We don't have any watch post that might see behind the Sun. I guess most Traveller systems would have (e.g. I guess warning satellites in orbit of Venus and Mercury will do).
OTU Only: Preventing terrorism or war sabotage
- Thread starter Frankymole
- Start date
We don't have any watch post that might see behind the Sun. I guess most Traveller systems would have (e.g. I guess warning satellites in orbit of Venus and Mercury will do).
We're all also talking about the potential terrorists using *one* rock, or *one* ships boat. They could, essentially, just as easily be towing a sack of rocks and then "shotgun" them at planetside.
Also ignoring any hacking that might be done of any early warning systems.
Also ignoring any stealthing that might be done of said rocks to spoof the early warning systems.
Plus, in true Traveller fashion, we're also ignoring the ability of an invading fleet to essentially launch hundreds of these at a planet. A couple of hundred robot-piloted ships boats, "surrender or we don't change the vector". I think that's one of the real issues with Traveller is that it essentially ignores a whole range of tactics that are likely to reasonably be threatened or used (or used in the past) - dropping rocks isn't rocket science, but Traveller basically handwaves it all away and doesn't even address it.
When, logically, it almost *has* to have been addressed in some way, at some point, because it is so idiot simple.
For me, as near as I can read the CTU (Canon Traveller Universe), it essentially falls into the Goodwar/Badwar doctrine. Everyone knows you can do it, but nobody does because nobody wants a Black War. While I don't think there is anything like a "Fourth Protocol" against it (because there is no evidence of any sort of arms treaties between interstellar powers like that) I do think that there is a similar set of understandings about "how war will be conducted" between the various polities - and it is mainly that WMD's are off limits. The interesting thing is that on an Interstellar level nukes aren't really considered WMD's any more (given starship weapons, and meson artillery).
For non-state actors the definition of WMD broadens out to include nukes, and probably a couple of other things that we can't think of yet. Nanites maybe? But fundamentally, it's the non-state actors that really tend to produce the "Nightmare Scenarios" because they are not bound by conventional strategy and tactics.
D.
Also ignoring any hacking that might be done of any early warning systems.
Also ignoring any stealthing that might be done of said rocks to spoof the early warning systems.
Plus, in true Traveller fashion, we're also ignoring the ability of an invading fleet to essentially launch hundreds of these at a planet. A couple of hundred robot-piloted ships boats, "surrender or we don't change the vector". I think that's one of the real issues with Traveller is that it essentially ignores a whole range of tactics that are likely to reasonably be threatened or used (or used in the past) - dropping rocks isn't rocket science, but Traveller basically handwaves it all away and doesn't even address it.
When, logically, it almost *has* to have been addressed in some way, at some point, because it is so idiot simple.
For me, as near as I can read the CTU (Canon Traveller Universe), it essentially falls into the Goodwar/Badwar doctrine. Everyone knows you can do it, but nobody does because nobody wants a Black War. While I don't think there is anything like a "Fourth Protocol" against it (because there is no evidence of any sort of arms treaties between interstellar powers like that) I do think that there is a similar set of understandings about "how war will be conducted" between the various polities - and it is mainly that WMD's are off limits. The interesting thing is that on an Interstellar level nukes aren't really considered WMD's any more (given starship weapons, and meson artillery).
For non-state actors the definition of WMD broadens out to include nukes, and probably a couple of other things that we can't think of yet. Nanites maybe? But fundamentally, it's the non-state actors that really tend to produce the "Nightmare Scenarios" because they are not bound by conventional strategy and tactics.
D.
Wow, the level of sarcasm around here is pretty awe inspiring.
Well if my post assumes the presence of a defence system (on all planets? really? I actualy said that?), yours assumes none have them so I call that even.
All I meant was that if such a system exists, this is the kind of threat it might have to deal with. In any case, it seems likely that many high value targets worth hitting with an attack like this will have some sort of defence, unless mega-bombing hapless primitives is a popular sport. It's certainly only a moderately expensive one.
As for relativity, you got me. Nice catch. The Lorenz transformations give a mass factor of about 2.2 at 0.9c and I didn't take that into account. You'd need to accelerate for significantly longer. Still, the scale of the threat is clear and I think that's the main point.
Discussions of threats like that have come up several times in Traveller games I have either run or played. My take has been to just set the issue aside. I now it's not realistic, and if a player really wants to be an arse they could do something like this, but my hand-wave is that unspecified, off-the-table system defences in most inhabited systems are perfectly capable of detecting an intercepting the threat. It may not be realistic, or perfectly satisfactory, but there it is. It's either that, or try to come up with a credible explanation of how come most of the OTU isn't devastated asteroidal rubble after thousands of years of interstellar warfare.
Simon Hibbs
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creativehum
SOC-14 1K
For me, this stuff is gold.
Of course someone could try it. Of course, someone might pull it off. (As stated above, it might well have already been tried in the past.) I love the idea of politics in tension, that things can go wrong, that society and societies try their best to put the lid on the horrors humans are capable of -- but still, things go horribly wrong. (Because Life, People.)
The only use it has, of course, for RPG play, though, is how it manifests for the PCs. And this, as I said, is a goldmine.
Setting up such an attack takes time, takes communication. The mere fact that someone is trying such a think would be a Big Deal, which would generate buzz within the organization/state planning the attack. Which means that even before the attack is launched there are ways for PCs to get involved in adventure -- either tracking down clues, or trying to get a warning out to authorities if they stumble across the information by accident, or trying to stop it before the plan can go forward. If the plan is already underway, as other have noted, higher TL worlds will have defense systems in place. If such a world is a target efforts will have to be made to cripple those systems. These are only more opportunities for the potential attack to fail even before it begins and more opportunities for the PCs to get involved in gaining information/stopping such efforts. (After all, there will be dozens of ways of striking that the planetary defense systems. What is the point of the attack for the aggressors? Once word gets out that something is happening, someone will need to find out the specifics ASAP before the attack is executed.) Then it becomes cat and mouse (and, for me, screw ups in the bureaucracy that can't believe anyone would do such a thing, or interagency fighting, or moles within the security system and whatnot that only make the need of the PCs to sort it out even more vital.)
Broadening out we get wonderful questions: Why would someone want to do such a thing? I mean, you don't just blow up a nuke in a major city because you can. There's got a be a powerful (and in the case we're discussing here) REALLY POWERFUL motivation for committing such an act. The moment you go down this road your setting becomes richer, if only because you suddenly need to justify a conflict between the aggressor and the target world WORTHY of such a conflict. Now there is tension and politics and some sort trauma in the setting where conflict is guaranteed, with names and characters attached who really care about something and there will be consequences because of this.
That is awesome stuff for an RPG setting.
Moreover, lets say efforts to stop the attack fail. Horrible damage is done. Worlds get word this is happening. These worlds are terrified. As Quint properly suggested, there will be a moral/instinctual response, since this is the kind of thing people do not do. A hunt to put down the group/state that committee the atrocity is on. Again, who are they? What are their resources? It it a rogue organization of a few a dozen to a few thousand zealous of one kind or another? Or is it a political state that will have to be defeated through overt violence or covert subterfuge?
All of this, again, means adventure. The setting is in motion. Lives are at stake. Decisions must be made. Action must be taken. The clock is ticking.
Jesus... just typing this I'm all, "I want to a build a subsector just for this scenario!" with a hunt across the worlds to put down the mother▮▮▮▮▮▮ers who did this. Like, right now.
This is some great stuff for story, setting, and RPG adventures.
Nice take, pick up the issue and run with it. That has a lot going for it.
The thing is, if you let the genie out of the bottle and admit that this sort of attack is an option, the game essentially becomes largely about that.
If you want your game to be about other things, they you need to take this threat off the table.
So I think either approach can be productive depending on what you want the game to be about.
Simon Hibbs
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Well, yes and no.
Sad to say, we live in a world where such threats are always on the table (in regard to a WMD or large scale IED (9/11) being used by rogue agents or a state). And yet plenty of action-based encounters happen every day that have nothing to do with that. For example, a standoff with Somalia Pirates -- to use a 1:1 example from a Traveller setting.
Keep in mind, my focus is not a "All 11,000 stars across all of the Imperium's History" kind of guy. I'm not focused on the top-down thinking of keeping a huge setting in my head kind of guy. I'm a Player Character-facing kind of guy. The focus of the setting is limited in scope (though with implied agendas and setting material off screen) focused on PC play. If such a scenario implies that humanity might destroy itself with technological shenanigans some day, I'm fine with that, because one hundred years from now is not what play is about.
After all, in this actual, real world, humanity might destroy itself with technological shenanigans of many kinds... and yet we're sitting here typing about a fictional future that will never exist. Life goes on, despite the background noise of our species's end.
Whoa. That went deeper then I meant to. But there it is.
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Some interesting ideas coming out in this thread. My 2Cr.
Terrorists have Budgets too!
Most fiction when creating a villain ignores the costs involved in setting up and mounting a terrorist attack.
It takes money to buy or rent a ship, find and train a crew (if your mode of attack is the ship you'll have no return, indeed even if it isn't, I'd advise getting rid of the ship as it's evidence). Then the cost of finding and setting an asteroid on a terminal course. Whatever you're chosen method of attack it's going to cost you.
It'll require cash, more cash than the equivalent civilian undertaking. Now none of the costs involved are insurmountable in the Traveller universe but like asteroid mining or a free trader campaign, its something that has to be taken into account.
There's a well known axiom in law enforcement and investigation: follow the money.
What if in an age where interstellar banking is mostly digital, the Imperial intelligence agencies keep tabs on your banking activity. What if when you send a large money transfer via X-Boat it sets off a flag with the IISS intelligence division financial crime branch?
What if one of the things those customs patrols are looking for is large amounts of cash being moved around?
When you file a flight plan with the SPA, does it and all your other movements get analysed to see if you're making suspicious trips?
Also there's a suite of measures that any government can use to prevent or even control terrorism. The undercover agent, the spy, the turncoat and the agent provocateur. all these come under the heading of human intelligence and are used to compromise the terrorist network.
A successful empire should identify terrorist threats early and slip their own people into the organization, because it can't really hurt you if you control it.
Terrorists have Budgets too!
Most fiction when creating a villain ignores the costs involved in setting up and mounting a terrorist attack.
It takes money to buy or rent a ship, find and train a crew (if your mode of attack is the ship you'll have no return, indeed even if it isn't, I'd advise getting rid of the ship as it's evidence). Then the cost of finding and setting an asteroid on a terminal course. Whatever you're chosen method of attack it's going to cost you.
It'll require cash, more cash than the equivalent civilian undertaking. Now none of the costs involved are insurmountable in the Traveller universe but like asteroid mining or a free trader campaign, its something that has to be taken into account.
There's a well known axiom in law enforcement and investigation: follow the money.
What if in an age where interstellar banking is mostly digital, the Imperial intelligence agencies keep tabs on your banking activity. What if when you send a large money transfer via X-Boat it sets off a flag with the IISS intelligence division financial crime branch?
What if one of the things those customs patrols are looking for is large amounts of cash being moved around?
When you file a flight plan with the SPA, does it and all your other movements get analysed to see if you're making suspicious trips?
Also there's a suite of measures that any government can use to prevent or even control terrorism. The undercover agent, the spy, the turncoat and the agent provocateur. all these come under the heading of human intelligence and are used to compromise the terrorist network.
A successful empire should identify terrorist threats early and slip their own people into the organization, because it can't really hurt you if you control it.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Absolutely.
Just because something can happen doesn't mean it will.
But the fact that a huge, setting changing thing is possible is wonderful grist for the adventure mill.
No Referee or gaming table has to touch such things. But the fact that they are there to use of wished is awesome sauce.
salochin999
SOC-13
Most of the time it's probably not intentional but it's hard to tell with text.
I take it the other way and say it is i.e. loads of the systems in the OTU have been trashed in the past, some multiple times.
This could be total destruction i.e. maybe Ruie is actually Ruie 3, with the first two Ruies now asteroid belts with the ruined remains of their orbital defense stations in among the asteroids
or partial destruction e.g. say Aramanx used to be Aramis sub-sector's alpha planet before the Imperium nuked it.
One of the things that follows from this is the alpha systems at least would have massive orbital defense systems to protect them (now I think of it this is another good reason why 99.99% of the naval budget would be focused on the alpha systems).
Another thought that just came to me from this is if Ruie was actually Ruie 3 then the asteroid belts that used to be Ruie 1 and Ruie 2 could have old abandoned orbital defense stations now used by pirates, smugglers or squatters.
You can have an OTU covered in scars - given the time scales you could have a planet that originally had an alien species nuked by the ancients and enough time for the radiation to be half-lifed away and then nuked again by the Vilani and that mostly faded also.
#
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old wars is one of the useful ways to explain why a system has bad world stats and a high pop or good world stats and a low pop.
My apologies for not getting caught up on the thread (I'm sure I'll pay for it), but like was mentioned on the previous page, just as low tech level countries today are susceptible to terrorism (lax security, or lack of resources to effectively implement security measures) so are low tech or even low pop worlds.
No pinnace nor shuttle, nor even a conventional starship, can generate speeds to reach .9c You'll run out fuel way before then. The best acceleration you could hope for would be to sling that rock around a planetary moon (assuming there is one) after you boosted/guided your rock in question into the proper insertion pattern.
Starship maneuvre drives aren't simply magic. They need to obey the the rules of the game. If you had an antimatter driven ship, then all bets are off, and you probably could pull off your 90,000 megaton attack .... wow, and antimatter drives actually are in the rules too. ----> :CoW:
Of course, if you have the means and know how, and knowledge of antimatter driven ships, then what in the world are you doing engaging in terrorism?
note; you'll also need to spend just as much time (probably more) getting out to distance as you would coming back. And, even though fuel isn't a problem, you need food and air ... unless this is a Kamikaze effort. AND, remember, a planet is an orbiting star. Moving at those kinds of speeds at that distance, is going to be a challenge for any pilot or navigational software. Again ----> :CoW:
No pinnace nor shuttle, nor even a conventional starship, can generate speeds to reach .9c You'll run out fuel way before then. The best acceleration you could hope for would be to sling that rock around a planetary moon (assuming there is one) after you boosted/guided your rock in question into the proper insertion pattern.
Starship maneuvre drives aren't simply magic. They need to obey the the rules of the game. If you had an antimatter driven ship, then all bets are off, and you probably could pull off your 90,000 megaton attack .... wow, and antimatter drives actually are in the rules too. ----> :CoW:
Of course, if you have the means and know how, and knowledge of antimatter driven ships, then what in the world are you doing engaging in terrorism?
note; you'll also need to spend just as much time (probably more) getting out to distance as you would coming back. And, even though fuel isn't a problem, you need food and air ... unless this is a Kamikaze effort. AND, remember, a planet is an orbiting star. Moving at those kinds of speeds at that distance, is going to be a challenge for any pilot or navigational software. Again ----> :CoW:
It's a difference in scale though. If Somali pirates capture a tramp freighter, that doesn't give them the ability to, with a bit of luck and planning, totally destroy the continental United States.
However a fairly basic ship like a tramp trader in Traveller gives you a decent shot at destroying a planet. Fuel has been brought up, you do need to use drop tanks to get the really high velocities, but it just depends on your assumptions about what constitutes a real threat and what could be reasonably done to protect against it.
Simon Hibbs
It's much easier to assume that this simply isn't possible. Thrusters break the laws of physics anyway, and game rules usually (or always) simplifiy reality (or in this case "reality"). Just assume that there's an upper limit to the velocity a thruster can impart and that while city-destroying attacks are possible, planet-busters are out. Maybe the upper limits of the travel table (one week at 6G) is impossible "in reality", but the rules ignore that for simplicity's sake.
Because if it wasn't impossible, wouildn't someone have done it already?
Hans
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
This... I don't know what you're doing to my point, but let me try to make this clear:
You said that if such a horrible attack is possible, the game is only about that.
I point out that in our world horrible attacks are possible and that there are plenty of concerns about much smaller attacks as well.
Which, I think, demolishes the point that if really horrible attacks are possible, everything becomes about that one kind of attack.
That's all I was addressing.
Do you disagree with that point?
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Mr. Hibbs. You have a ship's boat accelerating at 6G to 0.9 light-speed. That would be, in English measurements, 167,860 miles per second. That would take, at 6G or 193 feet per sec per sec, 4,590,971 seconds. The distance covered during acceleration formula is: 0.5 X Acceleration X Time(squared). During that time of 4,590,971 seconds, the ship's boat would cover 3.85 X 10 to the Eleventh power miles. That would mean that the ship's boat covers, in the course of the acceleration, 385 Billion Miles. One light year is 5.878625 trillion miles. Therefore, the ship's boat will cover about 0.0655 light years, or 573.7 light hours in the course of your proposed attack. The planet Pluto has an average distance from the Sun of 5.5 light hours by comparison.
Second, the energy required to get the ship's boat up to 0.9 light-speed is given by the classic equation, E = M X V(squared). I used a velocity of 30 miles per second for the rock-tossing Scout. Your velocity of 0.9 light-speed is 5,595 times mine, so the energy required to achieve that speed would be 5595 X 5595. That means that the energy required to accelerate every pound/kilogram of mass of your ship's boat is 31,307,755 times that of the energy required for every pound/kilogram of my Scout plus rock mass. According to The Traveller Book, a ship's boat has a fuel capacity of 1.8 tons, with 13.7 tons of excess space that could be used for fuel. A Scout has 20 tons of fuel for maneuver. You give a mass for your ship's boat of 10 tons, which I assume is empty mass with no fuel, and I will assume a mass for my rock-tossing Scout of 200 tons. However, you are starting out with 15.5 tons of fuel.
It would appear then that your 15.5 tons of fuel is going to deliver about 3,130,775.5 times the 20 tons of fuel of my Scout, giving your ship's boat an average mass of 20 tons. That may be low, as my Scout is not going to expend all 20 tons of fuel accelerating to 30 miles per second.
Edit Note: Corrected misplaced decimal point.
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salochin999
SOC-13
Jump capable ships are limited in size more than non-jump ships so in theory system defense is much stronger than system attack so it seems to me quite possible that the most likely why various empires expanded was through hit and run rock throwing or mass missile attacks...
but if they wanted to get the system to surrender then they wouldn't want to blow it up completely.
It's only terror campaigns that would do that i.e. non imperial factions or an imperial faction attacking another faction which has multiple worlds and the attacking faction destroys one of those worlds as an example to the others to get them to surrender.
#
edit: when i say a non-imperial faction I mean one whose motive isn't taking territory e.g. terrorism, extortion, revenge etc
#
edit: also there's no reason for an imperial faction to do this except to a prime system with a lot of orbital defense, a boonie system can be taken easily enough by a fleet simply moving to orbit and bombarding them.
but if they wanted to get the system to surrender then they wouldn't want to blow it up completely.
It's only terror campaigns that would do that i.e. non imperial factions or an imperial faction attacking another faction which has multiple worlds and the attacking faction destroys one of those worlds as an example to the others to get them to surrender.
#
edit: when i say a non-imperial faction I mean one whose motive isn't taking territory e.g. terrorism, extortion, revenge etc
#
edit: also there's no reason for an imperial faction to do this except to a prime system with a lot of orbital defense, a boonie system can be taken easily enough by a fleet simply moving to orbit and bombarding them.
I believe I said this, but minus all the minutiae.
Again, now that antimatter is addressed in T5, in theory, if your terrorist was bright enough, and somehow got access to a high tech level ship (beyond Imperial), say that ship from Secret of the Ancients, then, in theory, he could grab a rock and crank up the speed to hurl an asteroid at relativistic velocities.
Scary stuff.
Can any scanners or sensors detect an object moving at relativistic speeds?
Frankymole
SOC-12
The unfeasibly high numbers of asteroid/planetoid belts was put down to Grandfather's wars with his children, in GDW material on Charged Space. But the print Journal also had charged particle spinal mount rules for using fleets to destroy planets.
Frankymole
SOC-12
As to antimatter being in the game rules now... In the 1982 Dr Who story "Earthshock" the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs was a freighter with an antimatter "bottle" being aimed at the Earth ( and, obviously, achieving impact). So it has been imagined.
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