A true space-faring civilization would naturally develop projectile-less weapons. Discuss.

[kedrys]

The hand-held weapons, at least, don't you think?

[baldguy]

1. A true space-faring civilization would naturally develop beyond the need for weapons.

[kedrys]

2. Agreed, but not necessarily right away

I posit that there would be intermediate stages in such a civilization's development whereby the need for weapons would still exist, at least from an ideological point of view, if nothing else.

[Chan790]

3. Fundamentally disagree.

That is unless you're arguing that they're going to evolve into the ability to telepathically project thoughts, telekinetically control others and psychically-crush aggressors. (On that note, the Protoss from Starcraft are awesome.) That civilization would have no need for weapons.

All others are not immune or exempt from the reality of military-technical determinism. Necessity of violence between civilizations decreases ONLY in relation to the capacity of a civilization to asymmetrically-wield limitless obliterating force. Frequency of violence is measured not in the progression of a civilization but only in the relative progress of its' neighbors. A civilization moves asymptotically towards pacifism as its' capacity towards universal-annihilation increases and the danger from any other civilization decreases.

To put it another way, nobody attacks the civilization who can obliterate any aggressor by blinking and they possess no need towards aggression. The notion that a civilization can evolve beyond violence for the sake of peace is a lie. A nice lie, but nevertheless a lie.

[IDemo]

4. Fundamentally disagree

The technological differences between civilizations will almost always be tremendous, simply because of the vast span of time over which civilizations have to arise. The odds of two separately developed species and technologies being in such close proximity that anything like an actual armed conflict would be seen as necessary or advisable by either are vanishingly small. Any sufficiently advanced creatures would recognize that and act as if their safety depended on benevolent behavior, especially during their time spent in the first part of the learning curve of intergalactic socialization. They would know that any they might meet in the cosmos would understand this as well.

Secondly, although humanity has done quite well for itself by having evolved into an aggressive ape with a large forebrain, the side effects haven't always been desirable. In fact, the planet and much of our race has been crying for relief for awhile. If we make it through this period at all, I don't see us venturing forth into the galaxy Star Trek style with our human aggressions and frailties in place but guarded by high-energy beams. Bio-engineering and artificial intelligence will obviate the need for such an old sci-fi scenario - piling the crew into an oversized SUV and heading out in search of adventure. We may just encode our DNA along with care and feeding instructions and beam it in a few promising directions for an advanced civilization to download.

Conflict with "The Other" makes for passable science fiction and Republican campaigning, but it likely won't be a reality outside of our little rock.

[WildEyedLiberal]

8. +1

That's why Star Trek's pacifism annoyed me, because there were multiple other alien races who were clearly not pacifists. Pacifism in the face of an armed, aggressive foe is a good way to become a martyr.

[quakerboy]

14. Why?

Can you give examples of how expanding our reach by means of improved transportation has brought us beyond the need for weapons?

[krispos42]

5. If they have that much control over that much power, then I would think so.

Especially if they have superconducters that can keep the laser components from melting down.


Hand-held weapons would be the hardest, in that you would have to create a power source that a) has incredibly high energy density, b) is able to discharge that energy in high-powered spurts repeatedly and without overheating, and c) only weighs a couple of pounds. Land-based fixed-emplacement weapons would be the easiest, followed by space-borne and vehicle-borne.

There could be other non-projectile weapons that only work in space, such as plasma or nuclear-particle weapons.

They could also have high-powered projectile weapons, weapons that throw very small bullets at extraordinary high velocities. I'm talking sizable fractions of the speed of light.


Laser weapons have a potential problem for combat in that there is no kinetic-energy or momentum transfer, which could be a weakness at close range. No shock to temporarily incapacitate an attacker could mean bad things when the bad guy is point-blank in front of you. You might fatally wound somebody... but they don't realize it until after they've emptied a magazine of old-fashioned bullets into you.

Unless of course it's a really powerful continuous-beam laser that slices and dices like that scene in "Resident Evil".

[kentauros]

6. You might want to look at Babylon 5's "PPG" for handheld:

http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/PPG


Also, one weapon that's relatively low-tech, but more destructive than energy weapons is the "mass driver":
http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_driver

It's use is more for ship to planet/planetoid purposes than ship to ship...

[krispos42]

7. Ah, see, they have to get around the dispersal problem with some kind of

electromagnetic "bubble".

Hmmm... wonder if it would work.



The mass-driver would probably be used as some kind of torpedo launcher. Guided or unguided fusion bombs launched to very high velocities. Or small kinetic penetrators launched to EXTREMELY high velocities.

[kentauros]

9. The beauty of the mass-drive is you can launch anything with it,

so long as it can be moved through the magnetic field. That can be achieved simply with a ferrous casing as a carrier. The highest acceleration I've seen of our current technology in this device was something like 300,000 Gs. Yeah, three-hundred-thousand times the force of one Earth gravity! :o

As for the PPG, you'd probably have to talk to JMS, the creator of B5, about the feasibility of them. Although, within the series, many of the people at JPL loved the http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/SA-23E_Mitchell-Hyundyne_Starfury">Starfuries, their individual fighters, possibly due to their maneuverability. They might be able to better explain how a PPG could work :D

[krispos42]

11. I just pulled out a notebook and a calculator

I figure a .30-06 rifle bullet has an average acceleration of 65,344g as it travels down a gun barrel. Takes one and one-third milliseconds.

A real barnburner of a cartridge can hit 4,000 feet per second; that's about 90,000g.

For comparison. :-)

[kentauros]

13. Thanks for the comparison numbers

:)

I remember touring the electrical engineering labs at UT-Austin in 1976 when my oldest brother was graduating and they had their 9' "rail-gun" on display as well as its power course: a homopolar generator. Basically, it was a big motor, probably gotten from the oil industry, and rigged to reverse polarity once they'd spun it up to speed (don't remember the rpm's.) When braked to nothing in less than a second, all the kinetic energy was converted to electrical energy and channeled through inch-thick electrical busbar. They also used it for their seamless pipe-welder, and it really was seamless :o

But I think they could get 100k Gs out of their little rail-gun, and that was 25 years ago ;)

[petronius]

10. I'm not sure that notion of a 'space-faring civilization' necessarily implies access to

exorbitant amounts of power. It seems that there are plenty of scenarios in which the old-fashioned gun is still the most efficient choice. And on the other end of the energy scale, as you pointed out, different forms of projectile weapons become possible.

My guess is that a technologically advanced society would improve current tools and add to the repertoire, but not abandon what currently works...

[kentauros]

12. One reason I brought up Babylon 5 is that

the future civilization of Earth hasn't given up the "slug-thrower" either, but it isn't allowed on spaceships or space stations for pretty obvious reasons (you might decompress a ship/station by blowing a hole in it if you miss your target.)

It is referred to as an "antique" weapon, but may not have been entirely abandoned for use on planets, where you don't have the problem of losing your interior atmosphere ;)

[undeterred]

15. What about a space-farting civilization?

Thats how I misread the question.

[InvisibleTouch]

16. Projectile weapons on a space station are a truly bad idea. n/t