Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and add free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebula.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

Sun Tzu said, rapidity is the essence of war.

Take advantage of the enemies on readiness, make your way by unexpected rounds, and attack

unguarded spots.

Imagine the strategic advantage then of being able to get your troops anywhere on the

planet in mere minutes by dropping

them from the heavens above.

So today we'll be discussing drop ships, troop transports, orbital insurions, drop pods,

boarding torpedoes, and the general notion of how you move

relatively fragile ground forces around in space and down the planets. This is a concept

we normally think of as not being a real-life issue outside of sci-fi, except in some distant

and dystopian future, but as we'll see today, some of the texts involved might be in play

here on Earth in this century.

Drop Ships is a term that most fans of science fiction know pretty well already, it's one

of those concepts that pops up in sci-fi and has picked up its own name even though it has

no widely known existence outside of fiction.

Wikipedia mentions it as an alternate term for a

shuttlecraft in a little stub article, much like Mothership, another term everyone knows in the

sci-fi community, but that isn't a commonly used military, maritime, or aviation term.

...