I'm thinking about running a sci-fi game where the players are peacekeeping officers for the Space United Nations. They've been sent to a sector of space where conflict between different nations has caused a bunch of collateral damage, and they are expected to improve the situation.
What sort of challenges might peacekeepers face in an environment where it's impossible to build walls to keep people apart and major atrocities could be committed with just some asteroids and spare ship parts?
Space Peacekeeping Operations
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Avoraciopoctules
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Space Peacekeeping Operations
Last edited by Avoraciopoctules on Sun Sep 30, 2012 3:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Gas Giant Fusion Candles.
It's kind of the nuclear option of space terrorists, but said terrorists could embed a fusion engine in a gas giant near to their target planet, turn it on, and crash the whole damned thing into the target.
It's kind of the nuclear option of space terrorists, but said terrorists could embed a fusion engine in a gas giant near to their target planet, turn it on, and crash the whole damned thing into the target.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Ted the Flayer
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Disgruntled former employees and drunk drivers. Not even kidding. Anything big enough to carry useful cargo and fast enough to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time will flatten anything it hits. See http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... on_Systems and http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... p#johnslaw
Gray Goo attacks. They don't work too well on planets (turns out that dirt isn't sufficiently energy-rich to sustain runaway nano), but space stations are another matter entirely. Read Aristoi for a decent portrayal of how easy it is to build Goo in a civ with easy-to-get nanotech. Basically, if you can design nano to build yourself a house, you can also design nano to break your neighbor's house as well as the entire neighborhood and probably most of the city.
Bioweapons. Slightly harder to pull off than just straight gray goo, since you need live test subjects to develop it, but also significantly nastier if you get it running. Note that this covers anything that infects people, including nanotech virii; the key part is the whole "incubation period" thing, not the "infectious pathological organism" thing. Make that incubation period long enough - say, a few decades or centuries - and you could conceivably infect an large chunk of even a slower-than-light civilization.
As a side note, a useful essay for anybody that wants to write about relativistic peacekeeping: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... lling_Star
Gray Goo attacks. They don't work too well on planets (turns out that dirt isn't sufficiently energy-rich to sustain runaway nano), but space stations are another matter entirely. Read Aristoi for a decent portrayal of how easy it is to build Goo in a civ with easy-to-get nanotech. Basically, if you can design nano to build yourself a house, you can also design nano to break your neighbor's house as well as the entire neighborhood and probably most of the city.
Bioweapons. Slightly harder to pull off than just straight gray goo, since you need live test subjects to develop it, but also significantly nastier if you get it running. Note that this covers anything that infects people, including nanotech virii; the key part is the whole "incubation period" thing, not the "infectious pathological organism" thing. Make that incubation period long enough - say, a few decades or centuries - and you could conceivably infect an large chunk of even a slower-than-light civilization.
As a side note, a useful essay for anybody that wants to write about relativistic peacekeeping: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... lling_Star
Last edited by Vebyast on Sun Sep 30, 2012 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Avoraciopoctules
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Thanks for the responses so far. Next time I'm at the library, I'm going to try and grab a few books on historical peacekeeping missions so I can broaden my perspective.
Narrowing the scope a bit, I've been playing SPAZ a lot lately, and I'm thinking of using moderately edited screenshots as system maps. Take a look at this:
You have a solar system connected to the rest of the galaxy through a big warp gate. There's multiple planets, most with some satellites and stations in orbit. Some planets have really big space stations with hundreds or thousands of inhabitants. Might also be some stuff around wreck fields or asteroid belts further out, but not much presence in open space.
At least two major nations, probably a significant criminal presence dealing in weapons and doing shadowruns, and now with the players as a new faction interjected into things. Would it be most reasonable for them to set up around the warp gate where they can exert control over legal traffic in and out of the system, or should they be closer to the center of things where they can react to a crisis?
Narrowing the scope a bit, I've been playing SPAZ a lot lately, and I'm thinking of using moderately edited screenshots as system maps. Take a look at this:
At least two major nations, probably a significant criminal presence dealing in weapons and doing shadowruns, and now with the players as a new faction interjected into things. Would it be most reasonable for them to set up around the warp gate where they can exert control over legal traffic in and out of the system, or should they be closer to the center of things where they can react to a crisis?
If you are peacekeeper you get handed a mission and ROE. The ROE can be totally unreasonable given the mission or not, and the mission might be far vaster then what forces are at hand, or not. Look up the wonders that were the United Nations Protection Force at Srebrenica and the United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda for obvious examples of mismatch ROE, forces and mission.
The fusion candle is still hypothetical, of course, but it's at least as solid as, say, hyperspace.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Swashbuckler
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Completely in agreement with kzt. The main problem for peacekeepers in hostile areas is going to be having an ROE that was made by people who don't shoot people for a living. I knew a guy who did some peacekeeping missions with the 10th ID and that was his primary gripe about it.
Mission issues are the obvious thing. If the area still has a lot of low-level hostility, then you can always use these if you don't really want to think too much about a session in particular. Presence patrols are the obvious one - go to this town, look around, look for trouble. Anything can and will happen. IEDs, snipers, suicide bombers, basically your troops turn into a target for anyone who doesn't think you should be there. And yet commanders somehow think these are a good idea. Another obvious one is convoy security. Allied forces have to eat, and the easiest way to hurt them is to go after their supply line, which is generally less well protected than outposts. The old saw about Iraq was that a truck driver could drive a million miles in-country, and while almost all of them would be mundane and boring, you couldn't rest once, because when you slacked off even a bit, that was going to turn into one of the miles that would suck and possibly kill you. This could easily be the case in a peacekeeping scenario as well if everyone hates you for interfering.
Additionally, considering the setting and ease of mass destruction, other possible challenges include things that are common to CI warfare, even though the PCs aren't explicitly conducting CI warfare, such as gathering humint, making sure their sigint assets are being used properly, preventing terrorist ops from even getting off the ground, so forth and so on. One of the first things the PCs should really try to do, if it isn't explicitly spelled out for them in their mission briefing (and even if it is, because God knows how accurate that is and what the situation on the ground really is) is who the real movers and shakers are. Who has their hands on the money and resources to make things happen, who has the power to bind and to loose the pursestrings for the various factions.
Finally, there's troop issues. Peacekeeping sucks for grunts, mkay? These are people who are trained to shoot people, and they're thrust into a situation where they can't use their loadout to full effect the way they've been trained to do and they have to follow shitty ROEs and basically try to keep people from killing each other when violence is the stock of their trade. (This isn't so much the case for MPs, or if the troops in question have received extensive peacekeeper training, I would suppose.) Troops do some crazy things to blow off stress. Like start brothels on post, or start picking up drugs in large quantities. As officers, it will be the duty of the PCs to handle any problems that reduce the combat efficacy of their units. Which means keeping their troops from getting drugs, loose diseased alien women, so forth and so on. Also, morale. gotta keep it up somehow, to keep soldiers from getting depressed and just shooting themselves. (Replacing the loose diseased alien women with clean, well-tested alien women wouldn't be a bad idea for that really, if they can hide it from their commander.) If morale gets to be bad enough, troops start to do crazy things. Like murdering locals for the lulz, or using utterly disproportionate force at the slightest provocation. Or one of the funniest things I heard of, a dude who stabbed to death - not shot, stabbed to death - a dog who gave away his squad's position as they approached a village. (As for whether or not it's actually funny, YMMV obviously.) So yet another troop-related issue might be gathering evidence and putting together a case either to prosecute or defend a soldier who got into some deep shit that seems really obscene on the face of it.
While we're talking about personnel issues involved, let's talk about the Good Idea Fairy. This sort of pernicious little boggit likes to bewitch officers who are desperate to get promoted, usually in the rank range of captain to lt. colonel. That isn't to say that other ranks aren't bewitched, but the people in these ranks are peculiarly vulnerable. Sometimes, they just get a Great Idea, nevermind that they don't go outside the wire and don't know anything about anything, and everyone else suffers for it. At least a couple of episodes where their commander gives them truly moronic guidance and the PCs have to either find a way to make it work, or do some kind of crazy potemkin shuffling to make their commander think it happened, and then limit the consequences of the moronic guidance, would make the scenario truly realistic.
I'm not sure how much of this actually applies to your game. Good luck with this project!
Mission issues are the obvious thing. If the area still has a lot of low-level hostility, then you can always use these if you don't really want to think too much about a session in particular. Presence patrols are the obvious one - go to this town, look around, look for trouble. Anything can and will happen. IEDs, snipers, suicide bombers, basically your troops turn into a target for anyone who doesn't think you should be there. And yet commanders somehow think these are a good idea. Another obvious one is convoy security. Allied forces have to eat, and the easiest way to hurt them is to go after their supply line, which is generally less well protected than outposts. The old saw about Iraq was that a truck driver could drive a million miles in-country, and while almost all of them would be mundane and boring, you couldn't rest once, because when you slacked off even a bit, that was going to turn into one of the miles that would suck and possibly kill you. This could easily be the case in a peacekeeping scenario as well if everyone hates you for interfering.
Additionally, considering the setting and ease of mass destruction, other possible challenges include things that are common to CI warfare, even though the PCs aren't explicitly conducting CI warfare, such as gathering humint, making sure their sigint assets are being used properly, preventing terrorist ops from even getting off the ground, so forth and so on. One of the first things the PCs should really try to do, if it isn't explicitly spelled out for them in their mission briefing (and even if it is, because God knows how accurate that is and what the situation on the ground really is) is who the real movers and shakers are. Who has their hands on the money and resources to make things happen, who has the power to bind and to loose the pursestrings for the various factions.
Finally, there's troop issues. Peacekeeping sucks for grunts, mkay? These are people who are trained to shoot people, and they're thrust into a situation where they can't use their loadout to full effect the way they've been trained to do and they have to follow shitty ROEs and basically try to keep people from killing each other when violence is the stock of their trade. (This isn't so much the case for MPs, or if the troops in question have received extensive peacekeeper training, I would suppose.) Troops do some crazy things to blow off stress. Like start brothels on post, or start picking up drugs in large quantities. As officers, it will be the duty of the PCs to handle any problems that reduce the combat efficacy of their units. Which means keeping their troops from getting drugs, loose diseased alien women, so forth and so on. Also, morale. gotta keep it up somehow, to keep soldiers from getting depressed and just shooting themselves. (Replacing the loose diseased alien women with clean, well-tested alien women wouldn't be a bad idea for that really, if they can hide it from their commander.) If morale gets to be bad enough, troops start to do crazy things. Like murdering locals for the lulz, or using utterly disproportionate force at the slightest provocation. Or one of the funniest things I heard of, a dude who stabbed to death - not shot, stabbed to death - a dog who gave away his squad's position as they approached a village. (As for whether or not it's actually funny, YMMV obviously.) So yet another troop-related issue might be gathering evidence and putting together a case either to prosecute or defend a soldier who got into some deep shit that seems really obscene on the face of it.
While we're talking about personnel issues involved, let's talk about the Good Idea Fairy. This sort of pernicious little boggit likes to bewitch officers who are desperate to get promoted, usually in the rank range of captain to lt. colonel. That isn't to say that other ranks aren't bewitched, but the people in these ranks are peculiarly vulnerable. Sometimes, they just get a Great Idea, nevermind that they don't go outside the wire and don't know anything about anything, and everyone else suffers for it. At least a couple of episodes where their commander gives them truly moronic guidance and the PCs have to either find a way to make it work, or do some kind of crazy potemkin shuffling to make their commander think it happened, and then limit the consequences of the moronic guidance, would make the scenario truly realistic.
I'm not sure how much of this actually applies to your game. Good luck with this project!
Last edited by Swashbuckler on Mon Oct 01, 2012 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Gas giant fusion candles are a real thing that's been proposed by real scientists.Ted the Flayer wrote:I don't have a physics background, but the gas giant candle sounds like troll science to me.
They are, however, neither cheap nor easy to build, and they don't give you much delta v because it's moving a gas giant and those things are huge.
It's kind of important to remember than any interesting (in the sense that it produces enough delta-v to matter in your story) candle is going to be a Megastructure (capital M).
It's insanely cheap, in the sense that it is vastly more cost-efficient to shove a 10,000 kilometer-long fusion engine into Jupiter than it is to haul around 10^27 kilograms of hydrogen fuel by any other means and it's the only efficient way to move entire planets baring magic FTL, but it's not something that space al-quaeda can pull off. If your terrorists have the resources to build a gas giant fusion candle, then your universe has bigger problems.
Avoraciopoctules wrote: You have a solar system connected to the rest of the galaxy through a big warp gate. There's multiple planets, most with some satellites and stations in orbit. Some planets have really big space stations with hundreds or thousands of inhabitants. Might also be some stuff around wreck fields or asteroid belts further out, but not much presence in open space.
At least two major nations, probably a significant criminal presence dealing in weapons and doing shadowruns, and now with the players as a new faction interjected into things. Would it be most reasonable for them to set up around the warp gate where they can exert control over legal traffic in and out of the system, or should they be closer to the center of things where they can react to a crisis?
I'm going to recommend Atomic Rockets for this. It's a great resource.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
One important thing to remember if you're going to have STL tramp freighters hauling cargo around to your warp gates is the kizinti lesson. For any interesting reaction drive (that is, one that can create useable space-travel plots that don't involve sitting on your ass for years at a time), the it's efficiency as a weapon is proportional to its efficiency as a drive.
In other words, if you're scooting around the solar system in any reasonable timeframe, then your exhaust power is better measured in megatons/second than in watts. When even the smallest civilian freighter is shooting a nuclear bomb (literal or equivalent, depending on the drive type) out of his ass every second, there is literally no such thing as an unarmed vessel. Every ship is a WMD.
Worse still, for suicide bombers like you'd find in any decent space-al-quaeda, RKKVs are cheap and easy. Just fill up with fuel, set course, and don't slow down. If you've got an interesting drive capable of hitting relativistic speeds in a reasonable timeframe, a tramp freighter is easily turned into a poor man's planet-killer.
So you need some way to intercept kamikaze ships during their initial burns. Luckily, such burns are going to be damned obvious, because there is no such thing as stealth in space.
There is a difference between peace keeping and peace enforcement. Peace keeping theoretically involves a neutral tribunal to draw up legislation to which members must agree, with the aim of keeping all members content and minimising conflict between them.
Peace enforcement comes in to play when traditional peace keeping efforts have failed. Peace keepers primarily use the threat of force to bring parties to the negotiating table or to arbitration, or in the worst cased of convention violations, to actually intervene in a conflict.
As to the position of a warp gate, I suppose you should consider the technology available in your game. Any advantage an enemy would gain by attempting to use the wormhole as a beachhead for an invasion, could be lost due to the ease by which reinforcements could arrive. But if technology is such that someone could spam the wormhole with asteroids, exploding drones or some other sci-fi weapon, then you might not want it anywhere near the vicinity of a planet.
Peace enforcement comes in to play when traditional peace keeping efforts have failed. Peace keepers primarily use the threat of force to bring parties to the negotiating table or to arbitration, or in the worst cased of convention violations, to actually intervene in a conflict.
As to the position of a warp gate, I suppose you should consider the technology available in your game. Any advantage an enemy would gain by attempting to use the wormhole as a beachhead for an invasion, could be lost due to the ease by which reinforcements could arrive. But if technology is such that someone could spam the wormhole with asteroids, exploding drones or some other sci-fi weapon, then you might not want it anywhere near the vicinity of a planet.
are you just making these up yourself? because in a geopolitical context the term peacekeeping has a specific meaning very close to what you call "peace enforcement", while what you call "peace keeping" is refered to as "peace-making"Winnah wrote:There is a difference between peace keeping and peace enforcement. Peace keeping theoretically involves a neutral tribunal to draw up legislation to which members must agree, with the aim of keeping all members content and minimising conflict between them.
Peace enforcement comes in to play when traditional peace keeping efforts have failed. Peace keepers primarily use the threat of force to bring parties to the negotiating table or to arbitration, or in the worst cased of convention violations, to actually intervene in a conflict.
and of course, "peace enforcement" is not a part of the jargon, nor a phrase you will ever hear.
After all, when you climb Mt. Kon Foo Sing to fight Grand Master Hung Lo and prove that your "Squirrel Chases the Jam-Coated Tiger" style is better than his "Dead Cockroach Flails Legs" style, you unleash a bunch of your SCtJCT moves, not wait for him to launch DCFL attacks and then just sit there and parry all day. And you certainly don't, having been kicked about, then say "Well you served me shitty tea before our battle" and go home.
No, those are actual terms.norms29 wrote: are you just making these up yourself? because in a geopolitical context the term peacekeeping has a specific meaning very close to what you call "peace enforcement", while what you call "peace keeping" is refered to as "peace-making"
and of course, "peace enforcement" is not a part of the jargon, nor a phrase you will ever hear.
Technically, there are four different terms, peace-building, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peace-enforcement. They're all similar but have subtle differences in meaning.
Let me rip off wikipedia for a moment.
.Peacebuilding is a term describing outside interventions that are designed to prevent the start or resumption of violent conflict within a nation by creating a sustainable peace. Peacebuilding activities address the root causes or potential causes of violence, create a societal expectation for peaceful conflict resolution and stabilize society politically and socioeconomically
Peacemaking is practical conflict transformation focused upon establishing equitable power relationships robust enough to forestall future conflict, often including the establishment of means of agreeing on ethical decisions within a community, or among parties, that had previously engaged in inappropriate (i.e. violent) responses to conflict.
Peacekeeping refers to activities that tend to create conditions that favor lasting peace.
Peace enforcement is a practice of ensuring peace in an area or region
And yes, it's blatantly pedantic and no one really cares about the distinction outside of certain academic circles.
The point is that there are multiple strategies to this which will differ depending on situation, politics, and context.
There is nothing on this earth more peaceful than a minefield.Winnah wrote: Using violence to enforce peace, is not keeping the peace, except perhaps if you favour Orwellian jargon.
I dare you to gaze upon the serene beauty of the Korean DMZ and claim that what you see and hear is not true peace, interrupted only rarely by a sudden click and a loud boom.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:57 am, edited 3 times in total.
Bullshit. The is more than a 'pedantic' distinction between diplomacy and armed intervention. Much like there is a big difference between training police in Haiti and NATO airstrikes in Kosovo.hyzmarca wrote:
And yes, it's blatantly pedantic and no one really cares about the distinction outside of certain academic circles.
Exploding mines are peaceful?There is nothing on this earth more peaceful than a minefield.Winnah wrote: Using violence to enforce peace, is not keeping the peace, except perhaps if you favour Orwellian jargon.
I dare you to travel back in time 60 years and spot all of the pedantic distinctions between peace keeping and peace enforcement.I dare you to gaze upon the serene beauty of the Korean DMZ and claim that what you see and hear is not true peace, interrupted only rarely by a sudden click and a loud boom.
Last edited by Winnah on Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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PoliteNewb
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Hmmm...how would you distinguish between a peaceful freighter doing a burn towards an inhabited planet with every intention of slowing down, and a kamikaze raider doing the same thing with no intention of slowing down? Seems like you couldn't at initial burn...you'd have to wait until turnover (or whatever point at which you begin decel rather than accel, depending on your tech) to know that.hyzmarca wrote: So you need some way to intercept kamikaze ships during their initial burns. Luckily, such burns are going to be damned obvious, because there is no such thing as stealth in space.
As for stealth...while you can't put on accel with any degree of stealth, once you have your course laid in and you're up to relativistic speed, can't you just cut your drive (hell, cut all your ship's systems) and coast in to your death (and everyone else's)? Granted, there are still ways to detect that, but it's a lot more stealthy than firing off your atomic rockets.
I am judging the philosophies and decisions you have presented in this thread. The ones I have seen look bad, and also appear to be the fruit of a poisonous tree that has produced only madness and will continue to produce only madness.
--AngelFromAnotherPin
believe in one hand and shit in the other and see which ones fills up quicker. it will be the one you are full of, shit.
--Shadzar
--AngelFromAnotherPin
believe in one hand and shit in the other and see which ones fills up quicker. it will be the one you are full of, shit.
--Shadzar
Using any sort of reaction drive it's totally impractical to reach any sort of relativistic speed. You'd have to have a custom built ship that is mostly fuel tanks, and it would still take days/weeks of thrust, much more then is needed for normal traffic. That would be kind of an indication that something isn't right.
No, your ship is still going to radiate a comparatively massive amount of infrared photons. Even if you can keep the hull temperature low, it's still going to be much hotter than the background radiation.PoliteNewb wrote: As for stealth...while you can't put on accel with any degree of stealth, once you have your course laid in and you're up to relativistic speed, can't you just cut your drive (hell, cut all your ship's systems) and coast in to your death (and everyone else's)? Granted, there are still ways to detect that, but it's a lot more stealthy than firing off your atomic rockets.
Besides, your acceleration burn is going to be visible from lightyears away. Unless you're ridding really tight behind your lightcone at high relativistic speeds, that's going to give plenty of warning time. And you won't be kissing your lightcone without years of acceleration.
Flight plans. If a ship has not filed a flight plan or deviates from its expected route, then you ping it with your comm laser, maser, and every long-range comm system you have down to morse code with a flashlight, and look for the same in return. If there is no reply you send patrol ships to intercept. At long range lightspeed lag can be problematic, but only if the vessel is actively evading, in which case we can assume it is hostile. If everything is okay but the vessel is damaged, then they match velocity, dock, slow it down with their thrusters, and give the crew any necessary aid. If the vessel is hostile, then they shoot out its radiators to kill the crew/force surrender, match velocity, dock, and slow it down with their thrusters.Hmmm...how would you distinguish between a peaceful freighter doing a burn towards an inhabited planet with every intention of slowing down, and a kamikaze raider doing the same thing with no intention of slowing down? Seems like you couldn't at initial burn...you'd have to wait until turnover (or whatever point at which you begin decel rather than accel, depending on your tech) to know that.
Second, you never let ships burn straight to the planet. That may be faster at close range, but it's also more dangerous. Instead you make them take slightly more circuitous route that will cause them to miss the planet if they miss their deceleration burn.
At longer ranges, it's how things work, anyway. A trajectory that will allow you to hit the planet if you start decelerating half way will cause you to miss the planet if you don't decelerate. Guys with telescopes can calculate your trajectory quite easily, unless you're using an evasive acceleration pattern, and in that cause it can be assumed that you're hostile.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:32 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Avoraciopoctules
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The library asked me to cover for a no-show volunteer after I finished today's classwork, and I'm doing a little topical reading in the online govdocs. I don't know whether the website linked by our catalog screens out non-library computers. Can any of you access this pdf?
"U.N. peacekeeping [electronic resource] : opportunities and challenges : hearing before the Subcommi "
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110sh ... g47434.pdf
"U.N. peacekeeping [electronic resource] : opportunities and challenges : hearing before the Subcommi "
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110sh ... g47434.pdf
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Avoraciopoctules
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Anything resembling realistic reaction drives is not a viable method of transportation for any verse where intersystem space travel is supposed to be an equivalent of modern naval/air travel in convenience and role in maintaing the civilization, even if you have magic FTL bullshit for interstellar travel. Period. You also need magic bullshit that works for interplanetary travel, otherwise fuel/propellant burn is too fucking huge to make regular travel economically viable, even if you already have some spessmagic that gives you a lot of energy (which you must have, because currently existing or projected means of energy production are entirely inadequate for a spacefaring civilization). And therefore space ships capable of ranging beyond planetary orbits will be as rare, expensive and tightly controlled as nuclear-powered warships today.hyzmarca wrote: One important thing to remember if you're going to have STL tramp freighters hauling cargo around to your warp gates is the kizinti lesson. For any interesting reaction drive (that is, one that can create useable space-travel plots that don't involve sitting on your ass for years at a time), the it's efficiency as a weapon is proportional to its efficiency as a drive.
Re: Space Peacekeeping Operations
Try to keep ambient agression down compared to immediate RL analogues. A population as full of fanaticss and savages as today's Middle East (never mind, say, Equatorial Africa) simply will exterminate itself before reaching space age, due to sheer scale of destruction made possible by energy requirements for a space civilization alone. Think more of a Cold War. Even if the main conflicting sides have irreconcilable ideological differences, both fear an all-out war more than anything else and will not strike at each other directly (including acts of terrorism that can be traced to each other). The main conflict better should revolve around control over smaller colonies and settlements that do not have real capability to retaliate against major players, with both sides trying to install friendly goverments there and sabotage hostile ones. Routine peacekeeping tasks should be done on foot, because spaceships shooting at each other most likely mean that peacekeeping has totally failed. Actual hostiles should be small scale, at most small high-tech mercenary gangs, hired for assasinations and sabotage, mostly political extremists and criminals using poorly trained shmucks as cannon fodder. Getting a starship capable of serious destruction should be no easier for them that getting a warship for modern-day terrorists.Avoraciopoctules wrote:I'm thinking about running a sci-fi game where the players are peacekeeping officers for the Space United Nations. They've been sent to a sector of space where conflict between different nations has caused a bunch of collateral damage, and they are expected to improve the situation.
What sort of challenges might peacekeepers face in an environment where it's impossible to build walls to keep people apart and major atrocities could be committed with just some asteroids and spare ship parts?
Eh, not quite. Read some Stross. We've come up with tech that would easily power an intersystem empire and would sort of power a slow interstellar civilization.FatR wrote:You also need magic bullshit that works for interplanetary travel, otherwise fuel/propellant burn is too fucking huge to make regular travel economically viable, even if you already have some spessmagic that gives you a lot of energy (which you must have, because currently existing or projected means of energy production are entirely inadequate for a spacefaring civilization).
The key is to build solar-powered production-scale particle accelerators in orbit around the sun. Once built, these provide a sufficiently cheap source of antimatter that you can use to do whatever you want with. Get them up there in the first place by building solar panels on the moon that you use to power lasers that push solar sails around. Get the solar panels up using a space elevator or a mass driver or a launch loop.
Once you've got this, you're done. A good antimatter engine will get you from Earth to Mars in weeks. Even if you try to save fuel it'll take you less than six months. If you're willing to really put the pedal to the metal (and burn your ship's weight in antimatter) you could get to Pluto in a week and a half flat. Now, realize that everybody on board will have plenty of in-flight internet. No problem at all.
Interstellar is more problematic, but still tractable. Solution one is the starwisp. Solution two boils down to "non-fundamental breakthrough in hydroponics or fundamental breakthrough in human hibernation", either of which would actually be pretty easy.
Definitely not full of fanatics and savages, but it only takes one influential crazy to point a spaceship at a city. I agree with your cold war scenario, though: two or more relatively enlightened (as in: there's some kind of rational decisionmaking at the helm) nation-states fighting economic and proxy wars all over the place and locking absolutely everybody else out of the antimatter jar. It helps that antimatter production facilities can be seen from across the solar system. Vietnam IN SPACE.FatR wrote:Try to keep ambient agression down compared to immediate RL analogues. A population as full of fanaticss and savages as today's Middle East (never mind, say, Equatorial Africa) simply will exterminate itself before reaching space age, due to sheer scale of destruction made possible by energy requirements for a space civilization alone.
Last edited by Vebyast on Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:49 am, edited 5 times in total.
DSMatticus wrote:There are two things you can learn from the Gaming Den:
1) Good design practices.
2) How to be a zookeeper for hyper-intelligent shit-flinging apes.
As it stands, Antimatter is the most inefficient fuel known to man. You're postulating a breakthrough in Antimatter containment as well as an equally intense increase in Antimatter production. Not that it couldn't physically be done, but it wouldn't be done because it is just so much cheaper (economically speaking) to go for fusion drives, or even nuclear pulse drive if you wanted to use 1950s tech.
Another option if you wanted crazy advances in tech would be to go for a Bussard Scram-Jet that feeds an Antimatter catalized fusion rocket; though they are not physically impossible, they may be technically possible after 500 or more years of solid research.
A helpful tip on near future drives: use a plasma sail powered by a fission reactor as your slower than light drive. Their acceleration is a piddily 1m/s^2, but their maximum velocity is as fast as the solar wind (600km/s^2), and it stays stable out to the heliopause of the nearby star (about 1 lightyear for the sun); this allows you to use the easier Brachistochrone orbital formulas instead of Hohmann orbital transfers on everything you care about, and makes thing "age of sail" like. Plus, it works out that from earth, mars is a 2 month journey, Jupiter is 5 months distant, and even Saturn is a reachable 8 months away.
The biggest draw is that plasma sails are the only near future "reactionless" engine (though not actually reactionless, it gives most of the same benefits for as long as the fun exists), and work for years before you need to replace plasma losses and refute the nuclear plant powering the whole thing. Not to say that this will supplant all drives in your setting; ram-jet nuclear thermal rockets power shuttles to and from orbit at planetary with atmospheres, and during combat a powerful but fuel limited high acceleration chemical rocket is needed to evade cannon fire.
There are three kinds of weapons: cannon, missiles, and beams. Beams are actually short range weapons that can reach a few tens of thousands of kilometers, but are high precision. As a corollary, if you can paint a target with a beam your target can paint you; beam fights are close and brutal cannot be intercepted by point defense (it will be intercepted by armor), and you cannot escape damage in a beam exchange, do not get in a slugging match. Also, beams generate tremendous waste heat that will cook your crew like popcorn in a microwave; the biggest heat sink has the biggest advantage in a beam exchange, planet installation beats asteroid base beats ship.
Cannon and missiles have one of 3 warheads: nuclear, kinetic, or explosive. Nuclear is like a short range area attack, there is no fireball in space but a few kiloton nuke throws out enough X-rays to vaporize anything short of an asteroid out to a kilometer away from its detonation point. Kinetic warheads is simply a glorified brick you throw at somebody, the catch is that a brick moving at least 2km/s is worth its mass is TNT, more if it is moving faster (and it is). Explosive warheads don't do extra damage because they explode when they hit their target, they explode way before that into an expanding cloud of debris that increases the chance of striking your target with a smaller kinetic pojectile moving in excess of 2km/s.
Cannons and missile have effectively unlimited range, the trade off is that missiles are homing and if not actively shot down will impact and utterly destroy whatever it hits, while several thousand rounds of cannonfire can be carried instead of 1 missile with the caveat that most will miss of your target alters course in any way. Though missiles and cannons do not suffer the heat generated by beams, they have a magazine that will empty (missiles way sooner than cannons), and both can be deflected by point defense.
This creates an interesting situation where no one weapon will dominate all tactical situations. Beams are good at giving a measured response to threats within range, and really shine against moderate missile vollies, but can be overwhelmed by mass missile vollies and voluminous cannonfire. Missiles will uneringly utterly destroy a target at any range, but cannot have their devestation dialed back and come in extremely limited quantities that can be actively shot down by beams and cannon. Cannon can be fired thousands of times before the magazine runs dry and is quite devestating should it hit (making it especially effective at deflecting/disabling missiles), but hitting an evasive target at range is so hard that your magazine would run dry before anything connected.
Although I haven't gone into detail about a faster than light drive, don't go into detail about your faster than light drive. Say "Einstein Bridge" or "Philadelphia Experiment" or just chant in Welsh, the only fuel that powers that black box is magic or bullshit, take your pick.
Another option if you wanted crazy advances in tech would be to go for a Bussard Scram-Jet that feeds an Antimatter catalized fusion rocket; though they are not physically impossible, they may be technically possible after 500 or more years of solid research.
A helpful tip on near future drives: use a plasma sail powered by a fission reactor as your slower than light drive. Their acceleration is a piddily 1m/s^2, but their maximum velocity is as fast as the solar wind (600km/s^2), and it stays stable out to the heliopause of the nearby star (about 1 lightyear for the sun); this allows you to use the easier Brachistochrone orbital formulas instead of Hohmann orbital transfers on everything you care about, and makes thing "age of sail" like. Plus, it works out that from earth, mars is a 2 month journey, Jupiter is 5 months distant, and even Saturn is a reachable 8 months away.
The biggest draw is that plasma sails are the only near future "reactionless" engine (though not actually reactionless, it gives most of the same benefits for as long as the fun exists), and work for years before you need to replace plasma losses and refute the nuclear plant powering the whole thing. Not to say that this will supplant all drives in your setting; ram-jet nuclear thermal rockets power shuttles to and from orbit at planetary with atmospheres, and during combat a powerful but fuel limited high acceleration chemical rocket is needed to evade cannon fire.
There are three kinds of weapons: cannon, missiles, and beams. Beams are actually short range weapons that can reach a few tens of thousands of kilometers, but are high precision. As a corollary, if you can paint a target with a beam your target can paint you; beam fights are close and brutal cannot be intercepted by point defense (it will be intercepted by armor), and you cannot escape damage in a beam exchange, do not get in a slugging match. Also, beams generate tremendous waste heat that will cook your crew like popcorn in a microwave; the biggest heat sink has the biggest advantage in a beam exchange, planet installation beats asteroid base beats ship.
Cannon and missiles have one of 3 warheads: nuclear, kinetic, or explosive. Nuclear is like a short range area attack, there is no fireball in space but a few kiloton nuke throws out enough X-rays to vaporize anything short of an asteroid out to a kilometer away from its detonation point. Kinetic warheads is simply a glorified brick you throw at somebody, the catch is that a brick moving at least 2km/s is worth its mass is TNT, more if it is moving faster (and it is). Explosive warheads don't do extra damage because they explode when they hit their target, they explode way before that into an expanding cloud of debris that increases the chance of striking your target with a smaller kinetic pojectile moving in excess of 2km/s.
Cannons and missile have effectively unlimited range, the trade off is that missiles are homing and if not actively shot down will impact and utterly destroy whatever it hits, while several thousand rounds of cannonfire can be carried instead of 1 missile with the caveat that most will miss of your target alters course in any way. Though missiles and cannons do not suffer the heat generated by beams, they have a magazine that will empty (missiles way sooner than cannons), and both can be deflected by point defense.
This creates an interesting situation where no one weapon will dominate all tactical situations. Beams are good at giving a measured response to threats within range, and really shine against moderate missile vollies, but can be overwhelmed by mass missile vollies and voluminous cannonfire. Missiles will uneringly utterly destroy a target at any range, but cannot have their devestation dialed back and come in extremely limited quantities that can be actively shot down by beams and cannon. Cannon can be fired thousands of times before the magazine runs dry and is quite devestating should it hit (making it especially effective at deflecting/disabling missiles), but hitting an evasive target at range is so hard that your magazine would run dry before anything connected.
Although I haven't gone into detail about a faster than light drive, don't go into detail about your faster than light drive. Say "Einstein Bridge" or "Philadelphia Experiment" or just chant in Welsh, the only fuel that powers that black box is magic or bullshit, take your pick.
Last edited by Hicks on Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:02 am, edited 3 times in total.
-Kid Radd
shadzar wrote:those training harder get more, and training less, don't get the more.
Stuff I've MadeLokathor wrote:Anything worth sniffing can't be sniffed