This reminds me of how in a lot of sci-fi universes, every planet the characters go down to has earth standard gravity. When in reality there would be a ton of variance, some planets would have 20% stronger, or weaker, or crushing.
Expeditionary Force book series was a breath of fresh air, portray space battles how they probably would play out, at such long ranges you could move your ship and avoid a directed energy weapon. The books also do a great job with there being more variety in planetary conditions too. I loved that series. The audio books are fantastic, R.C. Bray does a wonderful job!
Does M-class include the requirement of having 1.0g (or near enough)? I didn’t know that. Does that mean the federation is only made up of planets where humans don’t look daft moving around? Or maybe it has something to do with production budgets… 🤔
Yesz M class includes having tolerable gravity. There are many things that make a class M planet, which is why they are so rare. In some sci-fi universes there are other species that populate other types of planets that are rarely interacted with because there is not direct competition or benefits.
Just fire warp-capable drones at the enemy.
This is also an idea behind the Dark Forest Hypothesis, a proposed explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Any spaceship fast enough for interstellar travel can be used to destroy planets just by flying into them.
This is also an idea behind the Dark Forest Hypothesis
I think that’s less about warp-speed weapons and more about natural resource constraints and the unpredictable nature of technological advancement causing advanced civilizations to preemptively obliterate one another.
But yes, the only practical defense against superluminal weaponry would be to avoid getting spotted.
In the real world, you wouldn’t even need drones. If some alien civilization saw us as a threat, even if we were a significantly more advanced technologically than we are now, they would just have to start altering the orbits of asteroids, comets and meteors, which could be done by just changing their albedo in certain areas and at certain levels.
Basically, they could destroy us with paint and math.
This reminds me of how in a lot of sci-fi universes, every planet the characters go down to has earth standard gravity. When in reality there would be a ton of variance, some planets would have 20% stronger, or weaker, or crushing.
Expeditionary Force book series was a breath of fresh air, portray space battles how they probably would play out, at such long ranges you could move your ship and avoid a directed energy weapon. The books also do a great job with there being more variety in planetary conditions too. I loved that series. The audio books are fantastic, R.C. Bray does a wonderful job!
I think many stories hand-wave this by only interacting with “M” class planets unless the story is helped by adding the additional complexity.
Does M-class include the requirement of having 1.0g (or near enough)? I didn’t know that. Does that mean the federation is only made up of planets where humans don’t look daft moving around? Or maybe it has something to do with production budgets… 🤔
Yesz M class includes having tolerable gravity. There are many things that make a class M planet, which is why they are so rare. In some sci-fi universes there are other species that populate other types of planets that are rarely interacted with because there is not direct competition or benefits.
The Orville has that with Xelayans coming from a planet with higher gravity so they’re super strong under human conditions.
But how would you know an energy weapon had fired? Wouldn’t you be constrained by the speed of light, regardless?
If Star Trek sensors were constrained by the speed of light, warp travel would be impossible.
If their engines aren’t constrained by speed of light, why would their weapons be?
Just fire warp-capable drones at the enemy.
This is also an idea behind the Dark Forest Hypothesis, a proposed explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Any spaceship fast enough for interstellar travel can be used to destroy planets just by flying into them.
I think that’s less about warp-speed weapons and more about natural resource constraints and the unpredictable nature of technological advancement causing advanced civilizations to preemptively obliterate one another.
But yes, the only practical defense against superluminal weaponry would be to avoid getting spotted.
In the real world, you wouldn’t even need drones. If some alien civilization saw us as a threat, even if we were a significantly more advanced technologically than we are now, they would just have to start altering the orbits of asteroids, comets and meteors, which could be done by just changing their albedo in certain areas and at certain levels.
Basically, they could destroy us with paint and math.
Yeah, you wouldn’t, but in those books, the ai of ships have random evasive movements they perform to make some shots miss.