Life & Temperatures on Titan

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Any society that uses nukes for anti-terrorism activities is going to not last long. Terrorists are civilian criminals, not military forces, and using nukes against civilians is by definition a war crime. Anyway, any military officer who used nukes against civilian targets, and any politician who was stupid enough to give them that authority, would find themselves executed when the inevitable revolution occurred.

I could suggest that since TL10 has micronukes and antimatter warheads that blur the distinction between conventional arms and WMDs, being able to apply such weaponry at need (such as against WMD-toting insurgents sponsored by a foreign government) could still be a useful tool...

... but it seems more plausible to use Mass Combat's alternate suggestion, and classify this particular up-to-strategic-scale weapon as "military-grade nanotech". ("For when you need to absolutely, positively, turn an area full of unpleasant molecules into harmless atoms".)

Not that I expect any such weaponry to actually be deployed in any reasonable circumstances. After all, the intelligence service alone has a lot of toys to play with to find unpleasant people before those bad guys start loading milspec blueprints into suitcase robofacs or crop-eating microbe DNA into suitcase biofacs; such tools ranging from robobugs disguised as regular insects to releasing sabotaged robofac-blueprints full of trackers. (Haven't figured out decent anti-biowar precautions yet, but that's because I've been going over Ultra-Tech instead of Bio-Tech lately.)

[AlexanderHowl]

Titan would be too cold for most nanotech to function without specific adaptations. For example, plastics and metals tend to shatter at the surface temperatures of Titan, especially when they are at the thinness required for nanotech. In addition, what would they use as energy sources?

As for anti-biologicals, the majority of them are ineffective against TL10 genetic engineering. A rational society has already likely given its citizens a universal genetic upgrade for HT+3, Fit, Longevity, and Resistant to Disease (+8), a 42 CP package, which would give them an average HT 22 against diseases. The annual savings for medical treatments alone would be $3,350 per year, meaning that the initial $67,000 per person would be quite justified.

A TL10 world with a population of 4 billion would produce 50 million children per year. An expense of $3.35 trillion (1.25% GDP) for 30 years would capture every child born, the cost decreasing as more children with the change grow up and have changed children, resulting in a permanent upgrade in the health of the world. I would expect off world colonies to require all immigrants to have such modifications, as medical facilities would be sparse.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Titan would be too cold for most nanotech

Yet another option I'm now considering for 'reasonably big guns for reasonably big emergencies' weaponry: orbital weapons platforms.

After some quick envelope-back doodling with Spaceships' numbers, I'm thinking of some SM+8 platforms, say a constellation of a dozen (plus spares) so that at least four are in range of any point on Titan's surface without needing to manoeuvre. (A 6-hour orbit around Titan has a radius of 2,940 miles, or 1,330 miles above the surface.)

Titan's atmosphere blocks particle beams, and because of its particular kind of constant cloud-cover I'll say it blocks UV lasers pretty thoroughly as well, but some near-IR lasers (which I'd build in Spaceships as "lasers") could poke through some transparency-gap frequencies. At 1.5 atm, the atmosphere also provides dDR 30 from those lasers, meaning we need at least an SM+8 spinal mount beam to do much of anything to the surface.

A SM+8 spinal laser is 1GJ, with a range of 1500/3000 miles, doing 4dx5 - 30 dDamage, or about 400 normal-scale damage every 10 seconds. (Going up to SM+11, about as high as the budget could possibly stand, would only increase that to 1,800 norm-damage per 10 seconds.) Not much, really, compared to even man-portable missiles; but it can be applied near-instantly to anywhere on Titan's surface.

For more serious damage (that won't trigger protests from any anti-nuclear activists), we could throw in an SM+8 spinal-mount 40cm missile launcher. With a delta-v of up to 20 mps, and dDmg of 6d*100*mps, a typical impact will do an average of 420,000 normal-scale damage. (Which is on roughly the same order of damage as the pressure from a 100 kt nuke warhead, minus the radiation.) Of course, it takes about 5.5 minutes to accelerate up to that speed, which takes place over 3,335 miles, so it's only a "near-instantly" available weapon instead of a light-speed one.

(Another option might be to swap out the missiles for the bombs from SS4p40, which only cost $67k a pop instead of $2M; but without a speed stat, I'm not sure how to calculate damage for them, or how long they'd take to impact the surface.)

(EM guns would also be cheaper than missiles, and only doing half the damage isn't really much of an issue; but SS3 seems to imply the rounds travel at 60 miles per minute, so travelling 1500 miles would take 25 minutes, which could be more problematic.)


Anyone care to point out important flaws in the concept, before I work out a full Spaceships writeup? :)

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

orbital weapons platforms

And one quickie writeup for consideration:

* Orbital Weapons Platform, Mark One
- Exposed Radiators
- Slower Industrial Systems
* SM+8, Streamlined; TL10; 1,000 tons, length 50 yards, dST/HP 70, Hnd/SR -2/5
- Stealth Hull (-8): $2M
* Systems:
3: Armor, Diamondoid: DR 20/20/20, $30M
2: Cargo Holds, cap 100 tons
. 50 tons 32cm missiles: 50 shots [$50M]
. 50 tons 5cm missiles: 20,000 shots [$50M]
1: Control Room: C8, comm/sensor 7, 0 control stations, $1.8M
1: Tactical Array: level 9, $10M
4: Power Plant, Fusion: 8 PP, 200y: $40M
2: Reactionless Engine, Rotary, 0.2G, req 2 PP: $1M
3: Weapons, Spinal Battery (laser), Improved: req 3 PP, $15M
. 1 GJ, dDmg 4dx5 (Titan's clouds dDR 30, avg norm-scale damage on ground 400)
3: Weapons, Major batteries (missile launcher), req 3 PP, $18M
. 32cm, 60 shots [$60M], delta-v 20 mps dDmg 6d*80*mps (up to 9600d, avg norm-scale damage 336,000)
1: Weapon, Tertiary Battery (missile launcher), 30 turrets, Very Rapid Fire, req 1 PP $6M
. 5cm, 140 shots [$0.35M], delta-v 10 mps, dDmg 6d*12*mps (up to 720d, avg norm-scale damage 25,200)
Cost: $123.8M
Consumables (110 32cm; 20,140 5cm): $160.35M

TS = (20+70)*WB(7)*HF(8)*5 = 25,200; Space, C3I
4 of them: $20M/month maint + $40M/month logistics, total TS 100,800

Some potential simple improvements: Dynamic Chameleon ($1.5M), Self-Healing ($20M), Hardened Armor (+$30M), reducing the number of 5cm launchers, switching to Unstreamlined and dDR 30 (and airspeed 100 mph instead of 1,100 mph), adding a few 100 kt or 2.5 MT AM warheads to the mix, upgrading Troop Quality to Good or Elite.

With the tactical arrays, four of these would pretty much replace Mass Combat's Elite-quality MILSAT constellation. (They're more expensive than the MILSATs, but they can also shoot.) And they're quite capable of landing on Titan for maintenance, repairs, and upgrades.

(If I were applying this to a setting without the superscience drive, I'd swap it out for a space of Antimatter Thermal Rocket and a space of fuel, for 0.2G and 1.8 mps, just about enough to land or take off from Titan.)


So... given a Titanian government that's within a fairly peaceful solar system, but who want to Be Prepared for trouble on the home front, how would you do the build differently?

[AlexanderHowl]

Orbital platforms are probably more useful to the defense of Titan from external enemies rather than the suppression of dissidents. In general, the larger the nail, the larger the hammer, and dissidents are very small nails. A dedicated anti-terrorism police force making up 0.01% of the total population would be capable of dealing with most dissidents (~650 people if Titan possesses a population of ~6.5 million).

One possible issue with Titan is that the atmosphere is suffocating and toxic (Titan possesses hydrogen cyanide storms), giving it an overall Habitability of -1. If we assume that Titan possesses a RVM of +0, giving it an Affinity of -1, that would suggest that the sustainable population of Titan at TL10 is 1.6 million (10 million for Affinity -1 times 0.16 for the area of Titan), much less than the suggested 6.5 million. The population would be horrifically poor by TL10 standards, as the average income would be $11,500 due to low affinity and overpopulation ($67,000 for TL10 x 0.7 for Affinity -1 x 0.246 for exceeding carrying capacity by over 300%). Even if we proposed a RVM of +1, increasing Affinity to +0, the population would still be poor because of low affinity and overpopulation, with average incomes of $23,000.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Orbital platforms are probably more useful to the defense of Titan from external enemies rather than the suppression of dissidents.

They may be more useful for external threats, but if you want to have the best odds of dealing with insurgents, they're still handy to have, for the C3I if nothing else. And if the prices for the unarmed MILSATs and armed platforms are at all comparable, then why not spring for the latter?

In general, the larger the nail, the larger the hammer, and dissidents are very small nails. A dedicated anti-terrorism police force making up 0.01% of the total population would be capable of dealing with most dissidents (~650 people if Titan possesses a population of ~6.5 million).

That could be about 20 of the teams I posted a page or so ago, which is within the available budget.

One possible issue with Titan is that the atmosphere is suffocating and toxic (Titan possesses hydrogen cyanide storms), giving it an overall Habitability of -1. If we assume that Titan possesses a RVM of +0, giving it an Affinity of -1, that would suggest that the sustainable population of Titan at TL10 is 1.6 million (10 million for Affinity -1 times 0.16 for the area of Titan), much less than the suggested 6.5 million. The population would be horrifically poor by TL10 standards, as the average income would be $11,500 due to low affinity and overpopulation ($67,000 for TL10 x 0.7 for Affinity -1 x 0.246 for exceeding carrying capacity by over 300%). Even if we proposed a RVM of +1, increasing Affinity to +0, the population would still be poor because of low affinity and overpopulation, with average incomes of $23,000.

I assumed that the massive availability of CHON cranks Titan all the way up to the maximum RVM of +2 - they can actually build up fields and crops and habitats without having to import massive amounts of any particular element, like just about everywhere else in the solar system has to. And still export the stuff everywhere else, up to terraforming levels of material if need be.

[AlexanderHowl]

No, that should be relatively unimportant, as volatiles are ubiquitous in the Outer Sol System and would, at best, only balance out the lack of metals on the surface. The existence of hydrogen cyanide in the atmosphere makes everything dangerous on Titan. The cryogenic nature of the environment would also make it impossible to grow large fields of crops, especially since there is not enough light for photosynthesis.

In my opinion, the primary utility of Titan is nitrogen exports, as the two Inner Sol System sources, Earth and Venus (which has 4x as much as Earth and 3x as much as Titan), are quite difficult to export from. The next closest source after Titan is Triton, as the surface ices include ammonia, but that is very, very far away. It is just cheaper to export the nitrogen from Titan and grow the crops in space habitats than to export crops from Titan, as they would need to be grown in heated habitats sealed against the hydrogen cyanide.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The existence of hydrogen cyanide in the atmosphere makes everything dangerous on Titan.

While Titan's atmosphere does contain hydrogen cyanide, it doesn't contain very /much/ of it. I've seen recommendations that people should keep their long-term exposure under 5 ppm, while the info I've seen on Titan is the levels are a tenth of that. (And that's not even getting into how Titan is far below HCN's freezing temperature, so what little of it is floating around is actually in the form of solid ice crystals, which tend not to hang around the surface-level much anyway; or that Titan's atmosphere is cold enough to kill anyone who breaths it for under a minute anyway, regardless of its chemistry, so it's not like people are going to be wandering around inhaling and gasping up great gulps of gruesome greasy gasses...)

(And that's also without even getting into the more interesting possibilities, since HCN causes almost all of its damage by interfering with one particular mitochondrial enzyme, and this setting's TL10 is capable of creating THS-like bio-shells with customized nervous systems, among other bio-engineering feats. I wonder if I can stat up some nanosymbionts that'd help out any humans whose genome doesn't already give them a tweaked version of said enzyme?)

The cryogenic nature of the environment would also make it impossible to grow large fields of crops, especially since there is not enough light for photosynthesis.

In case I haven't mentioned it, this Titan's colonists have a lot of domes, within which their crops are grown. (I'm drawing on some of the old 1970's NASA space-settlement studies for crop mixes, required space, and such. And they don't all necessarily have to be actual domes, just roofed-over "worldscaping", as 3e's Mars put it.)

It is just cheaper to export the nitrogen from Titan and grow the crops in space habitats than to export crops from Titan, as they would need to be grown in heated habitats sealed against the hydrogen cyanide.

As opposed to being grown in heated habitats sealed against the vacuum? :)


Anywho, unless someone has some suggestions on changing any of the builds I've posted within the past page or two, I think I've got enough detail down to be able to wing any needed extrapolations therefrom, if any such should become plot-relevant. I've also jotted down GURPS Space stats, such as type of government and what spaceport and installations are to be found, and from Traveller Far Trader how much Titan trades with any of the systems other inhabited bodies. ... About the only other important background bits I can think of to add would be to dig up my copies of 3e's Espionage, Covert Ops, and Special Ops, to see what I can come up with to be happening in the shadows while everyone's being all peaceful at each other.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

(And that's also without even getting into the more interesting possibilities, since HCN causes almost all of its damage by interfering with one particular mitochondrial enzyme, and this setting's TL10 is capable of creating THS-like bio-shells with customized nervous systems, among other bio-engineering feats. I wonder if I can stat up some nanosymbionts that'd help out any humans whose genome doesn't already give them a tweaked version of said enzyme?)

Might be easier to give them an enzyme in lung tissue and liver that breaks down HCN.

[dcarson]

I read something that mentioned that some people are immune to cyanide. Exactly how many is hard to estimate other then a very small percentage) because most people never get the chance to find out.