How would you blockade/quarantine a planet?

[89er]

Say there is a planet is dangerous for unknown reasons, and its your job to keep anything from getting offworld, such as a ship or burst of data. There could be a zombie plague, a rogue AI, or any number of dangerous stuff that you cannot let off that rock. You have all manner of resources at you disposal.

My first thought was for a massive ship, bigger that dreadnoughts, or an entire fleet. But I your opinions and ideas.

[taalismn]

Say there is a planet is dangerous for unknown reasons, and its your job to keep anything from getting offworld, such as a ship or burst of data. There could be a zombie plague, a rogue AI, or any number of dangerous stuff that you cannot let off that rock. You have all manner of resources at you disposal.

My first thought was for a massive ship, bigger that dreadnoughts, or an entire fleet. But I your opinions and ideas.

Spread spacejunk in a high velocity ring(shades of how Rifts Earth is supposedly blockaded), and keep renewing it(have crews of robot asteroid miners bringing in rocks to break up to renew the ring....or store up orbital reserves of bombardment rocks for when you move past quarantine and into CAUTERIZATION).
Kill Sat network, networked by line of sight laser comms(less chance of being hacked).
Self-replicating mines.
Want to kill transmissions? BIG solar powered broad-spectrum jammers in space, plus HARM(Homing Anti-Radiation Missiles) and Wild Weasel platforms firing on any transmission sources.
Do the same for intense gravitic anomalies like CG drive activity. Gravitic activity spikes? It gets hit, HARD, with solar-pumped energy weapons or rocks.
Bombard the planet with big ion cannons, like massive artificial solar flares. Build up aurora activity and keep any exposed power grids and wireless networks on the surface fritzed. Also build up the radiation particles trapped in the planet's magnetic field. Sprinkle periodically with high atmosphere EMP blasts.

[Kovoston]

Say there is a planet is dangerous for unknown reasons, and its your job to keep anything from getting offworld, such as a ship or burst of data. There could be a zombie plague, a rogue AI, or any number of dangerous stuff that you cannot let off that rock. You have all manner of resources at you disposal.

My first thought was for a massive ship, bigger that dreadnoughts, or an entire fleet. But I your opinions and ideas.

Spread spacejunk in a high velocity ring(shades of how Rifts Earth is supposedly blockaded), and keep renewing it(have crews of robot asteroid miners bringing in rocks to break up to renew the ring....or store up orbital reserves of bombardment rocks for when you move past quarantine and into CAUTERIZATION).
Kill Sat network, networked by line of sight laser comms(less chance of being hacked).
Self-replicating mines.
Want to kill transmissions? BIG solar powered broad-spectrum jammers in space, plus HARM(Homing Anti-Radiation Missiles) and Wild Weasel platforms firing on any transmission sources.
Do the same for intense gravitic anomalies like CG drive activity. Gravitic activity spikes? It gets hit, HARD, with solar-pumped energy weapons or rocks.
Bombard the planet with big ion cannons, like massive artificial solar flares. Build up aurora activity and keep any exposed power grids and wireless networks on the surface fritzed. Also build up the radiation particles trapped in the planet's magnetic field. Sprinkle periodically with high atmosphere EMP blasts.

Sounds like you have done this before!!

[taalismn]

[

Sounds like you have done this before!!

Mental exercise on long work commutes....'How would I contain, then obliterate, a planetary zombie/xenomorph/mad A.I. outbreak of I had superior technology and the high ground?'.

My Good Splugorth thread had at least three scenarios for dealing with planetary virus outbreaks and rampant greenhouse effect.

To quote 'Red vs Blue': 'Everybody should have a zombie plan".

[Zamion138]

Well the junk/rock shield is not bad idea at all.
One problem though is if the planet is magicly active, you have to some how rob the planet of its ppe, you could be seting up orbital stone pyramids in such a way as to cover the planet, that would be a huge under taking though, probaly less work to drop the planet into a pocket dimension.
If its all mundane then a blockade with 4 mother ships in geostationary orbit to cover the poles and both sides. Smaller ships between and fighters patroling. Mine field and fast interceptors for some one brave enough to start ftl in atmosphere.
High altitude nukes would not hurt the population but emp all the coms on the planet that are not shileded but would garuntee the issue will turn into unresolvable on the planet.
If its worth blockading and not bombing back to a wasteland i dont suggest doing that.

I dont know how youd lock down dportal and rifting if its a magically capable planet though. Even shutting off the leylines just forces mass human/alien sacrafice and the something your holding back gets out.

[taalismn]

It would be impossible to dimensionally quarantine a planet like Rifts Earth where Rift events are all over, and the local populace has the ability to generate them with enough PPE juice.
On planets without a great deal of PPE, if you had good long range magical sensors you could watch the most likely leylines and nexus sites....be on the watch for any activity around them and bomb the snot out of them.
Of course a really nasty foe might herd potential sacrifices towards the site and let the skyfire do the PPE releasing for them, so there's the crimp in that plan.

[Looonatic]

I'd surround the entire planet and all dimensional access points with an environment that any mortal would do anything to avoid: An American Idol audition. *nod*

[taalismn]

I'd surround the entire planet and all dimensional access points with an environment that any mortal would do anything to avoid: An American Idol audition. *nod*

If you don't mind permanently sacrificing a bit of your soul, broadcast the entire 'Twilight' series on broad spectrum frequencies...that will create an expanding sphere of cultural malodorousness that will have other civilizations avoiding the system like a rabid skunk.

[Zamion138]

Total enclosure by black holes.

Or just drop one on the planet.

Quarantine not kill.....hahahaha

[DhAkael]

I'd surround the entire planet and all dimensional access points with an environment that any mortal would do anything to avoid: An American Idol audition. *nod*

If you don't mind permanently sacrificing a bit of your soul, broadcast the entire 'Twilight' series on broad spectrum frequencies...that will create an expanding sphere of cultural malodorousness that will have other civilizations avoiding the system like a rabid skunk.

Either would work... or Republican presidential nomination convention.

[taalismn]

If you don't mind permanently sacrificing a bit of your soul, broadcast the entire 'Twilight' series on broad spectrum frequencies...that will create an expanding sphere of cultural malodorousness that will have other civilizations avoiding the system like a rabid skunk.

Either would work... or Republican presidential nomination convention. [/quote]


Please...no mention of politics, especially from those who don't live in the dogpit. Some of us like to eat without upset stomachs...

[Looonatic]

I'd surround the entire planet and all dimensional access points with an environment that any mortal would do anything to avoid: An American Idol audition. *nod*

If you don't mind permanently sacrificing a bit of your soul, broadcast the entire 'Twilight' series on broad spectrum frequencies...that will create an expanding sphere of cultural malodorousness that will have other civilizations avoiding the system like a rabid skunk.

Lord Splynncryth would like to offer you a job, but you'll have to tone down the evil a bit.

[taalismn]

From the sci-fi novel 'Cusp': seed the planet's orbit with particles of anti-matter, similar to a debris ring. The stuff will be invisible unless it hots regular matter, in which case the particles flare in mutual annihilation. Keep a steady spray of anti-matter particles(you'll inevitably lose quantities to infalling material and interaction with the upper atmosphere as particle orbits decay.

[Jerell]

If you don't mind permanently sacrificing a bit of your soul, broadcast the entire 'Twilight' series on broad spectrum frequencies...that will create an expanding sphere of cultural malodorousness that will have other civilizations avoiding the system like a rabid skunk.

[taalismn]

If you don't mind permanently sacrificing a bit of your soul, broadcast the entire 'Twilight' series on broad spectrum frequencies...that will create an expanding sphere of cultural malodorousness that will have other civilizations avoiding the system like a rabid skunk.

Of course, the TGE might just take this as cause to hit your planet with relativistic missiles(take a big starship, accelerate it up to a good percentage of light speed, kamikaze it), and Dominators to soak the solar system in anti-matter, defeating the 'keep 'em caged and alive' aspect of quarantine.

[taalismn]

Of course, if you can access a steady and large enough supply of PPE, using some of the Space Magic spells might enable you to enwrap the planet in a small nebula, with meteor swarms thrown in for good measure.
Or if you wanna go SUPERscience...wrap the planet in a protective field of localized gravity, then drop the planet into the event horizon of a black hole. The closer to the singularity it orbits, the greater the gravitational gradient anybody getting through the protective barrier has to fight against to escape. Down deep enough and the gravitic sheer will tear any escapee apart the moment they leave the sanctuary of the planetary compensation field. PLUS there's the time dilation factor to consider; the deeper the planet is dropped, the slower time should pass for them. That means the outside has time to prepare in the event there IS an escape, That means any transmissions will be hopelessly attenuated and drawn out, and even if anybody manages to escape, they may find that centuries have passed, perhaps millenia, eons....maybe even the big crunch or heat death of the universe.
Of course, time dilation would also make retrieving anything from the quarantine problematic as well, since by the time you went in, got what you needed, and climbed back out, your colleagues may all be dead and whatever crisis you needed the whatever for is long past and ancient history.

[say652]

make it universally known that contact with any of the planets inhabitants causes infertility and flacidness.

[taalismn]

Drop it into its own Astral Realm...YOU control access(as well as local physical law).

[SittingBull]

Say there is a planet is dangerous for unknown reasons, and its your job to keep anything from getting offworld, such as a ship or burst of data. There could be a zombie plague, a rogue AI, or any number of dangerous stuff that you cannot let off that rock. You have all manner of resources at you disposal.

My first thought was for a massive ship, bigger that dreadnoughts, or an entire fleet. But I your opinions and ideas.

Spread spacejunk in a high velocity ring(shades of how Rifts Earth is supposedly blockaded), and keep renewing it(have crews of robot asteroid miners bringing in rocks to break up to renew the ring....or store up orbital reserves of bombardment rocks for when you move past quarantine and into CAUTERIZATION).
Kill Sat network, networked by line of sight laser comms(less chance of being hacked).
Self-replicating mines.
Want to kill transmissions? BIG solar powered broad-spectrum jammers in space, plus HARM(Homing Anti-Radiation Missiles) and Wild Weasel platforms firing on any transmission sources.
Do the same for intense gravitic anomalies like CG drive activity. Gravitic activity spikes? It gets hit, HARD, with solar-pumped energy weapons or rocks.
Bombard the planet with big ion cannons, like massive artificial solar flares. Build up aurora activity and keep any exposed power grids and wireless networks on the surface fritzed. Also build up the radiation particles trapped in the planet's magnetic field. Sprinkle periodically with high atmosphere EMP blasts.

Bravo. Stated with confidence. However, we still respectfully request that you lift the blockade/quaranteen of Raxacoricofallapatorius. We are a peaceful planet, the spontaneous and contagious zombification only results, like we have stated multiple times, when you remove the tag from the mattress.

[Qev]

If I've done my math right, you could put the planet in a ~44.5km (14.8km if measured from the event horizon) orbit around a 10 solar mass Schwarzschild black hole. This should give the planet a time dilation factor of close to three-quarters of a million relative to the rest of the universe, due solely to its orbital velocity. It'll actually be a bit higher still, since I haven't bothered with the gravitational time dilation caused by the black hole itself. If you want a bigger time-debt, you can always put it in a yet closer orbit, but tidal effects... you know.

Actually dropping the thing into a black hole is going to be problematic, regardless of what shielding you put on it, if you wanted to later get it back. Directions get all kinds of screwed up past the event horizon, since the "out" direction swaps roles with the "past" direction and "in" becomes "the future". You'll need a time machine to actually attempt an escape/retrieval, and those are in pretty short supply in Phase World I think?

Or you could build the planet-equivalent of a Dyson sphere, enclosing the entire planet in a shell of armor, possibly studded both inside and out with defensive installations to keep the curious away and the quarantined put. I imagine you'd want to be nice and put solar powered insolation lamps on the sunward-facing in-side, unless you want to refrigerate the planet for freshness. Kind of expensive, but probably still cheaper than moving the planet into a black hole orbit.

Or, you could just notify the galaxy-at-large that the planet has been colonized by the Mulka-Flooper Alliance.

[KLM]

Say there is a planet is dangerous for unknown reasons, and its your job to keep anything from getting offworld, such as a ship or burst of data. There could be a zombie plague, a rogue AI, or any number of dangerous stuff that you cannot let off that rock. You have all manner of resources at you disposal.

My first thought was for a massive ship, bigger that dreadnoughts, or an entire fleet. But I your opinions and ideas.

A quick choice would be an UWW Brightwander ship.

As a first measue, opening several rifts to the elemental plane of water (or into a gas giant) to create a planetary barrier. Then apply several teams of psykers with the power of Clairvoyance or its spell equivalent to get some data, along with the traditional methods (sensory equipment, probes, maybe specimen extraction), to plan further measures.

[taalismn]

[ However, we still respectfully request that you lift the blockade/quaranteen of Raxacoricofallapatorius. We are a peaceful planet, the spontaneous and contagious zombification only results, like we have stated multiple times, when you remove the tag from the mattress.

...and you don't wanna know what happens if you disobey the 'For external use only' label.....

[Qev]

Actually, a supermassive black hole might be a better choice; it saves you having to shrink the planet down to miniature size before placing it in orbit. I shouldn't do maths late at night.

I intended to use a 10 million solar mass black hole, which gives a much more feasible orbital altitude (above the horizon) of 14.8 million kilometers for a time dilation factor of ~700000. This gives you a bit more wiggle room if you want to adjust the time-debt, and tidal forces are no longer a concern. But, being right on the 2R limit you'll have to be careful or it'll inspiral and you'll lose the place, since there are no stable orbits closer than 2R (I think).

[taalismn]

Actually, a supermassive black hole might be a better choice; it saves you having to shrink the planet down to miniature size before placing it in orbit. I shouldn't do maths late at night.

I intended to use a 10 million solar mass black hole, which gives a much more feasible orbital altitude (above the horizon) of 14.8 million kilometers for a time dilation factor of ~700000. This gives you a bit more wiggle room if you want to adjust the time-debt, and tidal forces are no longer a concern. But, being right on the 2R limit you'll have to be careful or it'll inspiral and you'll lose the place, since there are no stable orbits closer than 2R (I think).

Ouch...yep, that would do it, I'd think.

[SittingBull]

Or you could build the planet-equivalent of a Dyson sphere, enclosing the entire planet in a shell of armor, possibly studded both inside and out with defensive installations to keep the curious away and the quarantined put. I imagine you'd want to be nice and put solar powered insolation lamps on the sunward-facing in-side, unless you want to refrigerate the planet for freshness. Kind of expensive, but probably still cheaper than moving the planet into a black hole orbit.


Now that would be the kind of quarantine I would not mess with. A planet enclosed in a sphere screams "trouble inside".

[SittingBull]

[ However, we still respectfully request that you lift the blockade/quaranteen of Raxacoricofallapatorius. We are a peaceful planet, the spontaneous and contagious zombification only results, like we have stated multiple times, when you remove the tag from the mattress.

...and you don't wanna know what happens if you disobey the 'For external use only' label.....

[Qev]

Or I suppose, if you want to do this on a budget, you could use a Rift to nip over to Vernor Vinge's Realtime universe and borrow a bobble generator...

[Rallan]

I'd pull something out of my ass and "explain" it with technobabble. We're not exactly talking the world's most realistic or technically in-depth hard science fiction setting here, so the technobabble doesn't even need to have very much internal consistency as long as it sounds cool.

[Qev]

Oh, you could also construct a wormhole, accelerate one endpoint to as close to the speed of light as you can (faster is better) while riding along with it, and wait a while. Then jump into the wormhole, and you'll pop out of the 'stationary' one back at the time when it was first created (more or less). Then shove the planet through the other way. Ta-daaah, planet is now stranded in the deep future. Of course, you'll still need to guard the wormhole.

[Icefalcon]

Oh, an orbital blockade would still work. If someone Rifts in, the sensors on the ship would detect it and you bombard that area of the planet. Do it enough times and whoever is trying to break the blockade will stop. Someone is teleporting in? Would be detect if they are making large movements of troops or supplies, laser cannon for 1d6X10,000 damage will destroy that crap. Ships, kill them. Cosmo Knight ruining your blockade. Have him eat a demon in a bottle missile barrage followed by massive rail gun barrage. Want to totally isolate the planet, put it in a pocket dimension only accessible to you.