[World Building] A Future History of Space Force

[PTTG]

Things to consider regarding space weaponry...

Chemical guns might be useful. It's actually very hard to make a railgun that fires more than one or two times due to friction, and it's not currently very plausible for the projectile velocities and muzzle energy to be more than a little bit superior to chemguns. Add in the cost of a main reactor and the vulnerability of large radiators, electromagnetic guns remain unlikely.

Lasers have the speed advantage, but having a laser makes you far more vulnerable to lasers, as they have both sensitive optics and vast waste heat. A chemgun platform, conversely, can be fairly well armored against a distant laser strike. The economics and exact physics are unclear to me.

Second, it seems likely that drones will almost certainly be used by both sides; after all, all spaceflight past the moon has been by "drones," in a sense. Smugglers, wildcats, and legitimate miners will all do best to use remote-operated vessels.

Oddly, this suggests that spacecraft the size of refrigerators or cars might be fighting each other with belt-fed guns on turret mounts.