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Long term consequences of the League's collapse

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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by Zakharra   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:00 pm

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JohnRoth wrote: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.


Maybe not in the size of the ships, but why not looking for better compensators? That could be explains them not seeing different ways to do it since it took the R&D boffins of Grayson to find a better way because no one would tell/show/give them inertial compensators of their own to build. But the ship building companies could push for pore efficient ships, better automation (less crew), better shuttles, computer control systems. There's any number of ways that improvements could be looked for. Not to mention being at the bleeding edge of technology means you will almost always have products to sell to other systems and this earns your system money.

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. ...



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.


That could very well be, but it seems the Beowulf SDF was worried about SLN inspectors and I'm assuming that they are fairly competent; the techs have to be otherwise people would die when systems failed because of clumsiness and stupidity. For what it's worth SL technology is solid and reliable. It IS good, It's just outdated by now. I assume that some SDFs are inspected more than others even if only rarely from incompetent SLN leadership.

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.



There's that too There's an entire industrial manufacturing infrastructure that has to be built before they can build the ships and the weapons in the numbers the SLN needs to fight the war. The SL needs time. A lot of time. Time in which the GA's R&D people are going to be pushing their efforts to make the next improvement/upgrade/advancement. Time the SL doesn't necessarily have anymore. It's hard to hold something together when you have several someones on the outside aiming to break it apart.
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by Weird Harold   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:11 pm

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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.


Not building their own ships to be "bigger and better" isn't the same thing as building "New and Improved" products to put in any ship.

Manticore has such a large share of Solarian shipping because they pay lower transit fees and can underbid competitors. For a Transstellar paying less for Maticore Flagged shipping means more profits from what is shipped -- there is zero incentive to spend money on their own ships, with all of the risk and expense involved in operating them, when MMM ships cost less and assume the risks and operating costs.

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.


That assumes that the SLN has any sort of realistic appreciation of the need to incorporate a SDF into an expeditionary force. The textev comments we have from various SLN personnel would suggest that seriously considering integrating a SDF into a SLN task force is akin to drafting kindergarteners into the NFL. They have enough trouble working with different branches of their own service -- i.e. Battle Fleet vs Frontier Fleet.

The SLN gives the same attention to contingency plans and exercises to test them as Elvis Santino did.


Zakharra wrote: 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.


It is unlikely that any SDF has pod-layers, although they may have pods and increased fire-control to handle that size salvo.

Officially, the "Task Force" assigned to Maya is a Frontier Fleet formation and the ships belong to Frontier Fleet, not a "Mayan Navy" or SDF. The capabilities of its ships are being carefully hidden from SLN headquarters to the point of hiding the more advanced of them in the Erewhon Navy.

Still, most of the "hiding" involved is judicious editing of reports back to Sol rather than any actual diversion of on-site inspectors -- the SLN confuses the Report with the Ship and can't be bothered to actually send anyone to look.


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?


The simple answer is "not fast enough!"

The SLN has about a year before it is destroyed or there is no SL left and they become just the 'N' :lol:

I think the most plausible estimate I've seen is that it will take a minimum of five years for the SLN to commission any new ships and another two years for any radical new designs. The league doesn't have that much time.
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by kzt   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:17 pm

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The main reason the US National Guard uses the same equipment as regular forces is that the equipment is PROVIDED by the regular forces to the National Guard, for essentially free. OH, and the Feds pay most of the salaries of the National Guard members.

So yeah, if the SLN PROVIDES, for FREE, modern SDs, BCs, cruisers and DDs to the SDFs and also pays for the troops who man the SDF, then yeah, they have a lot of control of the SDFs. However, there is absolutely no evidence that this is the case and a lot of circumstantial evidence that the SLN is not very happy about some of the SDFs, so I'd say this is not a very good argument.

The SL wasn't designed to be an effective government, it was designed to take care of the necessary but annoying BS that has to be taken care of while not having any right or ability to interfere with the governments of the systems that make up the SL.


The reason Beowulf doesn't have the modern RMN tech it two-fold. First, Honorverse warships outside those people actively at war have a lifetime of decades to centuries. so replacement strategies are built around this. Second, and probably more significant, the Beowulf SDF is manned by people who interact with the rest of the SL, and migrate to and from other jobs. 36 SL style SDs means you have 216,000 people on the SDs, plus the probably million or so in support, that will know that you have interesting stuff going on on your ships. How many will talk?

Unlike the magical Maya sector, (in which tens of thousands of actual SLN personnel all know to not talk about the secret plan that they don't know about or and never ever talk about the deployment of new equipment when they rotate to a new assignment in another sector, nor ever mention things like that in communications home nor does anyone in the sector notice how odd looking the SLN ships are here...) the Beowulf SDF can't count on a mystical code of silence that is embedded into everyone who might see something kind of odd about their ships.
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by munroburton   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 8:39 pm

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Zakharra wrote: 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.


If you want to use the USA as an analogy, bear in mind that federal control in the League is actually quite limited, because of the large degree of self-autonomy that full members have. The SDFs aren't equivalent to national guard units; they'd be equivalent to militia units during its early years, but...

The difference is, the USA faced several external threats, went through a bloody civil war and fought in two world wars, plus the cold war. All of those created pressure to give the federal government more authority. There hasn't been much pressure of a similar nature in the League; only the Epsilon Eridani Incident really shaped Solly foreign/military policies.

Until Tenth Fleet sailed into New Tuscany and destroyed Admiral Byng's flagship. The current federal government hasn't done a very good job of handling the chain of events since then, which isn't going to endear the SDFs towards them very much.

As for Admiral Tsang, everything she said, including her expressed intent to fire upon BSDF ships and unconstitutionally enforce federal precedence over self-autonomy, was recorded and released to the media. It is probably the main reason so many delegates voted with Beowulf.
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by Zakharra   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:30 pm

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You all make some very good points so I'm going to concede most of the argument.

If the SDFs were somewhat integral to the early SL, they clearly aren't anymore, but I do think there are probably some regulations that require SDFs to be compatible with SLN BF/FF at least, even if only so the SLN can maintain it's stance as the most modern navy in the human settled galaxy. In its arrogance, I can see the SLN making sure no SDF has ships better than the FF/BF even on an individual ship to ship basis. That's why I think the Maya sector governor was so desperate to hide his ships capabilities so much. It is odd that there's no leakage out of there. Unless they have the ships crews and construction crews that built the ships on lockdown, keeping several million people quiet would be very hard.


As for Admiral Tsang, everything she said, including her expressed intent to fire upon BSDF ships and unconstitutionally enforce federal precedence over self-autonomy, was recorded and released to the media. It is probably the main reason so many delegates voted with Beowulf.


I think the Mandarins attempt to punish Beowulf is going to seriously backfire on them. Not only will the BF naval force get chewed up and spit out in little bloody chunks, all of the other systems are going to see that the Mandarins are willing to use force to try and keep everyone else in and they are willing to ignore any constitutional or legal barriers. I can see a LOT of systems suddenly talking about the Constitution and actually voting to do things that are legal constitutionally, but haven't been done in centuries. What would happen if the Assembly of Delegates voted to fire the Permanent Senior Undersecretaries of all of the ministries? If most of the Chamber voted to do just that, it would be an openly and blatant violation of the constitution and federal government for those Undersecretaries to ignore that. I think they will have woken a grouchy sleeping tiger by their actions.
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by Weird Harold   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:08 pm

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Zakharra wrote:... I do think there are probably some regulations that require SDFs to be compatible with SLN BF/FF at least, even if only so the SLN can maintain it's stance as the most modern navy in the human settled galaxy. In its arrogance, I can see the SLN making sure no SDF has ships better than the FF/BF even on an individual ship to ship basis.


That's just it -- the SDFs can maintain downward compatibility with SLN missiles and other tech while still fielding bigger and better ships than Battle Fleet -- maybe not so much against Frontier Fleet Inspectors, but Frontier Fleet has little to do with the Core Worlds.

Battle Fleet, and the SLN in general, are too convinced of SLN technical superiority that they consider SDF types "tin soldiers" and any "minor differences" in SDF ships as irrlevant -- as long as they can fire SLN missiles and accept datalink commands from a SLN flagship that's all they'll be concerned about. After all, there's nothing the SLN could learn from neo-barbs and tin soldiers, is there. :roll:
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by hanuman   » Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:34 am

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Zakharra wrote: I think the Mandarins attempt to punish Beowulf is going to seriously backfire on them. Not only will the BF naval force get chewed up and spit out in little bloody chunks, all of the other systems are going to see that the Mandarins are willing to use force to try and keep everyone else in and they are willing to ignore any constitutional or legal barriers. I can see a LOT of systems suddenly talking about the Constitution and actually voting to do things that are legal constitutionally, but haven't been done in centuries. What would happen if the Assembly of Delegates voted to fire the Permanent Senior Undersecretaries of all of the ministries? If most of the Chamber voted to do just that, it would be an openly and blatant violation of the constitution and federal government for those Undersecretaries to ignore that. I think they will have woken a grouchy sleeping tiger by their actions.


Zakharra, while I for one would be delighted to see that little twist happen, unfortunately the mandarins simply have too many delegates in their pocket. ALL it takes to kill any motion in the Assembly is a single veto by a single delegation, after all.

However, I agree that any military action by the SLN against Beowulf will backfire badly on the mandarins, because you're quite right. Many of the League's member worlds will take a stand and will either choose to secede or will threaten to secede if the mandarins do not resign their posts. I really doubt they'll be willing to take that step, and they'll probably come up with some spurious claim that the League can't afford to have it's central authority in disarray at a time of crisis and external threat...
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by n7axw   » Mon Jul 07, 2014 2:09 am

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kzt wrote:
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.


Good response. You are right about how weapons research played out in 1940. Where the situation might not be congruent, though is with the political equasion. In 1940 the USA was a coherrent nation with political leadership that was elected and accountable, thus able to exercise effective leadership in what would become a wartime situation. The League, on the other hand, has bureaucratic leadership that is not accountable and hence inspires little loyalty. The League cannot even tax its member worlds and has been surviving on the money extorted from the protectorates in the Shell and the Verge.

So if a GA fleet shows up in a core world's orbitals offering peace, protection and trade, will they even want to be devoting the resourses to military r&d? No question but what they could if they wanted to. But will they want to if GA makes its offer attractive enough?

To summarize, the League's deteriorating political situation will make it difficult to almost impossible to properly marshal the resourses it would need for an aggressive r&d program to say nothing of translating the research into useful hardware. And even if they could do it matching GA is not going to be easy. For one thing, GA is a moving target, continually revising, adding new systems to their inventory. Even if the things I mentioned weren't factors, how long would it take for League to be competitive with GA? 5 yr? 10? The thing is, they don't have that long before everything comes unglued.

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by dreamrider   » Mon Jul 07, 2014 7:19 am

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Hmmm.
There are several Core worlds mentioned in the Star Kingdom series which are:
1) Old, established, well-rounded societies, and
2) Have universities (research establishments) that are prominent enough for galactic reputation

We should keep a look-out to see if we hear from any of them again.

Maybe I'll start a Core Worlds note/list.

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Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse
Post by Zakharra   » Mon Jul 07, 2014 11:36 am

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n7axw wrote:
kzt wrote: ["n7axw"]

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.


Good response. You are right about how weapons research played out in 1940. Where the situation might not be congruent, though is with the political equasion. In 1940 the USA was a coherrent nation with political leadership that was elected and accountable, thus able to exercise effective leadership in what would become a wartime situation. The League, on the other hand, has bureaucratic leadership that is not accountable and hence inspires little loyalty. The League cannot even tax its member worlds and has been surviving on the money extorted from the protectorates in the Shell and the Verge.

So if a GA fleet shows up in a core world's orbitals offering peace, protection and trade, will they even want to be devoting the resourses to military r&d? No question but what they could if they wanted to. But will they want to if GA makes its offer attractive enough?

To summarize, the League's deteriorating political situation will make it difficult to almost impossible to properly marshal the resourses it would need for an aggressive r&d program to say nothing of translating the research into useful hardware. And even if they could do it matching GA is not going to be easy. For one thing, GA is a moving target, continually revising, adding new systems to their inventory. Even if the things I mentioned weren't factors, how long would it take for League to be competitive with GA? 5 yr? 10? The thing is, they don't have that long before everything comes unglued.

Don



one thing to not forget is the SLs economy is starting to hurt and will be hammered hard real soon. There's a dearth of merchant ships capable of transporting goods. This means less money to funnel into those R&D programs.

Also those systems with shipyards are likely starting to build as many merchant vessels as they can, but it's going to take several years before they come close to replacing the hulls the Manties used to have in SL space. Now many systems are likely thinking, or will be soon thinking about making an SDF if they didn't have one before or adding to their SDFs. Which means some of those merchant ships being built will have to be scrapped and warships built there. Another thought is that many systems might contact the local SLN BF or FF to see if they will protect their system for a price, or conversely some ambitious FF/BF/OFS might claim entire systems as theirs (warlords) and use those as bases to expand their little kingdoms, empires,'republics' and such.

On the matter of the lack of merchant vessels, I can see some Core, Shell and even a few of the more powerful/desperate Protectorate/Verge systems confiscating any merchant ships they can and using those to form a basis of a merchant fleet beholden to their world/system rather than to a transstellar.

What are the odds of some of the transstellars making deals with the BF/FF/and some worlds to take over systems? The transstellers seemed to be worried about systems nationalizing their assets in systems, but if they can get FF/BF to protect their assets, it seems like something they might try.
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