Fate of the Solarian League

Hasek wrote:Hi guys first post!

Welcome!

The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

The SLN had two things going against it:
1 - The conviction that it was, had been for so long, and always would be, absolutely and unquestionably the best by a vast margin: best in numbers, almost certainly best in quality, by all means best in the product of numbers and quality.
2 - Having no living experience of having fought nor any expectation of having to.

The SDF's won't suffer from (1); they may suffer from (2) a bit worse. So there are issues there but it's complicated just how bad off they are relative to the SLN that way.

What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?

Likely from those same shipyards, assuming they survive. The goal here - ever for the GA, and mostly for the Alignment - isn't widescale destruction, just removing the bonds (such as they are) that make the League the League. People will continue, ships will continue, businesses and shipyards will continue, mostly.

We've had word of about two dozen major yards, and about a 20%/80% split between those that handle wallers and those that handle smaller warships only. Locations aren't yet detailed, but we can assume that the yards sufficient for wallers - the Battle Fleet ones - are all or almost all in the Core, and that that Frontier Fleet ones are a bit more spread out. (Smaller yards won't necessarily cry out for a Core industrial plant under them, and FF could use yards closer to where they work. On the other hand, security and being able to count on those industrial bases would nudge some of those yards Core-ward.)

Chances are Sol and Yildun host some of the major yards.

JeffEngel wrote:

Hasek wrote:Hi guys first post!

Welcome!

The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

The SLN had two things going against it:
1 - The conviction that it was, had been for so long, and always would be, absolutely and unquestionably the best by a vast margin: best in numbers, almost certainly best in quality, by all means best in the product of numbers and quality.
2 - Having no living experience of having fought nor any expectation of having to.

The SDF's won't suffer from (1); they may suffer from (2) a bit worse. So there are issues there but it's complicated just how bad off they are relative to the SLN that way.

What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?

Likely from those same shipyards, assuming they survive. The goal here - ever for the GA, and mostly for the Alignment - isn't widescale destruction, just removing the bonds (such as they are) that make the League the League. People will continue, ships will continue, businesses and shipyards will continue, mostly.

We've had word of about two dozen major yards, and about a 20%/80% split between those that handle wallers and those that handle smaller warships only. Locations aren't yet detailed, but we can assume that the yards sufficient for wallers - the Battle Fleet ones - are all or almost all in the Core, and that that Frontier Fleet ones are a bit more spread out. (Smaller yards won't necessarily cry out for a Core industrial plant under them, and FF could use yards closer to where they work. On the other hand, security and being able to count on those industrial bases would nudge some of those yards Core-ward.)

Chances are Sol and Yildun host some of the major yards.

IIRC there is textev that Sol and Yildun host major yards. As far as other yards are concerned RFC has always responded with a tum-te-tum-te-tum, so he isn't closing off any possibilities that he may need for purposes of story telling.

Given lack of experience in these things, they could readily duplicate the 1960s coup we organized in Viet Nam, run on the American side by people who did not understand that you revolt to install a new government not to toss the old government. I have the impression that New Chicago may be rather light on ground troops with full battle gear, so modest force may be adequate.

stewart wrote:

phillies wrote:My reference is to 1952 and the Egyptian Colonels' Coup.

----------------------

I was thinking the same as well as Kadaffi's coup in Libya; but Falls FT has a good point, Egypt and Libya are (and were) 3rd world countries (I think NYPD and LAPD each have more aircraft).

A group of Colonels (or Admirals ala Theisman) could de-capitate the Mandarins with proper planning, BUT where do you go from there.
Theisman had planned on resurrecting the old Republican Constitution and bringing in Eloise from the start.
Sol and the SL does not have a recent tradition or workable constitution they can "bring back from the dustbin"

-- Stewart

JeffEngel wrote:

Hasek wrote:Hi guys first post!

Welcome!

The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

The SLN had two things going against it:
1 - The conviction that it was, had been for so long, and always would be, absolutely and unquestionably the best by a vast margin: best in numbers, almost certainly best in quality, by all means best in the product of numbers and quality.
2 - Having no living experience of having fought nor any expectation of having to.

The SDF's won't suffer from (1); they may suffer from (2) a bit worse. So there are issues there but it's complicated just how bad off they are relative to the SLN that way.
I actually think the SDF's would be even worse off as they KNOW they'll never face combat, the National Guard during the 80's was a good example of that

What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?

Likely from those same shipyards, assuming they survive. The goal here - ever for the GA, and mostly for the Alignment - isn't widescale destruction, just removing the bonds (such as they are) that make the League the League. People will continue, ships will continue, businesses and shipyards will continue, mostly.

We've had word of about two dozen major yards, and about a 20%/80% split between those that handle wallers and those that handle smaller warships only. Locations aren't yet detailed, but we can assume that the yards sufficient for wallers - the Battle Fleet ones - are all or almost all in the Core, and that that Frontier Fleet ones are a bit more spread out. (Smaller yards won't necessarily cry out for a Core industrial plant under them, and FF could use yards closer to where they work. On the other hand, security and being able to count on those industrial bases would nudge some of those yards Core-ward.)

Chances are Sol and Yildun host some of the major yards.

Just because the yards exist doesn't mean the new owners are willing to sell, a very large number of these systems are going to have no yard capacity at all

Hasek wrote:
Just because the yards exist doesn't mean the new owners are willing to sell, a very large number of these systems are going to have no yard capacity at all

I'd say pretty much all Core systems and many of the Protectorate systems have some yard capacity, if only to do basic to moderate repairs on starships (commercial and/or military) and build/maintain inter-system ships because otherwise they would have to send out to another system just for maintenance on starships and inter-system ships, and orbiting stations.

Zakharra wrote:

Hasek wrote:
Just because the yards exist doesn't mean the new owners are willing to sell, a very large number of these systems are going to have no yard capacity at all

I'd say pretty much all Core systems and many of the Protectorate systems have some yard capacity, if only to do basic to moderate repairs on starships (commercial and/or military) and build/maintain inter-system ships because otherwise they would have to send out to another system just for maintenance on starships and inter-system ships, and orbiting stations.

i should have specified i meant warship capable yards. I agree most will have some level of civilian facilities and repair slips yet i doubt very many have the capacity to build warships. AFAIK almost all the OFS controlled systems only have OFS security forces in space, so having local production capabilities is not that important.

Hi Hasek,

Welcome. Belly up to the virtual bar for your favorite bverage. First one's in the the house.

This discussion seems to presume that those yards manufactuing warships are goung to be there. I don't think so. They are going to be taken out by GA raids fairly early on the fight. Civilian yards might be left untouched.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:

Hasek wrote:Hi guys first post!

Welcome!

The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

The SLN had two things going against it:
1 - The conviction that it was, had been for so long, and always would be, absolutely and unquestionably the best by a vast margin: best in numbers, almost certainly best in quality, by all means best in the product of numbers and quality.
2 - Having no living experience of having fought nor any expectation of having to.

The SDF's won't suffer from (1); they may suffer from (2) a bit worse. So there are issues there but it's complicated just how bad off they are relative to the SLN that way.

What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?

Likely from those same shipyards, assuming they survive. The goal here - ever for the GA, and mostly for the Alignment - isn't widescale destruction, just removing the bonds (such as they are) that make the League the League. People will continue, ships will continue, businesses and shipyards will continue, mostly.

We've had word of about two dozen major yards, and about a 20%/80% split between those that handle wallers and those that handle smaller warships only. Locations aren't yet detailed, but we can assume that the yards sufficient for wallers - the Battle Fleet ones - are all or almost all in the Core, and that that Frontier Fleet ones are a bit more spread out. (Smaller yards won't necessarily cry out for a Core industrial plant under them, and FF could use yards closer to where they work. On the other hand, security and being able to count on those industrial bases would nudge some of those yards Core-ward.)

Chances are Sol and Yildun host some of the major yards.

If I remember correctly the Beowulf SDF had frequent war games with Manticoran fleets, so their preparedness should be reasonable. NTM that there probably is some upgraded kit on some of the Beowulf ships.

JeffEngel wrote:Welcome!

Hasek wrote:Hi guys first post!
The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

JeffEngel wrote:The SLN had two things going against it:
1 - The conviction that it was, had been for so long, and always would be, absolutely and unquestionably the best by a vast margin: best in numbers, almost certainly best in quality, by all means best in the product of numbers and quality.
2 - Having no living experience of having fought nor any expectation of having to.

The SDF's won't suffer from (1); they may suffer from (2) a bit worse. So there are issues there but it's complicated just how bad off they are relative to the SLN that way.

Hasek wrote:What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?

JeffEngel wrote:Likely from those same shipyards, assuming they survive. The goal here - ever for the GA, and mostly for the Alignment - isn't widescale destruction, just removing the bonds (such as they are) that make the League the League. People will continue, ships will continue, businesses and shipyards will continue, mostly.

We've had word of about two dozen major yards, and about a 20%/80% split between those that handle wallers and those that handle smaller warships only. Locations aren't yet detailed, but we can assume that the yards sufficient for wallers - the Battle Fleet ones - are all or almost all in the Core, and that that Frontier Fleet ones are a bit more spread out. (Smaller yards won't necessarily cry out for a Core industrial plant under them, and FF could use yards closer to where they work. On the other hand, security and being able to count on those industrial bases would nudge some of those yards Core-ward.)

Chances are Sol and Yildun host some of the major yards.

George J. Smith wrote:If I remember correctly the Beowulf SDF had frequent war games with Manticoran fleets, so there preparedness should be reasonable. NTM that their probably is some upgraded kit on some of the Beowulf ships.

IIRC there is textev that Beowulf has gotton some of the upgrades that Manticore has developed, but not ones that are visible (such as MDMs) simply because they didn't want to stir up the SLN.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Welcome!

Hasek wrote:Hi guys first post!
The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

JeffEngel wrote:The SLN had two things going against it:
1 - The conviction that it was, had been for so long, and always would be, absolutely and unquestionably the best by a vast margin: best in numbers, almost certainly best in quality, by all means best in the product of numbers and quality.
2 - Having no living experience of having fought nor any expectation of having to.

The SDF's won't suffer from (1); they may suffer from (2) a bit worse. So there are issues there but it's complicated just how bad off they are relative to the SLN that way.

Hasek wrote:What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?

JeffEngel wrote:Likely from those same shipyards, assuming they survive. The goal here - ever for the GA, and mostly for the Alignment - isn't widescale destruction, just removing the bonds (such as they are) that make the League the League. People will continue, ships will continue, businesses and shipyards will continue, mostly.

We've had word of about two dozen major yards, and about a 20%/80% split between those that handle wallers and those that handle smaller warships only. Locations aren't yet detailed, but we can assume that the yards sufficient for wallers - the Battle Fleet ones - are all or almost all in the Core, and that that Frontier Fleet ones are a bit more spread out. (Smaller yards won't necessarily cry out for a Core industrial plant under them, and FF could use yards closer to where they work. On the other hand, security and being able to count on those industrial bases would nudge some of those yards Core-ward.)

Chances are Sol and Yildun host some of the major yards.

George J. Smith wrote:If I remember correctly the Beowulf SDF had frequent war games with Manticoran fleets, so there preparedness should be reasonable. NTM that their probably is some upgraded kit on some of the Beowulf ships.

IIRC there is textev that Beowulf has gotton some of the upgrades that Manticore has developed, but not ones that are visible (such as MDMs) simply because they didn't want to stir up the SLN.

The textev I've seen suggests that by mutual consent, no Manty upgrades were used by the Beowulfers because of concern that those upgrades would fall into the SLN's less than pristine hands.

Don