SF Rant

[Old Man]

SF seems to tend toward the naval paradigm for the reasons already stated--large ships with large crews on long missions. However, IRL any American program will be mainly Air Force based, since that's the branch that currently runs SPACECOM.

 

An Army-based paradigm would be interesting since that's the only branch that crews its aircraft with NCOs. I think the Chinese use an army-based paradigm simply because that's the only branch of the military that they have.

[BlueCloud2k2]

SF seems to tend toward the naval paradigm for the reasons already stated--large ships with large crews on long missions. However, IRL any American program will be mainly Air Force based, since that's the branch that currently runs SPACECOM.

 

An Army-based paradigm would be interesting since that's the only branch that crews its aircraft with NCOs. I think the Chinese use an army-based paradigm simply because that's the only branch of the military that they have.

 

 

Some thoughts:

 

The navy uses NCOs for smaller boats. Thus smaller spacecraft (shuttles and penances would use NCOs for pilots). Big boat commanded by officers, based on the size of the boat (smaller naval vessels can be captained by a lieutenant IIRC, but it is rare for anything below a Lt. Commander to skipper a boat).

 

Even the Largest ships are captained by a captain. But if it is a flagship, then there is an admiral on board. The Admiral orders the ships in his fleet around, but his ship still has a captain to command her.

 

Ships are ships, and navy is navy; whether in the water or in space.

 

The navy has the experience with operating large platforms that are meant to have extensive missions away from a base. The Airforce does not have the experience, and their birds always return to base (unless shot down).

 

I think the future space navy will be mostly wet-navy based, but will absorb a large portion of the Airforce. Most likely the wet navy will be used as training cadre for space navy, and most officers will be Airforce Colonels, Navy Captains from both the Fighter-Jock and Submarine nerd sides of the wet navy.

 

And more than likely Space Marines will be drawn from Force Recon, Army Paratroopers, Navy Seals, and depending upon country of origin, British SAS and Russian Spetznaz (plus whatever special forces the Airforce has; cannot remember what the actual title is)

[Old Man]

USAF special forces is the pararescue jumpers (PJs). There are other types of operators under AFSOC like the air liaison officers, but only the PJs are extreme the way SEALS or Delta are.

[clsage]

Coming late to the party, and I may have missed it if anyone already mentioned it, but where would others place Starship Troopers as regards the Navy/Air Force/Army/Marines SF paradigm? Personally, I see some cross-over in the 'Mobile Infantry' between Marines and Army.....

 

Thoughts?

 

-Carl-

[BlueCloud2k2]

Movie or Book?

 

Really not much difference between Mobile Infantry and US Marines either way.

 

If you follow the book, then definitely aspects of Army Airborne and Force Recon (orbital drop is a HALO drop on larger scale).

 

BTW, I really wish I lived near tdkguy cuz he aint the only one sick of Space Opera (and no one near me is remotely interested in anything HERO system).

[Old Man]

Mobile Infantry was clearly Army/Marines. The movie seemed to go with Navy as the model for ship command, and there was even an inter-service brawl.

[Cancer]

A "hard" SF campaign is difficult to do from a simulationist point of view, which is how I tend to approach the idea of me running a created-by-me SF campaign: building my universe from the top down from basic postulates made up front and seeing what flows from there. That way is NOT guaranteed to give you a particularly good game, though, especially if you know too much. I am pretty sure I would have to try multiple times to get something that actually left interesting things for human-type players to do in an environment that was interestingly different from early 21st Century Earth.

 

I have fallen out of the habit of taking in much SF any more, whether film, TV, or print, in the last 20 years. (I think the last SF print author I made it a point to seek out and read was David Brin.) I saw a bunch of Serenity/Firefly because my wife & daughter are Whedon fans, and in terms of physics ... well, the outrages of systematic misogyny that happen in comics of the superhero genre aren't even misdemeanors compared to what happens to astrophysics in the Serenity universe. I have to actively lock out my entire left brain (and work continuously to keep it locked out) to watch it. Even E. E. Smith's Lensman books had better astrophysics than Serenity does, and that stuff came out more than seventy years ago.

 

In effect, I think "hard" SF is extinct, except for a few splinter cases.

[PaycheckHero]

For the current services, I don't think the navy's experience in running ships on long-term missions is actually all that important--just because the missions have some similarities doesn't mean that those similarities are crucial.  More important I suspect is the Air Forces' emphasis on technical excellence--it would be easier to find people with the right talents.  I recall a lecture by an AF lieutenant mainly aimed at telling army brass what to expect from airmen assigned to their units (long story).  It was fascinating precisely because he had to tell them quite specifically the differences between the services that are operationally relevant.  In particular, he pointed out that technical skill is actually relevant to promotion in the AF, which got gasps and titters from the grunts--in the army, promotion is (theoretically anyway) about leadership first, last, and only.  Technical skills are what you have Specialists and Warrant Officers for.  My point is that it would be easier to find officers who can combine technical ability and leadership in the AF than in the other branches.

 

Now to question my own premise: techie prejudices notwithstanding, it's not entirely clear to me that this matters much either.  What you really need in leadership is probably the ability to listen to your experts and balance their recommendations.  The navy has that, as do the other services.  In any event, we wouldn't convert any service over to a new mission overnight, they would simply task a few people at a time as the new mission grew.  Any service can find those people in sufficient numbers, just as the US Army found the right people for the air corps as it grew.

 

And now to question the premise of the entire thread: this is all post-hoc justification for a phenomenon that was entirely based on dramatic choice and surface analogy.  Writers model the space service on one of the existing ones simply because they plan to use historical models.  You can often pin down the analogy much more specifically than just the service.  Star Trek is Fantasy WW I in space because Roddenberry thought of it in terms of battlewagons and cruisers.  You can just file off the serial numbers whether you want a big space battle (Jutland) or a small but complex confrontation (Battle of the River Platte).  Star Wars is Fantasy WW II in space because Lucas  thought in terms of carrier warfare.  My point is that there is no reason to logically defend premises that were based on drama rather than logic in the first place.

 

And finally, to again question the premise of the entire thread, it isn't the current services that will go into space anyway, it is whatever they become by that time, and they may not even be recognizable to us in the aspects that matter.  The navy is quite technical now too, because they have to be and so they adapted.  The best discussion of tropospheric radio propagation I've ever read was written for navy officers to be able to intelligently understand what their experts would tell them about things like why their over-the-horizon radar wasn't even seeing to the horizon or why it was seeing so far beyond the horizon that it is picking up irrelevant distant targets and making them appear close.  In a military spacecraft they will be even farther from one man knowing every system than we already are, so I think *that* is the quality of an officer in the space force.  He has a broad education in the bottom line on as many systems as possible, not so he can turn the knobs and interpret the results but rather so he can interact intelligently with the host of experts who are drowning him in information.  Likewise, the AF was the army air corps until what, '47, the army in WW II generally embraced technology as never before, and so on and so forth.  They have changed, they do change, they will change, and they won't be the same forces when they get spacecraft even if they have the same names.

 

For that matter, there is no particular necessity for four forces--Israel has one and nobody claims they can't fight (actually some did, but we're still waiting for them to come back and report on the experimental results of their thesis).  A combined space/ground force could probably be made to work, or a dual force model as in Starship Troopers, or any other combination.  You don't *have* to model on our contemporary services.  It's a good model, but, well, it's been done before and you might want something different.  Our current services are essentially modeled on British practice in the Napoleonic era (army, navy, and the marines as the navy's contingent of seagoing soldiers on the larger ships), plus the AF which had a lot of politics involved.

 

Given all that, maybe we should simply learn from the masters and make the choice for *dramatic* effect.  That's a legitimate thing to do even in a Hard SF story.  How do you want your space battles and military life to *feel*?  Piper I think wanted more age-of-sail feel in his stories, and so you have men completely out of contact with home pursuing long-term hobbies that don't need the resources of a whole civilization in between moments of pounding the daylights out of each other in ship-on-ship actions.  Go with any service, or a new one.  Or notice that somehow most authors only use one or two forces even though it might well be that the right number has to do with size (the US has many to administer a very large military, while Israel has one to administer a far, far smaller force).  If you have big fleet actions, why not question SF custom at a deeper level than what sounds like a football game (Navy vs. Air Force, final score 13-7)?  Maybe the deep space service is different than the system defense service, which is different than the surface/atmosphere service.  I've often thought that we'd be better off if we gave the A-10s and the close support back to the army, you could do that.  Or you could go with something familiar because you *don't* want to distract the reader from the main point of your story.  If you're throwing big ideas and logical consequences at your players right and left, maybe it's best if the space force is familiar and undistracting.

 

Even in Hard SF, the details serve the story.  It's just that the story wants consistency more than other stories.

[BlueCloud2k2]

Very eloquently worded.

 

Most of my opinion is based upon the SF I have read and personally like, such as David Weber's Honor Harrington series, John Ringo's Posleen Wars, Vorpal Blade Saga, and Troy Rising series.

 

Of course, those situations are where high-technology are pretty much dumped in humanity's lap forcing us to use existing models.

 

As for our own naturally evolving tech base?

 

I'm still inclined to think that when the first Star Ships are built, it will be based on Naval specs with Air Force influence. I can see Air Force Colonels and Carrier captains being sent to Submarine Warfare School, Submarine Captains sent to surface Warfare School, and the best of the best from the Submarine Service doing a training cruise to adapt the best of the best from carriers and the Air force NCO ratings adapting to living in a tin-can for extended periods of time.

 

Because lets face it. Submarines are the best existing model for life on a space ship.

 

And IMO, star-fighters like in BSG and Star Wars is just plain bad science.

[sinanju]

Because lets face it. Submarines are the best existing model for life on a space ship.

 

And IMO, star-fighters like in BSG and Star Wars is just plain bad science.

 

I agree--"carriers" seem extremely unlikely to me. Every ounce of additional weight required for a) the pilot and life support and c) control interfaces for big, blunt human hands and human eyes and ears...is an ounce that could have been devoted to additional fuel, payload, armor, etc. And a human pilot places strict limits on the accelerations and manuevers a fighter can employ, limits that a missile or drone doesn't have to accept. I've read recently that in "drone vs manned fighter" combat, drones generally lose.

 

But we're in the earliest days of drone technology still. Given advances in computer power and "intelligence" and given drones built to make full use of the accelerations and maneuverability human-occupied craft cannot match, I think the day when robots rule the sky and human-manned fighters become obsolete will arrive, and probably sooner than we think.

[megaplayboy]

Well, drones could have "joystick jocks" back in the mothership who pilot and make tactical decisions as needed. The drones could be smaller than a manned craft and still pack a punch. I guess the basic concept is that ship-fired weaponry might have a limited range, while drones and long-range independent missiles could extend that quite a bit. Also, if the drone doesn't need an extended cruising range, it can burn its fuel faster and therefore accelerate faster than its mothership, arriving on scene before it.

[Old Man]

In effect, I think "hard" SF is extinct, except for a few splinter cases.

 

 

I think you're right, but I also think that it's "hard" science's fault for not being more supportive of space opera.  Probably the biggest problem with physics, from the writer's perspective, is the nigh impossibility of interstellar travel, Alcubierre notwithstanding.  Damn physics.  Why can't everything work classically?

[Lawnmower Boy]

If you read ship's manifests from the early days of fighting sail, you'll have no idea who is supposed to do what, because the titles tend to be archaic trade jargon and/or reflect ancient sensibilities. "General-at-Sea" does not mean what you think it means (except that it does), and the "Cooper's Mate" is not some alternate world future version of Archie. 

 

So take that into space. "Aye and begorrah. That be above my paygrade as a mere Assistant 'Shopper. The fella you want to be jarrin' to is the ship's Sysadmin. Just go and see his editor for an appointment." 

[Vondy]

I suspect a space-carrier with a drone compliment would heavily leverage smart systems (differentiated from AI) both on the mother-ship itself, as well as in the drones. A step beyond this would be full-fledged artificial intelligence computers. These would likely - especially since the military wouldn't want a computer second-guessing commanders, or "emoting," or worrying about existential concerns - use first-order predicate logic rather than non-linear logic forms. A fully self-aware computer using non-linear logic capable of intuition and interrelating with humans could be feasible or desirable as a command-assist module on the mother ship, but I don't see much advantage in having it in (most) drones. Computer-managed combat flight operations for a drone sward would allow faster-than-human reaction times and battle-analysis that could be adjusted by a handful of human tactical officers as the situation and goals evolve on the field of battle. Let the computer run the squadron tactics while the command crew deal with the bigger strategic questions. While this is "realistic" it isn't very exciting, romantic, adventurous and is bereft of the human element that makes a story really grab people. The guys who typed faster and had better computer programs were left standing... yaaaaaawn.

 

Of course, human pilots don't get hacked, can make independent decisions when communications with the mother ship are jammed, and have eyeballs in the event the sensors get fried....

[IndianaJoe3]

I suspect that torpedo boats would be a decent analogy in an environment dominated by missiles. You'd want to keep the missile launching platform as close to the battle space as possible, and the bulk of the crew/hyperdrive/combat operations center far away from it.

[BlueCloud2k2]

The problem with space battles is that realistically, the ships would be light-minutes away.

 

That means:

1. The missiles would require more fuel to travel.
2. There would be more time to intercept them.
3. They would have to be nuclear warheads.
4. The would have to be really really big nukes b/c nukes don't propagate well in vacuum. UNLESS you used Nuclear-Pumped X-Ray Lasers like in the Honor Harrington series (which IIRC is a weapon we are working on IRL).

Also, with advances in Auto-Turret Point Defenses, it would be ridiculously easy to shoot them down from a distance. Your ship's point defense computer knows where you are going and where the missile is, so it would be easy for it to fire shots that will hit the missile as it corrects its course for your ship's changes in vector.

 

I'm thinking that absent invisible misses, ship-to-ship combat is going to be akin to black-powder-cannon naval warfare. The Ships line up against one another and fire at point-blank-range.

 

My best guess at the weaponry used? Mass Drivers (or Rail-Guns) and if we've figured out Fusion Power (which is highly likely), then Plasma Lances (Nuclear Bomb in a Magnetic Containment Bubble that funnels the blast into a moderate-ranged projectile - something like the nuclear equivalent of a black-powder-cannon).

[tkdguy]

My SF spacecraft mainly uses railguns & coilguns as their main batteries, although they also have missiles. But most ships do have autocannons as point defenses to intercept the missiles.

[Tasha]

The problem with using drones in space esp to Dogfight is that pesky Speed of light. So your Drone carrier would have to be pretty close to deploy drones. Unless the drones are AI drones, but I think that AI is going to be a hard sell to civilians who would want humans in charge of Killing other humans.

[Greywind]

Cylons

[BlueCloud2k2]

'Xactly!

[clsage]

Movie or Book?

 

Really not much difference between Mobile Infantry and US Marines either way.

 

If you follow the book, then definitely aspects of Army Airborne and Force Recon (orbital drop is a HALO drop on larger scale).

I was primarily thinking book....That version seemed (to me at least) heavily derived from the Army.

 

-Carl-

[clsage]

While perhaps a bit tangential, I am slightly surprised that so far no one (as far as I have seen - please correct me if mistaken) has mentioned The Forever War by Joe Haldeman on regard to the 'hard SF versus space opera' divide.

 

Thoughts?

 

-Carl-

[BlueCloud2k2]

Quote button still not working for me. Hrm.
 

The problem with using drones in space esp to Dogfight is that pesky Speed of light. So your Drone carrier would have to be pretty close to deploy drones. Unless the drones are AI drones, but I think that AI is going to be a hard sell to civilians who would want humans in charge of Killing other humans.

Actually I have a thought on FTL communications:

 

If you split a photon, you get electron twins. They are quantumly entangled - thus whatever happens to one, happens to the other.

 

Put the electrons in separate closed circuits (communication devices) that are powered by Induction so the electrons don't get free.

 

You now have a FTL walkie-talky. Plug one into your ships computer, and the other into one of your fighter drones (or missiles), and you have a non-interceptable FTL communications. Problem is, you'd have to have a ton of them for a carrier (or missile frigate) 

[Vondy]

In theory, one could use micro-wormholes for speed of light laser communications.

 

The energy required would be far less than that needed to move a ship, and it would only have to be stable long enough for encrypted data-bursts.

 

Its not actually "FTL" and fits within 'hard-science' parameters.

[BlueCloud2k2]

And Quantum-Entangled Electron-Twins doesn't? It is real science... You just have to engineer it to work.