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jrphilps

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  1. I think I understand. Line of sight (LOS) is limited by the observers height, so a gun emplacement located high off the ground would have a longer LOS, and would hence be able to cover more ground. So I guess 3600 ion cannons is the minimum amount, unless you mount them on sky scrapers or something
  2. Whoa, I didn't think it would be that many. That is quite a feat of engineering.
  3. Hey, you're a math literate guy, I was wondering whether you could help me with a question. If we were to go with the star wars model and emplace gun batterys on the planets surface, how many would you need to completely cover the sky arc of an earth sized planet?
  4. Thats definitely another option. By using solar panels to collect huge amounts of energy from the local star, you can power an array of directed energy weapons which could wipe out whole fleets. Although the light speed delay is an issue. Another question for this thread: If you were to emplace gun batterys on the planets surface, how many would you need to completely cover the sky arc of an earth sized planet?
  5. If the invading ships have excellent armor, then debris might not be sufficient. This also holds true for ships with excellent sensors: If they detect the debris, they can maneuver out of the way or vaporise it with their weapons. At a minimum, you would need asteroids with some means of actively going after intruding ships (maybe a thruster to steer itself, or a proximity fused mine). Orbital debris would be only a stop gap.
  6. In some works of science fiction, a space farring empire will need to fortify their planetary colonys from assaults launched by rival factions, privateers, terrorists, and the occasional alien scum. One fine example of this is the galactic empire from star wars. Their fortification schemas had a layered pattern to prevent intrusions into the planet. The first line of defense was battle stations located at lagrange points, where patrols could be conveniently launched from. The second was a huge number of surface based ion cannons to shoot down any craft which entered orbit. The third was dozens of garrison bases with enough troops, tanks, and aircraft to repel an invasion force. Of course, all this brings up an interesting question. When the empire needed to conquer a world that was not under their direct control (maybe it was part of the hutt clan, or the corporate sector authority) and rapidly fortify it against counter-attack, would this schema still be appropriate? Could they get all the infrastructure into place quickly? Would fortifying the planet be more desirable than guarding it with star destroyers (ships which could be better put to use on other missions)? Lets get some discussion going!
  7. Exactly. In real life, if you had a species that was willing to cross interstellar space for a chance to fight us, we'd be in some deep $%^&. The most likely attack would come in the form of relativistic kill vehicles, pummeling all industrial and population centers. Our casualtys would number in the billions, and chaos would sweep through the civilised world. Soon after, there would be a fleet of warships in orbit to mop up whats left of humanity, and some ground forces to capture whatever individuals remain (maybe sticking them into zoos). People like to fantasize about waging guerilla warfare against hostile aliens, but the truth is, we'd never get the chance. They would pound us from orbit, bomb us back into the stone age. By the time they deploy ground forces, the aliens would for all intents and purposes have won. If you really want to beat a hostile force of aliens, you're going to need a military grade supercomputer (like skynet). We can't develop strong AI at this point and time, but its definitely a possibility in the next few decades.
  8. Could you elaborate on that? I acknowledge the possibility that some elements of society will look very dimly upon genetically enhanced soldiers. There are alot of ethical boundarys that get crossed with such a project, just like alot of ethical boundarys were crossed when we used nuclear ordnance against japanese civilians. Whether you like it or not, though... If a course of action is seen as militarily expedient, the generals are going to take it. In the decades to come, I foresee humans splitting into many diverse clades through the use of genetic engineering. The differences will be minor at first, but as time passes, there will eventually be entirely new species of humans within our society. And since some of them will be doing jobs that we are unable or unwilling to do (colonising hostile planets, tending to ecologys in the ocean depths), how much could we really complain about them? Yes, and I took all of those things into consideration in my article. Genetically altered or not, they still have human needs that must be attended to. The skills and abilitys desired in a soldier have actually remained fairly consistent throughout history. He needs to be able to march long distances with a pack, make camp in unappealing locations, operate various types of weapons and equipment, work with others as part of a team, engage other humans in lethal combat, etc. Specialisation in humans is different from specialisation in insects
  9. Again, you are talking about these soldiers like they are just another weapon or piece of equipment: Thats not how it is. Human personnel are the integer exponent through which all wars are won or lost. With a project like this, what you are doing is improving the human part of the military, and changing the force on a fundamental level: How exactly do your enemys counteract an advantage like that? They can't, not without raising their own force of metahumans (which takes at least 20 years to do, too late to influence the wars outcome). You seem to be myopically focusing on whether there is a weapon that can kill these soldiers, thinking that if it gets developed and mass produced, they will quickly lose their importance. Thats very much a mistaken opinion: Considering that virtually every weapon in our arsenal (from small arms, to artillery, to aireal ordnance) can kill a foot soldier today, why do we even have an infantry branch? Because, combat is not predicated on the invulnerability of each and every soldier. This topic goes way beyond the simple exchange of bullets between two forces. It goes way beyond whether you can kill a metahuman with small arms fire. This is about better soldiers, who can perform their missions far more efficiently than baseline humans.
  10. You shouldn't worry about cost that much, seeing as the MIC is tremendously expensive by its nature. The war department and its contractors waste stupendous amounts of money on projects that never come to fruition, and no one in a position of authority ever trys to penalise them. If a metahuman soldier project is done properly, it could yield enormous and long lasting benefits: We would have a soldier with combat skills above and beyond what any normal human could hope to achieve. Think of someone like Big Boss, or Todd 3465, but with superhuman strength, speed, and durability. Imagine having even a few thousand men like that! It would give your nation an insurmountable advantage, and would change the nature of war itself. For thousands of years, military innovations have consisted of adding superior tools and weapons to our inventory: The crossbow, the muzzle loading musket, the breech loading rifle, the repeating rifle, then semi-automatics and full automatics. You know what none of these weapons did? They never changed the nature of the man holding them. A human soldier is still a human soldier. No matter how much gear or training you give him, his fundamental psychology and physiology can only be altered so much. Metahumans are much more flexible. They are a sub-species designed to thrive on the battlefield, avoiding all the weakness' of the human body, and adding all kinds of new strengths. We have been developing improved weapons for so long, wasn't it inevitable that we would someday want an improved soldier to go along with them? Some of the initial advantages may dissapear over time, but at the end of the day, these troops are simply better suited for the demands of war than an ordinary human, and thats what counts. Very few military innovations have been transformative in nature: Many of those which claim to be transformative were merely incremental. Having a qualitatively better soldier, though? That would rank right up there with the advent of motorisaton. FYI, a metahuman soldier project is a long term commitment, its not like the military is going to create just one generation: Those soldiers will become an important demograph within your nation, responsible for defense against external threats. If kids are being born every 15 years, that gives you alot of tactical and operational flexibility. After all, their genomes can be altered with every successive generation to meet the changing nature of warfare: If new challenges are encountered, then we devise new adaptations to overcome them (whereas with baseline humans, you are SOL). Their increased survivability is a major selling point, true, but its not like the soldiers will suddenly become useless if new types of weapons are able to kill them: Metahumans are only meant to be tough, not invulnerable. Besides, what are the odds of laser or plasma weapons being introduced? We have been using firearms for half a millennium: It was round shot from 1500 to 1850, then conical bullets from 1850 to the present. Humans are locked into bullets from a cultural and technological standpoint, and thats not likely to change anytime soon.
  11. Because of our ridiculously big brains, humans are tragically vulnerable to heat, cold, injury, hunger, thirst, etc. I've been studying wound profiles and terminal ballistics for years, and you'd be surprised at how much you can do to improve survival rates. I'm no doctor, but I know how bullets affect human tissues. With germline engineering and in vitro fertilisation, you could endow humans with all kinds of features to limit damage. I did a whole post about this on my blog, check it out if you don't believe me. http://kesler12-jamesrocket.blogspot.ca/2014/09/physiology-of-super-soldier.html
  12. You have been misled. To say that the singularity won't happen for hundreds of years is comically misguided. Before this century is out, human civilisation (if it survives at all) will be ruled by a superintelligence. Convergent advances in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics will create several pathways for the development of superhuman intelligences: These entitys will have enough power to rapidly outcompete baseline humans and gain control over the gross output of the entire world. They will be running the show, and we will just be along for the ride. Regardless of what happens politically, if humans are able to survive the singularity, they will aquire the ability to radically alter their own physiologys. How could this help them survive in environments like venus? Some clades may have completely different body chemistrys, and be swathed in cybernetic equipment. This wouldn't allow them to survive direct and prolonged exposure, but it would greatly reduce the amount of infrastructure needed to keep them alive. They would actually be able to establish a prolonged human presence on venus, instead of an isolated outpost requiring constant babysitting.
  13. Has anyone considered pantropy? Baseline humans would need massive amounts of protection to guarantee their survival on venus. A genetically or cybernetically enhanced superhuman could land on venus with much less fuss. After the singularity, humans will have the power to radically alter their own physiologys, which might lead to entirely separate species. Some of them might actually be able to withstand that kind of environment (at least if they are only partially exposed).
  14. No, I don't think interstellar space travel is going to be a possibility in the 21st century, or even the 22nd. The sheer amount of energy required is a hard limit: Sending humans even to nearby stars is a task for type 1 civilisations. This century will be spend colonising the moon, with manned explorations to the inner planets, and probes to the surfaces of the outer planets (and their satellites). Theres no rush to get to the stars, humanity must learn to crawl before it can walk.
  15. I too have done some thinking on the possibility of genetically engineered soldiers. My area of interest has been adaptations that allow humans to survive gunshot wounds, and other forms of physical trauma. IMHO, your first task should be to determine whether the human metabolism can synthesize all the peptides requires. This is a concern because the vast majority of mammals do not produce venom (the platypus being a notable exception), which suggests there may be some kindof metabolic incompatibilitys.
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