Defensive nukes that some pre-spacefaring civilisations can use in lieu of a proper orbital defense network, please. I want to see an invasion go to shit when a civilisation with nothing left to fight with but nukes starts bombing the attacker.
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I hate to be the one to bring this up but if you were in a war of extermination then the most effective way would be a bio-engineered plague that is designed to only kill the target species.
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Usually STO stuff is just not explained in any capacity. Star wars craft can just sort of take off and land at will but we never find out how that works, it's just part of the setting that they can do that. I would say the majority of SF works are like this. FTL may or may not be high energy, something like The Mote in God's Eye (one of the best SF works in my mind that deals with first contact, highly recommend) the FTL is "easy" while the STL is extremely hard - FTL occurs between specific natural points in star systems, but they need to get to those points in order to activate their teleport, which often takes days or weeks. In Mass Effect, FTL is easy to achieve on small objects that lack complex power sources such as the shuttle craft, while military vessels use fusion generators and larger mass effect cores to get extremely high performance. But the STO is not "hard" because the mass effect cores lower the mass of objects in their area of effect. So instead of an ultra high power engine, they make the job of pushing uphill much easier through exotic technology.
But like I say, many settings just don't bother to provide an explanation because it's not important in any way to stories they want to tell. I'd say that settings that do explain it but resort to using ultra high power densities to "brute force" it all are prone to inconsistency in other ways. Like if you just have these massive fusion torch engines that can pull 10Gs of acceleration for a month continuously and effortlessly lift off from a planet under full load in no time flat, it makes use of uncomfortable levels of energy density such that any spacecraft is automatically a WMD. An implication which is rarely explored in these works.
I have such a strange relationship with that film. It's fun but it's also doing a huge disservice to the source material.
Maybe, but if bioengineering technology is very advanced they may be able to cure it relatively easily, or be using some kind of future nano-tech based artificial immune system, or they are able to use quarantine procedures effectively, and so on.
I thought this thread was about Stellaris' actual ground warfare mechanic. But we're discussing about the effective use of ground troops in a high sci-fi setting altogether.
I don't understand how the use of space fleets could deny the need for ground forces. As for the contemporary military debate if you could win a war just with air forces, It all depends on the strategic objectives of the war you're fighting. If your objective is to deny the enemy the space superiority, embargo him, cripple his economy then space fleets can do the job alone. In a war of conquest/defense we presume that you want to get the enemy's worlds with their population and infrastructure as intact as possible. And you need the good ol' Infantry for that. Bombing the planet would destroy the world's usefulness without touching its military power of interdiction as probably most of its troops would be well beneath the surface, even out of the reach weapons of mass destruction.
At this level of technology, glassing a planet is not part of a war of conquest. It's a war of annihilation and it's a completely different beast.
You could say that glassing a city or a planet could be used as a political tool to enforce your terms (as the atomics in WW2) but remember that in this case your enemy has the same capability to destroy your planets as you and in the end you could both end with a lot of burnt worlds in hand.
I don't understand how the use of space fleets could deny the need for ground forces. As for the contemporary military debate if you could win a war just with air forces, It all depends on the strategic objectives of the war you're fighting. If your objective is to deny the enemy the space superiority, embargo him, cripple his economy then space fleets can do the job alone. In a war of conquest/defense we presume that you want to get the enemy's worlds with their population and infrastructure as intact as possible. And you need the good ol' Infantry for that. Bombing the planet would destroy the world's usefulness without touching its military power of interdiction as probably most of its troops would be well beneath the surface, even out of the reach weapons of mass destruction.
At this level of technology, glassing a planet is not part of a war of conquest. It's a war of annihilation and it's a completely different beast.
You could say that glassing a city or a planet could be used as a political tool to enforce your terms (as the atomics in WW2) but remember that in this case your enemy has the same capability to destroy your planets as you and in the end you could both end with a lot of burnt worlds in hand.
I think it can look like this:
"There is no time to be lost!
Battle bruvas! Spess mahrens!
Today the enemy is at our door.
We know our duty and we will do it!
We fight as spess mahress, as Blood Ravens
and we fight in the name of the Emprah!
If we die this day we die in glory
We die heroes deaths!
But NO!
It is the enemy who will taste death and defat, as you know!
Most of our battle bruvas are stationed in space, prepared to deep strike!
Our perimeter has been prepared in the event that our enemies would be so bold and so foolish.
We have placed numerous beacons, allowing for multiple, simulteanous and devastating defensive deep strikes!
Codes Astartes names this manuvever Steel Rain.
We will descend upon the foe, we will overwhelm them, we will leave none alive!
Me and our ground forces will ensure full defense of headquaters.
We are the space marines! We are the Emperor's Fury!"
"There is no time to be lost!
Battle bruvas! Spess mahrens!
Today the enemy is at our door.
We know our duty and we will do it!
We fight as spess mahress, as Blood Ravens
and we fight in the name of the Emprah!
If we die this day we die in glory
We die heroes deaths!
But NO!
It is the enemy who will taste death and defat, as you know!
Most of our battle bruvas are stationed in space, prepared to deep strike!
Our perimeter has been prepared in the event that our enemies would be so bold and so foolish.
We have placed numerous beacons, allowing for multiple, simulteanous and devastating defensive deep strikes!
Codes Astartes names this manuvever Steel Rain.
We will descend upon the foe, we will overwhelm them, we will leave none alive!
Me and our ground forces will ensure full defense of headquaters.
We are the space marines! We are the Emperor's Fury!"
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Wrong question. Correct question would be: "How ground troops fight on planets?". I am almost expecting to see something like chess or some other mini-game with tokens, given that planets are divided into provinces.
TBH you probably wouldn't need that many soldiers to occupy a planet if you have big spaceships orbiting it. A small army that can be deployed and moved rapidly can control quite a large area and if you can jump between solar systems moving a few thousand men around a planet to take it over is easy.
intresting prospect perhaps all police and military buiness in the future would be handled by space stations in orbit.
I think someone has said the same about air power and infantry, they later had to eat their words and get boots on the ground.
You can crush any kind of organized resistance from orbit, dropping a couple hundred kilos of titanium on someone's head from orbit is a remarkably good way to make them stop resisting. Problem is once you can't drop said titanium rod on someone's head since they're camping out in the middle of a factory you want to keep, or they operate in small groups which don't warrant turning the landscape into wasteland or your people just don't like getting titanium rods dropped on their lawn just because their neighbour is being an arse.
"I propose a new, egalitarian system of justice. Now, anyone who is reported to have committed a crime will be judged by a "Trial by Rod." If we drop a titanium rod on him from orbit, and he survives, clearly, he is innocent. If not, then he is guilty!"
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A stellar plan, I think I'll institute that one in my empire along other true and tested ways of determining innocence. Tie them up, drop them in the lake and drop a rod on them. If they survive, they're clearly twice as innocent as anyone else around them. Time to test the rest!
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Which is why I mentioned a small ground army. You dominate the planet with your big death ships that can bomb targets anywhere and at any moment while your army occupies those areas you do not want to destroy and clears them of enemy forces.
I could actually see that happening.
I don't think the future has the need for planetary occupation. Once the enemy fleet and planetary defenses are destroyed, the threat of elimination by itself forces the planet to submit. If the demands are not met, a couple of cities/continents are nuked to set the example. There is no need to occupy anything but the near space (and yes, space station off the planet would do it just nicely). Ground troops are obsolete. You may still have special forces for special missions, but they shouldn't be represented in game of this scale.
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What makes you think that nuking will be any more acceptable in the future than it is today?
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Nuking is only good if you don't care about the planet and its resources. Otherwise it's not an optimal solution and ground forces are preferable.
If you don't think the future has any place for planetary occupation you first need to convince me why the present ( with exactly the same destruction potential and elimination by force options available ), doesn't have a place for ground forces and occupation.
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