Oh, what the heck . . .

Hi KZT,

Thanks for keeping it interesting.

Yup, it was quite a time at Baen's Bar around 12 years ago IIRC, we fans were trying to assess Manticore's annual construction capacity, and Talbott was part of it; but because RFC was appalled with the numbers some of us were generating from the available textev, ie over 400 more SD's over 7&1/2-8 years, plus several hundred BC's, CA's, CL's and DD's, if not something closer to a thousand plus thanks to all the known yards given the posted construction times from the pearls etc, that he wanted to reduce the huge numbers down to fit the new story-line trajectory as I recall.

Forex, if a 85,000 ton Chanson class DD takes 15 T-weeks to build compared to a 8.5 Million ton SD in 100 weeks [from the pearls], one can extrapolate first war [135 Kt] CL's in ~20 weeks, flight two Star Knight CA's [@ 325 Kt] in ~25 T-weeks, and BC's [before the Agamemnon and Nike classes] in around 50.

Remember the latest Nike BC was BC #762 in AAC, before it was somehow renumbered #562. which isn't numerically correct even in HoS unless they built a couple hundred BC's in ~116 years.

If you figure 9-10 slips for each class in a yard to provide a full squadron and at least 7-8 yards, and the numbers do get huge in a hurry.

The WhiteHaven quote was in EoH, when his brother and Caparelli came to visit him in Yeltsin.

We don't know the dimensions of the replacement space bases, but they wouldn't have to be that big to have a much greater volume or number of building slips than the lost space stations.

fascinating times indeed.

L


[quote="kzt"][quote="PeterZ"]So, White Haven spoke of Talbot yard's ability to produce SDs while visiting Blackbird naval yards? Do you recall what book that was in?

If this is so, then they must have started transferring tech to Talbot just after the Quadrant voted to join the Empire.[/quote]
No, one T. The one that various scenes in SVW are set in. Their mysterious disappearance is one of the bigger background holes. Which isn't all the big a deal, but it was kind of confusing.

David also has a character named Talbot.

I can't find the White Haven scene, I may be confused with the FiE scene.[/quote]

PeterZ wrote:Makes sense. Talbot was even closer to the border than Grendelsbane. I was thinking it got creamed during Thunderbolt along with Grendelsbane.

I'm not finding the reference, but I'm pretty sure the Talbot system had - thanks to High Ridge running roughshod over the other Alliance members during the ceasefire - effectively stepped aside and declared themselves neutral.

Certainly Haven's diplomatic efforts during that period were focused on achieving that end (or in the case of Erewhon - who High Ridge mishandled especially egregiously - into a mutual defense treaty)

I'm pretty sure that Haven avoided gratuitously ruining their diplomatic reputation and kept Thunderbolt well away from the Alliance members they'd tried to woo into neutrality. They needed to bend over backwards to avoid appearing anything like the double-dealing People Republic.
Yes, later, when Manticore opted not to negotiate after the blows from Thunderbolt the members like Allison that actively chose to remain in the Alliance made themselves valid targets for follow-up operations -- but to the outside observer that's far different from including them in the initial surprise attack.


Also I swear David said that they'd also mothballed their SD yard, as it hadn't been upgraded, during that interval - so there wasn't much military risk for Haven to ignore that infrastructure during the initial surprise attack - even if the Talbot system had thrown in with Manticore in response.

So that's a very long way of saying I don't think the Talbot system got hit by Thunderbolt. That obsolete, mothballed, yard is probably still there -- for the trivial good it would do to have access to it.

That yard can build merchies, troop transports and a host of other ships either needed to grow the economy or support active operations in the Verge. They would be fools not to open that yard up and request upgrades. Every yard counts right now, even if they don't produce current gen SDs right away, they can produce useful ships immediately.

Even if they decide NOT to upgrade, there were workers there that can be used to rebuild the SEM yards and train a new cadre of workers.

Jonathan_S wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Makes sense. Talbot was even closer to the border than Grendelsbane. I was thinking it got creamed during Thunderbolt along with Grendelsbane.

I'm not finding the reference, but I'm pretty sure the Talbot system had - thanks to High Ridge running roughshod over the other Alliance members during the ceasefire - effectively stepped aside and declared themselves neutral.

Certainly Haven's diplomatic efforts during that period were focused on achieving that end (or in the case of Erewhon - who High Ridge mishandled especially egregiously - into a mutual defense treaty)

I'm pretty sure that Haven avoided gratuitously ruining their diplomatic reputation and kept Thunderbolt well away from the Alliance members they'd tried to woo into neutrality. They needed to bend over backwards to avoid appearing anything like the double-dealing People Republic.
Yes, later, when Manticore opted not to negotiate after the blows from Thunderbolt the members like Allison that actively chose to remain in the Alliance made themselves valid targets for follow-up operations -- but to the outside observer that's far different from including them in the initial surprise attack.


Also I swear David said that they'd also mothballed their SD yard, as it hadn't been upgraded, during that interval - so there wasn't much military risk for Haven to ignore that infrastructure during the initial surprise attack - even if the Talbot system had thrown in with Manticore in response.

So that's a very long way of saying I don't think the Talbot system got hit by Thunderbolt. That obsolete, mothballed, yard is probably still there -- for the trivial good it would do to have access to it.

PeterZ wrote:That yard can build merchies, troop transports and a host of other ships either needed to grow the economy or support active operations in the Verge. They would be fools not to open that yard up and request upgrades. Every yard counts right now, even if they don't produce current gen SDs right away, they can produce useful ships immediately.

Even if they decide NOT to upgrade, there were workers there that can be used to rebuild the SEM yards and train a new cadre of workers.

I believe David said that the Talbot yard had been converted to other uses, whatever that means. The conversation was dually about shipbuilding in the post Oyster Bay storyline AND resources available to rebuild the stations and reform the Manty construction technology and workforce. The post was specifically in response to a list I posted with 20+ sources of workers and equipment that the new workforce and yards could be rebuilt around. I cannot see an SD yard being converted to building children's toys, so I would assume it still can build ships, just the "tooling" for SDs was shelved. David insisted that the workforce was not trained in the newest Manticorian building technologies, nor would the yards have the technology to directly build the newest ships. He did not address wether the yard could build a generic industrial module or other portion of the Space Station.

A quick look in the Pearls didn't come up with the text.

Hi TheEmile,

Very good points and thanks for the reminder!

There are a lot of RFC's bar posts that weren't saved to the pearls, generally of a minor or personal nature since a couple thousand even short comments might have been hard to classify or store etc.

Back at the bar, many moons ago, I pointed out that 200 G shuttles meant the space stations were less than 5-6 minutes, let alone 15 from any point on Manticore or the other planets, so living on the space stations was not required or needed in any way by the workers, and with 4 5.6125 hour shifts every M-day, there were going to be quite a few people who did live on the station off shift and down on the respective planet, besides all the people that thanks to the generous Manticore work benefits, were on their annual two+ T-month vacations, or at least taking a well earned break after 25-27 monthes of maximum effort since the war began, or all the people who thanks to prolong had shifted careers after 30-40 years.

While RFC's point was to emphasize the SEM's vulnerability, and I suspect he intended to destroy them fairly early on [20-24 years ago], I don't recall there was early textev that they were the only objects or stations in orbit.

Another snippet would be great of course, if RFC is feeling particularly merciful for some strange reason.

Keep the good posts coming.

L

Theemile wrote:

PeterZ wrote:That yard can build merchies, troop transports and a host of other ships either needed to grow the economy or support active operations in the Verge. They would be fools not to open that yard up and request upgrades. Every yard counts right now, even if they don't produce current gen SDs right away, they can produce useful ships immediately.

Even if they decide NOT to upgrade, there were workers there that can be used to rebuild the SEM yards and train a new cadre of workers.

I believe David said that the Talbot yard had been converted to other uses, whatever that means. The conversation was dually about shipbuilding in the post Oyster Bay storyline AND resources available to rebuild the stations and reform the Manty construction technology and workforce. The post was specifically in response to a list I posted with 20+ sources of workers and equipment that the new workforce and yards could be rebuilt around. I cannot see an SD yard being converted to building children's toys, so I would assume it still can build ships, just the "tooling" for SDs was shelved. David insisted that the workforce was not trained in the newest Manticorian building technologies, nor would the yards have the technology to directly build the newest ships. He did not address wether the yard could build a generic industrial module or other portion of the Space Station.

A quick look in the Pearls didn't come up with the text.

Hi PeterZ,

Excellent points as usual.

The Andermanni with some 39 well populated systems before they got the greater share of Silesia [33+ systems], has a much deeper population base [11-13 times] to find the teachers, doctors, engineers and technicians than Manticore's 6+ billion (according to aCoS, NTM Manticore growing at just 0.8% annually [a rather low rate given so much room and wealth] would've busted 4 billion years ago, plus San Martin's 2 B).

OTOH, the RoH has some 150 populated systems besides some colony or reserved resource systems for 3-4 times the Andermanni's, so yes they have even deeper pockets, albeit they have lots of needs closer to home as well.

Thus between all of them, including Grayson's unique skill set, there are lots of GA/MA experts to provide a helping hand to lots of verge systems, for their mutual benefit [NTM profit].

The huge expansion in trade and freighter construction isn't because the SL's freighters are destroyed or even captured, but from just the huge increase in who and where the verge and shells now wish to trade with.

Though your point about abandoning a commerce stripped useless central government is a very good one.

Remember the constitution was promulgated before Warshawski's innovative disruption ruined it's premise of little interstellar trade, so that by restricting the leagues' funding to just that it would be kept small and its members more free, not the huge monster it became.

The textev ignorance of the Operation Janus victims demonstrates the lack of accurate data information available or being exchanged into the system data-nets, again another obvious OFS/transtellar policy to keep the proles from learning too much, or there might have been far more 'Mobius's' much sooner.

Exploring their new options will require lots of ships for all the ex-victims of the SL, with whom and where they choose to trade will require even more and the sheer time involved will require vastly more.

So all the satellite freighter yards the MA built before and during the first war will have plenty of fresh orders, as will the TQ, the Maya sector, NTM the RoH, the AE, Beowulf and Erewhon [something just over 300 systems so far, though hardly all have shipyards]; and then the new yards in the verge and shells since there's no textev I can recall that any yards were built there outside of FF bases, mainly for repairs and refits since the transtellars/OFS wanted to keep them dependent upon the core worlds/systems.

Figuring 600+ protectorates and 1500 plus systems in the shells, even at an average of only a couple dozen freighters each, that's a lot of ships.

Granted lots of systems may not want to build shipyards, but plenty will, and the GA has plenty of systems that can help build them.

Imagine the 'twin cities' concept expanded to 'twin systems' to encourage bonding with GA members.

So what's the RF going to do to break this up?

That's just one of the next story arc concepts I suspect.

Keep the good posts coming.

L


quote="PeterZ" The Andermani will begin, but the Havenites will succeed best I suspect. At what, you ask?

Let me pose a question first. Were there enough hulls to carry the Leagues freight before it all went tits up? Of course there were. The SEM still have their merchant hulls. The RMN haven't destroyed any League merchies, so they are still around.

As soon as the GA begin their deep strikes against the League, the IAN and RN will have the additional manpower to take captured merchies. They'll take and auction them off to private shippers. The RMN will hit and destroy SLN BF and FF bases. The rest of the GA hits key trans shipping centers and takes the merchant hulls that drive revenue for the League central government. Absent merchant ships to import and export goods, more star nations will see little use for a useless central government.

In short order both the Andermani and Republic of Haven will have respectable merchant fleets to service the Verge and Protectorates. Combined with the RMMM and there should be a significant number of bottoms servicing that region in short order.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Kenl511,

Quite right.

Having a range of diplomatic economic and military options will be very useful since so many systems are going to be unique.

Personalizing whatever treaties is going to accent the special relationship each such member has with the SEM.

Being wisely led, the SEM isn't going to exclude the RoH, the AE, or Beowulf and Grayson, for many obvious reasons, and in many cases be quite willing for one of the others to take the lead in becoming the major trading pardner.

After all, there's going to be more than plenty of new trading pardners for all of them; ie 600+ protectorates, plus up to 1500 shell systems with 2+ billion populations each.

None of the GA, including the AE, even combined, has the merchant marine to handle the business that's going to flow their way within a few to six monthes as the SL collapses so astonishingly quickly.

They'll windup building freighters even faster than they built warships, and complain about how they should have 'converted' sooner.

Certainly interesting times,

L

kenl511 wrote:I believe the Manticore Alliance (MA) is still there in addition to the Grand Alliance (GA). The MA is an economic, diplomatic and military alliance which has several other functions beside war with Haven. RFC has not said otherwise.

It allows the GA to demonstrate to the Protectorates, Shell and Verge they are better at promotion of commerce, economic development and mutual security than the Solarian League (SL) which is another weapon against the SL. These being the core purposes of the SL.


Just my opinion,
Ken L

/quote

It's a pearl, when people started asking David about Talbot and he remembered about it.

Jonathan_S wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Makes sense. Talbot was even closer to the border than Grendelsbane. I was thinking it got creamed during Thunderbolt along with Grendelsbane.

I'm not finding the reference, but I'm pretty sure the Talbot system had - thanks to High Ridge running roughshod over the other Alliance members during the ceasefire - effectively stepped aside and declared themselves neutral.

Certainly Haven's diplomatic efforts during that period were focused on achieving that end (or in the case of Erewhon - who High Ridge mishandled especially egregiously - into a mutual defense treaty)

I'm pretty sure that Haven avoided gratuitously ruining their diplomatic reputation and kept Thunderbolt well away from the Alliance members they'd tried to woo into neutrality. They needed to bend over backwards to avoid appearing anything like the double-dealing People Republic.
Yes, later, when Manticore opted not to negotiate after the blows from Thunderbolt the members like Allison that actively chose to remain in the Alliance made themselves valid targets for follow-up operations -- but to the outside observer that's far different from including them in the initial surprise attack.


Also I swear David said that they'd also mothballed their SD yard, as it hadn't been upgraded, during that interval - so there wasn't much military risk for Haven to ignore that infrastructure during the initial surprise attack - even if the Talbot system had thrown in with Manticore in response.

So that's a very long way of saying I don't think the Talbot system got hit by Thunderbolt. That obsolete, mothballed, yard is probably still there -- for the trivial good it would do to have access to it.

Hi TheEmile,

First, let me say I didn't mean to suggest I doubted you in any way, just being curious about your sources of evidence and reasoning to your conclusions, which challenged my preconceptions, but in a good way; to which I say you've done your usual excellent job.

The HoS numbers for RMN ship production are are rather low for the first peep war, in my opinion, in that they don't include lots of the textev, particularly the data from the appendix in SVW, NTM often being flawed in the HoS's own details like the Hydra being 2 meters shorter than the Minotaur when its supposed to be at least 60 meters longer according to the blurb, but then almost all of the ship data is self-contradictory in one detail or another, if not the textev specified tonnages and history; like the Edward Saganami section in AoV; though RFC insists it's now authoritative, so we're stuck with it, however ludicrous.

Rant aside, you could very well be right, although again the heavy cruiser numbers don't add up compared to the SVW appendix charts; 333 heavy cruisers totaling 92 million tons or an average of 276.276 Kt [compared to 210 peep CA's averaging 259 Kt] versus the 280+ listed in HoS totaling around 75 M tons [for a ~.263 Kt average].

For the record, the 200 Prince Consorts and Crusaders [which were slightly more massive, IIRC, not less in IEH] with some combination of up to 73 flight one Star Knights at 300 Kt's, and 64 flight two Star Knights at 325 Kt each [from SVW], totals to almost exactly 92 M tons [HoS totally missed the 325 Kt for the RMN's latest CA at the beginning of the first peep war, of course].

But I just don't buy the RMN buying only 74 total Star Knights for itself, especially in a war where they were so desperately needed; for even at only one squadron [~ 9.2 per annum at 85% to have 8 operational] per M-year budget from 1889-90 PD before the war.

Realistically, it should have been more than that, and the RMN should have been buying 2-3 squadrons per year since Basilisk if not earlier, given it is such a vast improvement over the the Prince Consort class in all its various manifestations [NTM an even greater edge over the peeps], which were built long before the laserhead threat was even recognized, albeit the early textev didn't mention even its command and control weaknesses until IEH, thus given all those limitations, they should have been replaced much faster.

Then there's all the Star Knights destroyed in the textev pushing the obvious implication of many many more being lost unmentioned over a ~9 year war, which then begs the question of how so many have survived thus far into the present, or the CA numbering problem [evidently all the Warrior and 'Truncheon' CA's, NTM all those before them over almost 4 centuries don't exist or weren't numbered consecutively or as CA's etc], but that's beside your point of the RMN sharing the latest light warships it had.

We don't know what was shared with Idaho [not Iowa] yet, but being some 72 LY from the SKM, let alone the front lines some 30-40+ LY further on, and not a MA member, it might not have been the latest, so maybe some Prince Consort's instead?

Certainly as you point out, given the rest of the MA's 20+ members, there should have been a lot more built of below the wall warships, although Alizon and Zanzibar were the only ones, IIRC, that were mentioned being capable of building BC's, whether any actually were completed before the yards were destroyed.

Even if Talbott can't build modern SD's any more, the rest of the MA being able to build something like Wolfhound's or Avalon's, NTM LAC's, would still be very helpful.

Thanks for keeping it interesting.

L


[quote="Theemile"]quote="lyonheart"Howdy TheEmile,

Excellent points indeed!

While I'd like to see more of your data and reasoning regarding the SKM's fraction of below the wall construction dedicated to its allies before and during the first war, that pragmatic generosity certainly didn't hurt the SKM's interstellar reputation.
/quote

Starting with HOS, we see that Manticore sold 24 new build ships to Grayson, in addition to the large number of retired RMN ships. The new builds are not counted in the RMN fleet numbers in the book- the RMN fleet numbers only consist of ships added to the RMN, not just ships built in Manticore yards. All of them were manned with the assistance of the RMN.

All these new builds, and all the refurbished ships pulled out of the reserve and modernized in Manticorian yards, were all delivered between 1902 and 1906. Just as the 1st war was starting and heating up.

We also found out that Erewhon purchased all it's light and medium units from Manticore, and their navy was as modern as Manticore's. We don't really know how big the Erewhonese navy is, but we could assume a navy with 3+ squadrons of the wall probably has at least 80-120 light units.

Then we have Alizon and Zanzibar. Both navies were built by Manticore and Manticore provided replacements when their navies were destroyed... Zanzibar twice. Both used RMN Manning. Oh, and Manticore built them shipyards so they could build their own ships... Them replaced them when they were destroyed.

Sidemore, post freedom got a fleet base which built their domestic fleet with RMN designs. Just a dozen or so light units, but all modern RMN ships.

Then we have the recent example of Iowa, who around the time the war began discovered they had a wormhole and asked Manticore to help them exploit it. Since they have built their Navy from Manticore.

Then we have the other 20ish members of the Manticore Alliance. Only Talbot had their own shipbuilding capability, but all had their own small navies. King Roger built the MA originally before his death, so by the time the 1st war began, over 50 years passed since the MAs founding with the clear intention to stand against the coming storm named Haven. Since all parties joined knowing what was coming, it stands to reason they upped their military spending to prevent it. Which means more, newer naval units. And until Grayson's yards hit their stride around 1908, the MA only had two ship sources, Manticore and the smaller yards at Talbot. In that 70 years, every light unit should have been life cycled at least once.

Potentially, that is alot of ships which came out of Manticore's yards.[/quote]

I agree that building merchant ships will bootstrap some Verge economies. I hesitate to believe this will be a major factor in economic growth. Most of the Verge worlds have limited extraction infrastructure in place. Orbital manufacturing is likely an equally limited proposition. How could it be otherwise? The transstellars need to supply the local neobarbs with life's luxuries. Well, luxuries for the locals. If the local production had the capacity to make all the needed goods, the transstellar wouldn't be able to sell them Core world exports. One of the problems with the Verge is that transstellars have been using them as a captive market. Sell them goods that the verge world cannot produce itself and finance everything at ruinous rates. This keeps the world impoverished and dependent on the transstellar.

These worlds need to expand their education, resource extraction infrastructure and their orbital manufacturing before they begin to really build ships. Yet, they will need merchant shipping immediately. There will be local worlds that are slightly better off than the rest in key areas. These worlds can actually export useful tech more readily than the GA or MA. Getting the local systems up to the most advanced local system can be accomplished almost immediately, if there are enough hulls to facilitate the process.

Therein lies the need to capture existing merchant hulls. Most of those hulls service the Protectorates. Meaning they either bring stuff in the them to the Core and Shell or export cargo from the Core and Shell. Every ship captured means a Core or Sell world transstellar pays less to the central government and leaves Protectorate customers looking for goods and buyers. The more ships the Grand Alliance capture, the greater the delay the Alliance imposes on the league before they resume normal service the Protectorate. The greater that delay, the more time the MA has to secure Protectorate allies. This also means the SLN will be called upon to enforce other tax measures as the traditional tax on trade evaporates. If the SLN spends enough of its time enforcing tax collection, they are not commerce raiding.

All that suggests that all the Allied navies with manpower to spare focus on capturing Sollie hulls. I am sure the SLN will do the same. Heck, they might be stupid enough to destroy merchant hulls and be done with it. Doing that would delay the recovery time for the League by an even greater period. By the time the SLN really learns the lessons of deep strikes, the war will be over. In the mean time, the GA will use the WH networks to move forces to secure as many merchies as they can as quickly as they can. Secure the merchant shipping and destroy the SLN.

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

Excellent points as usual.

The Andermanni with some 39 well populated systems before they got the greater share of Silesia [33+ systems], has a much deeper population base [11-13 times] to find the teachers, doctors, engineers and technicians than Manticore's 6+ billion (according to aCoS, NTM Manticore growing at just 0.8% annually [a rather low rate given so much room and wealth] would've busted 4 billion years ago, plus San Martin's 2 B).

OTOH, the RoH has some 150 populated systems besides some colony or reserved resource systems for 3-4 times the Andermanni's, so yes they have even deeper pockets, albeit they have lots of needs closer to home as well.

Thus between all of them, including Grayson's unique skill set, there are lots of GA/MA experts to provide a helping hand to lots of verge systems, for their mutual benefit [NTM profit].

The huge expansion in trade and freighter construction isn't because the SL's freighters are destroyed or even captured, but from just the huge increase in who and where the verge and shells now wish to trade with.

Though your point about abandoning a commerce stripped useless central government is a very good one.

Remember the constitution was promulgated before Warshawski's innovative disruption ruined it's premise of little interstellar trade, so that by restricting the leagues' funding to just that it would be kept small and its members more free, not the huge monster it became.

The textev ignorance of the Operation Janus victims demonstrates the lack of accurate data information available or being exchanged into the system data-nets, again another obvious OFS/transtellar policy to keep the proles from learning too much, or there might have been far more 'Mobius's' much sooner.

Exploring their new options will require lots of ships for all the ex-victims of the SL, with whom and where they choose to trade will require even more and the sheer time involved will require vastly more.

So all the satellite freighter yards the MA built before and during the first war will have plenty of fresh orders, as will the TQ, the Maya sector, NTM the RoH, the AE, Beowulf and Erewhon [something just over 300 systems so far, though hardly all have shipyards]; and then the new yards in the verge and shells since there's no textev I can recall that any yards were built there outside of FF bases, mainly for repairs and refits since the transtellars/OFS wanted to keep them dependent upon the core worlds/systems.

Figuring 600+ protectorates and 1500 plus systems in the shells, even at an average of only a couple dozen freighters each, that's a lot of ships.

Granted lots of systems may not want to build shipyards, but plenty will, and the GA has plenty of systems that can help build them.

Imagine the 'twin cities' concept expanded to 'twin systems' to encourage bonding with GA members.

So what's the RF going to do to break this up?

That's just one of the next story arc concepts I suspect.

Keep the good posts coming.

L

Hi PeterZ,

Thanks for another very interesting post.

I quite agree that all the freighters possible are going to be needed or demanded by the protectorates upon their liberation, while the shells should have more available, albeit many of those systems are still controlled by the transtellars who 'helped' them get membership in the SL, and will still control their house fleets, unless the rebels somehow manage to board them, but that will be rare.

Overall, I think we may be focusing on different scales of time, effort, and resources; you on the immediate consequences, and myself on some of the more long term aspects.

Since most freighters spend most of their time in hyper, rather than in whatever system under impeller drive, capturing all that many will take some time, since trapping and compelling them to surrender to only old LAC's etc that are now locally held will be awkward to effectively arrange without GA assistance.

Given the vast superiority of the GA navies, and the BC and below the wall production numbers we saw in HoS roughly 10 monthes after the June 1920 fleet strength charts, which ought to at least double in the ten monthes before OB, so the RMN and GSN will have expanded the number of their 'super' warships considerably.

Since the RoH has something close to 40 industrialized systems, they could dedicate some 8-9 to building each class, to generate truly impressive numbers since the second war began.

That means the GA should have potentially thousands of below the wall warships able to free the protectorates and the shells while hunting the FF down, and capturing any SL own'ed freighters they run across, though they're not the immediate mission.

Certainly by the time the FF BC's etc reach Silesia, the war will have gotten much worse for the SL, let alone by the time those that survive return.

I often wonder if simply broadcasting the war news by each system might get the FF raiders pause to reconsider, before they engage the RMN defenses and discover what it means to be so outclassed.

Interesting times indeed.

Thanks for such interesting posts.

L

PeterZ wrote:I agree that building merchant ships will bootstrap some Verge economies. I hesitate to believe this will be a major factor in economic growth. Most of the Verge worlds have limited extraction infrastructure in place. Orbital manufacturing is likely an equally limited proposition. How could it be otherwise? The transstellars need to supply the local neobarbs with life's luxuries. Well, luxuries for the locals. If the local production had the capacity to make all the needed goods, the transstellar wouldn't be able to sell them Core world exports. One of the problems with the Verge is that transstellars have been using them as a captive market. Sell them goods that the verge world cannot produce itself and finance everything at ruinous rates. This keeps the world impoverished and dependent on the transstellar.

These worlds need to expand their education, resource extraction infrastructure and their orbital manufacturing before they begin to really build ships. Yet, they will need merchant shipping immediately. There will be local worlds that are slightly better off than the rest in key areas. These worlds can actually export useful tech more readily than the GA or MA. Getting the local systems up to the most advanced local system can be accomplished almost immediately, if there are enough hulls to facilitate the process.

Therein lies the need to capture existing merchant hulls. Most of those hulls service the Protectorates. Meaning they either bring stuff in the them to the Core and Shell or export cargo from the Core and Shell. Every ship captured means a Core or Sell world transstellar pays less to the central government and leaves Protectorate customers looking for goods and buyers. The more ships the Grand Alliance capture, the greater the delay the Alliance imposes on the league before they resume normal service the Protectorate. The greater that delay, the more time the MA has to secure Protectorate allies. This also means the SLN will be called upon to enforce other tax measures as the traditional tax on trade evaporates. If the SLN spends enough of its time enforcing tax collection, they are not commerce raiding.

All that suggests that all the Allied navies with manpower to spare focus on capturing Sollie hulls. I am sure the SLN will do the same. Heck, they might be stupid enough to destroy merchant hulls and be done with it. Doing that would delay the recovery time for the League by an even greater period. By the time the SLN really learns the lessons of deep strikes, the war will be over. In the mean time, the GA will use the WH networks to move forces to secure as many merchies as they can as quickly as they can. Secure the merchant shipping and destroy the SLN.

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

Excellent points as usual.

The Andermanni with some 39 well populated systems before they got the greater share of Silesia [33+ systems], has a much deeper population base [11-13 times] to find the teachers, doctors, engineers and technicians than Manticore's 6+ billion (according to aCoS, NTM Manticore growing at just 0.8% annually [a rather low rate given so much room and wealth] would've busted 4 billion years ago, plus San Martin's 2 B).

OTOH, the RoH has some 150 populated systems besides some colony or reserved resource systems for 3-4 times the Andermanni's, so yes they have even deeper pockets, albeit they have lots of needs closer to home as well.

Thus between all of them, including Grayson's unique skill set, there are lots of GA/MA experts to provide a helping hand to lots of verge systems, for their mutual benefit [NTM profit].

The huge expansion in trade and freighter construction isn't because the SL's freighters are destroyed or even captured, but from just the huge increase in who and where the verge and shells now wish to trade with.

Though your point about abandoning a commerce stripped useless central government is a very good one.

Remember the constitution was promulgated before Warshawski's innovative disruption ruined it's premise of little interstellar trade, so that by restricting the leagues' funding to just that it would be kept small and its members more free, not the huge monster it became.

The textev ignorance of the Operation Janus victims demonstrates the lack of accurate data information available or being exchanged into the system data-nets, again another obvious OFS/transtellar policy to keep the proles from learning too much, or there might have been far more 'Mobius's' much sooner.

Exploring their new options will require lots of ships for all the ex-victims of the SL, with whom and where they choose to trade will require even more and the sheer time involved will require vastly more.

So all the satellite freighter yards the MA built before and during the first war will have plenty of fresh orders, as will the TQ, the Maya sector, NTM the RoH, the AE, Beowulf and Erewhon [something just over 300 systems so far, though hardly all have shipyards]; and then the new yards in the verge and shells since there's no textev I can recall that any yards were built there outside of FF bases, mainly for repairs and refits since the transtellars/OFS wanted to keep them dependent upon the core worlds/systems.

Figuring 600+ protectorates and 1500 plus systems in the shells, even at an average of only a couple dozen freighters each, that's a lot of ships.

Granted lots of systems may not want to build shipyards, but plenty will, and the GA has plenty of systems that can help build them.

Imagine the 'twin cities' concept expanded to 'twin systems' to encourage bonding with GA members.

So what's the RF going to do to break this up?

That's just one of the next story arc concepts I suspect.

Keep the good posts coming.

L