I realize this is probably a foolish thing to do, but nevertheless
I am compelled to dive into two ongoing controversies on this mailing
list: the nature of a feudal technocracy and the reasoning behind x-ray
laser missiles.
First: Feudal Technocracies. This government type has been
perplexing me ever since I first read Book 3 of the original _Traveller_
set. For a while I thought it might mean knights-and-lasers, then (after
reading Niven and Pournelle's _Oath of Fealty_) I assumed it was a
patriarchal sort of corporate state.
But then I got to thinking about the meanings of the two words. A
feudal system is one in which there is no distinction between economic and
political roles -- the nobles control the basis of wealth (land), and the
more land you own, the bigger and more important a noble you are.
Relationships are determined by personal ties rather than by institutional
offices.
A technocracy is a system in which governing tasks are performed
by experts, selected on the basis of training and expertise. The exact
mechanism has never been specified, so a technocracy could be elective,
hereditary, appointive, or whatever.
Putting the two into the Cuisinart and turning it to "high"
produces the following scenario:
A feudal technocracy is one in which _knowledge_ is the
fundamental basis of economic and political power. (Perfect for an
"information economy" by the way.) Individuals control access to stores
of information which they possess, and those with greater supplies of data
are more powerful. In place of feudal oaths we have the equivalent of
copyrights and patents (which, interestingly enough, descends from the
"letters of patent" granted to new nobility).
So here I am, a feudal-tech baron. What do I do? I own (say) the
patent on role-playing games. Anybody who wants to produce them must
become my vassal, and give me a share of the profits. If I am a smart
baron, I will use much of my resources to expand my "data fief" through
research and development, buying-out of smaller holders, education, etc.
Note that feudal barons occasionally had to defend their rights by force;
as a Techno-baron I must do the same, by sending goons to beat up
unauthorized users of my role-playing patent. Similarly, I can try to
steal other baron's information holdings -- by all the usual methods so
familiar to readers of cyberpunk fiction.
What appeals to me about this model is that it is _plausible_. I
can see it developing already in the current fight over the "Information
superhighway" and control of movie libraries. None of the other f-tech
societies made much sense. I offer this for constructive criticism and
opinions. Flames and gripes will be sneered at.
Forging bravely ahead, I will now deal with the Missile Question:
This one is fairly simple. A nuke in space is not really much good unless
you get it very close to the target; on the order of a few hundred meters.
A real nuke does its damage by shockwave, and there just _isnt_ any blast
wave in space. (Well, yes, you do get a cloud of plasma ejected by the
bomb, but its mass is small and it dissipates rapidly.) Radiation flash
effects dissipate following the inverse-square law, so even they fall off
fairly quickly (and remember that ships will be shielded against radiation
anyway). To damage an enemy ship with a nuclear missile, you need
fantastically good tracking and prediction electronics, a _huge_ warhead,
on the order of 10 or 100 megatons, and a vast amount of fuel, so that it
can chase down the target and get close enough to do damage.
Contrast this with the x-ray laser missile. It uses a smallish
warhead (500 ktons max), which is nice if you worry about somebody using
one as a bomb. It delivers its energy across a large distance without
attenuation; so the missile merely needs to get in the same hex as the
target (recall that Brilliant Lances hexes are 30,000 kilometers across).
It delivers the damage at lightspeed, so doesn't need to catch up to the
target before going off.
Want some "real-life" proof? The SDI organization picked nuke-det
laser bombs as the weapon of choice against incoming missiles. They could
have chosen plain nukes, but x-ray lasers did the job better.
Jim Cambias
Fearless Authority on Everything
Misusing My Wife's Internet Account
At Duke