More about Guns
Well, I'm not planning to be a gun nut but I can see why it is such an attractive thing when you get to know more about it. Guns are like Horses, there are different "breeds" that came together under different circumstances. Manufacturing Limitations, Budget, Time, and Variations in Priorities is what created the huge variety of gun species out there.
They slowly improve, but they still suffer some key physical limitations that can not be overcome until the advent of super-science. As a product of economic scale, manufacturing limitations, and human priorities guns will be a round even when we have the power to colonize the stars.
After Honorverse and re-imagining what technology, economics, sociology and history has made clear about the future: wars in the vastness of space will still use guns like the AK47.
Realizations: About Missles and Torpedoes. Being someone who began from anime, I liked the aesthetics of blossoming tendrils of missile swarms popular in almost any sci-fi anime, especially the Robotech-Macros franchise.
What I, and many like me in that early igonorance, will not know until properly educated, was that when one has lasers of sufficient power: there is no real need missles. Also, I and many fanboys back in the day, tend to assume that there will come a time: electrical energy will be a HUGE surplus. In this age where sustainability may be the next defining aspect of technology and economy- what if we will never work with that incredible energy surplus.
Why Missiles? In Dog fights, where jet fighters travel near the speed of sound, the accuracy of ballistic projectiles suffer from the extreem ranges these dog fights occur. I am able to experience this kind of limitation with the Airsoft Light Machine Gun as the closer to a full second something takes to travel to a point the more terribly inaccurate it is.
So Fighter Jets fight primarily with Missiles, because ballistics takes 1-2 seconds to get where you intend it to go- making it terribly inaccurate and a waste of mass on the jet and expense to the goverment arming it.
Ok, imagine the scale of space. I brought up the serious limitation of energy so that we can do away with lasers for the mean time, and try to imagine how long a ballistic projectile travelling 2km per second will take to hit a target half a Light Second Away. Consider that when you start detecting something, it will be measured in ranges determined by how fast you can get your feedback: like Light seconds, Light Minutes, Light hours... etc.
Processing input within a Light Hours range is a Monumental Task. Basically, a computer and its operator has to re-examine and analyze every shadow, poorly detailed images, or randomly grouped pixels within that HUGE radius of a light hour. Even if it was scaled down to a Light minute, that is still a huge amount to process, except probably for the most powerful computers and threat assement AI (probably military vessels). Even at the distance of a Light Second, feed back is slow and a skilled Sensor Technician will have to be pretty good to build up enough conclusive data for his commander.
Even at a Light Second, reaction time and targeting will be a monumental task in space combat. If a target is acquired, most likely missiles or torpeedoes will be the most accurate and resource efficient attack method. Often, Lasers are seen as the "cheapest" mode of fighting in many games and sci-fi settings- in this age or possibility of serious energy limitation- the cheapest may be missiles and torpedoes.
Missile Combat is pretty simple, but very realistic given the serious limitations of energy in combat when so many sci-fi settings imagine an energy surplus future. There is the attack: the missle; and there are the defenses: Dodging- Evasive Manuver; Guard - Electronic Counter Measures; Parries-Point-defense ballistics; and Saves- Decoys. Then there are its more complex iterations: the flurry attack- Missile Swarm; the deceptive attack- A stealth-enhancd missiles; and the feint- a ECM decoy.
What I like about missile dominated space combat is the potential role of lasers- only found on huge war ships as "indirect" fire artilliery. Since warships will probably be the exclusive few to be able to make decent readings at Light Minute range- they may be the only ships able to fire with any accuracy at the ranges where light will take minutes to hit their intended targets. Basically taking the role off Artiliery in present day modern combat. This also makes them the only ships able to generate enough power to make laser barrage and enough computing power to accurately predict the actions of a target minutes past its initital detection.
When I get bored in the really bad traffic I have to deal with everyday, I've been dreaming up space combat and blossoming missile warms. I've been thinking about the economic challenges of keeping a warship fleet with today's economy of scale. I was thinking, to support something as high tech as a space warship fleet the size of modern military super power, it would probably take tens of billions who have a quality of life roughly like our world today: where only a small 2% enjoy a middle class or greater quality of life and the rest are generationally struggling.
I'm dreaming up a kind of my own firefly where people don't own ships, but travell around using "Iron-Horse" like vessels that sling through the system like a comet. Basically some basic nano tech, which was lost in some great cataclysm in Terra allowed humans to survive the hazards of space like low-G, radiation, toxic habitats etc. And this nano was practically a living symbiot that evolved specific abilities that allowed people of a given habitat to survive and thrive there. Basically, people look like people today because of the cellular repair of the "symbiots" and don't really suffer from the extreeme bone and system alteration from Low G and Radiation the weak habitats have. Instead they begin to look like "fantasy" races- growing different colored pigmentation as the body learns to live with certain hazardous toxins; adapt slightly different builds based on gravity and nutrional availability.
Its becoming an excuse to have my elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. with my spaceships and firefly wanderlust.
Magic and Secularism. My point of view about magic and anything like religion has come completely to the Atheistic side. Growing up, people would ask if the other believed in ghosts- and then people would admit that they did, those who didnt wer considered wierd and arrogant. Arrogance is the common association with Athiesm, which is wierd because the accusers never considered why they rationalized it as "arrogant" in the first place.
Anyway, having a great revulision to magic and religion- even DnD magic, paladins, druids etc... repulse me. I see them as Icons of ignorance and the continued simplification of the world as seen through religion. Like my whole argument about "holy warriors" before, and how "Clerics" are officials of a diety that are given the authority of other equal mortals to be a representative of a Diety-- which doesnt make sense at all to me anymore.
I've reached a level of atheism that I forgot how it was to be so easily fooled. This is bad because, remembering our weaknesses is what makes us strong. I may grow arrogant if this keeps up, not because of being an atheist- but because if my rationalization proves to be sound logic- then the accuracy of my deductions will lead me to make more and more uncanny sense. In an environment where many people may not understand my growing secularist rational nature may be an advantage that may give me overconfidence as I might start to underestimate the non-secularist mind.
There is no magic, but life and living... shouldn't that be the only magic in the world?
They slowly improve, but they still suffer some key physical limitations that can not be overcome until the advent of super-science. As a product of economic scale, manufacturing limitations, and human priorities guns will be a round even when we have the power to colonize the stars.
After Honorverse and re-imagining what technology, economics, sociology and history has made clear about the future: wars in the vastness of space will still use guns like the AK47.
Realizations: About Missles and Torpedoes. Being someone who began from anime, I liked the aesthetics of blossoming tendrils of missile swarms popular in almost any sci-fi anime, especially the Robotech-Macros franchise.
What I, and many like me in that early igonorance, will not know until properly educated, was that when one has lasers of sufficient power: there is no real need missles. Also, I and many fanboys back in the day, tend to assume that there will come a time: electrical energy will be a HUGE surplus. In this age where sustainability may be the next defining aspect of technology and economy- what if we will never work with that incredible energy surplus.
Why Missiles? In Dog fights, where jet fighters travel near the speed of sound, the accuracy of ballistic projectiles suffer from the extreem ranges these dog fights occur. I am able to experience this kind of limitation with the Airsoft Light Machine Gun as the closer to a full second something takes to travel to a point the more terribly inaccurate it is.
So Fighter Jets fight primarily with Missiles, because ballistics takes 1-2 seconds to get where you intend it to go- making it terribly inaccurate and a waste of mass on the jet and expense to the goverment arming it.
Ok, imagine the scale of space. I brought up the serious limitation of energy so that we can do away with lasers for the mean time, and try to imagine how long a ballistic projectile travelling 2km per second will take to hit a target half a Light Second Away. Consider that when you start detecting something, it will be measured in ranges determined by how fast you can get your feedback: like Light seconds, Light Minutes, Light hours... etc.
Processing input within a Light Hours range is a Monumental Task. Basically, a computer and its operator has to re-examine and analyze every shadow, poorly detailed images, or randomly grouped pixels within that HUGE radius of a light hour. Even if it was scaled down to a Light minute, that is still a huge amount to process, except probably for the most powerful computers and threat assement AI (probably military vessels). Even at the distance of a Light Second, feed back is slow and a skilled Sensor Technician will have to be pretty good to build up enough conclusive data for his commander.
Even at a Light Second, reaction time and targeting will be a monumental task in space combat. If a target is acquired, most likely missiles or torpeedoes will be the most accurate and resource efficient attack method. Often, Lasers are seen as the "cheapest" mode of fighting in many games and sci-fi settings- in this age or possibility of serious energy limitation- the cheapest may be missiles and torpedoes.
Missile Combat is pretty simple, but very realistic given the serious limitations of energy in combat when so many sci-fi settings imagine an energy surplus future. There is the attack: the missle; and there are the defenses: Dodging- Evasive Manuver; Guard - Electronic Counter Measures; Parries-Point-defense ballistics; and Saves- Decoys. Then there are its more complex iterations: the flurry attack- Missile Swarm; the deceptive attack- A stealth-enhancd missiles; and the feint- a ECM decoy.
What I like about missile dominated space combat is the potential role of lasers- only found on huge war ships as "indirect" fire artilliery. Since warships will probably be the exclusive few to be able to make decent readings at Light Minute range- they may be the only ships able to fire with any accuracy at the ranges where light will take minutes to hit their intended targets. Basically taking the role off Artiliery in present day modern combat. This also makes them the only ships able to generate enough power to make laser barrage and enough computing power to accurately predict the actions of a target minutes past its initital detection.
When I get bored in the really bad traffic I have to deal with everyday, I've been dreaming up space combat and blossoming missile warms. I've been thinking about the economic challenges of keeping a warship fleet with today's economy of scale. I was thinking, to support something as high tech as a space warship fleet the size of modern military super power, it would probably take tens of billions who have a quality of life roughly like our world today: where only a small 2% enjoy a middle class or greater quality of life and the rest are generationally struggling.
I'm dreaming up a kind of my own firefly where people don't own ships, but travell around using "Iron-Horse" like vessels that sling through the system like a comet. Basically some basic nano tech, which was lost in some great cataclysm in Terra allowed humans to survive the hazards of space like low-G, radiation, toxic habitats etc. And this nano was practically a living symbiot that evolved specific abilities that allowed people of a given habitat to survive and thrive there. Basically, people look like people today because of the cellular repair of the "symbiots" and don't really suffer from the extreeme bone and system alteration from Low G and Radiation the weak habitats have. Instead they begin to look like "fantasy" races- growing different colored pigmentation as the body learns to live with certain hazardous toxins; adapt slightly different builds based on gravity and nutrional availability.
Its becoming an excuse to have my elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. with my spaceships and firefly wanderlust.
Magic and Secularism. My point of view about magic and anything like religion has come completely to the Atheistic side. Growing up, people would ask if the other believed in ghosts- and then people would admit that they did, those who didnt wer considered wierd and arrogant. Arrogance is the common association with Athiesm, which is wierd because the accusers never considered why they rationalized it as "arrogant" in the first place.
Anyway, having a great revulision to magic and religion- even DnD magic, paladins, druids etc... repulse me. I see them as Icons of ignorance and the continued simplification of the world as seen through religion. Like my whole argument about "holy warriors" before, and how "Clerics" are officials of a diety that are given the authority of other equal mortals to be a representative of a Diety-- which doesnt make sense at all to me anymore.
I've reached a level of atheism that I forgot how it was to be so easily fooled. This is bad because, remembering our weaknesses is what makes us strong. I may grow arrogant if this keeps up, not because of being an atheist- but because if my rationalization proves to be sound logic- then the accuracy of my deductions will lead me to make more and more uncanny sense. In an environment where many people may not understand my growing secularist rational nature may be an advantage that may give me overconfidence as I might start to underestimate the non-secularist mind.
There is no magic, but life and living... shouldn't that be the only magic in the world?
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