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How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?

Aliens? Invading aliens? What will Earth do? Well...we may have a few more resources than we first thought. Come join a friendly discussion about David Weber's newest Tor series - "Out of the Dark."
Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Spacekiwi   » Wed Dec 04, 2013 4:32 am

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That cap is probably out in space, just drifting slowly.... just think, eventually it will become humanities first interstellar litter.....
Browne wrote:Use a weaponized Thunder Well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VonfewfNNfI

Got to love nukes!!! :D
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Lord Skimper   » Thu Dec 05, 2013 7:41 pm

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The obvious answer is to take the orbitals first and don't give them up. That of course is hard. Hiding a whole bunch of magnetic accelerator guns on the moon and on earth, maybe under the ocean, could let you shoot anyone who comes into orbit. Michio Kaku suggested planting a detection grid in the ort cloud with weapon systems floating around in the outer system and with the detection grid locations. Ion drive missiles, space defense ships, guns guns and more guns.
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Skywatcher44   » Thu Dec 19, 2013 5:30 pm

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jvilnis wrote:How do yoou defeat a race of Aliens who control high orbit and can throw rocks at you down the gravity well?

Unless you can somehow get up to defeat their ships you are always going to be at a enormous disadvantage.


In Footfall, the definitive alien invasion book, Pournelle and Niven did it with Orion and abusing the aliens "Red Cross" symbol.

I never looked at elephants in quite the same way after that book.......
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by niethil   » Sat Mar 08, 2014 5:19 pm

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jvilnis wrote:How do yoou defeat a race of Aliens who control high orbit and can throw rocks at you down the gravity well?

Unless you can somehow get up to defeat their ships you are always going to be at a enormous disadvantage.


With maple syrup, I believe ...
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Lord Skimper   » Tue Apr 08, 2014 2:43 pm

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You don't so the lesson here is: be the aliens and keep control of the high orbitals. Unless you can hide.
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Cheopis   » Sat Apr 12, 2014 4:10 am

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Build a Bolo, of course. Orbital occupation is nothing that a couple Hellbore plasma cannons can't handle.

Of course, if the enemy has starships with wedge defenses, you would have to be very careful with your timing to catch the enemy with wedges down in orbit.

Then again, if the alien ships have wedges, and are orbiting a significant gravity source, a Hellrail might be a better weapon. Fire from the ground at a trajectory that would use gravity to assist in curving the shot into the throat or skirt of enemy ship wedges. 90 megatons of kinetic energy incoming at a significant fraction of light speed would probably bypass particle shielding.
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Lord Skimper   » Mon Apr 21, 2014 4:48 pm

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If we have higher tech we could use a lensing and the sun to literally power a big laser or plasma gun.
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by DDHv   » Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:36 pm

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The problem with mass weapons is atmospheric friction and poor ability to shift directions.

How about a re-aimed launching laser? Some work has been done on adjusting to atmospheric conditions.
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by Cheopis   » Thu Sep 18, 2014 2:58 am

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DDHv wrote:The problem with mass weapons is atmospheric friction and poor ability to shift directions.

How about a re-aimed launching laser? Some work has been done on adjusting to atmospheric conditions.


The problem with being on the ground when the enemies are in orbit is that they can see all major weapons emplacements. Certainly after the first time they are used.

So, immobile defenses on a planet will not work well unless the tech difference is wildly in favor of the planetbound.

A mobile weapons platform capable of engaging orbital invaders would have a chance to survive. If the ships in orbit closed to a distance where they could reduce their reaction times to near zero to hit the moving target, the moving target is going to be able to hit them with almost no degradation of targeting.

The object on the ground can also use cover to some degree. There was actually a Bolo story where this happened. It was one of my favorites, though it's been years since I read it last.
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Re: How do you Defeat Aliens who control the Orbitals?
Post by TN4994   » Fri Dec 05, 2014 3:15 pm

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niethil wrote:
jvilnis wrote:How do yoou defeat a race of Aliens who control high orbit and can throw rocks at you down the gravity well?

Unless you can somehow get up to defeat their ships you are always going to be at a enormous disadvantage.


With maple syrup, I believe ...

You caught the Live Free or Die reference.

Actually I just finished OotD.
If the aliens are as in this story, they won't be expecting the orbitals to be attacked.
We have options: Space Battleship Yamato or plague that they carry back on their ships (oh, that's been done, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it). But the Vampires are plague, aren't they?
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