Re: Re: [GZG] [SG] Rapid Fire antipersonnel plasma gun?

[J L Hilal <jlhilal@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 9/28/06, laserlight@xxxxxxxxxxx <laserlight@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > John A said:
> > >You really want a spiel, ask me about the likelyhood of conflict
> > >between two independantly planted colonies on the same planet.
> >
> > Hey John! What do you think the chances are of ground combat on a planet
> > with independently planted colonies?  You can use for example Cibola, which
> > has an Islamic Fed colony, a PAU colony, a couple of independent colonies
> > (a Sikh one and a corporate venture) and a UN observer station.
>

<snip>
> How long would it be before the transportation infrastructure between
> any two given colonies would be sufficient to permit the nations to
> engage in serious conflict?

How long did it take before there was serious conflict between the colonies of
New England and New France?  How long was it befere New Amsterdam was captured?
 How long after 1784 did state militias start fighting each other over
territory expansion west of the Appalachian Range?  All they had was sail- and
animal-transport and smoothbore muzzle-loading flintlocks and matchlocks, but
they managed it pretty quick.  For that matter, how long did it take before the
Boers and Afrikaaners got ornery?


> 
> What in God's name would they find to fight over?  Resource scarcity
> wouldn't be an issue for decades if not centuries.
> 

Beavers, timber, and snow?
Rum, spices, and sugar cane?
How to pronounce God's name?
Whether a man who's been dead for fifteen hundred years should have been the
first Successor or the fourth?
When Mo got the Inspiration instead of Ali, was it because the Almighty zapped
the wrong talking monkey or because Gabriel took the one in Apt. 4D instead of
4B?
Is it better to pray in congregation with the assistance of clergy or in
solitary contemplation in your own log hovel?


> And what the hell kind of brand new colony has the spare resources to
> waste on fighting?
> 

The kind that thinks your scarce resources are darn spiffy?

Or the kind that thinks having you mine the Tiberium that they sell for a
handsome profit is a good idea?

Or the kind that spent all their startup capital on grav-guns and Little Red
Books?

Or the kind that doesn't like having genies settle on their harsh-enviroment
heavy-grav world ("it's not fair", "it's against God's design")?

Or the kind that thinks you have settled too close to their resources?  

Or the kind that thinks your irrigation project 1000km away is depriving them
of water (or hurting the salmon-pike spawning)?

Or the kind that doesn't want Wayland-Yutani-Yoyodyne Interstellar, Inc. to set
up a mining colony on Muir's World?

Or the kind that thinks Interplanetary Expeditions Ltd. shouldn't disurb the
possible burial site of the noble long-dead aboriginal civilization?

Or the kind that "came here to get back to the historic ways of our ancestors
and don't want your technology ruining it for us (so we're gonna paint hand
prints on the side of our grav trucks for each of you we disintegrate, and 'U'
shapes for each of your speeders that we capture)"?

:)
J
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