Supporting Pacification Campaigns

[rancke]

Interdiction is about the only long-term stable reason. The other examples in Sup 8 are all short term.

"Red Zone:" The Traveller's Aid Society travel zone classifications for a nation, world, or system which is dangerous to travellers. In general, the imposition of a red zone classification indicates the location is quarantined, interdicted by higher authority, or at war." [LANZ:16]​

So red zones are assigned by the TAS, not the Imperium, and it is assigned for various different reasons, one of which is interdiction.

Incidentally, the duration of an interdiction would presumably depend on the reason for the it. Some might be permanent (metal-eating microbes), others might be for centuries, others might be for decades, some might even... no, an full formal interdiction would take years to impose, so it would be for longer than a few years. But diseases and wars and other pragmatic reasons would last until the condition changed, however long or however short a time that would turn out to be.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

Red zone it and blast anything more than 3000m AGL. Some places you don't assimilate; you quarantine.

Invade if you have to, but surgical strikes or assassinations are usually cheaper. In any case, don't occupy. Leave again and let another government form. Repeat until you get a government with both the will and the ability to enforce the rules.

You could combine the methods, interdicting the world until you get the desired government.
Hans

Yeah, way to go Wil & Hans.

Redzone 'em, and if that gets to be too much trouble, redshirt 'em!

"If the religion/philosophy is likely to spread like a virus causing problems elsewhere, quarantine it, then eradicate it. In 200 years you can colonise from scratch..." - Dr Evil. :devil:

some might even... no, an full formal interdiction would take years to impose, so it would be for longer than a few years.
Hans

Why so long? Plant a small naval force in orbit - voila! Interdiction. It might take a little longer to publicise what you've done, but that's a different issue, and even that shouldn't take much longer than the communication time.

 

[Matt123]

Why so long? Plant a small naval force in orbit - voila! Interdiction. It might take a little longer to publicise what you've done, but that's a different issue, and even that shouldn't take much longer than the communication time.

At need imposing one can be done by a Patrol Cruiser, but he'd better have a good reason... And its unlikely such a quick decision needs to be made in the case of failed diplomacy with a religious based governmant.

It might take years to explore all the other options for absorption b4 locking the planet up & throwing away the key. Not too mention the local System Defence Forces may resist the efforts unless you send in the heavies. All of which takes time.

 

[rancke]

Why so long? Plant a small naval force in orbit - voila! Interdiction. It might take a little longer to publicise what you've done, but that's a different issue, and even that shouldn't take much longer than the communication time.

An Imperial interdiction requires the approval of a member of the Imperial family. It's a Big Deal. That's not to say the local duke can't impose a temporary interdiction of his own (I use the term "administrative interdict" for that sort of thing, but that's not canon), and presumably the TAS will redzone that sort of interdict too. But it's not what is usually meant when we talk about interdicts.


Hans

 

[rancke]

At need imposing one can be done by a Patrol Cruiser...

Provided the world in question has defenses weak enough that a single patrol cruiser can impose a blockade. Even then, fast smugglers should have a decent shot at getting through.


Hans

 

[Matt123]

Provided the world in question has defenses weak enough that a single patrol cruiser can impose a blockade. Even then, fast smugglers should have a decent shot at getting through.

It will be sufficient to deter law abiding merchant Captains. Despite the occasional smuggler the impact on the interdicted worlds interstellar economy will be significant. And re-inforcements, if deemed neccesary are only several weeks away.

Arguably tho' the goal of interdiction isn't neccesarily to stop all traffic (plague would be an exception...).

 

[rancke]

It will be sufficient to deter law abiding merchant Captains.

If that is the case, a Scout/Courier or even just a communication sattelite would be enough. But I doubt it is true.

Despite the occasional smuggler the impact on the interdicted worlds interstellar economy will be significant.

For the impact to be significant, the trade has to be significant. That means there would be huge profits to be made by defying the blockade, and if that is the case, there would be a lot more than the occasional smuggler. And that's just if the world doesn't have a merchant fleet of its own.



Hans

 

[aramis]

An Imperial interdiction requires the approval of a member of the Imperial family. It's a Big Deal. That's not to say the local duke can't impose a temporary interdiction of his own (I use the term "administrative interdict" for that sort of thing, but that's not canon), and presumably the TAS will redzone that sort of interdict too. But it's not what is usually meant when we talk about interdicts.


Hans

Source?

 

[rancke]

Source?

My first sentence:

"Interdictions must be approved by a member of the Imperial family, but generally such approval is given in response to a request from an interested service, almost always the Scouts or the Navy." [LDAM:34]​

The rest is my take, as I hope was clear.


Hans

 

[Matt123]

If that is the case, a Scout/Courier or even just a communication sattelite would be enough. But I doubt it is true.

It would be enough, but neither would carry the authority vested in the Navy.

For the impact to be significant, the trade has to be significant. That means there would be huge profits to be made by defying the blockade, and if that is the case, there would be a lot more than the occasional smuggler. And that's just if the world doesn't have a merchant fleet of its own.

It sounds like you are suggesting the megacorps or anyone else whom trades regularly with Imperial systems would happily defy an Imperial blockade. Risking falling out of favour and sanctions for the sake of temporary profits.

Identifying any blockade runners would be enough and impounding them at any Imperial system would be sufficient. The systems own merchant fleet would leave & not come back... And after a while/due process, the ships would be sold for peanuts to cover berthing costs.

There is no need to engage in a running combat with every blockade runner.

There are times when stopping every ship is vital, eg plague and the protection of Ancients technology. But economically you can get away with as little as a Patrol Cruiser and advising all nearby systems. That alone will stop 95% of merchant traffic.

 

[rancke]

It would be enough, but neither would carry the authority vested in the Navy.

Unless it was a Scout/Courier or sattelite owned by the IN. Whatever the case, it would carry the authority of whichever Imperial service that imposed the interdict.

It sounds like you are suggesting the megacorps or anyone else whom trades regularly with Imperial systems would happily defy an Imperial blockade. Risking falling out of favour and sanctions for the sake of temporary profits.

No, I'm stating my absolute belief that if the profits are commensurate with the risks, there will always be someone willing to run the risks. Who that might be would depend on local conditions. A megacorporation that was cosy with the local duke could well be one. A free trader with a fake transponder could be another.

Identifying any blockade runners would be enough and impounding them at any Imperial system would be sufficient.

Yes, it would (I've made the same argument concerning pirates). But that assumes that you can identify the blockade runners and have the political ability/will to enforce sanctions. ("One of OUR ships, you say, Admiral? Must be someone with a fake transponder. If you try to interfere with us on such a flimsy pretext, we'll complain to the Duke and the Emperor and break you and every other officer involved!")

The systems own merchant fleet would leave & not come back... And after a while/due process, the ships would be sold for peanuts to cover berthing costs.

The system's own ships would be buying at a premium, so they'd be able to find people who would sell. They probably wouldn't just waltz in and land in an Imperial starport with their transponders proclaiming their afiiliation.

There is no need to engage in a running combat with every blockade runner.

Blockade runners would be trying their best not to get involved in any fighting at all. Except, perhaps, local ships, which must be presumed to be manned by firecely loyal patriots who'd like nothing better than to shoot up an Impie ship.

There are times when stopping every ship is vital, eg plague and the protection of Ancients technology. But economically you can get away with as little as a Patrol Cruiser and advising all nearby systems. That alone will stop 95% of merchant traffic.

Not if the world you're trying to blockade has two patrol vessels.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

Not if the world you're trying to blockade has two patrol vessels.
Hans

I would imagine that part of any interdiction process would be confiscation of the world's spacecraft and (if it were strategically important) occupation of the starport.

You wouldn't get any more large freighters performing exposed orbital cargo shuttles. Smugglers would be limited to small streamlined ships capable of taking on cargo and fuel at secret remote RV locations. One or two might get by, but the fleets of them that would be necessary to maintain worthwhile interstellar trade would be obvious enough to ensure an interdiction patrol big enough to contain the situation.

The profits might be large (for a fleet, though not for a small ship) but Russian Roulette is a game few gamblers enjoy. More likely they'll go find a game with lower stakes.

 

[rancke]

I would imagine that part of any interdiction process would be confiscation of the world's spacecraft and (if it were strategically important) occupation of the starport.

You need a full scale invasion to do that. Which takes a lot more than just one patrol cruiser. Which is the point I was trying to make.

Once you've done that, you need to prevent the interdicted world from building more system defense vessels in secret down on the surface and from buying military vessels from outsiders. Which is easy enough to do if the world has a population level of 5 or 6 or 7, but gets hard when it can call on the economic resources of hundreds or thousands of millions. You really can't blockade a high-population world on the cheap, unless its TL is quite low.

I'm not saying the Imperium can't do it. I'm saying it can't do it unless it commits some serious assets.


Hans

 

[aramis]

No, Hans, you just need some 4m x1m steel rods... and some time to fling them... the KE of them is sufficient to ruin the port sufficiently that it won't be servicable. (Those are the USAF determined "Lethal when dropped from orbit" numbers released on TV in about 1990... they're expected to have half-mass at impact, IIRC. They mass about 22 metric tons, and should be 10 ton deadfall weights with a very high subsonic terminal velocity at impact... if they slow fast enough to drop to atmospheric terminal velocity.)

a Borrowed type R should be unslowed by about 90 of these... and is the IDEAL delivery boat for them. Aim on a short (10min) burn, flip, open the back doors, aim aft the internal grav, and burn away from the cargo...

 

[rancke]

No, Hans, you just need some 4m x1m steel rods... and some time to fling them... the KE of them is sufficient to ruin the port sufficiently that it won't be servicable. (Those are the USAF determined "Lethal when dropped from orbit" numbers released on TV in about 1990... they're expected to have half-mass at impact, IIRC. They mass about 22 metric tons, and should be 10 ton deadfall weights with a very high subsonic terminal velocity at impact... if they slow fast enough to drop to atmospheric terminal velocity.)

a Borrowed type R should be unslowed by about 90 of these... and is the IDEAL delivery boat for them. Aim on a short (10min) burn, flip, open the back doors, aim aft the internal grav, and burn away from the cargo...

And what do you imagine the world's system defenses are doing in the meantime? Sure, a single ship can do a lot of damage to a world if it's the only armed vessel in the vincinity. But first you have to become the only armed vessel in the vincinity. Then you have to stay the only armed vessel in the vincinity. Which is unlikely to happen if the target world builds a few dozen SDBs is secret. And if it has the requisite technology, it's not that hard to manufacture and assemble ship components in secret. Expensive, maybe, but not difficult. And if it doesn't have the requisite technology, it offers some outsider twice the value for a squadrom of patrol cruisers or destroyers or perhaps even cruisers. A high-population world filled with people who're willing to make sacrifices for the war effort has a lot of money to spend.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Deadfall ordinance can't be jammed, can be dropped from quite a height, and the farther it falls, the more of it lands due to shorter atmospheric transit times. Plus, it's dirt cheap, and doesn't require specialized forces. So they build those secret SDBs, and chase off the cutter. He comes back 3 weeks later, having commandeered a bunch of civil ships, and made deadfall deadweight ordinance. The means of production just got smashed, along with LOTS of locals.

Mass murder is dead simple. A planet can be cleansed with a few dozen ships of modest size... since each 10-ton near-mach impact can throw several dozen kilotons of explosive force by accelerating inbound, kicking the rods out, then missing the world.... Sure, you can deflect them... but they are a terror weapon, since you won't prevent their impact, merely misplace it.

A couple years of a random dump of 90-100 rods every 1-3 weeks at a cost of a few hundred thousand Cr per dump, counting shipping, assuming a mere 1 rod per 2 Td (due to the mass limit mentioned in TNE's BL), or considerably more rods if a Type R can actually stack all three per Td the volume would indicate (500-600 rods!).

Very quickly, the population winds up TL4 or lower, and much lowered.

And their economic value soon drops to nil, as the means of production (including food) rapidly get blown off the surface.

 

[rancke]

Deadfall ordinance can't be jammed, can be dropped from quite a height, and the farther it falls, the more of it lands due to shorter atmospheric transit times. Plus, it's dirt cheap, and doesn't require specialized forces. So they build those secret SDBs, and chase off the cutter. He comes back 3 weeks later, having commandeered a bunch of civil ships, and made deadfall deadweight ordinance. The means of production just got smashed, along with LOTS of locals.

My guess is that deadfall ordnance can be shot down. A near-C meteor, maybe not, but a cargo hold full of metal rods is probably just meat for a handful of ground-based lasers.

Or maybe not. Maybe there's some other reason why a small ship has no chance of doing harm to a defended world. But whatever defenses it is that make sure the rest of the worlds in the universe isn't bombed down to TL4, whatever defenses has prevented the Ine Givar from devastating Regina, the same sort of defenses will serve to make sure this one isn't either.

Mass murder is dead simple. A planet can be cleansed with a few dozen ships of modest size...

No, it can't. It takes huge fleets many months to beat down the defenses of high-population worlds. The history of the Fifth Frontier War tells us that. A few dozen ships of modest size will do a bit of damage when their remains fall from the sky, perhaps.

Sure, the Imperium can muster huge fleets. But it's nonsense to talk of a handful of small ships.

... since each 10-ton near-mach impact can throw several dozen kilotons of explosive force by accelerating inbound, kicking the rods out, then missing the world.... Sure, you can deflect them... but they are a terror weapon, since you won't prevent their impact, merely misplace it.

You're not describing a Traveller universe here. If you were, the history of the OTU would be a lot different.


Hans

 

[aramis]

You're not describing a Traveller universe here. If you were, the history of the OTU would be a lot different.


Hans

It's basic physics of continuous acceleration drives. The OTU obviously has some serious limitations on willingness to engage in genocidal warfare, and the 5FW having little impact on populations even where combat was on the ground tends to support that, because the basic physics say otherwise. Even with the 1000 diameter limit, one can get ships to detonations of multiple kilotons explosion equivalent.

 

[rancke]

It's basic physics of continuous acceleration drives. The OTU obviously has some serious limitations on willingness to engage in genocidal warfare, and the 5FW having little impact on populations even where combat was on the ground tends to support that, because the basic physics say otherwise. Even with the 1000 diameter limit, one can get ships to detonations of multiple kilotons explosion equivalent.

Then the Imperium would not employ the tactics you describe. Maybe it's MAD. Maybe all major worlds have planetbuster squadrons tucked away in secret faraway bases and if anyone did something like that, they'd have to be prepared to lose a world of their own in return. Though I still prefer the assumption that there are ways to defend against the tactics. Otherwise every little group of crackpot terrorists would mean another hammered world, and we know that doesn't actually happen.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Then the Imperium would not employ the tactics you describe. Maybe it's MAD. Maybe all major worlds have planetbuster squadrons tucked away in secret faraway bases and if anyone did something like that, they'd have to be prepared to lose a world of their own in return. Though I still prefer the assumption that there are ways to defend against the tactics. Otherwise every little group of crackpot terrorists would mean another hammered world, and we know that doesn't actually happen.


Hans

It is a simple matter, Hans... (Except in the 20th century, and Rome vs Cathage) groups of people ONLY go to war to take valuable resources from others. Simple fighting for denial of access to others has only in the 20th/21st Century been seen as viable. If it was worth fighting, it was worth taking when you're done.

If you bombard a planet into submission, you've just reduced their capture value by orders of magnitude. They know it, you know it. Any single world also knows that a single high speed assault from 2+AU* is a thermonuclear weapon of mass destruction.

But any local population capable of doing it is also aware that any larger unit can afford the losses better than they, and it requires NO special ships. Except for zealots of the most insane kind, it's not MAD, it's Assured Societal Suicide. You take out a population or two, and then the response is an overwhelming black war. The initiator has just guaranteed that their world will get resurfaced as soon as the parent polity finds out.

Which we know from MTHT, once black-war starts, entire subsectors are obliterated, and literally billions die....

The 5FW shows only that the 3I, Daryans, Sword Worlders, Ardenese and
Zhodani consider industrial populations the value worth taking. Only the 3I and Zhodani are big enough to not face Assured Societal Suicide from doing planet cracking. Even denial by obliteration is only going to cost you your own in retaliation. Therefore, none of them can consider it viable.

(The reality is, it's a convention of space opera as a genre that planets are for taking, rather than denial to the enemy alone. Assured Societal Suicide is a viable explanation for it, but many of the badly disrupted low-tech worlds can be explained readily as "in recovery from black war at some point" as easily as any other of the justifications.

*2 AU is doable within the 1000 diameter limit of all but the M5-M9IV and A0-M9D stars... in fact, most can get a 3AU burn... A0-M0IV, and all I, II, III IV and V stars have at least 26LM, 3.25 AU, and A0-K5VI and A0-M5V, have at least 46LM, or 5.75 AU... at which point one starts getting insanely fast. Tables in T5....