All SerbanTanasa had of those moments were fading memories, but he knew that it had felt like dying, to let all his towers of thought collapse and become only a highrep user once more. It had felt like dying, he remembered that much of the WhiteMiceLounge even if he remembered little else.
Just a question: how many of you are decent enough to work with rockets?
Because I was wondering: if you were Earth and you had to fight a war using spacecraft that could make a trip to Mars in 6 months assuming 100 tonne payloads, 1 year to Jupiter and 5 to Saturn, how long could such a war last?
@FutureHistorian It's a reference to a Buddhist koan. When asked "what is the nature of the Buddha?" some wise old monk answered "Three pounds of flax."
@FutureHistorian Who is earth fighting? What are the belligerents equipped with? Where is the conflict located? When is this conflict occurring? Why did this conflict start?
Mars, Belter colonies, Galilean Moons, Saturn Moon System. Belligerents are mostly insurgents, former UN force defectors with native origins to their world, see answer 1. Timeframe: 2372 (unofficial)/2392 (official), and last question: a series of key factors influenced the outbreak of war.
These are the factors that resulted in the outbreak of war:
1. Cultural divide between Earth and various colonies, thanks to advances in genetic engineering. 2. Failed negotiations between Earth and autonomists. 3. Growing secessionist sentiment in light of human rights violations by the UN's military. 4. Earth trying to directly control the supply of phosphorus, which is necessary for fertiliser and life support systems on human colonies (mainly to keep people on Earth from starving, since Earth had run into peak phosphorus).
The last one is the big trigger and caused the colonies to directly try to become independent.
So, given that, how long can I expect the conflict to last?
@FutureHistorian It depends the 6 day war, and the vietnam war occurred simultaneously. However one lasted 6 days the other lasted many orders of magnitude longer.
So, colonists want independence and a more favourable stance on trade with Earth (but mostly independence) and Earth wants the phosphorus to sustain its 12.9 - 13.1 billion people, and make sure global famines do not ruin their day.
@FutureHistorian As long as you want it to. People in my hometown are still fuding because someone's great aunt sold land to "them hippies" back in the 70s.
@FutureHistorian If we're talking about controlling the skies to bombard the planet. Jupiter and Saturn don't matter. With mars the math is roughly similar to earth.
you need to consider how nice both sides are being to each other. If one side can completely annihilate any civilians near to the other side, that first side can move a lot more quickly
as I understand it, that's why the US doesn't just nuke North Korea
like I said, if you have no qualms about collateral damage, you can steamroll through the entire resistance as fast as you want. Otherwise, it becomes more a matter of supply lines
if the colonies are dependent on Earth, Earth should be able to starve them out
@FutureHistorian it seems like you know where you want to go, so rather than asking how long it takes I'd say you should focus on how you're going to get to where you want to be.
I'd say you're going to want the colonists to have a relatively decisive victory in their home planet/moon/asteroid/etc before Earth has time to send reinforcements. How they achieve that victory really depends on a lot of factors
the actual fighting really shouldn't take long. If possible, it should be mostly over in a day, with the rest of the time taken to siege/mop up
but given the nature of space combat, the longer you wait the more time the enemy has to drop asteroids on you, and nobody wants that
I'd say read Red Mars for an example of a revolution that fails, and Green Mars for an example of a revolution that succeeds.
(that was a spoiler, but not one that I think takes away from the story)
@FutureHistorian If you want another good example of realistic interplanetary warfare, check out The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey. It has pretty realistic space combat.
Slight spoiler... they do talk about how to actually hit a planet with a rock when the people you want to hit has a lot of ships armed with nuclear space torpedoes.
The Vox Populi vote meter says I have cast 34 votes but I'm being barred from further voting today because I've used all 40, is this a 24 hours versus UTC thing or what?
I'm starting this answer, and marking it Community Wiki, to collect links to whatever people want to share from their worlds -- stories, descriptions, game modules, fact sheets, etc. Wherever you've posted it, please add a link and your name here once you do. This should make it easier to compi...
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2017
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Look Up! by Heather
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Building the world of The Juggernaut, Part 2 by Monty Wild
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Taking into account quantum encryption (par...
@Shalvenay It would handle exactly like a rapier, only it would have a slightly worse guard, which makes it worse. Why? Because you've just created a rapier. Only, with a less complex guard. The advantage of a less complex [yes, this is a technical term] guard is that it is easier to grab the handle quickly, but at the cost of considerably less hand protection.
This decrease in hand protection means that you shouldn't fight with it further away from your body due to the increased risk in getting your hand hit (and therefore loosing, which is bad) and so, you'll have to have your hand closer to your body. However, one of the big advantages of a rapier is reach. Fairly obviously then, as the less complex guard gives you less reach, you're at a disadvantage to a rapier. Hence, a rapier is better than your rapier-like two-handed sword
I am assuming that you mean a longsword, which is held with two hands but not technically called a 'two-handed sword' (as opposed to the greatsword, which is a 'two-handed sword') but generally what people mean when they say 'two-handed sword'.
As a longsword is only slightly heavier and within the same length range (different swords vary slightly, but they're [rapier+longsword] close enough that it would be common to have one as long as the other), giving it the 'slenderness' of a rapier essentially turns it into a rapier, only with a less complex guard :)
The Vox Populi vote meter says I have cast 34 votes but I'm being barred from further voting today because I've used all 40, is this a 24 hours versus UTC thing or what?
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