[World Building] A Future History of Space Force

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Since Space Command was spun off into Space Force I've been thinking about the first thing that milsf gets wrong and that's pretending that space is an ocean. They use naval ranks and naval ship designations when actually if the the United States actually started to put manned vessels of war into space, it would be a spin-off of the airforce just as their air force was a spinoff of the army, which is why it has majors, colonels and generals, not commanders and admirals.

So, let's start from scratch. At some point the United States decides putting manned military vessels in space is a worthwhile endeavour. Assume this starts at a mature TL 9. That may be a bit optimistic but this is still a game and games need people. Let's assume that the United States wants force projection capability into the asteroid belt which has become increasingly economically important. While at first they start with remotely commanded drones they eventually come to the conclusion that they need people out there to reduce the decision making timelag and to make it clear that they are serious and attacking their stuff could mean war.

So the first question is, what year is it when the first manned warships start to arrive in the asteroid belt?

They won't be proper warships. They will be either corporate enforcers (equiv to a gunslinger kept by a cattle or stagecoach baron) or they will be constabulary vessels. There will be a gap between the time when prospecting is serious business and when states get involved on a full scale level.