posted
I am currently working on a story, which I think will be great, however, I really need to read what others have written about the topic of Revolutions/Wars in Space.
I know the Moon is a Harsh Mistress needs to be reread...
does anyone have any other ideas on good stories that deal with - I presonally think that the idea of lobbing missles between two planets is rather silly, so I'm looking for something better.
posted
Your post reminded me of an old cartoon series, I've mentioned before, called Robotech. Now, the alien/human war is kinda cheesy, but instead of lobbing missles ater each other (which they did) the series reflected on how these actions effect the individual.
You can pretty much get away with cheese if you have some really good characters to ground your story. Like all good sci-fi, you can take a story and set it in the future while commenting on today or themes of humanity that are timeless.
Sorry, I doubt that's a big help, but I don't read much sci-fi (are books which read like NASA technical manuals shoved in the sci-fi section) but I thought maybe a could give you something to think about if not something to read.
JOHN!
[This message has been edited by JOHN (edited February 04, 2003).]
posted
Consider for a moment why your two planets are at war, and how that affects the tactics they employ.
For instance, if it is an ideological war, then propaganda broadcasts and infiltration groups are going to be the primary scene of the action, as each side attempts to gain converts and simultaneously prevent losses at the same time. Or if one planet is direly overpopulated and is trying to colonize the other, which is sparsely populated by a technologically less advanced but more militant culture. Or if they are traditional enemies, but neither is seriously devoted to total war, so the war is almost a game (albeit a lethal one).
The answer is that there is no definative paradigm of what an interplanetary war would be like, because there is no single reason that two planets might go to war.
posted
I was pretty sure there wasn't a definative paradigm, if for no other reason than I haven't seen very many speculative fiction writers agree about anything, unless you have them all working on one world... and even then...
The basis of the war is basically like the American Revolution. We have Earth, we have a colony whose actions are being dictated by Earth, but of course Earth isn't really helping, since well, they are on earth not where the colony is.
I know that there are such things as silent revolutions, but those don't tend to be well documented either, so that doesn't help.
I want to nail down the science and technology side of the story before I get too carried away with the people and how they are reacting, as their reactions will problably have a significant variation depending on the technology.
[This message has been edited by mags (edited February 05, 2003).]
posted
One obvious lesson to lear from your model is the lcation of the war's battles: The American Revolution was fought in America, not in England. The goal of the American troops was to deprive George III of his means of exerting control over the colonies. The British goal was to keep control.
Because command and control are so important, a planet colony revolution would probably be more cybernetic. The soldiers would include computer viruses and encryption / decryption schemas.
Of course, the overall purpose of the American Revolution was ideological. America needed a government to create and enforce laws. If everyone were happy with George III's government then there would be no revolution. So even though the military goal was to deprive England of its control, the political goal was to create a different government.
If you want a believable revolution, you need to give your rebels somthing worth fighting for. They need to really believe that the new government will be better than the old.
Try Millenium by Ben Bova. Written during the cold war, it depicts American and Soviet lunar colonies fighting to become independent from the Earth countries that founded them. It's got a unique but very realistic take on space warfare.
The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournell is also excellent. While the book is about much more than space warfare, it does present realistic space warships. Much better than any Star Trek, Star Wars, B-5, etc. depictions. I'd even say it's spacecraft are more realistic to those in Ender's Game, if you overlook their means of interstellar travel.
posted
So if this colony is on a terrestrial planet, is it in another star system or have we terraformed Venus or Mars? Is there FTL travel? What about communication?
Is it really an "interstellar" war or is the local colonial goverment, that derives its authority from Earth, fighting against an independence movement? How many resources were expended on colonization, and what was the expected return on investment for Earth in this scenario? This is an important point because I can't see what Earth would hope to get out of a colony in another star system other than the scientific data and the sense of accomplishment.
What is the ideological rift and why is it worth either side going to war over?
quote:So if this colony is on a terrestrial planet, is it in another star system or have we terraformed Venus or Mars? Is there FTL travel? What about communication?
Yes, which is why something along the lines of the AR to me makes a good connection, as opposed to the French Revolution or WWI. – here instead of across an ocean, it is across space. However, my theory is that by the time we get to the point of colonization, the difference in time to travel from here to Mars will be approx the same as it was from England to the colonies in the 17th and 18th century.
quote:Is it really an "interstellar" war or is the local colonial goverment, that derives its authority from Earth, fighting against an independence movement?
It is a colonial war… a colony that doesn’t agree with the way they are being controlled by Earth. They are controlled by ideas that people on Earth, who have never so much as been higher into space than an airplane, would go. – Possibly a few, but not the majority. Which I guess really means that it is a colonial war with local authorities.
quote:How many resources were expended on colonization, and what was the expected return on investment for Earth in this scenario?
There is always the option of mining, the option of scientific research, which is what started the movement. The fact that people who aren't happy with the politics on Earth have immigrated when possible. And the option of ideally allowing the colonists to start living on the new planet, just as one would to allow them to live on a new continent – I’m not going for the “Australia was started as a place to send prisoners” type of story. At the beginning of the colonization, there was much expended – both money and time. As time went on, the expenditure became less and less. Less ships were sent, less supplies that can’t be recreated on Mars under current rules, though more people per ship.
Even now, there is much talk from groups like Green Peace (and I’m sure that the Sierra Club have their ear to the ground) which won’t allow anything to happen to Mars until it is certain that there is absolutely, positively no live on mars that could be affected by humans doing anything at all. With all their talk, there are still groups like Mars Direct who are seriously working towards allowing humans to colonize Mars.
posted
So is Mars terraformed or not? I agree that with improved technology, you could cut the trip down to being a matter of weeks rather than years, particularly for military ships. But depending on what the colony actually looks like, what the environment is, what percieved threat the colony could pose (if they want to do serious mining, either they need an orbital elevator--much easier for Mars than Earth, by the way--or a rail launche--which would make a good weapon but wouldn't work well if the planet were significantly terraformed).
posted
not terraformed YET... that is one of the things that the colonists want, but the people on Earth are trying to keep control over. This is a issue with the colonists also, because with terraforming, it would allow them to be more independant, and more inviting to people on Earth - who aren't ready to move to a red orb. (Though at the moment, I'm also leaning towards Earth being faced with an Ice Age, since the enviromentalists got their way, and the atmosphere was cleaned up enough that global warming was stopped and basically reversed. - With that being the case, then it is possible that more people want to leave Earth)
Posts: 142 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Hah hah. You know, if we started an ice age, then for the first few hundred years there's an even chance that sea levels would actually rise dramatically.
But the only way we could have a runaway cooling effect is if you persuaded everone to not burn extra fuel during those first few cold winters. And that's not going to happen. When it gets cold, humans light fires. Right now, there are a lot of humans on the Earth. A more realistic result of a global environment treaty would be China--allied perhaps with a few Third world countries that also have exemptions--vaulting to world dominance of a slightly less benevolant nature than the current situation. Which might make some people eager to leave....
posted
and to think, I was always taught that when you get cold, add layers. but you are right... people would light up and burn anything they could just to stay warm. -- the things we think of.
posted
i was under the impression that global warming, by and large, is less an effect of human influence (though not completely independent of it) and more a consequence of the earth's natural warming and cooling phases. and even if we were moving into another ice age (whether humans caused it or not), there would still be warming and cooling phases--with a gentle progression towards cooling.
"But the only way we could have a runaway cooling effect is if you persuaded everone to not burn extra fuel during those first few cold winters."
could just burning extra fuel impede rapid cooling? would rapid cooling occur if we weren't here to burn things?
if you're right, i'm confused, because that doesn't seem plausable to me.
posted
My understanding is that because of the cycles that the earth goes through, scientists have found that we should actually be in another ice age. However, for thousands of years (really) humans have been doing things that have caused that pattern to alter. - things like methane from cows can affect it too, though that particular item is small even compared to the amount of changes that burning coal was doing 100 years ago. Human effects on global warming aren't just something that has happened in the last 50 years, with large scale deforestation, aresols, car emmitions, etc. And I have seen it hypothesized that IF we clean up the air (which is actually cleaner than it was 30 years ago, and certainly 10 years ago) that we could actually fall into the ice age that we should have already been a part of.
Posts: 142 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Global warming is junk science with a political agenda. A guy named Patrick Michaels, I think, from the University of Virginia uncovered the faulty computer model used for it. Of course, that didn't stop the green crowd.
I understand that most of the "warming" we've documented occurred before 1940, so if humans could really affect things, the warming should've greatly accelerated since 1940 with all our industrialization, but it hasn't. In fact, one volcano does more supposed "damage" than humans do over some appreciable amount of time (can't remember the exact comparison), but just like at Prince William Sound, the Earth is far more resilient than some suppose.
How reliable can the GW theory be when it predicts a warming of 10-11 degrees over the next century, yet temps have risen only 1 degree this last hundred years even though "greenhouse gases" have increased 50% or so?
posted
Oh, come on! We're talking about interplanetary warfare, not Global Warming. Besides, you would think that if space technologies were developed enough to put a colony on Mars, they could use either orbital solar shades or reflectors to adjust the Earth's temperature a bit.
I was just pointing out that Chinese people make great space villians. All the really good space aliens are based on Chinese people anyway, why not use actual Chinese people for once? --(this smilely illustrates how alien Chinese people are)
posted
Actually we were talking about interplanetary warfare and global warming. But, if we're going to pretend global warming exists because of men starting fires, and the Chinese have oh so many people, and a lot of those oh so many are peasants with campfires, then it stands to reason that the Chinese are the bad guys. You might be onto something, Survivor. Trouble is, it's the Japanese who have the volcano, isn't it? Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
It is true that the Chinese don't have all tha many volcanos...though I don't know what that has to do with anything.
They are indeed working on a manned space program. So far, they have only sent up test vehicles, but they have the necessary boosters and so forth. But their space program is very...derivative. Okay, they basically steal all the technology they need. The Chinese are the most talented industrial spies in the history of the planet Earth, and they play it to the hilt (other asians are also very good at stealing technology, witness that North Korea has had nukes almost as long as Saddam's been trying to get them).
The Japanese have the technology, but they have no manned program. They do have a lot more volcanos than seems really fair, though.
posted
Definite second to Doc Brown -- the MOTE has some of the best spaceships ever.
Anyway.... as far as technology goes. If you're set in the next 50-100 years, you MUST read CONFRONTATION IN SPACE by Stine. Frankly, you should read it regardless of when your space war is set, but his specific suggestions will become more dated as you progress farther into the future.
Ideological wars are certainly common, but fighting over scarce resources is as old as humankind -- certainly people were fighting over grazing land for their goats long before they fought over communism-vs-democracy or Catholicism-vs-Protestantism. Read Lewis's MINING THE SKY for the best review of what resources there are to be fought over. Truly, the resources in a small asteroid dwarf, for example, South Africa’s amazing mineral wealth. Or read it simply because it's good, whatever.
Also..... Heinlein's throwing missiles made HARSH MISTRESS a classic because it would work, no STAR WARS or STAR TREK b.s. there! Good call above, though, on infiltration and propaganda; that certainly has its place.
Not science fiction, and in fact quite old and dated, is Kahn's ON THERMONUCLEAR WAR (1960) (and sequels, THINKING ABOUT THE UNTHINKABLE (1962), ON ESCALATION (1968), THINKING ABOUT THE UNTHINKABLE IN THE 1980'S (1983) ). These four books might not be useful in terms of their explicit subject matter, but Kahn was exquisitely skilled in THINKING. Reading his books -- and especially his dissection of the pacifist's positions in “1980's” -- will give you excellent training on how to think about things so horrible they are unthinkable. Kahn's implicit subject matter is as relevant as ever.
There are two basic ways to conduct a war: attrition and maneuver. Read THE ART OF MANEUVER by Leonhard for a dissection of the why and how of maneuver warfare (you can easily adapt it for space, he wrote in plenty of generalizations.) Then read THE PRICE OF GLORY: VERDUN 1916, Horne, for an analysis of the single bloodiest battle in HUMAN HISTORY: Verdun. This gives you an appreciation of why maneuver is preferable to attrition!
Lastly,
quote: books which read like NASA technical manuals shoved in the sci-fi section
posted
One thing you have to remember is that for maneuver to work, both sides have to be at least somewhat intelligent. Open battle is always a matter of attrition.
Of course, you want to be the guy spending ammo rather than blood when it comes down to attrition, which is the point of maneuver. In fact, if your enemy realizes that he'll be spending blood against bullets, he well might decide not to enter open battle at all, which means you win without fighting.
Just by the by, there have been a number of accounts of far bloodier battles than Verdun, though most of these are classed as mythological. I think most of them probably happened, though the body counts may have been inflated in some of them. Or all of them. Whatever.
posted
Mags, it sounds like your colonists may be revolting against a political change on Earth. Mars was colonized when the idea of terraforming was politically appealing, but things have changed. Either gradually or suddenly, those in power on Earth have decided to renig on their promise and hold the Mars colony in developmental limbo.
Consider that if the technology to terraform Mars existed, there would be very strong economic incentive to do it. Real estate is valuable. Agricultural land is valuable. Living space is valuable. People don't like to be crowded. As people become more crowded, they become easier to attack via weapons of mass destruction. But crowded people are also easier to control.
You could depict a political movement in one generation that saw colonizing and terraforming Mars as desirable. But the leaders of the next generation had a different agenda: maintaining fascist-like control, increasing the value of Earth real estate, killing of the heretics and recolonizing Mars with true believers who worship L. Ron Hubbard or Elvis Presley . . . whatever.
This is if the technology to terraform really does exist and is being suppressed by Earth. You might also consider making the terraforming promise a cruel ruse. Perhaps the technology never existed; there's a critical technical problem that hasn't been solved yet. Maybe the crucial soil-to-atmosphere conversion bacteria always mutates into a deadly plague after six generations . . . or something like that. The Martian colonists might only discover this in last chapter, kind of like the chilling final scene in the movie Soylent Green.
Another option is to have something secret on Mars -- something more valuable than real estate. Something so secret that most of the colonhists don't know about it. This is a little close parts of Total Recall, though. I think this wouldn't do what you want, since it would overshadow your revolution.
But I do think your story needs a plot twist like one of these. Otherwise you've got a logical problem: Why would Earth found an expensive colony with no intention of following through?
posted
Could be, but I don't know of any examples. Verdun had about 1,000,000 confirmed casualties; did entire countries in "mythological" times have total populations of 1,000,000? If you don't count murdered POW's, even Stalingrad only clocked in at about half of that.
Horne's book recounts a chilling episode from the 1960's where a road crew uncovered a mass of helmets and bones near Verdun, and didn't even blink.
Even if it wasn't the bloodiest, it's still the archetype of attritional warfare. The German general (whose name escapes me) stated his goal, not as capturing the city, not as breaking through into the French rear, but as "Bleeding the French army white."
quote:did entire countries in "mythological" times have total populations of 1,000,000?
That's a very good question, which is why the casualty figures for many ancient battles are regarded as being somewhat mythical. I think the winner is supposed to be some mythic battle in ancient India in which 80 million or some equally huge number of soldiers were killed. I mean, India probably had 80 million people back then, it's always been a populous country, but did that many really die in a single battle? I frankly doubt it.
And you're right about Verdun, it became a sort of archetype.
posted
I know that during the American Civil War, often the bodies were dragged back on the battle field for the photographer, because I can only assume, they figured that bodies litterally scattered everywhere wasn't nearly as interesting as having a bunch of bodies within the frame of a shot.
On the topic of the Mars colony issue. I want Mars to continue to thrive after this book, as it will be part of a series later. - well, enough of one that Mars is terraformed, and Earth, Mars and the colonies on the Moon have trading agreements, and are working together. However, that is probably a few hundred years after this revolution.
[This message has been edited by mags (edited February 15, 2003).]
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--(this smilely illustrates how alien Chinese people are)
But, if we're going to pretend global warming exists because of men starting fires, and the Chinese have oh so many people, and a lot of those oh so many are peasants with campfires, then it stands to reason that the Chinese are the bad guys. You might be onto something, Survivor. 
