Greatak
12-20-2010, 12:23 AM
An Open Letter to the Collective Governments of the Galaxy Regarding the Development and Utilization of Wholly Devastating Weaponry.
Introduction to Conflict
As any reasonable Power will quickly come to realize, no matter how civil two societies are, they will inevitably find a point of friction, to which no amount of civil debate will ever ease. Without exception, this friction will degrade into open Conflict. This Conflict could take many forms, political, economic or even strength of arms, but the two parties will openly struggle against one another to assert Dominance and settle the matter.
Any rational Leader will realize this point and so equip his State with the Tools of such Conflict in order to ensure his own ability to resist the advances of others and to advance his own ends. This Conflict being a means to some other ends, the quicker it could be decided, the better. With this in mind, the rational Leader will equip his State with the best Tools of Conflict, so as to ensure a decisive end to a Conflict. Leaders may agree to certain rules of Conflict, but if backed into a desperate enough corner, these agreements mean nothing. And given that no Leader would commit his State to a Conflict he could not win, he cannot assume his enemy will hold to their agreements, being backed into a corner. And so any method that States have chosen to self-limit the Tools of Conflict will be rendered ineffective by a sufficiently desperate State violating such agreements and Its opponents needing to retaliate in kind.
Given that the point of a Conflict is to render one’s opponent incapable of further resistance, the Tools of Conflict will develop ever more capable of achieving that goal. Generally, this will be pursued by making ever more destructive Tools, outstripping the opponent’s resiliency and ability to retaliate. The trend is for offensive Tools to outpace defensive ones, and so as offensive Power increases beyond the ability of defensive Power to respond, it will eventually reach a point where the unquestioned ability for a State to reduce another State’s ability to resist to zero. However, this ability is not likely to be deployed instantaneously, therefore if reciprocity is maintained, two opposing Parties will be able to unquestionably render the other ineffective. When this condition of Mutual Superiority is met, Peace is the common result. Neither side can enter into a traditional Conflict with any hope of winning, and so they will not.
This Condition, however, is not static. The Tools of Conflict will continue to develop, and defensive Power will grow as offensive Power atrophies from lack of utilization. Through complacency with the Dominance of one’s offensive Deterrence, a first rate power may be reduced to obscurity as a defensive innovation renders his offensive Power impotent. In this manner, roughly equal States will be forced into a policy of Peace fueled by the continued development of the Tools of Conflict.
Nature of the Void
Having established the primary Mechanism by which the relationship between equal States in conflict will trend towards Peace, we shall now examine how this operates in a modern arena. We begin with two initial Assumptions, that the Speed of Light in a Vacuum is a constant and without sufficient Dedicated Effort, Information cannot travel faster than this constant. The second is that Dedicated Effort is a limited resource. Because of these Assumptions, we arrive at the conclusion that it is impossible to know everything about everyone at once. Any propagation of Knowledge will be subject to some degree of Lag. This Lag will only increase with the obscurity of the event and the distance from any given Party. Since Dedicated Effort is limited, we must assume any rational Leader would seek to optimize its expenditure on the best endeavors, which are those most likely to lead to the Satisfaction of his ends.
The limited nature of Dedicated Effort would lead invariably to the fact that its expenditure should be optimized towards results of import to the Leader. He would be incredibly discouraged from expending Dedicated Effort on endeavors unlikely to produce benefit, else he would waste his Effort. This means that the vast majority of space will be a Void due to the vast real distances between systems creating Lag sufficient almost to render them unknowable.
It is a primary tenant of Warfare to control the Knowledge your enemy knows of you and so to use this Void for military purposes is quite viable. But again, the vastness of space will mean that most of space is empty and so random expenditures of Dedicated Effort through the Void are unlikely to produce useful results and so, despite military threat being of utmost concern to a State, such practices fall low on the priority list. The result of this quasi-paradoxical Condition is that such a Void provides superb staging grounds for military purposes.
However, this application of the Void is only valid in the event that exploration and strategic maneuvers look similar enough pass a cursory inspection. Given that rational Leaders seek to optimize their Dedicated Effort, this includes resources and so the most efficient means of travel would be employed from a necessity of optimization; the very same means of travel as civilian operators from a necessity of budget. Or if by some reasoning military craft are equipped differently, they could be made to seem benign. Therefore, the Assumption that exploration and strategic maneuvers will look similar is not outrageous.
Because of the strategic application of the Void, no State can know with absolute certainty where Its enemies lie, and so a rational Leader must equip his own military to respond to such a Condition.
Composition of Forces
With the strategic relevance of the Void established, we now concern ourselves with the Consequences of such a paradigm. The military in such a setting could take two forms. One of the defensive form and the other offensively focused. The defensive Force would be centralized and adaptive. Resting on the idea that it was strong enough to withstand any Force that could be thrown at it. It could be deployed to where it was needed, when it was needed. However, given the Assumption of equal States, the likelihood that such superior defensive Force could exist is low.
The second form is, therefore, more likely. An offensive Force able to project power to achieve their own Goals could be effective without being superior given the nature of defensive Forces being centralized and not likely at a given target. Early success could be achieved while avoiding outright confrontation with the defensive Forces. This Force is dependent on the ability to project Power to the enemy to prevent him from launching similar strikes on your own territory.
Taken to its extreme, this concept could be in the form of disposable craft laden with the Tools of Conflict to wage war of their own accord, cutting resources at least in half and leaving resources free to commission a defensive Force. This Model of military allows a State to pursue both offensive and defensive Doctrines simultaneously.
An extreme to another extent is if a State allowed this offensive Force to replenish its own numbers, for it is well in the capacity of a State employing such a military to do so; the State need not concern itself with supplying its offensive Force, only give it Directives of Action and let it take care of the Logistics and Execution itself. Such a system would free up considerable resources on behalf of the State employing such a system. Perhaps such a Force could even fight on Indefinitely if manufacturing systems were sufficiently robust and adaptive.
Condition of Perpetual Conflict
Through such a system alone, Conflict could become quite a troublesome venture, for once begun; the offensive Forces of both States could fight on Indefinitely. The only means to end such a Conflict would be to somehow strike a decisive blow to the enemy such as to cripple his ability to furnish a defensive Force, which could too be equipped similarly to the offensive Force to replenish itself. This effectively means that the Condition could be met that neither side could gain the ability to disarm their opponent and a Condition of Perpetual Conflict could arise. The only way to end such a Condition is by one State conceding for some reason other than defeat in armed Conflict.
One such mechanism is war weariness, by which the populous of a State becomes so tired of the Conflict that they refuse to support it, consuming their attention and resources, they threaten Revolution to take the warmongers out of Power and sue for Peace. War weariness is quickly invoked if the Conflict affects the populous personally, which it can be made to do by targeting Civilian Centers and inflicting massive Collateral Damage. While commonly avoided as a strategy by civilized States, the desperation of Perpetual Conflict could drive a State to abandon such courtesies.
The largest single unit of Civilization is that of a Planet. Anything larger and you cannot designate it as a single target. A Weapon capable of rendering a Planet ineffective as a place for Habitation or Industry would be of considerable interest to a State interested in breaking the Will of an enemy populace. While we could go on for another Treatise discussing Methods whereby a State could achieve such destructive Power, we will focus on only one here. The simplest such Weapon is a raw Kinetic Energy impact. A State capable of equipping its military to provide for itself could save Itself a great deal of trouble by merely building drive systems for massive objects to wield like mighty Bludgeons instead of the intricate designs of proper Warships.
Most Systems contain solid Debris in the form of Asteroids, which serve as plentiful masses to use as Bludgeons. The average System contains well over 20,000 Asteroids of sufficient mass to see service as Bludgeons. With such plentiful Weapons, any State capable of fielding a military could far outstrip the defensive capacity of any opponent and establish Superiority. But just as easily as one State could do this, so could another, and so we arrive at a Condition of Mutual Superiority, which will invariably trend towards Peace.
Institutionalized Doomsday
Given the simplicity of design in the development of such Weapons, a self-supplying military could take it upon itself to equip the Asteroids of many Systems with drive systems and weaponize entire Sectors of space, all shrouded in the Void, under the guise of innocent Behavior. Very quickly, these Weapons could proliferate beyond a rival State’s ability to track their development and every State could have a hidden Arsenal of Weapons capable of ending wars.
Upon the beginning of a Conflict, a State would give the order for their Weapons to act. These initial burns from all over space would quite possibly overload a rival State’s ability to track them. Accelerated to a significant fraction of Light, they would only be heralded a short distance before the Weapons themselves. Should a State chose to equip their Weapons with a means of superluminal transit, they could jump ahead of their Light and arrive before they could be detected, ending the Conflict before the enemy knew the opening Salvo had been fired.
Of course, with sufficient Dedicated Effort, a rival State could know about the approach of these Weapons, but even then, there would be little they could do, and even if they did stop their Doom, what would they do? Launch a retaliatory strike against their enemy and utterly destroy them. By initiating a Strike, one almost guarantees their own Doom. By this mechanism, the Condition of Mutual Superiority is enforced and the relations between States will trend towards Peace.
Introduction to Conflict
As any reasonable Power will quickly come to realize, no matter how civil two societies are, they will inevitably find a point of friction, to which no amount of civil debate will ever ease. Without exception, this friction will degrade into open Conflict. This Conflict could take many forms, political, economic or even strength of arms, but the two parties will openly struggle against one another to assert Dominance and settle the matter.
Any rational Leader will realize this point and so equip his State with the Tools of such Conflict in order to ensure his own ability to resist the advances of others and to advance his own ends. This Conflict being a means to some other ends, the quicker it could be decided, the better. With this in mind, the rational Leader will equip his State with the best Tools of Conflict, so as to ensure a decisive end to a Conflict. Leaders may agree to certain rules of Conflict, but if backed into a desperate enough corner, these agreements mean nothing. And given that no Leader would commit his State to a Conflict he could not win, he cannot assume his enemy will hold to their agreements, being backed into a corner. And so any method that States have chosen to self-limit the Tools of Conflict will be rendered ineffective by a sufficiently desperate State violating such agreements and Its opponents needing to retaliate in kind.
Given that the point of a Conflict is to render one’s opponent incapable of further resistance, the Tools of Conflict will develop ever more capable of achieving that goal. Generally, this will be pursued by making ever more destructive Tools, outstripping the opponent’s resiliency and ability to retaliate. The trend is for offensive Tools to outpace defensive ones, and so as offensive Power increases beyond the ability of defensive Power to respond, it will eventually reach a point where the unquestioned ability for a State to reduce another State’s ability to resist to zero. However, this ability is not likely to be deployed instantaneously, therefore if reciprocity is maintained, two opposing Parties will be able to unquestionably render the other ineffective. When this condition of Mutual Superiority is met, Peace is the common result. Neither side can enter into a traditional Conflict with any hope of winning, and so they will not.
This Condition, however, is not static. The Tools of Conflict will continue to develop, and defensive Power will grow as offensive Power atrophies from lack of utilization. Through complacency with the Dominance of one’s offensive Deterrence, a first rate power may be reduced to obscurity as a defensive innovation renders his offensive Power impotent. In this manner, roughly equal States will be forced into a policy of Peace fueled by the continued development of the Tools of Conflict.
Nature of the Void
Having established the primary Mechanism by which the relationship between equal States in conflict will trend towards Peace, we shall now examine how this operates in a modern arena. We begin with two initial Assumptions, that the Speed of Light in a Vacuum is a constant and without sufficient Dedicated Effort, Information cannot travel faster than this constant. The second is that Dedicated Effort is a limited resource. Because of these Assumptions, we arrive at the conclusion that it is impossible to know everything about everyone at once. Any propagation of Knowledge will be subject to some degree of Lag. This Lag will only increase with the obscurity of the event and the distance from any given Party. Since Dedicated Effort is limited, we must assume any rational Leader would seek to optimize its expenditure on the best endeavors, which are those most likely to lead to the Satisfaction of his ends.
The limited nature of Dedicated Effort would lead invariably to the fact that its expenditure should be optimized towards results of import to the Leader. He would be incredibly discouraged from expending Dedicated Effort on endeavors unlikely to produce benefit, else he would waste his Effort. This means that the vast majority of space will be a Void due to the vast real distances between systems creating Lag sufficient almost to render them unknowable.
It is a primary tenant of Warfare to control the Knowledge your enemy knows of you and so to use this Void for military purposes is quite viable. But again, the vastness of space will mean that most of space is empty and so random expenditures of Dedicated Effort through the Void are unlikely to produce useful results and so, despite military threat being of utmost concern to a State, such practices fall low on the priority list. The result of this quasi-paradoxical Condition is that such a Void provides superb staging grounds for military purposes.
However, this application of the Void is only valid in the event that exploration and strategic maneuvers look similar enough pass a cursory inspection. Given that rational Leaders seek to optimize their Dedicated Effort, this includes resources and so the most efficient means of travel would be employed from a necessity of optimization; the very same means of travel as civilian operators from a necessity of budget. Or if by some reasoning military craft are equipped differently, they could be made to seem benign. Therefore, the Assumption that exploration and strategic maneuvers will look similar is not outrageous.
Because of the strategic application of the Void, no State can know with absolute certainty where Its enemies lie, and so a rational Leader must equip his own military to respond to such a Condition.
Composition of Forces
With the strategic relevance of the Void established, we now concern ourselves with the Consequences of such a paradigm. The military in such a setting could take two forms. One of the defensive form and the other offensively focused. The defensive Force would be centralized and adaptive. Resting on the idea that it was strong enough to withstand any Force that could be thrown at it. It could be deployed to where it was needed, when it was needed. However, given the Assumption of equal States, the likelihood that such superior defensive Force could exist is low.
The second form is, therefore, more likely. An offensive Force able to project power to achieve their own Goals could be effective without being superior given the nature of defensive Forces being centralized and not likely at a given target. Early success could be achieved while avoiding outright confrontation with the defensive Forces. This Force is dependent on the ability to project Power to the enemy to prevent him from launching similar strikes on your own territory.
Taken to its extreme, this concept could be in the form of disposable craft laden with the Tools of Conflict to wage war of their own accord, cutting resources at least in half and leaving resources free to commission a defensive Force. This Model of military allows a State to pursue both offensive and defensive Doctrines simultaneously.
An extreme to another extent is if a State allowed this offensive Force to replenish its own numbers, for it is well in the capacity of a State employing such a military to do so; the State need not concern itself with supplying its offensive Force, only give it Directives of Action and let it take care of the Logistics and Execution itself. Such a system would free up considerable resources on behalf of the State employing such a system. Perhaps such a Force could even fight on Indefinitely if manufacturing systems were sufficiently robust and adaptive.
Condition of Perpetual Conflict
Through such a system alone, Conflict could become quite a troublesome venture, for once begun; the offensive Forces of both States could fight on Indefinitely. The only means to end such a Conflict would be to somehow strike a decisive blow to the enemy such as to cripple his ability to furnish a defensive Force, which could too be equipped similarly to the offensive Force to replenish itself. This effectively means that the Condition could be met that neither side could gain the ability to disarm their opponent and a Condition of Perpetual Conflict could arise. The only way to end such a Condition is by one State conceding for some reason other than defeat in armed Conflict.
One such mechanism is war weariness, by which the populous of a State becomes so tired of the Conflict that they refuse to support it, consuming their attention and resources, they threaten Revolution to take the warmongers out of Power and sue for Peace. War weariness is quickly invoked if the Conflict affects the populous personally, which it can be made to do by targeting Civilian Centers and inflicting massive Collateral Damage. While commonly avoided as a strategy by civilized States, the desperation of Perpetual Conflict could drive a State to abandon such courtesies.
The largest single unit of Civilization is that of a Planet. Anything larger and you cannot designate it as a single target. A Weapon capable of rendering a Planet ineffective as a place for Habitation or Industry would be of considerable interest to a State interested in breaking the Will of an enemy populace. While we could go on for another Treatise discussing Methods whereby a State could achieve such destructive Power, we will focus on only one here. The simplest such Weapon is a raw Kinetic Energy impact. A State capable of equipping its military to provide for itself could save Itself a great deal of trouble by merely building drive systems for massive objects to wield like mighty Bludgeons instead of the intricate designs of proper Warships.
Most Systems contain solid Debris in the form of Asteroids, which serve as plentiful masses to use as Bludgeons. The average System contains well over 20,000 Asteroids of sufficient mass to see service as Bludgeons. With such plentiful Weapons, any State capable of fielding a military could far outstrip the defensive capacity of any opponent and establish Superiority. But just as easily as one State could do this, so could another, and so we arrive at a Condition of Mutual Superiority, which will invariably trend towards Peace.
Institutionalized Doomsday
Given the simplicity of design in the development of such Weapons, a self-supplying military could take it upon itself to equip the Asteroids of many Systems with drive systems and weaponize entire Sectors of space, all shrouded in the Void, under the guise of innocent Behavior. Very quickly, these Weapons could proliferate beyond a rival State’s ability to track their development and every State could have a hidden Arsenal of Weapons capable of ending wars.
Upon the beginning of a Conflict, a State would give the order for their Weapons to act. These initial burns from all over space would quite possibly overload a rival State’s ability to track them. Accelerated to a significant fraction of Light, they would only be heralded a short distance before the Weapons themselves. Should a State chose to equip their Weapons with a means of superluminal transit, they could jump ahead of their Light and arrive before they could be detected, ending the Conflict before the enemy knew the opening Salvo had been fired.
Of course, with sufficient Dedicated Effort, a rival State could know about the approach of these Weapons, but even then, there would be little they could do, and even if they did stop their Doom, what would they do? Launch a retaliatory strike against their enemy and utterly destroy them. By initiating a Strike, one almost guarantees their own Doom. By this mechanism, the Condition of Mutual Superiority is enforced and the relations between States will trend towards Peace.