Lady Zephyr recently posited a number of questions regarding the military use of FTL drives on cultures with only conventional means of transportation. Specifically, she asked concerning a planet on the Linked Systems harnessing FTL technology and using that with a one-planet industrial base to conquer the rest of the Linked Systems. I can fill in the rest. The planet must be Telivoni, the place where Lady Zephyr acquired the FTL drive. They may have found a way to replicate the FTL drive technology. I expect it to be our destination sooner rather than later.
This is a worrisome idea, since, to date, we have always held the advantage in terms of speed and acceleration. Lady Zephyr seems to have acquired an archive of Linked Systems ship-based weapons, most of which we can produce via the manufactory complex. However, all of these weapons were made for ships fighting at conventional speeds with conventional acceleration.
FTL combat is quite different, particularly in that our sensors only see information traveling at the speed of light. In typical conventional combat, we might see a laser cannon charging on the sensors, and release an opaque cloud of particulate matter as a countermeasure. With our FTL superiority, we simply move out of the way. If both ships have FTL capability, then the ship firing the laser cannon would simply move forward at the speed of light during the charging sequence, as to give the other ship no warning.
One might think that would make FTL combat very aggressive, with the first ship to attack destroying the other, as all countermeasures are ineffective. However, this is only the case if a ship’s position can be predicted. If a ship’s position can be predicted, then they should expect to be short without any warning. However, there is no reason that the position of a ship with a FTL drive should be able to predicted by anyone outside of the ship’s immediate vicinity. If a ship takes two seconds to charge the capacitors on its laser cannon, then even if it uses forward movement to hide itself, the defending ship has two seconds to be anywhere else.
Instead, combat can only exist if the ships are extremely close to each other. The approach at moderate or close distances is still difficult, as by the time you see the defending ship turn, it could have travelled a fair distance. Once the ships are extremely close, however, it is possible to match accelerations by watching the other ship and predicting its movements. Combat is then open, and in a fairly conventional manner.
The other option, however, is to negate the mobility of the opposing ship. This could mean shooting the engines before fleeing away and making passes. This could mean dispersing clouds of material to prevent free movement. This could mean the usage of stealth mines, or other devices. We have a sensor suite far beyond that of almost any ship, and this gives us a certain advantage when moving at speed in a debris field.
Of course, it is best to avoid fair combat altogether. I recommend using a diplomatic fiction to gain closeness to an enemy ship. I recommend using computer viruses to disable acceleration at a critical moment, or mutiny to overcome the ship from the inside.
More than anything else, however, I recommend understanding the workings of the FTL drive and how to disrupt it, to find similarly magical sensors that can see without the delay of light’s sluggish speed. Reproducing and miniaturizing FTL drives for drones could provide a low-risk option for combat. The key to combat is to make it as unfair as possible, preferably so unfair that the combat itself is not necessary to determine a winner. Technology, situation, and trickery are better tools than tactics alone, no matter how polished the tactician.
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