Doesn’t war during the Age of Sail provide the basic model?
What strikes me as the major difference (which you don’t discuss) is that the battlefield consists of a discrete graph, star systems as vertices connected via jump points as edges. As Dick McGee mentioned in a previous post, this yields choke points, and you might look at discussions of play in previous strategy games (like Starfire, Fifth Frontier War, etc.) to see its handling and that of communication lagging events.
Even with natural, more-or-less permanent jump points, there can be considerable variation in how much of a choke point they really are. In Starfire it was somewhat viable to invest in defenses (either truly static, or semi-permanent garrison forces) around a jump point that made direct assault through one prohibitively expensive, but even so the definition of that was variable based on economic strength. An polity that can casually expend 100 superdreadnoughts won't be daunted by defenses that would eat 10 of them for breakfast, and being able to afford very specialized designs decreases the effective advantages of defensive systems as well.
All that's only true because Starfire jump points are fairly small on a tactical scale, occupying part of a single hex in a game where basic weapons can reach out to 10-20 hexes or more and range 1 is knife-fighting distance for beam ships. Jump points where you can emerge or enter in larger volumes of space quickly become unmanageable with static defenses like minefields or fixed weapon platforms, and even slow ships with shorter ranged weapons may become useless for a really wide jump "point" that's actually a zone of space an AU across or something.
You could also have jump drives that (while still needing a natural point to use) can access jump points from increasing distances based on teh power/sophistication of your drive. Commercial starships would likely have minimalist jump drives to save costs since they don't mind being easily "caught" by customs patrols, and they might occasionally get stuck in queues if many ships are using the same point at once since you don't want to risk transit interpenetrations in the more limited volume of space. Smugglers and military ships are more likely to have strong jump drives to let them pop in and out from safer distances, forcing wider patrols, stern chases, or in extreme cases even minimizing defender prep time before reaching a key target like a colony world or static space infrastructure, making true surprise attacks viable if the defender does have "eyes" on the system(s) the point connects to so they can see the realspace approach of hostiles.
A side effect of that might be treaties restricting military ships to weaker jump drives explicitly so they can't easily jump past patrols and appear deep into the system, and depending on the mass/volume/power costs of jump drives you might see strategically defensive ships built that can outperform "long jumpers" in realspace - much as system ships and battle riders in Traveller do.
I fear my previous comment may come across as intemperate. James, I am sure you’re familiar with “Fifth Frontier War” and that it has been used in conjunction with role play in the Spinward Marches, even if you didn’t use it; granted, strategic movement is more flexible without jump points, which is why I mentioned “Starfire”. I just wonder why this facet of “Thousand Suns” requires much serious thought, given the prior art.
I mean, the obvious parallel is distant wars conducted on Earth prior to the invention of the telegraph. Lots of power would necessarily be vested in regional lords or governors, which means that a big danger of this system wasn't just two different commanders coming up with conflicting interpretations of a general policy (especially since their areas of influence rarely overlapped), but of regional lords setting themselves up as rulers in their own right -- including by becoming popular and powerful enough through victory in battle to challenge or overthrow, or at least cause headaches for, the central government.
The tyranny of distance makes me think someone, sometime must have tried the a-clone (or chatbot) -of-the-emperor-in-every-system approach, like Ann Leckie's Radch. Given the idea is a bit odd, they might be villains (or sinister and extinct). The Radch practice of taking prisoners, mind-wiping them, and using them as soldiers is also odd/villainous/sinister.
Doesn’t war during the Age of Sail provide the basic model?
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me as the major difference (which you don’t discuss) is that the battlefield consists of a discrete graph, star systems as vertices connected via jump points as edges. As Dick McGee mentioned in a previous post, this yields choke points, and you might look at discussions of play in previous strategy games (like Starfire, Fifth Frontier War, etc.) to see its handling and that of communication lagging events.
Even with natural, more-or-less permanent jump points, there can be considerable variation in how much of a choke point they really are. In Starfire it was somewhat viable to invest in defenses (either truly static, or semi-permanent garrison forces) around a jump point that made direct assault through one prohibitively expensive, but even so the definition of that was variable based on economic strength. An polity that can casually expend 100 superdreadnoughts won't be daunted by defenses that would eat 10 of them for breakfast, and being able to afford very specialized designs decreases the effective advantages of defensive systems as well.
DeleteAll that's only true because Starfire jump points are fairly small on a tactical scale, occupying part of a single hex in a game where basic weapons can reach out to 10-20 hexes or more and range 1 is knife-fighting distance for beam ships. Jump points where you can emerge or enter in larger volumes of space quickly become unmanageable with static defenses like minefields or fixed weapon platforms, and even slow ships with shorter ranged weapons may become useless for a really wide jump "point" that's actually a zone of space an AU across or something.
You could also have jump drives that (while still needing a natural point to use) can access jump points from increasing distances based on teh power/sophistication of your drive. Commercial starships would likely have minimalist jump drives to save costs since they don't mind being easily "caught" by customs patrols, and they might occasionally get stuck in queues if many ships are using the same point at once since you don't want to risk transit interpenetrations in the more limited volume of space. Smugglers and military ships are more likely to have strong jump drives to let them pop in and out from safer distances, forcing wider patrols, stern chases, or in extreme cases even minimizing defender prep time before reaching a key target like a colony world or static space infrastructure, making true surprise attacks viable if the defender does have "eyes" on the system(s) the point connects to so they can see the realspace approach of hostiles.
A side effect of that might be treaties restricting military ships to weaker jump drives explicitly so they can't easily jump past patrols and appear deep into the system, and depending on the mass/volume/power costs of jump drives you might see strategically defensive ships built that can outperform "long jumpers" in realspace - much as system ships and battle riders in Traveller do.
I fear my previous comment may come across as intemperate. James, I am sure you’re familiar with “Fifth Frontier War” and that it has been used in conjunction with role play in the Spinward Marches, even if you didn’t use it; granted, strategic movement is more flexible without jump points, which is why I mentioned “Starfire”. I just wonder why this facet of “Thousand Suns” requires much serious thought, given the prior art.
ReplyDeleteI mean, the obvious parallel is distant wars conducted on Earth prior to the invention of the telegraph. Lots of power would necessarily be vested in regional lords or governors, which means that a big danger of this system wasn't just two different commanders coming up with conflicting interpretations of a general policy (especially since their areas of influence rarely overlapped), but of regional lords setting themselves up as rulers in their own right -- including by becoming popular and powerful enough through victory in battle to challenge or overthrow, or at least cause headaches for, the central government.
ReplyDeleteThe tyranny of distance makes me think someone, sometime must have tried the a-clone (or chatbot) -of-the-emperor-in-every-system approach, like Ann Leckie's Radch. Given the idea is a bit odd, they might be villains (or sinister and extinct). The Radch practice of taking prisoners, mind-wiping them, and using them as soldiers is also odd/villainous/sinister.
ReplyDelete