[TML] Space Traffic Control (was Re: War rules)

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 2 Jun 2008 at 14:27, Knapp wrote:

> > Besides. getting ships to collide in space is *hard*. And if they do,
> > unless they have nearly the same vector, the pieces will be small
> > enough to burn up.
> 
> You missed the type of ship. Sure the ship might burn up the the boxes might
> not, they are mounted on the outside of the ship and can come off in one
> piece.

Nope. Any collision "at speed" is going to release nuclear level 
energies. They won't *remotely* be intact.

At a mere 300 km/sec relative velocity, a pair of ships whose masses 
add to 1000 tonnes will be equivalent to a 10 megaton nuke.

And that's not that fast and a *lot* lower mass than the ships you 
were talking about.

If the masses added to 1 million tonnes, then you are talking  a 10 
*gigaton* blast.

> > > > But planets are big. And unless it's got an insane population density
> > > > the odds of hitting anywhere important are low.
> > >
> > > A nice big wave could do a lot of damage to coastal areas.
> >
> > Raising a significant wave takes a *lot* of energy. Many, many
> > megatons, probably even gigatons.
> 
> Depending on the gravity and also how close the crash is to the area in
> question.

The damage the wave can cause will be proportional to the energy of 
the impact *regardless* of the gravity, simply because at higher 
gravities a lower wave will do the same damage.

> Seriously, yes, you'll want to avoid ships hitting the planet. But
> > even if they do, the damage in peacetime is apt to be strictly local.
> > Hurricanes will do more damage. So will earthquakes.
> 
> Depending on the vector sure, it could be.
> 
> 
> > Added note. No reasonable or even *unreasonable* ship impact is going
> > to "harm the planet". It may cause a lot of damage even cause some
> > long term problems with the ecosystem, but the planet is not going to
> > be appreciably damaged.
> 
> If by that you mean make a rock no longer a rock sure but if we are talking
> change the biosphere, it could.

So can introducing the wrong off planet species or messing up things 
for a native species. 

Messing up an ecosystem that didn't evolve with humans in it is 
*trivial*.

> > Any ship that's close enough to the planet to be defending it against
> > ships attacking after jumping in at the 100 diameter limit *cannot*
> > have a vector that might intercept the planet *and* won't won't do so
> > in less than 3 weeks.
> 
> What?

At dangerous velocities the ship will cross the entire 100 diameter 
sphere in *hours*.

> > You have to keep in mind that at typical Traveller velocities the
> > ships *aren't* going to get pulled into the planet unless their
> > course is already pointing almost directly at it. They are *far*
> > above escape velocity.
> 
> We are not talking about vectors that can't harm the planet.

Do the math. Decide what constuitutes a "dangerous vector" (in terms 
of speed, not direction). Then work out the size of the 100 dimeter 
sphere. See how long it'd take to cross the sphere at those 
velocities. 

Then using Book 2 or Mayday type rules, see how close to the planet 
you can come at those velocities *without* hitting it.

Then work out what angles that adds up to from the edge of the 
sphere. Looks like about 2/3rds of a degree cone by my calcs.

Closer it's a wider cone of course. but even at 1 diameter it's only 
a 90 degree cone.

> > And saying that the defenders can't use vectors that might intercept
> > the planet means that they are crippled in both defense and offense.
> 
> Not vectors that can't intercept the planet but vectors that if they do
> intercept the planet will do great harm.

This is equivalent to saying defending aircraft can't fly over 
civilians because they might crash. And that anti-aircraft fire can't 
go in angles and directions that might cause misses to land on 
civilians. 

Neither is going to happen because doing so would give the enemy a 
free pass if they take paths that would require the defenders to do 
those things.

> > Nobody will abide by rules that will make them lose. Esecially if the
> > other side may start orbital bombardment to force the planet to
> > surrender once they've gained control of the space around it.
> 
> Winner writes the history as always.

Check out the Nuremburg trials. Especially *why* they *dropped* war 
crimes charges for the way the German U-boats were operated. 
Basically, the US Navy chief of sub operations pointed out that *we* 
were doing the exact same thing in the Pacific.

> > Consider the fact that various military targets (not military
> > *installations*, but legitimate military targets) are *still* close
> > enough to major population centers to cause major civilian casualties
> > if there was a nuclear attack. And this is after 50+ years.
> 
> I can't say that I think nuclear warfare is sane or not a war crime but the
> users so far have been the enforces thus all is deemed OK.

Well MAD was *predicated* on "if you use WMD on us, we'll nuke your 
cities". 

> > Heck, many of them started out *away* from cities and the cities
> > expanded towards them.
> 
> People do endless stupid things. I wonder how long we will get away with it?

Good question. One of the classics is a city that put in a grade 
school across the street from an explosives plant. Over the 
objections of the owners.

Then when a stink was raised about the proximity the rezoned things 
to force the plant to move. Which it did. Out of state. Killed the 
local economy.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com