[TML] War rules

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 6/1/08 1:13 PM, "Garry Ward" <garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> From: "Knapp" <magick.crow at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 12:58 PM
> 
>> I was reading all that bit about what would happen to a ship if it hit some
>> poor planet.
>> I started thinking about what would happen to the planet if some great
>> ship
>> hit it, or even some little cargo ship that was loaded and had a long
>> vector.
>> 
>> So if I lived on that planet I would have rules about what vectors were
>> OK,
>> they would have to be vectors that, if the ship failed, would give people
>> at
>> least 3 weeks go find aid or maybe less if aid was always in system. This
>> goes double for war ships and war. Say you are fight for or even against a
>> plant, loose ship control and then clash into the major city or really
>> harm
>> the planet. What good is the fight then? Seems to be that it would be a
>> war
>> crime to take such a vector in the first place.
> 
> Don't know about a war crime, but certainly an act of war.

Nope, not a war crime.  Many acts in war run the risk of causing damage to
infrastructure and killing civilians.  Hell, many acts are *intended* to do
so.  That's like saying it's a crime for bombers to fly over friendly
territory... they have to to get to enemy targets!  It's just one of the
risks of war.

> Also, I'd prefer ships be required to follow a vector such that, without a
> proper, successfull final braking manuver, would cause the ship to hit the
> atmosphere at an angle such that it would bounce off rather and enter it.

For civilian and/or peace-time activities, this is perfectly reasonably.
Although, given how small a target the atmospheric edge of a planet is, you
might as well just miss altogether and simply orbit past.

Then too, at *some* point you must being on a course that will take you
down.  That's the whole point of landing.  So such a "miss rule" would need
minimum speed and distance at which it counts.