Zurich Orbital, how would you turn it to slag or tiny bits? Options

[Daylen]

Since the topic has come up for cities recently it got me wondering how one might do it for a place much more important to some Megas. Orbital collisions, hijacked THORs, magic using the dragon bones from mars?

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Since the topic has come up for cities recently it got me wondering how one might do it for a place much more important to some Megas. Orbital collisions, hijacked THORs, magic using the dragon bones from mars?

Hijack a space shuttle when it is close to the sattelite and spend all fuel accelerating in the direction of it.

[kzt]

Concepts I came up with once upon a time:

1) Embed small kt laser fusion nuke on the shuttle of a CC member during a D check. Wait for a meeting to get called.

2) Use a gigawatt laser on an SPS to vaporize it.

3) Disastrous "accident" on a cargo booster filled 1000 tons of 1 cm cubes of radar absorbent material (that will sublimate in sunlight) and gets launched in the direction of the sat at 6 km/sec relative velocity. Must be done in darkness.

4) ASAT lasers on the ground.

I used 1 for the approach the Japanese Empire took as part of their withdrawal from the Business Recognition Accords, though they also had 2 & 3 4 ready to go as backups.

[Hagga]

Assuming you'd tracked it down, get a t-bird with missiles and launch them at the defensive satellites from as high up as you can, in swarms so they can't all be shot down. Then, land, re-arm and do it again. Once all of those were done, slam an orbital hopper into it.

Probably wouldn't work, though.

[DrZaius]

Probably wouldn't work, though.

I saw this post last night, and that's exactly what I was thinking. I ran through all the various scenarios in my head for how I would go about it, and you know what? They probably wouldn't work. If I understand correctly, every single mega has a vested interest in keeping the ZO up in the air. Any conventional method of taking it down would be nigh impossible. The best I could come up with would be a sleeper agent, who somehow got activated once on board, and did something to cause a disaster. However, it would probably take years to get into that sort of position, and it would be a suicide mission. Not exactly a walk in the park.

[Doc Chase]

Relativistic weaponry. Send a container full of metallic marbles (tungsten ftw) and lob 'em out of a cargo pod that's been on full burn. Heck, leave them in the pod and when the defsats blast the intruder the shrapnel fills the space with nastiness.

Space junk is just a recipe for chaos.

[sabs]

The other option would be from the otherside. You run a deepspace mission out to the Asteroid belt. Then using some good math, and some key accelleration you accelerate a couple of meteors towards the Orbital's orbit. the only problem of course, is if you miss you wipe out half of meta humanity.

[Doc Chase]

The other option would be from the otherside. You run a deepspace mission out to the Asteroid belt. Then using some good math, and some key accelleration you accelerate a couple of meteors towards the Orbital's orbit. the only problem of course, is if you miss you wipe out half of meta humanity.

Meh. I'd rather not go big with asteroids; you're using a MIRV to swat a quail. Better off with birdshot, and you only run the risk of shooting one guy in the face.

[LurkerOutThere]

Part of the reason the rediculous NYC thread has continued is because someone wasn't thinking and put a plot-device level power in fairly easy reach of PC's. THere is no such option for space as magic doesn't work there. I would tend to think that any trick you can think of the corps can one up you as they own the vast majority of space assets and have all the coolest toys.

[augmentin]

dragon bones from mars

Missed that part, but curiosity piqued. Details, please?

[Doc Chase]

Part of the reason the rediculous NYC thread has continued is because someone wasn't thinking and put a plot-device level power in fairly easy reach of PC's. THere is no such option for space as magic doesn't work there. I would tend to think that any trick you can think of the corps can one up you as they own the vast majority of space assets and have all the coolest toys.

True, true. Physically, though, it's rather difficult to stop relativistic weaponry. Or would be, if we had any. I don't deny the difficulty of hacking a cargo pod, or changing the firing trajecetory of that railgun they were building off Kilaminjaro to make a bunch of space-chaff, but the ultimate danger of a basically unstoppable force in zero-gee is one I'd have to noodle for a while to come up with countermeasures to.

[Xahn Borealis]

Find out where they get their supplies from, sneak a nuke onboard. Or even better, irradiate the food. Slow deaths for all concened. Why stop there? Seed EVERYTHING with weaponized nanites, cutters, shrikes, surtr, you name it. Then sneak AIs, sprites, hacker nanites, botnets, any form of discreet Matrix infiltration ware, and hack the fuck out of that node. Pretty soon, you'll have your own floating World Bank, and what's left of the Corporate Court unleashing the mother of all Omega Orders on everyone you've known, loved, passed in the street and of course you.

(Nb: This post has been Extremely Emphasised for Epicness.)

[Xahn Borealis]

True, true. Physically, though, it's rather difficult to stop relativistic weaponry. Or would be, if we had any. I don't deny the difficulty of hacking a cargo pod, or changing the firing trajecetory of that railgun they were building off Kilaminjaro to make a bunch of space-chaff, but the ultimate danger of a basically unstoppable force in zero-gee is one I'd have to noodle for a while to come up with countermeasures to.

Just look at other scifi in space. Off hand, I can come up with the Halo series of books, in which MAC guns (railguns) were used, and the only defence was energy shields (handwavium) and VERY thick armour.

[TommyTwoToes]

Find out where they get their supplies from, sneak a nuke onboard. Or even better, irradiate the food. Slow deaths for all concened. Why stop there? Seed EVERYTHING with weaponized nanites, cutters, shrikes, surtr, you name it. Then sneak AIs, sprites, hacker nanites, botnets, any form of discreet Matrix infiltration ware, and hack the fuck out of that node. Pretty soon, you'll have your own floating World Bank, and what's left of the Corporate Court unleashing the mother of all Omega Orders on everyone you've known, loved, passed in the street and of course you.

(Nb: This post has been Extremely Emphasised for Epicness.)

Time for attack of the Mooks. Get 200 top line comlinks with 2 agents per comlink. Use whatever that attack program is that slows response without crashing the target and blast em. If you do this to a shuttle you then can play bumpercars. It doesn't have to be a shuttle destined for the targetted orbital either. Put anything in a retrograde orbit and even if they shoot it down, you have retrograde chaff to deal with.

[LurkerOutThere]

Agreed but there are options out there, point defense high energy weaponry and other items. The big difference between the scenarios is all the weapons against the ZO have a lot better front end controls.

[Doc Chase]

Just look at other scifi in space. Off hand, I can come up with the Halo series of books, in which MAC guns (railguns) were used, and the only defence was energy shields (handwavium) and VERY thick armour.

I was thinking more along the lines of Schlock Mercenary, in which they could accelerate to about .98C and drop a line of tungsten sabots to obliterate a planet, or Planetes in which eco-terrorists hijacked a satellite and blew its thrust load to try and get it to impact a space station and gum up the orbit of Earth with enough space-junk to end the space program.

Along Halo's MAC line, I recall it was the Covenant shield arrays that kept them alive (that and the targeting AI's on the UNSC cruisers was abysmal). The UNSC just had, what, six-meter thick titanium plating? I also don't know how close to C they were getting with the MAC rounds, but if they went faster it'd only do more damage.

No, I'm not a fan of gauss weaponry. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Dr.Rockso]

Missed that part, but curiosity piqued. Details, please?

Believe that is from Dunks will. There's a photo of dragon bones on mars with money being offered if people can explain/prove it. I think it turned out to be a big hoax.

EDIT: remember where I found it. AH delivers once more! Annotated Will. Its about halfway down the page.

[Doc Chase]

Believe that is from Dunks will. There's a photo of dragon bones on mars with money being offered if people can explain/prove it. I think it turned out to be a big hoax.

The anotated will suggested that the bones weren't a hoax, nor were the Cydonian pyramids. The hoax photo was the one with the UFO and the 60's era probe, inserted to throw the heat off the mission findings from botht he unmanned and manned missions before/during the Balkanization of the United States.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Missed that part, but curiosity piqued. Details, please?

He is talking about this.

[Dr.Rockso]

The anotated will suggested that the bones weren't a hoax, nor were the Cydonian pyramids. The hoax photo was the one with the UFO and the 60's era probe, inserted to throw the heat off the mission findings from botht he unmanned and manned missions before/during the Balkanization of the United States.

Right, forgot to fix that part. It does mention that a sample was collected and that it was not a dragon, though. It's the second photo that turned out to be doctored.

[Marshwiggle]

I can think of plenty of ways of destroying the thing. The problem is, ZO has got to be defended by the combined intelligence networks of all the big players who are invested in its survival. So the question isn't just 'how do you get something dangerous past it's point defence + its ability to accelerate out of the way', the question is how do you arrange something like that without being noticed by anyone. Now, a scenario where one of the big players for some reason turned on ZO might work out, but random smaller organizations have a much harder time of it, it would seem.

[Ascalaphus]

Launch a swarm of nanobots to insersect with its orbit? They should be nearly undetectable...

[Doc Chase]

ZO is defended by detente. Everyone, and I mean everyone knows that if you make a move on ZO, you and anyone possibly related to you will become vapor.

Not to mention it's more than likely that's where your money is sitting. Why would you make a hit on your money?

[augmentin]

He is talking about this.

Thanks!

::kicks self for not thinking to check ancient files::

[Daylen]

a few things to remember:

1. why assume players are trying to bring the bank down?

2. why assume the agent moving against ZO is sane or worried about where money is stored digitally?

3. Attempts don't have to succeed.

I think it would possibly be interesting to have a run, or set of runs, centered around a group/entity trying to bring down the bank. Players could easily be on the bank's side.