Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
Some of the following ideas have been covered already, but I was writing while I read.
The detection ranges quoted in Traveller are for solitary patrolling ships. One roving adventurer detecting another. There are other options.
Ships may have longer detection ranges if they are stationary, or silent, or both. They may extend detection ranges by working together to form a ‘virtual aperture’ network. There may be a static array of detectors that feed a planet’s military command. Such an array, linked to a deep meson site would probably remove the threat from a single incoming device, if not a good number of them.
Ships are designed to withstand/deflect ‘grain impacts’ at normal speeds. Once you start accelerating to ‘silly speed’, your ship is likely to hit grains that will tear it apart partway along its run - especially if the near-planetary environs have been seeded with sand specifically for this purpose.
These are passive defences. There are also active defences - space patrols, coastguards, etc, carrying out sweeps for jump-flashes, detecting inbound craft during the early stages of their run-up, intercepting or passing information back to Command to facilitate other intercepts. The automatic beacon that announces and identifies any civilian vessel as soon as it jumps in.
Then there is intelligence. Who have you spoken to while you were planning and preparing your attack? Who is buying up old small craft? What are they doing with them? An order for 10,000 1 ton ceramic balls - what are those for?Where did you fuel up? What was your flight plan? When did you deviate from it? A ship left system X bound for system Y on date Z, it never arrived, where is it now?
Then there is propaganda and community spying. Have YOU heard anything suspicious? It could be YOUR world next.
Then there is Black Ops Intelligence. If we had clairvoyants, which we don't, they might have ‘seen’ a world destroyed sometime next month, which they didn't. They might say there are five would-be perpetrators on planet Zargle, which there aren't. Your totally deniable mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find and eliminate these non-existent miscreants before their non-existent plan can unfold...
The detection ranges quoted in Traveller are for solitary patrolling ships. One roving adventurer detecting another. There are other options.
Ships may have longer detection ranges if they are stationary, or silent, or both. They may extend detection ranges by working together to form a ‘virtual aperture’ network. There may be a static array of detectors that feed a planet’s military command. Such an array, linked to a deep meson site would probably remove the threat from a single incoming device, if not a good number of them.
Ships are designed to withstand/deflect ‘grain impacts’ at normal speeds. Once you start accelerating to ‘silly speed’, your ship is likely to hit grains that will tear it apart partway along its run - especially if the near-planetary environs have been seeded with sand specifically for this purpose.
These are passive defences. There are also active defences - space patrols, coastguards, etc, carrying out sweeps for jump-flashes, detecting inbound craft during the early stages of their run-up, intercepting or passing information back to Command to facilitate other intercepts. The automatic beacon that announces and identifies any civilian vessel as soon as it jumps in.
Then there is intelligence. Who have you spoken to while you were planning and preparing your attack? Who is buying up old small craft? What are they doing with them? An order for 10,000 1 ton ceramic balls - what are those for?Where did you fuel up? What was your flight plan? When did you deviate from it? A ship left system X bound for system Y on date Z, it never arrived, where is it now?
Then there is propaganda and community spying. Have YOU heard anything suspicious? It could be YOUR world next.
Then there is Black Ops Intelligence. If we had clairvoyants, which we don't, they might have ‘seen’ a world destroyed sometime next month, which they didn't. They might say there are five would-be perpetrators on planet Zargle, which there aren't. Your totally deniable mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find and eliminate these non-existent miscreants before their non-existent plan can unfold...