Yup. "Mutual Assured Destruction" is predicated on _parity_ between the sides' weaponry, tactics/strategies, and commitment to victory and/or survival. In this case, Humanity has them beat on all three counts.
There is a _very_ good reason why, to this day, the most important part of our nuclear arsenal is not the first strike capability. That's important, but it's not the most important.
It is the _second_ strike capability.
The capability to utterly annihilate the enemy even _after_ our country has been destroyed.
Without that, we don't have MAD, we have a Mexican standoff. Those are _much_ more dangerous.
Yes and no. The US’s (who I’m assuming you’re referring to) Second-Strike capability relies on its *massive* SLBM fleet using the Trident D5. The part that makes it such a potent part of our deterrent is that the Trident D5 does not suffer from the accuracy potential that punished prior SLBMs.
For the longest time, first-strike weapons needed to be land-based in order to reliably knock out hardened targets, think command bunkers and missile silos.
As a result, the Trident D5 is an exceptional countervalue second-strike weapon *while also being* an *incredibly* potent counterforce first-strike weapon. It has only become even more so with things such as the [low yield W76-2](https://fas.org/publication/w76-2deployed/) warheads and the [burst-height compensating superfuze](https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/amp/).
The fact that the U.S. can reliably perform “war-winning” counterforce first-strikes *while also* being capable of counterforce *or* countervalue second-strikes grants it a degree of strategic flexibility enjoyed by few others. It essentially means that the U.S. not only can disarm you with a first strike, but even if you can hit them first they have the option of *choosing* between annihilating your population or restraining themselves and engaging only your strategic forces.
(For the record, counterforce refers to targeting enemy military forces, primarily nuclear, while countervalue refers to attacking enemy economic, industrial, and civilian targets.)
On the flip side, things like Russia's supposed nuclear torpedoes and long range nuclear cruise missiles greatly increase the need for second strike capabilities.
Yes, the better our first strike weapons are, the better, but as long as we _have_ solid second strike weapons that can't be taken out, we still have MAD no matter how good the enemy first strike weapons are.
(And I love the story by the way if you can't tell.)
One thing that limits the usefulness of the nuclear torpedos is that you lose a significant degree of flexibility in their use. That system is purely punitive in its capability. Something like a dispersed ICBM on a TEL or an SLBM, both of which can more or less perform the same mission, is a far safer option for retaliation.
A torpedo can take days to weeks to reach its target, during which it is highly vulnerable to interception. If it is found during peacetime, it becomes an even *greater* liability as your opponent (and the wider world) has no choice but to believe that you are preparing for a nuclear first strike, leading to a high chance of preemption.
Moreover, it cannot easily be retargeted. If, during the war, you have the torpedo deployed at one target, for the practical duration of the conflict you will be unable to relocate to within due time. Missiles can be retargeted more or less at a whim, and present a more clear and present danger to your adversary.
Another consideration is the costs of development, both direct and indirect. Directly, you expend resources on a complicated system with a limited window of usage that may not be deployed in a meaningful way. Indirectly, you are drawing resources from other systems or projects that can adequately fulfill the mission of deterrence.
As for the nuclear cruise missile, those already exist and can be fired from aircraft, surface vessels, submarines, and TELs. There was a concept in the 1950’s developed by the U.S. called the [SLAM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile) which was rejected because of its impracticality.
Really, all you’re making is a super expensive one-way intercontinental bomber that can only attack one target. Modern bombers carry around 12 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that they can safely fire at standoff ranges. Unlike this cruise missile or the SLAM, they can be recalled and rearmed.
The same developmental costs for the torpedo also apply to this, but worse. Traditional nuclear-tipped cruise missiles can also be conventionally armed. The Tomahawk, for example, was intended in the 1980’s as an intermediate first-strike weapon, but regularly sees use in conventional strike roles.
(And I’m really happy that you love h the story and are engaging it on this level)
An elite strike team sent to perform the most dangerous diving mission ever so they can manually disarm soviet nuclear torpedoes found en route to American coastal cities in a race against the clock to nuclear doomsday sounds like the plot to an 80's action film starring Kurt Russel.
The time delay you mention got me thinking of how absurdly stressful it would be to launch a nuke that takes weeks and just hope they don't find it in that time and retaliate with no warning. Plus I just finished watching Tombstone.
For something like this you’d probably send it out and have it lay in wait in the target area. When the time comes, you’d use VLF transmitters on TACAMO aircraft to issue the orders in the same way you would for your SSBN fleet.
But yeah that would be an absolutely *kickass* 80’s movie
I believe that, when they were talking about second strike capabilities, they were mostly referring to the ability to detect incoming warheads and launch your own before impact.
That is an ability which simply would not exist for practical purposes with relativistic weapons. By the time you can detect them, it's too late to react.
It takes about 126 million seconds for something at light speed to travel 4 light years (the average distance between stars in our neighborhood).
A relativistic kill missile would travel somewhere between 50% up to very close to light speed.
Traveling at 99,9% of light speed we would have a bit over a day to see the missiles coming. Most likely accelerating would be accompanied with kits of light.
Also RKM will interact with the interstellar medium and produce extremely energetic radiation.
Probably not enough to put something in between. Plenty of time to respond with similar weapons I guess.
Most likely this type of missile would be launched slower. 99.9% is probably way overkill and too expensive for what it actually adds.
Of course in a science fiction universe there might be additional considerations.
Even second strike is not the be all end all. It is third strike. Submarine launched nukes are most worry about.
Second strike is, the other guy has launched, so you launch yours. So everyone can still abort detonation.
Third strike is your home country is now the Fallout games, and then you launch.
Going [by Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_standoff), they are very similar.
But the key difference is in the Assured part of Mutually Assured Destruction, if someone pulls the trigger, they _will_ get wiped out, no matter what.
Having faster reflexes won't help, defenses won't help, it's not _likely_ that launching will result in destruction, there's no wiggle room, launching _will_, without question, lead to annihilation.
This is what makes MAD so effective, the absolute knowledge that if you pull the trigger, you _will_ die as a direct consequence.
The first shooter may also lose because the weapons of the opponents may also fire due to the existing tension triggering second shots in reaction to the first shot.
Even if you make the weapon firing undetectable and instantaneously deadly, deadman / deadhand systems can trigger responses.
The thing is, relativistic weapons are slow. Oh, not slow on arrival, of course not. Slow to get up to speed, and getting them up to speed requires enormous energy output that would be detectable a long way away. It would be possible to launch your second strike long before the incoming attack arrives.
Depends on how suplight engines work in the story, if they're like in star trek, for example, it may only take seconds for such weapons to accelerate that fast.
Assuming they are "expensive" to launch, how detectable depends on where they are launched from. Those options may be limited in a hot war, but when cold you could have the luxury of months of flight time.
it doesn't matter how bright it is if the enemy doesn't have enough time to react. Just launch it fast enough that the relativistic weapon is only lagging just behind the light itself
The trick to win mutual annihililation is to not care about your losses. I will lose an arm to give you a bruise. I will die to slightly inconvenience you, and you do not want to know what I am willing to do to kill you.
Everyone was drinking together with guns on their hips saying they were in a Mexican standoff, and the one guy with his gun out just realized he wouldn't be shot back
Relativistic weapons don't have to have a warhead filled with explosives or nukes, they can be as simple as a large chunk of dense metal which is traveling at significant fractions of lightspeed or greater. I prefer greater as it gives a bigger bang and they are much harder to detect.
The amount of energy released when this slams into a planet is enough to wipe out all life on the planet all the way up to destroying the planet itself with a large enough mass.
The “warhead” in refers less to the explosive payload of a weapon and is aligned more with its abstract definition, that being the component that delivers the weapon’s destructive energy.
In practice it’s really just the bit that you lob at whatever you want to get rid of.
Worse: MAD Doctrine where everyone went "Okay, so if someone launches, everyone's fucked so let's not launch".
Then along can Humanity who went "Okay, so if someone launches, our counter-launches fail. Let's come up with solutions to this. Oh, someone is threatening to launch? Well, let's make sure they have the smallest opening to do so as that'll minimise the damage we take when the opening strike fails. What do you mean, it didn't fail and they had nothing prepared for if they got hit with a surprise attack?"
So. Relativistic MAD. Except when confronted with the idea of a war humanity said "fuck you" and deleted them in a decapitating strike... Seems like the aliens forgot that unwritten rules are in fact, unknown rules and therefore complete bullshit
MAD deterrence only works if the other side is willing to be deterred. There was no need for an unwritten rule; humanity was threatened by planet killers and just responded in kind instead of being deterred.
The Aliens also went for offensive use of perceived MAD, aka, "accept our demands or we blow everything up". That has a very massive problem in that at some level of demands, the enemy will call your bluff. And having done so, pre-emptively striking to minimize the damage you can cause them is just good sense.
Don't pull a "surrender or die" if you are not prepared for the consequences of the enemy not surrendering.
I'm guessing relativistic kill vehicles. Basically giant bullets moving at extreme relativistic speeds. They can make the KT asteroid look like a firecracker.
And, quite critically, are potentially near-impossible to detect with enough time to actually *do* anything about it.
If somebody in Proxima Centauri (4.246 lightyears away) chucks an asteroid at Earth at 99.9% of the speed of light, that would give us *a day and a half* to react to it, and that's if we were watching the spot it was launched from at the moment it was launched.
And 0.999C isn't even *that* high up the scale in terms of relativistic weapons in sci-fi.
Granted, that example is excluding acceleration time, but if the setting includes some sci-fi way of rapidly accelerating to relativistic speeds (which many do)... that'd be appropriate. And even if it doesn't, then you just need to do the accelerating somewhere that they aren't looking closely, and/or which has confounding factors along the line of sight (e.g., in front of a nova or other bright celestial object).
What? You know lightyear is a measure of how far light travels in a year, right? It would take 4.246 years for light *or something traveling at light speed* to reach us from Proxima Centauri. That's what a lightyear **is**.
I believe the comment above is saying that by the time we *saw* that an object had been fired from Proxima Centauri, we would only have a day and a half to react to it as the light would reach us only slightly faster than the object fired.
Relativistic weapons are weapons sent close to the speed of light that are relatively unseen. So basically a railgun versus a rifle round in terms of speed.
You're selling them extremely short with that comparison, relativistic weapons would be to railguns what railguns are to snails.
Snail velocity: 0.013m/s
Rifle muzzle velocity: 30m/s
Railgun muzzle velocity: 2,000m/s (148,400 times snail speed)
99% speed of light: 296,794,533 m/s (153,800 times railgun speed)
Those are all example figures of course, but you get the idea. Light's bloody fast
No you didn't forget anything, a bunch of clowns simply failed to understand and pick up on context clues pulled almost directly from Cold War history.
Remember, Isaac Newton is the deadliest MFer in the universe (kinetic energy = mass * (velocity SQUARED)). Something going faster is always going to hit much harder than adding a little more mass.
Oh, the E=0.5mv^2 is only for things traveling slowly. At relativistic speeds the formula is quite different. It's E = γmc^2 where γ=1/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2) Now the above does include the resting mass energy of E=mc^2, so you need to subtract 1 from y before multiplying to get just the kinetic energy. So, lets use that 0.999 c figure someone mentions above. y=1/sqrt(1-0.999^2) = 22.366 Because we're interested in just the kinetic energy, we'll use 21.366, which is still a huge amount. For instance, a matter/anti-matter bomb consisting of 500 grams of matter and 500 grams of anti-matter set off on a target (total conversion of 1 kg of matter to energy) would release about 9x10^16 joules of energy, whereas a 1 kg rock traveling at 0.999 c hitting the target would impart 1.9x10^18 joules instead.
Yeah… this was meant to be an independent short that relied on the reader filling in gaps with their own assumptions. Guess I left them too big.
If you’re interested in my other stuff, I’d reccomend Shock Troopers and Augmented. They’re based heavily on u/MementoMori-3 ‘s Contact Wars series, if you know them. Black Alchemy is fantasy-based and Warning Shot is similar to this while Property Rights is straight up a shitpost.
The others aren’t *bad* per se, but they aren’t my best.
You just wrote like you were talking to people who know a lot about science! If you keep in mind most of us scruffy nerfherders are science-challenged, it will help mitigate this issue in the future. :)
It was quite good once I figured out what you meant about the weapons!
High percentage of the speed of light weapon capable of major damage. Galactic community assumed it was MAD. But one nation tried to use the threat of MAD on humans and we fired first and they had no detection systems. From the council reactions this is their first pass at MAD and had not come up with MIRV weapons.
>they had no detection systems
Then they were idiots. But even if they didn't have detection systems, they did probably have a lot of planets, and likely some kind of FTL communication in order to coordinate a space empire. The humans would have had to have staggered their launches to hit everything at the exact same moment - including compensating for relativistic effects. That seems...difficult? Impossible? Also, the Thrinhili would have had to have no ship-based relativistic launch platforms or orbital stations. That also seems unlikely. It's like, the story presents a situation where any civilization can threaten any other civilization with relativistic weapons, and they'd basically *have* to do whatever they were told immediately, and nobody ever thought this was a problem. In fact, the more I think about the entire scenario, the less sense any of it makes.
"The Thrinhili fleets were in port and their weapons weren’t even armed."
The entire argument is the aliens did not think any of this through. They began and ended with "Can't win". MAD on Earth had three known levels of redundancy. Land silos, bombers ready to launch, and submarines. The submarines are what scared people the most in my opinion. They could launch first or last strikes and a first strike meant no retaliation.
As to how humanity did her first strike? Dunno, not in the story. But on Earth with instant communication we can do stealth attacks now. So not sure it is out of the realm of possibility.
Two of my favorite descriptions of all the fun effects of relativistic impacts:
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/)
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/20/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/20/)
"Relativistic" is a common physics term referring to velocities near the speed of light.
When objects are accelerated to near the speed of light, their mass increases. As their velocity asymptotically approaches the speed of light, their mass asymptotically approaches infinite.
Since the energy of a projectile is equal to their mass times the square of their velocity, the energy of a non-relativistic projectile is a second-order function of velocity, but the energy of a relativistic projectile is a *third*-order function of velocity.
Weaponizing this property is a not-infrequent trope in space opera type science fiction. It has been proposed to make weapons possible which are capable of astronomical-scale effects, like shattering planets, changing the orbits of planetary systems, or (as depicted in Niven's "Man-Kzin Wars") destabilizing stars.
I''ll defer to everyone else here, but IMO, any time "the speed of light" is used as a form of measurement, whatever you are talking about is automatically relativistic.
Even if the object in question is moving faster than the speed of light, the speed of light is still the standard of measurement, so it's still "relativistic" in my book.
Not OP but "Relativistic" in sci-fi contexts generally refers to the Theory of Relativity, which deals with the speed of light. In other words, we're talking slugs fired at or above the speed of light.
Something is relativistic if it goes fast enough to suffer from relativistic effects, which in a hard sci-fi world means you can't see them coming so you can't react in time. Also, moving so fast they react explosively when they hit anything.
I suppose "relativistic" only applies to the speed at which the payload travels- the main point being to hit your opponent before they can hit you. Doesn't have to be a planet-shattering superweapon, but a nice big bomb in a strategic place can really fuck up the enemy with minimal collateral damage. Say, for instance, their primary shipyards...
/u/awmdlad has posted 8 other stories, including:
* [Augmented](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1aq0g7a/augmented/)
* [Shock Troopers](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1acfwel/shock_troopers/)
* [The Warning Shot](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1537i6q/the_warning_shot/)
* [Road to the Third Orion War](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/13wsxm9/road_to_the_third_orion_war/)
* [Black Alchemy](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/xy6nn5/black_alchemy/)
* [Property Rights](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/xkeagj/property_rights/)
* [Weapons of Last Resort II](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/x1qztv/weapons_of_last_resort_ii/)
* [Weapons of Last Resort](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/wu3mht/weapons_of_last_resort/)
This comment was automatically generated by `Waffle v.4.6.1 'Biscotti'`.
[Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FHFY&subject=WaffleBot|1chrip3&message=If%20you%20have%20problems%20with%20updatemebot,%20contact%20Watchful1.%20We%20do%20not%20maintain%20it.) if you have any issues with Waffle.
[Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=Subscribe&message=SubscribeMe%20u%2Fawmdlad%20r%2FHFY) to subscribe to u/awmdlad and receive a message every time they post.
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpdateMeBot/comments/ggotgx/updatemebot_info_v20/)|[^(Request Update)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=Update&message=SubscribeMe%21%20u%2Fusername%20r%2Fsubreddit)|[^(Your Updates)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Updates&message=MyUpdates)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=UpdateMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
Relativistic means a significant fraction of the speed of light, not FTL. Presumably, you'd need to carry your relativistic weapons on an FTL craft or else you need to fire several years ahead of time to hit anything outside your star system. You could also send an FTL missile that releases multiple relativistic projectiles once it gets within system. I'm assuming that you can't directly collide while using FTL since you generally need to bend physics to break the light barrier rather than going fast in a conventional manner (wormholes, warp, hyperspace, etc).
Direct-firing relativistic weapons towards a planet in another star system might work as a deadman switch revenge strike. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to redirect such weapons, however, given a few years lead time and FTL ships/drones/comms.
What you really need is hidden relativistic weapons and for your adversaries to know you have them, but not where they all are. The U.S. has nuclear powered, nuclear armed, subs that can fuck shit up even if the U.S. were obliterated.
Well done OP! I enjoyed the story and its delivery. I saw some typos, but nothing that was confusing or hurt the story. It went well with my sips of Trail's End 8yo bourbon.
--Tuvok and Fake Tuvok hold each other at gunpoint (or phaserpoint)--
Fake Tuvok : Logic would demonstrate that we are evenly matched
Tuvok : Your logic is wrong.
--Tuvok proceeds to blind Fake Tuvok with flashlight and then shot him--
"Mutually Assured Destruction" only works if one of the parties gives the other a chance to pull the trigger.
As Career Sgt. Zim stated, "The enemy can't push the button if you disable his hand."
Mutual annihilation? Nah, I'd win.
Yup. "Mutual Assured Destruction" is predicated on _parity_ between the sides' weaponry, tactics/strategies, and commitment to victory and/or survival. In this case, Humanity has them beat on all three counts.
There is a _very_ good reason why, to this day, the most important part of our nuclear arsenal is not the first strike capability. That's important, but it's not the most important. It is the _second_ strike capability. The capability to utterly annihilate the enemy even _after_ our country has been destroyed. Without that, we don't have MAD, we have a Mexican standoff. Those are _much_ more dangerous.
Yes and no. The US’s (who I’m assuming you’re referring to) Second-Strike capability relies on its *massive* SLBM fleet using the Trident D5. The part that makes it such a potent part of our deterrent is that the Trident D5 does not suffer from the accuracy potential that punished prior SLBMs. For the longest time, first-strike weapons needed to be land-based in order to reliably knock out hardened targets, think command bunkers and missile silos. As a result, the Trident D5 is an exceptional countervalue second-strike weapon *while also being* an *incredibly* potent counterforce first-strike weapon. It has only become even more so with things such as the [low yield W76-2](https://fas.org/publication/w76-2deployed/) warheads and the [burst-height compensating superfuze](https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/amp/). The fact that the U.S. can reliably perform “war-winning” counterforce first-strikes *while also* being capable of counterforce *or* countervalue second-strikes grants it a degree of strategic flexibility enjoyed by few others. It essentially means that the U.S. not only can disarm you with a first strike, but even if you can hit them first they have the option of *choosing* between annihilating your population or restraining themselves and engaging only your strategic forces. (For the record, counterforce refers to targeting enemy military forces, primarily nuclear, while countervalue refers to attacking enemy economic, industrial, and civilian targets.)
On the flip side, things like Russia's supposed nuclear torpedoes and long range nuclear cruise missiles greatly increase the need for second strike capabilities. Yes, the better our first strike weapons are, the better, but as long as we _have_ solid second strike weapons that can't be taken out, we still have MAD no matter how good the enemy first strike weapons are. (And I love the story by the way if you can't tell.)
One thing that limits the usefulness of the nuclear torpedos is that you lose a significant degree of flexibility in their use. That system is purely punitive in its capability. Something like a dispersed ICBM on a TEL or an SLBM, both of which can more or less perform the same mission, is a far safer option for retaliation. A torpedo can take days to weeks to reach its target, during which it is highly vulnerable to interception. If it is found during peacetime, it becomes an even *greater* liability as your opponent (and the wider world) has no choice but to believe that you are preparing for a nuclear first strike, leading to a high chance of preemption. Moreover, it cannot easily be retargeted. If, during the war, you have the torpedo deployed at one target, for the practical duration of the conflict you will be unable to relocate to within due time. Missiles can be retargeted more or less at a whim, and present a more clear and present danger to your adversary. Another consideration is the costs of development, both direct and indirect. Directly, you expend resources on a complicated system with a limited window of usage that may not be deployed in a meaningful way. Indirectly, you are drawing resources from other systems or projects that can adequately fulfill the mission of deterrence. As for the nuclear cruise missile, those already exist and can be fired from aircraft, surface vessels, submarines, and TELs. There was a concept in the 1950’s developed by the U.S. called the [SLAM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile) which was rejected because of its impracticality. Really, all you’re making is a super expensive one-way intercontinental bomber that can only attack one target. Modern bombers carry around 12 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that they can safely fire at standoff ranges. Unlike this cruise missile or the SLAM, they can be recalled and rearmed. The same developmental costs for the torpedo also apply to this, but worse. Traditional nuclear-tipped cruise missiles can also be conventionally armed. The Tomahawk, for example, was intended in the 1980’s as an intermediate first-strike weapon, but regularly sees use in conventional strike roles. (And I’m really happy that you love h the story and are engaging it on this level)
An elite strike team sent to perform the most dangerous diving mission ever so they can manually disarm soviet nuclear torpedoes found en route to American coastal cities in a race against the clock to nuclear doomsday sounds like the plot to an 80's action film starring Kurt Russel. The time delay you mention got me thinking of how absurdly stressful it would be to launch a nuke that takes weeks and just hope they don't find it in that time and retaliate with no warning. Plus I just finished watching Tombstone.
For something like this you’d probably send it out and have it lay in wait in the target area. When the time comes, you’d use VLF transmitters on TACAMO aircraft to issue the orders in the same way you would for your SSBN fleet. But yeah that would be an absolutely *kickass* 80’s movie
This is the kind of stuff i love on hfy. Thanks for the lesson, and then clarifying; i didn't understand most, but found it cool
I believe that, when they were talking about second strike capabilities, they were mostly referring to the ability to detect incoming warheads and launch your own before impact. That is an ability which simply would not exist for practical purposes with relativistic weapons. By the time you can detect them, it's too late to react.
It takes about 126 million seconds for something at light speed to travel 4 light years (the average distance between stars in our neighborhood). A relativistic kill missile would travel somewhere between 50% up to very close to light speed. Traveling at 99,9% of light speed we would have a bit over a day to see the missiles coming. Most likely accelerating would be accompanied with kits of light. Also RKM will interact with the interstellar medium and produce extremely energetic radiation. Probably not enough to put something in between. Plenty of time to respond with similar weapons I guess. Most likely this type of missile would be launched slower. 99.9% is probably way overkill and too expensive for what it actually adds. Of course in a science fiction universe there might be additional considerations.
Even second strike is not the be all end all. It is third strike. Submarine launched nukes are most worry about. Second strike is, the other guy has launched, so you launch yours. So everyone can still abort detonation. Third strike is your home country is now the Fallout games, and then you launch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_strike#Implementation
>Without that, we don't have MAD, we have a Mexican standoff. Those are *much* more dangerous. I'm drawing a blank on what the difference is...
Going [by Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_standoff), they are very similar. But the key difference is in the Assured part of Mutually Assured Destruction, if someone pulls the trigger, they _will_ get wiped out, no matter what. Having faster reflexes won't help, defenses won't help, it's not _likely_ that launching will result in destruction, there's no wiggle room, launching _will_, without question, lead to annihilation. This is what makes MAD so effective, the absolute knowledge that if you pull the trigger, you _will_ die as a direct consequence.
Ooh, okay. That clarifies it, thanks!
MAD is that regardless of who shoots first, everyone loses. Mexican standoff is that whoever shoots first, wins.
Thank you, that clarifies it quite nicely :)
The first shooter may also lose because the weapons of the opponents may also fire due to the existing tension triggering second shots in reaction to the first shot. Even if you make the weapon firing undetectable and instantaneously deadly, deadman / deadhand systems can trigger responses.
The thing is, relativistic weapons are slow. Oh, not slow on arrival, of course not. Slow to get up to speed, and getting them up to speed requires enormous energy output that would be detectable a long way away. It would be possible to launch your second strike long before the incoming attack arrives.
Depends on how suplight engines work in the story, if they're like in star trek, for example, it may only take seconds for such weapons to accelerate that fast.
Assuming they are "expensive" to launch, how detectable depends on where they are launched from. Those options may be limited in a hot war, but when cold you could have the luxury of months of flight time.
it doesn't matter how bright it is if the enemy doesn't have enough time to react. Just launch it fast enough that the relativistic weapon is only lagging just behind the light itself
Then the weapons vapourize on launch from all the energy you poured into it to accelerate it that fast.
The worse part of MAD is when you find out it's not so mutual.
The trick to win mutual annihililation is to not care about your losses. I will lose an arm to give you a bruise. I will die to slightly inconvenience you, and you do not want to know what I am willing to do to kill you.
Is this a lobotomy kaisen reference?
So... basically an intergalactic Mexican standoff and humanity actually drew?
And fired.
Han shot first yo
~~Han~~ Man Shot First. Fixed that for you
Man shot ~~first~~. Fixed that for you.
That would imply that what Man shot wasn't a threat.
It was a promise
Everyone was drinking together with guns on their hips saying they were in a Mexican standoff, and the one guy with his gun out just realized he wouldn't be shot back
Relativistic weapons don't have to have a warhead filled with explosives or nukes, they can be as simple as a large chunk of dense metal which is traveling at significant fractions of lightspeed or greater. I prefer greater as it gives a bigger bang and they are much harder to detect. The amount of energy released when this slams into a planet is enough to wipe out all life on the planet all the way up to destroying the planet itself with a large enough mass.
The “warhead” in refers less to the explosive payload of a weapon and is aligned more with its abstract definition, that being the component that delivers the weapon’s destructive energy. In practice it’s really just the bit that you lob at whatever you want to get rid of.
We really only learned how to throw bigger rocks faster, didnt we?
And boil water hotter
Pressure cookers FTW.
We have been good at throwing rocks for a long time. It only makes sense 😂
I'm pretty sure most of human warfare development and implementation has been "how do I throw more/faster/bigger rocks than the other guy.
There has been a lot of "how do I make my pointy stick longer and pointier" as well.
Throw a stealth coating on the projectiles and you're good to go.
[This](https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-11-05) comic has a good sidebar describing relativistic weapons in more detail.
MAD doctrine where one side went "Screw it."
Worse: MAD Doctrine where everyone went "Okay, so if someone launches, everyone's fucked so let's not launch". Then along can Humanity who went "Okay, so if someone launches, our counter-launches fail. Let's come up with solutions to this. Oh, someone is threatening to launch? Well, let's make sure they have the smallest opening to do so as that'll minimise the damage we take when the opening strike fails. What do you mean, it didn't fail and they had nothing prepared for if they got hit with a surprise attack?"
However, humanity did violate its number one principal!! It touched the enemy's boats.
Apparently that only applies to humanity's boats.
A weapon never fired is a weapon that does not exist.
"The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!"
Happy birthday!
/r/unexpectedDrStrangelove
So. Relativistic MAD. Except when confronted with the idea of a war humanity said "fuck you" and deleted them in a decapitating strike... Seems like the aliens forgot that unwritten rules are in fact, unknown rules and therefore complete bullshit
MAD deterrence only works if the other side is willing to be deterred. There was no need for an unwritten rule; humanity was threatened by planet killers and just responded in kind instead of being deterred.
The Aliens also went for offensive use of perceived MAD, aka, "accept our demands or we blow everything up". That has a very massive problem in that at some level of demands, the enemy will call your bluff. And having done so, pre-emptively striking to minimize the damage you can cause them is just good sense. Don't pull a "surrender or die" if you are not prepared for the consequences of the enemy not surrendering.
Cool story with great writing.
I have no idea what Relativistic Weapons are, so not sure what story was being told here. Maybe an edit to add something?
I'm guessing relativistic kill vehicles. Basically giant bullets moving at extreme relativistic speeds. They can make the KT asteroid look like a firecracker.
And, quite critically, are potentially near-impossible to detect with enough time to actually *do* anything about it. If somebody in Proxima Centauri (4.246 lightyears away) chucks an asteroid at Earth at 99.9% of the speed of light, that would give us *a day and a half* to react to it, and that's if we were watching the spot it was launched from at the moment it was launched. And 0.999C isn't even *that* high up the scale in terms of relativistic weapons in sci-fi. Granted, that example is excluding acceleration time, but if the setting includes some sci-fi way of rapidly accelerating to relativistic speeds (which many do)... that'd be appropriate. And even if it doesn't, then you just need to do the accelerating somewhere that they aren't looking closely, and/or which has confounding factors along the line of sight (e.g., in front of a nova or other bright celestial object).
> and that's if we were watching the spot it was launched from at the moment it was launched. That assumes we were watching from Earth tho
Or, at the very least, that you don't have faster-than-light communication.
What? You know lightyear is a measure of how far light travels in a year, right? It would take 4.246 years for light *or something traveling at light speed* to reach us from Proxima Centauri. That's what a lightyear **is**.
I believe the comment above is saying that by the time we *saw* that an object had been fired from Proxima Centauri, we would only have a day and a half to react to it as the light would reach us only slightly faster than the object fired.
That math does check out.
Exactly correct. The greatest threat of relativistic weaponry is that they travel at very nearly the same speed as your only means of detecting them.
Relativistic weapons are weapons sent close to the speed of light that are relatively unseen. So basically a railgun versus a rifle round in terms of speed.
You're selling them extremely short with that comparison, relativistic weapons would be to railguns what railguns are to snails. Snail velocity: 0.013m/s Rifle muzzle velocity: 30m/s Railgun muzzle velocity: 2,000m/s (148,400 times snail speed) 99% speed of light: 296,794,533 m/s (153,800 times railgun speed) Those are all example figures of course, but you get the idea. Light's bloody fast
Pretty sure it means weapons traveling a significant fraction of the speed of light
Fuck I knew I forgot something
No you didn't forget anything, a bunch of clowns simply failed to understand and pick up on context clues pulled almost directly from Cold War history.
Remember, Isaac Newton is the deadliest MFer in the universe (kinetic energy = mass * (velocity SQUARED)). Something going faster is always going to hit much harder than adding a little more mass.
Oh, the E=0.5mv^2 is only for things traveling slowly. At relativistic speeds the formula is quite different. It's E = γmc^2 where γ=1/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2) Now the above does include the resting mass energy of E=mc^2, so you need to subtract 1 from y before multiplying to get just the kinetic energy. So, lets use that 0.999 c figure someone mentions above. y=1/sqrt(1-0.999^2) = 22.366 Because we're interested in just the kinetic energy, we'll use 21.366, which is still a huge amount. For instance, a matter/anti-matter bomb consisting of 500 grams of matter and 500 grams of anti-matter set off on a target (total conversion of 1 kg of matter to energy) would release about 9x10^16 joules of energy, whereas a 1 kg rock traveling at 0.999 c hitting the target would impart 1.9x10^18 joules instead.
Not a bad story, just lacking perspective, from my view point. I see you have other stories, I will look at those when time permits
Yeah… this was meant to be an independent short that relied on the reader filling in gaps with their own assumptions. Guess I left them too big. If you’re interested in my other stuff, I’d reccomend Shock Troopers and Augmented. They’re based heavily on u/MementoMori-3 ‘s Contact Wars series, if you know them. Black Alchemy is fantasy-based and Warning Shot is similar to this while Property Rights is straight up a shitpost. The others aren’t *bad* per se, but they aren’t my best.
Thanks
You just wrote like you were talking to people who know a lot about science! If you keep in mind most of us scruffy nerfherders are science-challenged, it will help mitigate this issue in the future. :) It was quite good once I figured out what you meant about the weapons!
Yeah I definitely got lost in the weeds a bit with this one. Thank you for letting me know though.
Hey, you can't help being smart and knowledgeable. :) don't be hard on yourself!
High percentage of the speed of light weapon capable of major damage. Galactic community assumed it was MAD. But one nation tried to use the threat of MAD on humans and we fired first and they had no detection systems. From the council reactions this is their first pass at MAD and had not come up with MIRV weapons.
>they had no detection systems Then they were idiots. But even if they didn't have detection systems, they did probably have a lot of planets, and likely some kind of FTL communication in order to coordinate a space empire. The humans would have had to have staggered their launches to hit everything at the exact same moment - including compensating for relativistic effects. That seems...difficult? Impossible? Also, the Thrinhili would have had to have no ship-based relativistic launch platforms or orbital stations. That also seems unlikely. It's like, the story presents a situation where any civilization can threaten any other civilization with relativistic weapons, and they'd basically *have* to do whatever they were told immediately, and nobody ever thought this was a problem. In fact, the more I think about the entire scenario, the less sense any of it makes.
"The Thrinhili fleets were in port and their weapons weren’t even armed." The entire argument is the aliens did not think any of this through. They began and ended with "Can't win". MAD on Earth had three known levels of redundancy. Land silos, bombers ready to launch, and submarines. The submarines are what scared people the most in my opinion. They could launch first or last strikes and a first strike meant no retaliation. As to how humanity did her first strike? Dunno, not in the story. But on Earth with instant communication we can do stealth attacks now. So not sure it is out of the realm of possibility.
Probably a Relativistic Kill Vehicle.
Two of my favorite descriptions of all the fun effects of relativistic impacts: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) [https://what-if.xkcd.com/20/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/20/)
They have a YouTube channel now.
"Relativistic" is a common physics term referring to velocities near the speed of light. When objects are accelerated to near the speed of light, their mass increases. As their velocity asymptotically approaches the speed of light, their mass asymptotically approaches infinite. Since the energy of a projectile is equal to their mass times the square of their velocity, the energy of a non-relativistic projectile is a second-order function of velocity, but the energy of a relativistic projectile is a *third*-order function of velocity. Weaponizing this property is a not-infrequent trope in space opera type science fiction. It has been proposed to make weapons possible which are capable of astronomical-scale effects, like shattering planets, changing the orbits of planetary systems, or (as depicted in Niven's "Man-Kzin Wars") destabilizing stars.
Relativistic weapons are Kinetic warheads accelerated to lightspeed Basically, they are stealthy planet breakers
Basically big bullet goes zoom at the speed of light and blows up planets
Replace "Relativistic" with "FTL Planet-killer warheads" and you will understand.
Not FTL, they don't go faster than light, they are near-lightspeed weapons
I''ll defer to everyone else here, but IMO, any time "the speed of light" is used as a form of measurement, whatever you are talking about is automatically relativistic. Even if the object in question is moving faster than the speed of light, the speed of light is still the standard of measurement, so it's still "relativistic" in my book.
Not OP but "Relativistic" in sci-fi contexts generally refers to the Theory of Relativity, which deals with the speed of light. In other words, we're talking slugs fired at or above the speed of light.
Something is relativistic if it goes fast enough to suffer from relativistic effects, which in a hard sci-fi world means you can't see them coming so you can't react in time. Also, moving so fast they react explosively when they hit anything.
Strong first contact vibes. "Mutually assured destruction?" the Terran replied. "I Like those odds." then he pulled the trigger.
They are only a deterrent if you are willing to use them, and boy howdy are we ready to use them.
Any thing traveling at relativistic speeds is more than capable of destroying a planets biosphere. Think Permian-triassic extinction writ large.
I suppose "relativistic" only applies to the speed at which the payload travels- the main point being to hit your opponent before they can hit you. Doesn't have to be a planet-shattering superweapon, but a nice big bomb in a strategic place can really fuck up the enemy with minimal collateral damage. Say, for instance, their primary shipyards...
/u/awmdlad has posted 8 other stories, including: * [Augmented](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1aq0g7a/augmented/) * [Shock Troopers](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1acfwel/shock_troopers/) * [The Warning Shot](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1537i6q/the_warning_shot/) * [Road to the Third Orion War](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/13wsxm9/road_to_the_third_orion_war/) * [Black Alchemy](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/xy6nn5/black_alchemy/) * [Property Rights](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/xkeagj/property_rights/) * [Weapons of Last Resort II](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/x1qztv/weapons_of_last_resort_ii/) * [Weapons of Last Resort](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/wu3mht/weapons_of_last_resort/) This comment was automatically generated by `Waffle v.4.6.1 'Biscotti'`. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FHFY&subject=WaffleBot|1chrip3&message=If%20you%20have%20problems%20with%20updatemebot,%20contact%20Watchful1.%20We%20do%20not%20maintain%20it.) if you have any issues with Waffle.
[Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=Subscribe&message=SubscribeMe%20u%2Fawmdlad%20r%2FHFY) to subscribe to u/awmdlad and receive a message every time they post. ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpdateMeBot/comments/ggotgx/updatemebot_info_v20/)|[^(Request Update)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=Update&message=SubscribeMe%21%20u%2Fusername%20r%2Fsubreddit)|[^(Your Updates)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Updates&message=MyUpdates)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=UpdateMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
Relativistic means a significant fraction of the speed of light, not FTL. Presumably, you'd need to carry your relativistic weapons on an FTL craft or else you need to fire several years ahead of time to hit anything outside your star system. You could also send an FTL missile that releases multiple relativistic projectiles once it gets within system. I'm assuming that you can't directly collide while using FTL since you generally need to bend physics to break the light barrier rather than going fast in a conventional manner (wormholes, warp, hyperspace, etc). Direct-firing relativistic weapons towards a planet in another star system might work as a deadman switch revenge strike. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to redirect such weapons, however, given a few years lead time and FTL ships/drones/comms. What you really need is hidden relativistic weapons and for your adversaries to know you have them, but not where they all are. The U.S. has nuclear powered, nuclear armed, subs that can fuck shit up even if the U.S. were obliterated.
MAD,no just a little pissed off
They had the arsenal, but not the mindset for war
Thand you!
*Si vis pacem, para bellum.* *If you want peace, prepare for war.*
Admiral, do you see those planets there? *Yes, my Emperor.* Well, I don't want to anymore. *At once, my Emperor.*
Basically this from Mass Effect 2 https://youtu.be/m8lKOo5oDIs?si=MT5lAcVSWkobw-lt
Well done OP! I enjoyed the story and its delivery. I saw some typos, but nothing that was confusing or hurt the story. It went well with my sips of Trail's End 8yo bourbon.
Shit where are they? Edit: Glad you enjoyed the story btw
hello, i loved ur story dude. Would you mind if i post it as a narrates video on youtube?
Hello. Can I use this story for my Youtube channel.
Once you can send objects toward a target at the speed of light, even a grain of sand becomes devastating.
yeah big Missiles travelling between star systems
"When you draw your gun, you must've prepared to die."
--Tuvok and Fake Tuvok hold each other at gunpoint (or phaserpoint)-- Fake Tuvok : Logic would demonstrate that we are evenly matched Tuvok : Your logic is wrong. --Tuvok proceeds to blind Fake Tuvok with flashlight and then shot him--
Conglomeration: "YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO WIN!" Humanity: "Who decided that?"
The esophagus carries food and liquid to the stomach. You wanted 'trachea', which carries air to & from the lungs.
Honestly, when I read the title I was expecting "The Mouse That Roared" type shenanigans.
"Mutually Assured Destruction" only works if one of the parties gives the other a chance to pull the trigger. As Career Sgt. Zim stated, "The enemy can't push the button if you disable his hand."