Ships Drives

[phavoc]

The problem is, Relativistic Kinetic Kill devices like this aren’t limited to governments... they’re freely available for “little Timmy’s science fair project”.

Sending a 1 gram solar powered toy rocket between two star systems “for fun” would cause it to arrive at about 99.99% the speed of light, and if it should hit something, it destroys with with the blast of 1.5 Mega Tons of TNT, at 6.3x10^15 Jules.

Can a government be held responsible for some dumb 4 year old who hooked up a solar panel to a toy rocket? Can the poor kid? Can the parents? Universes like this just shouldn’t exist. The game rules should prohibit it.

Why?

Ricin can be made in your kitchen. Anybody with access to a university-level lab can make bio weapons. It's never been an issue that tech has limited people. Fission/fusion nukes do take a little bit more effort, but really the limitation is fissile material. In fact I don't think his name was Timmy, but a working nuclear bomb design was created by a college kid taking a class by Dyson using just publicly available information (at the time at least). The tech to build a basic fission bomb is very well established. And that's not even counting what you could do with dirty bombs using industrial nuclear materials.

Timmy could joy-ride in his parents air-raft, go to low orbit and decide to slam into a 150 story skyscraper just because it's "cool". Should the game rules prevent that?

 

[fusor]

Timmy could joy-ride in his parents air-raft, go to low orbit and decide to slam into a 150 story skyscraper just because it's "cool". Should the game rules prevent that?

You've got to think about causes. Some crazy terrorist cult could lob a high speed asteroid at a planet, but what does that achieve? How would that help their goals? The scale of destruction would be so vast that (a) there'd be little left to claim afterwards, and (b) everybody would find where those terrorists operated from and blast them so hard that their component atoms wouldn't even survive. Most organisations would have much more subtle and less destructive means to try to achieve their goals.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Naval architects might be told by their governments to install governors in every M-Drive to prevent ships from being used in this way, by aiming the prow of the ship at a planet and going at ramming speed at it.

Anything that can be installed can be uninstalled. A regulations compliant design approvable for shipping to customers would have to be designed from the ground up to be fail-safe, or space rednecks with access to a ship junkyard would just fire them at nearby star systems they don’t like. So long as they make their Navigation check, it’s good to go.

Bwaps at the Maneuver Drive Regulation Bureau would be well paid... if not in salary, then in bribes from weapons manufacturers.

 

[Condottiere]

Let's assume that with a little handwavium, all high tech high pop worlds that would make prime targets, actually have sensors and weapon systems that would detect and neutralize the threat.

What these are, I can only speculate.

As regards to previous happenings, there's Buenos Aires that the bugs bombed in Starship Troopers.

 

[rust2]

Let's assume that with a little handwavium, all high tech high pop worlds that would make prime targets, actually have sensors and weapon systems that would detect and neutralize the threat.

Amen. 8)

 

[fusor]

As regards to previous happenings, there's Buenos Aires that the bugs bombed in Starship Troopers.

That was somewhat unconventional though (plus, I think just a normal asteroid, not a high speed/relativistic one?) - if it's a war of extermination then anything goes. That's generally going to be the exception than the rule.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Let's assume that with a little handwavium, all high tech high pop worlds that would make prime targets, actually have sensors and weapon systems that would detect and neutralize the threat.

Let us instead not do that, and instead come up with a legitimate, actionable reason for Maneuver Drives to not behave this way, that enhances playability.

 

[fusor]

Let's assume that with a little handwavium, all high tech high pop worlds that would make prime targets, actually have sensors and weapon systems that would detect and neutralize the threat.

I think the reason why the argument's continued for so long is that those assumptions aren't really enough - there's always ways around it if you just use physical defences.

I'd prefer to think that the reason it's not happened (at least, more than once) is because nobody has any reason to do it or is stupid/insane enough to do it and even if they were then they're not allowed to take those actions (I guess you could say that the defences are "social" in nature rather than physical). Think about how many horrible things could happen today but don't - people could release a plague, or nuke a city, or crash more planes into buildings, or whatever - but security measures are in place to prevent that from happening (most of the time. One or two cases can and do slip through given long enough though, but there's not much to be done about that - which is why I think it has happened in the past in the OTU).

 

[phavoc]

Timmy could joy-ride in his parents air-raft, go to low orbit and decide to slam into a 150 story skyscraper just because it's "cool". Should the game rules prevent that?

You've got to think about causes. Some crazy terrorist cult could lob a high speed asteroid at a planet, but what does that achieve? How would that help their goals? The scale of destruction would be so vast that (a) there'd be little left to claim afterwards, and (b) everybody would find where those terrorists operated from and blast them so hard that their component atoms wouldn't even survive. Most organisations would have much more subtle and less destructive means to try to achieve their goals.

Agreed. No stellar government couLd allow a group or polity to escape punishment let alone derive a benefit. Only extreme fringe groups would even contemplate it.

That or gamers in an online forum.

 

[Condottiere]

Get it to wobble and veer off one or two degrees.

Aim something with a jump drive at it, timed to activate a second before collision.

 

[theodis]

Agreed. No stellar government couLd allow a group or polity to escape punishment let alone derive a benefit. Only extreme fringe groups would even contemplate it.

Agreed. That is in short the explanation given on the Atomic Rockets site. Anyone attempting such an act would be hunted down and be extinguished, be it an individual, group, corporation or government. If you are willing to commit genocide, you send the clear message that you are a ravening lunatic that should be wiped from the face of the universe.

 

[rust2]

Let us instead not do that, and instead come up with a legitimate, actionable reason for Maneuver Drives to not behave this way, that enhances playability.

Yes, and next perhaps with a legitimate, actionable reason why biotechnology labs cannot produce biological weapons, or why fusion bombs cannot explode :?:

 

[wbnc]

Agreed. No stellar government couLd allow a group or polity to escape punishment let alone derive a benefit. Only extreme fringe groups would even contemplate it.

Agreed. That is in short the explanation given on the Atomic Rockets site. Anyone attempting such an act would be hunted down and be extinguished, be it an individual, group, corporation or government. If you are willing to commit genocide, you send the clear message that you are a ravening lunatic that should be wiped from the face of the universe.

the guilty party would have every law enforcement, military, intelligence agency in existence after them. It would be open season on anyone vaguely connected to them.

 

[Condottiere]

It would be a weapon of mass destruction, since it could hurl part of the crust into orbit.

But no high tech world would want to rely solely on some vague treaty regarding this.

 

[rust2]

By the way, there is genocide on the biggest possible scale in the Traveller universe, it is what Virus does before Traveller New Era, and it does include the use of starships as weapons of mass destruction. So the possibility does exist, although under more normal circumstances the various security measures to avoid such an event and / or to punish those responsible are sufficient to prevent it.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Let us instead not do that, and instead come up with a legitimate, actionable reason for Maneuver Drives to not behave this way, that enhances playability.

Yes, and next perhaps with a legitimate, actionable reason why biotechnology labs cannot produce biological weapons, or why fusion bombs cannot explode :?:

Not remotely the same thing. Biological weapons are highly regulated, and nuclear weapons of various sorts are heavily regulated by governments. If you’ve ever heard the U.S. Government rail about anodized (or not anodized) aluminum tubing of potential use in uranium enrichment centrifuges, you’ll realize that they are heavily involved with tracking the necessary precursor technologies. At which point...

Which is a government more likely to heavily regulate? Solar Power, or Maneuver Drives?

 

[rust2]

Biological weapons are highly regulated, and nuclear weapons of various sorts are heavily regulated by governments.

Which did not prevent the production of biological weapons by terrorists and the production of nuclear weapons by rogue states. There is no plausible way to make their production and use impossible, just as there is no plausible way to make the use of starships as weapons of mass destruction impossible. Any discussion about this is in my view likely to lead nowhere and - much worse - would contribute nothing to Traveller as a roleplaying game.

 

[fusor]

But no high tech world would want to rely solely on some vague treaty regarding this.

We pretty much rely on that now. Regulation, vetting, laws, security procedures, treaties etc all combine to prevent it from happening.

 

[fusor]

Which did not prevent the production of biological weapons by terrorists and the production of nuclear weapons by rogue states.

You can count the number of biological weapons used by terrorists on one hand. And nuclear rogue states, for that matter. I'd say that regulation and enforcement has done something to prevent that from being dozens or hundreds.

 

[rust2]

You can count the number of biological weapons used by terrorists on one hand. And nuclear rogue states, for that matter. I'd say that regulation and enforcement has done something to prevent that from being dozens or hundreds.

Of course, no doubt about that. What I am sceptical about is treating such problems as technological ones which require a final technological solution.

Besides, such a solution would eliminate lots of potentially very interesting adventure scenarios ...