M.A.D

Yep Namelessfly I think that building a deterrent would be relatively cheap.

A mid sized verge power could do it...if they really wanted to.

I was under the impression that RFC has said that such a missile travelling at 0.9c would be getting very 'hot' from hitting space 'dust' (once the drive went down) and would show up on the sensors of a core system with enough time for them to react and put block ships in place.

As more of these unannounced attacks occurred the system defence standards would be improved across the SL and it would become progressively harder to succeed.

A merchant vessel with a false registry approaching the planet and then making a Kamikaze run or firing missiles from very close range may be more effective. I believe wedge-on-planet is supposed to be really bad news. Hence the Manticore's restrictions on civilian navigation near planets since discovering what Mesan nanotech can do.

M.A.D has worked -so far- in conjuction with major powers on Earth because there was a credable threat that IF one power attacked the other, the targeted power would be able to respond to the launching of that strike with sufficent numbers of weapons to inflice MASSIVE devistation against the aggressor. That would be MASSIVE including often multiple weapons targeted against not only military assets but civilian & industrial targets plus any place there had been evidence that the other side was going to use to keep their command & control (and leadership) safe.

If you are talking about a Verge world they MAY have a couple of hyper-capable ships they could use in some sort of retaliation attack but it could really only be against one or two targets. How do you threaten OFS and FF if you are even the worlds of the Rembrant Trade Assn against thousand of FF ships (up to BC size) at bases across the SL and Shell and Verge? Where would you strike? The neareset OFS governor with a FF logisitc base in his system? 30 FF ships would drop in across the RTA and devastate their orbital and in-system infrasture (or not because then they would have to rebuild it to loot it in a proper manner) and even if you got the Gov and base Admiral in one place, the next set would take over.

No, you have to be able to be able to get in that counter-strike against a broad enough range of targets to knock OFS/FF back to the stone-age IF they survive at all. Not going to happen against 1,000 systems in something like the SL. That is why people were creating things like the RTA or a Star Nation such as Erwhon - growing quickly at a distance and able to keep OFS from organizing a pretence to take over- has to operate politically an economicaly rather than outright military deterence. Yes, they need a military deterrent, but it CAN't APPEAR to be an outright threat to FF/BF or there would be an "oops" moment and the OFS/FF would be "compelled" to move in to save the survivors of the coweredly attack on X system by the ldldld Pirates.

Manticore, particularly now with the alliance with Haven look an awful lot like they have past the point whre they "could in the future" pose a credable threat to the SL bureaucracy. Then ARE a credable threat and have been proving it by defeating massivly superior numberof of larger SLN ships with what many would call contemptable ease.

The Mandarins can't see any other way to get out the corner they are putting themselves deeper and deeper into except by trying to game the system THE WAY IT USED TO WORK.

They also haven't quite figured out- and probably will not-that the only reason that the GA hasn't swept in like the hoard of barbarians they are supposed to be is that the GA really isn't interested in becoming the Empire of Man. The Alignment, on the other hand, wants very much to be in charge but they are quite likley to not survive once the rest of the Normals realize that the Alignment's plan is to make all of the surviving Normals slaves or spair part & raw materials for the Alignment Super Race.

This is a bit of a devil's advocate statement here:

But it looks like this approach is currently working for North Korea.

BobfromSydney wrote:This is a bit of a devil's advocate statement here:

But it looks like this approach is currently working for North Korea.

Agreed. North Korea needn't have the capability to destroy the US to deter the US. Just having a credible capability to destroy only one US city would deter (is deterring?) the US government from taking military action against North Korea.

The lesson has been learned around the world. US inaction regarding Iran (which probably already has a small arsenal that has not been announced officially or with a full yield test) will only encourage other countries to acquire nukes to deter the US. Expect massive, nuke proliferation in coming years.

Interesting time. Give me popcorn.

If you really wanted to do something, a freighter full of lithium hydride and a standard grav implosion bomb in a cargo container docking at an orbital station should do the trick. A million tons of LiH should provide a high enough yield to ignite most flammable objects over the facing hemisphere on the planet below. Not to mention probably destroying every electrical device on the planet or in orbit around it.

As I understood it, RFC over in the GA targets thread, has ruled out Eridani strikes. Period. I'm not going to bother rehearsing his reasoning. After all, you've either read or can go and read what he had to say for yourselves. But his English was pretty plain and unvarnished. Now I know that some of these threads are " what if.." rather than trying to predict what David is going to do with his story. But still, what's been the air to create the fascination with massive atrocities lately? They're cropping up faster than dandilyns in my lawn!

Don

n7axw wrote:As I understood it, RFC over in the GA targets thread, has ruled out Eridani strikes. Period. I'm not going to bother rehearsing his reasoning. After all, you've either read or can go and read what he had to say for yourselves. But his English was pretty plain and unvarnished. Now I know that some of these threads are " what if.." rather than trying to predict what David is going to do with his story. But still, what's been the air to create the fascination with massive atrocities lately? They're cropping up faster than dandilyns in my lawn!

Don

Not quite. What he did rule out was Eridani strikes from systems with rational and/or sane leaders. Eridani strikes from the nutcase element of the galaxy were specifically allowed.

biochem wrote:

n7axw wrote:As I understood it, RFC over in the GA targets thread, has ruled out Eridani strikes. Period. I'm not going to bother rehearsing his reasoning. After all, you've either read or can go and read what he had to say for yourselves. But his English was pretty plain and unvarnished. Now I know that some of these threads are " what if.." rather than trying to predict what David is going to do with his story. But still, what's been the air to create the fascination with massive atrocities lately? They're cropping up faster than dandilyns in my lawn!

Don

Not quite. What he did rule out was Eridani strikes from systems with rational and/or sane leaders. Eridani strikes from the nutcase element of the galaxy were specifically allowed.

Where's Warneke when you need him?

namelessfly wrote:The missile are custom modified for rhis purpose. The capacitor rings power the impeller drive. An isotope power generator, fuel cells, flywheels or lead acid batteries power the terminal stage guidance system. LOX and liquified methane fuel the RCSfor terminal maneuvers, if any needed. If guidance during boost phase is good enough, anintert missile works. You do not have to hit a city or even the right continent.

Would a flywheel work in space? Or would conservation of angular momentum cause your missile to spin against the flywheel?