Editing FederalSpace:Technology (section)

=== Space Warfare in the Eight-and-Twenty ===

In normal space, there's nowhere to hide, unless you go FTL: if early 21st century technology can spot spaceships around other planets in the same system, and planets around other stars, 28th century technology will easily perceive every vessel in a system. In warp, ships can be ''dimly'' perceived, using the same spatial sensors used to calculate warp transitions. (Presumably, the spatial warp propagates faster-than-light, which may not be true-to-real-life-physics, but is convenient for our purposes.) It's tricky, thanks to varying gravitational gradients and ripples in space and what not. Fast or powerful ships have strong warp signatures, while slow and sneaky ships have weak signatures; you can spot a fleet coming, but a few warbirds might be able to sneak up on a system if they plot a good course. But once they drop out of warp, there's no cloaking device or jamming device that can prevent you from knowing they're in-system. (This doesn't change the plot effect, really. "Oh shit, warbirds decloaking!" is the same as "Oh shit, warbirds coming out of warp!")

If ships meet in open space between systems, and one force wants to break contact, it's a contest of maneuver. If you can bring your warp bubble into contact with the enemy's, both your bubbles "pop" and you drop into normal space, stationary next to each other. Something similar happens if you make a mistake of maneuver, and momentarily lose your bubble—your foe can pounce, or increase the distance. Conventional weapons don't do any good, but there are expensive warp-capable missiles, designed purely to pursue and intercept, and distract the target until you get there, instants later.

In-system, conventional defenses like brilliant pebbles are fine against conventional forces, but a warpship can maneuver around them, and a well-positioned phaser array has a good chance to shoot them down. (This is also why the near-c asteroid trick isn't worth much these days.) Thus, in normal space combat, you've really got no choice but to walk up and blast 'em. (Fly-by courses make sense for conventional maneuver, but a warpship breaks the rules.) There are ways to seek advantage: the right fly-by course, a barrage of nuclear torpedoes as an opener, a formation of drones that flies in with you, coordinated spoofing at the right moment… but really, the actual fight is a crap shoot.

Face-to-face with the enemy, things go down like the battle scenes from ''Wrath of Khan.'' Fuckin' fireballs and people screaming and ships torn apart. Things move so fast you have to rely on automatics, but you need human intuition to guide them—or is that just a psychological crutch for the sake of morale? Lensman-style, the beam and slugs and particles bore into the ships with no room for maneuver. There are magnetically-suspended "sand" screens, and there is hull armor, there is energy absorptive hull-plating which gamely tries to channel the energy into your own capacitors even as the plating melts and shorts out, but in short, it's fucking murder. Both ships are likely to be crippled; even if you have advantage of numbers, someone gets mauled. People blown to bits, radiation burns for the survivors, breaches and cut wiring everywhere. 

Did we mention that warpships are among the most expensive and valuable pieces of equipment in the galaxy?

Because of this, no one likes to actually ''fight'' battles. It's all a chess game of bluff and counter-maneuver. You shift ships into a system, they shuffle their fleets around, you make like you ''could'' attack if you wanted to, they make like they ''could'' defend, you shift away to another direction… Occasionally things do come to brief blows. Rarely do things come to full battle—but when they do, all bets are off. 

How's this play out on the strategic scale? There are interstellar warp missiles, either deployed independently, or launched by "boomer ships", in analogy to ICBMs and ABMs—or lurking like seamines—that maintain a stand-off balance of power. Warpships show the flag in outlying territories, probe "neutral space" for advantage, and there are standing forces in the core, waiting for a battle that everyone thinks will never come… and prays it won't. In-system, you see lots of normal traffic, including conventional-space patrol ships, lightly armed for customs interdiction, or toting heavier weapons for forlorn hope defense against invasion… and screens of monitor stations and orbital cannon around the worlds, dispersed and ready for warp attack. Plus hidden ground-based weapons and jammers, forming the final line of defense.

Once you have space superiority, you have tremendous advantage over any ground forces, because you can see everywhere, fly everywhere, and transport everywhere—except deep underground. But you still need infantry to take and hold ground, and transports for them, and armor to support assaults. Thus, teledropped troops, a few landmate power armor suits, and plenty of teledroppable air or surface transport vehicles. Infantry operate more dispersed than we're familiar with, thanks to modern communications, and have the advantage of drones and lots of clever portable kit, but they're still limited to running on foot—and, what with electronic warfare, often reduced to shouting out targets spotted visually. The presence of stunners and modern medicine make hostage-taking a viable tactic in conflict between nations—you can trade their troops for yours.

Honestly, most of this tech never gets used. The last big wars were the General War over fifty years ago, which was mostly a series of vicious border skirmishes, and an incursion by an aggressive Borg Hive twenty years ago, which was terrifying because the Borg apparently ''didn't care'' about their losses—which were considerable. They lost. Most combat we're likely to see are border incidents, anti-piracy patrols in out-systems, and police actions. 

==== Commentary ====

'''MadDogMike:''' For photon torpedoes, I'm assuming they're probably the modern version of the transporter ortillery. An FTL-speed weapon would be quite helpful in most space engagements, though sensors are probably still light speed so you have to think ahead to know where to place long-range weapons fire (and thus can miss). One thought is wondering what happens when the warp bubble of the torp hits the warp bubble of a ship. If it collapses both, torps could work as a way to stop people from fleeing easily or ambushing other ships; maybe have "non-lethal" torps that skip the warhead part and just stop a fleeing ship or one flying out of control, while warhead versions detach a second stage missile when they hit the target's warp bubble that goes in and hits them. Counter-torps would also be a possibility, knocking out incoming torpedo warp bubbles with their own. Not sure how it'd fit in with transporter jamming, unless maybe non-planetary based versions aren't perfect.

'''Shadowjack:''' Torpedoes to disrupt warp bubbles is exactly the way I've been thinking, but I hadn't considered teleport attacks… it seems to me like the transporter always takes lots of time to set up, more time than would make for effective weapons fire. On the other hand, artillery is pretty slow, too… You'd have to drop a lot of warheads, though, wouldn't you?


'''gc3:''' In Federal space, do they now put seatbelts on the bridge seats? I always wondered why the Enterprise crew had to grab onto things whenever the ship shook.

'''Shadowjack:''' Since I don't seem to have inertial dampers in this setting, yes, definitely. Probably crash helmets, too, come to think of it (which can seal in case of atmosphere loss). People who need to move about the ship wear padded suits. Since I see actual combat as short and intense—we've seen how powerful those weapons are!—punctuated by long periods of maneuver and repair, this ain't so bad. Suit up for the contact, and if you're still alive, get back to work. 


'''JRM:''' While it's true that it's virtually impossible to hide a spaceship from real-space sensors, because there's nothing to hide in in space, this does not entirely preclude "submarine warfare in space" stories in your proposed setting so long as it's ''FTL'' submarine warfare in space.

If the Romulan Warbird can hit you with a FTL torpedo several minutes or hours before the light from its current position reaches you to register on your real-space sensors, its low warp drive signature will become very important tactically.

The warbird's effectively invisible to enemy ship's realspace sensors because its stutterwarp allows it to be somewhere else ''before'' they see it.

'''Shadowjack:''' Got it in one! And succintly explains why system defense forces ''hate'' facing off against warpships…



'''Scarik:''' THe engines are what you detect, but if you power down its not hard at all to remain hidden. Even with today's tech we are very close to creating an effective cloaking device for atmospheric craft, namely fighter jets.

Since everything in space is line of sight it wouldn't be too hard to only hit your engines when you were behind a planet and effectively coast to your next hiding spot. If you have decent ECCM and a low signature you would be harder to see than an asteroid.

THe other Example would be pseudo-velocity, which is not inconsistent with current physics. Our current hyper-inflationary theory rests on space being able to expand faster than the speed of light, so an engine that allows an object to do that could easily count as a cloaking device. 

The enemy would detect your engine emissions long after you had left that location and would give you an effect much like the cloaking device. You know they are out there, but where is anyone's guess.

'''Shadowjack:''' Quantum starship detection? You can pin down where they are, or you can pin down their velocity, but you can't get both at once?



'''Mr Teufel''': Scarik, I'm afraid you're wrong. The reason stealth is practically impossible is because most of your spaceship has to be kept around 273 degrees Kelvin, yet space is 2' Kelvin. Fighter planes may be cloaked, but versus active radar.

'''Mapache:''' No, that just means you can't stay cloaked indefinitely. In the mean time, you just need an enormous internal heatsink that soaks up your emissions. Once it's full, then you're unmasked (though your heat signature is only visible at the speed of light, which is notable, if there's FTL travel going on). This leads to having limited stealth capabilities you need to use tactically, then go recharge them by radiating while you cool down your heat sink, which sounds like it makes for better stories than a permanent cloak would anyway.

'''Shadowjack:''' Damn it, I was trying to avoid having real cloaking devices, but powerful heat sinks are possible technology under my tech assumptions. And you've successfully explained an interpretation! 

Of course, it's not an absolute cloaking device, but it's certainly good for, say, "stealth recon" ships. Warp in, snoop for a while, warp out.

'''Mr. Teufel:''' Radiating that heat would be ''difficult''. Best to dump the heatsink itself. ['''Shadowjack:''' Good thinking.] Hmm... possibly several, as decoys when you uncloak? Interesting.

'''Radijs:''' And you'd still be very limited in what you can do even if you can dump all your heat in to a heatsink.
Because as soon as you turn on your cloak you cannot maneuver since your drive heat will be seen and of course, the waste heat will fill up your heat sink that much sooner. So you're stuck on the same course for several months. Better bring a BIG heatsink.