The Armory - Guns, Knives, and Axes

[Smitty-48]

The spaceships are expensive, the A.I.s to run them are most of the cost

The meat bag is there to watch over the taxpayers investment, and make sure it does what it's supposed to do.

I can't stay out even though I said I would! No, processing power is cheap and efficient compared to human life support systems. As you yourself have said, the major investment in the F35 is developing the software, not the cost of the individual hardware system to run it. Nothing is more expensive than life support, not to mention pesky humans limit your manuevering Gs and add an order of magnitude of useless mass to slow you down with their meatbags and life support. The combatant that goes unmanned will rule the space battlefield.

I just said that the humans do not trust Skynet to run their wars for them. t

The man in the loop is like a ICBM missileer. He has analog control. A Launch Key to override the A.I.

The public thinks the A.I. will go HAL 9000 and cause a nuclear war, so all sides insist on having man in the loop

There is also an international law of armed conflict requiring it

It's not total war, it's cold war.

[Smitty-48]

In terms of g, that's not a big issue, they're not moving that fast, you can't move that fast in closed ground

These are the close combat weapons, actual infantry battles are grinding, it's not dogfighting

Its fire and movement by troops, not X-wing fighters.

You sound like a cavalry general in 1913 explaining why his horse soldiers will still rule the battlefield despite machine guns and aircraft.

So?

[Smitty-48]

See the real bullshit is that everything goes to the limits of technology in war without restraint

But that's not true ; nobody has ever used a hydrogen bomb in combat.

We've had them for over fifty years, we've had wars, nobody has ever used an H-bomb

[Smitty-48]

It's not different than Kubrick

Why was there a crew on the Discovery?

Why wasn't HAL 9000 in charge?

What happened when HAL 9000 took over?

[Smitty-48]

It's not different than Kubrick

Why was there a crew on the Discovery?

Why wasn't HAL 9000 in charge?

What happened when HAL 9000 took over?

[Smitty-48]

The Smarter the A.I. gets, the less the public trusts it

The A.I. could turn on the humans.

So the public insists that the President have control.

So the meat bag is the officer from the Space Force Academy with the launch keys, reporting to Colorado Springs.

[Smitty-48]

This is why they use DEFCON

Everything that happens in space is strategic level ; could cause a nuclear war back on earth

So when the MBD's are in contact, that's DEFCON One.

[brewster]

See the real bullshit is that everything goes to the limits of technology in war without restraint

But that's not true ; nobody has ever used a hydrogen bomb in combat.

We've had them for over fifty years, we've had wars, nobody has ever used an H-bomb

That MAD theory depends on accountability, and accountability is dying. No one used gas for many decades till some guys in the middle east figured out there was no accountability, no one could prove anything. We couldn't hold any state accountable for 9/11 so we invaded an involved country. Again, had you read SF like The Expanseyou'd see a great example of big space militaries being end run and rendered impotent by unaccountable actors.

[Smitty-48]

See the real bullshit is that everything goes to the limits of technology in war without restraint

But that's not true ; nobody has ever used a hydrogen bomb in combat.

We've had them for over fifty years, we've had wars, nobody has ever used an H-bomb

That MAD theory depends on accountability, and accountability is dying. No one used gas for many decades till some guys in the middle east figured out there was no accountability, no one could prove anything. We couldn't hold any state accountable for 9/11 so we invaded an involved country. Again, had you read SF like The Expanseyou'd see a great example of big space militaries being end run and rendered impotent by unaccountable actors.

I have lots of unaccountable actors destabilizing things. Mars is the Crime Planet.

Mars was a dead end for colonization, but it's a great place to escape the rule of law and governance of earth,

[Smitty-48]

This is in the same genre as the Expanse, but not as technologically advanced

In Spacemerica you don't have the handwavium engine from the Expanse.

In Spacemerica you run out of fuel, and unlike in the Expanse, you run out of ammo really fast.