message 0531

• On Cherryh's 'Inside Outer Space' article (topic: the implications of space travel for civilizations, esp. regarding warfare)

>Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 17:20:01 -0400
>From: "Nancy Silberstein" <silbersteinn@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
>Subject: Cherryhlist/CJC on Warfare2

ibid, pp. 22-23.

Starships which can travel trans-cee will present different problems.... 
First of all you have to find 'em - and that applies not alone to 
discovering which of fifteen hundred stars within forty light-years of 
earth was chosen by the ship you're hunting - or whether it's simply off in 
deep space, sitting and waiting.  No, "finding 'em" can also apply to 
locating a ship in your own solar system.

If we were hunting an alien ship that arrived this instant within the 
perimeters of our own solar system, it might take over four hours for its 
deliberate signal to reach us.  If it is traveling at .9 cee it can be well 
outside Pluto's orbit before we even knew it was there and gone.  If it is 
trans-cee - no hope of finding it at all.  And if we are two near-cee 
ships trying to fight each other in our solar system, a number of very
strange things have to be taken into account.

Sublight, we all exist by Einstein's rules.... That's the law.   If we 
stand imprudently EVA on the bow of a starship at .9999 cee and fire a 
pistol, we notice a disturbing phenomenon:  the bullet will reach its 
relatavistic limit instantly and hang there time-stopped just in front of 
us, infinitely massive because of its velocity (as we are) and traveling 
within our little packet of reality - because nothing in Einsteinian space 
can exceed cee.  It and we go on together in the same moment.  Explosive 
missiles or lasers fired just ahead of your bow will reach your target less 
than .0001 split second before you do.  You might as well ram the opposing 
ship as fire on their tail....

If they're coming toward you, on the other hand, you'll never know it.  
Your radar can't pick them up in advance.  Neither can anything else that 
depends on matter and particles.  Take comfort.  Odds do say in an area as 
big as a solar system you'll probably miss each other entirely.

If the enemy is behind you, you can fire missiles aft and let them drop 
back into their ship/time-packet/wave front.  Things can drop DOWN from 
cee....

Whatever you've fired off insystem, incidentally, does not "fall" or go 
away; it keeps traveling at the same speed.  Forever.  You might 
conceivably run into your own fire; and certainly you can run into friendly 
fire by accident, not to mention what the enemy lets off.  Space battle 
will mean keeping track of every beam and projectile fired, no matter by 
whom or how long ago, because if you meet it at a great speed (yours or 
its) - just remember the way a .9 cee rock hits a planet.  Big crater.  No 
ship.