tech gap

So I am sure this has been discussed ad nauseam but on the issue of the tech gap between the GA and the SL, what scenarios can plausibly remedy that for the SL?

I'm thinking the first crucial step has already been taken; that is acceptance by the SL of such a gap. Indeed I believe it has become clear to all SL major players that the gap is actually a chasm.
One thing is obvious though, the SL is not without resources, and it would be more than logical to use as much of those resources as possible to close that gap. On the other hand, time; who has more influence over that critical piece of the game?

Who wants to play, devil's advocate?

It's not just time and acceptance, but also money. Without money, you can't pay your scientists, unless you are going to put a pulser to their head to force them to research.


And research by force, will never be as efficient as scientists working on their own free will, with incentives.


And even the SLN acceptance is only partial, the very top admirals, CNO and such are just barely accepting that there might be a tech gap. They are more like Haven, right about the time before First Hancock. They know there's some imbalance in technology, but they still believe quantity trumps quality. We haven't had a Solarian version of Pierre do a Harris Assassination and manage a coup.... yet.

And the entirety of the rest of the League believe the lies coming from their version of Public Information, that there isn't truly a tech gap, it's because of Manticore's cheap and dirty tactics. Manticore's tech isn't really better, they just made Filareta self-destruct his pods, that they truly had Superdreadnoughts and not just heavy cruisers at Spindle, etc etc.

npadln wrote:So I am sure this has been discussed ad nauseam but on the issue of the tech gap between the GA and the SL, what scenarios can plausibly remedy that for the SL?

I'm thinking the first crucial step has already been taken; that is acceptance by the SL of such a gap. Indeed I believe it has become clear to all SL major players that the gap is actually a chasm.
One thing is obvious though, the SL is not without resources, and it would be more than logical to use as much of those resources as possible to close that gap. On the other hand, time; who has more influence over that critical piece of the game?

Who wants to play, devil's advocate?

The League certainly has vast resources and a general tech base that's right up there with Manticore. The problems are that they have no institutional military experience of having to improve under pressure and in response to a specific, credible threat, and that the League does not have much time left in which to develop, deploy, and learn to use new systems.

One thing they can do quickly is reprogram EW and missile tracking systems to handle the new missile environment without the equivalent of rolling up in a ball gibbering. They will still be grossly inadequate in terms of the hardware - more CM's please! and PDC's! - but at least they'd have hardware that could be much more useful within the hardware's limitations.

They may be able to tap SDF experience and technical developments if they can swallow their pride enough to do so, and if the SDF's do have technical advantages to offer, and if the SDF's are willing to share. When some of the bigger, more advanced SDF's are those of Beowulf, Beowulf-sympathetic worlds, Renaissance Factor systems, and/or Maya Sector... well, willingness to share cannot be counted on.

And they can try to deploy things outside the box. The proto-Mistletoe assassination drone used for the Cromarty Assassination in Yeltsin, for instance, could possibly serve some use attacking fixed installations and predictably moving mobile units. Given the sensor advantages the GA has, and the wariness after Oyster Bay, I doubt that's going to work well, but it's an example of something they could try that would work around the GA's missile combat dominance.

Cataphract missiles, of some varieties, do fit appropriate shipboard launchers, so if they can build and distribute them in quantity, they'd have something for long range missile fire. They'd need to have long ballistic components to match the range even approximately, their accuracy would blow chunks, and the SLN has no experience using MDM's otherwise to help. So that won't do well, but it's better than nothing and could make the vast number of SLN ships, individually, slightly dangerous.

But it comes back to time. The League does not have it. I'm sure a lot of crash R&D programs will be launched, but I'm also sure they're going to be inherited by successor states. What sort of tricks those states will have, what resources they will have to back them up, and what intentions they will have, are all good questions it'd far too early to answer.

Writing as a scientist (i) my ability to do science will deteriorate if you do not pay me, because I will soon starve to death, and (ii) holding your pulser at the empty lab bench and demanding it turn into lab equipment that is far more expensive than paying me will likely not work.

Somtaaw wrote:It's not just time and acceptance, but also money. Without money, you can't pay your scientists, unless you are going to put a pulser to their head to force them to research.


And research by force, will never be as efficient as scientists working on their own free will, with incentives.


And even the SLN acceptance is only partial, the very top admirals, CNO and such are just barely accepting that there might be a tech gap. They are more like Haven, right about the time before First Hancock. They know there's some imbalance in technology, but they still believe quantity trumps quality. We haven't had a Solarian version of Pierre do a Harris Assassination and manage a coup.... yet.

And the entirety of the rest of the League believe the lies coming from their version of Public Information, that there isn't truly a tech gap, it's because of Manticore's cheap and dirty tactics. Manticore's tech isn't really better, they just made Filareta self-destruct his pods, that they truly had Superdreadnoughts and not just heavy cruisers at Spindle, etc etc.

phillies wrote:Writing as a scientist (i) my ability to do science will deteriorate if you do not pay me, because I will soon starve to death, and (ii) holding your pulser at the empty lab bench and demanding it turn into lab equipment that is far more expensive than paying me will likely not work.

I salute the awesome bravery of your lab bench! Stand firm for your beliefs against Solarian aggression, bench! Truly, you are a hero among furniture.

Somtaaw wrote:It's not just time and acceptance, but also money. Without money, you can't pay your scientists, unless you are going to put a pulser to their head to force them to research.

And research by force, will never be as efficient as scientists working on their own free will, with incentives.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Somtaaw wrote: And even the SLN acceptance is only partial, the very top admirals, CNO and such are just barely accepting that there might be a tech gap. They are more like Haven, right about the time before First Hancock. They know there's some imbalance in technology, but they still believe quantity trumps quality. We haven't had a Solarian version of Pierre do a Harris Assassination and manage a coup.... yet.

As of the end of Thunder, this has changed. The new CNO states that, "any 'additional fleet actions' could only be one-sided massacres. ... I don't see any way the existing [SD] hulls could be refitted to turn them into effective combatants."

Somtaaw wrote: And the entirety of the rest of the League believe the lies coming from their version of Public Information, that there isn't truly a tech gap, it's because of Manticore's cheap and dirty tactics. Manticore's tech isn't really better, they just made Filareta self-destruct his pods, that they truly had Superdreadnoughts and not just heavy cruisers at Spindle, etc etc.

How the Mandarins' spin is selling outside Chicago remains to be seen. The vote on Beowulf was lopsided, but far from unanimous.

Somtaaw wrote:It's not just time and acceptance, but also money. Without money, you can't pay your scientists, unless you are going to put a pulser to their head to force them to research.


And research by force, will never be as efficient as scientists working on their own free will, with incentives.

When I say, resources, it certainly includes science research. But it also includes manpower, military numbers, private industry, diplomatic corps, covert arms of the government etc. Think of it as the SL calling out to all its members and citizens and enacting a major mobilization effort. You know, there are many ways to skin a cat. Hence the question, what could be those possible scenarios?

For example, a mission might see an overwhelmingly large task force of SL heavy cruisers sent to a sleepy little part of the Silesian Confederacy with the only goal of capturing a much smaller force of, say one or two Manticoran destroyers. Or, after mobilizing an effort to uncover anyone and everyone who has the slightest insight to the Manticoran, Beowulfean relationship, agents are then sent to infiltrate THAT government seeking out any pertinent tech data. That is what I mean by resources.

npadln wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:It's not just time and acceptance, but also money. Without money, you can't pay your scientists, unless you are going to put a pulser to their head to force them to research.


And research by force, will never be as efficient as scientists working on their own free will, with incentives.

When I say, resources, it certainly includes science research. But it also includes manpower, military numbers, private industry, diplomatic corps, covert arms of the government etc. Think of it as the SL calling out to all its members and citizens and enacting a major mobilization effort. You know, there are many ways to skin a cat. Hence the question, what could be those possible scenarios?

For example, a mission might see an overwhelmingly large task force of SL heavy cruisers sent to a sleepy little part of the Silesian Confederacy with the only goal of capturing a much smaller force of, say one or two Manticoran destroyers. Or, after mobilizing an effort to uncover anyone and everyone who has the slightest insight to the Manticoran, Beowulfean relationship, agents are then sent to infiltrate THAT government seeking out any pertinent tech data. That is what I mean by resources.

Except the Solarian League doesn't actually HAVE all that money. Their money is invested in paying Manticore to move resource X from point A, to point B, so the Solarian League can continue building stuff.

Manticore is no longer willing to ship for them, and has closed wormholes. Therefore things are no longer being built, which translates into things are no longer selling. No things selling, means no money to pay your scientists.

Things the Solarian League has lots of:
population

That's pretty much it. It's military IS it's population, it's a huge military.... but it's obsolete and they can't fight at all. They need research (which costs said money) to build new toys to fight with.

The Solarian League doesn't have a diplomatic thing, because everybody ELSE was terrified of pissing the Solarian League off. So when the League says to jump, everybody except Manticore only asked "how high?"

League private industry relied on Manticoran freighters, see above statement as to why that's no longer a 'plus' in the Leagues favour.

League 'covert operations' is non-existant. They were so tied up in "we have the biggest navy, we have the best technology, nobody else can match us" they literally cannot conceive of a reason to spy on any other nation. Meanwhile.... in the Haven quadrant, Haven and Manticore have been spying and counter-spying, and counter-counter-spying for almost 50 T-years. The League is going to lose hundreds of agents who literally have no idea how to operate, against the seasoned Counter-Intelligence agencies of the Grand Alliance.

in short, the League has nothing but net negatives at this point, except one absolutely huge population. And the second solar systems start shedding from the League, because the Mandarins have proven they are inept, that population advantage is going to disappear really fast.

League 'covert operations' is non-existant. They were so tied up in "we have the biggest navy, we have the best technology, nobody else can match us" they literally cannot conceive of a reason to spy on any other nation. Meanwhile.... in the Haven quadrant, Haven and Manticore have been spying and counter-spying, and counter-counter-spying for almost 50 T-years. The League is going to lose hundreds of agents who literally have no idea how to operate, against the seasoned Counter-Intelligence agencies of the Grand Alliance.

Actually they might have more experience than you give them credit for. Admittedly its the wrong kind of experience but they do have it. They are used to spying, patronizing, illegal info gathering, assassination (both character and literal), favor/vote buying, and petty one-ups-man-ship ... but its mostly against themselves and their own organisations, bureaucracies, and power structures. They are used to deniable operations and spin-maestering. But again its all against the games that they have spent centuries playing ... not when fighting for their lives against a real enemy that can hold them to account (in a way).

There is also someone else whose name and background the forum has not discussed in a while ... the Solarian accented arms dealer and troublemaker known only as "Charles". At one point he claimed to represent a group of Solarians who were angry about the Leagues lack of action against Haven/Manticore and was trading "League-made" weapons and tech to change the power balances. Admittedly he is a self confessed liar and one man does not a country represent. In all likelihood he was another Mesan Alignment operative playing a game of his own. But it is possible he represents a much more awake and capable third party, which the SLN could turn too or be made/forced to utilize.

Jeff Engle does a good job above, as does Somtaaw and Valen; I'll just add on a few comments to show I was paying attention....

I think the OP mentioned the critical piece; time.
The SL/SLN may well have developments in micro-fusion, FTL communication, real DDM/MDM's on-going; hell, they might have even made breakthroughs on some of them, which have been held in bureaucratic limbo (because rebuilding a fleet is hard and expensive, especially when everyone already knows that you have the most powerful fleet in the Galaxy...). But now the veil has been lifted and those developments will now be front and center.

But then you have to validate and test them and then re-design your ships (or build new ones) to accept the new equipment, which means a lot of engineering and construction...which means we are talking several years...while the GA merrily knocks out your bases and shipyards, setting your time-line even further back.

Not to mention some of those systems, as mentioned above, will be associated with the RF or Beowulf (or their own interests) and will be leaving the League in droves.

The best the SLN can hope for is (1) Enhanced Pod development, which are faster to build and can be equipped with larger missiles and (2) Onboard software to counter Dragon's Teeth/Dazzlers and GA countermissiles.

That won't let the ISLN win; but it might give them a chance if the odds are high enough.

OT borrow from ST: Generations, "Time is the Fire in which we Burn." And sure as anything, the SL is going to burn.