Any student of history or politics can tell you about numerous blockades and embargoes imposed throughout modern and more distant times. Sometimes nations with fleets and armadas feel the need to surround other countries by sea, cutting off their supply lines to other lands across the oceans. Sometimes there are other reasons for this large-scale behavior.
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an act or means of sealing off a place to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving.“there was a blockade of humanitarian aid”
synonyms: siege; rare besiegement“a naval blockade of the island”barricade, barrier, roadblock;obstacle, obstruction“they erected blockades in the streets”-
an obstruction of a physiological or mental function, especially of a biochemical receptor.
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seal off (a place) to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving.
synonyms: barricade, block off, shut off, seal; besiege, surround“rebels blockaded the capital”
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an official ban on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country.“an embargo on grain sales”
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an official prohibition on any activity.
synonyms: ban, bar, prohibition, stoppage, interdict, proscription, veto, moratorium; restriction, restraint, block, barrier, impediment, obstruction;boycott“an embargo on oil sales” -
HISTORICALan order of a state forbidding foreign ships to enter, or any ships to leave, its ports.
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impose an official ban on (trade or a country or commodity).“the country has been virtually embargoed by most of the noncommunist world”
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officially ban the publication of.3rd person present: embargos“documents of national security importance are routinely embargoed”
synonyms: ban, bar, prohibit, stop, interdict, debar, proscribe, outlaw; restrict, restrain, block, obstruct;boycott“arms sales were embargoed”
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ARCHAICseize (a ship or goods) for state service.
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There have actually been hundreds of embargoes and blockades throughout known history, and likely many that were and remain classified. Just about every country that’s been able to pull one off… has. Now that several countries have made it into Space, it is logical to assume that these activities will be attempted out there, too. Why not?
If there is even one station or colony out there, or just one other civilization, whether a breakaway from ours… or an entirely separate and humanoid one, there is a chance that there will be a blockade or embargo between them at some point. A lot of people have claimed that this is the case; those things are out there, and our world, like others, has, from time to time, been surrounded and cut off from one or more of them. Some have claimed that a recent one around Earth has been going on for quite some time, and only our most recent and advanced Space programs’ technology has been able to penetrate it.
When our Space shuttles and satellites malfunctioned and exploded, burned up on re-entry, or crashed on other worlds, …was it really a malfunction? Is there any chance they were sabotaged or shot down? Is there any chance such interference could be part of a blockade or embargo going on out there? Surely there is some chance, if however small in the minds of those who have little to do with activities beyond their own homes and towns back here.
What would it take to blockade an entire world from orbit? Well, first we can take a look at what it did take to blockade an entire nation right down here; most navies include hundreds of ships, and dozens of them are typically employed when forming a blockade. They just line up along the known shipping lanes and force at gunpoint any unknown or unauthorized ships to stop and be boarded for inspection and command.
So what would shipping lanes look from Earth to other worlds? Would there be that many of them? They’d likely, for efficiency’s sake, only exist at certain times when neighboring planets and moons were at their closest, keeping travel times and fuel consumption to a minimum, and thereby minimizing payloads and potential risks or complexity in general. There might only be one shipping lane between Earth and the Moon, one between Earth and Venus, and one between Earth and Mars. Assuming so few, just as there are few safe and reliable shipping lanes across the oceans of our world between nations and continents, anyone wanting to block those routes of supply and trade off would only need about as many ships as it takes for a terrestrial navy.
In the more than 100 years that humans on Earth have been experimenting with ships that might take them to Space, do you really not think that a lot of ships have been made, a lot proving successful, a lot getting built and expanded out there? Do you really not think that there are enough up and out there to set up a blockade, if need be? Why have we not publicly gone back to the Moon in so very long? Why was NASA’s original schedule of getting to Mars in the ’70s, and the moons of the gas giants in the following decade, not carried out?
Whether the orbital embargo and blockade claims are accurate isn’t really the point; the point is that they are not only possible, but fairly easy with existing technology and crafts. If they are active up there, it would explain a lot. It would explain why so much of our Space program went quiet and militarized for so long, punching its way through to restore our freedom to explore and expand, keeping it all as quiet as possible until the horrors of war in Space were put to an end, new agreements worked out, new peace and promise secured for those who wish to go now.
I can see why various people and groups would want to block off the Earth, keeping its crazy jerks with too much power from spreading their offensive and dangerous ways out across the stars. I can even see why the Earth might be blocked off forever; it has produced so many horrible, unspeakable things. Maybe there is something wrong with this world of ours, and maybe it is something only a blockade, embargo, or quarantine can fix, starving out whatever is here until it can spread and threaten no more. I, for one, would impose such a block on the things of this world, and I’m glad it is said to have already been done.
I wonder if I will ever learn more; was an orbital blockade around the Earth real? Is it still there? Who did it, and why? What would it take to persuade them to end it? Would I be allowed through? Who and what was not? How do the ships and other things work which make it all possible? So many questions come to mind.
