Game in the Brain

it’s really different listening to Legend of Galactic heroes translated novel vs the watching it – It got me thinking of how different I imagine my space combat. 

My harder sci fi – space combat is similar to Yang Wen li’s ideas in the sense that the main constraint is DELTA-V Budget. the finite energy needed to get around anywhere in Space – and the constraint that determines your tactics in Children of a Dead Earth. Unlike LoGH where supplies are an afterthought – Hard Scifi is all about Delta-V budget FIRST – then next is INFORMATION warfare. 

Drive Efficiencies and the MANY types of Drives, Fuels, and the Tradeoffs are what makes for a high UNCERTAINTY even in the fact that there is no Stealth in space – it’s just that Space has Context Overload – Space warfare information is all about NOISE – a lof to noise. That each planet, asteroid, moon are grains of sand kilometers apart – the scale of space creates a TON OF NOISE. 

Then there are the Smart Weaponry – Weapons that close the distance of Light Seconds in order to Deploy tactics and effects that prevent the Latency of Light microseconds to be able to react in time. 

It’s funny that the ECONOMY of building Space Infra is far more reliable than the unreliability of humans in predicting human Progress – that many technologies would probably not arise and humans will deploy “BRUTE” force tactics cleverly applied like Inertia Banks, Sails, Mirrors, Mass drivers.  

Instead of Carriers – one of the MAIN strategic depots of any Military Engagement are the KM long Tethers that store Kinetic Energy to Impart or Take from Ships. Tethers that can Convert Explosive Energy, Ion Thrust, and other such propulsion into a giant battery for Inertia. 

They “Catch” and “Hurl” ships and material. Setting up Tethers per strategic point is such an Interesting puzzle. Then you have the mass Drivers that can POWER the Tether. 

I’m imagining a Tether – orbiting a powerful Gravity well and using the Gravity well to multiply its effectivity – the Tether with its spiral arms creating more Delta-V as something is farther and farther away from its Axis. So its possible for the tether to Hurl something from its inner spiral into the gravity well only for it to return and be taken up by another point farther and farther up its spiral arms until it reaches the target velocity and BAM: Shot out from the end of its arm. 

One shot – Push Plates designed to be used and then discarded only to be caught by a Mobile Tether that hurls it back. As the craft gets hurled with its disposal push plate – it creates two sets of explosions – one from the push plate and another from its thrusters – to cushion the combined Accel. 

I can imagine a ship – so powerfully hurled that a significant time before it arrives it has started decelerating for weeks.   

Handwavium – the “Jump” that arrives in the Lagrange Jump point in the system maintaining Trajectories.  

Its so close – will hope to run the game before the end of the year.