Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Tadashi wrote:
Uh-huh...guess that makes ballistic submarines useless, seeing as their primary purpose is to serve as deterrents and are otherwise worthless. Sorry, but I believe that quality beats quantity any time, no matter the cost.

Um, no? Ballistic submarines were made (at first) to deliver the short range missiles of their time covertly towards an enemy and shoot them. Nothing is made to serve specifically as a deterrent. Things become deterrents because they are made to achieve a goal that threatens an enemy enough to make them wonder if they should fight. Now ballistic missile subs serve the usefulness of mobile launch platforms that can evade detection more easily than a surface ship (though the range of missiles keeps increasing, so someday they might not be needed anymore).

And of course, there's no reason to have a fleet of nothing but ballistic subs, cause then your wasting the more expensive weapons system doing the more mundane tasks of an attack sub.

Quantity has a quality of its own. Quality is useful, but I think as a military concept is horribly misunderstood. There's no reason to send a $5,000 system to deal with a problem that can be effectively solved by a $1,000 system. A military operates on finite resources. The reality of the world doesn't allow the cost to be damned. Prioritization is important. You save the $5,000 system for the problems that need it and let the more mundane system deal with the others (and in practical senses there are more mundane tasks in the world than specialist tasks by magnitudes). Understanding that, there's no justification for a $10,000 super system that does something the cheaper one can do. I can foresee no scenario within the future at this time that would justify the creation or use of a super soldier as anything more than aesthetic (unless the cost somehow drops radically, but the cost of more traditional soldiers should drop as well, making them still a vastly more affordable option).

Space ship battles are not necessarily 'Rule of Cool' - back when battleships ruled the day, everyone thought that carriers were also 'Rule of Cool'; look at how that turned out.

They are when you realize the basic laws of physics (and the dimensions of space) make space ship battles both superfluous and impractical. When your battlefield really exists in 3 dimensions, range, direction, and points of contact become meaningless in all senses except those relative to time, and there are virtually no barriers to movement, any sense of traditional strategy or operations disappear. I wouldn't necessarily say there won't be battle in space, but I think what people generally think of as a space ship battle is not something that will ever happen. The laws of physics just don't work to facilitate cinematic fight sequences between the Enterprise and the nearest Klingon warbird. The third and second laws of motion throw that sort of thing out the window as a practical means to an end (barring of course some unforeseen technological advancement we today cannot fathom).

And not everyone thought carriers were 'rule of cool.' Almost everyone realized the usefulness of a floating airfield very quickly. They just overestimated the value of anti-aircraft weapons, underestimated the power of the aircraft, and didn't take into account the possibility that fleets would be fighting each other when they couldn't even see each other. Its a very different situation from having to circumvent physics while coping with the idea of force within an infinite space with no barriers to movement.

 LordofHats wrote:
The laws of physics just don't work to facilitate cinematic fight sequences between the Enterprise and the nearest Klingon warbird. The third and second laws of motion throw that sort of thing out the window as a practical means to an end (barring of course some unforeseen technological advancement we today cannot fathom).

Of course not.

Its been pointed out in several 40k novels that space battles aren't like in TV when ships close to sight or point-blank range and exchanges take place in minutes or seconds - in fact, they rarely (if ever) see each other and exchanges take hours or even days to peter out, unless one tries to initiate boarding actions.

As for technological advancement...the only things I can think of is a real-life equivalent to the Minovsky Particle or something along those lines, as that effectively rendered long-range weapons and warfare moot in its storyline.

EDIT: A compromise of sorts between super-soldiers and regular soldiers would be from Mass Effect and Halo: the former's Alliance military personnel received genetic enhancements for superior strength and stamina, while the Forerunner Prometheans had specific mutations to make them more suitable for their purposes.

 Tadashi wrote:
Its been pointed out in several 40k novels that space battles aren't like in TV when ships close to sight or point-blank range and exchanges take place in minutes or seconds - in fact, they rarely (if ever) see each other and exchanges take hours or even days to peter out, unless one tries to initiate boarding actions.

As also pointed out, 40k has no sense of realism at all. If it takes more than a few seconds for your weapon to hit its target, the target is just going to move out of the way (no barrier to motion). There is no practical means of attacking at range in space, leaving only close actions, but then why would you want to be in one? Such a thing would ultimately be rendered down to boarding actions which then calls into question the viability of space born combat at all when such action can so readily and easily be avoided.

As for technological advancement...the only things I can think of is a real-life equivalent to the Minovsky Particle or something along those lines, as that effectively rendered long-range weapons and warfare moot in its storyline.

Seeing as Minovsky physics are purely fictional (and when subjected to outside logic, absurd) no. Again, if your option becomes nothing but close combat, in an infinite space with no barrier to movement, any form of close action can probably be avoided allowing any space born army to avoid fighting until its on the ground of whatever landmass it wants to fight on. Here I'm assuming inter-planetary fighting. Orbital fighting I think would be little different from how it is today, as I don't think the relative costs of fighting a terrestrial foe in space will ever be worth it.

EDIT: A compromise of sorts between super-soldiers and regular soldiers would be from Mass Effect and Halo: the former's Alliance military personnel received genetic enhancements for superior strength and stamina, while the Forerunner Prometheans had specific mutations to make them more suitable for their purposes.

This I would actually agree is in the long run, a much more viable concept (the cost would need to go down though so no chance you or I will ever see this most likely, cause I just don't see it being affordable within the next century).

 LordofHats wrote:

 Tadashi wrote:
EDIT: A compromise of sorts between super-soldiers and regular soldiers would be from Mass Effect and Halo: the former's Alliance military personnel received genetic enhancements for superior strength and stamina, while the Forerunner Prometheans had specific mutations to make them more suitable for their purposes.

This I would actually agree is in the long run, a much more viable concept (the cost would need to go down though so no chance you or I will ever see this most likely, cause I just don't see it being affordable within the next century).

Not necessarily that long...there's an idea that the development rate of electronic technology accelerates exponentially the more we 'micronize' the processing hardware...since we depend on electronics to continue developing our other technologies, it also stands that technological development would also accelerate exponentially.

That theory is from the 70's and it was laughed out in the 90's. People like to ignore that it's extremely common for new technology (computers) to advance rapidly from initial discover onwards until a physical barrier is struck that limits future development. Given the laws of thermodynamics, computers cannot develop exponentially because micronization will eventually hit its limit (it's actually probably already hit that limit theoretically its just that the cost of those designs isn't practical right now).

And that's of course, a very different beast from screwing around with the human genome.

 LordofHats wrote:
That theory is from the 70's and it was laughed out in the 90's. People like to ignore that it's extremely common for new technology (computers) to advance rapidly from initial discover onwards until a physical barrier is struck that limits future development. Given the laws of thermodynamics, computers cannot develop exponentially because micronization will eventually hit its limit.

Seeing as micro-processors still haven't reached the quantum level yet...I'd say development would continue to accelerate rapidly, if not exponentially - unless you network the processors like a Human brain, but instead of neurons, you have computers networked to each other. Which would be dangerous, seeing as that could lead to rogue AIs...

And that's of course, a very different beast from screwing around with the human genome.

We all have to take risks to achieve progress...for every scientific success, there exists innumerable tragedies and failures.

EDIT: Wait, they've micronized processors to the quantum level already? I've never heard about that!

 Tadashi wrote:


Seeing as micro-processors still haven't reached the quantum level yet...I'd say development would continue to accelerate rapidly, if not exponentially - unless you network the processors like a Human brain, but instead of neurons, you have computers networked to each other. Which would be dangerous, seeing as that could lead to rogue AIs...
.

First off, quantum computing is just one possible avenue of future computing and is still decades away from fruition.

Secondly, a huge network of interconnected computers is exactly what the internet is...

 Corpsesarefun wrote:

First off, quantum computing is just one possible avenue of future computing and is still decades away from fruition.

When I meant quantum level, I meant processors the size of a quanta.

Seeing as micro-processors still haven't reached the quantum level yet...

Given that quantum computing can thus far only be simulated on Turning machines and as a science only came into being in the late 80's and today continues to exist solely in paper as a 'maybe' I think it serves little purpose to hedge our bets on something that might never happen (especially since the usefulness of a quantum computer is extremely limited).

I meant processors the size of a quanta.

...

It's physically impossible to do that (ignoring that quanta do not have 'size'). This is a case of fiction throwing out words and ideas written by authors with only a vague understanding of what they're talking about.

I'd say development would continue to accelerate rapidly, if not exponentially - unless you network the processors like a Human brain, but instead of neurons, you have computers networked to each other. Which would be dangerous, seeing as that could lead to rogue AIs...

This is already done with bot nets (but of course that too has its physical limitations), and AI in practice is nothing like what everyone assumes it is.

A quanta is the smallest unit of something, you physically cannot divide a quanta as it's indivisible by definition hence you cannot fit multiple things into a quanta.

Well, we have no true AI yet so we have no clue on how it would ever function in the first place, much less if it could actually go rogue or not.

As for electronic developments, isn't hologram technology slowly getting started? And they've been working holographic hard drives for ages now. Probably the only major leap I can think that we might actually get to see.

 Tadashi wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
They probably couldn't shoot one down...
Dodge one maybe...

At any rate the point is moot. Spartans aren't possible at our current rate of technology...
We don't have the expertise in any field required to make spartans possibly the armour but it'd be vastly more expensive than even the in-universe armour which runs into the millions. It'd even be worse than theirs anyway so go figure...

In a decade or so, perhaps?

EDIT: To clarify, I'm asking whether or not we could create SPARTANs now or in a few decades outside of the Halo universe, using real-life technologies and scientific concepts.

It might just be possible, but it would be dammned difficult and WAY to expensive to be viable. Also, the armour would not be possible with current technology, maybe in 20-30 years. Also, the casualty rate mentioned in the books during alteration would be significantly higher, so, it might be possible, but it would never be done.