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1

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by Apollo-Soyuz on December 06, 2019, 04:16:35 pm »

However, I suspect the real target isn't bubbleopolis, but that neo-prim colony we saw. Even a hit on the night side would kill everything on the day side, at least eventually, and probably pretty quickly.
In this, a distributed habitat such as bubbleopolis should have a much better survival probability than a typical planet.

page=2026, panel 2, "250 kilometers"

so given assumptions on the mass needed to make humans happy with the gravity, the settlement isn't the entire planet.

page=2025

>Caption: A new settlement on Nyumbani, in the galaxy NGC 4438.

I don't think it's worth the effort for such a weapon, you're attacking a mud hut with a neutron bomb, and once people see what the weapon can do they can create countermeasures.

Nine/tenths of the speed of light is 269813 Kilometers per second
 
strip?page=2024 says the first shield is 45,000,000 km out so I'm getting 167 seconds of warning before impact with the first Borvonite sphere. (Somebody check my math.)

If the spheres can ID the threat, and then move aside, that could be a valid defense. but it would probably take a successful attack before that defense could be developed. 

The other defense I can think of is to pop a small Borvonite sphere in the trajectory of the missile to cause it to strike a glancing blow and then miss the main target. The sooner this is done, the smaller delta-v you need to impart to get a clean miss

2

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by Sean Roach on December 06, 2019, 02:17:52 pm »

Looking at today's strip...holy crap.

How much of Bubblopolis will be left after it hits?!

And what does an AnCap society going to war look like?

Consider this. Each bubble is largely independent. A penetrator could probably punch straight through and only destroy the habitats of those bubbles that were in a straight line. It depends on how much energy those neighboring bubbles can soak before they cook because I can't imagine that a 0.9c impact wouldn't produce some thermal and radiation bloom.
Also consider it might be possible to relocate the whole of bubbleopolis out of the way before the penetrator gets a chance to hit.

However, I suspect the real target isn't bubbleopolis, but that neo-prim colony we saw. Even a hit on the night side would kill everything on the day side, at least eventually, and probably pretty quickly.
In this, a distributed habitat such as bubbleopolis should have a much better survival probability than a typical planet.

3

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by JanessaVR on December 06, 2019, 02:05:48 pm »

Looking at today's strip...holy crap.

How much of Bubblopolis will be left after it hits?!

And what does an AnCap society going to war look like?

4

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by UncleRice on December 06, 2019, 12:23:14 am »

I suppose an iron asteroid is cheap, but I would expect a nation state would fabricate a projectile out of solid tungsten or depleted uranium. Though I suppose at that speed, it doesn't matter much what it is made of as the protons and neutrons are the only thing that would matter.

5

Quantum Vibe / Re: Militia

« Last post by UncleRice on December 06, 2019, 12:19:19 am »

I would expect people to have fleets of combat robots with just enough brain power to do their job.

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Quantum Vibe / Re: Militia

« Last post by bjdotson on December 04, 2019, 12:24:46 pm »

I hear you but I still think there's a difference between a nation with a Standing Army (not currently in civilian jobs) and a nation that uses only Militia forces who when needed have to be pulled from civilian jobs.

Historically, there have been two problems with Militia.

First, there's the problem of training & discipline. Do they know what they are doing and do they have the discipline to "do the job"?

Second, when the Militia is called up, then whatever jobs they did in the community is not being done or at least is being done by "less qualified individuals".  This means that a long war has a greater impact on the community/nation than it would if the war was fought by a standing army.

The second can be seen as a feature when one dislikes the idea of a nation going out to conquer other nations, but is a problem when a nation with only militia forces is defending itself from another nation that has a standing army.

The problem with that argument is it assumes those soldiers come out of thin air and eat nothing. It doesn't matter if the soldiers are part-time or full-time; those soldiers are workers who are taken out of the civilian economy. Now, you can say that a community that has a standing army is one that is accustomed to the extra load, and that fielding that army therefore produces much less of a system shock to their economy than calling up part-timers, and leaving tasks normally done now unfilled.

I should have replied to you a week ago.

There is a difference.

The best analogy I can compare a standing military to is insurance. You pay into insurance monthly, and hope you never need it. That is money that you aren't using to buy food, transportation, shelter, or toys. Because you are a wise individual, you accept that the potential future need, that would be blunted by insurance, is worth not having a few toys, or the latest and greatest of everything else.

A society which maintains a (large) standing military is one that has accepted that they can't spend all of their labor on the collective, and generally indirect, obvious good of the populace, but must instead spend some of it on preparedness.

Like with insurance, a society which lacks a military might look fine on the outside, and even from the inside, provided peace or other disaster doesn't expose their failure to prepare for it. This might mean better schools, better roads, better hospitals, or, in a freer society with fewer government-managed programs, richer citizens who can afford to buy better cars, better houses, etc.

Going into a disaster without an already existing, already paid for military, one that you've become accustomed to supporting in peacetime in wages, equipment, training efforts, upgrades, and replacement, is like going into the hospital without insurance. Suddenly, you can't afford all the things, the "necessities", which you've become accustomed to. You find yourself pawning that TV, your second car, all your new hires between the ages of 18 and 35, all for far less than you initially paid for them, and suddenly you can't afford your accustomed new wardrobe, or to eat meat except once a week. Hospitals are EXPENSIVE, more so if you don't have insurance to help carry the expense. War is also expensive, more so if you don't have anyone ready trained and equipped to fight in it. Both are also incredibly disruptive.

A small army is like an emergency-only insurance policy with a large deductible. A large standing army is like a comprehensive insurance policy with a small deductible.

A large standing army is like having a really super-expensive toy that you can't wait to use, to justify all the money you've spent on it. So, you go about terrorizing your weaker neighbors.

Not only to justify money already spent, but to demonstrate that you need to spend more next year. Eventually they just take over and seize all the money.

7

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by Scott on December 04, 2019, 11:45:41 am »

And we continue with more or less classic RKKV (Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle). Usually these are accelerated with simple antimatter pion drive, but Murphy Drive apparently provides for teleport acceleration (fall towards black hole, accelerating, blink back to suitable distance, continue falling). Larry Niven used a variant of this trick as a reactionless thruster. Old Traveller grognards used variant as a weapon of mass destruction, accelerating small bits of rubble to near lightspeed.

This is a serious planetkiller, difficult to defend against. Though Murphy Drive again gives some options to defend against. Optimal approach, of course, would be to simply dodge. Oresme-shield should give enough warning time against lightspeed threats to simply teleport away, for example...

Ps. At these velocities carbon-black coating doesn't help. Interstellar medium, impacting on projectile at these velocities, provides for quite a light show. Of course, it's possible that someone has developed a teleport shield, teleporting any interstellar medium in front to behind the projectile...

Not much Interstellar Medium in the vicinity of a Black Hole. It tends to suck that all in. Likewise, to some extent, in the Five Suns system. Most mass ejections from each star get scooped up by one of the others.
 

8

Quantum Vibe / Re: Militia

« Last post by Scott on December 04, 2019, 09:35:06 am »

I hear you but I still think there's a difference between a nation with a Standing Army (not currently in civilian jobs) and a nation that uses only Militia forces who when needed have to be pulled from civilian jobs.

Historically, there have been two problems with Militia.

First, there's the problem of training & discipline. Do they know what they are doing and do they have the discipline to "do the job"?

Second, when the Militia is called up, then whatever jobs they did in the community is not being done or at least is being done by "less qualified individuals".  This means that a long war has a greater impact on the community/nation than it would if the war was fought by a standing army.

The second can be seen as a feature when one dislikes the idea of a nation going out to conquer other nations, but is a problem when a nation with only militia forces is defending itself from another nation that has a standing army.

The problem with that argument is it assumes those soldiers come out of thin air and eat nothing. It doesn't matter if the soldiers are part-time or full-time; those soldiers are workers who are taken out of the civilian economy. Now, you can say that a community that has a standing army is one that is accustomed to the extra load, and that fielding that army therefore produces much less of a system shock to their economy than calling up part-timers, and leaving tasks normally done now unfilled.

I should have replied to you a week ago.

There is a difference.

The best analogy I can compare a standing military to is insurance. You pay into insurance monthly, and hope you never need it. That is money that you aren't using to buy food, transportation, shelter, or toys. Because you are a wise individual, you accept that the potential future need, that would be blunted by insurance, is worth not having a few toys, or the latest and greatest of everything else.

A society which maintains a (large) standing military is one that has accepted that they can't spend all of their labor on the collective, and generally indirect, obvious good of the populace, but must instead spend some of it on preparedness.

Like with insurance, a society which lacks a military might look fine on the outside, and even from the inside, provided peace or other disaster doesn't expose their failure to prepare for it. This might mean better schools, better roads, better hospitals, or, in a freer society with fewer government-managed programs, richer citizens who can afford to buy better cars, better houses, etc.

Going into a disaster without an already existing, already paid for military, one that you've become accustomed to supporting in peacetime in wages, equipment, training efforts, upgrades, and replacement, is like going into the hospital without insurance. Suddenly, you can't afford all the things, the "necessities", which you've become accustomed to. You find yourself pawning that TV, your second car, all your new hires between the ages of 18 and 35, all for far less than you initially paid for them, and suddenly you can't afford your accustomed new wardrobe, or to eat meat except once a week. Hospitals are EXPENSIVE, more so if you don't have insurance to help carry the expense. War is also expensive, more so if you don't have anyone ready trained and equipped to fight in it. Both are also incredibly disruptive.

A small army is like an emergency-only insurance policy with a large deductible. A large standing army is like a comprehensive insurance policy with a small deductible.

A large standing army is like having a really super-expensive toy that you can't wait to use, to justify all the money you've spent on it. So, you go about terrorizing your weaker neighbors.

9

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by Sean Roach on December 04, 2019, 08:27:35 am »

And we continue with more or less classic RKKV (Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle). Usually these are accelerated with simple antimatter pion drive, but Murphy Drive apparently provides for teleport acceleration (fall towards black hole, accelerating, blink back to suitable distance, continue falling). Larry Niven used a variant of this trick as a reactionless thruster. Old Traveller grognards used variant as a weapon of mass destruction, accelerating small bits of rubble to near lightspeed.

This is a serious planetkiller, difficult to defend against. Though Murphy Drive again gives some options to defend against. Optimal approach, of course, would be to simply dodge. Oresme-shield should give enough warning time against lightspeed threats to simply teleport away, for example...

Ps. At these velocities carbon-black coating doesn't help. Interstellar medium, impacting on projectile at these velocities, provides for quite a light show. Of course, it's possible that someone has developed a teleport shield, teleporting any interstellar medium in front to behind the projectile...

Another wrinkle to the fuel is such a craft can simply refuel on the fly. It doesn't need to carry all the fuel it needs to accelerate; that can just be 'ported in a few gallons at a time during the boost phase.

Imagine how much cheaper it would have been to go to the moon if we could have just dropped a gate-pair in a couple fuel tanks. One on the Apollo and one on the ground.

10

Quantum Vibe / Re: Bubbleopolis risks

« Last post by MirrorField on December 04, 2019, 06:03:57 am »

And we continue with more or less classic RKKV (Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle). Usually these are accelerated with simple antimatter pion drive, but Murphy Drive apparently provides for teleport acceleration (fall towards black hole, accelerating, blink back to suitable distance, continue falling). Larry Niven used a variant of this trick as a reactionless thruster. Old Traveller grognards used variant as a weapon of mass destruction, accelerating small bits of rubble to near lightspeed.

This is a serious planetkiller, difficult to defend against. Though Murphy Drive again gives some options to defend against. Optimal approach, of course, would be to simply dodge. Oresme-shield should give enough warning time against lightspeed threats to simply teleport away, for example...

Ps. At these velocities carbon-black coating doesn't help. Interstellar medium, impacting on projectile at these velocities, provides for quite a light show. Of course, it's possible that someone has developed a teleport shield, teleporting any interstellar medium in front to behind the projectile...