G'day,
> Without a specific scenario, you can
Given you can write my strategic military knowledge on the back of a small
napkin I wouldn't mind some pointers.
One day I will get time enough again to do some writing and this'll help.
So the scenario is....
The KV apparently want a foot hold in the Sol system. They also
apparently want a planet-side base of operations rather than simply
building/taking over a dome on an asteroid or moon. They seem to have
decided Earth is too big to take in the first step so they have dived on Mars
instead.
Now fire away - feel free to tell me why that was a dumb decision on the
KV's part (or maybe why it was the right one). If you want to say how you'd
take Mars I'm all ears too.
Cheers
> On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 4:54 PM, <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au> wrote:
Whether or not it is reasonable depends on a few variables that haven't been
thrashed out in the Tuffleyverse.
Let's assume that a full invasion of Earth is going to take a fair bit of time
to set up. Fuel, food, water, equipment, replacement parts, maybe even
transports take a while to line up. In the meantime, you don't want your
warriors sitting around on board ship getting bored. You want them training
and preparing, and that requires them to be on a planet with gravity
relatively close to that of Earth. Does it make sense, then, for that invasion
site to be Mars?
** Assumption 1: That the KV can't freeze their warriors in some sort of
stasis and wake them up pretty much ready to fight. Either there is no stasis,
or such stasis leaves the soldiers' muscles relatively weak (think of how the
Nostromo crew looked as they woke up at the
beginning of _Alien_). If the stasis exists, there's no need to stage
the warriors in a gravity well. Just take them from their training camps on
the Kra'vak home world and freeze them until they drop on Earth.
** Assumption 2: That the KV need real time training on a planet. In
other words, they don't have _Matrix_ style training simulators that
form the necessary neural pathways without the warriors actually having to do
real work on a real planet. (I personally like this idea,
and plan to use it in a sci-fi RPG I'm going to write next year, but
it's not something that's been mentioned with regard to the
Tuffleyverse.) Also, they don't have huge portable gravity-generating
ships that could double for a training ground. This means that KV troops need
to train in a gravity well prior to an assault on Earth. Otherwise, as above,
you just load them onto ships and leave them there for long periods of time
prior to the invasion.
For a variant on this, assume that KV warriors actually need at least
_some_ training, and not just strength conditioning and muscle toning.
In other words, they aren't "natural fighters" whose abilities come from
instinct.
** Assumption 3: That Mars' gravity is going to be sufficiently high enough,
or their stay there will be sufficiently short enough, that their muscles
won't atrophy. I personally wouldn't leave a force very long on Mars if they
intend to fight on Earth. Even if you could strength train the troops to keep
their muscles in tone, the neural pathways of fighting on Mars are going to be
different from those of fighting in Earth's gravity well. You have to assume
that the KV can get around this difference, or they (or the human bases they
capture) have gravity plates that will produce 1g of gravity for most of the
time the KV are on Mars.
If any of those assumptions aren't true, then Mars isn't going to be of much
use as a staging area for an attack on Earth. You might as well either stage
your troops in deep space within a day or a week's
jump of Earth, or you stage them on an extra-solar planet with gravity
closer to Earth that's, say, no more than a couple of weeks from Earth.
Even if Mars will work, you have to ask yourself "why Mars?" What does
Mars get you that an extra-solar planet would not? The main advantage
is proximity to Earth. However, this proximity is artificial. If you can jump
a distance of 1 light year a day, every planet in our solar system is
essentially the same distance apart. There's an assumption that gravity
affects jump accuracy, but that argues for starting your invasion outside of a
gravity well, as it implies inaccuracies when jumping out of a gravity well,
too. What's more, you have to expend energy to climb out of a gravity well.
Assuming you are launching an invasion from Mars, you'd have to take the time,
effort, and energy expenditure to get yourself out of the Martian gravity well
before you can attack the Earth. That's going to be noticed, and leave you
somewhat vulnerable. By contrast, if you launch from an extra-solar
planet. You can take more time and be more cautious when lifting off the
planet, you can then refuel, and jump to a point in space beyond the plane of
the ecliptic. That gets you just as close to Earth as Mars (even closer) with
little chance of being spotted as you start
making micro-jumps into Earth's gravity well.
This is all arguing against an attack on Mars first. Depending on your
assumptions, Mars might make a vulnerable and questionable assembly point.
So, let's look at the issue from the other side. Is there a reason that Mars
is a tempting target in its own right? Maybe there's a human naval base, or
bases, on Mars or in Mars orbit, or maybe there's a large army reserve on
Mars. It makes sense not to keep all of your ships in one base in case of a
sneak attack (there are plenty of historical analogues). The KV might need to
take out Mars because they can't afford to leave the Mars bases intact while
they attack Earth.
An example of this is the Peleliu campaign from World War II. U.S. Marines
attacked two islands in the Palau chain prior to MacArthur's attack on the
Philippines. The intention was to bottle up the Japanese on Peleliu and
prevent them from reinforcing the Philippines. (As it turned out, it wasn't
necessary. The U.S. Navy could have skirted around the islands and interdicted
any Japanese ships pulling reinforcements from Peleliu without the large loss
of life the bloody ground campaign generated. In the case of the Tuffleyverse,
FTL jumps make interdiction far less likely.)
Attacking Mars is important if there are reinforcing assets that could be
brought to bear on a force attacking Earth. However, this argues that the
attack on Earth should be ready to begin fairly soon after the attack on Mars,
or that at least a threat of attacking Earth will pin the humans in place.
This is where another bunch of assumptions come in.
How big is the KV fleet? Do the humans know how big the fleet is? Will the
humans be able to tell if the attack on Mars is a diversionary attack, or if
it's an attack in force? The size of the attack force needs to be calculated
pretty tightly. Too many ships and the humans might realize it's a major force
and send large numbers of reinforcements from Earth right away. Too small a
force and the attack could be thwarted by the addition of a relatively small
attack group from Earth. How quickly could a human task force turn around and
head back to Earth if they were just about to engage at Mars when the main KV
fleet attacked Earth?
For that matter, a small attack force going after Mars might elicit a HUGE
response from Earth, on the assumption that it would be quickly overwhelmed by
the full force of the Earth's navies. Sure it would leave Earth unprotected
for a time, but this tactic could completely annihilate the Martian expedition
and then turn around in time to jump on the main KV force at Earth, allowing
the KV to be defeated in detail.
This is assuming that humanity has a big base on Mars that needs dealing with.
I'd be tempted to put my naval assets within a quick jump from Earth but in a
part of space that allows me to monitor the Earth without being noticed. I'd
move about on a regular, but random, basis, too. While I'm at it, I'd have the
fleet monitor Mars. Now the KV fleet won't know the location of my fleet in
order to hit it, while pinning their own fleets within the Earth and Mars
gravity wells.
Of course this assumes (there's that word again!) that the Earth navies get
nothing out of being located in or near a gravity well. What do the ships use
for fuel? Is it something that has to be mined
and/or transported? Maybe it makes sense to have a base on Mars or in
Mars orbit for some reason or another. Maybe you just can't produce a
good space-bound dry dock that's mobile. Or, maybe the dry dock is in
so much demand that it just can't move, meaning that putting it out in space
is a liability (at some point someone will spill the beans as to where it's
located) compared to sitting in Mars orbit where it benefits from the Mars
ground defences.
How efficient are jump drives? Do they consume enough energy that transporting
fuel by jumping to a point in space where the naval base is located is a
losing proposition? If you lose a quarter of your fuel just transporting it to
where it's got to go, it might not be worth your while putting the naval base
out in the middle of nowhere. You might have to keep it near a planet where
orbital elevators can economically pull the fuel out of the gravity well up to
the ships.
Taking everything into consideration, I personally think there are some
advantages to putting a naval base in orbit around Mars, depending on your set
of assumptions. I don't think the KV would get much out of attacking Mars and
then using Mars as a staging area for an attack on the Earth. They could do
that from a more distant location, one that isn't between 3 and 22 light
minutes from Earth. (I'm assuming that in the Tuffleyverse that distance is
close enough that human forces could get relevant and useful military
information from just straight observation.)
I think the best bet would be an attack on Mars as a close prelude to an
attack on Earth, either as a diversion or as a pinning attack. The
staging area would be some extra-solar planet within a week's jump of
Earth.
> On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 4:54 PM, <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au> wrote:
> The KV apparently want a foot hold in the Sol system. They also
Question 1: Has Mars been terraformed enough that humans can survive outside
of a domed or underground city for more than a few minutes with minimal
equipment?
Question 2: Has Mars been terraformed enough that Kra'Vak can survive outside
of a domed or underground city for more than a few minutes with minimal
equipment?
Question 3: What is the objective of the Kra'Vak in 'taking' Mars?
Question 4 and 4b: What is the human settlement pattern and population
distribution like? How are far-flung colonies connected (both
physical transportation and information flow)?
Question 5a and following: What, if any, logistical resources are available
for the Kra'Vak to take over and consume to support their invasion forces, or
are they going to have to import every liter of water they drink? We know they
use gauss weapons, which means they
should (to my mind) need precision-machined slugs of ferrous metal to
fire. Is ammo something that you can turn out on with equipment organic to the
military unit if they should capture a stock of human steel? Are the vehicles
thirsty hydrocarbon guzzlers, or (more likely for expeditionary forces whether
human or Kra'Vak) fusion engines that run on distilled water? Can the Kra'Vak
machinery use lubricants captured in human garages, or do they need something
specially formulated? What do Kra'Vak eat, and can they survive on
requisitioned human food? Do they consider human combat casualties field
rations?
If I only want to take the orbital elevator and the surrounding area in a
100km radius, do I need to either hold or destroy a major urban area with 1
million inhabitants and 4 million in surrounding area, or do I just need to
take a town with a population of 5,000, and blow the monorail lines that
connect them to the rest of the planet? If I shoot down the commo satellites,
drop a nuke on every major spaceport, and take what territory I actually care
about holding, is it going to take the relief force from the biggest mining
colony six months to get there? Imagine if the orbital elevator was in Kenya,
and the nearest major city was in Cairo, how long would it take to march a
mliitary unit across howling wilderness? Planets are vast, and I think a lot
of the discussions have been ignoring that single significant factor.
Personally, if I were an invading species with no moral or ethical objection
to exterminating my competitor species en masse, a colony
with domed cities would have a non-persistent neurotoxin dumped into
the air processing system to forestall guerilla warfare, for those
installations I felt I needed to take intact and not just drop a Mach 20
crowbar on it from orbit, cracking the shell and turning all the inhabitants
inside out.
Guerilla war only matters if your opponent has a reason to keep the civilian
populace alive and sufficient incentive in the form of domestic political
pressure to actually bother differentiating between guerillas and
noncombatants. Otherwise, it's Central Asian Muslims vs. Ghengis Khan, and
that did NOT work out well for the Muslims. Personally, I don't think it will
work a damn on aliens because they simply don't have an objection to
eradicating entire populations of humans if it's more convenient that way.
LOL, Well any commander with brains wouldn't attempt this sort of operation
but if you wanted too heres one way of doing it. The operational commander
would use black ops operations on mar's, first he would commandeer a UN ship,
2nd fill it with ESU chemical agents and NAC
nukes, 3 rd crash the UN ship into a key Military objective,{ let's face it,
considering how many worlds the KV have taken shouldn't be too hard for them
to get these thing's} 4th launch jamming of Mars outgoing radio traffic.5th. a
large captured fuel ship filled with KV c4 and fuel. Then he would use human
mercs and assassins threw a third party, to terminate key high profile civil
and military leader's, with in 24 hours of chemical launch, also use left or
right wing groups to stage riot's and general mayhem within key transport
hub's.{they had months to plan.ok} Fly the UN ship into mars high orbit,
launching the chemical munitions,
then crash it into the objective, the nukes would be launched with a 6 hr
trajectory to then land on their key targets, the crew would do a high orbit
escape pod launch after the chemicals and nukes had been deployed, staying in
orbit for 24 hours then landing on mars. After major civilian population areas
have been neutralised and military
targets,{obviously some military targets will be in bunker complex's like
NORAD etc.}then by this time the KV black ops crew's that were in high orbit
should make planet fall, and be able to seize basic installations for the
landing of KV forces, to root out any forces in bunker installations.
Obviously the KV wouldn't nuke target's they needed for the base's or zones
they have deemed worthy of settlement. Oh nearly forgot the fuel ship, this
would be crashed into mars orbital ship yards{ yes they would have to have
them} and then detonated in the opening stages of the operation.
This sort of operation is designed for more thinking and luck gaming, you'd
properly get the following types of game out of it,
1. escort the UN ship into Mars orbit, through normal space traffic without
being detected. 2. a ramming mission for the fuel carrier. 3. Seek,destroy and
terminate missions using the human merc's, these would be small games but fun,
with lots of what if's thrown in.{ "my god you killed general", my favourite
dog.lol} 4. doing the civil unrest games, with the left and right wing
political group's. gaming riot's basically. 5.more small actions using the KV
black ops crew, landing on mars and chasing human bug's { lets see how they
like being scared of the little blimps and the hand held locator, what "nuke
them from orbit "you say, we did} 6 what ever you can think of. Kv clearing
bunker complex's!
james.
[quoted original message omitted]
My take on this:
1) James, your theory pre-supposes not only that they know a lot more
about humanity than I think they really do, but also understand our psychology
better. I know they have been using those research ships to learn about human
physiology, but psychology would be much harder (I'm sure all their instincts
would push them to Kravakapomorphize us). Do the Kra'vak use covert operations
like that at all? They may be WINNING, but that has nothing to do with having
the capabilities you describe.
2) I pretty much agree with John's assessment of the sheer size of planets and
their impacts. Though one quibble: in my conception of the Tuffleyverse, there
is no space elevator.
3) Alan's points about the value of mars as a target are very good, though
again a quibble: FTL drives are less accurate as you approach a star. Once you
get close enough, they stop working altogether. FTL as I understand it
requires that you be at least further out than the Kuiper Belt (beyond
Neptune). So basically using FTL to bypass picket forces isn't going to work.
HOWEVER, due to the relative velocities of
constant-acceleration ships, interceptions are still unlikely. You
have to park your defenders on the ground they'll defend.
OK so here's my take:
First, we start from Earth, figure out the forces we need, and work backwards
to figure out what we need to get there. This is rough because we have to
decide what the overall Kra'vak strategic objective is: conquest,
neutralization, extermination? It could be any of those.
The Earth-Minbari war in B5 on one hand sounds really contrived and
scripted. On the other, it's a good model for the fact that while there will
be common principles in the evolution of both species, that
we really are fundamentally different and insane-seeming surprises can
happen. Larry Niven's Footfall is a good example of that in action.
An annihilation force would be low on ground troops and high on mobile
industrial gear: bio-factories to make bio/chem weapons, asteroid
mining to prepare a Dinosaur Killer. Any of these techniques would
destroy most life on earth at minimal cost/effort compared to an
extended ground campaign. At the very end you might have to drop cleanup crews
to handle that last stubborn million holdouts, but then you get a planet that
will return to habitability and is devoid of
competitors both to Kra'Vak colonists and any transplanted flora/fauna
they introduce.
There's a good argument AGAINST extermination already, and that's that Kra'Vak
ground invasions have already happened. As John points out, it's way easier to
render a habitat uninhabitable from orbit than it
is to actually go down there and go hand-to-hand. If they're doing
ground invasions, that could be a cue that their objective is something other
than annihilation.
OK so let's assume conquest, since that requires the most conventional
force. Like John said, they need hydrogen for their fusion-powered
ground vehicles (and presumably, ships). They need water and carbonaceous ore
to make habitats for their troops while they wait for the Big Drop. You need
some kind of structural material. Some you can cart in, but for an invasion of
a planet with (by then) 12 billion people, you need colossal resources, and
presumably some kind of staging area.
If I were invading late 22nd century Earth, I would need total control of
orbit. I would want to neutralize any moon base, and perhaps establish one of
my own. Beyond that, here's what I think we need to watch:
1. There are several NEO asteroids, any would be a great start for
carting sufficient non-volatile resources in, especially if I can move
the asteroid into earth orbit (similarly, taking control of any asteroids that
HUMANS have moved into orbit is crucial). Keep in mind, even many minor
asteroids are GIGANTIC, capable of housing huge numbers of troops. Remember
also that their gravity is low enough that you're talking about filling a
volume, not covering a surface area. I
ran some back-of-the-envelope calculations about how many people you
could fit on a small asteroid and the number is astonishing. But my
understanding is that NEO's are short of volatile chemicals like water that
I'll need for my troops. So we have to do more.
2. Mars: Mars is a dump. Deep gravity well, not habitable unless we somehow
terraformed it. No resources we can't get more cheaply from the Belt. Deimos
and Phobos (mars's moons), on the other hand, are potentially strategic
targets. If I don't have a refueling base or orbital construction base there,
I should build one. Even when Mars is
in opposition, it's still relatively close by high-G continuous
thrust. So: neutralize any martian base, capture deimos/phobos.
3. The Belt: The asteroid belt is filled with useful resources, all
broken up into bite-sized chunks for easy exploitation. On one hand,
it has everything we need. Especially Ceres, which has no gravity well to
speak of and (it is believed), enough subsurface ice to supply your whole
invasion force. The only problem is that the Belt is going to be
thick with human habitats-- all with some moderate defenses, hard to
detect, and difficult to patrol. A big fleet could grab Ceres, but there's
simply no hope of completely clearing the belt. Human resistance is likely to
be strong here, but it's certainly a strategic objective. Another value of
Ceres: even if you don't have artificial gravity (and the Kra'Vak *do*), the
gravity is gentle enough here that you could centrifuge your troops to
simulate 1g.
4. The Jovian Subsystem: By that I mean underwater facilities (where
feasible) on the Galilean moons, and mining/industrial/naval
construction facilities in the trojan asteroids. A deep enough base on Europa
would be very hard to detect or harm from orbit, because you're protected by
all that water and ice. If Callisto and Ganymede have similar bases, (and from
my reading it's far less likely that they have subsurface liquid water like
that), then ditto for them.
Jupiter's magnetic field would wreak havoc on Kra'Vak sensors-- not
enough to hurt them, but plenty of noise for a colony under EMCON to go
undetected. Most of what I said for the Belt applies to the trojan
asteroids and minor moons. I'm not sure if the near-jupiter asteroids
are water-rich or not.
5. Saturn: Similar to Jupiter, with one exception. The Rings are chock full of
ice. Definitely desirable for invasion. Titan's methane and water supplies
would be crucial for habitats if they weren't so far out from earth. Better to
use Ceres, unless the theories that say that Ceres is rich in subsurface ice
turn out to be wrong. Titan is probably a human base, so you'd either
eliminate that from orbit or use a ground invasion to try to capture it
(mostly) intact). That's hard considering the hostile environment.
Further out you have similar arguments. In general, you want to eliminate any
human habitats you find throughout the solar system to prevent a counterattack
(especially if humans resort to relativistic kill vehicles for your staging
area, though obviously FTL drive makes that hard to defend against in
general). In an attack on a colony, this mostly consists of bypassing the
habitats, taking the planet, then going back and mopping up with patrol ships.
The Solar System is totally different. With two hundred years to expand into
the solar system, even now it's still very much a frontier filled with all
kinds of independent folk who will do whatever they think they can to save the
homeworld. But even sparsely settled, the intrasolar population will be vast.
A shattered human fleet would fleet to outer colonies for repairs, but many
would return to wage a guerilla war in the asteroids. I think this would
resemble the
island-hopping campaign of WWII in the pacific theatre. The Kra'Vak
might shatter the human fleet, push to Earth, clear Earth orbit and the Moon,
destroy starports and naval facilities on the ground, and then back off and
start systematically clearing the solar system while keeping earth blockaded
and building up an invasion force on the moon or a NEO asteroid.
The Siege of Sol would take a very long time to do right. Unless (again)
you're aiming for annihilation, in which case John's point applies.
On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 8:34 AM, Robert Mayberry
> <robert.mayberry@gmail.com> wrote:
And this brings us to a major quibble with the Tuffleyverse in general. If the
Kra'Vak have to jump no closer than the Kuiper Belt, and they can accelerate
their ships fast enough that they can reach Earth from out there in days,
rather than years (or decades), then they have the ability to accelerate a
small mass onto Mars (or Earth!) and pretty much take out anything they want
without having to set foot on the planet. It doesn't even have to be a
particularly large mass to take out enough cities or Martian domes as a
warning.
This pops up from time-to-time whenever we talk about FT and vector
missiles and vector fighters. Someone immediately starts talking about vector
rocks (or vector rods) and the whole nature of spacecraft warfare changes so
that what we see in the game makes no sense.
Robert's right about the use of FTL closer than the Kuiper Belt. I'd
personally like to see in-system micro-jumps, possibly through the aid
of navigation buoys, but that's not in the canon as written.
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Mon, May 19, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 8:34 AM, Robert Mayberry
Just 'cause it weren't explicitly written out don't mean it ain't there.
:-)
Mk
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Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote: On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 8:34 AM,
Robert Mayberry wrote:
> 3) Alan's points about the value of mars as a target are very good,
And this brings us to a major quibble with the Tuffleyverse in general. If the
Kra'Vak have to jump no closer than the Kuiper Belt, and they can accelerate
their ships fast enough that they can reach Earth from out there in days,
rather than years (or decades), then they have the ability to accelerate a
small mass onto Mars (or Earth!) and pretty much take out anything they want
without having to set foot on the planet. It doesn't even have to be a
particularly large mass to take out enough cities or Martian domes as a
warning.
This pops up from time-to-time whenever we talk about FT and vector
missiles and vector fighters. Someone immediately starts talking about vector
rocks (or vector rods) and the whole nature of spacecraft warfare changes so
that what we see in the game makes no sense.
Robert's right about the use of FTL closer than the Kuiper Belt. I'd
personally like to see in-system micro-jumps, possibly through the aid
of navigation buoys, but that's not in the canon as written.
Allan Yes, the above description points out the serious problem of depicting
space-based combat in a "realistic" fashion, when the most
cost-effective option available to anyone is anything disposable,
accelerated to relativistic velocity (see _The Killing Star_, but only
if you want to be appalled). Only in-system FTL can offer a counter, and
I'm not too sure how well that would work unless FTL communications are also
available. You have to be able to detect those inbound Rods from
God, _and_ your sensors must be able to get the information where it
needs to go, in time to jump a ship or a squadron into position to intercept.
Best,
I see your point about relativistic kill vehicles. It's actually similar to
the point John made:
> Personally, if I were an invading species with no moral or ethical
I think that in this case there are a couple ways to resolve this.
First, you could put people into habitats throughout a solar system. This
solution doesn't help the folks at home, but it does leave plenty of survivors
to avenge the loss of earth. Individual habitats may be fragile, but thousands
of habitats spread throughout a system are hard
to completely clear away. See Bruce Sterling's _Schismatrix_ for an
example of how a society like this might work. In other words, make Earth
expendable. That works in a FT context, but doesn't help people who are trying
to fight SG or DS battles.
Second, we could simply decide that the Kra'Vak strategic objective is NOT
annihilation, but something else. Hopefully their real objective would be
something interesting and hard to fathom that would be unique to them, rather
than something like conquest or subjugation. As I said earlier, I believe that
the fact that the Kra'Vak are bothering to stage ground invasions of colonies
is a strong indicator that annihilation is not their goal. (Of course, that
only protects humanity and the storyline against THIS threat; but if humanity
fends off the Kra'Vak they'll have some serious thinking to do about Solar
System defenses anyway.
Third, you could abandon the Tuffley Drive and replace it with
something like the Alderson drive that makes RKV's less feasible--
something I do NOT favor. Something else from the CoDominium universe would
help, too: the Langston Field absorbs energy proportional to the
cube of its intensity. An RKV is so high-energy that it might overload
a field, but the field would have a fighting chance. Not relevant to the
Tuffleyverse, but if you play in another universe or are writing your own it's
worth thinking about.
Personally I favor option 2, with some of option 1. There are already hints
that the Kra'Vak are NOT trying to annihilate humanity, Earth should NOT be
expendable unless you have a good story reason to eliminate it, and humans are
almost certainly spread over thousands or tens of thousands of habitats on
various moons and asteroid belts.
Of course, what the Kra'Vak actually want may never be clear: with human
control of the Solar System being peeled away over a period of months or years
and Earth tightly under siege, it is likely that the Phalons would see little
profit in intervening. On the other hand, the
Sa'Vasku would face a now-or-never decision: throw their considerable
power behind humanity or abandon it completely? If the Sa'Vasku and the
remnants of the human fleet (rebuilt during the Siege of Sol by outworld
colonies) are able to defeat the Kra'Vak, we may never know what they were
trying to accomplish.
> accelerated to relativistic velocity (see _The Killing Star_, but only
Who wrote this.... bn.com ain't helping
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lo, Peter--
Authors are Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, ISBN13 is
978-0380770267.
Best,
Ken
> Peter Thoenen <eol1@yahoo.com> wrote:
Who wrote this.... bn.com ain't helping
> Peter Thoenen wrote:
Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski Alas, it appears to be out of print.
You can find many of the relevant quotes here:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#killingstar
The basic problem is Burnsides's Advice.
Burnside's Advice is that Friends Don't Let Friends Use Reactionless Drives In
Their Universes. The trick is making a reactionless drive that doesn't give
you the ability to shatter planets with the Naval equivalent of a rowboat
(which would throw a big monkey wrench into the author's carefully crafted
arrangement of combat spacecraft).
Reactionless drives, with no fuel/propellant constraints, will give you
Dirt Cheap Planet Crackers. If you have a reactionless drive, and stellar
economics
Wow good points, but have been playing too much traveller lately, so went
for the role-playing and small armies of figures and scenery types of
games, with a more moderator involvement flavour. But a well done reply none
the less. Actually the funny thing is by the time the group has given all our
various way's to invade the earth and sol system, Jon could of copied it and
released a scenario booklet on this topic. It must give Jon so much enjoyment
sometimes reading all our emails on his universe and our passion for the
Tuffeyverse, wow hope he doesn't think
he's god.
james mitchell
From: "Robert Mayberry" <robert.mayberry@gmail.com>
To: <gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Invading Mars (was FTverse colinies)
> My take on this:
G'day,
Ok leaving myself open to much snickering/flaming etc, the following
answers come from the fact I'm basing them on my GZGverse fictional setting.
Be as cruel as you have to to bring me back to plausibility... (yes I know
that means I just asked for it...)
> Question 1: Has Mars been terraformed enough that humans can survive
Yes. Kinda. Before the attack started the equipment needs for when on the
surface of Mars was about the same as being on a polar or high altitude
expedition. The penetrating kinetic hits from the initial strikes from orbit
throw up clouds of dust, and trigger storms that
reverse decades of terraforming advances. Re-breathers and gills become
essential and temperatures drop (a multi-year chill begins).
> Question 2: Has Mars been terraformed enough that Kra'Vak can survive
Yes. They seem more able to cope than humans. They seem to have targeted human
infrastructure and taken it over (with modification), but whether that's for
convenience or need is anyone's guess (from a human viewpoint).
> Question 3: What is the objective of the Kra'Vak in 'taking' Mars?
Without giving away too many other plot ides its basically religious.
> Question 4 and 4b: What is the human settlement pattern and population
Most human settlements on Mars are concentrated (but not exclusively so) to
settlements that are sprinkled across the surface of the southern half of the
planet. There are transport links between the settlements (think the pattern
of settlements seen in places like Australia, Canada, Africa, western US).
> Question 5a and following: What, if any, logistical resources are
If they take over Human infrastructure it can (with some modification) be
directly usable by the Kra'Vak.
> What do Kra'Vak eat, and can they survive on
I'd say no they can't directly use all/majority of human foods, but
their food items aren't impossible to grow on Mars.
> Do they consider human combat casualties field rations?
No. Though you still don't want to see what they do to the casualties...
> If I only want to take the orbital elevator and the surrounding area
More like the former than the later.
> If I shoot down the commo satellites, drop a nuke on every major
Depends on how complete their control of the atmosphere is. If they don't
control all the airspace then support can arrive in hours, if its
by land then you're looking at days to weeks+ scale depending on area
the Kra'Vak clear/hold/level in the first place.
> Personally, if I were an invading species with no moral or ethical
I didn't have so much of the neurotoxin (didn't seem to fit with the Kra'Vak
described in Jon's text), but did have them using kinetic penetrators to help
clear the way for their planetfall.
> Guerilla war only matters if your opponent has a reason to keep the
So for what its worth I had the Kra'Vak clear out the peninsular they landed
on (secure roughly 600x400 km2 area in about a week though take another 2 to
clear out the last major pockets). After that, we'll we see how that goes once
we've let this discussion run its course;)
Cheers