Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

[sbarron]

I'm reading "The Forever War," by Joe Haldeman. One of the scenes from the book involves the first ship that Earth sent into interstellar combat (through a combination of "jump gates" and near-lightspeed travel) ecountering an enemy ship that has much more advanced weaponry that any alien ships that they had encountered to that point.

 

The explanation that the captain gives is this: while to them it has only been 8 months since their ship left Earth, 9 years have passed everywhere else in the universe. So the initial enemy ships that they faced were roughly from the same time period as their own, and had the alien's base-line technology. But the new ship they fought was the result of several years worth of alien wartime technological advancement. Basically, as the captain so poignantly put it, they were fighting a ship from the future. Their future, so to speak, but "the future" none-the-less.

 

I find this idea fascinating. Has anyone used anything like this in their games? Most sci-fi settings use warp-drives or hyperdrives to skip all the hassles created by relativity in their games. I'm wondering if anyone has played something that tries to take these issues on, specifically as it deals with advancing tech levels?

[Cancer]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

It's been so long since I read Forever War that I'd forgotten that scene.

 

I'm not aware of a game that's tried to wrestle with that situation. To "do it right" takes more careful bookkeeping than most non-computer games want to do: you need every unit/person to have a "born on" (or "last equipped on") tag, a detailed list mapping base-world time to tech, and careful attention to the different rates of subjective time passage for each unit as it moves. Also, it requires limited intelligence by the players of the game, which is an eternal game-mechanic bugaboo for everything but refereed/GM'ed games.

 

To a certain degree, you'd need to extend the tech effects list for both sides into the future so that the GM or game is prepared for what happens with advancing tech levels. The remote units would not, of course, know what's coming down the pipe in terms of their own side's tech innovations, let alone the enemy's. You also need to track the flow of information back to the command worlds, to chart their reactions to remote events and keep those in proper time-synch. In an interstellar conflict (the late stages of one, especially), if the players do something strategically important (like blowing up a major planet and its R&D resources) you run the risk of causality violation there, if you don't do things carefully from the outset.

 

This is vaguely related to the historical-game situation where news and orders (rather than tech) propagated at speeds comparable to those of combat units, resulting in things like the Battle of New Orleans, where there were significant fights after the peace agreement had been signed, and (more importantly) when remote units/garrisons are lost by surprise because they have no clue that war has broken out.

[Certified]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

Not too long ago I had some thoughts on a Galactic Champions game that focused on the long term effects of player actions. Although I wasn't focused on technology. Even if technology progresses at a relatively stable rate imagine having to disseminate new technology on a global scale much less a galactic one. One the other hand there is social situations and localized issues that can move very rapidly.

 

To use the example from the Forever War in eight years they are encountering a new type of fighter, the question here is how common is this new type of ship? On the same token using a US model for government, at the same time they are encountering this ship for the first time the bulk of the government could have been replaced and the political climate changed completely. What could have been civil unrest and protests may be out right sedition and war.

 

There are a lot of really fun possibilities that can be had with relativistic time and PCs but it takes a lot of planning as mentioned above. It may be worth wild to map out a time-web , much like a time line but with nodes along the way that the PCs can effect and cause things to branch off.

[Nyrath]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

There was an ancient wargame that addressed this. It was called Timelag (1980)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/7535

It was obviously based on The Forever War.

 

It had plenty of bookkeeping. The farther each warship traveled, the more out-of-date would be their tech level. The differential between the tech level of a warship and its combatant would provide a modifier to the combat die roll. A ship could stand still for a turn to reduce its out-of-date rating by letting tech information from home catch up with it.

 

In The Forever War, the relativistic effects are due to the fact that one has to move at relativistic velocities in order to survive the collapsar jump. A collapsar is a black hole, after all. And things just get worse if you exit a collapsar then have to make a wide turn at 99.999% c in order to re-enter the collapsar to make a second jump.

 

Another ancient wargame that addressed this was Orion (1987)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8025

It was much more scientifically accurate, but much less fun

[Cancer]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

It was much more scientifically accurate' date=' but much less fun[/quote']

 

That describes far too much of my own attempts at game-material creation.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

In a war like this, it would seem advantageous to move your cutting-edge research facilities as close to the front as possible, which also leaves you open to having your best and brightest snuffed out in one fell swoop...

[Beast]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

the obvious thing to do would be to refit each unit after each campain

of course the cost would be outragous

[clsage]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

A bit off topic:

 

There was an ancient wargame that addressed this. It was called Timelag (1980)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/7535

It was obviously based on The Forever War.

Another ancient wargame that addressed this was Orion (1987)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8025

It was much more scientifically accurate, but much less fun

 

Wow....I feel old.

 

Would I date myself further by saying one of the first real sets of wargaming

rules I ever read was a copy of H.G. Wells book 'Little Wars' (originally written

in 1913) ? Not when it was first published of course but....Tho' I'd played

Diplomacy prior to that.

 

Of course, historically speaking, your terminology is reasonable but.....

 

-Carl-

[sbarron]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

the obvious thing to do would be to refit each unit after each campain

of course the cost would be outragous

Actually, I'm not so sure the cost would be so outragous. Because basically, when you send a unit out into combat, its not going to come back for at least 10 years your time. And for many missions, the unit will not return for a 100 years or longer. Plus, you wouldn't have to pay them while they were gone...

 

You would have to refit each unit when it came back, though. The technology would advance so much you'd have to. And when a unit came back, it would be a very rare commodity. A unit with combat experience would be rare indeed for the first few decades of a conflict like this.

[Mad Fnorder]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

Alternatively, since every ship is GOING to be out of date by the time it sees battle, design them to be disposable. Instead of orbital bombardment cannons, design the prow of the ship to be launched and fragment, and so forth. As long as whatever's left can get the crew home, leave the wreck behind.

[Maur]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

Well, nothing stopping the launching civilization from recycling the materials whenever a starship returns home for the next design. Why lose hundreds of thousands of tons of material that could be used to make a new ship

Seriously, the crews are going to be the biggest issue. Each one will be decades behind the current ones when they get back and need to be reeducated each time. And they won't have the advantage of growing up with the tech.

[Nyrath]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

A bit off topic:

Wow....I feel old.

 

Would I date myself further by saying one of the first real sets of wargaming

rules I ever read was a copy of H.G. Wells book 'Little Wars' (originally written

in 1913) ? Not when it was first published of course but....Tho' I'd played

Diplomacy prior to that.

 

Of course, historically speaking, your terminology is reasonable but.....

I'm addressing the young whipper-snapper here. If it makes you feel any better I'm about three years older than you are. It still seems just like yesterday when I got my brown pamphlets of this new game called "Dungeons and Dragons"

[Beast]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

Shooting a gun has not really changed that much

the gun it self has changed greatly

cars, what they can do has changed how to control them not so much

 

what I'm speaking of are the basic concepts of how some tech works

 

yes there will need to be some retraining and familarization with new weapons

but nowhere near the time to teach from the bottom up

 

it will be when the change from say body armor to powered armor

from a tracked tank to a Bolo or grav tank

 

Well, nothing stopping the launching civilization from recycling the materials whenever a starship returns home for the next design. Why lose hundreds of thousands of tons of material that could be used to make a new ship

Seriously, the crews are going to be the biggest issue. Each one will be decades behind the current ones when they get back and need to be reeducated each time. And they won't have the advantage of growing up with the tech.

[Yansuf]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

A bit off topic:

 

Wow....I feel old.

 

Would I date myself further by saying one of the first real sets of wargaming rules I ever read was a copy of H.G. Wells book 'Little Wars' (originally written in 1913) ? Not when it was first published of course but....Tho' I'd played Diplomacy prior to that.

 

Of course, historically speaking, your terminology is reasonable but.....

 

-Carl-

 

What he said.

 

Seriously, my first wargame (even before I found diplomacy and Little Wars) was Avalon Hill's Tactics II, with squares on the board!

 

A game from 1980 may be old, but it is not ancient.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

I've been running around so fast at work, it seems like this thread just started. Have I fallen behind?

[Vondy]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

.

 

This is vaguely related to the historical-game situation where news and orders (rather than tech) propagated at speeds comparable to those of combat units, resulting in things like the Battle of New Orleans, where there were significant fights after the peace agreement had been signed, and (more importantly) when remote units/garrisons are lost by surprise because they have no clue that war has broken out.

 

Not to mention captains having a great deal more autonomy and discretion than modern commanders. Ah... those were the days.

[Vondy]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

 

You would have to refit each unit when it came back, though. The technology would advance so much you'd have to. And when a unit came back, it would be a very rare commodity. A unit with combat experience would be rare indeed for the first few decades of a conflict like this.

 

And would have to be retrained! New systems also require new tactics. Their experience would still be a plus, and having been trained before they'll be quicker on the up-take, but they'd have down-time between each mission for training cycles. Depending on your production time-tables they might actually end up leap-frogging generations of technology as a result. Still, I don't think it would render their previous experience moot. The principles of war remain much the same. Its technical details that change.

[Markdoc]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

In a war like this' date=' it would seem advantageous to move your cutting-edge research facilities as close to the front as possible, which also leaves you open to having your best and brightest snuffed out in one fell swoop...[/quote']

 

It wouldn't help much - by the time they got there, their knowledge and skills would be out of date. This sort of thing even happens in real life. I have some older colleagues and I've noticed several times now that after about 5 year it becomes almost impossible to talk to them about day to day work. No matter how smart or intellectually active they remain, their knowledge becomes so outdated, that it's like talking to a grad student: everything needs to be explained carefully.

 

cheers, Mark

[Cancer]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

I feel that effect myself, 22 years post-PhD. Cosmology was never a big part of my studies, and it's been revolutionized in that time, by COBE, WMAP, and the supernova surveys that detected the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe.

[Markdoc]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

I feel that effect myself' date=' 22 years post-PhD. Cosmology was never a big part of my studies, and it's been revolutionized in that time, by COBE, WMAP, and the supernova surveys that detected the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe.[/quote']

 

For biomedicine, it's a lot faster than that. Pretty much everything I learned during my PhD is not just obsolete, it was obsolete decades ago. Even the basic techniques I learned are obsolete, which is why I'm in the US right now training on new techniques: which will, themselves probably be obsolete in 3-4 years (sigh).

 

Cheers, Mark

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

It wouldn't help much - by the time they got there, their knowledge and skills would be out of date. This sort of thing even happens in real life. I have some older colleagues and I've noticed several times now that after about 5 year it becomes almost impossible to talk to them about day to day work. No matter how smart or intellectually active they remain, their knowledge becomes so outdated, that it's like talking to a grad student: everything needs to be explained carefully.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I wasn't thinking so much of literally moving personnel, as the same tech lag that hits the warships would be hitting the migrating researchers. Rather, I was thinking that research facilities away from the front lines would be less useful to the war effort.

 

Now you've got me thinking on all sorts of tangents...political micromanagement of the war would be disastrous (moreso than in our little earthbound wars)...the home star advantage would be nigh insurmountable, given all the extra research time the enemy would get after your bleeding edge fleet left your forward base...interstellar war in a hard sci-fi universe would be a nasty mess.

 

That's a pretty interesting observation about obsolescent knowledge. Looking in from the outside, it doesn't seem like medicine changes that much, although it does seem like whenever someone I know gets seriously ill the treatments have changed since the last person had the same condition.

[Inu]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

I've been running around so fast at work' date=' it seems like this thread just started. Have I fallen behind?[/quote']Just go backwards even faster, it'll all work out in the end!

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

Just go backwards even faster' date=' it'll all work out in the end![/quote']

 

"Go backwards even faster?" Have you been reading our corporate SOP manuals, Inu?

[Inu]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

"Go backwards even faster?" Have you been reading our corporate SOP manuals' date=' Inu?[/quote']

Just a moment, let me pop back and write them.

[Vondy]

Re: Relativistic Effects of Interstellar War

 

For biomedicine' date=' it's a lot faster than that. Pretty much [b']everything[/b] I learned during my PhD is not just obsolete, it was obsolete decades ago. Even the basic techniques I learned are obsolete, which is why I'm in the US right now training on new techniques: which will, themselves probably be obsolete in 3-4 years (sigh).

 

Cheers, Mark

 

/rant

 

This was true in technology as well. You have to update your skills every 1.5-2 years or you're out of date. And since 50+ hour weeks not including staying current is the industry norm - you're basically getting your paychecks printed in your own blood. The question becomes: at what point does a culture/society start to see negatives, rather than positives, created by constant advance?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pushing the envelope and making things better for people -especially in medicine - but there are realistic psychological, social, and economic limits to the pace of advance. I think we're already approaching the threshold, if not banging our heads against it. The faster the pace, the lower the percentage of people who can keep up, be it intellectually or emotionally, with constant change. How often is near complete retraining necessary? Is it economically realistic? What kind of work culture does it create - and is it a healthy one?

 

A lot of these are open ended questions I don't propose answers to, but having worked in computers, the pace and expectations are unrealistic. There are reasons there are humor songs about microsoft mole-men and microsoft divorce rates. Just to cite one example. As you get a higher and higher paid technical elite who live in an economic bublle and pretty much have to be slaves, albeit highly paid ones, to keep their jobs - where does that leave humanity as a whole?

 

A bunch of poor, unskilled dependents barely scraping by and small conclave of highly paid, but mandatory mole-men chained to their desks? And, without free professional, vocational, or technical education and a more open, flexible work environment, how can you get more people into the game. The cost of getting in is higher than people outside the bubble can afford. We are very majestic. We are glorious in our achievements. But at what cost?

 

Sorry.

 

/Rant off.