Enfilade After Action

Enfilade is the NWHMGS' annual big gaming bash. It's held every year around Memorial Day. Miniatures (and some board) gamers come from all over the Pacific Northwest for this one. There's a painting competition, a whole mess of DBA games, some innovative designs, some traditional games, and so on. This year was certainly no different, an I went down on Saturday to put on Little Big Battles (more about that later).

This year The Game Matrix sponsored a table that featured King's War in most gaming sessions. I got there in time to play in the Saturday afternoon game. That was the most one-sided game I can recall. The cards and dice were against my opponent from the beginning, and I pretty much drove him back. It couldn't have been much fun for him, but that happens (I've been on the receiving end a few times). The Games Matrix sold a number of copies of the rules, which is good.

Jeff and I put on Little Big Battles, 6mm Napoleonics. This was the Battle of Gorodeschna, 1812 in Russia, Austrians & Saxons vs. Russians (an actual battle). Historically it was a two-day affair with the Russians getting the worst of it. Our recreation was a bit of the same thing, even if it just recreated the first day. Here's my "after action" analysis.

Terrain - Rather than replicate the terrain exactly, a stylized terrain was used that captured the essence. This consisted of three parts:
1) the stream that bisected the battlefield was fordable everywhere, but was no hindrance to movement on the Russian Right (Russian cavalry charged across it repeatedly);
2) the marsh that the Russians relied upon to protect their left and L of C was dry - ironically the Russians had relied upon Cossack reports for this;
3) the road that led behind the Russian left to their depot; cutting this would cut their supplies.

Deployment - The moment of deployment was when the Austrian/Saxon attack appeared to the Russian’s startled eyes. They have just appeared from the high ground and cover and started to file across the dry marsh. So:

The Austro-Saxons - deployed with "divisions" parallel rather than one behind the other. This was because these were experienced generals (Schwarzenberg and Reynier) and would know that to do otherwise would lead to intermixed units. The troops facing the bridge were arrayed with two "divisions", one behind the other, and the left flank cavalry handy.

The Russians historically deployed in three lines, so I deployed that way;

Tomassovich wasn’t that experienced a commander. The first line consisted of light troops, including people occupying the village; the second line was a line division; the third line was a line division. Cavalry covered both flanks, with the heavier cavalry on the right where there was good going. Artillery was sprinkled along the front in the best Russian 1812 tradition (they didn’t concentrate large amounts of artillery until 1916).

Scenario Modifications - In the interest of simplicity, all Division Commanders were a 5. Schwarzenberg was a 4. Reynier was a 3. Tomassovich was a 4.

Victory Conditions - The Austro-Saxons were told that they won if they cut the road with line infantry. If they lost the crossing over the stream they had a minor victory.
The Russians were told the same thing.

Course of Action - The Austro-Saxon forces pushed across the dry marsh. Their hinge was attacked by spoiling forces, and some sacrificial troops supported by light cavalry. The Austro-Saxons swept across the road. In the center, Austrians were pushed up to dispute the stream crossing, but this mostly consisted of an artillery duel, but with some infantry fighting from time to time.

Winners & Losers - The Austro-Saxons won. Losses on both sides were minor:
Austro-Saxons - 900; Russians - 600.

Options - I thought the best Russian effort would be to do the following (based on a solo play test).

1. On Turn 1, immediately move the rear Russian division toward the left. This turns the fight on the Russian left into an encounter battle. Draw on the other division for the hinge to the main Russian position.
2. Try to create a concave position that will impose a longer command reach on the part of the Austro-Saxons, thus taking a lot of the punch out of their sails. This will be aided and abetted by:
   Launch a spoiling attack by attacking the Austrian cavalry on their left. Sweep them away and bring infantry across to turn the village, seizing the crossing, and drawing the Austrians into a series of counterattacks into Russian Artillery.

This won't guarantee a Russian victory, but I think it gives them their best chance.

Future Scenario Changes - I thought about changes to the scenario. First, I think it’s a good scenario with a lot of possibility, and provides a good visual of a Napoleonic battle. My list of things to do wasn’t extensive, and these are just my first cuts.

1) add at least one brigade of infantry to the Russians, preferably grenadiers; they need the bodies.

2) set a scenario time limit to give the Russians a chance by just holding on (yes, I think the Austro-Saxons will win); a time limit (sunset) will force the Austro-Saxons to be aggressive. Historically this was a two-day battle, and we’re only after Day 1.

3) move the road at least 3" farther back to make it at least one more move for the Allies to go to "win".

4) change the victory conditions for the Austro-Saxons so they have to hold the road with line infantry at sunset and/or hold it for three turns.

5) change the terrain on both sides to have larger hill masses; this will be obvious along the road as the Russians will benefit by being "uphill" of the Allies.

6) remind the Russians of the Special Russian Infantry Rule so they become more stubborn on the defensive, and can hold on longer.

7) written Victory Conditions and orders of battle for both sides.

8) organize the troops at home before taking them - seems I make this one every time. Someday I may even learn it. This will make deployment quicker, and can also make the take-down nearly as fast.

9) have a sketch map of the deployment. I did this with Warburg, and we were set up in 15 minutes!

Lessons Learned - Create a page with examples of how to play. This will cut down on the "learning" at the start of the game, and get the game going sooner. Otherwise you need an experienced player on each side to help "drive" the game, at least initially. This will go out to each person who participated, first to the people experienced with the system, and then to the other participants.

Comments from E-Mail about the previous posts. First, from Mike Lonie about the Alternate Jutland scenario.

Michael Lonie wrote:

France will want Alsace and Lorraine back. Absent a definite land defeat for Germany she won't get them. Gallia irredenta.

If Italy was upset after the real war at how little those 13 battles of the Isonzo earned her, how mad will she be here? Looks like promising ground for Benny the Moose and his Fascisti. Italia irredenta.

Neither Russia, nor Germany nor Austria-Hungary want a revived Poland. Absent a clear land victory by the allies there won't be one.

The US Army will remain a frontier constabulary fit only for chasing Indians and Mexican bandits into the 1930s and 40s.

Germany will try again in twenty years. "We weren't defeated, it was the Navy who let us down." "Next time we'll do it right." The reform of the German constitution will allow more populist parties to enter the Reichstag, including a small one representing artisans disturbed by economic changes and resentful of the "unnecessary" defeat of the Great War: the National Socialist German Worker's Party.

Is there a Revolution in Russia? The original Revo was intended to make prosecution of the war more effective since the Empress, with her "German sympathies" was impeding the war effort. With what might pass for a victory, and a negotiated peace conference coming up in the Spring of 1917, that would be nipped at the bud. No Lenin and no Bolshevik Revo. Now THERE's a happier prospect. With no alienated Russia separated from Europe Russia can play a constructive part in any new round of crises.


Or maybe an unconstructive one. Maybe the Krauts and Russkies would find their way to a Rapallo anyway.


America marches off into the jazz Age and the Roaring twenties while Europe stagnates because all the belligerents want to go back to the gold standard at prewar rates (which is what Britain did ). No League of Nations, no multilateral economic institutions. Rise of protectionism earlier than in our world. Diminution of trade versus prewar, due to protective tariffs and unrealistic exchange rates. Bad for the Brits. Internally deflation in all the countries keeps economies slowed, leading to labor unrest and low agricultural prices.


For Britain Troubles in Ireland. So what else is new?


Muslim uprisings all over the place in 1919. This actually happened. The Mad Mullah in Somalia fought the Brits, Afghanistan invaded India (now there's chutzpah), trouble in French colonies. Probably even the Turks would have troubles from people like the Wahhabis (Ibn Saud captured Mecca, and massacred the populace there, in 1925).


There will be no end of fun in your world.

---------------

Granted, all of it. I never said it would be a better world, just that it was different. If they didn't solve the problems of Europe in 1914-1919, they won't in this world, either. Some minor points:

No Revolution in Russia. That is one pleasant thought. It is possible that the Grand Duke Michael becomes the heir shortly after the end of the war. He was the Tsar's brother as I recall.

There would have been the Easter Rising in Ireland, so, yes, troubles. What the Brits do about it is another question.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now from Colin (and my reply) about Space Habitats.

Looks good.

I hope some more people volunteer their informed comments to our discussions.

It would be really great to hear from scholars, field workers and others with hands-on knowledge about technology, historic scenarios, etc.

I'm pretty sure you're doing useful things with your "spare" time these days, rather than wallowing in new technology reports like I do.

Thus, I wonder if you have access to the same sense of advancing developments that I do, and I have to keep prodding at our "optimism/pessimism" discussion.

Bluntly, as far as "optimistic" versus "pessimistic" I just don't see any "there" there.

When I suggest that all sorts of really nifty technology will happen long before the first large long-term space habitat can be constructed, that does not seem like optimism to me. It's a functional requirement. First, and foremost, lots of fancy tech will be required to work and work well before it is even possible to build the habitat. Second, in the time it takes to develop habitat technology, many other technology fields will be leveraged forward by develpments in habitat technology. Third, there is always a continuing general advance of technology, even in the utter depths of WWII or Stalinist postwar Russia.

Time equals progress. It's that simple. You cannot have "X" years pass without "X times TechDevRate" progress.

Treat it as an absolute that there will be no time in the next century when technology does not advance much faster than any of us can truly grasp.

Again, that's not optimism for me. That is observed events extrapolated logically.

For the purposes of story writing, it might be useful to consider that who benefits from developments in technology is entirely separate from who creates the developments.

If you need obnoxious bureaucrats like Sir Humphrey, you have to give them power. Do so. We can both imagine the sort of nation that might produce that future history. Then deal with the frictions the "Sir Humphreys" inevitably create with their fearful, power-seeking ways.

It is not necessary to create a "dark future" in order to have dark actors, dark powers and dark fates.

The world is a big place.

The solar system is a bigger place.

Many different futures will codevelop and exist side-by-side.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While I wrote "my sandbox, my rules", I think some clarification is in order. I'm not pessimistic about the future. What I am pessimistic about are the institutions we have in place that deals with the changes roaring down the pike. Some of those institutions have a great deal of money and clout. The best example to hand is the X-31. The people making the decision chose the one design that needed a lot of unproven technology and vaporware to work right the first time. Not going to happen.

My personal view is that private enterprise in space is the way to go. But we are going to have to have additional places other than the US and its legal climate. An example is the Arlington Air Show held every summer at Arlington Airport here in Washington. Last year there was a crash. The family of the victim has filed a lawsuit alleging various problems that contributed to the fatality. The large sums of money that they are asking for will put the Airshow out of business. BTW, the lawyer gets 60%. The aircraft was experimental, and accidents happen. The NTSB found the airport and the airshow not culpable, but even defending against this suit will drive the airshow out of business.

The first crash of a rocket plane carrying passengers will be trumpeted by the media, and the lawyers will circle the wreckage like vultures. General Aviation was virtually killed by lawsuits; when a plane crashed, every manufacturer of any part in the aircraft was sued. The theory is that most will settle out of court. The result was that people abandoned General Aviation in droves. Only after a version of tort reform was pushed through by the FAA and the NTSB did this change and Piper, Beech, Gulfstream and a couple of others resume making General Aviation aircraft. But what used to cost $20,000 (or $40,000 in today's dollars) now costs $250-400,000 to guard against the lawsuits that still come.

Tort reform, however, will die as long as at least 40% of the Congress is Democrat - they won't vote to kill their biggest contributors. This does not apply in jurisdictions outside of the US, as has been documented by various Space blogs.

There's also the "for the good of all mankind" clause in the Outer Space Treaty of 1968. My take is that the socialists want nothing to do with Space as it will open things up that they can't control. Their response will be to try to milk it for everything that it's worth. I think of the unelected aristocracy of the EU. They've begun dropping their complaints about Microsoft now that Bill and company have started contributing to "studies" and other lucrative contracts that filter through friends and into their pockets. The best example I've found for a view of the EU is the Mafia.

SSDD - Same Shit, Different Day.

This is the basis for the 'pessimism' that I occasionally show. I have a number of suggestions to end it, but it is better to change the sandbox completely and leave them with their hand out and no way to get a piece of the action.

Now for story purposes, I thought the future outlined in "Fallen Angels" to be a valid one for starters. And that includes the glaciers that suddenly advance despite all of the screaming of the Global Warming crowd. That's part of the background for the habitat of Brin.

Another What-If

This is an example of creating another alternate history. The story starts with the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916. I picked a battle because seemingly trivial decisions could have profound effects on history. In our history Scheer used Option #2, which led to a confrontation with the British Grand Fleet. The High Seas Fleet wasn't as badly hurt in the battle in our history as it was in what followed below (which, by the way, came from a game).

An Alternate North Sea Outcome

It was shortly after 5.30 p.m. on May 31st, 1916, and the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, was beginning to smell a rat. Before him, just tantalizingly at the maximum range of his guns, were four of Great Britain’s latest dreadnoughts, the 15" gunned Queen Elizabeths. Just ahead of them, barely visible through the intermittent haze, were Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battlecruisers.

His own battlecruisers, under the command of Rear Admiral Hipper, were a few miles ahead, trading shots with the Queen Elizabeths and Beatty’s battlecruisers. Just an hour before those battlecruisers had scored a spectacular success over Beatty, sinking two of his battlecruisers with a loss of only a few destroyers. Beatty, upon seeing the High Seas Fleet advancing to Hipper’s aid, had turned and quite rightly fled. But Beatty was fleeing north, not west or northwest toward his home ports on the English coast. That meant Beatty was falling back on Jellicoe and the 24 dreadnoughts of the British Grand Fleet, the last thing Scheer wanted to face.

Scheer paced the flag bridge of the Friederich der Grösse, weighing his possible courses. As he saw it, he had four choices:

1. He could turn about and return to Wilhelmshaven. However appealing this might be, it was also impossible. People, especially the Kaiser, would say “You had the Tommies on the run. This was exactly in accordance with the strategy the High Seas Fleet has been pursuing: overwhelm isolated portions of the Grand Fleet to achieve parity in numbers. Why, then, when you had the very situation you wanted, did you turn away? Especially when your U-Boats and zeppelins had reported no signs that the Grand Fleet was at sea?” He had to ask himself: did a lack of reports truly indicate a lack of something to report? Was Beatty fleeing north to make him think Jellicoe was at sea? Was he seeing phantoms?

2. He could keep on his present course and hope that a lucky engine room hit would deliver one of those Queen Elizabeths into his hands. His ships could then quickly overwhelm and sink it. Having sunk one of the most modern English battleships, as well as two battlecruisers, he could claim a victory and return home.

3. He could break off to the northeast, circle around Denmark, and head to the Baltic. He could claim he was only following Hipper’s battlecruisers, which were currently steering ENE, and saw nothing of the Tommies. That was probably the prudent thing to do, and if the ships he was chasing disappeared into the mist that was what he would do. He would still be criticized, but if Jellicoe was at sea, he didn’t know it. None of his scouting forces had sighted the British battleships.

4. He could turn west. He stopped his pacing and considered that. He was convinced Jellicoe was close at hand, and from the way Beatty was acting, he was probably somewhere to the ENE and steering a course that would put his 24 battleships between the High Seas Fleet and its bases. A turn to the west would be risky; most of his scouting ships were to the north and northeast at the moment, but except for Hipper they really hadn’t told him much of anything. Sailing west would probably negate any trap the English were setting. And if he then steered south during the night he could return to Wilhelmshaven via one of the southern entrances to the protective minefields around his home port. As an added bonus he could threaten Allied shipping near the English Channel and probably scare the daylights out of the Tommies, forcing them to disperse their fleet even more. That could pay dividends later in the year, giving him even more of a chance to locate and defeat portions of the British fleet. The more he thought about it, the more he liked this option.

Scheer summoned his signals officer. “Inform Fleet Headquarters in Wilhelmshaven. I want a zeppelin reconnaissance of the southern entrances to the minefields. Make it an urgent signal so they’ll act on it right away. Tell them I intend to be there about mid-morning.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the officer replied as he jotted down the message. “It’ll be sent right away.” He handed the message to a rating to deliver to the radio room, where within 10 minutes the message was encoded and sent on its way.

“We’ll stay on this course a few more minutes,” Scheer went on. “Send a preparatory message to the battle squadrons: we will be turning west in succession. Pass a message to Hipper telling him what’s about to happen. I’ll want him to proceed northeast a little longer, and then turn south. He’s to make for Horn’s Reef on his own.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the signals officer said for the second time. This message would go by blinker, and he would have to be ready for Hipper’s inevitable questions.

Scheer grunted and peered north with his binoculars. He could explain a lunge to the west to the Kaiser, who would like his thrust toward England. With any luck he could sink a few fishing boats, and maybe some coastal transports, too. Tomorrow morning promised to be a glorious day of shooting. And then he would escape back home, neatly evading the Tommies.

At the Admiralty, in Room 40, the code breakers quickly deciphered Scheer’s message. Captain Jackson, an imperious ass in the minds of most of the occupants of Room 40, had been in earlier demanding to know where Scheer’s ID was, and they had answered that the ID he used when in port was in harbor, where it always was. Scheer always transferred his home port call sign to a land station just before he sailed. They had explained that to Captain Jackson several times, but he had brushed them off as mere clerks.

With the latest message in hand they considered calling him back, but agreed that they’d had enough of Captain Jackson to last the rest of the day. Instead one of the civilians went looking for a different senior officer. He soon found the Royal Navy’s Chief of Intelligence.

That Admiral instantly grasped the import of the intercepted message. After a gruff “thank you” to the civilian, he took the message to the First Sea Lord. The First Sea Lord read it and began issuing orders.

The first was to Commodore Tyrwhitt, who had earlier sortied when Beatty had first encountered Hipper's ships. Now Tyrwhitt was order back to sea with his Harwich Force. He was to be off the southern entrance to the German minefields before first light. Any submarines based in Harwich should accompany him, if possible. The second was to Jellicoe, repeating the intercepted message, and giving the results of the radio direction finders on the origin of that message. As was customary with Admiralty practice, he issued no orders to Jellicoe, assuming he was in a better position than they to put all of the pieces together.

Jellicoe received the message on his flagship HMS Iron Duke at 6.15 p.m. He had not yet seen Beatty, and the pressure for the proper deployment was weighing on him. He knew the Germans were nearby--he could hear heavy gunfire to the south and southwest. The two forces were approaching each other at a combined 50 miles per hour. His battle squadrons were in cruising formation, six parallel columns of four ships each, and he needed to shake them out into a proper line of battle before the Germans came into view.

He had been contemplating a turn to the SE to endeavor to get between the Germans and their bases when the Admiralty’s message arrived; he had already moved one of his destroyer flotillas to the east in preparation. As he studied the compass, he was interrupted by a contact report forwarded to him from Admiral Burney, commanding the starboard-most squadron of battleships. Beatty was in sight bearing nearly south. Within a minute came a second message, this one from Commodore Goodenough of the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron. He had Scheer in sight.

Goodenough had been stung by a conflict of orders during the action at Dogger Bank, breaking away from the Germans even though he was in contact with their light cruiser screen. He had since decided that a light cruiser squadron’s job was to maintain contact with the enemy, not slavishly follow every pirouette and “bright idea” that forced its way into the heads of his superior officers. Earlier this day he had been the first to spot the High Seas Fleet, and he had maintained contact with the German battleships ever since. When he saw the outlying ships of the Grand Fleet, he immediately sent his updated contact report by blinker.

On the Iron Duke Jellicoe’s smile thinned. He knew where Scheer was, and he was much closer than he’d thought. There appeared to be some errors in navigation between Beatty, Goodenough, and the flagship. But the information from the Admiralty had helped clarify everything. And it gave him an idea for a new plan.

He reviewed the courses in his mind. He knew what he was about to do was a risk, but he thought the potential reward would be well worth it. He motioned to his Signal Officer. “Fleet Course West by Southwest. Notify Beatty. Tell him....” Jellicoe paused. “Tell Beatty that once he clears the head of the fleet he is to sweep to the southwest.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the signal officer replied. He issued the necessary orders to his yeomen, and the signal flags went up the halyards. At the same time they went out by wireless and blinker.

Jellicoe looked at the compass one more time. “Execute,” he said. Seconds later the Iron Duke sounded a horn to announce a course change, and the ship began to heel. Five other flagships swung with her. As each of the battleships in the six columns came up to the spot where their next-ahead had turned, they swung onto the new course. Alerted by the firing, each of them trained their guns out to port, where they expected to see the Germans.

Beatty was stunned to see the battleships sailing in the opposite direction. He tried to frame his anger in a coherent signal, but when he saw the new orders from Jellicoe, and looked at the plot, he smiled instead. He wasn’t going to lead the Grand Fleet’s battleships, as he'd expected. Instead he was going to remain detached, coming down on the Germans from a different direction. The only fly in that ointment was that the Queen Elizabeths of the 5th Battle Squadron were nowhere to be found. He had fought long and hard to have those fast battleships attached to his command, and now when he needed them Rear Admiral Evan Thomas had fallen behind. He made a note to reprimand Evan Thomas after they returned to port. But that was for the future. Admiral Hood had just joined him, giving him three more battlecruisers. Beatty knew right where Scheer was. He was going to push Hipper to one side, and then be the hammer to Jellicoe’s anvil. It was going to be a glorious day.

The only person left out of all of this calculation was Rear Admiral Evan Thomas in HMS Barham. He had been poorly served by his superior officer this afternoon, forgotten by Beatty in his initial impetuous turn toward the Germans. Later Beatty had overridden his natural intincts and held him on a course to the south far too long; Evan Thomas suspected it was to cover his battlecruisers, but knew there would be no proof. Now, faced with the Grand Fleet coming directly at him, and with no way to get to Beatty without blocking the fire of every one of the ships in the Grand Fleet, he decided he had no choice. He reversed his course, forming up just ahead of the lead battleships of the Grand Fleet. Ironically, this put him in the position originally foreseen by Jellicoe in the Grand Fleet’s Fighting Instructions, leading the battleships rather than trailing the battlecruisers.

The turrets on the Queen Elizabeths swung back around to port. The Germans had disappeared into the mist only a few minutes before, but Evan Thomas knew they were near. He knew that when contact came it would be sudden and at close range. He just wasn’t prepared for how close that range was about to be. As his ship steadied on its new course he thoughtfully directed his intentions to Goodenough, now visible on his starboard bow and told him what was happening with the rest of the Grand Fleet.

Goodenough read the message, stared at the distant shapes of the German fleet--he could see it turning toward him--and passed that information back to Evan Thomas. Then he swung around, prudently keeping his distance from the 12" guns of Scheer’s battleships.

The mists of the North Sea were always a variable, but never so much as on the early evening of May 31st, 1916. In some places it opened out to 15,000 or even 25,000 yards. In other places it closed down to under 4,000 yards. When Scheer made his turn to the west at 6:25 p.m. the visibility to the east from the flag bridge of Friederich der Grösse was measured at anywhere between 2,000 and 15,000 yards. The visibility to the west closed down in another bank of mist; one of Scheer’s officers measured visibility in that direction at 4,500 yards. That proved to be illusory; that particular bank of mist was thinner than anyone could know. Five minutes after entering the mist the König, lead ship of the III Battle Squadron, emerged from the fog directly at a line of British battleships.

HMS Revenge and her eight 15" guns were just 5,000 yards from the König. Revenge was flanked by the other ships of her squadron. It took only a few seconds for the gunnery crews to make minute adjustments to their aim before her guns roared.

The Grösser Kurfurst took the first hit, a 15" shell from HMS Revenge that barely missed the König. The shell plowed into the forecastle of the Grösser Kurfurst, opening the bow to the sea. The Grösser Kurfurst immediately took on several hundred tons of water. Two other shells from that same salvo slammed into König, knocking out one of the forward turrets and starting a severe fire. The other ships of that division of British battleships opened fire seconds later, punching hit after hit into every German ship in sight.

With those hits the carnage began. Shells ripped into the German ships from nearly all directions. One of the early hits smashed the bridge of the König, jamming the helm and starting the ship on a slow turn to port. The ships behind her twisted and turned to avoid the lead battleship, slowing and presenting an even better target to the British.

The Grösser Kurfurst and the Kaiser were soon en extremis, deluged by shells and taking on water in catastrophic progressive flooding. The Kaiserin, already on fire in a dozen places, swerved to starboard, losing weigh and listing heavily. The Markgraf, equally badly hit, collided with the Kaiserin, causing severe flooding in both ships and bringing them to a halt. They were both taken under fire by HMS Agincourt and her 14-12" guns. In six minutes, while firing full 14-gun salvos to confound the critics who claimed the ship would turn turtle if they tried that, the ‘Gin Palace’ pushed 16 hits into the Markgraf, and 10 more into the Kaiserin. With several hits from each salvo the results were devastating.

Within minutes the Grösser Kurfurst, the Kaiser, the Kaiserin, the Kronprinz, the Markgraf, and the Prinz Regent Luitpold were sinking. The Oldenberg, Friederich der Grösse and Ostfriesland stumbled onto the scene and were savaged. At ranges less than 6,000 yards, shells punched through armor, exploding deep within the ships. Fires blazed everywhere, and soon the sea was dotted with German sailors swimming for their lives.

It wasn’t all one-sided. Well-trained German gunnery crews fought back valiantly, trying to dish out a little of what their ships were receiving. Thunderer, St. Vincent, Canada and Temeraire left the line to fight fires and massive flooding caused by German fire. Of those only the Canada would survive rising wind and squalls that descended on the North Sea the next day.

When Friederich der Grösse turned out of the line on fire and listing heavily, Vice Admiral Schmidt, Commander of the High Seas Fleet’s II Battle Squadron, assumed command of the shattered remnants of the German force. He had no choice: he turned east, away from the English. There he ran afoul of Beatty.

Hipper had already turned east, and then south, and was out of sight on his way back to Wilhelmshaven. That left the field clear for Beatty’s ships. They opened fire at 15,000 yards. As had been demonstrated earlier in the day, Beatty’s ships put out a high rate of fire, but most of it missed. Hood’s ships, fresh from gunnery practice at Scapa Flow, locked onto the German ships within a couple of salvos and began hitting and hitting hard. The pre-dreadnoughts Posen and Schlesien, leading the column of German ships, were heavily damaged. They turned back into the mist, feeling lucky to have survived. Posen’s luck ran out later that night. Progressive flooding silenced her engines, and she was found by the British shortly after dawn. The results were inevitable, and motion pictures of Posen sinking by the bow played in English movie theaters for months after the battle. The other ships of her squadron evaded contact by turning north. A severe engagement between both side’s lighter ships brewed up as Schmidt endeavored to escape. The German cruisers and destroyers tried to push their attacks home against Beatty’s heavy ships, torpedoing Princess Royal and forcing him to briefly turn away.

The German I Battle Squadron, minus half their numbers caught up in the naval abbatoir that had consumed III Battle Squadron, got away more by accident than intent. They turned back into the mist, sailed north, somehow slipping between Jellicoe and Beatty. After dark Vice Admiral Schmidt found them and led the survivors around Denmark into the Baltic. Behind him, as darkness shrouded the scene, the German lighter ships tried to make their own independent ways home.

Some followed Hipper directly to Horn’s Reef. That led to a prolonged clash with Beatty’s forces the next morning when Hipper turned to fight and cover the escape of the lighter ships. While that cost Hipper his flagship, Lutzow, the rest of the scouting forces made it into the protection of the minefields. Seydlitz, battered by 23 major caliber hits and a torpedo, hit a mine and had to be towed in sinking condition over the bar. She finally grounded in shallow water, her decks awash and fires consuming the rest. She would still be there at the end of the war.

Other ships found different entrances through the minefields. II Scouting Group, accompanied by a dozen torpedo boats, made the unfortunate decision to use a southern entrance to the minefields. There they clashed with Tyrwhitt’s Harwich Force in the early dawn of the next day. That action cost them the rest of II Scouting Group and six torpedo boats before they got away.

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The results of the battle were hardly encouraging for Germany. They had met the British in open battle, and had come away decidedly the losers. Ten battleships, several of the most modern design, two battlecruisers, one pre-dreadnought, four light cruisers and 34 torpedo boats were sunk. Thirty other ships of all sizes were badly damaged; some would be in dockyard hands for months. As if to add insult to injury, Admiral Scheer, badly wounded, was rescued from the sinking Friederich der Grösse by the British destroyer HMS Shark.

The British lost three battlecruisers; Indefatigable and Queen Mary had been lost earlier in the day. The Princess Royal put up a struggle against rising wind and water, but finally succumbed. Three battleships, two light cruisers and six destroyers were also sunk. Another 12 battleships, four battlecruisers, one armored cruiser, three light cruisers and five destroyers were damaged.

Jellicoe, upon returning to harbor, sent his worst hit ships to the dockyards, coaled and refilled his magazines, and reported 18 battleships ready for sea on four hours notice. The Germans could only put light forces to sea, and then only two days after they had returned to harbor.

As could only be expected, the newspapers had a field day. The news of the triumph in the North Sea resounded around the world, and Jellicoe was hailed as the new Nelson (much to the chagrin of Admiral Sir David Beatty).

Within a week of the battle the Royal Navy changed their strategy. German U-boats were becoming a major threat to Britain’s economic lifeline. Something had to be done about them, and with the High Seas Fleet out of action for several weeks, the time had come to deal with the U-boats in their lairs.

In the weeks after Jutland the Royal Navy instituted a form of the close blockade that the Germans had expected at the start of the war. Lighter ships, backed by a distant Grand Fleet, patrolled incessantly. Additional minefields were laid, and aggressive patrols covered British minesweepers as they removed German mines. In the ensuing “Battle of the Minefield Exits” the Royal Navy’s destroyers sank at least eight U-boats. Several more that tried to evade the British light ships were lost to British mines. The rest, learning from this, stayed bottled up in their pens. A few got out into the open ocean via the Skaggerak (north of Denmark), but this took such a huge toll on their range that their impact was minimal. A few U-boats operated briefly from ports along the Belgian coast, but those ports were soon closed by mines and patrols. The U-boats had been a major threat to Britain’s economic lifeline, but these steps put an end to that threat.

The psychological shock of the defeat at Jutland was profound. The Kaiser shut himself in his rooms, not to emerge for several days. A feeling of despair swept through Germany. England had proved once more, and decisively, to be the master of the sea. All of Germany’s sacrifices for the naval building programs of the pre-war years were called into question. Questions were raised in the German Parliament about the tremendous expense of the Navy. Influential people were utterly convinced that the Navy, the Kaiser’s pet, had brought Britain into the war against Germany. The Kaiser’s unrelenting calls for a large navy were perceived as blind folly. There was even talk of demanding his abdication and seeking a general armistice.

Other, cooler heads called for Germany to draw down the Fleet in favor of the Army, Germany’s real strength. The war would continue, but after Jutland people acknowledged that Germany would not win the war; at most she could get a negotiated settlement. The bloodbath at Verdun and on the Somme brought death and injury to what seemed like every home in the Fatherland. The tremendous success of the Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1916, coupled with the disaster in the North Sea, brought war weariness to Germany. When Franz Joseph, Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire died at the end of summer, that was the last straw.

On August 30th German emissaries in Switzerland contacted the Allies seeking an end to the fighting. This started a stutter-step of diplomacy that slowly brought the fighting to an end. Negotiations were difficult, and broken off several times. But the diplomats, spurred by their governments, persevered. In mid-December the basic forms of an armistice were hammered out. Fighting ceased on January 1, 1917.

Over the next three months German armies grudgingly gave up their gains in the west, slowly falling back to the original frontier. Allied armies followed at arms length, ready for the fighting to begin anew. There were several clashes that threatened to upset the armistice, but in each case things were worked out. Nobody really wanted the bloodletting to begin again.

One of the sticking points had been Germany’s perceived success against Russia. When it was made clear that there would be no separate peace, and with Austro-Hungary threatening a unilateral peace with Russia, fighting stopped there, too. Russia demanded Germany and Austria-Hungary retreat to the pre-war borders. This was shelved when the Germans put their foot down, and assured that Franz Joseph’s successor did likewise. The armies halted in place, awaiting negotiation of a general peace.

In April of 1917 the diplomats of both sides sat down in Geneva to hammer out a peace treaty. There were faced with several seemingly intractable problems:

1) Italy had lost a lot of men with nothing to show for it. They wanted compensation. Specifically they wanted the Tyrol, Trieste and surrounding lands. Italian politicians were threatening to continue the war if they didn’t get them. Austria-Hungary resisted, and threatened to continue the war against Italy (but not anyone else).

2) President Wilson had his idealistic Fourteen Points, and was shoving them in everyone’s face. This was something nobody in Europe wanted any part of. He had to be kept out of the primary negotiations, but carefully because of the mountain of debt France and the UK owed the US.

3) France was suffering labor unrest brought on by Communists and Socialists. Something had to be done to quiet them. The best solution was probably to give the appearance of victory and a return to normalcy, whatever that proved to be.

4) Germany had a similar problem with social unrest. While the tendency was to ignore Germany’s desires, it was nonetheless painfully clear that this contagion might spread. Everyone remembered the lessons of 1848. The monarchies had paid lip-service to popular democracy, but still distrusted it.

5) Russia wanted a buffer between Germany and Russia. Only France and the Poles wanted to recreate Poland.

6) Various German overseas interests had been snapped up by the British and their ally, Japan. Was that just too bad, or were the British willing to give some back provided they could get something in return?

7) What would be done about the High Seas Fleet that had contributed so mightily to bringing England into the war? This touched on a different question: what to do about Kaiser Wilhelm, who was now seen as too erratic to be a modern monarch.

8) What was to be done with the Ottoman Empire? They were present at Geneva, and they had successfully repulsed all attacks on them. Were they to be allowed to keep them? Who would enforce any changes in the map?

Faced with these questions, the diplomats pulled out the maps and their pencils, ready to redraw the face of Europe for the first time in a century.

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What follows is a discusion I had with Colin about various aspects and fall-out from the above.

Colin’s comments on the “issues” and Bruce’s replies

1) Italy had lost a lot of men with nothing to show for it. They wanted compensation.--Stuff the Italians. They will make foolish noises in Africa and elsewhere. projecting a war in the 1920s in the Balkans, a war that threatened to bring Austria-Hungary back in. Serbian ambitions had to be squashed, too. They were seen as one of the causes of the Great War. This would occupy diplomats in all major European capitals for several years to come. Serbia's attempts to create a Yugoslavia were destined to failure because of the intransigence of Austria-Hungary and Italy.

2) President Wilson had his idealistic Fourteen Points, and was shoving them in everyone’s face. This was something nobody in Europe wanted any part of. He had to be kept out of the primary negotiations, but carefully because of the mountain of debt France and the UK owed the US.--How do you keep Wilson outside the door? Easy. Don’t invite him to the party.--Wilson has no cards on the table. America sent no troops and did not enter the war. --At worst, Wilson will fling ambassadors across the briny. Lovely job, that.--No League of Nations. Maybe a new “Treaty of Westphalia”? Probably. At the very least a new European “arrangement”. This might lead to problems in the next couple of decades as America continues to ramp up industrial strength. Remember, though, the massive debt France and the UK owed the US.

3) France was suffering labor unrest brought on by Communists and Socialists. Something had to be done to quiet them. The best solution was probably to give the appearance of victory and a return to normalcy, whatever that proved to be.--Subtle nuance? Bold-faced lies? Is there a challenge in this? Observation: in our history the French have still not solved this problem.

4) Germany had a similar problem with social unrest. While the tendency was to ignore Germany’s desires, it was nonetheless painfully clear that this contagion might spread. Everyone remembered the lessons of 1848.--Did everyone remember the lessons of 1848? What lessons did they remember? Popular democracy was seen as ‘mob rule’ by the crowned heads of Europe, and popular enthusiasm had both contributed to the war and made it such a bloodbath.--What about reparations? France and Britain do not have the muscle to force this. This problem would vex people for some time. France demanded reparations; the Imperial German government saw no need for reparations as they had been encircled and were only lashing out in self-defense. This would be a thorny issue at the peace conference...until everyone remembered the High Seas Fleet. The German fleet had one last service it could perform for Germany.

5) Russia wanted a buffer between Germany and Russia. Only France and the Poles wanted to recreate Poland.--Regardless of the terms of any treaty, Austria-Hungary will disintegrate soon. Um, perhaps not. Projection that it will move toward a more Federal system rather than fall apart with a clunk.--Will this provide a series of buffer states or a series of provocations?--Yes. Both.

6) Various German overseas interests had been snapped up by the British and their ally, Japan. Was that just too bad, or were the British willing to give some back provided they could get something in return?--This might answer the reparations question.--Germany loses everything and breathes a collective sigh of relief. --All Germans believe their Navy cannot defend a colonial empire. Agreed.

7) What would be done about the Kaiser’s Fleet (and the Kaiser) that had contributed so mightily to bringing England into the war?--Germans scrapping “The Kaiser’s Folly” should have interesting long-term effects.--The Kaiser will abdicate. An heir will be crowned, with MUCH reduced powers. Agreed. The loss of the High Seas Fleet and the overseas empire will be made up by the increase in German shipping. The Crown Prince, a more sober and less erratic monarch than his father, will ascend the throne. The Kaiser will live in genteel retirement writing his memoirs. The German constitution will be revised over a period of years to preclude what happened from 1890-1914.

8) What was to be done with the Ottoman Empire? They were present at Geneva, and they had successfully repulsed all attacks on them. Were they to be allowed to keep them? Who would enforce any changes in the map?--Mustapha Kemal and the other westernized army officers will still have their day.--Greece might be somewhat less inclined toward foolish adventures in Ionia.--Yeah, right. More likely, they will try to be “clever” and really mess things up! Agreed. The ‘Young Turk’ movement will be a flash in the pan. Kemal will make Turkey a secular state. However they will still have their grip over much of the Middle East.

9) What about the world economy? A “Lesser Depression” in the mid-1920s? Yes, but with less impact in the US due to an economy that didn’t get shackled to a war. Various economic problems in the US are resolved by a steady repayment of the loans extended to the UK.

10) Of course, Japan will still commence making a mess in China in 1927 or thereabouts.... There will be rising tensions with the US, and probably very frosty relations tending toward war in the late 20s and early 30s. Japanese militarists in the army wouldn’t stop being expansionistic until it was beaten out of them like it was in 1941-45 by the US in our history.
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Note the extra sections. The whole post-war history is a convoluted mess as politicians labored long and hard, driven by popular pressure, to resolve what the fighting had not (and lay the seeds for WW2). But given the above, and some of the discussion, now pick some place and picture how it would be without the massive loss of life of 1917 and 1918, and the outpouring of treasure from the fighting during those two years. What would the world look like?

That's what playing with alternate history is all about.

Feedback

Yes, I get feedback, and not in the Comments section. It is kind of refreshing that somebody actually reads this.

So, what feedback did I get? Mostly on my vision of the future. Let's get something straight. The vision I might have for a particular story might not be my own opinion about the way things are going to go. You have to ask the question: does it work within the story? Does the background become an essential part of the story, or is it just tacked on to give things a 'science fiction' feel (a mistake far too many people attempting to write SF make)?

Now why set a story in a habitat? This is a little complex, but I like exotic locales. Some view a space habitat as a utopia. Most utopias are disasters (human beings being what we are). But you can make the place pretty damned good. And a space habitat does conform to certain things in the past, mostly 'company towns'. Most company towns are semi-successful. In my opinion there were three that were actually successful: the US Panama Canal Zone; Walt Disney World (yes, it is a separate incorporated town); and Hershey, Pennsylvania. The latter has morphed into a successful town in its own right, but it is still a company town in that the major employer is Hershey Chocolate. The other two have had their problems.

Walt Disney World, aka The D Place, includes far more than the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and the Animal Kingdom (or whatever it is now called). There's a lot of infrastructure that is either below ground, or off behind some trees and out of sight of anyone who isn't in an airplane. Disney is a money-making enterprise that has swallowed part of Central Florida. It has its own political structure, but is still part of Disney Corporation. And a lot of what happens is shrouded inside the corporation. But it works, and that's the important lesson to draw here. And we can infer a great deal about how it works by observing it.

The Canal Zone was part of America transplanted into Panama. Its sole purpose was to build and run the Panama Canal. Eventually it was transferred to Panama, but when you are in that country you can tell when you're in the Canal Zone. You feel like you're in Middle America. You can see the change as abruptly as crossing the street. Was it successful? Very. What impact has it had on Panama? A great deal. Wasn't it Imperialism of the crudest sort? Wrong question - the Canal Zone was there to build and run the canal. And besides, when viewed in the correct way, a critic can make anything into a tool of Imperialism. The trick is in how you define Imperialism, always remembering that the Marxist definition of Imperialism, which is the one that most people hear about, means Western Europe and America, but not the Soviet Union, China, or any of the Islamic Caliphists. So in the end, calling the Canal Zone a tool of Imperialism is a non-question. Somebody had to run the Canal, unless you think people inherently have the ability to do something like that.

A space habitat is the ultimate company town. The trick is to make them economically workable. And the way I chose is to get them close to where you're working. After all, you are quite a ways away from Earth, and despite the best arguments from those pushing AI, experience to date has shown that you get the best results from reducing time in the command loop. That is why you have a habitat.

Actually, you have it for other reasons, too. Think of the advantages of the location: you have plenty of power, no worry about pollution, and with the proper application of shielding, you can have light and dark as needed. You also have microgravity. But a habitat will give people the gravity environment that they need for proper living. It is a great industrial site, better than any you'll find on Earth, and with very little worry about pollution.

The details of the habitat are just that, details. I can arrange those as I want for inclusion in the story. For more on the subject, the L5 Society has plenty of material. I personally think the biggest problem will be solar radiation. Long ago there was a short story about man’s first steps into space. Some senator kept the kibosh on the whole thing until one day he said ‘okay, you can fly’. Of course there was a meteor storm, and the crew was nearly killed, but the publicity of their ‘near miss’ meant that the space program was effectively killed. Imagine such a situation, only with inadequate radiation shielding? Remember we have a sensationalist media that is in thrall to one political party.

Would such a thing occur? That depends upon your view of how things would really go when politics and science intermingle. I look at the X-31 as an example. It was supposed to be a SSTO (single state to orbit) vehicle. The Clinton Administration picked the one version that was almost guaranteed to be impossible to build, technically. We could probably do it today, but in the 1990s that effectively killed the idea of the government doing it. While that opened the door to private exploration of space, the legal groundwork is still a mess. Go read the archives of www.transterrestrial.com for some background.

What do I envision happening to bring about a dark future? A series of things. First, there has to be tort reform and liability change. There will be Luddites who claim space flight is harming the atmosphere. There will be others who will oppose it for any number of reasons, political and religious being the nastiest (expect a fatwa saying a good Muslim must destroy such things as space vehicles as the heavens are perfect). There will be lawsuits that will seek to shutdown space operations in the US. And there will be government red tape (there already is as the FAA gets involved).

What is to be done? Moving space operations out of the US is probably the best thing to be done. There are people who will sue in U.S. Federal Court to get foreign companies to stop space operations. That means the foreign government needs to get involved as they can say ‘stuff it’ to those people, and ignore them (and kill lawsuits in these other countries).

What about the Outer Space Treaty and other things like that? Again, a foreign country is the best bet, say Japan. They have the technological and political base to pull it off. And they can quietly interpret the Outer Space Treaty as they see fit. And if someone objects? Tough beans. But expect political pressure to shut down things like that. Statists are everywhere, and that has to be kept in mind. A treaty is a drawing of a line at a certain point.

So why the dark future of no or little contact with Earth? That’s because there are too many who view politics as growing out of the mouth of a rifle, and will attempt violence. Maintaining as little physical contact as possible would be an advantage. Especially as there will be attempts at destruction (as well as legal restraints). I assume the world of Sir Humphrey Appleby and the ever-present Civil Service, as well as a world of fanatics and Luddites, as well as statists, one-worlders, and so on, will be there trying to hinder everything going on.

That’s the background I’m working with.

When you think about it, that’s all too plausible. We’re already seeing a lot of that these days, and applying the principle of “if this goes on” leads me to think it’ll continue in the future.

Now all of that is background just so I can tell a story. I don’t predict the future, I tell stories. Period. Am I an optimist about Mankind's future in space? I don't know, I haven't written that story yet.

A Discussion of Space Habitats

The following is a discussion (conducted via e-mail) about a story background I've been playing with.
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Details of a typical Habitat -
A habitat is a cylinder 25 km long by 10 km in diameter rotating at 10 m/sec. There are several layers to this typical habitat. Inward from the outer 20 meters of regolith is what the locals call “the ocean”. This is 150 meters of water; there are baffles and a number of other internal devices to keep this water from “sloshing”. The primary purpose of this water (aside providing water for sewage treatment and the basis of the ecosystem) is radiation shielding.

Inward from the water, after another 5 meters of surface area, are the maintenance spaces. These are the actual industrial plants of the habitat, where most of the people are employed. Unlike on Earth, nanotechnology is heavily used (it is forbidden on Earth, but the elites use the products of nanotech), which means most of the people monitor what is going on. This allows the area to be only 20 meters “deep”.

Inward of that are the actual “infrastructure” layers, generally called the “maintenance” areas, another 5 meters of piping, conduits, cables, and all of the other things needed to maintain life.

Inward still further are the 25 “living layers” where people live. The base gravity at the lowest level is 10 meters/sec2, or 1 Standard G (the joke among engineers is that Earth has 0.98 standard G).

Inward, or above the “living layers”, are the “farming layers”, and above that, the surface. The surface does have a large number of open areas, mainly used for recreation. To date, all attempts to build there for status purposes have been summarily turned down.

Each layer is nominally 5 meters high. The surface is part of the atmosphere generation system, and is given over to high capacity plant life converting waste and CO2 into O2 and Nitrogen, etc. It also provides an “outdoors” necessary to the mental well-being of the population.

At each end of the cylinder are separate docking and transportation facilities (how are transportation needs met?) for the industrial plants. Brin and the other habitats in the area are heavily involved in mining, most of it telesourced. There are various laboratories around the habitats; most research done in them is telesourced, however there are those where physical presence is needed.

Brin Habitat is one of five habitats currently in the Leading Earth Trojan position. It is the home to 1.5 million people divided into 60 “towns” of 125,000 each. Brin Habitat has a capacity of 2.14 million people, figured at 10 square meters/person.

Government - Brin, like the other habitats, is not necessarily a democracy. Each habitat is allowed to develop the kind of government it wants, within the Compact (which has a meeting every so often that is a cross between a debating society and a parliament of sorts). The Compact spells out the specific duties of government. Duties beyond that are explicitly and expressly forbidden, though some of the courts are always trying to find new interpretations. These are subject to a review process, and justices who propose interpretations that repeatedly fail are dismissed from their position.

Internal disputes are settled with a court system (those justices); however “other methods” are allowed so long as there is no loss of life (alert! - story idea!). This has resulted in a number of innovative methods, mostly involving low-levels of physical violence. Brin Habitat is unique in that their accepted method involves single combat with rattan “swords” and wooden shields (alert! - story idea! - SCA). Combat is until one combatant is unconscious or “yields” the point. There are “champions” for rent who will do combat for a person if that person has been judged to be too ill or otherwise unable to contest in the field. (alert! - story idea!). There have even been suggestions of a mass combat to settle disputes between communities.

Inward of Brin and the others are a number of satellites that monitor the solar weather. This is to provide early warning of solar storms, as well as to conduct research.

Contact between the habitats. This occurs frequently (i.e. regular shuttle service) within a local volume (such as the Leading Earth Trojan Position, or LETJ. A lot of the time there’s teleconferencing, but there is a regular movement of people through all of the local habitats.

Contact with Earth - Visitors from Earth have to go through a central reception station in NEO where they are carefully searched, and then transported to a habitat in lunar orbit. Violation of many of the import rules can result in either a return to Earth or other place of origin, incarceration, or execution. Hard experience has shown that draconian measures are better than a laissez-faire system (alert! - story idea!). A complete medical check up, and time in a nanotube to make sure there aren’t any nasty surprises being transported in the visitor’s bloodstream are mandatory. Failure to comply is punishable by a minimum of a return to Earth.

Contact with other habitats - a lot more frequent than people think, with travel to nearby holding stations and complete medical check-ups to prevent nasty surprises from occurring. This includes regularly scheduled service on ships (alert! - story idea!). These ships are to be explained if necessary.

Building of new habitats - this is an on-going process (alert! - story idea!). The existence of these (and their building) is a bone of contention with some of the people on Earth. The attitude of the people on the habitats is that it is ‘none of their @#$#@! business (alert! - story idea!).

Other Habitats - there are over a hundred habitats scattered around the Sol System. The farthest out habitats are currently in the leading and trailing Trojan Jovian positions. There are a pair of habitats in the leading Venus Trojan positions (nicknamed Venus Equilateral by some). There is one in the trailing Earth-Luna Trojan position. There are the remains of one in the leading Earth-Luna Trojan position, destroyed by someone on Earth, which has led to the severe limiting of contact with Earth’s surface by the population of the habitats. There are several habitats around Mars. They run a lot of the mining and research on that planet.

There are research facilities on Mars. There are several other research facilities on the side of Luna away from Earth (the people and governments of Earth don’t know about these). The model here are the Moties. Civilization is flourishing off Earth, despite Earth. The habitats provide those facilities and needs that contact with Earth now denies them (alert! - story idea!).

The habitats are loosely allied with each other (though there are tensions) (alert! - story idea!). They are all joint signers/guarantors of The Compact. Contact with Earth is limited. There is very limited use of space in NEO, all by governments on Earth (model - the Eight Worlds of Ophiuchi Hotline).

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Colin’s comments: “Disposing of waste” in the “ocean” layer is a non-starter. There is simply no need for that concept. Nanotech and biotech and other solutions will totally reprocess all “waste” to the point where there is no such thing as waste, just different classes of recycle.

The “ocean” is as much a part of the environment as the “surface” and possibly much more so, depending on what life forms are encouraged in the aquasphere.

Yes, there will be lots of industry in various microgravity levels on the habitat. Remember that gravity will increase nearer the ocean. The “bottom” of the ocean might be 1 gravity or even more, depending on the rate of rotation.

There will, however, be MUCH more industry outside the habitat than there is inside the habitat. Very low to almost no gravity is one of the production advantages of the habitats. Hard vacuum is another VERY important production advantage. Direct sunlight 24 x 7 is another important advantage. All of that stays outside the habitat unless something very bad happens.

Communication with Earth CANNOT be limited. Truly massive telecommunications, teleoperations, GPS and other “noncontact” activities are an absolute requirement. Without them, the habitats cannot sustain a functional economy. Don’t forget the System Wide Web. It will be vital and the habitats cannot survive without it. Of course, this means a LOT of cut-outs and other draconian computer security measures. The capability for locking out most Earth communications must exist, at various degrees of totality, in many habitat industrial, financial, governmental and other IT shops. Life support IT should be massively redundant and isolated from all outside communications.

Shipping product from Earth to the habitats and from the habitats to Earth will be another truly massive activity. Again, the habitats cannot sustain a functional economy without this. It is absolutely required. Of course, that means safety and other security precautions that make “draconian” look like a pink tea party. Don’t even think about describing the paperwork required to authorize and certify import of any new organic compound. Of course, it has to happen, so there is a huge, relatively efficient, mostly effective technical/administrative group that manages this. Mistakes can be hilarious, or fatal, or both.

Travel from Earth to the habitats and from the habitats to Earth will be huge. Tourism in particular must be enormous. However much they might like to, the people who live on the habitats cannot avoid this. Again, they cannot sustain a functional economy without it. Tourism is one of the founding principles of space exploitation and the original purpose of several of the habitats in the Earth-Luna region. The dollars involved simply cannot be shut down.

In-migration and out-migration will also be huge. No matter how well-developed the system of education, the populations of the habitats simply cannot provide an adequate supply of trained personnel. Where the various governments of Earth suffer from massive unemployment issues, habitat governments and habitat industries suffer from chronic labor shortages, often in critical specialties. There is no way to avoid this. Security and safety precautions for this aspect of habitat existence will be...quite novel. Incidentally, various Earth governments will literally be furious with various habitats for many instances of “stealing” their best people.

“Yes, a view of the Olympic Mountains is pretty. Imagine waking up to a view of, or FROM Olympus Mons. Of course, our employees also enjoy full spectrum nanohealth ASSURANCE benefits vested upon signature of your employment contract....”

Don’t try to lock down contact between Earth and the various space colonies. That cannot work. Not just technically, but economically, socially and politically it cannot work. Just look at the current border issues between Mexico and us. A wall would help. Enforcement of existing laws would help more. Locking it all down would be a disaster, infinitely more painful to American industry, society and government than leaving the border wide open.

Besides, there are MANY story opportunities in the friction.


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Bruce’s Reply

As for the sewage disposal, it is recycled. Dumping it in the “ocean” is a non-starter. But you need water to recycle waste. That is the source.

As for physical contact with Earth, it is strictly limited for the ones farther out; mainly for security reasons. I postulate statist societies on Earth. Things are strictly controlled. I don’t postulate how. Given that, there is contact, but it flows through NEO. By the time a visitor gets to the others, he has gone through several several inspections, checks, etc. And the local authorities are still suspicious of these people, assuming they are up to no good unless proven otherwise. The reference to the destroyed one is an indirect reference to an Earth-originated terrorist act, or was it a criminal act? Anyway, 300,000+ people died in moments. There were survivors, but the person or people on Earth who were responsible have never been identified. You have an optimistic view, I take (at least for this background) a much darker one (hence the reference to Varley’s Ophiuchi Hotline).

Non-physical contact is prevalent, as well as shipping things down in the Earth’s gravity well. Shipping things upwards is a lot more limited (politics makes people stupid - saying from the Habitats).

As for education, given that there are 80 million++ people off Earth (the true number is not known to the people on Earth), and the people know that their survival depends upon knowledge (as well as energy and microgravity), they are not shy about research.

In the past there was tourism. This reflects much farther than that. Note I did not settle on a date. That was deliberate.


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Colin replies:

Have you read Ray Kurzweil's latest book yet?

"The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology"

If not, doing so will provide useful information.

I don't believe it is possible to write believable "hard" science fiction about a "near" future, even a future only fifty years from now, without including some appreciation of the enormous impact of exponential technological growth. This is different from the circumstances of science fiction authors fifty years ago. They were on the trailing end of the long, slow curve before the inflection point. We are much nearer, or actually on the inflection point. Ahead of us is a very steep upward slope....

The background you are beginning to create requires an infrastructure that cannot be established in less than fifty years, probably more like one hundred years. It does not matter what the actual year(s) might be, the story still must account for not less than fifty and probably more like one hundred years of exponential technological growth between 2007 and 2107.

By 2107 the communications, transportation, power generation, computing, and many other technologies of Earth and Space will have advanced to a level that enables MANY individuals to engage in most of the activities currently arrogated unto governments and large corporations. Individuals will collect their own energy and materials, construct their own residential infrastructure, implement their own recycling systems, manage their own health, finances, international brokering, legal representation, etcetera. This will happen through intermediaries that are software-driven, but the software will be superior to human intelligence and infinitely replicable. Not only is your lawyer not any better than my lawyer, your lawyer is identical to my lawyer, and to the judge and to the jury, and they all have instantaneous access to the entire detailed history of every lawsuit from Hammurabi onwards.

This is not optimism. This is extrapolation from existing hardware, development and research. This is what makes it so difficult for me to write science fiction about today and tomorrow. I'm just picky enough that I want to get the backstory mostly correct, or at least believable. That is now an immense and exceedingly difficult job to get right. Whether the next twenty years are bloodier than we can imagine or utterly utopian is now completely irrelevant. The exponential growth of existing technology will proceed regardless. It may proceed in Yokohama, or Shengzhou or Mombai instead of Detroit, Lyons and Hamburg, but it will proceed, and it will do so at a continuously accelerating rate. This has direct and unavoidable implications for "hard" science fiction stories focused in the near future.

1) Water is no longer a requirement for recycling waste. Plasma torches today break down any molecule to much simpler molecules and simple atoms. Biotech and nanotech will soon do the same, with less process heat and more efficiency. There are applications where our very limited and obsolete sewage treatment technology makes water an inexpensive and useful component of contemporary waste management systems. That might also be true for future habitats, but I very much expect not. Imagine nanotech and biotech that processes some waste before it even leaves your body. More nanotech and biotech lines the "tubes" of future recycling systems. Most "waste" never leaves the residence or workplace where it is generated. Waste is made of carbon and iron and copper and other infinitely reconfigurable atoms. Transportation costs energy and time, both of which are expensive. Desktop fabrication, diversified power generation and other technologies available today have already begun to capture some of the sewage stream. It won't be long before they and similar technologies claim all of it.

3) The 300,000 casualties of the destroyed habitat are likely to be a small fraction of the annual casualties to terrorist bombs, gas, biological, computer and other attacks on Earth. That total number of terrorist casualties will continue to be, as it is today, significantly smaller than the casualties due to transportation accidents, street crime, disease, weather and other everyday calamities. Life goes on. Sensible and nonsensical precautions are taken. Commerce continues, tourism continues, communications continue.

4) I agree that habitats further away from Earth are quite capable of limiting physical contact. They will suffer painful economic, social and administrative penalties for doing so. I'm arguing basic functionality costs here, not explicit directed punishments, although there may be some of those, too. Economies and societies and governments are extremely complex systems. I flatly do not believe it is possible for them to function, much less flourish, in isolation. The ongoing economic, social and political catastrophe that is Muslim culture today perfectly sustains this arguement. So does North Korea. The more successful they are in driving other cultures to sever contacts with them, the more dismal and hopeless their conditions become. Eventually, the deluge will come.

5) A population of 80 million is not sufficient to produce the diversity required to enable modern technological society. If you do some digging on the Web you will discover that a base population of 1 billion is much closer to the required minimum. This is not a function of filling out the ranks in a regiment. In order to produce brains with the right combination of skills, preferences, capabilities and experience for multiprocessor parallel multitasking software creation or magnetic manipulation nanobotanical gene expression design, you need VARIETY. A number as small as 80 million is much too small. The habitats will need random access to the entire population of Earth.

6) Tourism does not go away. Ever. The only significant reduction in tourism is war, and I would argue that war is frequently tourism by another venue. "Join the Navy! See the Solar System!" is not only a predictor of near-term expansion in out-migration from Earth, it is an even stronger predictor of future out-migration.

I don't have much patience for "dark" future stories. Not because they lack optimism, but because they don't function. The author has to cut out so much normal social, financial and political activity to keep the plot manageable that the backstory falls flat on its face, DOA. That does not mean there won't be actual examples of "dark" fiction futures. North Korea and Iran are certainly adequate data points to support a potential future with much wider nasty impact. They still don't function, and future technology will be utterly destructive to their current support systems.

Imagine what a few million solar-powered "one laptop per child" airdrops into North Korea might accomplish today. Remember, OLPC comes with peer-to-peer wireless networking and a digital camera.

I don't even need desktop fabrication to argue successfully that OLPC will be much less expensive and much more powerful, rugged, capable, etcetera, five years from now. We have both seen that trend in pocket calculators during our lifetimes. What does that enhanced capability do to regimes like North Korea and Iran? How will they deal with pocket computers far more powerful and much better networked than today's desktop machines?

We will see, soon enough.

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A final word -
I suppose I could say something like "my playground, my sand, my rules". That, at least is the way I feel. The points, I think that need to be made, are:

1. optimism vs. pessimism. While I worry about the alliance of Islamofascism with the Luddites (they're called Greens by most people), I am more worried by the Sir Humphrey Applebey's of the world (read Yes, Minister, and Yes Prime Minister to see who and what I mean. Space has no place in his world. It will be Civil Serviced out of existence, just the way the SSTO was with the X-31. That is in the background of my story idea. Colin is optimistic that technology will triumph. I think it'll be a damned hard road.
2. stories are about people. You posit the location/background/idea, and you write the story that could only happen there. That's what this is. It is, in the end, just a story.
3. I do not attempt to predict the future, though you might get that from #1 above. I don't believe I can. Kassandra can predict a range of futures, but because of Apollo's Curse, nobody will believe her if she tells them. Does she believe herself? Now that is an interesting debating point.
4. Space is the most resource rich environment we know.

Part of the origins of this idea was a line in the excellent book Mining the Sky. People who broke the rules while going to an asteroid colony were 'recycled'. I got to thinking about what it would take to live there, with some of the views found in Ben Bova's books (and his "tour of the Solar System").

All that said, this background needs more development, but there are several stories there.