Re: Space Geography

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On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 8:44 AM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
[...]

> I guess what I'm trying to say (in a rather long winded fashion) is
> that in a setting where space flight and FTL are readily available I
> can't think of a situation where home systems won't be seeded with
> active and passive sensor suites to detect the arrival and departure
> of vessels.  The trick will be emerging close enough to the target
> system so that the defenders have no time to prepare/respond
> appropriately.
>
> Having said that I think it's more important to determine the type of
> FTL used in the setting before you can determine the feasibility of a
> ship arriving in system and ghosting its way towards the target
> planet.  Though I guess one could emerge out of "warp" outside of the
> local solar system and play a game of lawn darts to then silently
> drift into the system but even that has issues and assumes zero
> emissions, masking from optics, etc..

Has anyone read "The Lost Fleet" series? The way he handles in-system
detections more or less addresses a lot of the concerns here (though
this is
just one way to do it; there are, of coures, other views on FTL travel
and
detection used in other genres that wouldn't be addressed here). Ships
appear in-system (a great many AU from the primary - too many AU away
IMO),
but are not detected until the light from the local sun reflects off of
them
and is picked up at the planet(s) that would be looking for them, hours
after the fact. Meanwhile, they've moved. But they can be tracked and
reacted to, albeit with some delay. Ships also carry some kind of
high-tech
super telescope in which they can scan planetary surfaces from fair
distances out. He played it smart and does not go into the details of
how
these work, though.

Mk