New Startup idea - private anti-air batteries for data centers
We felt a lot of it was… unnervingly believable in multiple aspects. As in, what parent mentioned.
I do not look forward to the “Seretech Decision” (https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Seretech_Decision), “Shiawase Decision” (https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Shiawase_Decision) or similar sorts of judicial rulings in the real world. True nightmare fuel.
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Somewhat… prescient, is the Shiawase Decision.
This was the result of what unfolded after regional electricity prices spiked (550%) after a corporation decided to take a lot of local power for itself.
After local opposition began forming, Shiawase Corporation made a false flag attack against itself to influence a future ruling where it could then defend itself similar to a sovereign nation in a foreign land. So full corporate “extraterritoriality”, to where maintaining its own regulated militia/defense force would be legally free and clear.
Not just for datacenters either - warehouses, refineries, power stations, you could sell to anybody with a building full of expensive stuff.
Drone attacks on US soil are (hopefully!) not happening anytime soon.
So...the west if we go by the recent statements of chancellor Merz
Ukraine is left to fend for itself. The Taliban runs Afghanistan. Iraq is still in bits. A new ceasefire with Iran is announced every other week.
No, the current policy is to shout loudly and carry a small stick.
Lots of "surgical" airstrikes, each lasting one media cycle and accompanied by a truckload of bluster and spin.
The current occupant of the White House appears to think foreign wars are principally a communications problem.
This would be incredibly stupid. An attack on American soil could be met with a literally nuclear response against Iran or whoever perpetrated it.
(We did nominally succeed in regime change in the country that didn't attack us, though...)
It wasn't Afghanistan (as a nation) that directly carried out 9/11. The government did have close ties with Al Qaeda and sheltered it though.
> An attack on American soil could be met with a literally nuclear response against Iran or whoever perpetrated it.
Al Qaeda is in the "whoever" category that you claimed would be met with a nuclear response.
Prediction markets are betting on a false flag attack around midterms.
America a super power ran away from the Houthis... who only have toyotas, no army, no navy and no airforce.
The continental USA has not yet been threatened by drones.
The USA is, however, the sovereign power controlling the smouldering ruins of military bases in Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, and the recently evacuated airfield in England. Some might say those constitute US soil.
Why do you think schools ban kids to carry weapons ?
Do you think letting anyone to bring weapons into any country might end well ?
Merchant vessels typically used to carry a variety of artillery and small arms for defense against pirates and hostile navies. That practice largely ended when the UK and then the USA established global hegemony and secured the sea lines of communication for everyone. But now the USA is no longer willing or able to play that role, so either merchant vessels have to be able to defend themselves using deadly force again or else trade will largely cease along routes within range of shithole countries.
They are largely unrelated to the reasons countries might have for being nervous about merchant vessels packing anti aircraft weaponry.
You are I think getting lost in your analogy and in the process conflating two different things:
- the reasons countries might want to prevent people from entering with weapons
Vs
- the reasons countries might have for being nervous about armed merchant vessels in their navigational waters
If your strategy assumes you can succeed against Iron Dome (which, I argue, is the state of the art for available air defense system), you should always be able to win as an attacker. Just have to test defenses ahead of time to understand level of effort required (munition capabilities, cadence, and quantity required, broadly speaking).
https://missilethreat.csis.org/countermeasures-penetration-a...
Obelisks from Command and Conquer pinned to the roof of the DC would be amusing although personally I'm leaning towards prism towers.
If someone wants to take out a data center, they will likely succeed assuming they have the resources (probably military drones, but perhaps more traditional ballistic artillery). The world has become a more dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable place, for gestures broadly at everything reasons.
(thoughts, opinions, and threat model always my own)
The US State Department will throw everything at you if you dare tried to build or possess your own guided guns and rockets, even if you were not from or in the US - because there was a US ally that exported a near-orbital solid motor sounding rocket to a Balkan nation with full factory setup and manufacturing training services without asking anybody in particular, which resulted in the recipient nation achieving prototype production and successful live fire tests of an indigenous surface to air missile system comparable to Soviet S-75 strategic SAM that was eventually selected.
If it weren't for those pile of laws and leverages... building a SAM was doable since 1950s.
I'd invest in digging equipment for the next war.
No reasonable amount of quadcopters could match a bunker-buster. Surface explosions are not very effective against buried targets.
The weight and density of the bunker-buster is extremely important to its operation. When dropped from a high altitude, it breaks into the bunker with sheer kinetic force, and then explodes once inside.
How long do I have to piss on a steel plate to get the same effect as a waterjet cutter?
About the same answer.
It did not help the Iranians and their nuclear facilities.
Though someone like Amazon will have to calculate, is the 50-year cost of protecting all facilities less than the 50-year cost of rebuilding the ones that are destroyed?
Apparently not all AWS resources/services are redundant - some are advertised as single location, and then it's up to the customer whether they choose to pay to make backups elsewhere (e.g. in a different region) or not.
As for the satellites they can be jammed and there's not much you can do about it.
I feel like China and US are the only ones in the next 50 years who'll have launch capability cheap enough to hit satellites.
I don't get the defense argument for space data centers.
There is value in hardening critical data centers. Whether that means placing them in orbit or underground or equipping them with air defenses remains to be seen.
I'm not saying there's no value in hardening data centers (which I'm assuming many already are against fires/earthquakes...), but their location and distribution are as safe as they can be - as in, any attack on them would probably be a declaration of war.
In space you will always have to deal with deniability.
Kinetic attacks against satellites would be less deniable. All major launches and orbiting objects are tracked so it would generally be possible to trace any weapon back to a specific country.
How do you know that this has not happened yet?
How many NATO forests had burnt to a crisp in the last two years. How many Americans lose their homes or their lives on those? Why so many disposable local idiots wake up some day with the same idea to provoke a wildfire near their city just now? Or to riot in Europe just now?
Any response from USA or Europe yet?
All that they need is to detect, isolate and groom a local moron from the other coin of the planet, And if is caught, is not their problem.
An event at one orbital altitude is also not confined to that altitude; debris can reach higher altitudes and affect satellites in those orbits.
Ask the US bases around the gulf who well the Patriots and other systems worked.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/28/russia-lets-privat...
Whatever isn't used/destroyed could be recovered wherever it lands after a day or two.
It should be less expensive a possibly more effective in certain circumstances because of increased carrying capacity.
That said, I’m in agreement in principle. A lot of what you’re asking for is statecraft, and doing that with a profit model is brittle to corruption. But I’d greatly prefer to see folks trying to build things on hope then on bloodshed.