CT Only: Barbarian

[rancke]

And have a run-in with bureacrats who have no access to computers.
"I'm sorry, my off-world bretheren from between the stars, but we have to send the request to allow you to use the lake to refuel to the Court. And as you know, that takes a horse to courier it all the way. That'll take weeks."

"But sir, we have a grav-truck that can make the journey in a few -"

"IT. IS. COURIERED. BY! HORSE!!! That is the COURT APPOINTED way!"

This would work only if the Imperium (or someone else) backed the local bureaucrats with armed might. Ultra-tech armed might, that is. Otherwise the offworlders would just load up on water, leave a few technological glass beads in payment if they were honest men or nothing if the weren't, and take off again.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Generally, yes.

... but IEDs can be manufactured at TL 1, so I pity the SECOND ship to try that.

["I'm just a simple blacksmith. I might not be able to forge a barrel strong enough to let me put a 20 mm lead ball through his head, but I bet I can forge a pipe bomb."]

 

[rancke]

Generally, yes.

... but IEDs can be manufactured at TL 1, so I pity the SECOND ship to try that.

To build and deploy at TL1 an improvised explosive device capable of inconveniencing a starship is not a simple task. My money would be on the starship.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Generally, yes.

... but IEDs can be manufactured at TL 1, so I pity the SECOND ship to try that.

["I'm just a simple blacksmith. I might not be able to forge a barrel strong enough to let me put a 20 mm lead ball through his head, but I bet I can forge a pipe bomb."]

Good luck rolling all those barrels of gunpowder up to the side of the ship...

perhaps you can get a large ape-like alien to help you

 

[Sir Brad]

Wax Wad filled with a binary reactive that doesn't go boom till it reaches a critical point throw them near the intake pipe, they woun't go off till there in the Fule bunker. or just salt the water sources with sealed viles of reactants, they get sucked up and when they get cracked open when the ship tries to process the fuel BOOM!

 

[rancke]

Wax Wad filled with a binary reactive that doesn't go boom till it reaches a critical point throw them near the intake pipe, they woun't go off till there in the Fule bunker. or just salt the water sources with sealed viles of reactants, they get sucked up and when they get cracked open when the ship tries to process the fuel BOOM!

There are so many things wrong with that plan, starting with the fact that if you can make binary reactives, you're tech level is way above 1.

But let's say your empire has bought something effective from some passing free trader. How are you going to deploy it to every lake on a planet? How are you going to deploy it to every part of a single lake, for that matter? And why would you invest your foreign currency in preventing passing starships from refuelling instead of something more useful? And what happens next if you do manage to injure/destroy a starship belonging to an interstellar power and it sends a warship to remonstrate with you?


Hans

 

[Sir Brad]

lots of Reactives that occur naturally or can be refined using even TL0 equipment, the Science to realise what the hell they are normally dosen't show up till TL3 and understand them till TL4.

 

[rancke]

lots of Reactives that occur naturally or can be refined using even TL0 equipment, the Science to realise what the hell they are normally dosen't show up till TL3 and understand them till TL4.

That's very interesting. Can you give some examples?

So if I'm wrong about that, how about the rest of my arguments? How do you deploy the deterrents, and what do you do when the warships arrive?


Hans

 

[aramis]

Platinum and Palladium can be separated using glass containers, acid (aqua regia, which can be made from sulfuric acid and salt), ammonium chloride, and ammonia. Ammonia can be made as soon as you can distill. Same for chlorine, which you combine with ammonia to make the ammonium chloride.

Sulfuric acid is made with sulfur and potassium nitrate (saltpeter), which can be developed from rotting fecal matter.

Thing is, platinum and palladium were discovered almost by accident - picking the wrong reagent for a dissolved gold in aqua regia solution.

 

[HG_B]

Wax Wad filled with a binary reactive that doesn't go boom till it reaches a critical point throw them near the intake pipe,

The 1st thing on an intake pipe is a mesh filter to keep fish and other large items from being sucked in.

But, if you can make explosives you can also create a shaped charged REALLY easily.

 

[mike wightman]

Aqua regia is a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid by the way.

 

[HG_B]

Aqua regia is a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid by the way.

Yep. One of the 1st things I made in chem in J.H.

 

[aramis]

Aqua regia is a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid by the way.

And was originally synthesized from sulphuric acid and table salt. Which can both be made at TL1...

 

[Jame]

This would work only if the Imperium (or someone else) backed the local bureaucrats with armed might. Ultra-tech armed might, that is. Otherwise the offworlders would just load up on water, leave a few technological glass beads in payment if they were honest men or nothing if the weren't, and take off again.


Hans

Yes, though I posit that the "barbarians" might be willing to try their force on the offworlders, which is why I quote the following...

Generally, yes.

... but IEDs can be manufactured at TL 1, so I pity the SECOND ship to try that.

["I'm just a simple blacksmith. I might not be able to forge a barrel strong enough to let me put a 20 mm lead ball through his head, but I bet I can forge a pipe bomb."]

Presuming that the "simple blacksmith" talked to an engineer or a soldier, or knows that much chemistry or alchemy.

 

[rancke]

Does this generic TL1 world have more than one body of water? If so, does the empire control every one? If so, does it have the resources to seed every part of every lake and ocean with anti-ship devices?

And if it does, what happens next when the interstellar community finds out that the barbarians of this world has had the temerity to damage one of their ships?


Hans

 

[Sir Brad]

don't need to do them all, just the one(s) at (near) the down port.

for a company who got a damaged ship well they can either abandon the market or take the hint, perhaps open a trade station to expedite stuff like this in the future, if they are a free trader, well that's the price of doing business for not being switched on enough to pay the bribe.

 

[rancke]

don't need to do them all, just the one(s) at (near) the down port.

A starship can move to the other side of the world in a few hours.

for a company who got a damaged ship well they can either abandon the market or take the hint, perhaps open a trade station to expedite stuff like this in the future, if they are a free trader, well that's the price of doing business for not being switched on enough to pay the bribe.

I'm unsure of what assumptions you're making here and what points you're trying to make.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Okay, but as Hans points out:

To build and deploy at TL1 an improvised explosive device capable of inconveniencing a starship is not a simple task. ...

(emphasis added)

Let's understand the hurdles. It has to be able to do damage to a hull that is supposedly strong enough to withstand WW-II tank guns; that alone is quite ambitious for any explosive agent within reach of a TL1 society. And, it has to be able to project that power far enough to control the area you're trying to protect. All the ship needs to do is land in the middle of the lake out of range of your measures to make your effort difficult to impossible - or hover over the lake and drop a hose down. AND, it has to be available in quantities sufficient to cover diverse possible locations where the trespasser might set down. There's a huge gap between making a destructive agent and being able to accurately deliver it in the face of defensive efforts by the target, which - again, as Hans points out - can be as simple as moving to a different part of the lake or moving to a different lake.

I can build a dandy trebuchet at TL1, load it up with whatever hostile agent you guys decide on, maybe even deliver it with good accuracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN18I-RBVm4

What I cannot do is give it the range to protect more than a very small body of water. If you want to say what goes on more than a few hundred yards from shore, you'll have to row a boat out and hope he isn't gone before you get there - and if he lands in the middle of something the size of Lake Huron, you're just never going to know he's been there unless some boat just happened to be in the vicinity when he does it. There simply IS no power to extend jurisdiction beyond about a few hundred yards of shore at TL1 short of boats, and those will be limited not just by their visual horizon but by the power they can carry and the speed with which they can deliver it. Heck, just patrolling the entire shore against such an intrusion would be a daunting undertaking.

And unless that's the only lake on the entire blessed planet, all he has to do is move a ways off and he'll be fueling somewhere where they've not yet received word of his previous encounter. Lands, begins refueling, "Wait, you can't...", "Oh, I'm sorry, ...", takes off, moves a few miles, lands, begins refueling, "Wait, you can't...", and so forth, repeat until fueled.

At the end of it all the man could come by, suck up the water, go laser the local port town, and then come back next month to a different part of the world where they never heard the tale. Such is the nature of TL1 communications.

 

[Sir Brad]

to relocate takes time, a few hours hear and there doesn't mean that much, but over a year with that world (or a few worlds like it ) on your rout that's a few jumps worth of time and that cuts in to your margins, I work in Logistics Administration ATM and unpaid waiting time can cost you more than not taking the run.


on the 2nd point, if this is a regular port of call for a company or line a small staffed office at the Court with a comms uplink can start the paperwork as soon as the incoming ship makes breakout, or before if the ship is running to a regular schedule, then deliver the paperwork to the companies Down Port by a private courier. For independent operators if on a information age or later tech code world no one has bean able to back trace a sack of used unmarked bills of mixed dominations over the Net, the same should hold true for an extra purse of precious metal coins among those tendered for all the other Fee's Charges and Tariffs on a pre-industrial world.

 

[rancke]

to relocate takes time, a few hours hear and there doesn't mean that much, but over a year with that world (or a few worlds like it ) on your rout that's a few jumps worth of time and that cuts in to your margins, I work in Logistics Administration ATM and unpaid waiting time can cost you more than not taking the run.

Actually, assuming an extra six hours spent each visit, it's a jump every 60 visits.

But I hadn't realized that your official was angling for a bribe; I thought he was just being a Petty Bureaucrat. Sure, paying a little bribe could be worth it to save six hours. Emphasis on the 'little', though.

on the 2nd point, if this is a regular port of call for a company or line a small staffed office at the Court with a comms uplink can start the paperwork as soon as the incoming ship makes breakout, or before if the ship is running to a regular schedule, then deliver the paperwork to the companies Down Port by a private courier.

Much easier to bribe someone at the Court to give a blanket permission to all the company's ships.

For independent operators if on a information age or later tech code world no one has bean able to back trace a sack of used unmarked bills of mixed dominations over the Net, the same should hold true for an extra purse of precious metal coins among those tendered for all the other Fee's Charges and Tariffs on a pre-industrial world.

A drawer full of ultra-tech "glass beads" would make for even cheaper bribes, but a handful of metal would work too. I'm not sure why they have to be untraceable, though.


Hans