 Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Wed, 05 May 2004 10:17  |
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Usenet quote by David Flin:
Building Big Steel Things That Float is an expensive business,
especially as the Admirals always want more stuff on their over-grown
bath toys. Bigger guns, more armour, more speed, better control, better
sea-keeping qualities, and so on. Of course, these big toys needed
littler toys to protect them, as well as medium-sized toys designed to
roam around like teenagers with a point to prove.
[context: Mr. Flin has written a multi-part alternative history and is making an aside about US Naval policy in the mid-1930s if I'm recalling things correctly. However, I find it a fairly accurate "battleship admiral" mindset for even our timeline in roughly that same period.]
I'm essentially curious if a Stars! equivalent could be written.
- Kurt
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
- Groucho MarxReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Wed, 05 May 2004 11:59  |
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I remember reading an interesting SF short story from an SF collection that had a suprise ending... it was really history of Cortez and the spanish in defeating the Aztecs.
Just by unusual wording for things like gold ('power metal'), oceans (description sounded like space between worlds), horses ('land transports'), etc he made history sound like SF.
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| Re: Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Wed, 05 May 2004 14:00 |
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| multilis wrote on Wed, 05 May 2004 11:59 |
I remember reading an interesting SF short story from an SF collection that had a suprise ending... it was really history of Cortez and the spanish in defeating the Aztecs.
Just by unusual wording for things like gold ('power metal'), oceans (description sounded like space between worlds), horses ('land transports'), etc he made history sound like SF.
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The Battle of Rorke's (sp) Drift, British vs Zulus in 1878 or so, has gotten redone in SF/Fantasy literature multiple times. Very thinly disguised most of the time.
The Byzantine Empire gets used a lot as well, especially the history involving the general Belisarius. Not surprising in one author's case given that his academic background involved specializing in this period.
You can find *lots* of parallels between history and various games or pieces of literature. Not that it's bad mind you. There are so many cases where reality, if presented as fiction, would not be believed. (Or ripped to shreds as being totally outlandish and illogical.)
- Kurt
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| Re: Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Thu, 06 May 2004 16:29 |
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Interesting. Thanks for the pointer.
The initial issue raised (the factors that drive the characteristics) hold very true to game design as well. You need to pick the approximate model of space combat that is going to apply before you can start generating ships and tech.
(see various tech threads in Freestars forum)
- Kurt
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| Re: Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Thu, 06 May 2004 22:23 |
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I'd think battles would happen more at planets or other points of interest than in open space, for the simple reason that it's easier to catch an enemy at one of a few possible destinations than somewhere along any number of paths.
Besides, even relativistic speed would require so long for ships to get from one system to another that any weapons they bring a long will likely be horribly obsolete when they arrive (not to mention that they would probably be seen coming years in advance) - so I don't think warfare over distances of more than between planets in a star system would be at all feasible.
[Updated on: Thu, 06 May 2004 22:24] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Mon, 10 May 2004 19:00 |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Sat, 08 May 2004 05:51 |
Coyote mentioned that most battles would occur in the vicinity of planets or other "terrain" rather than in open space. Looking historically this is likely, most naval battles occur in the vicinity of harbors/anchorages or choke points;e.g., Aboukir Bay, Salamis, Copenhagen, Spanish Armada, Pearl Harbor. Even carrier battles such as Midway were tied to a land objective.
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Exactly. This bears out in Stars also: most fleet battles in Stars also revolve around strategic points. In my experience it's rare to see two fleets target each other ignoring the surrounding terrain. Usually battles seem to occur either by surprise, or when a cruical economic or strategic location is at risk.
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| Re: Describe space navy philosophy in a succinct (and humorous) manner |
Tue, 22 February 2005 06:16 |
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Space Navy - Definition:
A bunch of metals and other stuff that suport a given lifeform in the void of space and keeps it's creator lifeform alive for as long as they wish while providing facilities for replacements of the creator lifeform, maintains the ability to host guest lifeforms in comfortable environments for their characteristics, folds space to travel light years in a very short time (or simply accelerates to x times lightspeed in the blink of an eye), has lots of typical military type toys for blowing other stuff up, scans incredible distances and sees all, defines stellar and planetary characteristics from the same incredible distances, creates new technologies and new mathematical definitions of universes 'on the fly' and applies them instantly enabling the NAVY to travel wherever at will - even to different universes.
Ptolemy
Emperor of a Thousand Suns
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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. IIRC EMP blast is caused when hard radiation hits earth's upper atmosphere loosening electrons. Those are then accelerated in Earth magnetic field producing EMP pulse. So radiation would hit earth's atmoshphere at some time. The real question is: how much of that radiation.
used.
