The Fourth Empire, 1 million planetoids, and the Achuultani

cralkhi wrote:Lightspeed delay is a good point.

Also, you could just stash them far enough from the sun (say 1000 AU) that there really wouldn't be much of a radial-velocity signal.

I still think they probably were hardwired to respond to Fleet Central hypercom commands though.

Overkill

cralkhi wrote:On further thought, I suppose the real question is why the 4th Imperium went the super-militarized defense route at all. They apparently knew about the Achuultani from Day One (being descended from the remnant planet of the 3rd Imperium; given what's said about the centrality of opposing the Achuultani to them, apparently they didn't lose the knowledge as Earth [or Pardal] did) - if so, if they got to design their technology / civilization from a pretty early stage in light of knowing about the Achuultani -- why take the "ridiculous military buildup to defend immobile planets (aka targets)" route at all? We know that planetoid ships can act as generation ships, after all... I can see keeping their homworld (Birhat) inhabited, since people wouldn't want to leave & for cultural reasons, but if you know there's a big threat out there, why colonize planets at all? Why not just build/colonize permanent 'generation ships'/mobile space colonies, living around suns (for solar energy, asteroid/comet resources etc.) but capable of interstellar travel whenever needed, so they can just move away from any threat?

If the Imperium had followed that route, the Achuultani [or anybody else] couldn't become a civilization-ending threat without literally squatting on EVERY one of the hundreds of billions of star systems in the Milky Way (to monopolize the resources) - actually, it might be flatly impossible, as "core taps" seem to draw energy from hyperspace, so a space colony could just sit somewhere in the intergalactic void, powering its "sun" by core tap - needing no fuel, and thus having no dependence on any *place* in the regular universe. Core taps' control systems might require fuel, however.

It'd be incredibly hard [or impossible, if the core-tap trick would work] to threaten the species/civilization as a whole, since every colony/ship would be an independent 'world', and they could be scattered all across the galaxy (and possibly into the Magellanic Clouds or beyond, depending on whether Imperial ships can do continual FTL travel for thousands of years -- and maintain life support, but given that Dahak could restore his, I think that's definitely within their capability; plus, the Aku'Ultan used an intergalactic 'generation ship' to reach the Milky Way).

...Such a plan wouldn't even require them to abandon all the other potential (lower-tech) victim species of the Achuultani, as they could just take such species with them (or give them the tech to build their own colonies/ships). So I really don't see any downside except as a matter of honor.

Sigs wrote:And I would venture to guess that if human space was invaded that the end goal would be to defeat the invasion and trace it back to its origin and end the war once and for all.

JohnS wrote:

Sigs wrote:And I would venture to guess that if human space was invaded that the end goal would be to defeat the invasion and trace it back to its origin and end the war once and for all.

Exactly. For all they knew, the incursion fleets were mere task forces, and the true enemy fleet was much larger and would show up after a major defeat. In fact, that may actually be the case. We don't know what the Master Computer keeps nearby.

As has been said, there is no overkill. Just "Open Fire!" and "Reload!"

Bewildered wrote:What I don't get is where the resources for 1 million planetoids would have come from. You'd basically have to convert hundreds of thousands of star systems into ship building materials, and the imperium's never colonised that many. Also have rather a negative impact on the neighbourhood converting planets into ships or rubble.

Bewildered wrote:What I don't get is where the resources for 1 million planetoids would have come from. You'd basically have to convert hundreds of thousands of star systems into ship building materials, and the imperium's never colonised that many. Also have rather a negative impact on the neighbourhood converting planets into ships or rubble.

Sigs wrote:

Bewildered wrote:What I don't get is where the resources for 1 million planetoids would have come from. You'd basically have to convert hundreds of thousands of star systems into ship building materials, and the imperium's never colonised that many. Also have rather a negative impact on the neighbourhood converting planets into ships or rubble.

There is between 200 and 400 Billion stars in the Milky Way, the Imperium/Empire does not need to colonize any of them, they need to set up resource extraction and processing facilities in those systems on need by need basis.

On top of that, the Planetoids are build for long term use which could range from a few hundred to a few thousand years with those planetoids are build up gradually over a thousands years and replaced upon ending of their life span.

Think about an empire that has 5,000 or even only 1,500 inhabitable member systems, what proportion of systems with inhabitable planets to systems without inhabitable planets do you think there would be? We can safely assume that they may have hundreds of thousands if not millions of uninhabited systems within their territory to support those massive building projects.

Bewildered wrote:100 billion stars was the figure I looked up. Also seemed to be that only about 1% of stars have planets. That figure may go up of course but it also doesn't take into account that many planets won't contain the materials required - how much metal is there in a gas giant or an ocean world for instance? So say 1,000,000,000 stars with worlds which may or may not contain any useful resources. Then too the Imperium only controls a small portion of this. They only colonised a few thousand worlds. Sure they control more but how many more? The Achultaani were believed a myth because the Empire never encountered them and in truth their home space proved to be far further away than any humans had believed, or explored!

Assuming each planetoid had a life expectancy of 1,000 years that means 1,000 planetoids built each year - odds are it takes more than a year to construct each one but lets be generous. Now if the Imperium has 5,0000 inhabited member systems that means each project is supported by a mere 5 worlds. How many naval yards does the US have? Yes Earth was able to crew 1 planetoid, building one is another issue.

Sigs wrote:There is between 200 and 400 Billion stars in the Milky Way, the Imperium/Empire does not need to colonize any of them, they need to set up resource extraction and processing facilities in those systems on need by need basis.

On top of that, the Planetoids are build for long term use which could range from a few hundred to a few thousand years with those planetoids are build up gradually over a thousands years and replaced upon ending of their life span.

Think about an empire that has 5,000 or even only 1,500 inhabitable member systems, what proportion of systems with inhabitable planets to systems without inhabitable planets do you think there would be? We can safely assume that they may have hundreds of thousands if not millions of uninhabited systems within their territory to support those massive building projects.