[15:02] <@Ghelaway> So do you mean unclaimed space as opposed to merely uninhabited but habitable worlds?
[15:03] <@Ghelaway> Hmm. I could only help by going with how Wikipedia says "high seas" or "mare liberum" is also equivalent, and suggest maybe... "caelum liberum"?
[15:04] <Charles_Murray> That would actually be really cool
[15:05] <Charles_Murray> In my line of thinking as to how military power works in the GQ, there is a stark difference between "territorial" space and "non-territorial" space. Territorial space is where a given country has infrastructure of many kinds, from productive facilities to military bases, air bases, naval bases, stations, fortifications, hyperspatial missile emplacements, etc.
[15:07] <Monet> An established interstellar power is likely to hold claim to systems that are only used as frontier bases or for mining, possibly manufacturing operations.
[15:08] <Charles_Murray> Briefly, territorial space is the realm of armies, whose role it is to occupy, attack, and defend that space through the employment and deployment of infrastructure. So in the French Navy, for example, armies are equipped with ground-based hyperspatial area-denial weaponry, as well as conventional weaponry.
[15:09] <Charles_Murray> The key word there is area-denial. In order to get rid of the area-denial infrastructure, you're going to need to get rid of the armies. Thus planetary combat with guns and tanks and planes, or bombardment, is necessary.
[15:09] <@Ghelaway> So the limits to this space would be the range with which these weapons can be effectively deployed?
[15:11] <Charles_Murray> Yes, and you can also imagine tooling your navy for the defense (or attack) of territorial space through the use of heavy ships like cruisers and battleships which can provide a hard front for the enemy.
[15:13] <Charles_Murray> (And you can hide them using infrastructure from the attacker's bombardment and airpower)
[15:13] <@Ghelaway> Non-hyperspatial weapons might have a range of, at best, a few light-seconds; try hitting a target any further out and evasion is too easy. Hyperspatial weapons could greatly increase that, but how much so would depend on the nation's particular capabilities.
[15:14] <Charles_Murray> Yeah, I'm thinking this is a distinction that emerges with hyperspatial warfare
[15:15] <Charles_Murray> Contrast that with "non-territorial" space, which has no infrastructure what-so-ever. This is the space between territories, where there is no infrastructure, no guarantee of livable planets and no "solid" basing infrastructure out of which to operate (armies, air squadrons, fleets), etc, and thus isn't so easy to entrench in. It's much much larger >
[15:16] <Charles_Murray> , requires that you have much more logistic reach, and much more flexibility. It is thus the realm of stellar navies exclusively, where armies can only provide "off-shore" area denial.
[15:18] <@Ghelaway> It's probably worth noting that, despite what sci-fi may sometimes show, things like asteroid belts are actually extremely empty, so they wouldn't provide much help to a navy in caelum liberum either.
[15:18] <Charles_Murray> ^
[15:22] <Charles_Murray> I'm thinking about how you could tool navies towards different roles, whether it's complete and total control of caelum liberum (for those capable of fielding that kind of logistics-, resource-, and cost-intensive navies), maintaining the potential for contesting caelum liberum (referred to IRL as "fleet in being"-- >
[15:23] <Charles_Murray> for those navies incapable of asserting naval dominance, but able to maintain the potential for it, thus hanging the threat and forcing the attacker to deploy significant forces to keep your fleets boxed in), or control over territorial space where the navy's role is subservient to the army's.
[15:25] <Charles_Murray> There's also area denial, wherein army assets are deployed to deny access to a chokepoint or strategic location without actually deploying naval assets.
[15:25] <Charles_Murray> I hope all of this makes sense?
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[15:27] <@Ghelaway> Pretty much.
[15:29] <@Ghelaway> The area denial sounds like making a small piece of territorial space in what would otherwise be caelum liberum. Similarly, one could extend territorial space by putting an army-operated space station every million miles or so, although these would be much more vulnerable than a planet.
[15:32] <Charles_Murray> ^ Right, just like you would place airstrips, missile launchers, and naval bases on islands IRL (think Pearl Harbor, Midway, the Philippines, or China's artificial islands in the South China Sea)
[15:33] <Charles_Murray> Which has been a key component of American seapower doctrine for the past hundred and twenty years or so
[15:33] <@Ghelaway> Yeah.
[15:34] == DrodoAway has changed nick to DrodoEmpire
[15:34] <DrodoEmpire> Ooh military stuff
[15:34] <DrodoEmpire> What's the subject?
[15:34] <Charles_Murray> Different naval doctrines on a grand scale
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[15:37] <DrodoEmpire> Ahh
[15:38] <Spu> Hachiman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LSSWC90akg&feature=youtu.be My sides
[15:39] <Hachiman> Oh God
[15:45] <Charles_Murray> DrodoEmpire Ghelaway So how those concepts apply to France, for example
[15:45] <Charles_Murray> First paragraph
[15:48] <DrodoEmpire> Hm?
[15:48] <Charles_Murray> Whoops
[15:49] <Charles_Murray>  http://spore.wikia.com/wiki/Fiction:French_Empire#Overview
[15:49] <Charles_Murray> There's also probably tons more doctrines other navies can employ, such as logistics raiding (the use of submarine-like ships to sow trouble for rival supply lines over long distances, but never actually maintaining control over space)
[15:49] <DrodoEmpire> Ahh
[15:50] <Monet> I recall the DI practices the American doctrine - battleships and stations positioned far from the main Imperial territory.
[15:50] <DrodoEmpire> Right, right
[15:50] <Tek0516> Finally finished the latest season of GoT. No more getting spoiled for me. :D
[15:51] <DrodoEmpire> lol great
[15:51] <Tek0516> Spoilers everywhere. >.<
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[15:52] <@Ghelaway> That looks all right to me. Are the strike craft carriers are the main way of essentially firing weapons (via the strike craft) across caelum liberum? Besides mobility, I don't see any reason for an individual ship to have a greater range than a military space station.
[15:53] <Charles_Murray> The vast majority of the weapons we're discussing are homing missiles mounted with hyperdrives, which can be fired from stations, ships, and ground-based systems
[15:54] <Charles_Murray> It's more a matter of cost and mobility in my mind; if you could deploy and maintain stations everywhere, you would, but if you want to think about how to deploy and redeploy the potential for firing missiles over great distance within a short amount of time and within a realistic budget, your best bet is strike craft carriers first, then starships.
[15:56] <@Ghelaway> So it's more that the carriers are cheaper and more mobile than stations?
[15:58] <Monet> Could this doctrine be an example of long-term investment?
[15:58] <Charles_Murray> Stations in my mind are fortifications; they can reinforce area denial and enhance infrastructure within a region, and yes have the potential to fire lots of missiles over an area. But stations are also huge and immobile, which means that they're vulnerable to strike craft coming in and destroying them with a volley of missiles. >
[15:58] <DrodoEmpire> ^
[15:58] <Charles_Murray> Building, maintaining, and operating a station is expensive enough, but when you consider the forces that need to defend it at all times in order to keep such a cheap asset from destroying such an expensive investment, it really is a situational tool which isn't broadly applicable
[15:59] <Monet> In the Milky Way, the Imperium is clustered on the Eastern arms, has stations that allows it to maintain a presence at both ends of the galaxy.
[16:01] <@Ghelaway> I'm going to go now. Bye!
[16:01] <Monet> Goodnight
[16:01] <Charles_Murray> Cool, take care!
[16:01] <Charles_Murray> Contrast that with carriers which are smaller, more mobile, and can bring to bear hundreds if not thousands of strike craft (read: individual missiles) at once anywhere within its operational range, and I'm not sure it's a contest
[16:01] <Monet> So maybe what's going on is the Imperium operates stations every several-ten-thousand light years?
[16:02] <Charles_Murray> Monet : Possibly, though I would personally use planet-based naval, air, and army bases
[16:02] <Charles_Murray> Much, much cheaper for a much greater degree of expandability and freedom if you find the right planets
[16:03] <Monet> Asteroids perhaps.
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[16:05] <Charles_Murray> Asteroids wouldn't do it; the point is that you can literally have people walking around and living in prefab buildings in whatever arrangement suits the terrain
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[16:06] <Charles_Murray> Rather than a hermetically-sealed and artificially-maintained environment which needs to be armored and have a ton of safeguards so that the people inside it don't -die-
[16:07] <Monet> There's no guarantee a planet could accomodate that - it might have a toxic atmosphere.
[16:07] <Charles_Murray> Yes, which is why you find the right planets and those become strategically valuable to hold
[16:08] <Charles_Murray> Like islands IRL