[World Building] A Future History of Space Force

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Anyways, the OP wants to imagine active-duty US Space Force personnel outside of Earth's atmosphere, so we want to find a task for them to do before we focus on weapons systems. Stories are about people not autonomous grapple vehicle #563.

The stand of the ROU Killing Time in the battle of Pittance would seem to be a counterpoint.

I already mentioned intelligence collection (or deploying intelligence collection systems). If we postulate a settlement beyond earth, its not hard to imagine it having a mostly or entirely military staff, given the risks involved (cancer, bone degradation, lack of access to medicine and hospitals). Settlements beyond earth would also need policing but its harder for me to imagine the military getting that job given US traditions.

Well, ultimately the only reason to put people in outer space is going to be a desire to put people in outer space (barring reasons for a lower-tech space program like the Lady Astronaut books, or The Cassini Division) so we can debate about how likely a goal that actually is, but it's probably still going to need to be a priority for anybody do it.

One obvious reason is that the political system doesn't or can't trust AI to make strategic policy decisions, or simply (and this is very likely) AI can't be held accountable for its decisions in a way the political system is comfortable with.