Space

Created Saturday 19 June 2021

Main characteristics of space battles:

1. Speed. More than anything else---except the vastness of space itself---is that things are going reeeeealllly fast. Fuck maneuvering anything but straight at them and straight away from them ASAP. Thing about that is that it's a whole bunch (I think the absolute worst/largest) of Gs from straight-at-you to stragiht-away-from-you. I.e., you get one shot, and that shot had better be reeeeeaaaallllyyyy accurate in that second split by billionths. It's if you want to get a second shot in as a 1-2 if you can take those Gs. So, space combat is inherently samurai (precision in single-stroke combat) and the endurance of turning back around if you didn't succeed on your first hit (or they didn't either).
   1. Yeah, thing I like about The Expanse is that it doesn't push its technology beyond its own understanding.
      1. Another thing they got right was how even glorious soldiers spend most of their time doing drudge work. "You'll never get rich digging a ditch. You're in the Army now."
   2. Very good: The Expanse got that velocity in a very near-future way (better than I could!): Throw a missile back (if it hits as it goes ballistcally by you then you'll die) and then fires up and does nothing but accelerate right at you and destroy you if it ever catches up.
   3. Drill sergent types as the time keepers of the military. And whoever is most creative at finding a way to keep a steady (across time & space OooOooOOOooo) keeps it the longest. "I doin't know but I've been told..."

The harshness of space

• Thus the importance of "cannon-fodder" like Janisaries and MULEs.

There's a lot of nothing out there, and battles are often fought in the harsher fringes of even that. Where information and resources are scarce and one small mistake can kill you if you can't fix it. So many have died of so many studpid things. (And yes, there exist books like Top 100 Stupidest Hemoroid Space Deaths, so often crews last wish is not to be found.)