SCIENCE&ARTWORK | THE HOKU | PRE-STELLAR ERA

THIS ARTICLE IS A STUMP | Last updated June 10th 2026
MINUTIA MIGHT GET CORRECTED AND BUILT UPON OVER TIME

OUR JOURNEY STARTS SOME 400 THOUSAND YEARS AGO...

... Roughly at the same time modern humans appeared on Earth, so did what we now commonly call Avipoda sapiens ("wise bird-feet") appeared on Auot'zae. They have been named like that mainly for their bird-like legs, strong like those of an ostrich, and with toes like a parrot.

 PRE-INDUSTRIAL AGE 
396,000 BCE - 14,500 CE

414,200 BFH - 3 654 BFH

BFH = before the fall of Hokushoku (in 18 154 CE)

INDUSTRIAL PRE-STELLAR STAGE
14,500 CE - 14,975 CE

3 654 BFH - 3 179 BFH

STELLAR STAGE
14,975 CE - TODAY

The ancestral avipodan was very likely a large arboreal generalist of the rainforest, spreading throughout the continent in bursts of forest expansion, with groups being left behind as the trees receeded south each time

THE CREATURE

The Avipodans evolved as a generalist hunter in the rainforests south of the continent of Azapabaet ("Known World"), its genus has spread across different parts of the continent in the past for 2-3 million years already, during hot-house cycles when the rainforests expand much north and south of their usual extension. During the end of the last hot-house event, a new species of Avipodan appeared with the receeding rainforest, the Avipoda sapiens cer ("meridional wise bird-feet"), which much alike its human counterpart, had more cohesive and coordinated groups, as well as developing further knowledge of the natural world compared to its predecessors because of better inter-group communication.

They are roughly humanoid and of similar stature to that of the Earth-human, with a head shaped like a crocs (the ugly shoe), having two eyes in each side of the head, as well possessing four appendages in the side and back of the head for ears, this not only gives them a great sense of depth but also directional hearing.

They have five fingers on the hands and feet - but on the hands, the index finger is located right by the thumb as a sort of second opposable thumb, while the other three fingers have similar length. On the feet, the digits adopt a zygodactyly form (similar to parrot's feet), with a vestigial fifth finger like a spur further up the metatarsus - these adaptations feed a strong belief that avipodans used to be an arboreal species prior to migration out of the rainforests, perhaps living nocturnal or in morning/nightfall for most of its evolutionary path.

The avipodan also has an incredible capability of distinguishing between different hues of yellow and orange, while being pretty much colorblind to greens and light-blues.

SPREADING ACROSS THE WORLD

Soon with the scarcity of the fading hot-house age, the meridional avipodans started splitting and traveling far across the known continent and into the southern continent of Sideeshazaet ("Volcanic Lands"). This southern group splitting so early and developing in isolation across the vast island chains gave origin to southern Avipodan, and later the great islander nations of the south.

In the following hundred millenia after the split, the meridional avipodan had ventured into the territory previously occupied by the tropical avipodan, being much older and more adapted for the drier climate, though the rainforest diseases brought by the meridional variety were quick to wipe out the local population, they had between some 20 and 10 thousand years to interbreed, generating a variety which was more adapted to the dry climate of the inner continent, coming to further spread into Azapabaet. This was a very arduous and slow journey for the northern and central parts of Azapabaet are occupied by deserted and rugged mountainous terrain where food is harder to find. Another hundred millenia after that, one group of meridional avipodans made contact with the oldest group still alive, which quickly disappeared through disease and conflicts for the rich temperate lands of the west. At roughly the same time window, the eastern group ventured to the sea, never to be seen again until much later, spreading across the continent which would be later be known as Jekaazapat ("New World"), and the horizontal migration meant there would be little distinction between the avipodans of the north Azapabaet and those of the new world.

I must give a reference that by the 21st century of our time, the avipodans were yet to reach the furtherst corners of their own world.

It took them much longer to explore their own world because of sheer size and longer distances, this created some interesting technological and cultural disparities between peoples even in the same continent, and there where lots of different peoples at first.

POST-AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

The rapid cooling of the planet in the last 50 thousand years allowed for water to collect on the mountainous region in center of the continent as huge glaciers, feeding river systems which flowed thousands of kilometers to the coast, these rivers collected organic debris and sediments along the way and deposited the material in river deltas, giving origin to vast fertile areas, akin to the Middle East's fertile crescent. The Avipodans established themselves in those more fertile regions and oasis in the following thousands of years, coming to later start an agricultural revolution as the rivers and oasis thickened between 2000 - 5000 CE. The ever creeping ice north of the planet and in mountainous regions had lowered the sea level by several meters, but also created tall glacier walls, cutting passages between the continent of Azapabaet and Jekaazapat.

The temporal and geographic isolation of early communities made for very cohesive cultural groups, the names of older places have barely changed in some 10 000 years

The eastern tribes of the continent discovered agriculture roughly at the same time, in a span of only 2~3 thousand years, this could have been helped by a strong trade of spices and seeds, since all major city states developed a primitive navy which was used to explore the habitable coast of Azapabaet. The western peoples were not only isolated by thousands of years but also by mountain ranges, and thus had to develop agriculture independently, the most sucessfull of them taking advantage of a huge lake fed by a river, with smaller communities further north, with a similar cereal trade.

BRONZE AND IRON AGES

The mastery of metalworking by midlatitude societies granted them the power to exert dominance over vast territories in the ancient world

But the cold climate wouldn't stay forever, the receeding of the glaciers and thus shrinking river fluxes between 13 000 and 10 000 BFH threw the avipodan world into an age of expansionist communities, because with less fertile soil by the century, more land was necessary in order to feed the growing population. During this Ice Age Collapse period we see the rapid fall of several communities that have been stable for thousands of years, and the spawning of wide and expansive kingdoms, also leading to the simplification and absorbing of their neighboring cultures.

During the transition between bronze and iron age, between 7 400 and 6 400 BFH, is where we see the establishment of the classical myths worldwide, inherited and modified from the ancient oral traditions and now properly recorded with the advent of writing.

Even though writing and numerical systems had spread pretty quickly throughout the east, the first kindom to develop it, Mo-Kahikō'shokīqe det-Hōkat ("The Civilized Land of Hōkat"), had centuries of advantage to expand its domain using the new technology, allowing it to organize proper military forces, and economic consistency, because every invention, product, person, and debt could now be tracked through time with outstanding accuracy. Though at first, reserved to higher classes of society. It is this kingdom and its sucessors, which gives the avipodans, their common name throughout the Dominion, "Hoku", meaning "person" in the classical Hukat language. The Hōkat civilization could be compared to what the Phoenicians once were, including the maritimal prowess.

The invention of writing, apart from the unification of peoples and burst of trade, also came with a side effect, by imposing teaching the nomadic tribes their spoken and written language, the eastern peoples spent several centuries trying to assimilate, wipe, and use them as spies and scouts into their neighboring empires and foreign lands, often met with resistance, the nomadic tribes of the steppe served as a sort of cultural and technological bridge between the west and east, finally connected after thousands of years, the nomads of the steppe also occasionally brought pottery and small pieces of bronze and iron technology to the south peoples, strenghtening the equatorial chiefdoms in exchange of the rainforest's goods.

AGE OF SAILING

The development of better sailing technology was originally intended to serve a military purpose, with the inner continent being mountainous and hard to transpose with large armies, an invasion by sea would allow the emerging superpowers to stop skirmishing each other through the steppes. However, once leaked plans arrived to the other side of the Known World, they were used not for maritim warfare, but further developed into long-range sailing, because now, the Gakor Empire could trade directly with the rainforest kingdoms.

Being blocked by the Gakor in between 3775 and 3730 BFH (14,400 ~ 14,424 CE), the Ent'shelari ventured further north, where it made contact with several northern hunter tribes, later using them as an outpost to venture into the far west in an attempt to circumnavigate the world, believing it would be possible to establish a trade with the eastern kingdoms and empires once the Spice Wars were over. Instead arriving at the place later named Port of Queen Ahirama in 3 682 BFH (14,472 CE), the first port in the temperate lands of the New World, where they have met an alternate world of societies isolated from them for nearly 40 thousand years...

The reconnection between East and West societies happened through the steppe tribes as messengers and scouts into the far lands -- with the occasional exchange of goods and technology through the exportations of wealthy and eccentric individuals, trying to figure a commerce route between the two "hemispheres" of the world. This without further development of sailing technology, this connection would remain impractical until very recently, circa ~400 PSE (14,575 CE), when the Ent'Shelari tried to find a way around the maritmal Gagot'ri blockade that lasted 40 years, and this pursue, making contact with the peoples of the south and the New World...

THE CONQUEST OF SIDESSIA

The south continent of Sideeshazaaet (or just Sidessia) is as large as mainland Australia, stretching for twice the extension of Indonesia, composed of 11 great islands and over 20 thousand other islands smaller than 200km

The continent is formed by an extensive chain of volcanic islands, the oldest and largest of those being mainland Sidessia. It has been continuosly inhabited by the Avipoda tropicans for at least 800 thousand years between 180 ~ 997 thosand years PSE, coexisting with the A. sapiens cer and A. sapiens australis between 300 and 180 thousand years PSE, falling during this period due disease and war with the newer more sophisticated groups.

The northernmost part of the continent is very rich in natural resources, both mineral and ecological due the equatorial climate, also sporting a great deal of deserted area like Australia. While the southernmost part of the continent is pretty frigid and deserted like the Fawklands due being inside the polar circle.

Prior to the Age of First Sail (500-400 PSE), there was no such concept as borders to the peoples of Sidessia, since anyone could set sail anywhere with enough skill and resources, and it was often done amongst the chains of islands of the Sidessian sea, conflicts were rather unnecessary since for the relatively small populations that inhabited the area, the islands were everything they needed, although this didn't stop major groups from establishing within a territory and developing rudimentary forms of agriculture for native fruits, cattle, and seaweed, which could be traded with the passing sailors in exchange of few goods, information, or even the trade of slaves and arrangement of mariages to keep the genetic diversity up a few notches.

The sidessian peoples had different levels of technological development with some central and northern tribes even having access to iron smelting thousands of years before bronze was even discovered in Azapabaet, while others remained as neolithic and hunter-gatherer societies.

The arrival of the Ent'Shelari in large ships at the Port of Geva in 385 PSE left a huge mark in Gevan culture and history. Being close but still inferior to the Ent'Shelari naval force, they became allies in the conquest of Sidessia by the northern powers, enslaving the nearby islander nations to work in the mining and farming of goods to be traded in Azapabaet. Soon followed by the Gagot'ri and the Gahel nations, exploring alternative routes to put up a competition agains the Ent'Shelari spice and metal trade, this competion started the Age of Great Navigation in 300 PSE, and this period established the basis on which major superpowers would come and rise prior to the stellar era.

[In terms of technological prowess and sciences, the Hoku of this time across the globe were at an equiparable level to that of 18th century Earth.]

THE CONQUEST AND LIBERATION OF THE NEW WORLD

 The pre-Fall continent of Jekaazapat had the greatest nations by extension since no borders were defined by centuries of war and diplomacy, but by where the major powers felt it would be fair to amongst themselves

Since 400 PSE, exploration fleets have been continuously sent to the new world by both the Ent'Shelari and Gagot'ri, followed by the eastern powers of Hukat, Torera, and Gahel-Nehil for the next 200 years. While in Sidessia those powers were met with shore-expanding armies and metal-working societies, the peoples of the new world could be said to be greatly underpowered and unbeligerant, needless to say that everything the superpowers couldn't have done in Sidessia was done to the new world, becoming a beacon of economic exploration by their ultramarine overlords.

The north mid-latitude location of the continent made it a prime candidate for intense settling waves by rich families and workers following the invention of the steam-powered ship, those families and enterpreuneurs built their fortunes with the industrialization of the countries and the exploration of resources granted by it. The rapid industrialization of the previously purely agricultural and mining center that were the colonies of the new world spiked a wave of armed revolts to try pushing the ultramarine powers off the new world, which could barely put up with an appropriate response due the large distances and amount of resources involved in such long travels.

These revolts also inspired phylosophical and political uprisings back home in the Dahetian empire and its northern colonies, now figthing at a minimum for the liberation of the northern territories and the more radicals for the collapse of Dahet in its entirety, this line of thought is what we currently understand under the banner of Socialism, which given the existence of vast corporate, ultramarine companies, and monarchies, clearly needed to be fought back.

The politico-economical schism between the socialist post-Dahetian states, the Farkade Union, and the eastern continent's vast monarchies, fascists, and capitalist states such as the Hukat Empire and the Ent'Shelari Republic meant instantly that all of their allies along their spheres of influence were constantly pitched against each other in a century-long attempt at destabilizing the other. Blockades, sabotaged supply lines, artificial droughts, population displacements, and chemical warfare permeated the years preluding of the Great War...

- M.O. Valent, 21/12/2022

- M.O. Valent, updated in 10/06/2026

SCIENCE&ARTWORK | THE HOKU | HOKUSHOKU

Hokushoku's vast oceans cover around 75% of the planet's surface

HOKUSHOKU / Auot’zae, literal for "the World"

Tropical Superterran

About 4.60 Gyr old

2.54 Earth-masses, or 15.168×10^24 kg

1.42 Earth-radii, 9050 km radius

12.28 m/s², 1.25 G

Mean density 4.84 g/cm³

Escape velocity ~15 km/s at the surface

Semi-major axis 0.805 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.014

Orbital period 0,72 Earth-years, or ~263.28 Earth-days

or 1 Hoku-years = 200.06 days of ~31h35min each.

            (add a leap day every 15.64 Hoku-years)

Axial tilt ~23.9° (current era)

EQ. Temperature 253 K (-20 °C)

Atmosphere 77.9% N2, 20.0% O2, 1.1% H2O vapor, 0.9% Helium, 0.078% CO2, 0.011% SO2, 0.01% Ar & Others (breathable for humans, hyperoxic, hour-long exposure causes irritation to the eyes, nose, and respiratory tract).

~1.52 bar at sea-level.

Mean temperature between 19.7 °C with an Earth-like albedo.

Very Earth-like climate, yellow vegetation — chrysophyll pigment.

Known native species:

Hoku (Avipoda sapiens, "wise bird-feet").

Antillo.

Deathmoth.

Scute.

White peas.

With 2.01x the Earth's surface area, the continents and oceans are vast, not only allowing for large habitable spaces, but also large deserts across the two Pangea-sized continents

Vegetation cover in Hokushoku here is shown in Earth-like greens for viewer comfort

Plants on Hokushoku have actually evolved orange-yellow pigmentation like on Niniveh, giving the planet's landscapes a permanent autumnal tone.

THE MOON, NUHEZA

HOKU-b / Nuheza (moon of Hokushoku)

Rocky moon

0.0067 Earth-masses, or 4.00×10^22 kg

0.21 Earth-radii, 1340 km radius

1.43 m/s², 0.15 G

Mean density 3.78 g/cm³

Escape velocity ~2.0 km/s at the surface

Semi-major axis ~277.1 thousand km or 21.75 Earth-diameters

Orbital eccentricity 0.054

Orbital period ~26.34 Earth-days or ~20 local days

(tidally locked) (10 cycles / Hoku-year)

Exosphere trace levels of hydrogen, neon, and argon.

Mean temperature around -5 °C assuming a Moon-like albedo.

Tidal forces are on average ~2.1x That of Earth’s moon

Apparent size and brightness equivalent to that of Earth’s moon, though the tidal pull is double that of the Earth’s moon because of the mass difference between the bodies.

The moon currently orbits the planet in roughly the same orientation as its equator, which means that its orbit is very inclined, and thus, the moon is only fully full or fully new twice a year. Having a slim line of darkness or sunlit area during the other 23 cycles.

The lunar cycle of 1 Hoku-year

1 frame = 1 Hoku-day

Because Hokushoku stays close to its star, Paza, which is rather less luminous than our Sun despite having similar size, the angular size of Paza is around 0.6° in the sky (compared to the Sun's 0.5°), this makes up for slightly larger eclipse shadows over the planet.

Speaking of eclipses, the only eclipses are annular eclipses because there is a 0.02° difference between the moon's largest angular size and the angular size of Paza.

Standing on the surface of Hokushoku wouldn't feel dramatically different than on Earth, but by human standards the air has very poor quality, and coupled with the stronger gravity and thick atmosphere it may be difficult to exercise or run across large distances for time exceeding one or two hours. It feels like venturing in a volcanic island carrying extra 20 kg of cargo on your back, a task impractical to the typical human, but not impossible for trained explorers.

The moon is barely larger than Earth's moon in the sky, and the day is dictated by the main star just like on Earth, tides are noticeably more violent and tall.

- M.O. Valent, 11/12/2022

happy birthday to me!

SCIENCE&ARTWORK | THE HOKU | PAZA SYSTEM

SYSTEM OVERVIEW

PAZA, the Greater Sister

G8V yellow dwarf star

Temperature 5435 K

(in solar units)

Mass 0.88

Luminosity 0.64

Radius 0.90

Metallicity Z* ~0.832 [Fe/H]

Abs. Magnitude +5.32

Rotational period 38 days

Unenja, the Little Sister

M4V red dwarf star

Temperature 3220 K

(in solar units)

Mass 0.124

Luminosity 0.004 ± 0.001 (weakly variable)

Radius 0.188

Metallicity Z* ~1.122 [Fe/H]

Abs. Magnitude +10.77 ± 0.19

Soft-flaring BY Draconis variable star, flare period is the same as rotational period of 52 days.

Orbital separation 0.15 AU or 22.4 million km on average.

Orbital eccentricity 0.271

Orbital period ~21 Earth-days or 16 Hoku-days

Total mass of the system amounts to roughly one solar mass, making orbital period calculations easier.

SYSTEM ZONES

Debris belt between 0.42 ~ 0.50 AU

Venus zone 0.68 AU

Water-loss 0.76 AU

Mean HZ 0.80 AU

True HZ 0.81 AU

Cold HZ 1.41 AU

Frost line 1.55 AU

Asteroid belt between 2.0 ~ 3.0 AU

Kuiper distance 32.20 AU

PLANETS

The planets of the system are named after the gods of an ancient civilization of theirs, pretty much like we call our planets by their Roman names (except you, Uranus).

In order from their star:

Bagede // BGD

The fast trickster, joker.

Hot-Neptune, ~116°C

Mass 20.95 Earth-masses

Radius 6.43 Earth-radii (thermally expanded)

Semi-major axis 0.33 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.211

Orbital period 69 Earth-days (nice!) or 52.4 Hoku-days

Bagede’s orbit is quite anomalous given the system’s distribution of mass, no planets could form this close to the binary pair, the atmospheric escape rate does indicate it to have formed much further away from the binary, being flung into a tight eccentric and inclined orbit in the system’s deep past.

Ovilgeza // OVGZ

God of lightning, fire, archery, and messengers.

Hot-Neptune, ~18°C

Mass 24.54 Earth-masses

Radius 6.74 Earth-radii (thermally expanded)

Semi-major axis 0.59 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.024

Orbital period 168 Earth-days, or 127.4 Hoku-days

Ovilgeza is one planet believed to have been quite disturbed by the migration of Bagede, with a tighter orbit than what its size would indicate, this can be said because the both ends of the debris belt around the binary pair are missing, with the missing mass being distributed to the two inner planets.

Auot’zae // AUTZAE

Orb of the World, the Earth.

Tropical Superterran, ~17°C

Mass 2.54 Earth-masses

Radius 1.42 Earth-radii

Semi-major axis 0.80 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.014

Orbital period 263.3 Earth-days, or 200 Hoku-days

Has a small moon with half the mass of Luna.

Informally known as Hokushoku (the Hoku World, in the classical language) throughout the Dominion, it is the only planet in the system naturally capable of hosting Life as we know it, it is the homeworld of the Hoku. On the surface it is pretty similar to Earth, both in gravitational acceleration and landscape-wise, the planet was once covered in lush bright-yellow vegetation which nowadays struggle to get a foothold, due the destruction of the ozone layer by a hostile force. The planet has one small moon, but due the closer distance it creates tides stronger than Earth’s moon.

Namenza // NAMZ

Goddess of spring, harvest, and life.

Icy Superterran, on average -44°C

Mass 3.55 Earth-masses

Radius 1.70 Earth-radii

Semi-major axis 1.21 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.019

Orbital period 1y120d, or 1Hy92Hd

Namenza is a bright icy world, its nitrogen and carbon dioxide atmosphere is just thick enough to maintain some levels of liquid water on the surface of the planet. However, despite the friendly conditions for life, it is completely sterile. It happens to be that the amount of volatiles in the planet's upper layers cannot generate enough pressure for efficient plate tectonics, thus the surface is pretty stagnant of chemical recycling. The crawling slow increase in Paza’s luminosity is also blamed to have kept this planet way too long in the dark to feed the chemical processes leading to the genesis of life, and now the planet is an icy wasteland, much contrary to the goddess it was named after.

ASTEROID BELT

2.0 ~ 3.0 AU

Some 3.2% of the Moon’s mass

Kotishera // KTXER

Goddess of arts, crafts, hunt, and war.

Gas Giant, ~ -150°C

Mass 165 Earth-masses

Radius 9.17 Earth-radii

Semi-major axis 3.60 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.047

Orbital period 6y303d, or 9Hy96Hd

Kotishera can be said to be a Saturn-like gas giant, very light and sporting a thin ring reminiscent of a recently minced icy moon. It has many other icy moons to spare.

Udeqera // UDQR

Goddess of the underworld and the furies.

Gas Giant, ~ -190°C

Mass 1442 Earth-masses or 4.53 Jupiter-masses

Radius 12.83 Earth-radii

Semi-major axis 6.80 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.035

Orbital period 17y266d, or 24Hy120Hd

Udeqera is a heavy jovian planet, with over four-times the mass of Jupiter, this giant holds a vast collection of moons named after the furies, and a very solid ring system. The total mass of the moon system is roughly ¼ of the Earth’s mass, half of which is concentrated in its three major moons. It is the last planet in the system which can be seen to the naked-eye.

Koshazat // KXZT

Titan of time, heavens, and weather.

Ice Giant, ~ -215°C

Mass 17.44 Earth-masses

Radius 6.56 Earth-radii

Semi-major axis 13.23 AU

Orbital eccentricity 0.010

Orbital period 47y350d, or 66Hy106Hd

The only planet not named after a main god of the classical pantheon, that happens because it was only discovered after the invention of the telescope. The only major entity missing from the sky was the titan of Time itself, and name was promptly accepted.

There are no major planets beyond this point, but a handful of dwarf planets and a myriad of comets in a debris belt called The Underworld, in classic Hoku.

-M.O. Valent, 05/12/2022

-M.O. Valent, posted 09/12/2022

OTHER | SPACE WARFARE | KESSLER SYNDROME

THE WALL OF A TRILLION STONES

Nukes, lasers, orbital bombardment, and planet-destructing superstations are often found tropes regarding space warfare in fiction — but none calls more my attention more than the orbital blockades, because at first, they sound very stupid, bordering the level of logic of ground invasions.

We've seen before in comics and movies that space blockades often consist on the control of local spacestations and the equatorial region of the planet.

At first, it sounds silly to just plant a ring or partial section of reinforcements around the planet's equator, while the defenders can just launch from other places. Let's look at the Earth spinning for a moment, the poles experience a minimum rotation speed because the polar circles have a small circunference rotating over the course of a day, but this circunference gets larger towards the equator and the time it takes to rotate does not change, which means that the velocity must and does increase to a maximum value around the planet's equator — and this greatly benefits space launches because it reduces the necessary delta-V to leave the planet's surface, and thus reduces the costs of launches, because the rockets get a little kick from the Earth's surface.

Launching from the poles grants you no extra delta-V, and so all the work must be done by the rocket, while launching straight from the Earth's equator gets you a boost of ~1600 km/h.

So any blocks around tropical regions will drastically increase the launch costs and risks of spacetravel, depending on how efficient it is.

Depending on the planet's local geography this may actually completely stall their space economy and movements because the only launch-able regions left may have no infraestructure or continents at all. The technological level of the blockaded society may extend or shorten the viability of the blockade of course, which is what I'm down to briefly explore with you in this post.

BLOCKADE ARCHITECTURE
Not gonna lie, it gets frustrating to discuss this with people because everyone assumes maximum efficiency or focus towards solving a problem, which is just impractical, sure the world has thousands of nukes at bay, but your average country simply does not, so guys, shut up — we're talking about multi-billion or trillion dollar projects to take down these blockades in the first case, when we can get to barely spend a few millions domestic food-supply or healthcare.

TECHNOLOGICAL

Pretty straightforward, disabling a considerable part or all of their stationed network of stations and satellites — ideally with an electromagnetic pulse like that of a small nuclear device (up to 300 kt) which can have an effective radius of some few thousand kilometers in space for temporary damage, or a moderately sized one for permanent disruption of all surface and air devices, the element of surprise is essential because countermeasures to EMP's exist for extreme solar activity incidents. This would essentially send their comms back to short-range analogical technology, imagine sending a future humanity all the way back to early 60s or 70s communication tech with only a handful of sturdy satellites online, the crash in economy this would cause. Even a small detonation at ISS height could affect an area the size of North America.

PHYSICAL CONTROL

This is about going to the blockade with an array of warships under your command, and taking down any ship with fire.

You won't want to take over the orbital infraestructure of the attacked planet because they might as well destruct it themselves in order to affect you, so taking them down is one step into trapping them at home. Unless those stations serve of critical strategic importance for you blockade and movements within enemy territory, a well placed explosive charge is the approach you want to take.

This can be particularly hard to execute depending on how practical are your defesive and offensive technology, and actually, way harder than the nuke approach because you're putting your own infraestructure at risk in this.

KESSLER SYNDROME or COLLISIONAL CASCADING

Along with the nuke EMP, this is the second if not best model for a space blockade, because if well executed, it will be a nightmare to clean and rebuild from it. Kessler Syndrome is the condition in which the lower orbits of the planet become so littered with debris or space junk that traveling through this layer of objects is impossible or really difficult.

Here's a few things from BRUTE FORCE MODELING OF THE KESSLER SYNDROME by Sergei Nikolaev et al.

For Low Earth Orbit or LEO zone (orbiting less than 2000km from the surface), there are about 15 thousand manmade objects greater than 10cm in size — this includes dead and active satellites, boosters, paint flakes, bolts, and all sorts of broken equipment and slag from launches and previous satellite collisions, with some studies pointing the instability of orbits between 700 and 1000km from the surface due the presence of such junk. Nowadays the type of close encounters between objects in LEO occurs at some 10km or less scale, and our objective in this post is to dramatically increase the closeness and occurence of these.

If we continue to do launches as frequently as we do today, the number of objects may increase to four times or some 65 thousand objects until 2100. This results in nearly 3 encounters a year, with 2 of them involving intact objects meeting fragments. This occurs because large assets such as large satellites and space stations have larger surface areas exposed to impacts, as it increases to the square of the radius, whereas whole object encounters are much more rare.

In the case that we continue to launch as often as we do today, the number of encounters at less than 100 meters will have increased to 50 per day by 2100. So 1.0~1.5 collisions per decade with debris, and 1 whole satellite collision every two decades.

Now let's talk why this condition is also called collisional cascading: imagine a car, it is composed of some 30 thousand small parts with every bolt and nut, and some 1800 parts accounting for mounted components. Put this car in space, it is one single object, but any considerably catastrophic impact will make this one car into a cloud of some few hundred up to thousands of small parts in divergent orbits, which in case can and will cause more assets to be shredded into more parts, thus initiating a cascading reaction of collisions. Again, for the purposes of our blockade we will, on purpose find a way to potentiallize this phenomenon, which only works with mid/high tier technological societies like us.

My attempts at a mathematical regression relating the number of objects to the number of encounter and collisions rendered the following:

One satellite taken down every 17 months might not sound like much, after all, we put nearly 100 of those out in that same period. So we are looking at possibly 10 billion objects in LEO in order to be able to take every space asset launched and then some, within 10 years.

THE OBJECT OF CHOICE

There are several things we can use for these objects, from literal junk, to pebbles, to nuts, or satellite parts... A single 1/2" nut weighs about 30 grams. So 10 billion nuts would cost us nearly 300 million kilograms of carbon-steel, and at 7 american cents a unit retail cost, this is a raw cost of 700 million american dollars as of 2022.
We can conserve the mass of our blockade and decrease the object mass anywhere between 1 and 30 grams, which puts our object count in the range of 10 to 300 billion — this would increase our impacts per decade from 1250 to 7130. Such count of objects would render between 0.009 and 0.26 nuts per cubic kilometer if evenly distributed in a shell between 400 and 2000km from the Earth's surface, if we limit ourselves to orbits between 400 and 1000 km however, we can pack close to 1 nut per cubic kilometer.

Another way to increase the virtual object count is to limit ourselves to fill out a torus around the Earth instead of a shell, this way, blocking the tropical zone. Giving between 0.06 and 8 nuts/km³, but with the total height of the torus approaching 1000 km, this isnt very efficient, unless you're determined to litter the LEO in several batches of objects.

Of course, our objects don't have to be nut-shaped but it could also take the form of nails, spheres, amorphic rocks, or caltrops. The shape is important because the atmosphere swells with increasing solar activity, increasing the atmospheric drag and thus the number of reentries, achieving less than 10 reentries during minimum, up to an average of 100 reentries during solar maximums. So caltrops or nail-shaped objects sound appropriate to avoid much atmospheric drag and thus extends the halflife of our blockade, this also increases the effective impact radius of our objects.

Alternatively, we can use rocky pebbles from milling down a small asteroid, if we want to keep our cloud of 10 billion 30g objects, then the asteroid we are looking for is precisely between 60 and 64 meters in diameter, for a total mass of 300 million kg.

As of the 2020s, the technology required for asteroid mining is still crawling, the OSIRIS-REx in a sample and study mission only returned only about 60 grams of material costed 184 million dollars for the equipment only and 800 million for the Atlas V rocket — which is pretty salty — let's say that a dedicated mission could carry between 10 and 100 kg of material per shipment, for the same cost, we would still need to make 3 million travels at a grand total of 3000 trillion dollars to mine that rock to the last grain. Not to speak that it takes around 7 years for a trip to and back from NEO's, what to say of asteroids in the asteroid belt. Mining from Mars however could cut the trip time to half or less of that time, since Mars orbits much closer to the asteroid belt, being smaller than Earth and at a higher orbit, the delta-V required for missions is much smaller, making the economics of the launches much cheaper.

THE LOGISTICS OF MINING A HUGE ROCK IN SPACE (kinda?)

It takes around 11 months of travel between Earth and the asteroid belt, plus a few weeks to approach, land, mine and take off from your target asteroid, then flying back for another 11 months, the whole trip this way took little over 2 years and you got a few hundred kilograms of mineral, costing about 2 billion dollars, and with nearly 11km/s of delta-V. That's what mining the asteroid belt in the 2040s or 2050s might look like.

Now, doing these same calculations for a mission departing from Mars, it requires less delta-V (about to 7km/s) but little more time, about 1 year and 3 months to reach the belt, add few weeks for all the work, and another 1.24 years back, and your mission took about 3 years, BUT despite the longer time, we compensate by saving fuel or being able to bring more stuff in the next payload. In the case we want to take this material from Mars to Earth instead, it takes about those 11 months on the trip back (2.1 years total).

It is kind of nasty how it is easier to explore Mars as a waypoint to mine the asteroid belt, even though the time is practically the same, there is quite some savings in fuel which can be used to toll more material back to Earth at the same cost of an Earth-Belt trip. This same ease can also be used to deliver our cloud of pebbles, nukes, or even whole rocks towards Earth.

Based on the Apollo mission spendings on Delta-V, our Mars-Belt-Earth trip would consume around 20,000 ft/s of delta-V (14.5 km/s), we would need about 91 thousand kilograms of rocket fuel for the whole endeavor. A thrust plataform with the similar capabilities of an Atlas V rocket is more than capable of executing such a mission, which puts our base cost at least 800 million dollars.

Let's say a small permanent mining station weighs about the same as the MIR station, on the range of 100-200 tons, at current prices per kilogram of payload, the price of putting such station in orbit is about 20-40 million dollars — give it some 500 million dollars for development, launch and initial operation costs, and the price of such a mission to fetch 300 million kilograms of being 22 dollars per ton (little over the price of iron per ton), total cost of our mission (minus dispersion) is.... between 1.3 and 2.0 billion dollars! Maybe even as little as 4 billion dollars with more material or a more robust station.

THE DISPERSION METHOD

There isn't any good dispersion methods I can think of for deploying this many objects, assuming you can actually pack billions of little caltrops in a spaceship or several spaceships — the most efficient thing that comes to my mind is to build a rotor which can spread them out through centrifugal force in all directions, Mark Rober style. As this would ensure nearly even spread of objects filling orbits at all orbital inclinations.

A 3x3x5 meter container has 45m³, and so assuming we can fill 75% of it with 2-inch wide caltrops, it can possibly pack 270 thousand units. So we would need a fleet between 37 thousand and 1.1 million of these specific containers plus rotors to send in. Indeed an incredible feat to pull out.

- M.O. Valent, 05/12/2022