Before I reply, I will say I was there. I watched it happen outside my own office window and I lost friends, aquantances and co-workers... Any comments made are not to diminsh the event.
We all know John's law, though a lot of people can miss it in the shadows cast by the things they are concentrating on. But after 9/11, no one doubts the effect any moving vehicle can have as a Kenetic weapon.
Nor can we ignore the comparitive factors between the after effects of 9/11 and
our vision of the future. There can be no doubt that, while general aviation has not been rolled back even in the US, changes have been made to the way aviation is handled globally. This also effects future technologys research as well. The vaunted "Flying Car" is no longer seen as a welcomed future-tech realization of childhood dreams. It is more views as part of the clouds that stain our future security. Rollouts of any aviation technology which is not very strictly controlable is viewed with suspicion and calculated acceptance.
That said, the mistakes of 9/11 were not in the capabilities of the technology but in the failure of those commercial and government agencies to see what was directly before them. The schools failed to test for global skills allowing "pilot trainees" to concentrate on flighht navigation only. Questions like,"Why isn't he learning take off procedure? or Why can't he even handle approach and landing? would have led to possible insights. Local police failed to escalate clear questions of import uncovered during traffic stops..
the list goes on and we can talk about this til dooms day itself.
But there are other things to consider...
1) Those who plotted and carried out the 9/11 attacks did not need to worry about the US.
Their first belief was that they were buried deep enough in Asia that we could not strike back
2) even if we could strike back, our resiliance was limited. Kill enough of us or survive long enough and the public will turn on the effort
3) Strike them there and they would move somewhere else.
The Imperium does not have this issue.
If you are going to strike from inside The Imperium, The Imperium WILL come to visit you. They will NOT worry about hearts and minds and will lock down any point you sprout up in and hunt you down. Not just for revenge, but for the benefit of The Imperium(not to mention the fun and profit of those sadistic Nobility leading the charge).
Also consider,
While most worlds will NOT have enough tech to defend against such a strike, few enough worlds are worth such an attack. Those worlds will likely either have some planetary defenses that can, at the very least, put a shroud of missile fire in font of the on-coming ship and vaporize it. Worlds that can not defend will be a loss The Imperium can absorb(Like Paya/Spinward Marches, hit in the 1070's by a comet and now sporting an Imperial Naval base). But the moment you make such a strike, you dare a response that makes the intial Unified assault on Afghanistan look like a very sickly training excersize.
So go ahead. Grab a few free traders. try it.
A few wolds will be devistated but the bulk of the ships will not get through.
And then there will be a mobilization and response..
And then there will be no more of you.
Anyone who doubts this should consider what would have happened if history had not included the invasion of Iraq. If all those forces had remained focused like a laser on those behind 9/11. If forces were not only not drained from key missions but were increasingly applied not only in Afghanistan but in the Phillipeans, in South America and where ever a pro-Bin Laden group existed. If the Coalition forces remained so great a threat that Pakisatan remained frightened of not cooperating...
There are so many political options, shadows an covers on Modern day Terra that one can survive making such an attack. The Imperial Navy would not be worried about any political cover in The Imperium. even an Arch-Duke can be replaced..
Marc
The dirty little secret about Traveller ships is "
John's Law." The best solution is to sweep it under the rug and pretend that it does not exist.
The sad fact of the matter is that your typical Traveller ship, capable of accelerating at multiple gravities of acceleration for prolonged periods of time, is not just a ship. It is also a kinetic energy weapon capable of obliterating a city.
This means that all civilized planets will be surrounded by an orbit guard. Any tramp freighter that does not turn over control to the orbit guard will be fired upon by nuclear weapons.
Take a Beowulf free trader. It has a displacement of 200 dtons, or about 2700 cubic meters. At a rough guess figure it has an average density of 0.2 metric tons per cubic meter. This means a total mass of about 540 metric tons or 540,000 kilograms.
Its maneuver drive can accelerate at 1 g. Say it accelerates at 1 g for a week (604,800 seconds). 1 g is 9.81 m/s^s, so for one week that means the Beowulf will be traveling at about 6,000,000 meters per second (6,000 kilometers per second).
Kinetic energy (in joules) is equal to
0.5 * mass * velocity^2
This means the Beowulf will be packing 9.72 x 10^18 joules.
If you look at the handy-dandy
Boom table, you will see this amount of energy is about equal to a one gigaton nuclear warhead (i.e., 1,000 megatons). Keep in mind that you only need 25 megatons to obliterate a city. It is about twice as much energy as an earthquake that is 9.2 on the Richter scale.
It ain't no Dinosaur killer, but it is still more than enough to ensure that the target planet is going to have a really bad day.
And how many Beowulf sized ships can the enemy confiscate and turn into impromptu planet killers?
This is why this should be ignored for Traveller purposes: it bends the canon space combat all out of shape.
