Re: [GZG] Gzg-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 12

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:30 PM,  <gzg-l-request@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
wrote:

> 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?

Honestly, I'm visualizing that every rinky-dink town, and some of the
bigger land owners will have the equivalent of a machine shop in the
garage.  You'd have to, because of limited transportation
infrastructure.  Otherwise you're doing the equivalent of importing
every machine screw and spare part from Spain when your mines are in
Peru.  So small arms would be no problem, the limitation is on primers
and propellant for the cartridges, which are not high-bulk items.

> 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.

True.  You've also got to consider what you are assuming for scale of
space combat weapons/sensors.  If a habitable, Earth-style planet is,
in Full Thrust terms, 6" across, then I can throw an airtight blockade
around it with a half dozen frigates.  Problem solved.	If an inch in
FT terms is 100 km, then my problem is wildly different.

> 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.

Here's the problem.  Mini fusion plants are unlikely to be
manufactured in bulk quantities in the boonies.  You might have a
machine shop, but to build even a modern car engine by yourself with a
small-scale machine shop is not going to be a small undertaking.  Now,
how dedicated to a cause you would have to be to take the engine out
of your car, and the generator that powers your home's electricity and
keeps your family's food from spoiling, and use them as bombs to blow
up an invader's tank, knowing that he's got a lot more and that this
war is going to last a decade at best.	Remember, if you had
mini-fusion generator yesterday, and someone used one as a bomb, and
you can't explain where your mini-fusion generator is now, you are
likely to be arrested and hauled off for extensive interrogation, and
then either imprisioned indefinitely or shot.

> "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)

The one where the interrogator basically reads the subject's mind
while his partner questions the guy.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani
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