Re: Some FT background stuff (guidelines for writers)

Ah a very interesting thread....

Jonathan white wrote:

> Then of course there is the problem of shielding your drones AI
computers
> from external interference. I'd love to know what a close detonation
EMP
> warhead would do to a pack of drone fighters :).
>

Not that I'm a proponent of AI fighters, (Some pundit always comes along
predicting the demise of human invlvement in fighting wars), but an EMP
burst
against a human fighter would be just as bad. Sure he might be OK, but
what
about all the circuits in his ride? They'd suffer as bad as the AI core
of a
non-human fighter (assuming similar shielding).

> >yesterday you were a navigator. This allows for a cheap supply of
> >untrained (uneducated?) pilots who--once they jack in--become a new
> >Chuck Yeager.
> Again the problem of course is predicability. If every pilot has
access to
> exactly the same knowledge, every pilot will react to a given
situation in
> more or less the same way. In combat of course this is A BAD THING.
Part of
> the problem with these mass prdoced drones/pilots is getting the m to
react
> in an individual manner.

Exactly, there's a hellofalot more to any of these jobs besides
knowledge. There
is experience and intuition. Not just collective experience, but
personal
experience

> >Except that it still takes a good couple of years to create a fighter
> >jock, unless computers are augmenting their training.
>

Maybe fighters will get easier to fly 200 years, what with computer
assiatance,
better spatial sensors, and nueral interfaces. Sort of like cars. Right
now
they're very complicated because, theres still a difficulty in getting
all that
ammassed information assimilated by the pilot in the few senses he can
use. This
was training can actually focus on combat operations, SCM, and tactics.

> Hmm.. Current physics research implies translight communication is
actually
> feasible, much more than translight travel anyway, what with electron
> tunnelling, particle spin reversion and things like that. I would say
that
> translight comms was actually a requirement of any large interstellar
> society - could the US manage it's fleets without radio?
>

Today, no. But in the age of sail, huge empires managed without
instantaneous
communications. There are plenty of scifi stories written along these
lines.

Los