The End Of The Scifi Arms Race

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

  

12 hours ago, Okhin said:

I just assumed that a type 2 civ will have found a way to synthetically build non-deterministic computers

"2x2=" on them may give 3, 4. or 5 stochastically.

The Dyson spheres are children toys.

That's how adults play:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_flow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_repeller

"They" are flushing us to the sinkhole, and we have just several billions years to react.

***

That's about the reasons.
When you are an Ancient Evil, living for billions years, and when the giant stars are ephemeral sparkles, rather than "wow, it's mighty Betelgeuse!", you think not in terms of "mineral resources", but in terms of flows of galaxies and their productivity in kilostars per year.

Then the reasons for the war can be various, say a war for the "area of high enthalpy-to-entropy ratio around that galactic cluster", or for the "peaks of the Dark Matter wave function reverberation effect".

Also in this war you can grow civilisations in situ just to develop a reactionless planetary drive to throw their planet into the enemy's weak point to cause its destabilisation.
(Of course, the civ gets dropped, but who cares, you can make another one just in a billion years).

Don't you think that Lovecraft was joking?
No, he was fussing over and baby-talking.

Edited January 7, 2020 by kerbiloid

[KSK]

8 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Pretty big assumption right here. He's not incapable of enforcing orders. He's just gonna take his sweet time about it. Only timescales shift. It might be so that the overlord's fleet will take 25 years to arrive, but if it is powerful enough, it's sufficient. Human lifetime is a problem here, but I think this could be extended. Yes, things will happen with a large delay in such a system, which is why having someone capable on site to handle things that can't wait is paramount. 

Better hope the administrator is loyal as well as capable then, otherwise you have 25 years for them to organise a capable defense to greet the overlord's fleet. You could create a mighty big debris field along an approach vector in 25 years or put a lot of nuclear missiles in orbit , both of which are going to be bad news for the approaching fleet.

Unambitious would help too, to prevent that capable administrator deciding that they can rule the place better than their supposed liege. Besides, if I was a capable administrator plotting rebellion, I wouldn't hoist a metaphorical middle digit at my liege lord and dare him to send his fleet over. I would have prepared this well in advance - which shouldn't be too hard to hide when any round trip communications between myself and my lord take the best part of a decade or more.

Besides - what is that fleet going to do if and when it arrives? I suppose it could nuke the rebellion from orbit, which is fairly counterproductive. One less functioning planet in the Empire and a big warning sign to any other would-be rebels to get their defenses well organised before declaring independence. Or perhaps it could send in the drop droops for a happy fun guerilla campaign on the ground, against a prepared opposition.

8 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

It doesn't. Organization can arise from custom and culture. Civilization does not require a single government. It's a wider (and somewhat less precise) term than a country or state. It can also be religious (see the concept of Christiendom, though that one did have a government of sorts). Or the Greek city-states. They were all Greek, they waged wars with each other, but they were a single civilization, with similar religious beliefs, somewhat common culture, and one language. If anything, a language overlaps with a civilization more than a government does.

Conceded. However, my original post made no actual mention of government:

"For clarity, I’m defining an interstellar civilisation as one where interactions between star systems are easy enough that the inhabitants of one star system can participate in the affairs of another system if they choose to, either in person or less directly, for example by purchasing goods sourced from another system. Without that participation, I would argue that you don’t have a civilisation."

'Participate' doesn't have to be limited to governing participation. It could be cultural participation or, as I tried to suggest, economic participation.

Without regular interactions between star systems, there will be no common culture or language or religion that one could define a civilisation by. Assuming that your 25 year journey time is a reasonable one, by the time a visitor from System A gets to System B and back, System A's local culture has moved on by 50 years and, more importantly, what they're bringing back from System B is culturally, 25 years out of date. I suppose Systems A and B could interact by radio (or comms laser or whatever), in which case Systems A and B will only be about a decade out of synch. And in any case, there's a limit to what can be shared in such a way. Sending a picture of one's planet doesn't really convey what its like to live on that planet, to deal with the local peculiarities of geography, climate or flora and fauna. There's very little actual shared experience to build a shared culture on.

And all this is assuming that the cultural exchanges are generally positive and, for example, that the latest theological speculations at System B aren't decried as heresy by the inhabitants of System A.

 

To summarise, without some form of faster-than-light travel, I believe the idea of an 'interstellar civilisation' is an impractical nonsense. At best one would have a collection of autonomous star systems that may or may not choose, or be able, to undertake limited interactions with each other. An interstellar government of any form, limited to lightspeed communications and sub-light journeys between the stars is not possible (and I reiterate that there seems to be no obvious practical function for such an overarching government anyway). And similarly, lightspeed communications and sub-light travel will not allow sufficient interactions between star systems to create a shared language, cultural identity or anything else that could be called an interstellar civilisation.

Going back to @Scotius's comment, I believe that once the technological capacity for an interstellar civilisation exists, that same technological capacity will either negate the reason for conflict or render them moot.

Edited January 7, 2020 by KSK

[Bill Phil]

15 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Bogus. You can't apply this kind of power to a physical object larger than a particle, because it will become particles. Without more details in this miraculous tech, I don't see how such a thing can exist. In fact, I have my doubts whether you even can concentrate that much energy. Really weird quantum stuff starts happening if there's too much of it in one place.

In actuality you can apply the necessary amount of power.

You can't apply it to a mirror based photon sail, true. Such sails are temperature limited when it comes to their maximum accelerations.

I suggest you read the literature regarding SailBeam before simply stating it as "bogus." It's well researched and the physics are well understood. It's far from miraculous - indeed it's very mundane. In fact, it's so mundane that the technology is likely going to be developed this century, if only on accident.

The weird quantum stuff doesn't happen at this scale. We're still comfortably macroscopic.

16 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

As for weapons, you can't aim at a fleet approaching a star system, huge particle beam array or not. There isn't a turret in existence that can put a narrow beam at an object several AU away. Telescopes work because they have a field of view. A beam weapon does not. Aiming anything that isn't a missile at distances exteeding 10 megameters is a bogus idea unless you saturate an entire volume of space with enough energy to cause damage at a large distance, which is incredibly wasteful.

You're right, there isn't a turret in existence that can do that.

But we're not talking about the here and now. We're speculating about the technology future civilizations will possess. We already have an incentive to develop the necessary technology for such a beam - beamrider systems would effectively be the same technology.

Not only that but you don't have to aim at an incoming fleet - just lay its easily predictable trajectory with stationary particles (relative to the star system) which the enemy vessels will collide with at large velocities. Anything that survives that gets melted by lasers or whatever needs to be done.

16 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

With current technology megastructures are straight-out impossible, so planets still win.

Funny you should say that.

You see, under some definitions of "megastructure" the Great Wall of China is a megastructure - I would certainly call that possible with current technology.

Not only that but you seem to have a strange notion - we're not discussing interstellar warfare between civilizations with our level of technology. We're discussing interstellar warfare with civilizations beyond us in almost every way conceivable - though still limited to the physics we know today. We're speculating using known science and physics about what more advanced civilizations will be capable of.

You've also misunderstood - orbital habitats are not necessarily megastructures. Some of the smallest designs for orbital habitats are not much larger than the ISS's length in terms of their diameter. And since there's a good chance the starship you ride in on will come with such a habitat for the journey there really is no reason to even land on planets. At least initially. You may want to later on to get access to more resources - after you've already established a fairly well sized industrial base in space.

We're talking about advanced and energy rich civilizations on levels beyond us - interstellar warfare becomes useless because of the easily foreseeable technological development that comes along with access to that level of energy. Each and every star system becomes an impenetrable fortress and the energy (and matter) required to wage interstellar war are extremely wasteful. The cost of interstellar war is high - downright gargantuan. The benefits are null. Interstellar war is useless.

Not only that but the required technical understanding to construct various megastructures already exists - we only need engineering. For example dynamic orbital rings are likely within our technology, but the likelihood of such a system being built is low due to geopolitical issues. Not to mention constructs such as McKendree Cylinders - we understand them well (at least structurally) but we just don't have the industry to build them.

Meanwhile other examples are far beyond current technology.

16 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Bomb pumped lasers are bogus, the concept was tested in IRL and the best they got was an ambiguous result that was most likely just the nuke itself. Antimatter has the highest energy density of all power sources. Nukes work, too, but if you're already making antimatter, you can cram more boom in a single missile (and more missiles on a single ship).

No, X-ray lasers pumped by nukes are "bogus", and even then they aren't bogus, they're more difficult to develop than the scientists thought. Still very possible and a potential technology for a more advanced civilization. More conventional lasers pumped by bombs may be more practical.

Antimatter isn't a power source. It's an energy storage mechanism.

A terrible one at that.

Let me lay it down like this:

The required energy to produce antimatter is on the order of the mass-energy of the amount of antimatter you want.

Due to inefficiencies this number is vastly higher.

The required energy is immense.

Meanwhile conventional nukes are much easier to make, and have less risk of accidentally going off. By most measures - they're a better weapon. They're cheaper - so you get more boom for the buck, both in terms of energy return on investment and in terms of actual money.

Actually the highest energy density is black holes - but using them as weapons will be difficult for obvious reasons.

I suspect civilizations will not make antimatter - it's volatile, expensive, and has limited use beyond rocketry. Meanwhile other concepts are far more effective at accelerating vehicles to high energies and much more affordable too; both in terms of energy use and complexity. Not only that but as a weapon you'd get more bang for your buck if you just used high acceleration RKVs.

Antimatter systems may actually be less useful than you think since the required containment technology may be quite large and massive. Indeed antimatter's uses will likely be starting fusion warheads or perhaps making "microfusion" warheads. If warheads actually remain as a useful technology.

Essentially it boils down to this:

Antimatter is actually a very bad choice for almost any potential application. Better alternatives exist.

Due to these alternative technologies and others star systems are naturally fortified against invaders. If not they can be easily fortified.

RKVs are impractical as well across interstellar distances.

Thus interstellar war is useless.

[Spacescifi]

On 1/7/2020 at 8:29 AM, Bill Phil said:

In actuality you can apply the necessary amount of power.

You can't apply it to a mirror based photon sail, true. Such sails are temperature limited when it comes to their maximum accelerations.

I suggest you read the literature regarding SailBeam before simply stating it as "bogus." It's well researched and the physics are well understood. It's far from miraculous - indeed it's very mundane. In fact, it's so mundane that the technology is likely going to be developed this century, if only on accident.

The weird quantum stuff doesn't happen at this scale. We're still comfortably macroscopic.

You're right, there isn't a turret in existence that can do that.

But we're not talking about the here and now. We're speculating about the technology future civilizations will possess. We already have an incentive to develop the necessary technology for such a beam - beamrider systems would effectively be the same technology.

Not only that but you don't have to aim at an incoming fleet - just lay its easily predictable trajectory with stationary particles (relative to the star system) which the enemy vessels will collide with at large velocities. Anything that survives that gets melted by lasers or whatever needs to be done.

Funny you should say that.

You see, under some definitions of "megastructure" the Great Wall of China is a megastructure - I would certainly call that possible with current technology.

Not only that but you seem to have a strange notion - we're not discussing interstellar warfare between civilizations with our level of technology. We're discussing interstellar warfare with civilizations beyond us in almost every way conceivable - though still limited to the physics we know today. We're speculating using known science and physics about what more advanced civilizations will be capable of.

You've also misunderstood - orbital habitats are not necessarily megastructures. Some of the smallest designs for orbital habitats are not much larger than the ISS's length in terms of their diameter. And since there's a good chance the starship you ride in on will come with such a habitat for the journey there really is no reason to even land on planets. At least initially. You may want to later on to get access to more resources - after you've already established a fairly well sized industrial base in space.

We're talking about advanced and energy rich civilizations on levels beyond us - interstellar warfare becomes useless because of the easily foreseeable technological development that comes along with access to that level of energy. Each and every star system becomes an impenetrable fortress and the energy (and matter) required to wage interstellar war are extremely wasteful. The cost of interstellar war is high - downright gargantuan. The benefits are null. Interstellar war is useless.

Not only that but the required technical understanding to construct various megastructures already exists - we only need engineering. For example dynamic orbital rings are likely within our technology, but the likelihood of such a system being built is low due to geopolitical issues. Not to mention constructs such as McKendree Cylinders - we understand them well (at least structurally) but we just don't have the industry to build them.

Meanwhile other examples are far beyond current technology.

No, X-ray lasers pumped by nukes are "bogus", and even then they aren't bogus, they're more difficult to develop than the scientists thought. Still very possible and a potential technology for a more advanced civilization. More conventional lasers pumped by bombs may be more practical.

Antimatter isn't a power source. It's an energy storage mechanism.

A terrible one at that.

Let me lay it down like this:

The required energy to produce antimatter is on the order of the mass-energy of the amount of antimatter you want.

Due to inefficiencies this number is vastly higher.

The required energy is immense.

Meanwhile conventional nukes are much easier to make, and have less risk of accidentally going off. By most measures - they're a better weapon. They're cheaper - so you get more boom for the buck, both in terms of energy return on investment and in terms of actual money.

Actually the highest energy density is black holes - but using them as weapons will be difficult for obvious reasons.

I suspect civilizations will not make antimatter - it's volatile, expensive, and has limited use beyond rocketry. Meanwhile other concepts are far more effective at accelerating vehicles to high energies and much more affordable too; both in terms of energy use and complexity. Not only that but as a weapon you'd get more bang for your buck if you just used high acceleration RKVs.

Antimatter systems may actually be less useful than you think since the required containment technology may be quite large and massive. Indeed antimatter's uses will likely be starting fusion warheads or perhaps making "microfusion" warheads. If warheads actually remain as a useful technology.

Essentially it boils down to this:

Antimatter is actually a very bad choice for almost any potential application. Better alternatives exist.

Due to these alternative technologies and others star systems are naturally fortified against invaders. If not they can be easily fortified.

RKVs are impractical as well across interstellar distances.

Thus interstellar war is useless.

 

Interstellar war is also VERY hard, even with scifi staples like constant acceleration drives and jump drives.

Every planet has a different orbital speed and there are only two known ways to make up the difference for rendezvous.

1. Constant acceleration. Fastest, but may take several hours or longer to acomplish.

2. Gravity slingshot by planets to either slow or increase speed where you wanna go. Takes longer.

 

Take both of these factors into account and no space batyles between two fleets will happen unless they both agree to it. Since it is hard to impossible to catch up with a vessel that is constantly accelerating with an orbital speed significantly higher than your own.

Lasers can try, but you need a truly massive lens to hit stuff at far ranges anyway.

So that leaves what? Constant acceletation missiles if you have them.

Even then... without FTL sensors of some kind tracking jump drive ships to attack them or to even prepare to do by matching speed it's a non-starter.

 

So want a scifi battle?

Then constant acceleration, a jump drive, and FTL sensors are virtually mandatory.

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Spacescifi

[linuxgurugamer]

All of which are in the Honor Harrington series of books by David Weber

[Spacescifi]

2 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

All of which are in the Honor Harrington series of books by David Weber

Guy must have done his research then, because without just one of these space battles become too expensive to warrant at all.