DataPacRat replied to me: > One perspective: The original story's setting included several urban > neighbourhoods in the Good Guys' country that were pretty much > chock-full of active terrorists; some investigation revealed that most > of the 'civilians' there were acting as support personnel, with very > few simply trying to hide in their apartments or otherwise keep out of > everyone's way and survive. Said terrorists simply didn't surrender - > at all. Active attacks had dispersed radioactive dust through a number > of Good-Guy government facilities, and otherwise caused enough ruckus > to spur the Good Guys to do whatever it takes to get rid of them.
Remarkably convenient for the attackers. Did they improvise the pigeons, or did they just happen to have some ready, in case it ever became moral to use them? > Another perspective: The setting I'm actually going to be using is > only partly based on that story - and, in contrast to how the story > went, the 'Good Guys' who came up with and used the Flocks ended up > going the route of (Evil?) Empire, and are now, some years later, the > main antagonists for my setting's Good Guys, the newly-forged polity > of 'New Attica' (consisting primarily of several habitats in orbit). > Since, in orbit, you're already halfway to anywhere, the New Atticans > could start dropping rocks on anyone they wanted... but they also have > to deal with the fact that any Earthly nation with access to a fighter > jet and 1980's missile technology (ie, all of them), could destroy any > hab it wanted. Could they try to lift their habs into higher orbit? An 80s ASAT may be good against LEO, but not against GEO. > So the New Atticans have gone for a policy of armed > neutrality to try to avoid doing anything (other than simply being > independent) to antagonize anyone, and the Earthly oligarchs are > kicking off all the 'interesting' shenanigans that one set of > governments can do to another short of outright war: espionage, > attempted sabotage, name-calling, framing for socially-unpalatable > crimes, and convincing third-parties to do extreme stuff and take the > rap if it goes wrong. This latter scenario is mainly what I'm fiddling > with the Pigeons for - as part of the background of materiel on hand > which could be used by a puppet government in an attempt to take > control of a New Attican hab without simply destroying it. If you are considering to use helicopters in an orbital station, are they big O'Neill cylinders or something like that? And can you use 40d(5) HEDP in a station without wrecking everything? > (The main character is also something of an amateur roboticist, > putting together junkbots from random bits she's salvaged from her > day-job (orbital junk clean-up), which is part of why I'm looking at > military-bots.) Military orbital robots at TL8? Tricky. * Small unmanned orbital vehicles to maintain solar power sats, commo sats, etc. * A top secret stealth variant to place bugs on enemy sats. * Spiders or crabs to help with the maintenance of ships and stations. * A more independent variant of that for SAR. * An armed variant of that for boarding parties. > > How close is possible? If the terrain allows the pigeons to sneak > > close without being engaged, it will also restrict them to just a > > few avenues of approach. > > If the combat zone is somewhere where a lot of guerrillas have a lot > of hiding spots, such as urban or forest... then that MBT is probably > going to want some support of its own, anyway. I thought the tank was on the same side as the infantry. > If such an enemy tank gets within range to lob shells at the base - > then friendly artillery hasn't been doing its job... <ahem> Have you looked at the railgun of my sample tank? > Well, I'm still trying to get the Pigeons /to/ work in a best case > scenario - if they can't work for even that, then I should drop the > whole idea. :) Rather than introducing all at once, how about this history? * The police start to use lots and lots of CCTV for surveillance in urban areas. Consider the footage from the London riots. * They develop software to monitor the cameras. For starters, just to alert a human operator for a closer look. Did that boy just offer to carry his grandma's bag, or did he snatch a purse? Let the human decide. * People in 'difficult' areas start to take potshots at the fixed CCTV cameras. The police respond by mounting their cameras on small UAVs. * These camera drones are programmed for 'target handoff' to track a suspect from the apparent crime scene to the attack, so that the police can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the guy who was arrested is exactly the same guy who robbed the old lady half an hour early. If they lost track even for a second, the case will be thrown out by the court. * They are also programmed to zoom in if a camera drone drops out of the net. * If they are lucky, the police can also go back in time and find out where the criminal came from. * The crime detection software gets extended by identification software. With a court order, the software can look for suspect, profile their movement. * Criminals realize that getting under a roof will break the evidence trail. After some consideration of civil liberties, the cops decide that they can mount paintball guns to 'mark' suspects. Now they can prove that a suspect is the same guy who was on camera half an hour before, even if they lost track for a moment. * Another step for the software would be to turn from crime detection to crime prediction. Does that person act like a drug dealer? Let a drone follow him anytime he leaves his flat. That could be a step by step development of much of the pigeon tech. What does it mean? - Police forces have limited budgets. Drones must be cheap, but they won't be expendable. - If they are as fast as a car, that is enough. - The system is designed to operate 24/7, not just for a quick mission. - The brains of the system sit in a fixed operations center, munching donuts and coffee. - Drones watch, they don't act much, at least not on their own initiative. - EW is not much of an issue. Now the military gets their hand on the stuff, in a counterinsurgency situation. What might they do? * Swap the paintball gun for a real gun and/or a kamikaze charge. Attacking probably remains an emergency option, drone attacks don't win the hearts and minds. * Redefine the criteria of the crime detection and crime prediction software. Does the person carry a gun, or does he dig a foxhole? * Add modular sockets for sensors like chemsniffers (gun oil and propellant) and thermographs. * Get some stealth and EW, if it isn't too expensive. * Make the operations center mobile. Now the war drags on, the home front isn't happy about casualties, and the engagement conditions for the UCAV get relaxed ... Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
