it’s actually impossible to have an unarmed interstellar spaceship
Since this subthread had already stepped into the realm of sidetracked internet debate, I’d like to challenge that claim.
I understand that the reasoning behind this statement is that interstellar travel requires some properties that disqualify the ship from being considered “unarmed”:
Interstellar travel requires ridiculous speed, which makes the ship itself a kinetic weapon.
The ship will need formidable defensive mechanism to survive cosmic radiation and impact with particles at the speed it is traveling.
I see two problems with this argument:
The spaceship could use some sort of FTL travel, which may or may not bypass these requirements entirely.
Regular cars have enough kinetic energy to kill people, and they are reinforced to a certain degree so that they won’t break from the strains of the speeds they travel in. Would you also say that it is impossible to have an unarmed car? One could certainly make such a claim, but that kind of drains the meaning out of the term “unarmed”…
My point about the FTL thing is that this question is in the realm of science fiction. Sci-fi authors can come up with whatever physics they want, and in real life we are so far from being able to do it that we can’t tell how it’d look like. So I wouldn’t rule out that it’d be based on some physical principles that allow a non-weaponizable spaceships.
Regarding the comparison to cars - I agree that it all depends on definition, but while there is some merit to the philosophy that “there are no wrong definitions” - bad definitions are certainly a thing. And a definition of “weapon” that includes regular cars is a bad one, because it misses out the important distinction between regular cars and armored vehicles with mounted guns.
it has a high potential for destruction that can’t be ignored.
I agree about that part, but only from a modern human’s perspective. We don’t have interstellar spaceships (even intrastellar travel is still a huge feat for humanity as a collective) so if such a spaceship from an alien civilization arrives here tomorrow, even if it’s a civilian one that was never intended to be a weapon - its operators could still cause us tremendous damage if they decide to use its power against us.
But let’s go back to cars. If you take a regular car to a small village of some lost tribe completely detached from civilization (for the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the ground is flat enough and solid enough to drive), you could probably use it to destroy the village. Take the same car to a modern city - and while you can still cause damage with it, it wouldn’t be as devastating since they know how to deal with cars and have the infrastructures and rules to safely deal with them. Bring a tank, however, and it’d be a different story.
I imagine a type 3 civilization would know how to deal with interstellar vehicles. Bring such a spaceship to one of its outposts - and it won’t be considered a weapon. Unless, of course, it happens to be one that’s actually designed to be a weapon.
A bow is usually considered a weapon while a car isn’t, but the car has much more destructive power than the bow. It’s not the destructive power that makes something a weapon.
And a soft piece of sponge is also a weapon when you force it in someone’s throat. If you define “weapon” like this, almost anything is a weapon. You lose the distinction between a bow that was designed for killing and a brick which was designed for building.
But more importantly - if everything can be a weapon when used as such, then saying that an interstellar capable spaceship is a weapon says nothing about spaceships themselves or interstellar travel itself.
Since this subthread had already stepped into the realm of sidetracked internet debate, I’d like to challenge that claim.
I understand that the reasoning behind this statement is that interstellar travel requires some properties that disqualify the ship from being considered “unarmed”:
I see two problems with this argument:
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My point about the FTL thing is that this question is in the realm of science fiction. Sci-fi authors can come up with whatever physics they want, and in real life we are so far from being able to do it that we can’t tell how it’d look like. So I wouldn’t rule out that it’d be based on some physical principles that allow a non-weaponizable spaceships.
Regarding the comparison to cars - I agree that it all depends on definition, but while there is some merit to the philosophy that “there are no wrong definitions” - bad definitions are certainly a thing. And a definition of “weapon” that includes regular cars is a bad one, because it misses out the important distinction between regular cars and armored vehicles with mounted guns.
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I agree about that part, but only from a modern human’s perspective. We don’t have interstellar spaceships (even intrastellar travel is still a huge feat for humanity as a collective) so if such a spaceship from an alien civilization arrives here tomorrow, even if it’s a civilian one that was never intended to be a weapon - its operators could still cause us tremendous damage if they decide to use its power against us.
But let’s go back to cars. If you take a regular car to a small village of some lost tribe completely detached from civilization (for the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the ground is flat enough and solid enough to drive), you could probably use it to destroy the village. Take the same car to a modern city - and while you can still cause damage with it, it wouldn’t be as devastating since they know how to deal with cars and have the infrastructures and rules to safely deal with them. Bring a tank, however, and it’d be a different story.
I imagine a type 3 civilization would know how to deal with interstellar vehicles. Bring such a spaceship to one of its outposts - and it won’t be considered a weapon. Unless, of course, it happens to be one that’s actually designed to be a weapon.
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A bow is usually considered a weapon while a car isn’t, but the car has much more destructive power than the bow. It’s not the destructive power that makes something a weapon.
deleted by creator
And a soft piece of sponge is also a weapon when you force it in someone’s throat. If you define “weapon” like this, almost anything is a weapon. You lose the distinction between a bow that was designed for killing and a brick which was designed for building.
But more importantly - if everything can be a weapon when used as such, then saying that an interstellar capable spaceship is a weapon says nothing about spaceships themselves or interstellar travel itself.