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[WIP] [HSF] "Citadels in space" setting I'm working on

• Author: u/akaltyn *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7ut9sk/wip_hsf_citadels_in_space_setting_im_working_on/

• Score: 20

• Created: 2018-02-02T18:16:04

Post:

In universe document: "The Rules of Space Warfare"

The first rule of space warfare is that it is pointless.

• A ship or habitat can took decades of work, and had a cost measured in GDP, can be destroyed by any high speed bit of matter.
• Keeping humans alive in space is hard enough at the best of times, without sudden holes in your habitat or being rapidly chucked out of orbit.
• The idea of "defence" is a joke, the best you can hope for is mutually assured destruction followed by bitter political and legal recriminations groundside.
• Having the strongest punch matters little when you both shatter like glass.

The second rule is that people do it anyway.

• Getting anything into space is extraordinarily expensive, establishing the infrastructure to have a sustainable habitat and population is exponentially more so. However, taking possession of something that someone else has put all that effort into making, thats a lot cheaper, and therefore very tempting.
• This leads to a strange form of limited warfare, where the primary objective on both sides is to minimise destruction. Weapons and tactics that risk damaging the prize are prohibited by simple self interest.
• While not as prohibitively expensive as the habitats, humans are also a valuable resource in space, costing a lot in terms of fuel, and almost always possessing highly valuable skills. As such casualties are generally minimsed, though not entirely avoided. The aftermath of a capture is more likely to end with a swift transfer of contracts, or ransoms, than a massacre.
• Imagine medieval knights fighting over a castle of gold and glass, that might shatter at any moment.

The third rule is as above so below, as below so above.

• Ultimately space presence is an extension of earthside presence. Even the most advanced habitat cannot survive a meaningful length of time without support from below.
• So any successful action in space has to be accompanied by actions below. Most often an establishment of a compromise between the states or corporations involved.
• Equally the reality in space imposes on the actors below. You can file cases and petition governments all you like, in the hope of eventual restitution. While in the meantime an asset of incalculable value is in the hands of your enemy. Or you can legalise that reality by accepting an offer of "purchase" that is at least within the realm of its actual value.
• All takeovers are hostile takeovers afterall, and war is just business by other means.

Background notes on worldbuilding:

This setting derives from my thought on how to establish a setting using near future technology in space, with realistic physics as much as possible. This means that living in space is as difficult and expensive as it realistically would be, though not as much as it is in the modern era.

The warfare idea came from trying to think of realistic forms of conflict in this setting. Classical ship to ship slugging matches make little sense, but instantaneous destruction from a distance is boring in the extreme. But it occured to me that the very value of the space habitats could justify a more interesting form of warfare, focused on safely disabling the enemy craft/habitat and crew. Which justifies non lethal weaponry, and some small elements of infantry combat. E.g. you might start by disabling a stations systems through hacking or EMP, while the crew are scrambling to get oxygen masks and fix the problems you send in a small team of spacesuited soldiers to disable them and take control.

Once I had that idea I leaned on the analogies with late medieval warfare, where conflicts often happened between professional soldiers with agreed rules and conventions of war. With a battle for a habitat being analogous to the capture of a medieval castle, where the main objective was control not destruction. Also with thematic elements of individuals as resources for the distant rulers, and a mercenary attitude to who is in charge at any given moment.

I was also inspired by a line on Atomic Rocket where in the context of explaining why traditional scifi war is implausible it mentions how a setting with lots of small ships moving around in relatively dense earth orbit could make for interesting dynamics (partial explanation here as part of much longer article).

Also inspired by the setting of Luna New Moon, with its combination of states and corporations, and limited law and order.

Background

A lot of the background is kept deliberately underdefined for the moment.

But definite parts are that there is is a permanent human population in space in the region of a few thousand, mostly in various levels of earth orbit, spreading out to the moon and lagrange zones. With maybe a token presence on or around mars. These are mostly in space habitats or relatively slow moving ships (which is arguably the same thing in a hard scifi setting) With populations normally in the range of a dozen people, but but 100+ not unheard of.

One element I want to heavily avert is the idea that space presences become inevitably isolated from their earth backers and infrastructure.

There are no independent or rebel space stations, all have to be supported by earth side entities like nation states or large coroporations, often with several cosponsoring the same project. This means that they would be in constant communication with instructions and support directing their activities, in a similar way to how present day astronauts have their activities planned out and directed in minute detail. Imagine an astronaut repairing a system with constant dialogue and direction from experts on the ground. Also PR and politics on earth is an ongoing factor.

This is also useful narratively as a source of conflict. E.g. Obsessive oversight becomes suffocating, beaurocratic infighting between sponsors, the objectives and priorities of the groundside controllers are different from the workers in space. (Think Office Space, in Space!). And if contact is for some reason cut off then thats a strong signal that Shit Just Got Real.

Economics is a bit unclear, sincethey need some good reason to make having people in space economically viable. For the moment I'm thinking undefined research goals, microgravity manufacturing, maintaining orbital communications, military presence for the protection of the above and tourism, but open to suggestions.

(I like the idea of having a lot of very serious minded space station staff having to play host to tourists and "investors" periodically, because they are necessary to make the project economically viable.)

Story ideas:

The main one I've been playing around with as an introduction to the setting is a crew going abot normal day on an research/tourist station, before being disrupted by an attack.

Potentially signalling this as the first time such an attack has taken place. Characters discuss or quote something similar to Rule 1, which is then subverted over the course of the story.

Possible character arc is a technically competent astronaut who is used to working on technical projects with contiunous communication with earth having to make solo tactical and leadership decisions when communications are shut off and they are attacked.

Other less formed ideas are something longer term and bigger picture about the expansion and establishment of habitats, with larger blocs forming. Also has room for a lot of smaller stories about internal dynamics in different habitats.

Comments:

u/Izeinwinter [+9] (a day later)

Economic goals: 1: Types of manufacture noone sane wants anywhere near the biosphere. - that is, experimental self-replicants, solvents and acids that are extremely useful and also just ridiculously toxic, raw material extraction and refining in bulk. : Generally speaking earthside takes externalities very seriously which means a lot of heavy industry is automated off world. Workers on the space station are obsessively safety conscious because if anything they worked with was in any way shape or form safe, it would be happening on a ground side installation in Germany or something. This also makes soldiers very nervous because breaking a vat of goo has a very good chance of dissolving you. All of this type of activity is mostly near earth, to keep the supply chains and inevitable evacuations short. Space stations that go grey goo are focused with mirrors until they reach temperature equilibrium with the sun, which is a very reliable solution.

The mining is not near earth. Melting down asteroids happens where the asteroids are.

2: Big Science. Further out, mostly because most of these projects need very empty space. Huge telescope arrays, probes shot out to do gravity lens work from beyond Pluto, LISA...

u/SoylentRox [+6] (a day later)

Possible character arc is a technically competent astronaut who is used to working on technical projects with contiunous communication with earth having to make solo tactical and leadership decisions when communications are shut off and they are attacked.

Keep in mind that since we have handheld satellite phones today, the opposite also is possible. A handheld device could be used to communicate with ground, assuming it has LoS with one of the massive ground stations any major space agency will have.

Our astronaut merely needs to shield his device from any jammers the enemy is using such that no jammer can see the phone while it can see the antenna.

u/None [+4] (a day later)

As above, so below - as below, so above - any competent corporate strike would probably be accompanied by an attack - social, software, hardware, whatever - to minimize the ability of the target to communicate with their handlers on the ground.

u/SoylentRox [+2] (a day later)

Maybe. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am skeptical that this is a practical action the enemy can take. Storm the place with dudes wearing armored suits and carrying environment appropriate weapons? Sure. But jamming the signals for days and preventing all communications isn't.

u/EthanCC [+3] (2 days later)

But on the other hand, if your goal is to ruin a competitor or if you are at a military disadvantage, there's no reason no to just destroy a space station. I don't think this situation would be stable, since anyone at a disadvantage can just flip the table. And that's not getting into political reasons for destroying a space station.

u/stevedoesIP [+2] (3 days later)

On the economics what if you had reliable terraforming tech, but it took thousands of years and was finnicky (I.E. required constant monitoring and tweaking by present staff or settlers).

To make that work you essentially need an on site society, but owning a significant chunk of a livable planet is definitely a worthwhile investment.

u/ben_oni [+1] (2 days later)

Just install self-destruct devices on all stations. If a station ever falls into enemy hands, just destroy it. What's the point of capturing something that will fall apart on you as soon as you've taken it?

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