Post League Eridani

A starter question for debate:

How does the Eridani Edict get enforced now that the League is a proven paper tiger?

The initial answer would be the SEM, but they are way short on planets. Anyone willing to violate the artisans edict to begin with will find the SEM doesn’t have the strategic depth to eat gigadeaths. The League knew that even if you killed a dozen worlds, it wasn’t mutually assured restriction for the violator...it was one way death for one side and a survivable mass killing for the other.

The SEM however is in a MAD scenario with anyone they engage with at that level. And we end up with “would you really trade Manticore for Hypatia?” in the same manner non-nuclear NATO countries used to ask if the Americans would really trade DC for Berlin.

GloriousRuse wrote:A starter question for debate:

How does the Eridani Edict get enforced now that the League is a proven paper tiger?

The initial answer would be the SEM, but they are way short on planets. Anyone willing to violate the artisans edict to begin with will find the SEM doesn’t have the strategic depth to eat gigadeaths. The League knew that even if you killed a dozen worlds, it wasn’t mutually assured restriction for the violator...it was one way death for one side and a survivable mass killing for the other.

The SEM however is in a MAD scenario with anyone they engage with at that level. And we end up with “would you really trade Manticore for Hypatia?” in the same manner non-nuclear NATO countries used to ask if the Americans would really trade DC for Berlin.

Our reasons not to use nuclear weapons aren't the same as the "current" Honorverse's reasons not to use EE violations.

For us, it does run primarily on MAD considerations. There is some taboo against killing millions of people at a time to make political points, but we've had too much experience too recently with actually doing that sort of thing and too much time living in the shadow of the possibility for it to be unthinkably awful.

The Honorverse up til recently had several centuries of not doing that. Not doing that was a central concept in the conduct of war and of being civilized. You didn't include EE violations as among the things to seriously consider any more than we do tactical cannibalism. The only people willing to conduct EE violations are those operating outside the rest of the universe's moral community: the innermost part of the Alignment onion, or Masadans.

From there, you can get EE enforcement out of anyone with guns, with an idea that it may depend on them doing it, and with a national self-image as human beings among human beings. That's going to include Manticore, Haven, Maya, the Andermani, the rump League - even the Renaissance Factor, even if the highest elements of it are secretly aligned with monsters. And you'd get EE violations only out of the monsters.

Granted, there becomes a question of who particularly is going to do the smacking in any given case. And there's the issue that more conflict and harsher conflict will push people toward monstrosity, and you may have parties tempted to monstrosity allied or associated with powers you'd otherwise be depending on to do enforcement. To that extent, the Edict is practically less certain to get enforced by someone or another and more likely to be violated. But that's still not a certainty of being a dead letter, and the dynamic isn't just like our nuclear weapon use.

One important distinction is that Honorverse EE violations wouldn't be "nuclear" weapons. Nuclear weapons are a tad bit more of a gruesome weapon. They ensure "gruesome deaths" far above and beyond any notion of gruesome deaths. In the Honorverse, modern medicine can cure the after effects of nuclear weapons but not until after the immediate gruesome suffering of many. At least the resultant decades of birth defects (of people, not sure about the local fauna and vegetation) and such can be countered, if said planet gets the modern treatments, which said planet may not necessarily be privy to.

As to who will enforce proper acts of humane warfare in the Honorverse? Man himself will. After a premeditated attack on a planet, mankind will rise up against the insanity of it all. And a galactic force of hodgepod ships will be sent to deal with the devils. SEM (Grayson, RMN, Havenite) and Andermani.

If kinetic weapons were presently available on earth, they would be used. Because in man's savage warfare on each other, kinetic weapons would presently represent a humane departure from nuclear weapons.

Considering nuclear weapons used post League . . .

Nuclear Eridani.
Kinetic Eridani.

These are the questions of man.

Do remember that a hidden entity sometime in the future with the use of unprecedented tech can usurp in a more humane version of kinetic strikes. The MA can rewrite the book on EEV.

cthia wrote:One important distinction is that Honorverse EE violations wouldn't be "nuclear" weapons. Nuclear weapons are a tad bit more of a gruesome weapon. They ensure "gruesome deaths" far above and beyond any notion of gruesome deaths. In the Honorverse, modern medicine can cure the after effects of nuclear weapons but not until after the immediate gruesome suffering of many. At least the resultant decades of birth defects (of people, not sure about the local fauna and vegetation) and such can be countered, if said planet gets the modern treatments, which said planet may not necessarily be privy to.

As to who will enforce proper acts of humane warfare in the Honorverse? Man himself will. After a premeditated attack on a planet, mankind will rise up against the insanity of it all. And a galactic force of hodgepod ships will be sent to deal with the devils. SEM (Grayson, RMN, Havenite) and Andermani.

If kinetic weapons were presently available on earth, they would be used. Because in man's savage warfare on each other, kinetic weapons would presently represent a humane departure from nuclear weapons.

Considering nuclear weapons used post League . . .

Nuclear Eridani.
Kinetic Eridani.

These are the questions of man.

If you actually study the effects of nuclear weapons, you will find that the longest range killer is the thermal pulse emitted by the weapon. Direct nuclear radiation is shorter ranged. Thermal radiation can be blocked by a simple shade while a few inches of masonry will dramatically reduce nuclear radiation. Radioactive fallout is not a serious issue unless an attacker uses a surface or near surface burst rather than an airburst of the type used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course the most lethal effect of nuclear weapons is the trauma inflicted by structures that collapse as a result of the blast overpressure. Five psi overpressure will not injure you if you are in the thermal and nuclear shade but that unreinforced, masonry building collapsing on you is a real killer.

A shelter not much more sophisticated than a anunderground fuel storage tank or even a sewer will enable you to survive a a half megaton nuke detonating near surface half a mile away.

In comparison, that 100 ton, KE missile impacting at only 1/3 Cee will have a yield equivalent of about 100,000 Megatons! Even people in shelters out to a range of 25 miles will be killed. The climatic effects from only a few hundred such impacts will leave any survivors in deep shit.

GloriousRuse wrote:A starter question for debate:

How does the Eridani Edict get enforced now that the League is a proven paper tiger?

The initial answer would be the SEM, but they are way short on planets. Anyone willing to violate the artisans edict to begin with will find the SEM doesn’t have the strategic depth to eat gigadeaths. The League knew that even if you killed a dozen worlds, it wasn’t mutually assured restriction for the violator...it was one way death for one side and a survivable mass killing for the other.

The SEM however is in a MAD scenario with anyone they engage with at that level. And we end up with “would you really trade Manticore for Hypatia?” in the same manner non-nuclear NATO countries used to ask if the Americans would really trade DC for Berlin.

My initial reaction to this topic is that the answer is obvious but then you engage in some serious analysis of deterrence theory. Deterrence can be deterred.

Of course the SEM has robust defenses. Only a few entities in the galaxy have the military capacity to pentrate Manticore's defenses even with a ballistic KE strike from outside the hyperlimit. If such a strike does inflict Gigadeath, then Eigth Fleet will pay them a visit and Admiral Harrington would not be restrained.

I think the answer is that there will be collective deterrence motivated by the fear of becoming the next target.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

cthia wrote:One important distinction is that Honorverse EE violations wouldn't be "nuclear" weapons. Nuclear weapons are a tad bit more of a gruesome weapon. They ensure "gruesome deaths" far above and beyond any notion of gruesome deaths. In the Honorverse, modern medicine can cure the after effects of nuclear weapons but not until after the immediate gruesome suffering of many. At least the resultant decades of birth defects (of people, not sure about the local fauna and vegetation) and such can be countered, if said planet gets the modern treatments, which said planet may not necessarily be privy to.

As to who will enforce proper acts of humane warfare in the Honorverse? Man himself will. After a premeditated attack on a planet, mankind will rise up against the insanity of it all. And a galactic force of hodgepod ships will be sent to deal with the devils. SEM (Grayson, RMN, Havenite) and Andermani.

If kinetic weapons were presently available on earth, they would be used. Because in man's savage warfare on each other, kinetic weapons would presently represent a humane departure from nuclear weapons.

Considering nuclear weapons used post League . . .

Nuclear Eridani.
Kinetic Eridani.

These are the questions of man.

If you actually study the effects of nuclear weapons, you will find that the longest range killer is the thermal pulse emitted by the weapon. Direct nuclear radiation is shorter ranged. Thermal radiation can be blocked by a simple shade while a few inches of masonry will dramatically reduce nuclear radiation. Radioactive fallout is not a serious issue unless an attacker uses a surface or near surface burst rather than an airburst of the type used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course the most lethal effect of nuclear weapons is the trauma inflicted by structures that collapse as a result of the blast overpressure. Five psi overpressure will not injure you if you are in the thermal and nuclear shade but that unreinforced, masonry building collapsing on you is a real killer.

A shelter not much more sophisticated than a anunderground fuel storage tank or even a sewer will enable you to survive a a half megaton nuke detonating near surface half a mile away.

In comparison, that 100 ton, KE missile impacting at only 1/3 Cee will have a yield equivalent of about 100,000 Megatons! Even people in shelters out to a range of 25 miles will be killed. The climatic effects from only a few hundred such impacts will leave any survivors in deep shit.

Indeed. I didn't mean to infer that the death count of the two events would be anything near equal. Simply that death by radiation poisoning may be a bit more gruesome, thus less humane.

Of course, ground zero is a different thing. Totally humane, as far as needless suffering.

cthia wrote:

Indeed. I didn't mean to infer that the death count of the two events would be anything near equal. Simply that death by radiation poisoning may be a bit more gruesome, thus less humane.

Of course, ground zero is a different thing. Totally humane, as far as needless suffering.

Dont start that drivel about "people being vaporized" on me.

I actually did the calculations for an op ed refuting the propaganda of THE SHADOW PROJECT. Lethal burns, yes. Vaporization, heck no.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

cthia wrote:

Indeed. I didn't mean to infer that the death count of the two events would be anything near equal. Simply that death by radiation poisoning may be a bit more gruesome, thus less humane.

Of course, ground zero is a different thing. Totally humane, as far as needless suffering.

Dont start that drivel about "people being vaporized" on me.

I actually did the calculations for an op ed refuting the propaganda of THE SHADOW PROJECT. Lethal burns, yes. Vaporization, heck no.

You don't think the 300,000 degrees K encountered at ground zero within the first 50 meters will vaporize you long before anything else?

Ground Zero.

Re: warhead effects. The scale, bluntly, has gone so far beyond what nukes would do that modeling is off for anything. At 100GT we are talking about a kinetic strike that will literally crack tectonic plates, turn oceans into tidal waves, and so forth. That’s one missile. So we can probably just assume any kinetic Eridani will be somewhere on the sliding scale of apocalypses for the world in question.

Re: The Humanist Answer. Humanism typically only holds when the stake are small enough or the technique insufficient to the ends needed. Once the Church declared Crossbows and Guns to be unChristian and suited only to use against infidels. They, if I recall, had a generation where papal canon authorized the blinding of arquebusiers because they were so inhumane. Guns did not go away.

On the larger scale, everything from salting Carthage, to relocating populations, to marching to the Sea, to deciding cities needed to die from the air, to telling the Societs we would Nuke first if they invaded points that once the business get serious enough humanist ideals get dropped.

As an aside we don’t deploy tactical cannibalism...but plenty of warring factions in the developing world deploy tactical rape and ethnic cleansing. We have yet to descend upon them in righteous fury.