NationStates Jolt Archive

From Peacock Daily News

The Pantocratorian Imperial Defence Force has completed work on a national defence network to protect the Pantocratorian Archipelago from orbital artillery attacks, according to an official statement by the Imperial High Command issued in New Rome today. The network combines new and existing defence and intelligence systems into one contiguous automated defence grid controlled by the MATER (Militaire Automatisé Tactique Évaluation et Réponse) supercomputer.

"The grid combines output from satellite and ground-based sensors and communications monitoring facilities, feeding that information into MATER, and also provides MATER with automated command and control over a number of missile silos... [and] despatch control over naval missile assets." said General René Auprés, speaking for the Imperial High Command.

The system allows the MATER command and control system to automatically return fire (in the form of surface-to-orbit missiles) against objects in orbit attacking the Pantocratorian Archipelago. The decision is entirely automated, so even if the Imperial High Command was unable to respond as a result of enemy action, Pantocratoria would be spared a prolonged orbital bombardment.

However, defence chiefs had to concede that the grid was incapable of determining which objects in orbit posed a threat to Pantocratoria until they started to attack, and that it was therefore, according to General Auprés, "an imperfect protection. The Imperial High Command expects that an initial bombardment cannot be prevented by the grid - only responded to."

Critics of the grid say that handing over control of missile silos and naval despatch to a computerised, automated system requiring no human interaction is dangerous.

"Who stops the machine from making a mistake? If it breaks down, then what? And what is to stop the machine from doing things its designers didn't intend?" asks Professor Georgious Mohay of the University of Christ Pantocrator. "The world doesn't need another doomsday device!"

The Imperial High Command dismissed the concerns of critics, describing Professor Mohay as a "luddite in an ivory tower".

Continued on page 6

<OOC>
Just curious as to how your system could possibly prevent something like a meteor from hitting the ground- assuming you're using modern technology. Once a KEW starts to de-orbit, it absolutely will hit the ground somewhere.

A direct hit with a good-sized nuke would probably destroy most smaller KEWs (Kinetic Energy Weapons). However, a dinosaur-killer would just break up into large fragments, which would do about the same amount of damage (albeit over a larger area). A near miss with a nuke would probably deflect the point of impact to some degree, but you'd have to hit it fast. The farther on its ballistic trajectory the KEW is, the less you'll be able to deflect it. Since most nuclear-tipped missiles are liquid-fuelled, they take a significant amount of time to reach altitude- and every second reduces the amount of delta-vee you can induce. This is further complicated by the fact that your system is unlikely to detect the KEW as it starts to de-orbit. Even if the KEW is detected immediately, it will take more time to determine the probable point of impact. You could therefore end up wasting your system on KEWs intended for someone else.

There's another problem with using nukes to deflect or destroy incoming KEWs. The moment the first nuclear detonation takes place over your territory, most of your sensors, communications, and tracking systems will be blinded by the electromagnetic pulse. Most of your neighbors will also be affected. It's fairly likely that your first attempt to intercept the KEWs will take place over someone else's territory, and they will probably be extremely unhappy that you're lobbing nukes into their airspace. That first nuke will probably damage or destroy any other missiles in the air as well, further complicating your attempts to destroy the incoming KEWs (which won't be affected by the EMP because they are nothing more than hunks of rock or metal).

You might be better off developing some sort of MAD doctrine (Mutually-Assured Destruction) using your system. Rather than trying to prevent rocks from falling out of the sky, work out some means of ensuring that anyone attacking you in this manner will receive the same thing in return- even if your country is completely destroyed. You won't win, but they won't win, either.


TEO

OOC: Given that you're talking about weapons which amount to techwank to begin with, I'm not keen to get into an in-depth technical discussion with you. It has always been my position on modern vs future tech conflicts, that it would be a bit stupid to assume that just because my nation is generally modern tech, that modern tech would preclude it from employing any sort of defence against future tech, eg ortillery. Ortillery is used against modern tech nations. It is therefore unreasonable that modern tech nations should have no effective defence against it. Modern tech doesn't mean incapable of innovation to meet new threats.

You've made a number of incorrect technical assumptions here, and while you've obviously put a lot of thought into it, I really don't think that the grid's technical credibility as a viable defence system has been put into serious doubt.