Rods from God

>>13619252
I feel you brother

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>>13619252
Dragonar does. The story starts off with the Lunar Empire of Giganos (based on the Moon, as you can surmise) gaining dominance because it controls the mass driver there, allowing it to bombard Earth with impunity and send in its mechs to destroy all resistance.

>>13619252

It's not an anime, but Babylon 5 has at least one major scene that includes it when the Centauri use them to bomb the Narn homeworld back in to the stone age, killing huge numbers in the process and enslaving them once more (the Narn had only achieved independence from the Centauri recently in the setting). One of the main characters is watching as it happens and it marks a turning point for him.

I can't recall the title but there was an anime where aliens took over the earth with a fuckload of building sized metal cylinders in earth orbit. They wiped out a bunch of population centers and threatened to drop the rest unless people submitted.

Also it wasn't anime but kinetic weaponry featured in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

>>13619425
Wasn't that the Tom Cruise movie, Oblivion?

My guess is because Rods from God are really only weapons. So, if even the rumor got out that someone was building them any nation with any sense would move to stop it because the potential for unrestricted orbital bombardment is a serious concern. At least with colonies and mass drivers you can get away with it because they have other uses besides as weapon platforms.

>>13619613
If your civilization is advanced enough to have space travel, it wouldn't be a problem to just attach thrusters to the first piece of asteroid (or even space junk) you find.

Gihren's Greed has a mass driver. I don't know if this is GG exclusive or Zeon did really use one during the OYW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkEUnS0ScfQ

I wan to see something like it tested in real life, but it's probably better that nobody start putting weapons in space.

Something I wish would come up more that is related is FTL ships being used as RKVs.

Imagine something like the Enterprise ramming a planet at warp 9, it would cause tremendous damage.

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>>13621149

You really need to read this anon.

>>13619252
Because they have the power of a strategic nuclear strike, which means that no one fucking WANTS to use them. They cause way too much damage, and kill civilians indiscriminately. Also, their launch vehicles are pretty much sitting ducks, making them impractical compared to, say, nuclear subs.

Whenever a colony gets dropped, it's portrayed as one of humanity's singular moments of horror, on the scale of the Bubonic plague and the Columbian arrival. It only happens because someone completely steps out of line, and the whole world basically hates them for it.

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>>13623220

...but you got to admit, it's fucking beautiful!

>>13622988
Judging by the Wikipedia article, this looks incredibly depressing, with some groan-worthy attempts at black comedy.

>>13623478

Science is somewhat good though if you'd want a verbal description of what >>13621149 would look like.

>>13619252
There's a pretty simple reason if you think about it: kinetic orbital bombardment would require you to re-arm the launch platform consistently. Space lasers you can get away with by saying that their power reactor allows them to recharge and fire at will, but with kinetic weapons you need to reload it. At that point why not just have orbital bombardment from a spaceship?

>>13619252
This was one of things I always loved about R.Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 rpg. They had a chapter about the history of the Cyberpunk world, and their explanation for why the nuclear arms race ended was the European Union using the Tycho Massdriver on the moon to drop two very large rocks: one outside of Moscow and one outside of Washington D.C. They refer to it as "the day they rocked washington". The paragraph ends with "So as long as we have the Tycho Massdriver up there I don't think we'll be having that nuclear war everyone's been so afraid of for years. After all...rocks are cheap."

>>13623785
Unfortunately, most of the area surrounding DC is populated... Like, heavily so. They could have made their point rocking someplace in the Midwest.

>>13619252
I'd like an anime adaptation of Pournelle & Niven's Footfall.

Coz, asides from the rods, there's also the orion drive ship armed with x-ray lasers & 16" guns taken from Iowa-class BB's.

and the shitty reporter getting what he deserved by being drowned in a toilet & buried in a compost heap.

LoGH can serve some of your orbital bombardment needs

>>13623870
That's ok, no one will miss Baltimore.

>>13619252
holy shit is that image from a 2005ish Popular Science article? Brings me back

>>13619252
Because if you don't care about collateral damage then there's no need for any other kind of weapon, and if you do care about collateral damage then they're too horrifyingly destructive to actually use. Nothing can stop an RKKV, so you can't even have the tension you can with a colony drop of trying to break it up or halt its descent. They are the epitome of boring yet practical.

>>13623220
Actually, as they would have been built, Rods from Gods wouldn''t pack anywhere near the punch of a strategic weapon. The thing with Rods from God is that they're really really heavy. The ability to lift a rod with that much destructive power into orbit doesn't actually exist. Nor is it likely to for some time. Few proposed launch systems can loft such rods. Even Most Orions would lack the capability to launch even a single city killer. The largest Rods the USAF looked at would have had roughly the energy of around 100 tons TNT equivalent at most.

You're right about the sitting duck part and superiority of SSBNs.