warships and troop transports disguised as grapeships

[Drashner1]

And just to add another factor...

Terragens can implant 'ainstincts' and skill modules into themselves via their DNI and exoselves. The various skillsets and such would manifest when the situation demanded it.

The 'civil defense' version of this would result in the entire population (adults, children, possibly household pets, not to mention bots and general automation) turning into the equivalent of a trained Special Forces soldier, complete with armed and unarmed combat skills, certification on multiple types of weapons, how to improvise explosives, etc. etc. Add to this Backup technology and a personality overlay and they are also going to be essentially devoid of pesky things like mercy or a sense of self-preservation when that lack is deemed tactically necessary (and besides they can always resurrect - and come after you again).

So your billion or more people may all become an army devoted to the invader's destruction.

Of course, the invaders presumably know about this possibility and can take steps to combat it (they have access to the same tech presumably), but it isn't necessarily going to be a simple matter of 'soldiers overwhelm civilians'.

Just something else to consider.

Todd

[stevebowers]

There are many toposophic levels in Sephirotic society. Modosophonts are the most numerous, but they are also the least powerful. Further up the line there are transapients that can achieve remarkable things, but they are still vastly inferior to the greater and greatest archailects that rule the empires. Sometimes the lower transapients can come into conflict with each other, and sometimes these conflicts will involve modosophonts who can barely understand what is going on; but these conflicts are trivial matters to the ruling archailects.

Sometimes, perhaps often, the archailects will allow the lower transapients to have their little wars, perhaps to establish dominance on their level. Such conflicts might start in the backwater systems, the ones far from any wormhole, but on occasion they will spread to (and between) systems with wormhole connections. Since transapients are involved, you should anticipate that some pretty convoluted strategies could be employed. Grapeships could be quickly reconfigured as warships, perhaps after passing through a 'hole; and skill modules might be subverted or jammed using transapientech countermeasures.

If the conflict gets out of hand then the archailects might step in to defuse the situation- but even the archailects have their disagreements on occasions.

[m.ellis]

Of course, the invaders presumably know about this possibility and can take steps to combat it (they have access to the same tech presumably), but it isn't necessarily going to be a simple matter of 'soldiers overwhelm civilians'.

I copied your post to a word document -- very useful information. Thanks.

I recalculated the grapeship capacity based on OA info and picture: 2400 meter in length with 16 shuttle pods. w/o going into all the details, I estimated that a grapeship can carry over 2 million troops and support personnel, and 3200 ships can transport over 50 billion. My numbers might be way off.

The other thing that occurred to me today is that the story doesn't mention the size of the invading force. Everything the protagonist knows is from street rumor and propaganda bulletins (once the Net is up and running). But I like to have a detailed foundation for what I write. Trick is not to get too caught up in unnecessary details.

[m.ellis]

Sometimes the lower transapients can come into conflict with each other, and sometimes these conflicts will involve modosophonts who can barely understand what is going on; but these conflicts are trivial matters to the ruling archailects.
.... If the conflict gets out of hand then the archailects might step in to defuse the situation- but even the archailects have their disagreements on occasions.

The background for the story is that The Forced Plebiscite Association is operating out of the NoCoZo against targets in Mennefer space. Since the FPA isn't coercing another Zone polity they're not breaking Zone rules. The Mennefer transapients, supported by the Tresviri archai, have pulled together several armadas to deal with the situation.

The attack on Helios system, however, is unexpected since the FPA hasn't operated there. The Jade Emperor purchased Helios system from the Free Marketeers, and when he was overthrown and couldn't make any more payments the Marketeers went bankrupt. The owners then retired to a bill-gated virtual community.

There's something new for O.A. -- billgated communities. Or has someone else already thought of this?



"There are three kinds of people: sheep, shepards, and wolves. What the sheep often forget is that shepards and wolves share at least one thing in common. They both like mutton." -- Michael Ellis

[Rynn]

The story seems pretty interesting. In general the terragen sphere is a peaceful place but there's bound to be constant minor conflicts like this. How long until you post a draft do you think? I'm just thinking it might be good to get out some details to the group soon for feedback just in case something big comes up that would need to change.

What figures are you using to estimate troop numbers? In my experience it's always good to post your assumptions and working for things like this. Also what do you mean when you say "troop" and "support personnel"? Are you thinking of human soldiers and workers here?

I looked up "billgated community" and all I got back was Google asking if I meant "bill gates community". That only led to various articles about bill gates. What does the term mean (assuming you invented it).

[m.ellis]

The story seems pretty interesting. In general the terragen sphere is a peaceful place but there's bound to be constant minor conflicts like this. How long until you post a draft do you think? I'm just thinking it might be good to get out some details to the group soon for feedback just in case something big comes up that would need to change.

What figures are you using to estimate troop numbers? In my experience it's always good to post your assumptions and working for things like this. Also what do you mean when you say "troop" and "support personnel"? Are you thinking of human soldiers and workers here?

I looked up "billgated community" and all I got back was Google asking if I meant "bill gates community". That only led to various articles about bill gates. What does the term mean (assuming you invented it).

I should be able to post a draft soon.

If a grapeship shuttlepod is 400 meters in diameter, and 1/20 the volume is a habitat module, there's room for over 130,000 beds. 16 pods gives a figure of 2.1 million personnel. Granted, I could have screwed up my math.

Humans and 'vecs. Assault battalions; military police, civil affairs and psychological warfare brigades; various supply and support units. A lot of the support is probably automated with humans and 'vecs and aioids supervising. The supporting battle fleet of autowar carriers is also disguised as grapeships ("Jane's Battleships," General-Admiral Jane Nakamura commanding).

We've had gated communities in the USA for quite some time now. Keeps the riff-raff way. Therefore, a billgated community is a virtual version of this; in effect a very security-conscious virch residential community.




"Monopoly is just a game, Senator. I'm out to control the f***ing world. Soon there will be Total Information Technology. And when you're sucking on the T.I.T. I'll have you by the motherboard." -- Robin Williams' impersonation of Bill Gates

[Rynn]

Ok, if the army is mostly symbolic (the real work being memetic before) I could see this working. If it's actually meant to do a fair bit of fighting it's going to need to carry some proper weapons in the form of swarms (right down to weaponised u-fog). Or at the least have the combatants heavily, heavily augmented.

Support roles are absolutely possible to automate in OA. Everything from admin to medical can be done by vots and bots.

Gated communities could exist in OA, no reason why the couldn't be virtual. Not to keen on the name though, I doubt anyone will remember bill gates in any reference to virtual reality (real life or OA).

[m.ellis]

Ok, if the army is mostly symbolic (the real work being memetic before) I could see this working. If it's actually meant to do a fair bit of fighting it's going to need to carry some proper weapons in the form of swarms (right down to weaponised u-fog). Or at the least have the combatants heavily, heavily augmented.

Support roles are absolutely possible to automate in OA. Everything from admin to medical can be done by vots and bots.

Gated communities could exist in OA, no reason why the couldn't be virtual. Not to keen on the name though, I doubt anyone will remember bill gates in any reference to virtual reality (real life or OA).

Thanks for the info.

billgated communities were named after the 41st century AT author Arnold Mohammed Billgate.

[m.ellis]

I estimated that a grapeship can carry over 2 million troops and support personnel, and 3200 ships can transport over 50 billion. My numbers might be way off.

D'oh!

I was looking at my calc sheet and quoted the wrong cell.
The correct figure is 6.75 billion.
Sheesh.



There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who cannot.

[Drashner1]

I should be able to post a draft soon.

If a grapeship shuttlepod is 400 meters in diameter, and 1/20 the volume is a habitat module, there's room for over 130,000 beds. 16 pods gives a figure of 2.1 million personnel. Granted, I could have screwed up my math.

About this bit here...Earlier in the thread you posted the below as your description for the grapeships:

I recalculated the grapeship capacity based on OA info and picture: 2400 meter in length with 16 shuttle pods. w/o going into all the details, I estimated that a grapeship can carry over 2 million troops and support personnel, and 3200 ships can transport over 50 billion. My numbers might be way off.

Note that a ship length of 2400 meters means that the wormhole will need to be of greater than 1200 meters radius (significantly greater actually) in order to accommodate the ship. Otherwise, the ship will be shredded when the wormhole throat (which shrinks in all three dimensions when you are passing through it) contacts the ships and the resulting tidal forces spagetify it.

A wormohole large enough to accommodate a ship of this size is pretty significant by OA standards, which implies that the system it is connecting to is pretty signficant - which raises the question of just what the local population is (you haven't said, AFAIK) and how much infrastructure (and defensive firepower) is in place.

Humans and 'vecs. Assault battalions; military police, civil affairs and psychological warfare brigades; various supply and support units. A lot of the support is probably automated with humans and 'vecs and aioids supervising. The supporting battle fleet of autowar carriers is also disguised as grapeships ("Jane's Battleships," General-Admiral Jane Nakamura commanding).

Human assault battalions really don't make any sense in OA. Indeed humans are totally worthless in combat in OA unless they are hugely augmented. Vecs might be better in terms of physical capability, but dedicated automated hardware of tremendous capability and intelligence, but without sophonce is likely to beat the more generalized intelligence of a vec pretty easily as well.

There's also the question of how any of this is supposed to beat a transapient. Bear in mind that a single S1 can destroy entire solar systems and slaughter modosophonts by the quadrillions with only minor effort (and the modos will be utterly unable to stop it). You've mentioned that there will be transapients on the attacking side, but how are you going to depict that battle? And who is this General Nakamura? Certainly no modosophont can hold anything other than a ceremonial position of command in any kind of real military in the setting.

We've had gated communities in the USA for quite some time now. Keeps the riff-raff way. Therefore, a billgated community is a virtual version of this; in effect a very security-conscious virch residential community.

Like Rynn I don't think this is an appropriate name for the OA setting. The basic assumption it makes is that the 20th and 21st century is somehow of any real relevance to people living 10,000yrs from now. And we probably do too much of that already. Definitely not something we want to see any more of unless a hugely compelling argument can be made for it.

Todd