Lesson from Larry Niven's Known Space:

"a reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

In terms of soft kills, a fusion drive capable of accelerating an 8 million ton warship at 50 g's or more would fry the sensors of any number of missiles coming at the ship in question. It would be the equivalent of launching missiles into the cornona of the sun and expecting them to hit anything. Think the equivalent of Zitza but lasting as long as the ships have reaction mass.

I understand why such a thing would never be used in canon for story purposes but it's certainly theoretically possible.

Galactic Sapper wrote:A technology I hope to see a lot less of in the future: orbital habitats. They've been shown to be indefensible death traps in the event of hostilities and there's basically no justification for having them the size they are in story. Industrial nodes make perfect sense and having a resident population for that purpose is reasonable, but having platforms like Beowulf Alpha solely as residential platforms makes sense solely as a plot device.

kzt wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:As long as you can get good pizza and Chinese food and can earn a good salary, why not? There was actually a book about that, can't remember the name but it focused on an arcology that held a quarter of a million people.

"Oath of Fealty", Niven and Pournelle.