Re: [GZG] C-IED/COIN in SGII/DSII

On Thu, 9 Sep 2010, John Atkinson wrote:

> I'm doodling here, so here goes nothing. . .
>
> Presumptions:  No nanotech "magic wands", technology levels roughly
> equivalent to Drake's Hammer's Slammers, Jerry Pournelle's CoDo
> series, and similiar novels.	Volume matters when shipping across
> space, mass relatively less so.  All colonies will have widespread
> light industrial capacity, frequently in extremely small packages,
> because initial colonization pattern includes dropping folks near
> easily extracted resources.  That doesn't mean they will have rocket
> fuel or other exotic substances, but they will have precision
> machining and fuel, as well as relatively abundant precursor
> chemicals.  Space travel is only used for high-value goods, basic bulk
> necessities must be manufactured on each planet.

So no Star Trek replicators.  Got it.	Are your machine tools small
enough so they can be in a home?   Are all the tools capable of making
the
parts for a submachine gun in a factory or colonists have desktop CNC
machines?

> 4:  If I have to support an insurgency by loading a limited-volume
> spaceship and using it to run a blockade, I'm going to pack it full of
> things that give me maximum bang for volume.	This means military
> grade explosives, blasting caps, anti-tank weapons, and ammunition.
> Not pallets of fertilizer bags.  You're getting a data chip with the
> specifications for EFP plates and assembly, and specs for some
> electronic sensors for activation.  The rest is on you.

Have you considered the landing ability of spaceships or their support
craft?
How constrained the landing area is will determine smuggling's
effectiveness.
In Hammers Slammers spaceships can land in many back woods areas.  In
the
Lt. Leary series, which I'm only in the first book so YMMV, space ships
can
only land in large bodies of water.  The government can stop the SS Big
Bang
in one but not in another.

Now that I think about it, I don't think anyone has explored making IED
devices out of the power sources available in most science fiction
backgrounds.
If you have an incredibly dense power source like a lightsaber battery
or
mini fusion plants, can you make them fail catastrophicly enough to be a
useful IED?  I don't think you can make IEDs from Hammer's Slammers
powergun
ammunition in that universe but if an R2 unit can roll up to you and
then
overload its powerpack and explode?  Ugly.

> Wildcards:
> Science fictional interrogation techniques:  If accurate lie detectors
> are possible in a 'hasty' situation, or safe and reliable drug
> interrogation exists (see David Drake's short story about the
> interrogator, can't recall title, I'm sure someone else can)

"The Interrogation Team" might be the one you mean.  I can't find it in
any of the free online ebook depositories so you can check it and be
sure.
"The Interrogation Team" is reprinted in the Complete Hammers Slammers
Vol. 1
but that's not online that I can link to.  (I got my copy via
webscription.net)

> traction in the first place.	Many of the cultural and linguistic
> issues can be settled with the assumption that someone assigned to
> work on a Francophone colony would have the finest French-translation
> software money can buy in his earpiece, and 'sleep learning tapes'
> that implant a deep knowledge of the cultural mores and sensitivites
> of the subjects.  :)

Well, that depends on if you get your tapes from Rosetta Stone or OCP's
Language Learning division:
http://www.sciflicks.com/robocop_2/facts.html
Getting a language tape with something like Directive 278 could happen. 
;-)

Mike
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