[Spaceships] [High-Tech] [Action] Cydonia Or Bust, TL8

[David Johnston2]

THe original post said nothing about the mission being secret, and really if you are going to put together a combat capable expedition to Mars in anything short of 30 years, you pretty much have to scare everyone into a conniption.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SCAR

You've also reverse engineering Laser and Plasma Weapons, not to mention Grav Tanks, and The Grav-Bomb Launcher thingy, and Psi Powers!

Then you're at least TL10 and that changes rather a lot of other things.

[Ulzgoroth]

It's a sidetrack, to be sure, but is there some motivation for taking out a bunch of TL9 alien mooks on mars? X-Com had an alien command center for attacks on earth there, but TL9 no-superscience aliens would find it hard to get any forces to Earth, let alone one threatening enough to justify this response, especially if they don't have a planetary economy or better backing them.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Note that in the game you have to reverse engineer TL 9 propulsion to do it.

vicky_molokh hasn't specified if the earth forces have reverse-engineered alien tech. In X-com, the aliens were clearly at least TL10^ and the Avenger generally was based on and generally superior to their ships.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Ten years is my lower limit. This is harder than the Apollo Program (sending a dozen people to live for a few years on Mars is a wee bit more difficult than sending two to live a few days on the Moon- and no country has been able to put men on the moon since the 1970s). Similarly, if you ignore all necessary testing and trial runs, send only veterans with curiously short CVs and interesting gaps in their training schedule, and use a drive which scraps half the satellites in orbit with EMP, how do you hope to convince anyone that its just an ordinary expedition?

You don't. The 5-10 years was if this was a flat-out emergency using a large portion of the entire nation's effort put into it, including bypassing political and environmental consequences of using nukes and being willing to risk losing significant numbers of astronauts to failures.

Also, the OP never said anything about this needing to be secret. Since it doesn't need to be secret, you can presumably use whatever means are necessary to accomplish the goal, and if your goal is to do it ASAP - I think we could manage it in ten years time.

And yes, a suicide mission is definitely one method of making this go by faster, and I certainly didn't include 'living for several years' on the budget for that 5-10 year plan.

EDIT: I'm assuming the goal is the alien trans-dimensional stabalizer or something that else that would, if taken out, prevent the aliens from taking over the Earth (or killing us all). I'm further assuming that we know that if we do not succeed, we're all screwed. And that this is public knowledge.

[Anthony]

We might be able to drop a nuke on the site in a year or so. Unless there's a capture intact requirement floating around, there's no conceivable reason to put boots on the ground.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

We might be able to drop a nuke on the site in a year or so. Unless there's a capture intact requirement floating around, there's no conceivable reason to put boots on the ground.

That's an overstatement. If they have a functional ground to space defense system, I can see a use for landing people over the horizon and then launching a Mars buggy assault. Also this is a poorly defended but super-advanced alien installation filled with stuff that could make the nation that studies it dominant over the next century.

[ericthered]

hmmm.....

I suppose the real question is how much do you need to deliver to Mars to make this work, As in, what will it take to capture the base.

We access have G:spaceships technology, which means we have Ion drives and Orion drives. We also have habitats that are considered to support life "indefinitely".

technologically, the biggest problem is going to be troops. current space suits are heavy and fragile, which is fine if you are walking on a scientific craft in space or taking a stroll on the moon. Its a problem when you also want to carry weapons and when shrapnel is flying around. Though a Mars space suit may be lighter than more traditional ones.

another option for troops is to rely on remote operated drones, which I think we have, but even that could have some difficulty.

At any rate, the question is, how much material do we need to get to mars?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That's an overstatement. If they have a functional ground to space defense system, I can see a use for landing people over the horizon and then launching a Mars buggy assault.

It would be cheaper, faster, and easier to make a Mars-adapted cruise missile.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Also this is a poorly defended but super-advanced alien installation filled with stuff that could make the nation that studies it dominant over the next century.

See 'capture intact'.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

We might be able to drop a nuke on the site in a year or so. Unless there's a capture intact requirement floating around, there's no conceivable reason to put boots on the ground.

There was a very clear 'no you can't nuke it from orbit' in the OP.

A semi-logical reason why might be that the complex is deeply buried and well hardened, despite lacking the sort of architecture that would make it impervious to infantry.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

There was a very clear 'no you can't nuke it from orbit' in the OP.

A semi-logical reason why might be that the complex is deeply buried and well hardened, despite lacking the sort of architecture that would make it impervious to infantry.

Or 'we're only capturing this facility so we can hit the big red button on the center console that will turn off the alien death armada heading this way'.