Re: Reasons for interstellar wars.

Brian Davis wrote:

I can think of at least two situations with a possibility on the
(semi?) rational. Pellegrino's (Paranoid universe coupled with R-
bombing... but this, again, depends on the *possibility* of such a
tactic being semi-practical). The other is the aggressor using vN
machines to build up at the target system (somebody did this as well,
but they only thing I can remember in detail is the Earth being
literally blown apart as two spheres of neutorium and antineutronium
come to rest there... anyone remember the author/title?)

As others have pointed out, this is Greg Bear's _The Forge of God_.

Agreed. Which, again, argues for such a tactic (interstellar war, at
least without amazingly cheap FTL) being non-rational. The chance of
getting someone much bigger than you annoyed enough to stamp you out
suddenly hits something in the neighborhood of 50%.

I've never liked the R-bombing / Paranoid universe thesis. It makes me
far to uncomfortable.

I think the saving grace, as with the more general Berserker hypothesis I've been talking about for some time, is that for it to be as effective as it must be for it to be worth doing, we should already have been hit by now.

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