> One thing you could do is have unmanned, very small (hard to detect)
A la Traveller, the speed of transit (no matter how far) in Jumpspace was
roughly 168 hours. (Give or take). With the expressboat courier system, they
had a system where a ship would jump, come out of jumpsace, use laser, maser,
meson or radio to beam the messages aboard to another ship ready to jump (some
delay here) and then it would jump and do the same. Fast. And Jump drives were
not small. If your FTL drive tech allows small drives, then what you say is
possible. If not, then you have a harder time with the small undetectable
ship.
T.
I am particularly interested in the insertion of Specop forces in the GZG
uuniverse (hmmm my next piece of fiction is already formulating....) Given the
political environment of the GZG universe, the whole place is ripe for things
like starting insurrections, foreign Internal defense and other Strat recon
and direct action missions.
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> > One thing you could do is have unmanned, very small (hard to detect)
> I am particularly interested in the insertion of Specop forces in the
Given
> the political environment of the GZG universe, the whole place is ripe
For sure, and covert ops like assassinations, black bag operations, psych
warfare ops, leading the way for conventional forces (establishing LZs and
DZs), designation of targets for Ortillery, emplacement of demolitions
charges, etc.
Several options probably exist:
Covert Drop Pods (stealth coated to pass through radar) dropped at night from
a stealthed ship.
HOLD insertions (High Orbit Low Deployment) using a stealthed ship and some
form of stealthed parafoils and jumping from WAY up
Insertion as if you were real local traffic ("Go ahead, shuttle Tydirium, you
are cleared to land on the moon Endor.")
Insertion on garbage scows, barges, bulk merchants, etc. while the crew (or
robotic pilot) is unaware of the SF presence
Just land a stealthed scoutship or the like, which is good because it gives
you an exfil route
SF are going to have to insert from stealthed or cloaked ships. If such do not
exist, only on outer colonies with poor sensor nets will you be able to run a
ship up to the 'coast' (orbit) and drop off your teams. On any decent planet,
an uncloaked ship even of small size that approaches would be detected,
possibly intercepted, and at the very least watched. If it then inserted a
covert ops team, their odds of survival drop dramatically....
Of course, one can argue if stealth exists, why wouldn't all ships use it. The
answer is: Stealth exists today, and we only have a few B2s, and a few F117s
because it costs so much, and requires a vast technological support (even the
slightest break in the fuselage ruins the radar avoidance features). It's just
too expensive for main line ships. Although it sounds like something that
could be put on an FT ship for some exhorbant cost multiplier. (Ideas, FT
guys?) Maybe additional requirements like the ship must have its batteries
deactivated, can't use thrust, can't use comms, etc. when stealth is on would
serve to keep this from being anything other than an interesting scenario
peice.
Tom.
/************************************************
> The problem I have with that is that this sort of campaign by
But traveller did have FTL comms. If it only took you a week to jump a courier
(and I suppose there is no good reason why you can't automate a courier except
that if something goes wrong, AI would tend to lack the flexibility to deal
with it that a human would have) up to six map hexes (a heck of a long
distance as I recall, probably 20 LY), then you are FTL. It just turned out in
that setting that you could pop a ship into jump space using a particular
sequence of energy pulsed through a grid of some fantastic metal in the hull,
and you would then pop out a week later at your destination. They didn't
violate the 'you can't accelerate past the speed of light' law of physics,
they just stepped out of our universe (a la Starwars hyperspace) in a neat
way. Hence they had FTL comms, but it pretty much still boiled down to a pony
express delivery system.
> The other problem with the argument is that there really isn't a whole
....hmmmm....
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in space you have to deal with gravity (if
fighting near a gravity well) which could be greater than Earth's gravity,
other cosmic phenomena, the ability of fighters to spin on their axis and fire
back in your face or thrust up down or sideways (even better than vectored
thrust) and you have to cope with advanced weapons, electronics, and defensive
systems. I don't necessarily think this all adds up to easier.
> > The drone fighter would be a very, Very, VERY high price
OTOH, they have more initiative, decision making ability, and a flexibility
that no one would be capable or find worthwhile to engineer (especially
considering cost and performance) into an AI or computer. Straight out drone
fighters may be fine if you KNOW who your enemy is, and know that you are
going to a fight. Otherwise, human pilots (even factoring in errors) allow you
a lot more discretion and innovation in unknown situations.
Computer pilots, on the
> other hand, are incredibly cheap to build once you work out the
I ask: Have you ever seen the maintenance cycle on large scale (1 million plus
lines) computer programs? On high tech hardware, the
likes of which you are referring to if you talk AI or bio-organic
technologies? The training required to work on these.... Don't doubt that
there would still be a huge (if different) logistics branch required to
support such devices in an operational setting.
> But traveller did have FTL comms. If it only took you a week to jump
Sorry, not making myself clear. By FTL comms I mean instantaneous
commmunication over interstellar distances that allow face to face discussion
like BabCom or Star Trek.
The point is we aren't far off that NOW. Think of a videocam transmission over
the internet. When you resolve that down what it is is a sequence of 1 0
pulses down a wire. Now look at the phenomenon that we have seen where paired
electrons(I think they were) will modify their spin apparently instantly when
separated. Now, if you have two of those, the phenomenon works at interstellar
distances AND you can control and monitor the spin you have a way to transmit
digital information instantly over interstellar distances. One 'spinshifts' at
a constant rate to provide a time sequence
and the other is used to transmit the data - clockwise is a '1' anti is
a '0'. Some of that is doable *now* in a lab situation and the other parts of
it are certainly possible. Yet no-one would even vaguely say we are
close to attaining a means of moving even a subatomic particle at FTL
velocities by any means.
Strange as it may appear, it seems a lot easier to transmit *information* than
it is to transmit *matter*. Afterall, we've had sonic speed information
transmission since the first drum was thumped and light speed info
transmission since the first semaphore lamp was used. Yet we've had
supersonic mass transmission for 100-200 years at most (if you include
cannon shells) and only 50 years if you mean people and we're nowhere near
light speed mass or people transportation.
I'm willing to accept anyone who might say 'it's fiction, it's my story and
this is how I want it' but I'll be grumbling under my breath while doing
so..
TTFN
Jon
> Sorry, not making myself clear. By FTL comms I mean instantaneous
I knew that. I was just pointing out what they had was still FTL.
> The point is we aren't far off that NOW. Think of a videocam
<snip a bunch>
Now, you might not be wrong. This was a fairly hopeful experiment. But I
understand this was quite a contrived setup and required quite a bit of work
to acheive. I'm not sure this will work quite the way you think, but I'm going
to consult some of my Eng Phys and Pure Phys brothers to see what they can
tell me about this before I venture any further comment. Could work. Also note
the requirement for paired
electrons - good for a link one to one, but for a one to many or many
to many link, I wonder.
> Strange as it may appear, it seems a lot easier to transmit
Not quite so strange.
> I'm willing to accept anyone who might say 'it's fiction, it's my
I think an attitude like that might suggest a 'narrowed viewpoint'. We don't
know exactly how things will develop, and our attempts to place our *own*
visions of how the future will shape up on our games is kind of funny if you
think about it (everyone haul out your own personal trunk of biases and pet
theories!). But, if you think it doesn't make sense, don't go with it. Nothing
GZG or anyone on this listserv (doubly so) has written is (AFAIK) *in stone*
and if you change it in your local environment *you will not be hunted down*.
(I assume). They come mostly as suggestions and ideas. If you are grumbling
about GZG or list members making
decisions about its universe.... remember two things - we all have
our own views and no two of us will totally agree and secondly GZG is not in
the business of developing a blueprint for the far future, just a fun game we
can all run around and blow up things with. If any tertiary setting details
are distracting you from the basic enjoyment of the games, please take a step
back. The games are far too much fun to spend time grumbling.
BTW - I beg to differ on the matter transport not being anywhere
near or even suggested. They have (AFAIK) already been able to suggest from
theory and based on observation that certain kinds of subatomic jumps are
possible. It may well, some believe, be possible to take this principle to a
wider scale and thereby create some form of interstellar drive. Also, we are
aware of more and more *other spaces* as time goes by (dimensions, different
continuums, whatever) and it may be possible to utilize one of these for
transport from A to B in our space without passing through the space (in our
own reference) between A and B. This (I admit) is further off.
Also, that same experiment with the distant electron spin has been suggested
by some as a possible means of moving humans FTL too.
(Encode the human as data - okay now thats no mean feat - send him as
data - rebuild him - again no joke). This is a lot of work, but may
well be conceivable as interstellar personal transport some time in the future
(now mind you, this method still sticks you with the *how do you get a
receiver to the destination* problem.....).
Anyway, just some thoughts. We should all try to keep an open mind in any of
these discussions and be open to the possibility (probability) that we have no
clue what the future 300 years hence will look like (my Grandad born in 1898
was struck with the wonder of 100 years change.... cars, computers, radio, TV,
ATMs, etc..... imagine what another 300 years at current delta rates in
technology will do.... you can't.... neither can I or anyone on the
list....with any chance of being very close.... so go with it....we're just
making guesses that we can live with so we can play these games)
:) Tom
/************************************************
On Thu, 12 Feb 1998 11:30:51 -0500, Thomas Barclay
> <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
> The other problem with the argument is that there really isn't a
Well, the gravity thing is less of an effect. Gravity, being an inverse square
(cube?) law means that close to a small gravity object can be worse than far
away from a large gravity object. If you are in space, you are probably much
further up the gravity well than fighters in the Earth's atmosphere.
Cosmic phenomena--except maybe for radiation--is less of a problem
than on the Earth. Atmospheric effects (weather mostly) are a much worse
problem than you'd find in space.
Fighters spinning around to fire behind them while proceeding forward has one
major problem: their flight vector is pretty easy to predict for a few
seconds. They will be flying constantly in front of them. Predicting an
aircraft's speed from second to second is a lot more complex in an atmosphere.
On the other hand, we can assume that space engines are more powerful and
capable of greater velocity changes than terrestrial aircraft (air resistance
being a major contributor).
> OTOH, they have more initiative, decision making ability, and a
I think human innovation and unpredicatablity are over rated. Take the case of
SAMs versus F4s during Vietnam. A SAM is a very STUPID piece of electronics.
What it's got going for it is high acceleration, high speeds, and good
maneouverability. SAM kills were quite nasty during that war. Imagine a SAM
that could come flying up to a jet, hang back a second, and let loose with a
bunch of missiles of its own.
I just think that the G force and turning radius advantages will out weigh the
benefits of the human mind.
On the other hand, as a writer I'm actually quite pleased that this group is
radically defending human pilots on space fighters. They ARE more interesting
from a story point of view. While I might disagree with them, the fact that
the rest of you guys don't mind them makes things easier for me.
For the record, the best short story I ever read about autonomous
fighters included a human pilot piggy-backing on the fighter. It was
in one of Pournelle's "There Will Be War" anthologies; I'll find the reference
if anyone is interested.
> I ask: Have you ever seen the maintenance cycle on large scale (1
Not personally. The largest system I supported was half a million lines of
code, supported all by my lonesome. Never had a support call on that system
(our Corporate Customer Master system) for well over a year, and that was only
three years after it was completed with quite a few enhancements along the
way.
More dynamic programs are far worse, though. The industry standard is for each
program change having a 50% chance of introducing a bug (and that's after
testing). One million lines of code on a stable system could result in
virutally no maintenance. On the other hand, our manufacturing MRPII system
needed to have it's hand held almost every day. It was written in the same
language (though it was almost 1 million lines of code).
> On high tech hardware, the
Actually, I haven't been talking AI. I've been talking advanced flight combat
systems, like flight sim games only much more sophisticated. Certainly not
something capable of thought or self awareness.
On Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:45:19 -0500, Thomas Barclay
> <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
> Anyway, just some thoughts. We should all try to keep an open mind in
To paraphrase Clarke (or was it Asimov?), when a learned professor says that
something is possible, he is almost always right. When he says that something
is impossible, he is almost always wrong.
In a message dated 98-02-12 14:48:20 EST, you write:
<< Also, that same experiment with the distant electron spin has been
suggested by some as a possible means of moving humans FTL too.
(Encode the human as data - okay now thats no mean feat - send him as
data - rebuild him - again no joke). This is a lot of work, but may
well be conceivable as interstellar personal transport some time in the future
(now mind you, this method still sticks you with the *how do you get a
receiver to the destination* problem.....).
> [quoted text omitted]
Hey Tom, come on now, from your previous postings on this list I'd say you're
an intelligent guy. You can't possibly be serious - this has more PSB
than Star Trek! You can't 'encode a human as data'. Not now, not ever. There
is a basic fundamental difference between data, i.e a string of symbols, and a
conscious sentient mind. Even if you could in some way encode the physical
matter, transmit it and then reconstruct it at the other end, you'd be
entering very dodgy philosophical ground if you said that it was still a
person at the other end.
Besides, presumably the encoding process doesn't actually destroy the person
being coded, so what happens to the guy still at this end? Do you kill him or
can you have multiple copies of the same person running around the universe?
Hmmm. a little too paradoxical for me.
Matt.
> You can't 'encode a human as data'. Not now, not ever. There is a basic
And quite a famous one actually..
As for the whole FTL travel/comms argument, I think it's probably gone
to a conclusion now. Whether or not *we* are likely to have FTL comms or not,
the point is what does the FT background say about it? i think it might be
constructive if we came up with a list of *general* (i.e. quick & easy to
answer) questions which the folks at GZG (do you do all the background
yourself Jon or do you have help?) can answer. An initial suggestion from me
is..
1) Do the various races in FT have direct, real-time interstellar comms?
If so, which ones?
(I believe such a form of communication would present a distinct strategic
advantage to one side or the other if they have it exclusively)
2) What exactly is the Kra'Vak social structure? Some of the flavour text
implies a sort of hybrid clan system a little like medieval Japan but we've
never had any concrete details (unless you want to leave that for Bugs Don't
Surf or Fleet Book part 2).
TTFN
Jon
> On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 DrRokter@aol.com wrote:
> You can't 'encode a human as data'. Not now, not ever. There is a
Its the same dodgy philosophical ground that I tread daily suggesting that the
people I see after a good sleep are the same personalities as the ones
I met the day before. In a very real sense, one is simply /not/ the
same
person moment to moment as they were previously. There really /is/ no
essential difference between matter/energy and information/data; if
there were, it would be very difficult for Information Theory majors to finish
their thesis...
> Besides, presumably the encoding process doesn't actually destroy the
The encoding process would pretty clearly have to be destructive, after all
how do you find out the rate of spin on the highest molecule on your liver
without getting to it? Of course, Hisenburg put the kibosh on that idea of
'encoding' long ago. One can simply never know enough about such linked things
as an electron's speed vs its direction to be useful.
Assuming, however, through the magic of sorcery, that it was possible to
create an encoded blueprint of a human, there is /nothing/ intrinsicly
paradoxical about having another copy running around somewhere. Unless
you consider Xeroxes and fax machines to be paradox-generators, since
they
do the same thing, ie. reproduce a carrier of information/document
sufficently well that the information it contains can be transported
seperate from the original source/document.
[snip]
> As for the whole FTL travel/comms argument, I think it's probably gone
Ok, I'll try and answer them (yes, it is just me....); note that all the
answers refer SPECIFICALLY to the "official" GZG universe (I hate calling it
that, but at least everyone knows what we mean then), and have no bearing on
other backgrounds that we or anyone else may be using for FT.
> 1) Do the various races in FT have direct, real-time interstellar
Humanity does not - speed of communication is limited to speed of ship
travel (like Traveller etc.). I think that the Kra'Vak do not, either. Whether
we ever introduce an alien race that does, we'll have to wait and see (maybe
the Sa'Vasku do, perhaps via a telepathic link of some
sort??).
> (I believe such a form of communication would present a distinct
Yes, we're leaving that one - mainly because I haven't really decided
yet! All (or some of it) will be revealed in due course......
> >I'm a programmer, and I will say that programming is still more art
1. We can do better than we are doing. Probably explains why traditional
engineers frown on programmers. (Of course, the
programming model differs from the engineering model - you don't
release a bridge that might GPF and fix it in the next rev....) 2. To build a
bridge 3x thicker might cost 1.3x as much. To build two sets of the same
program fully independently might cost 2.0x as much. So I don't think you can
quite compare the two cost wise. 3. Program correctness has long been a
discipline studied with the goal of making a language where one cannot author
bugs easily or at all. It just turns out that (according to graphs I've seen),
as correctness increases, usability decreases. And in any extremely complex
system, you can unit test each subfunction, and then test chains of functions,
but what is really hard to test is the operation of the entire software
product as it has a lot of unexpected potentiations. Also note that we only
ever test for things we expect.... which leaves a huge gap sometimes....
(In short, its a tough problem, and one the consumer often does not
want to pay to solve - Joe Consumer says "I want good software" and
then goes out and buys the latest Windoze release KNOWING it will be
buggy - "Gotta have that new XYZ Technobable technology thing...." -
wouldn't do that with a car I hope!).
Tom.
/************************************************
On Sun, 15 Feb 1998 21:06:09 -0500, Thomas Barclay
> <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
> (In short, its a tough problem, and one the consumer often does not
Okay, then YOU explain the Pontiac Fiero! :-)
Seriously, good stuff here. I agree with you.