[META] [RFC] Militarization around the 2022 period

[Star Ranger4]

Has anyone considered if the A-10 Thunderbolt II (AKA the Warthog) would have been retired by 2022, with the Air Force finally getting rid of it, only to have Great Justice swoop in and scoop up the lot? Properly 'waved, it could be hellaciously tough, though Great Justice would only haul them out on ground missions.

In the OTL, the Air Force didn't even want the A-10 in the first place, but they've been forced to take it by Congress. They only keep it out of a combination of territorial defensiveness, and refusal to give up ANY role to the Marine Corps or, heaven forbid, the Army.

http://drunkardswalkforum...MG-INVADER-#reply-102020
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[ECSNorway]

So long as no one attempts to duplicate ReRob's Thundergod.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Black Aeronaut]

So long as no one attempts to duplicate ReRob's Thundergod.

Don't tempt me.

[LynnInDenver]

I suspect that the biggest restriction on actual production would be where you can sell the stuff at. Most installations would probably be harder and harder pressed to justify any sort of continual force upgrade programs unless and until there's another big Boskonian push to try to take over... and that's unlikely, because the Fen showed after Serenity Valley that they have the will to go to war... and the force multiplier to succeed in such. While there might be incremental "mark" upgrades to existing ships and equipment, it's likely that some of the heavier hitting stuff has slipped down into a "one off" production mindset, just tinkering to see if certain things are possible, because the resulting product line wouldn't sell well enough to justify the tooling up (or waking up the robofac and feeding it).

Basically, lack of sufficient demand will probably keep things somewhat cooled down. Yes, some might play a little too much for some people's comfort with their nice, explosive toys... but over the last five years, that's basically all it has been, playing with toys.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[ECSNorway]

So long as no one attempts to duplicate ReRob's Thundergod.

Don't tempt me.

Pfeh. And people call me a warmonger?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Star Ranger4]

So long as no one attempts to duplicate ReRob's Thundergod.

Don't tempt me.

Pfeh. And people call me a warmonger?

Actually I call you the chief Rockhound.  And late for dinner. 
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[classicdrogn]

As far as a cool race goes... I can't let those Martian groundpounders win, with their Koenig Monster! WC must build a Raven! (Possibly in collaboration with BAT?)

http://imageshack.us/phot...hgreatspiritinthesky.png

Hit 'next' a few times for more angles and forms, or 'prev' for the Skate variable fighter - which in its base form only has a mediumish laser in each arm/nacelle, so that one shouldn't spook anybody.

The design work and scale prototype build just begun,est. finish is ~2024
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

There's a "prayer" that goes with the first eight pictures -

1 Oh great Spirit in the sky

2 Bestow upon this humble grunt

3 the blessing of your almighty airstrike

4 Our souls illuminate the target

5 for your laser guided affection

6 For your love is an awesome power

7 and nothing says 'love' like close air support

8 Amen

I've posted both before, but I always get a grin out of it.

Naturally, the Raven will alternate between air shows and GJ duty, and not usally carry live weapons except the hip lasers.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

The arm and leg missile bays can also be swapped out for docking clamps and external enviro supplies, and the bomb rack with a goop ring docking tube to serve as a tender for up to five smaller craft, letting the crews rotate through the bomb bay slot to have acess to the (tiny but better than a pilot seat) bunks and sanitary facilities, to support a wing on deep recon or a long patrol.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Ace Dreamer]

This is a non-military, unarmed, vehicle:

http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=SS_Kame

but the fact that it is a Space Vessel, owned by a private individual, is by default invisible and has nested defences designed to make it nearly invulnerable, is, I'm sure, going to upset some people.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[KJ]

I'm upset on a meta level. You're talking about something with about 1.8 million cubic meters of volume... if it's as hollow inside as you give stats for, that's 120 thousand cubic meters of outer shell made of solid engineered metamaterials whose manufacture is unique to Brains. If it's only about as dense as aluminum, that's about 300 thousand tons of solid (presumably waved) metamaterial just for the outer shell; steel would be about a million tons. Not a hollowed out asteroid with the minimum done to be habitable, a built from scratch construction with just the outer shell massing more than 3 to 10 times as much as the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, with more layered defenses than anything, ever. With any reasonable amount of internal structure for rooms, drives, etc, you have easily just reset the record for the most massive mobile structure built by humanity; not by fen, by any part of humanity. Now add to it effectors capable of just shutting off drives or powerplants for the vast majority of things in the setting, plus tractors and pressor beams and so on and so forth.

[Ace Dreamer]

Yup, about 1.8M cubic metres volume.  The Hero System vehicle and base rules suggest about 320 cubic metres per person is good enough for luxurious living, so that is enough for about five and a half thousand people.  Should do for the equivalent of a cruise liner and hospital ship, with an immense hanger-dock.

Actually, the current design for the outer shell is six layers, each of which is a triple layer of three ultra-materials, with structural separators, but mostly waved aerogel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

Each of the triple layers is actually made from waved 5um mylar (BoPET, polyester sheet):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoPET

The internal structures are basically similar, with carefully rolled edges because otherwise people will lose bits of their anatomy when touching them.

There is a further layer on the outermost shell of the meta-materials that provide the passive invisibility - that is probably the most tricky part of the build, and one of the reasons for using regular shaped vehicles - it makes calculating the meta-materials a lot easier.

This was made from CHON, organics, not aluminium or steel, which would arguably be a lot easier to acquire (by mining) on Luna.

Even given the use of mylar and aerogel, Brains didn't think it was feasible to pull together the resources needed to build this. He'll certainly be paying for it for years, if not decades.

There are really good reasons Brains doesn't hand-out the handwavium and processes he uses to make ultra-materials. He's got related processes for the equivalent of battlesteel that he does hand-out. It's possible he may release the ultra-material stuff, some time in the future.

One reason he doesn't release details is there are ways of cutting the ultra-materials, with difficulty, if you know what you are doing. He expects someone will use these, eventually (he doesn't believe 'security by obscurity' works), but he doesn't see any reason for giving people help.
Calculations...
If you assume that there are 20 layers in total (to take account of the meta-materials) then assuming I've not mixed up my decimal points, and given a S.G. of 1.4 for mylar, that gives a surface area of about 75k square metres, which is about 10.5tns of mylar (ignoring structural bracing).  If you ignore the mylar and assume 120k cubic metres of aerogel at 2kg per cubic metre that is 240tns of aerogel.
Hmm.  Maybe Brains isn't now as poor as I'd previously estimated. [grin]
Going to need the drives to stop it blowing away in even a moderate breeze...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[M Fnord]

Okay, explaining the materials doesn't really address the point that this thing is still freaking massive, on par with heavy Starfleet ships and orbital colonies, and was built by one guy.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[HRogge]

This is a non-military, unarmed, vehicle:

http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=SS_Kame

but the fact that it is a Space Vessel, owned by a private individual, is by default invisible and has nested defences designed to make it nearly invulnerable, is, I'm sure, going to upset some people.

I must admit I DO NOT LIKE this vessel at all (from a meta perspective).

1) "Brain built it" ? Sorry, this thing is much too large to be built by a single person, even with some preparation time. Do you have any clue how large this thing is? 10 times larger than a todays US supercarrier? 20 times? More?
2) The cloak. Your original personal cloaks were "optical only"... that was powerful, but balanced. But suddenly Brain builds the "perfect anything, noone can see it cloak"? I would say thats a little bit too much "cool" in a single ship.
3) The "switch off enemies engines" weapon... sorry, NO WAY. If you say Brain has it, I will pretend it doesn't work on Fusors and CI energy crystals. This thing would be the most dangerous weapon systems in Fenspace, making every enemy helpless in a single shot.

The other things seem to be okay... as everyone else, Brain has his way to produce "damned tough armor"... It has forcefields, which is not common in 2014 but okay... even the tractor beams would be something unusual...

One last comment, did you used the wrong picture? A mauler does not look like a Trek-style Enterprise... ^^

(edit)

There are really good reasons Brains doesn't hand-out the handwavium and processes he uses to make ultra-materials. He's got related processes for the equivalent of battlesteel that he does hand-out. It's possible he may release the ultra-material stuff, some time in the future.

Nearly everyone has his own strains of "armor up" handwavium... so this one is not really something special.

[Ace Dreamer]

Okay, explaining the materials doesn't really address the point that this thing is still freaking massive, on par with heavy Starfleet ships and orbital colonies, and was built by one guy.

The volume is immense, the mass quite small, and with a work area waved for gravity control...
Also, he is very likely using his mind amplifier trick, that he uses for the crew, and controlling say 50 construction mechs. The mind amplifier is a scaling-up of the way his robot security staff run multiple remotes at once.  Once the shell and basic internal lay-out is done, he probably has help from Uran driving another 50-100 mechs - until she gets too bored. [grin]
He did have a one thousandth scale model to use as a basis for everything. [grin]
Have you seen how immense art constructions are thrown-up over-night using the IRL versions of the materials he is using?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[ECSNorway]

"Immense art constructions" do not dwarf the size and complexity of aircraft carriers.

Furthermore, your description of the power suppressors makes no logical sense. If they shut power systems down without affecting life support, what's powering the life support?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Ace Dreamer]

This is a non-military, unarmed, vehicle:

http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=SS_Kame

but the fact that it is a Space Vessel, owned by a private individual, is by default invisible and has nested defences designed to make it nearly invulnerable, is, I'm sure, going to upset some people.

I must admit I DO NOT LIKE this vessel at all (from a meta perspective).

1) "Brain built it" ? Sorry, this thing is much too large to be built by a single person, even with some preparation time. Do you have any clue how large this thing is? 10 times larger than a todays US supercarrier? 20 times? More?

Assuming I haven't botched my calculations it looks do-able.  He knows he can't build it, directly, himself, it took a long time for his tractor-trailer sized vehicle, which is far, far, smaller.  Hence, construction robots, run by temporary partial mental clones of his mind - he, personally, will not be able to remember building the ship, just read notes on problems he needs to sort out.  Brains can't do (full) non-destructive copies of his own mind, and he certainly doesn't have a way to (directly) incorporate experiences of his 'mind clones' into his own experience.
In creating his golem stand-in, 'Brainless', he effectively took a copy of his memories and a partial copy of his skills.  The mind amplifier takes an unstable partial copy of his experience and a full copy of his skills, then runs a lot of these in parallel, driving construction mechs.  He can get quite a lot of work done in their lifespan of about 48hrs, and he thinks this is ethically sound as he is arguably doing it to himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiln_People
The mind amplifier comes out of research he's done on backing-up the minds of robots, so they're safer, and how they control multiple remotes (which isn't quite the conventional AI brute force task-switching).

2) The cloak. Your original personal cloaks were "optical only"... that
was powerful, but balanced. But suddenly Brain builds the "perfect
anything, noone can see it cloak"? I would say thats a little bit too
much "cool" in a single ship.

No, the original vehicle cloaks were always radar as well as optical - they have to be to used the UK air space.  They don't mimic the radar background, they just absorb.  It isn't a perfect cloak, but in space where there is no rain or clouds to give you problems, and most people are relying on radar reflections or stray emissions, yes, it is very good.  If it makes the mistake of moving between a radar set and something being painted by that radar, or in the way of a transmission being received (radio telescope?), there's a moving 'hole', and an AI will likely be able to work out the shape and speed.  And, every so often they have to dump the absorbed energy.

3) The "switch off enemies engines" weapon... sorry, NO WAY. If you say
Brain has it, I will pretend it doesn't work on Fusors and CI energy
crystals. This thing would be the most dangerous weapon systems in
Fenspace, making every enemy helpless in a single shot.

It doesn't work on power storage devices, just on power generators.  And, not all of them at that.  It will definitely work on uranium and thorium fission, and conventional high temperature fusion.  And the Lensman power generation systems.  It is also only short range, and only works while the generator is within the beam.  A tractor-suppress technique probably works best.  Followed by a presser 'throw-away', and hope the attacker doesn't have fast generator re-start, and pounds you from out of tractor range.

The other things seem to be okay... as everyone else, Brain has his way
to produce "damned tough armor"... It has forcefields, which is not
common in 2014 but okay... even the tractor beams would be something
unusual...

One last comment, did you used the wrong picture? A mauler does not look like a Trek-style Enterprise... ^^

A mauler has to have force fields and tractor beams, or it isn't a mauler - you could also argue that the lack of weapons means it isn't a mauler, but handwavium is generally more understanding about that.
If you want to have a picture of an invisible ship...  The 'Turtle' cos-plays as the 'Enterprise', and maybe as 'Thunderbird 2' while doing disaster relief.  Because he doesn't trust the force fields Brains has an ultra-material hull underneath them.

(edit)

There are really good reasons Brains doesn't hand-out the
handwavium and processes he uses to make ultra-materials. He's got
related processes for the equivalent of battlesteel that he does
hand-out. It's possible he may release the ultra-material stuff, some
time in the future.

Nearly everyone has his own strains of "armor up" handwavium... so this one is not really something special.

It all really comes out of Brains model work, using mylar, and some aerogel, and his second 'Bootstrap' attempt.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Ace Dreamer]

"Immense art constructions" do not dwarf the size and complexity of aircraft carriers.

Furthermore, your description of the power suppressors makes no logical sense. If they shut power systems down without affecting life support, what's powering the life support?

Handwavium doesn't make (powered) weapons that kill people.  Shutting-down the life-support kills people.  If necessary the handwavium weapon design will be itself specifically feeding power to the life support systems.
Some art constructions certainly dwarf the size of aircraft carriers, but, agreed, not their complexity.  However, there are ways of minimising those problems.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[ECSNorway]

Please demonstrate the fictional model you used to create the device, then. How did you cue the handwavium to make this instead of, oh, a psychedelic disco ball?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Ace Dreamer]

Please demonstrate the fictional model you used to create the device, then. How did you cue the handwavium to make this instead of, oh, a psychedelic disco ball?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman_series
"developed shields and screens to block enemy systems from drawing the
power, and upgraded the power systems for their "Mauler" class of attack
vessels to defeat systems reliant on cosmic-energy collection."
There is more in the source materials.  If you want I can dig-out stories where "nuclear suppression" gadgets stop fission and/or fusion reactions over a big area - from memory Saberhagen's "Black Mountains" stories ("Empire of the East") start from a continent-wide one of those messing-up.  I think I recall something from a Jack L. Chalker story, too.
I dialed-back the power levels on all of this in the hope of getting something which was a non-lethal weapon, and which far more suited the Fenspace setting.  I'm of the opinion that Fenspace needs more interesting non-lethal weapons, as well as figuring-out the hard-tech or mushy-tech route to lethal science fiction weapons.
If this isn't acceptable, I'll junk the idea.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[HRogge]

(the following is just my personal opinion)

Please do not forget that Fenspace is not only about "source material".

Its also (especially from the worldbuilding perspective) about having a balance between the creation of different writers. Otherwise the Fenspace setting is not working.

My "your ship is much too large" is not a request to state the source of your construction and how your char did it but a remark that a single Fen (whoever he or she is) cannot build something that huge alone. Its not balanced compared to the rest of the Fenspace universe. "Whats balanced" can be bent, especially for non-reproducable one-of-a-kinds (and even more for one-shots for a single story).

"Invincible Invisible winning every fight with a single shot" ships are not only too powerful, they are also very boring from a story point of view. Which means that the existence of a ship like this is suspect in an universe as Fenspace, which runs on stories and drama.

[Ace Dreamer]

I'd request a move of further discussion of Brains and his (excessive) response to the violence of SerenityCon to:

http://drunkardswalkforum...What-does-Brains-do-next

as I think it has rather gone off-topic for this thread.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[HRogge]

Okay, back to the original topic...

So we agree that some control over large military hardware is necessary, both in the form of "moving it to GJ" and "control visits". Do you think the idea that the factions who join the PEPPER treaty make a custom contract about this with the Convention/GJ each, so that just a "basic guideline" must be set? By keeping all of this contracts public, it should be not that difficult to keep people from trying to get a "too good" deal with GJ.

This way we keep the whole thing less bureaucratic and more flexible.

[ECSNorway]

Greenwood Security maintains six combat vessels as of 2022. Of these a rotating pair are on more or less permanent duty with Space Patrol. This is not mandated by any law, treaty, or convention. It's entirely voluntary.

Voluntary cooperation is -always- stronger and better than enforced submission.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[KJ]

I was certainly seeing everyone's contracts and crap being open at the very least to anyone else who was trying to negotiate into it. No reason not to, and keeping it hushed up just leads to potential for so much more conflict.

As for voluntary cooperation... you know, that's fine as far as it goes. And I have in mind having quite a few incentives of various sorts such that hypothetically everything should be on that side of things. Fundamentally though, whether you want to call things "limits to be adhered to" or "guidelines to make other people comfortable" or whatever else, the end goal ends up pretty much the same. And you know, it would be nice if everyone agreed to voluntarily cooperate with rotating their stuff into GJ, not maintaining too much for their own use, etc. It would also be nice if we didn't have to have the stuff in the first place to feel safe; lots of things would be nice. I don't know that that is something to bank on long term though, and in a hypothetical of, say, someone developing WMDs and people not wanting them to, there should be an answer to the question "And so what are you going to do about it?"