4 ms·
1) I think you're underestimating the difficulty of accelerating any massive object to relativistic speeds, 2) doing so with enough accuracy to hit a relatively
by AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
1) I think you're underestimating the difficulty of accelerating any massive object to relativistic speeds, 2) doing so with enough accuracy to hit a relatively small moving target many light-years away is not exactly trivial, 3) a civilization with the capability to accelerate a massive object to relativistic speeds is probably also capable of building self-sufficient artificial habitats around its star, which is a lot of targets you'd have to take out for complete obliteration.
So in summation, I think defending against an incoming relativistic rock is at least as easy as using relativistic rocks to obliterate a distant civilization.
- riffraff 5y agoanother thing: I believe at relativistic speeds hitting any debris in your path would cause a pretty large BOOM, and for a multi-lightyear route that seems somewhat risky.
- ping_pong 5y agoYou're definitely not thinking creatively enough. You don't need to hit the planet directly with anything, all you need to do is destabilize the orbit of all the planets or even just the Earth itself. You could send a gravity wave for example, that would cause the Earth's near circular orbit to shift to a very eliptical orbit. The vast change in temperatures would kill all life on the planet, and then you could come and mine all the resources that you needed and leave.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoIf you have the capability of engineering such a gravity wave then Earth's resources aren't worth your time.
- mentalpiracy 5y agoResources not the point here, the point is removing the possibility that our civ could ever be a risk to them