4 ms·

Our last planet, Neptune, fits neatly within one light-month. The rest of the heliosphere does too, but not the Oort cloud. Looks like empires are purely solar

Our last planet, Neptune, fits neatly within one light-month. The rest of the heliosphere does too, but not the Oort cloud. Looks like empires are purely solar system affairs. Sci-fi authors take note.

cactacea 4y ago
Article is a little light on details with regards to why the author believes this effect exists. I have to imagine that their thinking is that application of force is limited to the distance you can travel one month instead of anything that would relate to the application of soft power (e.g. communication). Supplying a ground based force follows more of a square-cube law. You need to feed your horses to transport your food to feed your soldiers. Going further means more food for the horses to carry the food for the horses to carry the food for the soldiers. There is an excellent post here that explains this far better than I ever could: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-wagon-equation https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-wago... Any limitations on space based empires, while similar, are going to follow somewhat different rules depending on the tech involved. Unlike horses, once you launch you don't really have an opportunity to resupply a space based force going a long distance without inordinate energy expenditure. I'm not convinced force projection over a galaxy would be a problem for a civilization capable of travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Solving one problem (travel) necessarily solves the other (distribution of force). I think the bigger question is more, why bother? What possible reason could a civilization have to go to war at that scale? Human civilization would need to change so much to get to that point that I'm not certain these are questions are explorable at our place in the timeline. We'd be like Romans dreaming about a better abacus.
int_19h 4y ago
This has been a recurring theme in sci-fi going back decades. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle is mostly this kind of universe, for example, even though it has FTL comms (but not travel). Of course, none of this matters if you do have FTL travel, which the "space empires" kind usually does.

cactacea 4y ago

Article is a little light on details with regards to why the author believes this effect exists. I have to imagine that their thinking is that application of force is limited to the distance you can travel one month instead of anything that would relate to the application of soft power (e.g. communication). Supplying a ground based force follows more of a square-cube law. You need to feed your horses to transport your food to feed your soldiers. Going further means more food for the horses to carry the food for the horses to carry the food for the soldiers. There is an excellent post here that explains this far better than I ever could: https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-wagon-equation https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-wago... Any limitations on space based empires, while similar, are going to follow somewhat different rules depending on the tech involved. Unlike horses, once you launch you don't really have an opportunity to resupply a space based force going a long distance without inordinate energy expenditure. I'm not convinced force projection over a galaxy would be a problem for a civilization capable of travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Solving one problem (travel) necessarily solves the other (distribution of force). I think the bigger question is more, why bother? What possible reason could a civilization have to go to war at that scale? Human civilization would need to change so much to get to that point that I'm not certain these are questions are explorable at our place in the timeline. We'd be like Romans dreaming about a better abacus.

int_19h 4y ago

This has been a recurring theme in sci-fi going back decades. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle is mostly this kind of universe, for example, even though it has FTL comms (but not travel). Of course, none of this matters if you do have FTL travel, which the "space empires" kind usually does.