Starfighter Justification, your ideas

[Knight26]

Ok, here is an interesting one for you. I was sitting there thinking about it, and wondered just how could one justify the use of star fighters in a real world or sci-fi context. SO what are your opinions/thoughts/ideas, beyond they look cool. And this can be for any sci-fi property, star wars, trek, B5, Macross, etc...

[JsARCLIGHT]

Where there are people, there is conflict. Where there is conflict, the need for a military and military hardware exists. I would think that a tactical doctrine for a space based fighter/bomber would be a no brainer. Obviously to have a space based weapons delivery system it's implied you have space based dwellings. Those space based dwellings would eventually evolve to fit a combat role with defenses and armaments necessitating some sort of small profile vehicle with which to attack said installation. Military doctrine always espouses the role of as small an efficient a strike force as needed to accomplish an objective. You never send a destroyer or a nuclear submarine after a mud hut. And at the same time you never send a large, slow military vehicle against a well defended position... it would get picked to pieces. A maneuverable small craft with effective pinpoint "surgical strike" weapons which would engage in fast "hit and run" missions against fixed or variable targets seems a given to me. After all, it's very hard to disguise a large capital ship well enough to "surprise" a tactical position. It would be like trying to sneak up on a bunker in a Winnebago... but a smaller vehicle with a smaller radar signature capable of delivering the same devastating strike would be harder to detect and harder to retaliate against. Plus the tactics for the use of such things also seem like a no brainer. A bunch of small radar signatures could probably easily be "faked". Throw out a bunch of drones approaching our objective from several angles would lead them to array their defenses to protect against multiple attack vectors... when in reality only one flight is "actual" and they are flying into a hot zone that is only putting up a fourth or less of it's possible combined defenses against the approach vector those "actual" fighters are using.

I've always imagined the future of air power (and in this case space power) is a small, probably unmanned multi-role vehicle capable of delivering high damage weapons to fixed targets as well as engaging in vehicle to vehicle combat... like a small drone carrying low yield nukes and some sort of cannon. Something that is efficient in it's operation, cheap to manufacture and deploy yet stealthy and agile. It will cost billions upon billions to build one "space cruiser" but you could make thousands of fighter/bombers for the same cost.

Edit: I would also assume that the vacuum of space would introduce new combat strategies that cannot exist in an atmosphere. I would think that omnidirectional cannons and weapons deployment would be needed, the ability to aim and fire up, down, left, right, behind and in front... possibly turreted cannons like on the Gunstar in the Last Starfighter. Due to gravity and atmosphere our airborne fighters all follow the traditional "chase" attack patterns, but a spaceborne fighter would be able to attack sideways, backwards, etc. not always in line with it's direction of travel.

Also going with the usual progression that for every new sword a new shield comes along I'd imagine new countermeasures and armor would be developed. Possibly something along the lines of the old school Regan era "Starwars" system in which installations and vehicles have "anti missile" lasers that lock onto and destroy incoming threats like missile command. Which would again lead to a smaller, "closer in" delivery method like a fighter which would give the countermeasures less time to strike down an incoming weapon like a missile fired from miles away.

[dizman]

Im not sure we would ever need a starfighter (unless giant aliens came to attack us). Course we didn't really need the F-22 either. As humanity (maybe) starts to travel out into the stars we may start to see conflicts in space, such as space pirates in modified civ transports, that would make an incentive for someone to make an anti-pirate starfighter. Of course when 1 country makes a starfighter to protect other ships everyone and their mother will want one as well so to get space supremacy. So giant space wars here we come! As for having a starfighter these days, I think I remeber hearing that the U.S. was trying to build an orbital bomber thing that used ramjets or some such nonsense, once again its a question of do we need it or do we just want it. I hope I mildly answered your question, I've been known to ramble about nothing .

Edited July 25, 2008 by dizman

[JsARCLIGHT]

Back during WW2 the Nazis actually had the idea to build an "orbital skip bomber" that would fly up, skim along the upper atmosphere and bomb the US from "space". I think most of the "space bomber" ideas now relate to that doctrine... something that can escape the atmosphere and bomb targets from such an altitude that retaliation from ground units would be impossible. I don't really see that as a "space" fighter/bomber though. When I hear the term "space fighter" I think of something that would be deployed in the vacuum of space ten light years off the ork belt in some far flung star cluster, used to attack a "space station" sitting out in the vast emptiness. Hardcore sci fi "never happen in a million years" stuff. I mean, why would someone build a "space station" in the middle of nowhere? Then why would someone else want to attack it? What is the objective? Why are they attacking it? What tactical purpose does this engagement serve? I figure if you can establish and answer those questions then the doctrine of "why space fighters" comes naturally.

[Mr March]

Depends on technology, but "weapon delivery systems", whether they come in the form of a space fighter craft or not, are an inevitability. Right now, we deliver our weapons using fighter craft because it's one of the best methods for doing so. If this remains true given the types of technologies available in the future, I can't think of any reason why space fighters wouldn't exist.

In my imagination, I can see the future of warfare in space as placing even more emphasis on detection and stealth. There is no terrain in space or "indirect" method of attack. Most asteroid fields are typically almost as empty as the rest of space by most benchmarks of effective detection and weapon range. So the priority will be detecting your enemy before they can detect you and firing your weapons farther than that which the enemy is capable. In some sense, it will mimic dissociative warfare currently being attempted by many modern military institutions around the globe, but space warfare will be pursued by necessity rather than as a lofty goal.

In the far future, I see planets as liabilities by any measure of conventional warfare. There's simply too many easy, low-tech ways for attacking planets and whiping them out completely with little or no warning. Static holdings should become a thing of the past and any empire based upon planets is likely to fall easily in any type of open warfare. If the US was willing to nuke Japanese cities in World War II, you can be assured someone is willing to glass Earth or any other planet if it wins a "Space War".

I think fighters will remain viable especially as small weapon delivery systems, counter weapon delivery systems and as point defense. Space fighters will likely remain the smallest unit for space warfare and there will always be a role for the smallest unit in any order of battle.

[eugimon]

It really depends. If technology develops in the way it does in star trek where defensive systems outpaces offensive, then snub fighters become useless but if they develop along the lines of the real world where offensive capabilities continue to outpace defensive technology, then it is advantagous to have lots of cheap, well armed fighters rather than a low number of expensive capital ships.

It just makes sense in terms of resources and in man power. If you lose one large capital ship, you lose years worth of resources and build time along with hundreds (thousands?) of people and untold number of hours in terms of training as well as the moral hit of losing such a large symbol. In contrast, if you lose an a couple of fighters, well, those are much easier to replace and the crews are more easily trained.

[JsARCLIGHT]

The problem with Star Trek is it's doctrine and tactics are based on turn of the century naval warfare which heavily played on large wooden ships slugging it out with each other, each able to withstand tremendous punishment and the engagements usually ending with the sun going down and no real decisive winners except on rare occasions.

Today's modern wars are more or less a series of tiny platoon and company level engagements that rely on a symphony of supporting actions and multiple levels of offense and defense. You might only have a hundred "guys on the ground" but that small band of fighters is supported by flights of fighter bombers coming in for CAS hits, choppers and tanks rolling around the sides to pincer enemy positions and long range artillery and satellite guided munitions to hone in in forward air/artillery guided support relayed by a guy on the ground. Our planet hasn't seen a truly large scale high intensity "war" in decades and we probably never will see one again. Everything today is tactics, precision and coordination. They do the same amount of damage and displace the same amount of death as ten times the troops and equipment did in WW2... and they are still looking for newer and more efficient ways of doing the same with less manpower.

But in the end technology is simply the middleman of war. The catalysts and the goals of the conflict are what drive the actual execution of the war. If say resources are the cause of the war and the goal is to take as many strategic resource points as possible you are not going to be seeing devastating, world destroying weapons being used. If their cause and goal are to capture raw materials, why blow them into dust just to "beat the folks holding that position"? If territorial expansion is the cause and goal you don't want to lay waste to all the places you plan on inhabiting.

High technology can and will provide devastating "total war" weapons but most future wars will probably not be "total war"... they will be low intensity, clear and hold affairs like they are today. A "problem" with most sci fi is that people don't think about "what comes after the war", they only think about creating the most destructive weapons. A planet destroying bomb launched from ten light years away is absolutely no good when your objective is to capture a planet rich in minerals. A laser cannon capable of turning a space station into vapor is not much use when your goal is to capture a strategic space station that occupies a spot next to a well used space traffic area. In a sense the "biggest and baddest" weapons of the future will be akin to our atomic weapons of today... everybody has them but no one wants to use them because the only purpose they serve is as a "final solution" or as a bargaining chip. Only a tyrant or madman with nothing to lose and nothing to gain would deploy a "Death Star". IMHO it's "cheap" storytelling to simply have your sides blowing up planets right and left, laying waste to entire galaxies on the weekends. It's madness... but then again most sci fi is used as allegory to real world events and a lot of sci fi was born out of the cold war fear of nuclear holocaust.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Well if the aliens were poisonous and could spread diseases that can wipe out humanity and the planet is crawling with intelligent zombie aliens whose goal is to expand, then yeah the death star could actually be a life saver. (ie the flood from halo? )

Depends on what we find out there imo. You can find an alien planet, study their tech. Reverse engineer it for yourself, and become more technologically sophisticated from that knowledge. Maybe use the alien's disease as a bioweapon to cheaply wipe out other hostile planets not under your control. And without costing that much.

I think a ball like mecha like the reguld for space would be useful. It's got the omni directional guns on it, looks basic and easy to make, and the legs mean you could just drop them in the ocean, then when they get to land they can walk around the edge of the land and guard it. Set up the base. Being high off the ground gives them a good view of the area. If you are scared, just jump back into the water again and hide so you don't alert anything. If the surface is full of tall alien grass and large plants the height allows you to see above. It really depends on what you find. I think the ewoks were doomed when the walkers came out in starwars: the extra height made it easy to shoot at small targets lying down on the ground and giving a good view of what's up ahead.

The aliens that we fight might not even care if you attack from space, and might just be ignorant of the rich resources they have which they don't find valuable. They may see those resources as a pest and give them to you willingly and pay you money to get rid of it. They might just choose to live a simplistic non-materialistic life (the mayan islanders in macro zero?) with no weapons so that other aliens don't see them as a threat. Maybe they have evolved beyond humans and can live in space a short time without ships? And if you try to *kill them they will just move off the planet to some place else?

The beings in macross 7 were interdimensional beings. Maybe these aliens just feed off energy from your soul or something that humans don't understand and take control of us from within our bodies by possesion. How are you going to fight something like that? You first need to understand that aliens are not going to fight you in ways you expect to be fought.

*if anything we would be the bad guys in that scenario and would abduct them to study them and learn how they can fly around, create their own bubble shields, and survive in such a hostile environment like space with no oxgen. But on the other hand if we are being overrun by zombie aliens that are causing us to get aids-like virus with no cure, and we are about to be extinct, (like the aliens that were dying in space battleship yamato?) they might feel sorry for us and allow it. I think by then we might have superhero type soldiers: something like the people in the justice league but designed for military use. But that's assuming scientists can understand the aliens own technology and biology and abilities. If we could mass clone an army of Superman (but with the ability to live in space) we wouldn't need space fighters.

Edited July 25, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[JsARCLIGHT]

Reading 1/1LVL's post made me think of another area that sci fi kind of wings it a lot of the time... which is folks being just a tad too "prepared". If by some great stretch of the imagination humanity hits the stars without starting wars with ourselves in space we will be completely ill prepared to fight a hostile alien threat just as they will be completely ill prepared to fight us. Humanity builds weapons based on the fight we expect to fight next and nine times out of ten we guess wrong and wind up with equipment that really only "half works". It's only after "first contact" with an enemy and prolonged engagements with him can you properly analyze his equipment and tactics to form your own effective weapons and defenses. Going into a "first contact" situation with hostile aliens we will be fielding almost exclusively technology and tactics designed to fight other humans. That technology will either go over really well against aliens or it will fail miserably. Depending on how that goes down our equipment and tactics will be tailored to better fight the war.

In the element of space for the first hundred years or so humanity will be like a child stepping outside their house for the first time. We can only prepare ourselves based on our limited experiences inside our house and pray that what we encounter in the big outdoors doesn't kill us instantly when we make contact with it. We can only assume that other beings from other planets will fight like we fight, hold the same tactical desires as we hold and engage in the same maneuvers that we do. If we happen to encounter a group of beings who are so totally alien to our way of warfare we could either win big or lose big.

But I still firmly believe the greatest enemy mankind will fight in space is our fellow man. You can take the man off his home world but you can't remove the hate, anger and greed that men possess. We were killing each other with rocks and twigs thousands of years ago and we will be killing each other with death rays, planet bombs and black hole guns a thousand years from now... provided we don't nuke ourselves into oblivion beforehand.

[lord_breetai]

Hardcore sci fi "never happen in a million years" stuff. I mean, why would someone build a "space station" in the middle of nowhere? Then why would someone else want to attack it? What is the objective? Why are they attacking it? What tactical purpose does this engagement serve? I figure if you can establish and answer those questions then the doctrine of "why space fighters" comes naturally.

That's not hard to establish in a story context though... it exists to mine and process some precious resource found in the asteroid belt, the tactical purpose of attacking it is to gain control of said resource and/or cut off the space station's owners from that resource.

There.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Using that reasoning then you would want to capture that facility pretty much intact with as little damage as possible so you could start it back up again as soon as you held it. Which would pretty much rule out any fighter/bomber type weapon, because you don't want to blow the thing to pieces you just want to capture it. The best tactics and weapons for an operation like that would be some form of armored landing/boarding craft with a crack team of commandos trained to fight in close quarters with weapons that will not damage or disrupt the facility's structure. Kind of like space Navy Seals boarding the facility through subterfuge. "Capture" or "Recover" missions are some of the hardest to fight because you have to hold back so you don't destroy the thing you are fighting to gain. Use of a fighter/bomber would come into play if that facility was a monitoring station or other military installation that you wanted -gone- and not captured.

And this is the direction I was talking about... once you determine the cause and means of your "war" it is easy to "write doctrine" for the machines and tactics to be used to wage it, just as in real life. We don't deploy tank brigades to deal with a hijacked airliner just as we don't deploy an infantry division to fight against an aircraft carrier. The tool fits the job, so long as your "job" is right your tool will always be "right".

[Mr March]

By almost any benchmark imaginable, Star Trek is almost near the bottom as far as "thoroughly well created" military fiction. Roddenberry himself acknowledged his refusal to cover all the proper aspects of a future military force and his was arguably the most "militaristic" vision of the Trek universe. One thing I know for sure is, you don't go to Trek when you're looking for good military fiction. Macross 7 looks like a war documentary in comparison.

As for weapons of mass destruction, there is no way the annihilation of a world will ever be considered taboo. If a weapon exists to destroy a world, history has made it a certainty that at some point that weapon will be used. Perhaps not if we all live on only one planet (I hope!). However, if we're talking future history genres of science fiction (Star Wars, Babylon 5, Star Trek), with empires spanning hundreds/thousands/millions of worlds, you can be assured planets in such eras are no more taboo than cities in our eras of total war. If the stakes are high enough, there are no rules and there's never a shortage of humans willing to push the button.

As for warfare itself, it is true that humans always seem to prepare themselves inadequately for the war already past. But as I understand things, and I'm no expert, it seems that it's not how you prepare or react to war; the trick seems to be in acknowledging that there is only ever one correct way to fight a particular war at a particular moment in time and those rules always change. The side that wins seems to be the side that understands that truth either first OR most effectively embraces that new reality. In that way I suspect war is much like life: it hits you in unexpected ways because we never prepare for it. We categorize war much like life, as events we can't possibly predict or prepare for, so we just dismiss it all and say "that's life", until it bites us in the butt

Perhaps the internet is a good analogy; almost no one bothered to consider the impact the internet would have on video/music piracy. Sure there were a few smart ones that did, but most never saw it coming. Though I've never been in a war myself, I assume that's pretty much what it's like at the beginning. I remember the Germans and their "lightning attack" which no one saw coming, but I bet a few non-germans saw it coming when they realized the potential effect automobiles could have on the then modern battlefield.

Too bad there's not "war insurance"

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

I think the future will be transformers. Just pretend you are an ordinary harmless object, then transform into a robot to surprise attack before the enemy knows what the hell is going on.

[the_foul_fowl]

Reading 1/1LVL's post made me think of another area that sci fi kind of wings it a lot of the time... which is folks being just a tad too "prepared". If by some great stretch of the imagination humanity hits the stars without starting wars with ourselves in space we will be completely ill prepared to fight a hostile alien threat just as they will be completely ill prepared to fight us. Humanity builds weapons based on the fight we expect to fight next and nine times out of ten we guess wrong and wind up with equipment that really only "half works". It's only after "first contact" with an enemy and prolonged engagements with him can you properly analyze his equipment and tactics to form your own effective weapons and defenses. Going into a "first contact" situation with hostile aliens we will be fielding almost exclusively technology and tactics designed to fight other humans. That technology will either go over really well against aliens or it will fail miserably. Depending on how that goes down our equipment and tactics will be tailored to better fight the war.

=> Independence Day

I know the movie's been panned by most of the folks here, but I thought the way they showed human tech (missles, nukes) as virtually useless against alien tech (shields) pretty much hit the mark you were trying to make...

[Knight26]

Actually I think that the destruction of a life giving world would be considered taboo. Think about it, of all the planets we know about or have been discovered, in and out of our solar system, only one is capable of supporting life as we know it, and only a few more might be able to with some work done to terraform them, i.e. mars and possibly some Jovian moons. Imagine if only 1 in a thousand worlds are able to support higher forms of life withour having to terraform them. If that is the case you would not want to destroy those world, they hold too many valuable reasources. Of course if you have a world that might contain life, but is of the poisonous variety that threatens all other life in the universe/galaxy then the destruction of that might be warranted, but still it would not be done easily and would be regarded as a last ditch effort.

[Mr March]

I just can't see planet busting being taboo in any way. But that's me. Perhaps the destruction of a world might be rare, but I just can't see it being forever avoided. Eventually someone will have the power and the will to do it and it'll happen. If the history of war has taught us anything it's that escalation of conflict is inevitable. If humans can achieve genocide, they'll do it. If they can nuke cities, they'll do it. If they can destroy planets, they'll do it. Only question is when and how.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Oh I have no doubt either that in the far-flung world of the future there will be unbelievably powerful weapons capable of destroying planets... but the choice to use them would be disastrous. Just as they said with atomic weapons, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Once the bomb is dropped and people see what it does they stand in awe of it's capabilities and realize that further use could and would bring about the end of the world. I would imagine the same goes for "planet buster" bombs. Blow one planet off the map and it gives pause to everyone... because it "puts that option on the table". And if militarism and tactics have one key concept it's MAD, mutually assured destruction. Blow one planet out of a system and your adversary will do the same, creating an unending chain of planet destruction.

Having "the bomb" and using "the bomb" are two different things. Nine times out of ten the sole purpose of a "superweapon" is as a device to dissuade attack rather that one to actually be used. Fear of it's use is the main and usually most potent effect of such a system, which was the key principal behind the Death Star. The Empire didn't actually intend to tool around blowing planets out of alignment with it, they intended the fear of the thing to carry their fight for them.

But to get back to the topic at hand in the end all it took was a bunch of fighters to take out the Death Star... proof positive that a military doctrine of fighter/bombers will always survive no matter what the stage.

[Mr March]

In context of some of these future histories, a planet buster is NOT mutually assured destruction in the same context of nuclear proliferation like the state in which we exist today. Which is exactly the problem with mass destruction in the age of space travel: mutually assured destruction is no longer possible.

To mutually assure destruction requires no escape. But once interstellar travel and the ability to colonize other worlds is a reality, there is no such thing as mutually assured destruction in an infinite universe. Someone destroys your planet, you simply depart for another. Someone destroys the galaxy, you move to the next. There's no way to mutually assure destruction once a civilization is no longer bound to a single world, short of somehow destroying all reality, which is quite beyond the scope of this discussion I would think

But this does go back to what was said about warfare and how it constantly changes. The first side to realize the fluidly mobile nature of warfare in space will triumph in open war. It's one reason I've always found most sci-fi rather silly in depictions of space warfare, with their neutral zone, "space border" and territory foolishness. In space warfare any empire chained to notions of static holdings, territory and gains will quickly fall to a mobile empire. In space, a defender could afford to endlessly "give ground" to any potential aggressor with little impact upon their ability to make war. When the aggressor could stretch no further, they'd fall to a defender who can counter attack using the entire galaxy in which to hide. There is no napalm to destroy the "foliage of the wilds" in space.

It would be much like Macross; the Zentradi Army and the Supervision Army locked in an unending conflict for hundreds of thousands of years, neither side ever able to destroy the other, a futile fight without end to track down an ever mobile enemy in the limitless jungle of the galaxy. Such is the nature of war in the battlefield of space, in my imagination that is

Edited July 28, 2008 by Mr March

[JsARCLIGHT]

I can see that angle. In the "chess match" of physical combat the vastness of space pretty much reduces you to meeting engagements for the lion's share of your tactical encounters. But I was operating from the stance that no space fairing race can totally remove themselves from a terrestrial base. An all out positional strike by two sides which wipe out their stable of planets I would imagine would create massive upheavals in the solar systems their ships inhabit plus would reduce or possibly eliminate several key resources.

I guess I'm one of those people who believe it's impossible to create a fully autonomous existence off world. I would think even with "super science" that the base needs of having a stable of worlds occupied and inhabited is required. I can easily imagine colonization fleets going from world to world like Macross 7 but I can't imagine them existing on their own indefinitely without planet fall to resupply themselves.

I should probably also state that my "imagination" is heavily limited by my own understanding of scientific law. By that I mean I cannot "believe" transporters, "warp drives" and other things that I consider to be "impossible". As such the "space wars" I'm imagining will probably be fought between humans of differing factions based off of planets. I actually imagine the first "space war" will most likely be between Earth and her first planetary colony much like how America rebelled against Britain. It will probably be a very costly and awkward affair in which a lot of people die and a lot of resources are wasted over a long period of time ending with whoever had the most money, manpower and resources winning... and "winning" probably means hostile invasion of the opponent planet which would be a massively costly affair to begin with.

In all this theorizing I can imagine many things but the underlying cost is always at the front of my mind. You can build awesome weapons and ships but it all still boils down to a slug-fest of attrition.

[Mr March]

Cool. A fine discussion.

In my opinion, I don't believe self-sufficient existence in space is "high science". The ability to perpetuate an artificial habitat as opposed to subsisting upon a naturally occurring habitat (planet) is far more grounded science than one might think. We don't require replicators, limitless cheap energy, gravity control, transporters, lightsabers or OverTechnology to achieve subsistence in space. And the more we learn, the more science suggests that zero gravity industry, not planet bound industry, is the ideal method for capitalist venture in a space faring civilization.

It's also a sad reality that we all exist without choice. Space travel is not an option for us and we have accepted our prison on this planet because we simply have no other choice. Few of us can truly imagine a life off-world let alone conceive the thought that perhaps some would resent planet dwelling. Future generations may not have our mindset; perhaps a predictive conceit on my part, but I'd dare to say for certain they will not

Nonetheless, whether the bubbles we inhabit are natural or artificial, space will likely change the nature of warfare more than I can imagine. But I'm certain fighters will be around, whether near-future or far-future.

[JsARCLIGHT]

To a degree it's a strange catch 22... for future generations to truly gain a foothold in the stars humanity has to grow out of our infancy, our single minded divisiveness and petty squabbles. Something tells me if we can ever get to that point we may not be in a position to see "space wars" unless space becomes a "conquest" like the new world was in the 1400's, with privateers and private enterprise creating the colonization and exploration. And if you ask me that opens us up for another era of exploitation and conflict. For all we know the space fighters of the future may have the words "Microsoft Space Division" and "Sony Corporate Empire" emblazoned on them as they exchange rocket fire vying to capture a lucrative deposit of steel alloy.

[taksraven]

By almost any benchmark imaginable, Star Trek is almost near the bottom as far as "thoroughly well created" military fiction. Roddenberry himself acknowledged his refusal to cover all the proper aspects of a future military force and his was arguably the most "militaristic" vision of the Trek universe. One thing I know for sure is, you don't go to Trek when you're looking for good military fiction. Macross 7 looks like a war documentary in comparison.

You've got that right. And that fact alone demonstrates why all those Enterprise vs. SDF-1/Yamato/Stardestroyer/virtually every other SF spaceship stories and debates are absolutely worthless, since Star Trek vessels have not been constructed to fight enemies such as these. (for the money though, virtually any SF battlecruiser could blast the Enterprise apart.

As for weapons of mass destruction, there is no way the annihilation of a world will ever be considered taboo. If a weapon exists to destroy a world, history has made it a certainty that at some point that weapon will be used.

It would certainly not be a taboo weapon, but it could be a very unpopular one. Especially when you use one to destroy a planet when your own planet is in the same solar system. People forget that theoretically solar systems are normally pretty balanced. Destroying one planet or several could easily have the effect of disrupting the orbits of most if not all planets of the system, maybe even causing some to spiral into the sun. Not a good idea if you are living on a planet in the same system.

Really though, why waste the staggering amount of energy that would be required to physically blow a planet apart when you could seed the atmosphere with self-replicating nano-Von Neumann machines which would rely on exponential growth to destroy everything on the surface of a planet. It would take the machines time to get started but once they did they could easily wipe out another civilisation.

At the end of the day, it is nearly impossible for us to envision what "space war" would look like, since we have no real idea of how advanced the technology used in such a conflict would be.

Taksraven

[Impreszive]

God. I hope I never live long enough for this stuff to come to fruition. Everone would be doomed if I was in charge.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Because you would unleash the flood and xenomorphs from their home planets and bring them to earth for study meaning we would have to rely on the predators to save us and from aliens that feed on us for food, but which results in making the problem worse and allowing for pred-aliens to be made?

[Morpheus]

I say unmanned drone weapon is far better then starfighter. Drones could be used as a multi-role craft, as an attack craft fitted with weapons or as simple kinetic kill vehicle (ramming enemy). Starfighter IMO is expensive and unreliable since there are plenty of things needed like pilot training, protection from radiation etc, inertial damper to prevent the pilot juicing himself during high-G maneuvers, etc.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Drones but they may act too predictable and easy to trap. In many movies the drones just head straight for the thing they want to kill and never notice what else is around them. A combination of drone and humans might be the answer.

This reminds me:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16338_8-cla...-their-job.html

heehee

I think skorponok was my fave LA Transformer if only because he was mindless yet deadly because he hid in the sand. Like the stealthy rambo of the bunch. I think he is a good example of how a mindless robot is in fact more competent and less useless than smart ones in some way. Animals don't think about what they do before doing things just reacting on instinct. But maybe that is what is needed to get the edge in combat? Just forget about your purpose and react to something quickly to survive. Terminators were slow, let themselves be seen, and got owned by another machine because they were ignorant of the situation. But think about the scary dumb robot able to sneak about as if hunting something? (no warning, no need to alert people to your presence, patient etc Instead of going in a straight line like Arnie, they will go around, find the best place to attack from, then suddenly attack)

Edited July 30, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Mr March]

Really though, why waste the staggering amount of energy that would be required to physically blow a planet apart when you could seed the atmosphere with self-replicating nano-Von Neumann machines which would rely on exponential growth to destroy everything on the surface of a planet. It would take the machines time to get started but once they did they could easily wipe out another civilisation.

Again, I think people are a bit spoiled by the planet busters depicted in sci-fi, always thinking Death Star or some such visually impressive big gun. There are actually many really low-tech ways to effectively destroy a planet without requiring that one blast it to dust in one big, half-second pop. Mass drivers are one such example.

If one must go exotic for planet busters, I always thought the M.D. Device from Ender's Game was a novel way of destroying a planet that didn't require some unbelievably powerful power source. It simply broke down molecules and the more mass there was the more the effect propagated, basically using mass as fuel for the disruption effect. Quite a clever way to get around the ordinarily enormous amounts of energy it would take to pop a planet

[Morpheus]

Again, I think people are a bit spoiled by the planet busters depicted in sci-fi, always thinking Death Star or some such visually impressive big gun. There are actually many really low-tech ways to effectively destroy a planet without requiring that one blast it to dust in one big, half-second pop. Mass drivers are one such example.

If one must go exotic for planet busters, I always thought the M.D. Device from Ender's Game was a novel way of destroying a planet that didn't require some unbelievably powerful power source. It simply broke down molecules and the more mass there was the more the effect propagated, basically using mass as fuel for the disruption effect. Quite a clever way to get around the ordinarily enormous amounts of energy it would take to pop a planet

OOT,

Or we could simply use the newly built Large Hadron Colliderr to produce strangelet which will slowly eats our planet away.

I think the best starfighter utilization is depicted in a massive space naval battles like LOGH with their Spartanian and Valkyrie fighters.

[Knight26]

Complete destruction of a planet is actually pretty stupid when you think about it anyway, all that raw material is suddenly wasted, as is any and all mineral wealth. IF you want to "destroy" a planet, the best idea is to simply go to the local asteroid belt or Ort cloud, which most solar systems appear to have, and simply hurl a few asteroids at the planet. Hit it with enough and in the right places and you will basically shatter the crust of the planet making it unlivable, and for very little expenditure compared to other methods. Now if you want to spilt the planet or break it up, continue that same process, just make sure you use a sufficiently dense or large rock and accelerate it to near light speed before crashing into the planet, that should do some severe damage. But back on topic, assuming a small scale, lower tech level society, where destroying a planet or rendering it lifeless would be taboo, or at least ill advized, justify the use of starfighters.

[eugimon]

Well, give us more of a frame work... how much of a lower tech level? Is FTL possible? Are we fighting in solar system? Are these warring colony ships?

Here's one, colony ships leave an unihabitable earth. The ships travel at slower then light speed and are generational. They're all headed for the same planet, the only habitable planet Earth scientists found before the launch. There's not enough fuel to change course even if a new planet were found. The ship's population quickly sort themselves out by ethnic and religious loyalites... those not loyal are mostly flushed out the air lock. Manufacturing is limited as resources are limited. No one wants to risk using the large ship for combat since they're not designed for it. The colony ships were launched about 3 months apart from each other. The ship that is dead last is the most aggressive and the most interested in ethnic cleansing.

The colony ships can produce their own scouting and mining ships. These were intended to capture small asteroids and mine them for metal, water and needed gasses as the colony ships aren't 100% self sufficient and still need to account for the increasing populations. The colonsits use these basic ships to create snub fighters to raid the other colony ships. The smaller ships are able to accelerate faster and thus make up the distance given how slowly the colony ships are moving.

The goal of the colonists, survive, protect the colony ship, stop the other relgions from successfully colonizing the new planet and thus establish their long dreamt of theocracy. There are several targets, each other's resource mining ships, manufacturing bays, and eventually capital ship construction ships. Idealy, the colonsits realize that rather than simply destroy each other's colony ship, it would be better to board and cleanse the ship and use it for their own population overflow. Capital ships can be introduced later on, but given their size and lack of manufacturing infrastructure, are expensive and take a long time to build, thus the various factions are hesitent to use them in direct combat.

Populations are relatively high and stressing the colony ships ability to support them, so lives are rather cheap, resources and manufacturing is limited, motivation is high.

Edited July 31, 2008 by eugimon

[Knight26]

I'm thinking of a tech level framework along the lines of what is seen in shows like Babylon 5, Macross, even Star Wars and Star Trek. Yes those shows/movies do show groups with the ability to destroy a planet, but that ability is either limited to certain groups or not widespread. In those types of tech levels what justification could you come up with for the proliferation of star fighters.

Example:

B5, is what is known as a low thrust universe, where FTL does not require attaining great speed, but in just getting to and from a jump point that takes you faster then light. In this capital ships are for the most part slow and lumbering behemoths that while having great firepower and capability cannot really accelerate past 1G, for the most part, without causing heavy crew inefficiencies. Fighters on the other hand can accelerate far faster due to the pilot's positioning and smaller crew size. The drawback is of course their limited range and the fact that if they accelerate the entire time to target they will quickly run out of fuel and be unable to participate in fighter combat. The overall doctrine for fighters in that universe seemed to be as escorts, providing fire support against small enemy craft and weapon systems, (torpedo interdiction for example), so that the big ships could close and use their heavy weapons. Fighters really had no hope against much larger craft. THey also seemed to be used quite a bit for recon, expending their smaller fuel reserves to investigate instead of the larger fuel and crew expenidture for a capital ship. B5 was obviously also a universe where offensive system development outpaced defensive systems. SHips with any kind of shielding were rare, relying mostly on armor and manueverability to escape harm. The most advanced defenses shown on the human side were interceptor cannons, which seemed quite akin to a phalanx system, shooting out a ton of projectiles to detonate warheads early and disperse/absorb incoming energy blasts before they could impact ship or station.

Gotta go, boss coming, will write more later.

[eugimon]

okay...

so how about if FTL travel is possible through jump points, but emerging from the jump point is dependent on the mass of the object coming through. Time for small objects such as fighters is functionally instantaneous but larger ships can take several seconds to minutes for the largest ships like carriers.

Jump points can be more or less anywhere but have to be somewhere relatively free of gravitational pull so ships can't just pop into atmosphere for instance and for planets with moon(s), the jump entry point is always the opposite side of the planet from the moon or if multiple moons, the jump entry point needs to be well outside of the well.

More developed planets, installations use gravity well generators to force entry points to occur in specific locations, defended by fortified stations. Since capital ships take so long to emerge, they're sitting ducks for the stations so snub fighters are sent in before hand to take out the station or the gravity well generators to allow the capital ships to jump in and do the real damage.

[Morpheus]

Hmm, how about this one:

Quantum slisptream technology which allows nearly instantaneous travel, the problem is the slipstream gate is very small, only a certain ship with width less than 50 meter could safely enters it. This would led into a strategic warfare where giant carries sent their fighter into slipstream portals (generated by the carrier) to assault a distant target.

I think I saw this strategy before in one of Space Battleship Yamato episodes.

[Uxi]

Starfighters could be useful in a patrol/recon role but any hard sci-fi recognizes the big carrier/cruiser would actually be both faster, more maneuverable, and (obviously) have much heavier armor and many weapon systems the size of the whole fighter.

[Shmitty]

Starfighters could be useful in a patrol/recon role but any hard sci-fi recognizes the big carrier/cruiser would actually be both faster, more maneuverable, and (obviously) have much heavier armor and many weapon systems the size of the whole fighter.

While larger ships could be faster, due to their ability to hold more fuel; in space speed means nothing. The name of the game in a vacuum is acceleration, and a smaller, less massive ship is going to be able to accelerate much easier than a larger one. So, if you're looking at it from that perspective I don't really see how a larger ship is supposed to be more maneuverable. Also, since space is a completely 3D battlefield, large ships have large cross-sections, from at least one plane. This makes them easy to shoot. Given the ability to easily give objects lethal velocities in space, this also makes them easy to break. A big, slow, easy to shoot ship is a not a good place to be in the void. Small ships are good because they are hard to hit, and really hard to see. Their only real downfall is how easy they would be to blow up. But a solid hit in space could likely down a large ship just as easily, so that's really a moot point.

Fighters will have a place in space warfare because they're cost effective, simple as that.