Was Praxis a result of Genesis?
- Thread starter SimpleLogic
- Start date
I'm still disappointed I couldn't think of a better slogan, because I used to write ad copy.
...and therefore SDI is the reason the Soviet economy was teetering towards collapse?
All you have established is that both things happened. Your interpretation of the causal relationship between the events strikes me as wishful thinking.
I meant the painting-like, still-but-supposed-to-be-realtime, exageratedly-destroyed rear-projected-instead-of-composited-therefore-white-washed image of Praxis.
I think you're working from the intuition of the Excelsior having a really powerful optical telescope pointed at Praxis. Let's assume that at the distances involved, that isn't possible.
Imagine instead that the ship computer uses readings from subspace sensors, spectrographs, gravity waves, and a whole bunch of treknobabble to get the most possible information about what is happening at Praxis and create a visual representation of it. A sharper image would create the illusion of more information than is actually available.
I'm still disappointed I couldn't think of a better slogan, because I used to write ad copy.
...as your newly (self) appointed Advertising Intern, please allow me to submit this for your consideration:
You live on Qo'noS...you are an Energetic Warrior
Where do you get that which feeds your Warrior Self?
Praxis
Your Moon
Your Source
Let the 2369 Toyota Praxis "Moon XL"
Take you to that Inner Place of Warrior Energy
(Disclaimer: The Praxis has been shown to explode in some cases)
Perhaps today IS a good day to die...
I personally think the mere nearby presence of the Excelsior with Sulu in command overwhelmed the little moon by its sheer awesomeness (by 23rd century prime-universe standards).
The Klingons then realised how dangerous the Excelsior & Sulu combo really was and forced them into starting the so called peace process to save their skins.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
There's been tons of back&forth on this down through the years. Jerry Pournelle consulted with that admin about all the High Frontier stuff, and was serious about all that ABM laser stuff, like Ben Bova, but after the fact folks made it sound like it was all blue-sky stuff designed to con the Soviets into thinking we were almost there and that they spent themselves broke trying to match us.
I've never really bought into the 'it's all a fake' approach, because I've always believed the tech IS achievable (might already have been achieved on a modest level in secret, either with X-ray lasers or some other particle beam system), but the story is certainly a nice way for the gov't to justify expenditures without having to justify practical results ... considering this was maybe the most important issue of the era (still should be, given that more than one party has missiles) outside of chemical/germ warfare threats, the way they just dismissed the whole thing as a ploy has always bothered me.
...could not agree more, and without wanting to sound like a Conspiracy Theorist, it is difficult to believe that some version of some of of the "next gen weapons" do not exist, or are in advance
stages of development...rail guns, particle cannons, many laser delivery systems, hybrid explosion/concussion systems...any number of things, again, while maybe not ready to rock, but moving along in development...
...and, with apologies to Captrek, the Cold War was absoLUTley instrumental in bringing down the Soviet Union...there are many sources from both sides, as well as third parties that cite this...though it happened over time, and happened in many different, sometimes convergent, sometimes more divergent, industries and pursuits, it all came down to the rubles...
That's the sad thing, really - that the US has continued to develop those weapons, and has succeeded in it. Essentially, it has shot itself in the foot with the very same weapon it fantasized about using against the USSR: it has poured trillions of dollars into technologies that have no application but to beggar, and still keeps doing it.
The US now has access to airborne and ground-based lasers that are ten to a hundred times better than what was being projected in the Star Wars era. These completed and shelved projects have successfully demonstrated that lasers make no sense as weapons, not until they are more like a million times better. The same apparently goes for most boost-phase weapons and their associated sensor systems. Developing these weapons has significantly weakened the ability of the US to defend itself, as it has impoverished the nation (even if it has fed quite a few US scientists and engineers) and directly prevented the acquisition of useful weapons and technologies.
As for superweapons stored at Area 51, those by default would be worse than nothing. Assuming that Kim Sum Nut provided a week's advance warning for the US to deploy an anti-ballistic-missile superweapon from the secret hangar, the weapon still wouldn't be ready to defend anything - calibration and integration are key to ABM defenses, and those don't take weeks, they take years, as painfully witnessed so far.
It's a nice story that Star Wars was a weapon intended to shoot down the Soviet economy. The story is significantly undermined by the fact that it was ultimately aimed at the US economy, and somebody is still squeezing the trigger.
Timo Saloniemi
The US now has access to airborne and ground-based lasers that are ten to a hundred times better than what was being projected in the Star Wars era. These completed and shelved projects have successfully demonstrated that lasers make no sense as weapons, not until they are more like a million times better. The same apparently goes for most boost-phase weapons and their associated sensor systems. Developing these weapons has significantly weakened the ability of the US to defend itself, as it has impoverished the nation (even if it has fed quite a few US scientists and engineers) and directly prevented the acquisition of useful weapons and technologies.
As for superweapons stored at Area 51, those by default would be worse than nothing. Assuming that Kim Sum Nut provided a week's advance warning for the US to deploy an anti-ballistic-missile superweapon from the secret hangar, the weapon still wouldn't be ready to defend anything - calibration and integration are key to ABM defenses, and those don't take weeks, they take years, as painfully witnessed so far.
It's a nice story that Star Wars was a weapon intended to shoot down the Soviet economy. The story is significantly undermined by the fact that it was ultimately aimed at the US economy, and somebody is still squeezing the trigger.
Timo Saloniemi
We could at least have gotten a heavy lifter out of SDI however...
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=24443
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=24443
I always figured an explosion big enough to destroy a planet (in this case a moon) would look like it wasn't moving unless you watched it for several minutes. A big cloud looks pretty much the same as a little cloud, just slowed down.
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