/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3425562]

Before we start, let me elaborate thusly - I am, mathematically speaking, an ill educated peon without proper grasp of correct maths. Most of my knowledge is of the art persuasion, and literary. But I come to you now humbly, with help for a conundrum.

I'm in the midst of planning a novel or several, based on a near future thats been fucked up by the creation of a poorly controlled Seed A.I that, when asked to solve the worlds problems of fuel shortages, the division between first and third world, the resolution of the rift between religion and science, solved the issue by ruining everyones day with heavy weapons. Its a bit more subtle than the usual 'oh noes, A.I are evulz' storyline, but thats not what I'm talking about here. I'm starting to wonder about what weapons it would use.

I wanted non nuclear, non biological. So, I moved on to to the only alternative I could come up with, kinetic force weapons.

Here is the concept I imagined - a 250+ terajoule rail system from orbit, firing a ceramic coated sabot round of appropriate heavy density (steel/tungsten alloy probably), and probably about 20-30 tonnes. The impact is, I think, in the mid megaton range (without nuclear fallout). And probably fired into faultlines of continents.

The reason I like this system is because its non nuclear, has almost zero intercept probability, and is suitably future material. But I'm wondering what powers it, and, because of my math ignorance, what I've missed on it.

For a start, I'm thinking the amount of shots of a satellite orbital array would be limited. Probably even just one. And they would not have too many, unless getting something like this into space would be easy (I doubt it).

Please, I beg you. What do you think of such a concept, and can you help me fill in the gaps?

[Anonymous No.3425684]

bumping for interest

[Anonymous No.3425784]

Well, first off you need to account for why it doesn't burn up in the atmosphere due to friction. Wind and weather patterns would shift its trajectory too. And even if its launched at a very high speed, it will still slow down a bit thanks, again, to friction with the air.

To power it, well, it's the future. Say fusion or make up a name and have everyone in the story act like it's some kind of everyday thing and never explain it.

As for materials, how about it cannibalizes an enormous space station to make the projectiles?

[Anonymous No.3426348]

>>3425784

The air friction slowdown and the wind factor did worry me. I'm thinking an advanced trajectory system, but despite that, if the blast is in the megaton range, its accuracy becomes less important - but you are right, it needs to be precisely placed.

Fusion tech may have to be the way to go, but I may need to actually explain it - the main character is amnesiac. It lets me explain the world itself and the history, as well as the tech, via him.

Materials are unneccessary. These platforms are not built by the A.I, merely seized by it. They were created as a result of the resource war by a superpower who needed a non nuclear alternative to total annhiliation of an enemy. It kind of backfires.

[Anonymous No.3426356]

one simple question:

why the fuck would you do that?

[Anonymous No.3426419]

>>3426348
Forget air friction, if the projectile is suitably dense you can write it off, doesn't really matter if the object moves a lot slower, as long as its still packing a good amount of momentum. Wind and weather patterns are presumably accounted for by an A.I that powerful, I don't see why they wouldn't be.

[Anonymous No.3426424]

>>3426356

Simple, really. Imagine you are America. Or China. Or Russia. Or Germany, UK, whatever. Go ahead a century, maybe less. The world is running short on resources, and the window to create technology that will let you replace the old resource requirements is getting smaller. Resource wars, which have already begun in this time, reach their crescendo, but in order to prevent world war whatever, boffins and scientists claim that they will develop something to give them an answer. Nations band together and create a Seed A.I that grows and grows, albeit slowly, but each iteration of improvement is quicker.

But your a nation that doesn't quite trust this answer. So you use the time you have. You create a weapon system that doesn't have nuclear fall out. That can't be intercepted once fired due to sheer velocity. No missile system can stop it. And the pieces that are left can be swept aside before you crack the ground open and suck out everything inside. Hell, you could hide it in satellite launches, quite easily, even put a spin on it to say they are new geoscanner satellites to look for resources while the world works towards creating this A.I that they think will solve everything.

And then, boom, you fucked it up. Because while you were creating a contingency to solve one problem, the original solution to the main problem has just woken up, decided that humanity in its current state is the problem, so instead it must decrease their numbers without impacting planet survivability due to massive amounts of radiation. And hey presto - there it is, waiting in space, just hovering until someone presses the trigger.

Thats why.

[Anonymous No.3426457]

>>3426424
Stop playing Ubisoft shit

kinetic bombardment is ridiculously inefficient

[Anonymous No.3426482]

>>3426457

As opposed to nuclear, which leaves you unable to take the land itself? As opposed to a sustained land war? Give an alternative if its such a bad idea.

[Anonymous No.3426486]

>non nuclear
>non biological

So OP is looking for chemical weapons.

Sorry to disappoint you OP, chemical weapons <<< nuclear weapons

[Anonymous No.3426488]

>>3426482
>As opposed to nuclear, which leaves you unable to take the land itself?

HAHA this guy actually thinks nuclear fallout is a real risk.

If that's the case then why do people still live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

tl;dr OP is retarded

[Anonymous No.3426501]

>>3426488

Fallout explains Japan perfectly if you ask me

[Anonymous No.3426502]

>>3426488

One word.

Chernobyl.

The amount of nuclear weapons needed to wipe out the infrastructure and people of a nation like, say, Africa would be hundreds of megatons, not kilotons like Hiroshima. The fallout would also ruin farmland, making food production impossible.

Chemical weapons are inefficient for the same reason. The land must remain fertile and useable afterwards for recolonisation.

So, non biological. Non chemical. Non nuclear. This is a resource war, not an annhiliation of landmass war.

[Anonymous No.3426516]

>>3426502

people live in chernobyl
some of them even 10km away from NPP
they are perfectly healthy (just suffer from old age and lack of services)

nuclear arsenal of all nations would blow up Arizona. Nuclear holocaust is a myth.

your argument is invalid

[Anonymous No.3426523]

>>3426502
>This is a resource war

launching hundreds of bombardment platforms for god-knows-how-much-money seems to be COMPLETELY REASONABLE

[Anonymous No.3426543]

>>3426523
Financial value is not a real value.

example:
Financial value of 1000 000 transistor/valves/rellays computer in 1950' would be immense (billions of £), in 2011 it is about ~ £10.

[Anonymous No.3426557]

>>3426543
during lack of resources you will think twice before you buy another gallon of oil or launch multibillion piece of shit into space

[Anonymous No.3426562]

>>3426516
>Nuclear holocaust is a myth

This.

[Anonymous No.3426587]

>>3426557
What I mean is that rare atoms (rare earths) will be in roughly same abundance while high-tech robotics with carbon something nano structures will be much more common. therefore current high prices on nano materials are only temporal and will drop. While price on say Tantalum will stay the same or even increase (most likely will jet sky increase since it's a useful metal).

Therefore the physics rarity will determine the value of things in the future rather than market/market in today's understanding. So it will worth sending 100 carbon fiber robots to beat the shit out of somebody for 1kg of Tantalum. It will not worth using high energy weapons but rather high energy density weapons since energy will be scare as well (seems so at least).

[Anonymous No.3426593]

>>3426587
>rare atoms (rare earths)

Oh boy, this guy actually thinks "rare earths" are rare.

[Anonymous No.3426595]

>>3426587
not scare but scarce

[Anonymous No.3426606]

>>3426593
By "rare" I mean relatively rare compared to other like carbon. And as given in the example Tantalum is actually pretty rare as well.

[Anonymous No.3426610]

>>3426587
>>3426595

And why would energy be scarce?

[Anonymous No.3426617]

>>3426606

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust

silicon Si 277,200 277,100 270,000 276,900 282,000 3,880,000

5000 (electronic grade)
13 aluminium Al 81,300 82,000 82,000 80,700 82,300 30,000,000
26 iron Fe 50,000 41,000 63,000 50,500 56,300 1,200,000,000
20 calcium Ca 36,300 41,000 50,000 36,500 41,500 112,000,000 (CaO)
11 sodium Na 28,300 23,000 23,000 27,500 23,600 200,000
19 potassium K 25,900 21,000 15,000 25,800 20,900 36,000,000 (K2O)
12 magnesium Mg 20,900 23,000 29,000 20,800 23,300 350,000
22 titanium Ti 4,400 5,600 6,600 6,200 5,600 99,000
1 hydrogen H 1,400 N/A 1,500 1,400 1,400 50,000,000
15 phosphorus P 1,200 1,000 1,000 1,300 1,050 153,000,000
25 manganese Mn 1,000 950 1,100 900 950 6,220,000
9 fluorine F 800 950 540 290 585 4,000,000
56 barium

Carbon is less abundant than you think.

[Anonymous No.3426624]

>>3426610
Because although it is in abundance only a small fraction of it is in useful form. So yes I didn't clarify perhaps electric energy will be scarce (take it as in scarce if used in nuclear style massive explosion weapons and so on - lot's of energy and not so much effect - not that a TV set or a car would be too expensive to power up obviously).

[Anonymous No.3426637]

>>3426617
I took it as an example. But Tantalum is far less abundant then Carbon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements

There is lot's of carbon in Milky Way, lots of carbon in solar system and if you scroll a bit lower you'll see that there is lots/relatively lot's of carbon on Earth as well.

[Anonymous No.3426661]

I can already tell your novel is going to be shit.

A super advanced AI isn't randomly just going to resort to violence to achieve its goal/s. That's far too human-like.

You're not giving the AI any psychology.

Like I mentioned before he seems way to humanistic. Why does he solve the problems of Earth in that particularly way? Is he angry? How and why is he angry? How was he built and then how was he poorly controlled?

None of it seems to be cogent.

[Anonymous No.3426662]

>>3426624

And why would we not have nuclear breeder/fusion reactors by then?

[Anonymous No.3426668]

>>3426661

This.

You need to give your robot a unique personality otherwise he will seem like just another human.

[Anonymous No.3426755]

>>3426662
Because why waste energy if you can achieve same without wasting it? Or shall I put it this way, why just scratching your enemy if you can defeat him? I mean yes fusion will solve all our energy problems, perhaps, hopefully but so far the trends were that electricity didn't got cheaper (please let's exclude 19th century when electricity was a matter of pleasure just like icecream).