Im Always thinking in EP and the only conclusion is that the world created for the GM is too dinamic, something is going to happen and is going to be BIG.
So the first faction to move his pieces will be the jovians, and their first step will be the destruction of Locust. Why? Becuase they have the most strong army of all the solar system and they can keep the PC out of their bussines with diplomacy and politics.
Keeping one major faction out, its almost half the battle. Because you can destroy the autonomist alliance one faction by one if you have a fleet big enought to deal with small fronts everywhere.
Thats why they should destroy the Titanian fleet out because is the only organiced force. Once you destroy it, the scum barges(the more similar thing to an anarchist fleet) shouldnt be a problem, its mostly composed of refugees ships(civilian) and if you destroy the titanian fleet first it will act as a warning for those who wants to oppose to the Jovian space navy.
But even if you destroy the Titanian fleet, you have to act quickly because the anarchist might be scattered but they have the biggest station of the solar system and it can act as a rally point SO here comes the idea of siege.
Locust is a big station, and it proved that it can easily deal with assaults but, what about siegues?
So, the idea of a siegue is to isolate the enemy and let it starve or surrender. This might sound stupid at first, but thing about it. You have ships, every ship has a sphere where it can shoot securely enemies and drones to further improve the spheric barrier and Locust would also have such a sphere(a bigger one to be fair)so you only have to put a minimum of ships around locust out of the range of their weapons.
And also, you should jam the Locust comunication. With radiation or EMPs so those anarchist wont scape.
If you effectively create such a barrier, you will keep out the enemies mining ships and reinforcements(by the nature of anarchism such reinforcements will come in small numbers and scattered).
But this is EP, there is no scacity. Aaaand, thats half true. But there is a problem, Locust is not an usual space station is a bunch of ships and modules joined together with not much order. So its not optimized to save energy, oxygen or metal its chaotic in design.
That means, that Locust will consume resources at a much higher rate than a normal station and this could be an important point. Not only because it will create social pressure to end the siegue at some point, but by the same nature of Locust some areas will run out of resources sooner than others creating fluxes of refugees and increasing even more the social pressure to end this.
If you even have sleeper agents to increase the chaos, and start a minor civil war will be perfect because you can destroy the station from inside.
And Oh, people will have fear. Fear of a war that they already tried to scape, fear of becoming just a bunch of data when the station can no longer hold their bodies, fear of getting trapped and tortured or becoming an slave and similar... EP might have changed the rules for death but it just moved preocupations to materialsim.
By the same nature of anarchism, there is no authority and under pressure direct democracy will or can be easily converted into an ochlocracy, where the easiest way to solve this will cover force and force and everybody will have to accomplish what the majority says like a last stand with what they have or a surrender.
The problem I see under all of this is time. How much time needs Locust to start having replacement issues or food problems? When it will start a civil war? What about other minor factions? How much time needs other factions to act and create an effective army?
Of course, firewall could try to stop it. But firewall is an inteligence organization not an army. Firewall can try to delay the jovian forces or alert the autonomist alliance but firewall cant stop a war that has been already decided and firewall will have other problems, like scavengers trying to use the chaos that a war creates to scavenge TITAN tech or similar.
So it, could be possible? Am I missing something in this route?
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Could it be possible a space siegue?
Fri, 2014-05-09 13:51
#1
templariomaster
Could it be possible a space siegue?
Fri, 2014-05-09 14:23
#2
Steel Accord
Not at all
Your plan sounds thoroughly air tight and could be an interesting campaign idea.
"Awaking the sleeping giant" and all that.
I would contest that the Jovians would have such a comparatively easy time on their hand though. Sure, their initial attack might be enough to take the hab, but they would not have such an easy time holding it.
A) That could very well be where the player characters come in.
B) If things get desperate, people could ego cast in and out. The Jovians may be "blocking" it somehow, but a single augmented infomoprh is more powerful than all of their ship's computers combined. They'd find a away.
(Example: Create a false casting pulse. As soon as the Jovians activate the EMP, then those who are lined up can get out of there as fast as they can before the EMP recharges. The Jovians think their killing dozens when they just snuffed a shadow. Meanwhile the innocent lives slip past them like ghosts. ((And some flipping them off as they float by.)))
C) Even if the Junta are more organized, any reinforcements sent are gonna be hard to beat on their own; between whatever the Titanians have left, the Extropians, and the Scum.
Transhumans can think faster, their tech is more advanced, boarding parties might be basically bullet proof. That's not even getting into asyncs or cyber attacks.
Disorganized as they may be, every attack that fails is gonna make the Jovians bleed and bleed bad. They can get reinforcements, but the Alliance can get those same fallen fighters back next week, having learned from the mistakes they made last time. No doubt such would be a demoralizing action.
"How can we beat them Captain? They're immortal."
"We'll put their immortality to the test."
*hologram appears*
"Hello Captain asshole. Have you put on weight since last we met? It's a good look for you, all flabby and slowing down with time.
. . . . What's wrong ensign Dobson? You look like you've seen a ghost." >:)
—
Your passion is power. Focus it.
Your body is a tool. Hone it.
Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
Fri, 2014-05-09 14:42
#3
templariomaster
No, you got the wrong idea.
No, you got the wrong idea.
The idea is to end destroying Locust, Jovians dont have any use for an unshielded station against radiation but they're not interested in the enemy using it. Since they cant assault it, the idea is to siegue it.
I dont think the Jovians would be under problems of hacking. Since they can use laser comunication or quantum comunications and they can also have hackers as infomorphs(they only believe that technology should be in a few hands not banned).
The problem that I see with egocasting. Is that there are 2 ways to do it, with laser comunication(that can be easily blocked or destroyed) or neutrino comunicators(the EMP part) but neutrino comunicators can be intercepted and also radio comunications so, in case of siegue would you risk your ego onto being captured?
Fri, 2014-05-09 14:59
#4
Steel Accord
Point taken
I just think the Alliance would fight like Hell to free their allies, and laying siege to anything becomes even more difficult when being attacked from the outside.
Hell, that actually might be a perfect time to stage a mass rescue. Get word to the people inside to be ready to ego cast, send one small ship to get really close, and BOOM!
Thousands and possible more saved from the pass of a single ship without even having to dock. (And THEN with the escapees flipping off their captors as they pass by.)
I mean, all in all, if the Jovians are really so afraid of Locust, they're better off just blowing it up than running containment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh yeah, I forget the Junta military consists of Eighth Circle bound hypocrites.
GOD I hate these guys so much!
—
Your passion is power. Focus it.
Your body is a tool. Hone it.
Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
Fri, 2014-05-09 15:44
#5
templariomaster
Then I was thinking that this
Then I was thinking that this would be like the Lord of the rings, because we have a supercity that is under siegue and is a big strategic place for the autonomist alliance, we have the PC helping as saruman would do and Locust needs someone to rescue him even if in the past werent big friends(Rohan) like extropians....
put all of those together and:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LGJ7evrAg
OMG! We even have laser beacons.
Fri, 2014-05-09 15:51
#6
Erulastant
If the Jovians are aiming to
If the Jovians are aiming to destroy Locus, they'll do it by destroying Locus, not sieging it. Just chuck enough nukes at it to saturate point defense and the station is gone.
On the other hand, if the Jovians try something like this, the rest of the AA will probably launch a ton of nukes at Ganymede. Mutually Assured Destruction is a beautiful thing.
—
You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.
Fri, 2014-05-09 15:58
#7
templariomaster
Erulastant wrote:If the
The problem is, if this is possible that means that the factions with the highest ammount of resources can dominate the others breaking it from the start.
In fact you dont need nukes, stations are stationationary and easilty predictible targets, therefore there must be somekind of supershield that can protect such stations from simple bombarding.
So if you cant bombard stations(again if this could be possible there would be no stations in EP)you have to take other actions and stations can be a thing.
And the AA has the big problem of being free. In the spanish civil war there was in fact anarchists fighting voluntarily but they were free and that means that they could say no and retreat even before the fight started(and it happened) or that they're free to kill each other if they dissent(and it happened) ideologically.
So the AA without an organized navy that the titanian navy offers, would end scattered, disorganized and demoralized by a fast and explosive attack.
Fri, 2014-05-09 16:15
#8
Steel Accord
Aid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HXW3gRpnFk
"Locus calls for aid!"
" . . . . And Extropia will answer!" >:) "Muster than Randians!" XD
—
Your passion is power. Focus it.
Your body is a tool. Hone it.
Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
Fri, 2014-05-09 16:43
#9
ShadowDragon8685
templariomaster wrote:The
Um... Yeah. That's pretty much the way it is. That's also pretty much why [i]everybody[/i] is scrambling to grab all the resources they can, so as to prevent any of the others from obtaining such a crushingly huge advantage that they [i]can[/i] just wage war and annihilate everybody else.
Of course, there are other factors at play. If one of the sides launched a nakedly aggressive attack on one of the others, the third would likely side with the defenders. During the Second Battle of Locus, the Jovians destroyed a PC frigate carrying one of the PC's high muckity-mucks to send a message: we won't tolerate the PC launching nakedly aggressive attempts at hegemony.
It's kind of a three-way cold war. No one side has the crushingly decisive control of resources it would need to have to take on both of the others at once.
Um... Nope. No such supershield. Just because you wish you had something doesn't mean you'd have it. By your logic, the USSR and the USA should have nuked each other long ago, because gigantic nations are stationary and easily predictable targets: therefore there must have been some kind of supershield protecting them, right?
Turns out, not so much. And, in fact, both sides were ready to [i]start[/i] the war just to prevent the other guys from putting in [i]any[/i] kind of defensive measures.
You want to know what protects a giant stationary target like a space station in space?
The fact that hiding anything in space is damn near impossible. If you launch gigantic missiles from Gannymede at Locus (no "t" on the end,) armed with nuclear warheads, the anarchists on Locus will see it coming almost immediately after you launch it. Meanwhile, your missiles will take weeks, at least, to reach their targets. That's time in which the anarchists will be:
1: Screaming for everybody any their brother to take up arms against the Jovians.
2: Launching interception missions. This will take the place of missiles being launched to intercept and destroy your missiles, as well as armed vessels with that same mission.
3: Building more point-defense satellites at breakneck speed, to shoot the missiles down.
4: Evacuating anybody and everybody who can't contribute to the fight and doesn't want to stick around to see what happens when they hit, and importing anybody and everybody who's spoiling for a rumble.
Also, stations are not, despite what the word would have to think, "stationary." If the Jovians launched kinetic kill vehicles which were incapable of altering their trajectory, they could, in fact, shift all of Locus to a different orbit and wait for the things to zoom past, and laugh.
It absolutely is possible, and there are, in fact, stations in EP. You've followed an incorrect chain of thought to an absurd conclusion. There are no "supershields." There are not, in fact, any shields whatsoever, except perhaps very, [i]very[/i] experimental magnetic shields that might offer some degree of protection against plasma weapons.
There are no "supershields" that prevent a habitat from being bombarded, any more than there were "supershields" that prevented the USSR and USA from raining nuclear hellfire down upon one another. Just good old fashioned politics and point-defenses.
Yes, because that's exactly what happened during the First Battle of Locus, when the Titanian Navy never showed up and the Autonomist Alliance was crushed.
Oh wait, no, the other things. The autonomists stuck together in defense of one another and they kicked the PC's invasion fleet in the balls so hard that the fat-cats back on Mars felt it.
(And then the Titanians said "If we let the PC destroy the anarchists, they'll come for us next, and there will be no anarchists to step up in our defense." So they promptly joined the AA.)
—
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Fri, 2014-05-09 17:23
#10
templariomaster
ShadowDragon8685 wrote
1-If that were right the PC would already have won, it has rock planets on its side and a direct access to the main belt. Therefore, they have the mos powerful industry of all the solar system.
Every other faction is a moon or an asteroid peasant, even when they have a planet its full of gas.
But mars? Less gravity than earth and with an space elevator means that you can efficiently create an epic industrial juggernaut. Why? Because any other factions needs an asteroid or a moon and a lots of additional infrastructure distributed. But the PC can just put as many factories as they want and dont even need to rely on the main belt since they're surrounded by iron(as a strong base for factories).
2-Nope, what I wanted to say there is that you dont really need nukes if your target is stationary. Just throw him rocks, at enough speed you will kill him and you didnt waste a single radioactive material on it(Ok strap some EVA rockets on that rock and a AI and you will have a projectile that can change his course easily)
And your example is bad, EEUU and URSS knew that if they throw their nukes the entire planet would end lifeless or even if both survived they would end poisoning the same earth they wanted to conquer.
But, in space? Throw a sit load of everything there are no consequences, and if we have stationary targets asking to get bombed, what are you waiting for?
So I already thought about that, a bombardment is impossible because you could see the projectiles coming from afar, so a space siege could make sense if you cant bombard it. BUT, there are still other ways than brute bombardment like using antimatter to create gamma rays and destroy the station at... ¿2 seconds light? Or create a kamikaze ships and so on...
3-Nope, I wasnt thinking as "supershield" I was thinking in SOMEKIND of shield(metaphorical), it could be a process like the one you describe above or simply that any projectile launched beyond one second light can be easily evaded or destroyed.
But some kind of reason of why the existence of stations is possible, I dont know you can build one if you want.
4-But the titanian army came when the battle was almost over and you only give me more reason. First destroy the titanian navy, the only organized force in the AA capable of retaliation then Locus and you will have it.
Fri, 2014-05-09 17:55
#11
Steel Accord
Awesome idea
I know I might sound kind of indecisive, but I want to stress I don't think this is a bad idea, I actually think it's an awesome one!
The Jovian Junta finally taking the offensive, the entire Alliance, rallied behind the destruction of one of their largest habitats, a war that will invariably change the solar system for good or ill. This is a really cool setup with much potential.
I'm just trying to figure out where the player characters would come in. This sounds like a major campaign that would involve more military professionals than scrappy volunteer commandos. It could still work, you'd just have to get creative.
—
Your passion is power. Focus it.
Your body is a tool. Hone it.
Transhummanity is a pantheon. Exalt it!
Fri, 2014-05-09 18:10
#12
ShadowDragon8685
If the Junta launched a war
If the Junta launched a war of annihilation such as that, then Firewall would definitely get involved, because that's a very clear existential risk to transhumanity. After all, if the Jovians [i]are[/i] out to wipe out the "transmonsters," then what else is left except to defend the rest of transhumanity against them?
I'm sure Firewall can think of some ways for small groups of commandos to have a large impact in that war.
—
Skype and AIM names: Exactly the same as my forum name.
[url=http://tinyurl.com/mfcapss]My EP Character Questionnaire[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/lbpsb93]Thread for my Questionnaire[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/obu5adp]The Five Orange Pips[/url]
Sat, 2014-05-10 00:11
#13
Erulastant
It wasn't fear of wrecking
It wasn't fear of wrecking the planet that kept US and USSR nukes on the ground. It was the certain knowledge that before your nukes can land, mine will be in the air. (Which created the odd cold-war paradigm where building missile defenses was an aggressive move and building more nukes was defensive.) The concept of mutually assured destruction is still around and kicking in EP: The reasons the Jovians don't launch a surprise attack (Get a ship close enough to hit Locus with a nuke... Just one ship, no need for a whole fleet) is because the AA would retaliate by wiping out everything in Jupiter orbit.
—
You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.
Sat, 2014-05-10 05:05
#14
templariomaster
Erulastant wrote:It wasn't
As my companion said up there, a nuke from space can be easily detected so you can always say that WMDs arent too popular except for space combat because you can shoot them down from afar(by the time of travelling you could even send a ship to destroy them)
There are ways of course, to effectively detonate WMDs. One is with guerrilla warfare using freighter ships full of WMDs but the jovian republic is relatively small and too paranoid of such things so it would be difficult.
Other way is to create a WMD that can travel at the speed of light, like the gamma rays created by a matter-antimaterr explosion directed into the enemy but thats usefull for space stations, ships or maybe asteroids but a moon or a planet the effect of such weapons would be too low(unless you can really create a big one, like the one created by a pulsar).
As I see, the thing that keeps things quiet in EP isn't the MAD or firewall(firewall could be a peace agent if there weren't other intelligence organizations or they wouldn't have to worry about idiots and TITANs)is the fact that no one is trully ready to sustain a transhuman war for long and the equilibrium of forces.
But, in spain during the retake of Al-andalus(Arab occupied territory) was weaker than the Arabs and even less advanced. So spain, conquered Arabs territories one by one, conquering and consolidating their conquers and by 1492 they had a strong kingdom that had occupied all the penninsula.
Maybe if Napoleon or Hitler should have taken this path when they started their empires, because at the end no one will attack you frontiers if your armies are stronger or your defenses enought solid.
The other way is the political one, but I would hate adding such a dirty thing to a game.
Sat, 2014-05-10 06:13
#15
Killebrew
I can't see anything that has
I can't see anything that has been said that doesn't prevent it ending in the destruction of everyone. Gamma rays are pretty indiscriminate for instance, so they aren't just going to kill your enemy, they are quite likely to kill you as well.
As well, Since you have the PC, the Jovians, the AA and the LLA, you have to stop and think about the fact that any move by one is opening themselves up to an attack by another faction they aren't moving against. The PC stands to benefit more out of the Jovians attacking the AA because as soon as the Jovians have committed their forces, the PC can more or less attack freely while maintaining just enough forces to prevent the LLA from making a move of their own. Likewise, the AA can't make any sort of concerted attack on the PC without leaving themselves open to attack by the Jovians. (The books also make it fairly clear that the Titanian Commonwealth doesn't view the Jovians as much of a threat in the least, and in fact pity them and send aid. So they are very unlikely to attack them.)
Not saying it's not an interesting idea, it would simply require something regarding the current situation to change to be feasible.
—
---
Tue, 2014-05-13 12:04
#16
nezumi.hebereke
The original scenario, as
The original scenario, as presented, isn't very functional, as it makes some basic, wrong assumptions about what are the real currencies in EP.
The whole of EP is set in a post-scarcity setting. That means that I can build whatever I want, where-ever I want. However, that does not mean I can get whatever/where-ever and whenever. In fact, there are two (really one) limiting factor that truly establishes value;
Time and distance.
As space ships make distance a function of time, it's really just the one. But for the sake of discussion, it's easier to break it out.
The distance from Jupiter to the trojans (including Locus) is frequently further than the distance from Jupiter to Earth. Moving a sizable amount of mass (aka a warship) will take years, and once there, each shot from the warship takes longer to recharge than Locus will take, as the warship has less mass. So from Locus's point of view, the Jovians advertise their moves a year ahead of time, and every subsequent move is slower than Locus's response.
I don't think anyone has come to a final conclusion on the cost of offense vs. defense in space battles. However, the cost is no more than 100:1 in favor of one side or the other. Sure, that may give favorable odds to the Jovians, but it still costs a LOT of time and resources. And for what? What does Locus have that the Jovians want? Iron? Carbon? They got nothing. And if Locus does fall, so what? There are scads of autonomist habitats. Even assuming infinite energy, you won't be able to reach them all within fifty years, and if you did, a dozen more would crop up. Creating a habitat is dirt cheap as long as you have a pile of dirt to build it out of and time to let it build.
So why would the Jovians start smashing stuff?
1) That location is attached to an immediate threat; a source of infection, a factor or exhuman stronghold, etc. Something that provides a clear, immediate, and definite threat to the survival of the Jovian nation. (Locus does not.)
2) The Jovians, following the 'you only win if everyone else loses' philosophy, think they can send their competition to the stone age with a few offensive strikes. But Locus doesn't provide that either. Striking Mars could cripple the PC, but the autonomists, and worse, the argonauts, are too dispersed for that sort of thing. Jovians have to fall back to information warfare to hit those enemies.
3) Jovians are pursuing a specific, limited resource. For just about everything, that resource is time, and no one has a time machine yet. However, there are gates, and gates cannot be replicated, no matter how much time you have.
HOWEVER, sieges do work. Even in the modern day, trade embargoes enforced by gunships are a real thing. I could certainly see the Jovians imposing trade embargoes to push favorable politics, and Locus seems a popular target. But in this setup, the Jovians are parked (and effectively laying siege) not for the purpose of destroying Locus, but for the purpose of pushing political negotiations.
Wed, 2014-05-14 23:23
#17
Chernoborg
Any siege in this setting is
Any siege in this setting is almost certainly going to be a victory for the defenders. They all have advanced recycling systems that allow for the same feedstock to be used essentially forever,unstoppable neutrino comms, and AR/VR Sims to combat boredom. The only limiting factor then is power, and between nuclear batteries and an old fashioned compact uranium reactor there's plenty of that for decades. Things get worse as you get more transhuman. Want to really cut back on resources? Sleeve everyone in synths, no need for air or food then! Need parts ? Cannibalize less needed parts of the station into the fabbers! Any attacking force had better be ready for a really long stay. Most combats are going to be either to destroy or capture ( and hope they don't pull a Hydrogen' s Promise on you!)
In this case, Locus is kind of a terrible place to besiege. The Nuestro shell is just one part of it,located at the barycenter of two large asteroids both of which are populated as well . This means a far larger volume to cover than just a single station. For the Jovians, Locus is always about 5 AU away , so resupply will be a huge challenge. From the description, Locus sounds pretty self sustaining, there are quite a few farms and a strong sense of community to keep people together when things are tough.
I'm not saying a siege is impossible, by the way, just usually too difficult or costly when other options work better. A smaller hab that is less self sufficient would fall to a blockade. Also, Europa is an example for a large colony stuck smack in the middle of hostile territory. It could even be argued that the Jovian Republic views itself as being besieged by the ravening hordes of transhumanity!
It occurs to me that in many ways Extropia may be a better target. It's a single asteroid with a more fractious populace that doesn't seem to be that self sufficient. Depending on where in its orbit it is it'll be 2.5 AU closer every three years or so and it's down the gravity well so getting there takes less energy. Also, disrupting Extropia could throw the PC for a loop making any future conflicts a bit easier.
—
Current Status: Highly Distracted building Gatecrashing systems in Universe Sandbox!
Wed, 2014-06-04 08:35
#18
Xagroth
Frankly, I'd go with "Evil
Frankly, I'd go with "Evil conspiration launches project to mind-control Junta leaders into a suicide attack against the AA, freeing the PC to claim everything" option, with the Players being a team of Firewall agents tasked with infiltrating the Jovians to prevent this... kinda cool as an introductory game, since the players would be in the most pre-transhuman "habitat" of the setting, playing with minimun gear and with most secrecy.
As for blockading Locus... Man, the amount of ships could be so high not even the PC Navy could do it: remember you need to make a sphere outside of the effective range of the enemy weapons, with the longest supply lines ever, against a station that can wait a while, "recycle" itself into a warfleet, and attack the Jovian Navy wherever they want, leading to a defeat in detail...