Re: [GZG] Invading Mars (was FTverse colinies)

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 4:54 PM,  <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au> wrote:
> Now fire away - feel free to tell me why that was a dumb decision on
the
> KV's part (or maybe why it was the right one). If you want to say how
> you'd take Mars I'm all ears too.

Whether or not it is reasonable depends on a few variables that
haven't been thrashed out in the Tuffleyverse.

Let's assume that a full invasion of Earth is going to take a fair bit
of time to set up. Fuel, food, water, equipment, replacement parts,
maybe even transports take a while to line up. In the meantime, you
don't want your warriors sitting around on board ship getting bored.
You want them training and preparing, and that requires them to be on
a planet with gravity relatively close to that of Earth. Does it make
sense, then, for that invasion site to be Mars?

** Assumption 1: That the KV can't freeze their warriors in some sort
of stasis and wake them up pretty much ready to fight. Either there is
no stasis, or such stasis leaves the soldiers' muscles relatively weak
(think of how the Nostromo crew looked as they woke up at the
beginning of _Alien_). If the stasis exists, there's no need to stage
the warriors in a gravity well. Just take them from their training
camps on the Kra'vak home world and freeze them until they drop on
Earth.

** Assumption 2: That the KV need real time training on a planet. In
other words, they don't have _Matrix_ style training simulators that
form the necessary neural pathways without the warriors actually
having to do real work on a real planet. (I personally like this idea,
and plan to use it in a sci-fi RPG I'm going to write next year, but
it's not something that's been mentioned with regard to the
Tuffleyverse.) Also, they don't have huge portable gravity-generating
ships that could double for a training ground. This means that KV
troops need to train in a gravity well prior to an assault on Earth.
Otherwise, as above, you just load them onto ships and leave them
there for long periods of time prior to the invasion.

For a variant on this, assume that KV warriors actually need at least
_some_ training, and not just strength conditioning and muscle toning.
In other words, they aren't "natural fighters" whose abilities come
from instinct.

** Assumption 3: That Mars' gravity is going to be sufficiently high
enough, or their stay there will be sufficiently short enough, that
their muscles won't atrophy. I personally wouldn't leave a force very
long on Mars if they intend to fight on Earth. Even if you could
strength train the troops to keep their muscles in tone, the neural
pathways of fighting on Mars are going to be different from those of
fighting in Earth's gravity well. You have to assume that the KV can
get around this difference, or they (or the human bases they capture)
have gravity plates that will produce 1g of gravity for most of the
time the KV are on Mars.

If any of those assumptions aren't true, then Mars isn't going to be
of much use as a staging area for an attack on Earth. You might as
well either stage your troops in deep space within a day or a week's
jump of Earth, or you stage them on an extra-solar planet with gravity
closer to Earth that's, say, no more than a couple of weeks from
Earth.

Even if Mars will work, you have to ask yourself "why Mars?" What does
Mars get you that an extra-solar planet would not? The main advantage
is proximity to Earth. However, this proximity is artificial. If you
can jump a distance of 1 light year a day, every planet in our solar
system is essentially the same distance apart. There's an assumption
that gravity affects jump accuracy, but that argues for starting your
invasion outside of a gravity well, as it implies inaccuracies when
jumping out of a gravity well, too. What's more, you have to expend
energy to climb out of a gravity well. Assuming you are launching an
invasion from Mars, you'd have to take the time, effort, and energy
expenditure to get yourself out of the Martian gravity well before you
can attack the Earth. That's going to be noticed, and leave you
somewhat vulnerable. By contrast, if you launch from an extra-solar
planet. You can take more time and be more cautious when lifting off
the planet, you can then refuel, and jump to a point in space beyond
the plane of the ecliptic. That gets you just as close to Earth as
Mars (even closer) with little chance of being spotted as you start
making micro-jumps into Earth's gravity well.

This is all arguing against an attack on Mars first. Depending on your
assumptions, Mars might make a vulnerable and questionable assembly
point.

So, let's look at the issue from the other side. Is there a reason
that Mars is a tempting target in its own right? Maybe there's a human
naval base, or bases, on Mars or in Mars orbit, or maybe there's a
large army reserve on Mars. It makes sense not to keep all of your
ships in one base in case of a sneak attack (there are plenty of
historical analogues). The KV might need to take out Mars because they
can't afford to leave the Mars bases intact while they attack Earth.

An example of this is the Peleliu campaign from World War II. U.S.
Marines attacked two islands in the Palau chain prior to MacArthur's
attack on the Philippines. The intention was to bottle up the Japanese
on Peleliu and prevent them from reinforcing the Philippines. (As it
turned out, it wasn't necessary. The U.S. Navy could have skirted
around the islands and interdicted any Japanese ships pulling
reinforcements from Peleliu without the large loss of life the bloody
ground campaign generated. In the case of the Tuffleyverse, FTL jumps
make interdiction far less likely.)

Attacking Mars is important if there are reinforcing assets that could
be brought to bear on a force attacking Earth. However, this argues
that the attack on Earth should be ready to begin fairly soon after
the attack on Mars, or that at least a threat of attacking Earth will
pin the humans in place. This is where another bunch of assumptions
come in.

How big is the KV fleet? Do the humans know how big the fleet is? Will
the humans be able to tell if the attack on Mars is a diversionary
attack, or if it's an attack in force? The size of the attack force
needs to be calculated pretty tightly. Too many ships and the humans
might realize it's a major force and send large numbers of
reinforcements from Earth right away. Too small a force and the attack
could be thwarted by the addition of a relatively small attack group
from Earth. How quickly could a human task force turn around and head
back to Earth if they were just about to engage at Mars when the main
KV fleet attacked Earth?

For that matter, a small attack force going after Mars might elicit a
HUGE response from Earth, on the assumption that it would be quickly
overwhelmed by the full force of the Earth's navies. Sure it would
leave Earth unprotected for a time, but this tactic could completely
annihilate the Martian expedition and then turn around in time to jump
on the main KV force at Earth, allowing the KV to be defeated in
detail.

This is assuming that humanity has a big base on Mars that needs
dealing with. I'd be tempted to put my naval assets within a quick
jump from Earth but in a part of space that allows me to monitor the
Earth without being noticed. I'd move about on a regular, but random,
basis, too. While I'm at it, I'd have the fleet monitor Mars. Now the
KV fleet won't know the location of my fleet in order to hit it, while
pinning their own fleets within the Earth and Mars gravity wells.

Of course this assumes (there's that word again!) that the Earth
navies get nothing out of being located in or near a gravity well.
What do the ships use for fuel? Is it something that has to be mined
and/or transported? Maybe it makes sense to have a base on Mars or in
Mars orbit for some reason or another. Maybe you just can't produce a
good space-bound dry dock that's mobile. Or, maybe the dry dock is in
so much demand that it just can't move, meaning that putting it out in
space is a liability (at some point someone will spill the beans as to
where it's located) compared to sitting in Mars orbit where it
benefits from the Mars ground defences.

How efficient are jump drives? Do they consume enough energy that
transporting fuel by jumping to a point in space where the naval base
is located is a losing proposition? If you lose a quarter of your fuel
just transporting it to where it's got to go, it might not be worth
your while putting the naval base out in the middle of nowhere. You
might have to keep it near a planet where orbital elevators can
economically pull the fuel out of the gravity well up to the ships.

Taking everything into consideration, I personally think there are
some advantages to putting a naval base in orbit around Mars,
depending on your set of assumptions. I don't think the KV would get
much out of attacking Mars and then using Mars as a staging area for
an attack on the Earth. They could do that from a more distant
location, one that isn't between 3 and 22 light minutes from Earth.
(I'm assuming that in the Tuffleyverse that distance is close enough
that human forces could get relevant and useful military information
from just straight observation.)

I think the best bet would be an attack on Mars as a close prelude to
an attack on Earth, either as a diversion or as a pinning attack. The
staging area would be some extra-solar planet within a week's jump of
Earth.

-- 
Allan Goodall http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com

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