51 ms·

Or offense.

by jl6 7mo ago

Or offense.

ge96 7mo ago
queue the neurodivergent mech pilot
wongarsu 7mo ago
You know what they say: the best planetary offense is a good asteroid redirect program It's also the best planetary terrorism, going by the plot of The Expanse
- redman25 7mo ago
  First things first, we have to colonize the rest of the solar system before we can terrorize Earth.
  - dylan604 7mo ago
    That totally depends on the type of super villain organization we're discussing. Some are willing to watch the Earth burn making the colonization step unnecessary. Others think humans are the problem and again would be willing to skip that step.
  - vova_hn2 7mo ago
    It depends on the size of the asteroid and precision with which it can be aimed...
  - Ajakks 7mo ago
    Why exactly? I think the US ought to spend a few trillion on an actual space battleship - one that never comes down to the surface, just sits in orbit. There was a project regarding dropping telephone pole sized pieces of metal from space as an offensive weapon - put something like that on the space battleship and... That is simply "Assured Destruction" with absolutely no mutual drawbacks or lingering consequences like radioactive wasteland. Just craters. This is also something where the 1st country to achieve the "Space Battleship" could effectively prevent any other from also doing so... In theory, Bezos or Musk could do it. I don't understand why any country would bother with ground based military assets at this point.
    - bhhaskin 7mo ago
      The technology doesn't exist and it would be a huge waste of money. How heavy would a telephone pole sized tungsten rod be? What happens when China, Russia, India or Pakistan find out you are building this (cause you can't hide it if it's in near earth orbit)? They would either knock it out of the sky or hit you with everything they have. We would do the exact same if anyone else was developing such a weapon.
      - Ajakks 7mo ago
        I personally would get whatever metal in space, so weight is not the issue - solving this problem would also create almost immediately chunks of rocks that could also be dropped. In all reality, anything can be "setup" to be a weapon - many ways have been identified here. All required innovations - of which, most are not out of reach in the slightest, all of that tech would be immensely valuable, literally everything we do to secure space superiority will be actual gains - not smaller microchips equivalent innovations - entirely new machines, entirely new economies of scale - there is no equivalent military tech that we can develop on earth. Not only is there really no conceivable way to ignore the strategic advantage once considered, the long-term economic payoff is actually reason enough alone to pursue the radical idea of a "space battleship" - I can think of about 20 ways to cause significant global issues with one measly space battleship. As a hypothetical alone, it has reason enough to warrant a substantial amount of the 1.5 trillion defense budget the Pentagon plays with.
        anigbrowl 7mo ago
        If this is satire, it's not that funny. If you're serious, it's a good example of 'the ugly American.'
        Ajakks 7mo ago
        I wish it were satire - we do actually need to have space defenses, asteroids exist 2st off - its just bc we ignore all the craters that we sleep at night. We feel safe here on earth but it's really a giant graveyard trap - that so effectively exerts control over life on it, that it made all living mammals out of mice - we may actually be safer on almost any other planet. All life on earth has eventually died out so far, we are the 1st species that could stop the most likely extinction level event - but this DART is the closest we ever got to actually taking up that responsibility - the preservation of our species and whatnot, thats just 1 minor reason. The most important tho, given how much we have example of people "getting theirs" at all other peoples expense - this is much worse if a non-state actor gets there 1st. Lastly, I do have to clarify the American position - we run the world, or there will not be one to run. Nobody alive today made that decision - it changes nothing, once that choice was made, we are locked into it. Did you think we are only an economic power? That is the front. We can always pivot to actual power - the kind that can destroy all cities above a certain size - we have never hid this fact, the whole world knows of MAD. That is what power is. What is American power if someone can destroy the US and we can't destroy them?? That doesn't work for the US - nothing at all changes if the US gets that spaceship first. You can call this ugly - there were more modern wars before we started running things, from the looks of things - the whole world will go to war the moment we are out of the picture.
  - MisterTea 7mo ago
    > before we can terrorize Earth. Before?! We're already doing a great job at it!
- m4rtink 7mo ago
  It only worked in the Expanse because they expertly choose a special trajectory that made the rocks hard to detect and some questionable (but plot necessary) "stealth coating". By this point UN and MCR have been in cold war for 100+ years staring each other down with region killer nuke arsenals and an absurd amount of interceptors always ready. See than one time Mars actually fired a barrage - only like two warheads got through, only due to shitload of decoys and overall numbers. A dumb rock would totally get vaporized without the plot armor in a safe distance.
  - Ajakks 7mo ago
    Ok. The Expanse is a show/book - that doesn't actually portray any of this very well, but its very important to note - there are no satellites in orbit, with nukes or any kind of missiles - if you want to pretend they are, they are most definitely pointed at the earth. I'd love to buy into that plot armor but there is too much to take seriously by S6. The reality is, the first time a colony decided to it was independent enough, to use an asteroid - they would pick one, or many, so as to to render earth uninhabitable, there is no doing what they did in the show - thats how you lose a war AFTER having already used a weapon of last resort. Once Inoki or w/e his name decided to use an asteroid, and one hits, the ONLY choice open to Earth is an immediate unconditional surrender. The only correct choice for asteroid #2 is one that will end all life on the planet without any doubt. What's her name? The President would have killed us all and attained nothing doing so.
    - m4rtink 7mo ago
      I think given the technology that has been shown - a massive space and planetary infrastructure base, torpedoes with torch drives armed with nukes that would make Teller blush - I don't think you can actually use Dinosaur killer asteroid unnoticed. That would be far too big to not be spotted by the many UN aligned sensor platforms all around Sol, well before it is actually on a collision course as changing the trajectory of something this massive could take a long time, not to mention for it to actually travel all the way to Earth on that trajectory. I am sure that Belter Cheguevara was not the first one to get these ideas, so any major power not tracking most asteroid orbits in almost real time at this point would be stupid. The technology they demonstrated to have should easily allow that. And by that point one of the many Ships UN has all around the system would just go there and shoot anyone working on the big rock to pieces. Possibly deploying tugs to change the trajectory to a safe one afterwards. So I think they had to use rock small enough not to be easily tracked, that could be quickly accelerated + that special stealth coating from the Martians. Enough to kill a city and devastate a region but not much else.

Or offense.

by jl6 7mo ago

Or offense.

ge96 7mo ago

queue the neurodivergent mech pilot

wongarsu 7mo ago

You know what they say: the best planetary offense is a good asteroid redirect program It's also the best planetary terrorism, going by the plot of The Expanse

redman25 7mo ago
First things first, we have to colonize the rest of the solar system before we can terrorize Earth.
- dylan604 7mo ago
  That totally depends on the type of super villain organization we're discussing. Some are willing to watch the Earth burn making the colonization step unnecessary. Others think humans are the problem and again would be willing to skip that step.
- vova_hn2 7mo ago
  It depends on the size of the asteroid and precision with which it can be aimed...
- Ajakks 7mo ago
  Why exactly? I think the US ought to spend a few trillion on an actual space battleship - one that never comes down to the surface, just sits in orbit. There was a project regarding dropping telephone pole sized pieces of metal from space as an offensive weapon - put something like that on the space battleship and... That is simply "Assured Destruction" with absolutely no mutual drawbacks or lingering consequences like radioactive wasteland. Just craters. This is also something where the 1st country to achieve the "Space Battleship" could effectively prevent any other from also doing so... In theory, Bezos or Musk could do it. I don't understand why any country would bother with ground based military assets at this point.
  - bhhaskin 7mo ago
    The technology doesn't exist and it would be a huge waste of money. How heavy would a telephone pole sized tungsten rod be? What happens when China, Russia, India or Pakistan find out you are building this (cause you can't hide it if it's in near earth orbit)? They would either knock it out of the sky or hit you with everything they have. We would do the exact same if anyone else was developing such a weapon.
    - Ajakks 7mo ago
      I personally would get whatever metal in space, so weight is not the issue - solving this problem would also create almost immediately chunks of rocks that could also be dropped. In all reality, anything can be "setup" to be a weapon - many ways have been identified here. All required innovations - of which, most are not out of reach in the slightest, all of that tech would be immensely valuable, literally everything we do to secure space superiority will be actual gains - not smaller microchips equivalent innovations - entirely new machines, entirely new economies of scale - there is no equivalent military tech that we can develop on earth. Not only is there really no conceivable way to ignore the strategic advantage once considered, the long-term economic payoff is actually reason enough alone to pursue the radical idea of a "space battleship" - I can think of about 20 ways to cause significant global issues with one measly space battleship. As a hypothetical alone, it has reason enough to warrant a substantial amount of the 1.5 trillion defense budget the Pentagon plays with.
      - anigbrowl 7mo ago
        If this is satire, it's not that funny. If you're serious, it's a good example of 'the ugly American.'
        Ajakks 7mo ago
        I wish it were satire - we do actually need to have space defenses, asteroids exist 2st off - its just bc we ignore all the craters that we sleep at night. We feel safe here on earth but it's really a giant graveyard trap - that so effectively exerts control over life on it, that it made all living mammals out of mice - we may actually be safer on almost any other planet. All life on earth has eventually died out so far, we are the 1st species that could stop the most likely extinction level event - but this DART is the closest we ever got to actually taking up that responsibility - the preservation of our species and whatnot, thats just 1 minor reason. The most important tho, given how much we have example of people "getting theirs" at all other peoples expense - this is much worse if a non-state actor gets there 1st. Lastly, I do have to clarify the American position - we run the world, or there will not be one to run. Nobody alive today made that decision - it changes nothing, once that choice was made, we are locked into it. Did you think we are only an economic power? That is the front. We can always pivot to actual power - the kind that can destroy all cities above a certain size - we have never hid this fact, the whole world knows of MAD. That is what power is. What is American power if someone can destroy the US and we can't destroy them?? That doesn't work for the US - nothing at all changes if the US gets that spaceship first. You can call this ugly - there were more modern wars before we started running things, from the looks of things - the whole world will go to war the moment we are out of the picture.
- MisterTea 7mo ago
  > before we can terrorize Earth. Before?! We're already doing a great job at it!
m4rtink 7mo ago
It only worked in the Expanse because they expertly choose a special trajectory that made the rocks hard to detect and some questionable (but plot necessary) "stealth coating". By this point UN and MCR have been in cold war for 100+ years staring each other down with region killer nuke arsenals and an absurd amount of interceptors always ready. See than one time Mars actually fired a barrage - only like two warheads got through, only due to shitload of decoys and overall numbers. A dumb rock would totally get vaporized without the plot armor in a safe distance.
- Ajakks 7mo ago
  Ok. The Expanse is a show/book - that doesn't actually portray any of this very well, but its very important to note - there are no satellites in orbit, with nukes or any kind of missiles - if you want to pretend they are, they are most definitely pointed at the earth. I'd love to buy into that plot armor but there is too much to take seriously by S6. The reality is, the first time a colony decided to it was independent enough, to use an asteroid - they would pick one, or many, so as to to render earth uninhabitable, there is no doing what they did in the show - thats how you lose a war AFTER having already used a weapon of last resort. Once Inoki or w/e his name decided to use an asteroid, and one hits, the ONLY choice open to Earth is an immediate unconditional surrender. The only correct choice for asteroid #2 is one that will end all life on the planet without any doubt. What's her name? The President would have killed us all and attained nothing doing so.
  - m4rtink 7mo ago
    I think given the technology that has been shown - a massive space and planetary infrastructure base, torpedoes with torch drives armed with nukes that would make Teller blush - I don't think you can actually use Dinosaur killer asteroid unnoticed. That would be far too big to not be spotted by the many UN aligned sensor platforms all around Sol, well before it is actually on a collision course as changing the trajectory of something this massive could take a long time, not to mention for it to actually travel all the way to Earth on that trajectory. I am sure that Belter Cheguevara was not the first one to get these ideas, so any major power not tracking most asteroid orbits in almost real time at this point would be stupid. The technology they demonstrated to have should easily allow that. And by that point one of the many Ships UN has all around the system would just go there and shoot anyone working on the big rock to pieces. Possibly deploying tugs to change the trajectory to a safe one afterwards. So I think they had to use rock small enough not to be easily tracked, that could be quickly accelerated + that special stealth coating from the Martians. Enough to kill a city and devastate a region but not much else.