Weird Harold wrote:I don't see Manticore passing out all of their military tech. I do see them doing a thriving business in "system defense packages" -- MDM missile pods, Keyhole derived command modules of either Moriarity or Mycroft style. (FTL comm or not)
LAC squadrons and semi-fixed bases (Forts, not CLACs for the most part.)
FTL comm nodes and sensor arrays.
The problem is, that *is* practically all of their military tech. Perhaps not the latest and greatest bleeding edge stuff, but that package gives any recipient the 'base platform' for pretty much every area where the manties advantages lie.
MDMs give out the secret of the baffle, the fundamental advance that lets you build real MDMs rather than the bolt-together hack that the cataphract uses. It also likely gives out the micro-fusion tech and the oh-so-nasty EW tricks you can pull with that power, unless you deliberately only produce the obsolete buttercup-era capacitor MDMs, and either way it still contains the most important part.
Anything keyhole-derived provides an all-too-close look into some of the alliance's most current ideas about parasite platforms and fire control, even if you don't give them the FTL transceivers of the apollo-capable platforms (which would be insane).
LAC squadrons give away bow and stern walls, beta-squared nodes, and the fission plants, even if you don't give away vipers by giving them
Katanas. (Also note that alliance LACs tend to have some of the best EW/stealth outfits in space.) Or you give them
Cimterres instead, and end up with LACs that aren't actually good for much other than missile defense and fighting *other* LACs. (Note that the only
Cimterres capable of more than that have fission plants.)
FTL comms give away, well, the secret of FTL comms. Remember, the sollies are still at the point of "we're not even sure yet if we're right about how to build these things, and even if we were they'd probably take up most of a superdreadnaught." The sollies have *years* and years of R&D ahead of them to produce anything that would be workable in the field. The MA probably isn't quite so far behind, though IIRC we don't have any word on their efforts. Either way, *any* FTL comm capable enough to be worth giving out would provide either party with an enormous leg up in developing their own.
And, of course, alliance sensors are the best in the galaxy; they're not something you really want to give to someone who might turn around and feed them to the MA.
Point is, any MA or sollie-aligned entity getting their hands on a "system defense package" like that would probably wet their pants in excitement at the decades you just shaved off their R&D programs for reproducing the alliance's warfighting tech base.
And, of course, all of this is contingent on the alliance feeling secure enough in its own military and industrial situation to be able to divert capacity to building all this stuff (plus possibly *developing* new versions of it, if they feel they can only give out downgraded 'export' grade hardware).
Ultimately I don't see the manties giving out *too* much, too fast. To people who actively sign on as military *allies* (as mentioned above), perhaps. But definitely not to everyone who just leaves the solarian league. IMO they'd be more likely to offer them the chance to pick up some ex-solly light warships on the cheap. Like new, only surrendered once, weapons never fired!
