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[Scoops Novel]

Funny. I suspect many people would say they were two different things, at east until you gave the element of doubt of asking the question. I wasn't envisioning that kind of effect, for one.

[Scoops Novel]

Damn it hyperspace was convenient.

[10ebbor10]

??.

We appear to have relativistic messaging going on. Answers arriving before the questions are ever asked.

People, we're now reading messages from another era.

[Scoops Novel]

In such a scenario, oddly enough i suspect we'd immediately start a mass colonization effort, reasoning that one of our species would blow up our sol bound (YEEEEEEAHHHHHHH) planets eventually. How the fuck they'd handle that, with the possibility of alien invasion, civilians going of on half assed pilgrimages antagonizing said aliens, how to spread the data around so you couldn't be easily targeted, backup plan after backup plan... hmm.

[Cthulhu]

Even if we dodge the weapon issue with spreading out or superhardened living spaces, it still throws a wrench in the classic idea of interstellar civilization.  Private licenses to own ships are going to be a tough nut, for a variety of reasons.  One, the kind of exhaust we're talking on a relativistic ship would be unbelievable.  If you know some maneuvers then you could probably slice somebody's ship in half with it.  Plus, suicide ramming.

[misko27]

Well, eventually combat will get So quick it'll be ending up as whoever fires first wins the war.

I doubt this, if only because of second-strike capabilitiy. Plus all combat will need to be thought out in advance, so it will take a long time to get ready.

The idea of relativistic weaponry is that there's no second-strike capability left.

Edit: A bit late, but nukes don't cause an EMP in space.

I said the latter.
 
Also, If you guys are under the impresssion second-strike capability can be destroyed, your wrong. Space is a BIG place. Right now, even at our current technology, the only way to wipe out the united states ability to strike back would be burning the oceans and stripping the atmosphere. Even a small, rouge planet outside a galaxy could hold something, and if it does, that's all you need to strike back, and hard. In fact, you could combine this with Relatavistic weaponry and go even further, saying whenever a nuclear attack lands, the attacked government will use second-strike capability and wipe the opposing enemy from existance.
 
The logical conclusion then is something I thought up a while ago, 1/2 strike capability. Basically, in a future where 2 nuclear powers, or whatever weapons, have time altering or controling technology, at the start of a war a hidden nuke or nukes are sent into the past to get the jump on them. Obviously, either the opponent beats them to the punch, or they are injured or destroyed, triggering the nuclear war in that timeline. At that point, the other side will send a nuke back, and push the start of the war back further. This continues until we reach the beggining of time-travel technology, where, unless the governments have made previous arrangements, the war will finally end, or, begin, per se. At this point, both civilizations will be hevaily destroyed, or only one will. Regardless, therefore the moment a government invents the system, if it is ever used, a nuclear war will imediately commence.
 
Also, considering we currently have no way of FTL, there is nothing to say it can't be predicted by unknown methods, or leave a signal.
 
TL;DR, The basics of Second strike capability and time-travel are more then enough detterent. This isn't anything new. Its the Cold War all over again. With all the same problems, but with fancier machinery. And more damage. Also, this is what happens when you argue with a nuclear-detettence fanatic. I know alot on teh subject.

[Scoops Novel]

But something that will be a hell of a lot harder to keep locked down.

[misko27]

But something that will be a hell of a lot harder to keep locked down.

The threat of complete anihilation is a great motivator.

[Helgoland]

There seems to be agreement that the biggest problem is that anything that's been shot at the enemy will be shot at by the enemy.

The solution: Cool that shite!
A hundred-ton tungsten slug at 4 K, covered in black paint and coming at you with 0.5 c - no way you'll stop that. While it's still far away you won't spot it, and when you spot it, it's too late.
Maybe the boarding of ships woulld work similarly: A cooled dark vessel comes close to the mothership and whips out its welding tools.

Another big thing will be decoys, I guess: Much like today's flares used against heat-seeking missiles, decoy projectiles and boarding ships could be used to distract enemy fire and make them waste valuable energy and ammunition.

PS: I don't care what the pacifists say - MAD and nuclear deterrence are awesome.

[Guardian G.I.]

16x NINJA COMBO, holy shit.

The military spaceship of the future as I see it:

• Inner modules (centrifuges housing the crew, stasis pods, stockpiles, nuclear fusion reactors, etc.) are surrounded by a thick reinforced armor shell designed to protect the crew and the equipment from kinetic, laser, EMP and nuclear weapons;
• Weapon systems, sensors, engine thrusters, and reinforced airlocks for transport shuttles are built into the outer layers of the armor, they are also designed to resist direct hits from EMP, laser, nuclear and kinetic weapons (to some degree)
• Armament includes nuclear bombs (for bombarding the surface of planets and asteroids), drilling torpedoes (drones whose purpose is to drill through the spaceship armor and activate an onboard thermonuclear warhead after getting into the sensitive inner modules), point defense drones and turrets (which defend the ship from drilling torpedoes) and boarding transports (drilling torpedoes with the nuclear warhead replaced by a transport module full of SPEHSS MAHREENS)

Spoiler: Shitty drawing included (click to show/hide)

[10ebbor10]

There seems to be agreement that the biggest problem is that anything that's been shot at the enemy will be shot at by the enemy.

The solution: Cool that shite!
A hundred-ton tungsten slug at 4 K, covered in black paint and coming at you with 0.5 c - no way you'll stop that. While it's still far away you won't spot it, and when you spot it, it's too late.
Maybe the boarding of ships woulld work similarly: A cooled dark vessel comes close to the mothership and whips out its welding tools.

Another big thing will be decoys, I guess: Much like today's flares used against heat-seeking missiles, decoy projectiles and boarding ships could be used to distract enemy fire and make them waste valuable energy and ammunition.

PS: I don't care what the pacifists say - MAD and nuclear deterrence are awesome.

Obstructions of stars is still hard to cover. As said before, the one winning is the one with the most processing power.

Actually, I don't see space war being armed at all. Automation is the key, and humans take up a lot of space, and can't react fast enough. (Ironically, though space combat is the slowest form of combat imaginible, it still requires the fastest reactions).

[Cthulhu]

That's a good point.  With the kinds of energy costs we're talking to power these ships, space is going to be at a premium.  Eliminating humans and the contrivances they'd need would be a big deal.  Aside from kinetic weaponry, I think electronic warfare is going to be a big thing.

[Flare]

There seems to be agreement that the biggest problem is that anything that's been shot at the enemy will be shot at by the enemy.

The solution: Cool that shite!
A hundred-ton tungsten slug at 4 K, covered in black paint and coming at you with 0.5 c - no way you'll stop that. While it's still far away you won't spot it, and when you spot it, it's too late.

Radar can easily pick it up, never mind what other detection systems we dream up in the future. As for moving so fast that it can't be detected or intercepted within a time frame, I think this is what remote sensors and probes are for. When you have space capability and industrial capacity on a solar system scale, I think throwing a few spheres of probes around your system isn't all that much of a big deal. In most cases, this hundred ton slug can't move, and even if it can and is a missile, moving at 0.5c doesn't particularly help out its maneuverability, especially when you get it into a spin.

Making it out of tungsten is a bit strange to me, having something move at 0.1c already converts a significant portion of the projectile's weight to anti-matter. It could be a piece of ice and it would still carry much of the same payload as tungsten. At the point that molecules obliterate themselves upon impact with something solid, the difference between tungsten and other hardish terrestrial materials won't be all that pronounced.

[Cthulhu]

The tungsten part is because it's sweet.

[Helgoland]

There seems to be agreement that the biggest problem is that anything that's been shot at the enemy will be shot at by the enemy.

The solution: Cool that shite!
A hundred-ton tungsten slug at 4 K, covered in black paint and coming at you with 0.5 c - no way you'll stop that. While it's still far away you won't spot it, and when you spot it, it's too late.

Radar can easily pick it up, never mind what other detection systems we dream up in the future.

Making it out of tungsten is a bit strange to me, having something move at 0.1c already converts a significant portion of the projectile's weight to anti-matter. It could be a piece of ice and it would still carry much of the same payload as tungsten. At the point that molecules obliterate themselves upon impact with something solid, the difference between tungsten and other hardish terrestrial materials won't be all that pronounced.

Active (that is sending something out) sensors don't stand a chance at spotting something coming at them at a significant portion of light speed - there's basically no time left after the sensor is done detecting, because while the radar is travelling back, so is the blob.

And tungsten is only because it was mentioned before - something less dense would of course be harder to spot via radar, but necessarily need to be larger to carry the same amount of energy at a given speed.
What's that about antimatter? Aren't you confusing some stuff there?

And 10ebbor10, what about Clockwork? It's less active than I'd like to see