Long term consequences of the League's collapse

hanuman wrote:Most of those successor states' primary priority will be determined by the survival imperative; in other words, get the stuff they need to survive the immediate peril, as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible, and worry about the future when it becomes necessary to do so.

Building SL tech ships is like building sailing frigates and side wheeling ironclads in 1914. They are just targets for anyone you might need to fight. Why would anyone possibly do that? It's not like there are a huge number of sophisticated military shipyards out there, so they have to be built too. So once you spend years and billion/trillion doing that why would you build worthless trash like a Scientist?

You would get better results building missile pod carriers on freighter hulls, which you can actually build in the kind of yard that many more core worlds have. Sure they are not terrible survivable, but so far Scientist/Vega class SDs have a pretty awful track record of either surviving or inflicting damage vs modern weapons.

kzt wrote:

hanuman wrote:Most of those successor states' primary priority will be determined by the survival imperative; in other words, get the stuff they need to survive the immediate peril, as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible, and worry about the future when it becomes necessary to do so.

Building SL tech ships is like building sailing frigates and side wheeling ironclads in 1914. They are just targets for anyone you might need to fight. Why would anyone possibly do that? It's not like there are a huge number of sophisticated military shipyards out there, so they have to be built too. So once you spend years and billion/trillion doing that why would you build worthless trash like a Scientist?

You would get better results building missile pod carriers on freighter hulls, which you can actually build in the kind of yard that many more core worlds have. Sure they are not terrible survivable, but so far Scientist/Vega class SDs have a pretty awful track record of either surviving or inflicting damage vs modern weapons.

Because they'll figure that none of the star nations they have to worry about (i.e. the ones in their vicinity) will have anything better, and they'll be concerned with building a navy to deal with their immediate threat situation as fast as they can, in order to survive any immediate threats. That will apply to the majority of former Solarian League worlds and systems, because as I wrote before, the GA won't be a threat to them anymore since the League itself won't exist anymore. But their neighbours WILL be a potential threat, and that's who they will want to deter.

hanuman wrote:*snip*

With the way the series is developing, there won't be a League left to reach that point, what, five or six or even more years down the line. Even if the SLN overcomes the impediment of institutionalised inertia and begins such a R&D programme right now.

That is what I was talking about, namely about the post-League era. Given the general chaos, social upheaval and economic troubles that will ensue, what will the League's successor states' priorities be? Building their own navies with the technology levels, from existing SLN designs, to respond to the immediate threat situation, or diverting increasingly scarce funds to a very expensive R&D push to acquire military hardware of a level of technology that will not be needed immediately but only years down the line?

Most of those successor states' primary priority will be determined by the survival imperative; in other words, get the stuff they need to survive the immediate peril, as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible, and worry about the future when it becomes necessary to do so.

Why do you assume that the successor states will consider R&D vs. new construction an either or proposition? There has been R&D done by the SLN even. SDFs will be doing R&D especially those that sent observers to the Haven sector wars. It is the results of those R&D projects that are highly variable, ie better than SLN compensators (while still not as good as what Erewhon has), marginal sidewall improvements, or better missile range than SLN. I could even see the likelihood that Different SDFs have only one each of those advances I proposed.

Castenea wrote:

hanuman wrote:*snip*

With the way the series is developing, there won't be a League left to reach that point, what, five or six or even more years down the line. Even if the SLN overcomes the impediment of institutionalised inertia and begins such a R&D programme right now.

That is what I was talking about, namely about the post-League era. Given the general chaos, social upheaval and economic troubles that will ensue, what will the League's successor states' priorities be? Building their own navies with the technology levels, from existing SLN designs, to respond to the immediate threat situation, or diverting increasingly scarce funds to a very expensive R&D push to acquire military hardware of a level of technology that will not be needed immediately but only years down the line?

Most of those successor states' primary priority will be determined by the survival imperative; in other words, get the stuff they need to survive the immediate peril, as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible, and worry about the future when it becomes necessary to do so.

Why do you assume that the successor states will consider R&D vs. new construction an either or proposition? There has been R&D done by the SLN even. SDFs will be doing R&D especially those that sent observers to the Haven sector wars. It is the results of those R&D projects that are highly variable, ie better than SLN compensators (while still not as good as what Erewhon has), marginal sidewall improvements, or better missile range than SLN. I could even see the likelihood that Different SDFs have only one each of those advances I proposed.

Within months from the implementation of Lacoon II the League member systems' economies will enter a downward spiral that will result in either a severe recession or a true depression. When the League disintegrates, those worlds will find themselves essentially without military protection, since the vast majority of them don't have existing SDFs or, for that matter, the existing infrastructure to build warships. Their immediate survival imperative will demand that they invest heavily in creating that infrastructure as quickly as possible, and then to start building sufficient naval units to defend themselves against potential threats. That is going to be hugely expensive, & given the fragile states of their planetary economies by then, I very much doubt that many of them will have the money to spend on such expensive R&D programmes. Especially if their immediate priority will be to equip themselves with navies that are GOOD ENOUGH to defend against any immediate threats rather than the best possible navies. There will be no immediate need for GA-level technologies, so why spend all that money when the designs you need right now are already available.

I agree that the Cimiterres did prove useful to Haven in the anti missile role, but mounting single drive missiles in pods with a max range of abt 12 million ks or if you have catapharats 15? Sounds like a dubious idea to me, although I understand that you aren't visualizing those pods being used against GA tech.

Kzt, I would like to probe your thoughts here a bit. Do you really think all those thousands of r&d people are out there ready to initiate mdm development programs? I don't. To be sure, there are lots of smart people who can be gathered for r&d, but the overall stasis in military development in Solarian controlled space implies that serious r&d for military application is pretty rare. As for mdms, Technodyne and the MAlign have been trying to come up with mdms for years, having been alert to what was going on in the Haven sector. But so far the best they can do is the catapharat.
Obviously enough, knowing something can be done is half the battle of doing it. But it is not going to be quick or easy.

Don

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote: I never really got the impression that the SL as a whole was interested in pushing the boundary of technology. ... In other words, it took outside influence to get Technodyne to do the R&D in the first place, on their own, Technodyne wouldn't have done anything.

By themselves, the SL corporations aren't driven to be the top dog in tech development. ...

There hasn't been any incentive to develop military tech, but the League's civilian sector has always had the same pressure from technophiles for the latest, greatest, newest toys that drives Apple to produce a new iPhone every few weeks. There has to be a constant drive for "more market share" and "new markets" to fuel innovation in the civilian sector.

That's very true for us now, but there's little showing that's true for the Solarian transtellars in the 20th century PD.If there was such a need to increase market share, then the shipping companies would have been pushing their own industries to build their own cargo ships so they would be bigger/better than MAnticore vessels. Remember most of the carows in the SL were shipped at one point on Manty hulls, not Solarian. It's one of the biggest reasons the SL dislikes Manticore; its merchant fleet controlls, directly or indirectly, such a large percentage of SL cargo.

Zakharra wrote:The individual SDFs are expected to work with SLN Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet, so they couldn't and wouldn't use anything that would clash with SLN tactical policy. Remember in times of war, SDFs can be merged with FF/BF so the systems on all of the ships, FF, BF, SDFs have be compatible across the board. ...

The SDFs only have to be downwardly compatible with the SLN. There's nothing to keep them from having additional capabilities they never use during ORI (Operational Readiness Inspections.) SLN inspections would tend to suffer from NIH syndrome and only care whether the equipment can launch SLN standard missiles and datalink with a SLN ship that can provide "competent leadership."

As long as SLN ships receive the proper signals from SDF ships, the SLN isn't going to care a great deal about who actually built SDF equipment or what bells and whistles the poor deluded SDF wasted their money on.

We have RFC's assertion that some SDFs are better than the SLN, so we have to accept that the SLN doesn't care about anything other than minimal compatibility with SLN command ships.

That only works to a degree. The SL likely requires the plans of the SDF ships so they can verify that they are tech compatible. You can make ships downward compatible only to a certain extent without major differences popping up in hull design and layout, and suffering compatibility issues. There's the matter of spare parts, weapons, crew and training. in a time of war, the SDF ships have to be able to be supplied from SLN supply depots and naval bases. You cannot have SDF ships that can only be supplied from their home system. That puts a severe kink in any operations those ships can go on. Likely no one else in the SL, FF, BF or the SDFs have podlayers, besides the Maya sector government, they seem to have a handle in getting small vessel pod layers, or ships that can use/control missile pods.


One thing I am wondering is how fast can the SL or the various SDFs (without Manticore/GA help) get a design for pod laying ships, the command and control capability, the pods and anti-missile pods up and running while trying to simultaneously build an entirely new fleet? We know they current SL can use Catapharats which are a primitive (compared to NA/GA tech) MDs, but they are basically pods that can only be towed. Podlaying ships themselves require a complete redesign of every vessel using them. It took Manticore about 2 years to build one SD, right? Or 1 year (if 1 year, that's damned good and fast construction). It takes the SL 2-3 years to build one SD, so even if they get the plans for a pod laying SD now, it's going to take 2-3 years for the GA to mess up the SLs economy. 2-3 years for the GA to make serious inroads into getting numerous SL systems to either join with the GA or declare themselves neutral in the conflict or secede from the SL (I think the secession issue is going to go on full bore after the SL sticks its hand in the woodchipper that is the Beowolf system defenses. When the SLN BF gets it's arse handed to it there, that's going to hammer SL pride very hard and send the SLN BF and the Mandarins scrambling to find a way, any way, to out the blame on someone else. I think the aftermath of that failed attack is going to be the blow that rips the SL apart.

Zakharra wrote: That only works to a degree. The SL likely requires the plans of the SDF ships so they can verify that they are tech compatible. You can make ships downward compatible only to a certain extent without major differences popping up in hull design and layout, and suffering compatibility issues. There's the matter of spare parts, weapons, crew and training. in a time of war, the SDF ships have to be able to be supplied from SLN supply depots and naval bases. You cannot have SDF ships that can only be supplied from their home system. That puts a severe kink in any operations those ships can go on.

I've seen absolutely nothing that suggests the SLN has any ability to tell a member system what they can build for any reason, or that the systems have any obligation to talk to the SLN at all. Second, there is no evidence that the SLN has actually done any actual planning for serious mobilization. For example, David has directly stated that the SLN has no real concept, much less a plan, on how to crew the Battle Fleet reserve. If they haven't done that they certainly haven't done any work on integrating the SDFs for a war.

n7axw wrote:
Kzt, I would like to probe your thoughts here a bit. Do you really think all those thousands of r&d people are out there ready to initiate mdm development programs? I don't. To be sure, there are lots of smart people who can be gathered for r&d, but the overall stasis in military development in Solarian controlled space implies that serious r&d for military application is pretty rare. As for mdms, Technodyne and the MAlign have been trying to come up with mdms for years, having been alert to what was going on in the Haven sector. But so far the best they can do is the catapharat.

How many people were working on nuclear weapon R&D in 1940? About zero. What were the people who were recruited to lead and staff the program working on in 1940? Nuclear physics at universities, as well as other disciplines that proved useful.

My expectation is that this would be how SL worlds pursue this sort of project, either by directly funding appropriate r&d at universities or by creating organizations to recruit people to do the R&D.

The critical issue that the MA faced with R&D is that they need to recruit and train not just very smart people who find the topic interesting and worth pursuing, but they also are people who buy into their cause and can be trusted not to talk. This means the number of people they can recruit was is not just limited to one planet, it's limited to the tiny fraction of that one planet that has signed up for their plan.

Zakharra wrote: I never really got the impression that the SL as a whole was interested in pushing the boundary of technology. ... In other words, it took outside influence to get Technodyne to do the R&D in the first place, on their own, Technodyne wouldn't have done anything.

By themselves, the SL corporations aren't driven to be the top dog in tech development. ...

Weird Harold wrote:There hasn't been any incentive to develop military tech, but the League's civilian sector has always had the same pressure from technophiles for the latest, greatest, newest toys that drives Apple to produce a new iPhone every few weeks. There has to be a constant drive for "more market share" and "new markets" to fuel innovation in the civilian sector.

Zakharra wrote: That's very true for us now, but there's little showing that's true for the Solarian transtellars in the 20th century PD.If there was such a need to increase market share, then the shipping companies would have been pushing their own industries to build their own cargo ships so they would be bigger/better than MAnticore vessels. Remember most of the carows in the SL were shipped at one point on Manty hulls, not Solarian. It's one of the biggest reasons the SL dislikes Manticore; its merchant fleet controlls, directly or indirectly, such a large percentage of SL cargo.

While there may be some pressure to push technological development for competitive advantage, interstellar shipbuilding isn't one place where that's useful. The reason is that compensator efficiency starts falling off drastically once one gets to the size of an SD, which is also, oddly, the size of the largest freighters. Trying to push freighter size beyond what's been the largest size for the last few centuries isn't really a good idea.

And what do you get if you can get a larger freighter? Some improvement in staffing requirements per mega-ton of cargo. Those are already so low that the incremental improvement could well be eaten up by the hit you'd take on acceleration.

Even if it's possible, the lessons of the jumbo crude oil freighters here on Earth are instructive. They're mostly (all?) sitting in port being used as storage tanks for oil. They just didn't work out.

Zakharra wrote:The individual SDFs are expected to work with SLN Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet, so they couldn't and wouldn't use anything that would clash with SLN tactical policy. Remember in times of war, SDFs can be merged with FF/BF so the systems on all of the ships, FF, BF, SDFs have be compatible across the board. ...

Weird Harold wrote:The SDFs only have to be downwardly compatible with the SLN. There's nothing to keep them from having additional capabilities they never use during ORI (Operational Readiness Inspections.) SLN inspections would tend to suffer from NIH syndrome and only care whether the equipment can launch SLN standard missiles and datalink with a SLN ship that can provide "competent leadership."

As long as SLN ships receive the proper signals from SDF ships, the SLN isn't going to care a great deal about who actually built SDF equipment or what bells and whistles the poor deluded SDF wasted their money on.

We have RFC's assertion that some SDFs are better than the SLN, so we have to accept that the SLN doesn't care about anything other than minimal compatibility with SLN command ships.

Zakharra wrote: That only works to a degree. The SL likely requires the plans of the SDF ships so they can verify that they are tech compatible. You can make ships downward compatible only to a certain extent without major differences popping up in hull design and layout, and suffering compatibility issues. There's the matter of spare parts, weapons, crew and training. in a time of war, the SDF ships have to be able to be supplied from SLN supply depots and naval bases. You cannot have SDF ships that can only be supplied from their home system. That puts a severe kink in any operations those ships can go on. Likely no one else in the SL, FF, BF or the SDFs have podlayers, besides the Maya sector government, they seem to have a handle in getting small vessel pod layers, or ships that can use/control missile pods.

Does the SLN actually work up with the different SDFs? I imagine it happens occasionally, but given the general attitude in Battle Fleet, I'd imagine that it's pretty rare, and that the ISLN, as a whole, just doesn't care about what a few hundred SDs from a dozen SDFs might be able to do to augment their 2000 ready duty SDs and the other 8,000 in the reserve.

Zakharra wrote: One thing I am wondering is how fast can the SL or the various SDFs (without Manticore/GA help) get a design for pod laying ships, the command and control capability, the pods and anti-missile pods up and running while trying to simultaneously build an entirely new fleet? We know they current SL can use Catapharats which are a primitive (compared to NA/GA tech) MDs, but they are basically pods that can only be towed. Podlaying ships themselves require a complete redesign of every vessel using them. It took Manticore about 2 years to build one SD, right? Or 1 year (if 1 year, that's damned good and fast construction). It takes the SL 2-3 years to build one SD, so even if they get the plans for a pod laying SD now, it's going to take 2-3 years for the GA to mess up the SLs economy. 2-3 years for the GA to make serious inroads into getting numerous SL systems to either join with the GA or declare themselves neutral in the conflict or secede from the SL (I think the secession issue is going to go on full bore after the SL sticks its hand in the woodchipper that is the Beowolf system defenses. When the SLN BF gets it's arse handed to it there, that's going to hammer SL pride very hard and send the SLN BF and the Mandarins scrambling to find a way, any way, to out the blame on someone else. I think the aftermath of that failed attack is going to be the blow that rips the SL apart.

It isn't just the design, it's the entire manufacturing system. Darius has most of the Manticore plans, but they've never been able to duplicate the efficiency of the Manticore ship-building system, and it hasn't been for lack of trying.

Pod-layers require the kind of manufacturing that can bring the cost of missiles and pods down to where you can build millions of the things cheaply enough to afford them. If you can't do that, trying to build pod-layers is irrelevant - you're not going to be able to build enough missiles to make them useful.

kzt wrote:

Zakharra wrote: That only works to a degree. The SL likely requires the plans of the SDF ships so they can verify that they are tech compatible. You can make ships downward compatible only to a certain extent without major differences popping up in hull design and layout, and suffering compatibility issues. There's the matter of spare parts, weapons, crew and training. in a time of war, the SDF ships have to be able to be supplied from SLN supply depots and naval bases. You cannot have SDF ships that can only be supplied from their home system. That puts a severe kink in any operations those ships can go on.

I've seen absolutely nothing that suggests the SLN has any ability to tell a member system what they can build for any reason, or that the systems have any obligation to talk to the SLN at all. Second, there is no evidence that the SLN has actually done any actual planning for serious mobilization. For example, David has directly stated that the SLN has no real concept, much less a plan, on how to crew the Battle Fleet reserve. If they haven't done that they certainly haven't done any work on integrating the SDFs for a war.

From what I understand, the SDFs are expected to have their SDFs be compatible to SLN. The leaders in the Beowolf SDF commented on how they purposefully didn't put in any of the tech improvements they knew Manticore had, specifically to keep it out of SLN hands. That means there is some level of cooperation between the various SDFs and the SLN.

As for David's comment on the SLN having no real plan or concept for mobilizing their Battle Fleet reserve, that can easily be explained as complacency by the SLN itself. It hasn't had to mobilize the reserve fleet in centuries. It's likely not in their play books because the subject hasn't come up, but I read it as the intention that the SDFs are supposed to be compatible with BF as meaning the laws and such for that are there, they just haven't really been used before. Certainly not in several hundred years (when was the last the the SL was in a major war?) I see the SDFs like the National Guard units in US states. They are a military of that state but they can be used by federal forces and have to keep their equipment compatible with the US military.

That's not to say the SLN won't try to do that. It very well might not be legal to do that (not that legality has ever stopped the SL before. It's legal if they say it's legal, yes?), but it might be one of the things that pushes many systems into rebellion if the SLN tries to strip away their protection, or insists that all new ships being built are for the SLN and not any SDF. I admit there is very little knowledge on if the SLN can federalize the SDFs, but based on what the Beowolf SDF people said when Admiral Tsang tried to force the issue at the Beowolf terminus, it could go either way.