SPOILER end of the MA

n7axw wrote:
I'm not advocating either pacifism or gun control. But living in the midst of a situation where everyone is armed to the teeth and on a short fuse really is not conducive to public safety either. Living in the equivalent of a wild west town where the law has been run out of town and conflict is settled at high noon in the middle of main street really isn't my cup of tea.

Don

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The point of arming most if not all of the verge is not simply or the sake of arming everyone, the point is to underscore the change in the relationship many in the protectorates and the verge had with the League and Frontier Security and the rest were expecting to someday share in the relationship as well.


If the GA were to declare every Verge and former protectorate free but under their protection would scream FF 2.0, if they abandoned the Verge it would turn into total anarchy. What I am proposing is arming everyone with the understanding that they are now responsible for their own protection from piracy at least. That would underscore the fact that they are free and their destiny is in their hands. If the GA were to assist and guide the verge into building up their industries and economies, 40 or 50 years down the road those same verge systems will be significantly better off than they are now, more to the point they will also be close to the GA and many would feel loyalty to the GA and their economies would be integrated with the GA as well.


At the end of the day bringing the verge up economically would also greatly benefit the GA economies in the long term, but more to the point it would add hundreds or thousands of systems as allies who would feel intense loyalty to the GA, systems that will only grow more powerful economically with every year and proportionally more powerful militarily as well. You would have systems with intense motivation to improve their situation so as to avoid falling under anyone else's control.


Arming them does several things:
1)Underscores they are now independent
2)That the GA is not the League and it is not Frontier Security
3)That if they want to remain independent they have to work towards strengthening their economy, society and military.

for many verge systems, giving them a chance no matter how slim would be taken and the GA might be rewarded with dozens or hundreds of success stories in the long run just like Grayson.

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
The SL wasn't working before the confrontation. The war with the GA just put a spotlight on the SL problems everyone was ignoring. Lets see, Beowulf tried to address the problems in the Assembly, proposed an investigation of the navy's actions, moved to secede from the GA, provided ship support for the rebuilding of the Manticoran space stations. That kind of behavior demonstrates trust. What have other worlds done beside maybe Hypatia?

It was fairly easy for Beowulf to make that decision though, after all the RMN was right on the other side of the WH and so was the RHN... thats more than most other systems can say. The once the seceded without the GA fleets being mere hours away made a significantly more important system then Beowulf which already had a few dozen SD(P)'s in its space and had several hundred SD(P)'s within easy reach.

So they send a representative requesting GA protection for a certain date. Plenty of options were available to them. Hell voting against the Mandarins was there as well.

ywing14 wrote:So they send a representative requesting GA protection for a certain date. Plenty of options were available to them. Hell voting against the Mandarins was there as well.

Not in the verge. You don't get a vote.

And if say 1600 systems all petition for protection, spread out over a volume of 50 million cubic light years, you'd accommodate them how? Keep in mind some of these systems are 200 light years from the nearest worm hole and >800 light years from the nearest of Haven, Manticore and Potsdam.

Give me some idea of how many ships you think Manticore or the AIN are willing to build, crew and dedicate to keeping peace in the galaxy without any recompense. Also keep in mind that you need 3 ships dedicated to the mission to keep one deployed all the time.

Or re you suggesting they pay the true cost of this in some sort of fee? kind of just like they paid the SL for the protection of Frontier Fleet?

kzt wrote:

ywing14 wrote:So they send a representative requesting GA protection for a certain date. Plenty of options were available to them. Hell voting against the Mandarins was there as well.

Not in the verge. You don't get a vote.

And if say 1600 systems all petition for protection, spread out over a volume of 50 million cubic light years, you'd accommodate them how? Keep in mind some of these systems are 200 light years from the nearest worm hole and >800 light years from the nearest of Haven, Manticore and Potsdam.

Give me some idea of how many ships you think Manticore or the AIN are willing to build, crew and dedicate to keeping peace in the galaxy without any recompense. Also keep in mind that you need 3 ships dedicated to the mission to keep one deployed all the time.

Or re you suggesting they pay the true cost of this in some sort of fee? kind of just like they paid the SL for the protection of Frontier Fleet?

Which brings us back to financing those verge and ex-protectorates systems own self defense. There is simply no other way to keep pirates out. Offer them export model warships and financing. Core Worlds that wish to join the GA can bear some of the increased responsibility for providing coverage for developing systems the GA membership believes ought to be accepted for various reasons.

kzt wrote:

ywing14 wrote:So they send a representative requesting GA protection for a certain date. Plenty of options were available to them. Hell voting against the Mandarins was there as well.

Not in the verge. You don't get a vote.

And if say 1600 systems all petition for protection, spread out over a volume of 50 million cubic light years, you'd accommodate them how? Keep in mind some of these systems are 200 light years from the nearest worm hole and >800 light years from the nearest of Haven, Manticore and Potsdam.

Give me some idea of how many ships you think Manticore or the AIN are willing to build, crew and dedicate to keeping peace in the galaxy without any recompense. Also keep in mind that you need 3 ships dedicated to the mission to keep one deployed all the time.

Or re you suggesting they pay the true cost of this in some sort of fee? kind of just like they paid the SL for the protection of Frontier Fleet?

I am not going to debate your point here because I agree with it. I meant the Core Worlds that me and Sigs have been discussing for like the last few pages. I believe the Core Worlds some responsibility for the war and had no options with which to fight it. I was responding to Sigs post where he stated they pretty much had no options. I was merely stating worlds within the SL had options to oppose the Mandarins and chose not to. The Verge is a totally separate beast.

I've repeatedly stated the GA should not become the new frontier security.

PeterZ wrote:

ywing14 wrote:So they send a representative requesting GA protection for a certain date. Plenty of options were available to them. Hell voting against the Mandarins was there as well.

Not in the verge. You don't get a vote.

And if say 1600 systems all petition for protection, spread out over a volume of 50 million cubic light years, you'd accommodate them how? Keep in mind some of these systems are 200 light years from the nearest worm hole and >800 light years from the nearest of Haven, Manticore and Potsdam.

Give me some idea of how many ships you think Manticore or the AIN are willing to build, crew and dedicate to keeping peace in the galaxy without any recompense. Also keep in mind that you need 3 ships dedicated to the mission to keep one deployed all the time.

Or re you suggesting they pay the true cost of this in some sort of fee? kind of just like they paid the SL for the protection of Frontier Fleet?

Which brings us back to financing those verge and ex-protectorates systems own self defense. There is simply no other way to keep pirates out. Offer them export model warships and financing. Core Worlds that wish to join the GA can bear some of the increased responsibility for providing coverage for developing systems the GA membership believes ought to be accepted for various reasons.[/quote]

I'm not sure how viable financing will be for them given the debt Manticore is running because of the Yawata strike. They've already stated in the books it'll take 20-30 years to pay it off. Throw in what happened to Beowulf and Grayson. I'm not sure how much debt they'll want to put themselves in. I know trade will be reopening now that the war is over but...

I think you might have to worry about turning the GA into a Giant Military Industrial complex if you try and arm all those worlds export models whatever.

ywing14 wrote:I think you might have to worry about turning the GA into a Giant Military Industrial complex if you try and arm all those worlds export models whatever.

The problem is that the export models don't exist. So real work has to go into building and testing them. The first problem the real world has shown is that export models are up-gradable to the full functionality, it's apparently an issue the USSR encountered several times.

The second problem is that if your export models don't provide a qualitative advantage over the current gear available from other sources for less then nobody is going to buy them, so you HAVE to be giving away part of your tech.

The third problem is that the Verge can't afford them, can't effectively operate them if they could afford them, or maintain them if the had them and operated them. These are not the equivalent of Saudi Arabia or Dubai (who can afford to buy top tier gear and the technical staff to maintain it), they are the equivalent of Niger, Haiti, or the Central African Republic. They have very limited industrial capability, limited educational attainment, very low GSP, marginally effective (at best) governments and militaries that are much more focused on keeping the current band of crooks in power than fighting outsiders.

Hence LAC's and missiles pods.

Cheap, better than anything they've seen, and can be made not actually SOTA. (Pre Grayson compensators, no bucklers, etc)

And visibly what the SEM are using for lesser systems in Talbot.

OK, the SEM are using SOTA, but the idea is still there.

Set up yards in Talbot and it's a good little economy boost.


Yes there are trade offs. Difficulty with stuff beyond the limit.
But for old verge worlds, it's a feasable soloution.

Sigs wrote:

n7axw wrote:
I'm not advocating either pacifism or gun control. But living in the midst of a situation where everyone is armed to the teeth and on a short fuse really is not conducive to public safety either. Living in the equivalent of a wild west town where the law has been run out of town and conflict is settled at high noon in the middle of main street really isn't my cup of tea.

Don

-

The point of arming most if not all of the verge is not simply or the sake of arming everyone, the point is to underscore the change in the relationship many in the protectorates and the verge had with the League and Frontier Security and the rest were expecting to someday share in the relationship as well.


If the GA were to declare every Verge and former protectorate free but under their protection would scream FF 2.0, if they abandoned the Verge it would turn into total anarchy. What I am proposing is arming everyone with the understanding that they are now responsible for their own protection from piracy at least. That would underscore the fact that they are free and their destiny is in their hands. If the GA were to assist and guide the verge into building up their industries and economies, 40 or 50 years down the road those same verge systems will be significantly better off than they are now, more to the point they will also be close to the GA and many would feel loyalty to the GA and their economies would be integrated with the GA as well.


At the end of the day bringing the verge up economically would also greatly benefit the GA economies in the long term, but more to the point it would add hundreds or thousands of systems as allies who would feel intense loyalty to the GA, systems that will only grow more powerful economically with every year and proportionally more powerful militarily as well. You would have systems with intense motivation to improve their situation so as to avoid falling under anyone else's control.


Arming them does several things:
1)Underscores they are now independent
2)That the GA is not the League and it is not Frontier Security
3)That if they want to remain independent they have to work towards strengthening their economy, society and military.

for many verge systems, giving them a chance no matter how slim would be taken and the GA might be rewarded with dozens or hundreds of success stories in the long run just like Grayson.

Not really arguing. Something does have to be done and I really don't have a good alternative. So...

Don

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