Timeline for Eternal space battle around a planet. But why?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 10, 2018 at 1:09 | comment | added | Ben | @JaredSmith No no, I'm not saying battle here would deplete their home bases. I'm saying that if they way they fight battles involves slinging around weapons of planet-is-now-uninhabitable scale mass destruction, then the other battles in this war (some of which must surely take place closer to home, in a war lasting centuries) would kill their own planets, either accidentally or deliberately. | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 0:57 | comment | added | Jared Smith | @Ben space is big, if this primitive planet is on a frontier between two large empires it would not necessarily deplete the home bases at all. | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 0:54 | comment | added | Ben | @JaredSmith I suspect it's impossible for any war to continue for centuries if it regularly involves weapons being thrown around that could accidentally render a planet uninhabitable. The war would deplete the belligerants' population and industrial base too much, even if such weapons only hit planets accidentally (let alone if they use them for that purpose deliberately). So to my mind, the scenario simply precludes the existence (or at least regular use) of such weapons. | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 12:46 | comment | added | Autolykos | (Accepted the Robot War solution since it provides more puzzle pieces than this one - but if I could, I would accept both.) | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 12:44 | vote | accept | Autolykos | ||
| Dec 9, 2018 at 12:44 | |||||
| Dec 7, 2018 at 20:48 | comment | added | Jacob C. | This is fairly similar to the case (since comments don't allow spoiler marking, the following is ROT13-ed to avoid giving away a plot point in a particular book; use a ROT13 encoder/decoder to see it) ng gur raq bs Gur Zbgr va Tbqf Rlr naq gur ortvaavat bs vgf frdhry, Gur Tevccvat Unaq, rkprcg abg nobir n cynarg ohg ng n fgne. N oybpxnqr vf znvagnvarq ng n whzc cbvag gung yvrf abg nobir n cynarg, ohg whfg jvguva n erq tvnag, nyybjvat fuvryqrq fuvcf gb fhpprffshyyl whzc, ohg znxvat vg rnfvre sbe gur oybpxnqr gb or znvagnvarq, nf gur bgure fvqr vf abg njner bs gur hahfhny whzc cbvag ybpngvba. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 13:45 | comment | added | Syndic | @JaredSmith: As written, nothing at all. The primitive inhabitants will just have to hope that the "gods" fighting in their skies can't afford to miss each other with their big attacks, thus aiming them well - or else for some god or "god" unrelated to the fighting to look out for them, providing shielding or a LOT of luck ;) | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 13:34 | comment | added | Jared Smith | Possibly naive question about your answer: what's to stop the battle from rendering the planet uninhabitable? Couple of mis-placed explosions and either the surface is irradiated or the ionosphere is stripped or... | |
| Dec 6, 2018 at 22:48 | comment | added | Jeff | @Steve-O because hyperspace requires a gravity sink to anchor the end - otherwise you wind up Lost In Space. The planet is the only viable exit, since exiting at the sun requires you pop out inside the suns photosphere and melt instantly. So, the planet is where they have to set up. Also neatly solves why no one blows up the planet - can’t risk destroying the only exit/entrance to the system - that’d be suicide. | |
| Dec 6, 2018 at 20:41 | comment | added | Kosmos | If the fighting has been going on long enough, it won't really matter how far from earth the battles are taking place. It just turns into a trash in the ocean situation. | |
| Dec 6, 2018 at 14:34 | comment | added | Steve-O | @Syndic Yeah but if you don't cover the starlane exit, they can just fly in at one access point and go directly to the other. They don't NEED to come to the planet and fight you just because you're over there. So, you either set up forces at the exit, or you wait at the planet and then go to the exit when enemy force arrive. po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Unless there's a reason people need to go to planetary orbit | |
| Dec 6, 2018 at 10:19 | comment | added | Syndic | @Steve-O battling in space far from all planets means no cover and no gravity to mess with targetting solutions. This makes everything easier - but a commander (of a fleet, or maybe a single ship or fighter wing) might feel that those limitations will give him an edge over less tactically smart enemies. So when interstellar empires' space navies clash, at least parts of them might try to use the planet as a tactical advantage | |
| Dec 5, 2018 at 19:48 | comment | added | Wildcard | @Steve-O, an ancient recycling device that's still active that no one remembers about particularly—it runs using the power of the sun and redirects equipment that's drifting (not propulsive) anywhere in the solar system, so that it eventually enter's the Earth's atmosphere. | |
| Dec 5, 2018 at 19:03 | comment | added | David Thornley | @Steve-O Depends on how big and close the entrances to the star lanes are. If (as Ben speculates) they were built by natives of the planet way back when, they might be quite close to the planet, for convenience. It's then necessary to come up with a reason why the original engineers aren't around any more, creating hyperspace bypasses to avoid all the fighting, such as they went beyond the Rim or transcended human form (or see John Campbell's short story :"Forgetfulness").. | |
| Dec 5, 2018 at 15:43 | comment | added | Steve-O | I do like this answer (a lot really) but it does leave me wondering: why do all these aliens come to the planet to fight their battles? A solar system is still a pretty big place, and if the purpose is to control the starlanes, I would expect forces to be set up somewhere closer to where ships come out of those. | |
| Dec 5, 2018 at 11:49 | comment | added | BentNielsen | Just destroy the planet and make a hyperspace bypass. | |
| Dec 5, 2018 at 6:50 | comment | added | Autolykos | Very short and elegant solution. I prefer harder sci-fi, but it doesn't matter that much for me in this case, since the alien war is more of a backdrop than a central part of the setting anyway - and explanations only need to look hard one layer deep. | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 16:07 | comment | added | user42528 | The fact that the planet is the original home planet of the warring factions may go some way to explaining why it is a choke-point, too. The FTL highways may have been built along the ancient routes used by the first colonists from earth - therefore it forms a hub with many routes radiating out from it. | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 15:45 | comment | added | Darren Bartrup-Cook | So a bit like Watford Gap services then? | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 14:22 | comment | added | Baldrickk | do you play Sins of a Solar Empire by any chance? | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 13:54 | comment | added | Syndic | @Geronimo: Indeed, in a space neighbourhood where wreck-parts from space battles land on your planet, missed shots are likely to hit it as well. But a stray bullet, regular missile, nuclear missile, or heck, ship-buster class antimatter missile would - if it doesn't burn up in or get deflected by the atmosphere - at most leave a crater. Maybe get interpreted as "wrath of the gods" towards the extremely unlucky city-state formerly located there. Any planet-buster sized weapons will likely be aimed very carefully at the enemy, they're too valuable to waste on a missed shot ;) | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 13:41 | comment | added | Geronimo | What about stray bullets and missiles? With so many shooting in the neighborhood eventually an antimatter missile will be caught in a collision course to Earth. | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 10:15 | comment | added | Julian Egner | I like this answer, because it also explaines why the planet itself is not of interest for the spacefaring aliens | |
| Dec 4, 2018 at 10:00 | history | answered | Syndic | CC BY-SA 4.0 |