Yes.


I've been reading the Posleen books.

I agree.

Orbital bombardment satilites > B2 bombers and ICBMs

Maybe it's already there and you just don't know it.

Facing outward, not inward.

Agreed.










 

Do you really think any tech we have would be even slightly useful against a ship capable of interstellar travel?

Yep.  

Who controls the orbitals, controls the world.

Yep.  Ground based rail guns are too easy of a target.

One shot nuke xray lasers.  

Or Jeff Goldblum with a Powerbook and a nifty 1990s virus!

 

The biggest threat, reptilians, are a terrestrial species. We don't need protection from a threat that doesn't really exist

I would rather devote our energy into ACS units.  Ground is taken and held by the MI.  Space defenses can and will be breached eventually.  Then what?

This is the only pic I can find on ACS.  The book was badass too, didnt like the ending much...

Dont forget Bun-Bun!


   



 

 

 

Rods from the Gods FTMFW

Except that nobody's actually ever made one. The one time they tried it during the 1983 underground nuke test, they got nothing. And there's an insanely steep development curve, because you have to light off a nuke every time you need to test a design refinement.



Agreed...

IMO, if you're looking to fend off an invasion from a technologically superior force, and you have time to prepare, the best way to do it would be to overwhelm the enemy's superior capabilites with cheap kinetics. Massed formations of sand and gravel in all the likely approaches and useful orbits put up there by mass-drivers (with "gaps" in which to seat our own satellites and space assets...) , then tons of cheap disposable "brilliant pebble" high-thrust kinetic manuvering vehicles, more than the enemy can shoot down which will patrol the "lanes" which are free and clear of the gravel.

Of course, the enemy still has the "high ground" further out than Earth-Moon space, and they can just drop asteroids on our ass. Or they can just fire their own dumb kinetics from further out until the industrial infrastructure is gone in Earth-Moon space, and climate change causes massive starvation/agriculture failure.

The real problem with space warfare is that unless there's overwhelming cultural or political reasons to do so, (which would be human on human warfare with a grudge or to "prove some point") it's always just easier to destroy a planet than it is to capture/occupy it. If you have interstellar technology, you also have the technology to have very advanced automated mining and material science and bio-sicence to make whatever you could possibly need or want. The only reason to destroy another race is if it makes sense to do so because they might be a threat to you. Then if their pretty oxygen/water world is destroyed, so what? You can just build space colonies, or can fix the climate on the wrecked planet later.

The problem with any sci-fi interstellar war scenario is that if you've got the ability to have fast interstellar travel that's "cheap" enough in energy terms to waste on "war", you've also got commensurate god-like technological powers to make whatever you could possibly take by force cheaper, safer, and easier anyway. Any realistic portrayal of interstellar war will be wars of extermination, not wars of "conquest".

- JOHN RINGO/POSLEEN SPOILERS -

IMO, Ringo is smart enough to know this, at least in terms of "Interstellar travel = the tech level to make whatever you want for free, no need for war..."  I've only read two books so far, but it seems to me he's strongly hinting the Posleen are an invention of the GalTechs themselves and now need the other warlike race, Humanity, to help clean up the mess. He also had to add the artifice of the GalTech's having prohibitions on nanotech and high degrees of automation, forcing his imaginary universe into high-tech cottage industry, so the Posleen couldn't just be swept aside with massive industrial-scale warfare right away...

In orbital siege warfare, whoever controls the sky above the planet will eventually control the planet.  Its only a matter of time.  Ground pounders can't even move without catching a kinetic energy weapon or a nuclear / antimatter warhead in the teeth.

If you want to win the war, win it in space.

Yep.

16 inch artillery rifle capable of shooting down spaceships = WIN

Orbital Magnetic Acceleration Cannon (MAC gun) FTW.