Financing the rebuilding of the SKM and Grayson industry

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:Actually a single LAC wing will probably handle 98-99% of traditional Pirates. It has enough presence units to cover most interesting locations in a system simultaneously, and support crew and maintenance rotations. A single modern LAC can rip a hole in a classic DD/CL, and a squadron can easily handle most of such ships.

The average Pirate is a old FG/DD/CL or 2 and runs on margins - they are not directly supported by governments and can not get free repairs or replenishment. Tangling with a warship, any warship, even if they "win", is a loss for them, as their own ship will need to be repaired out of their pockets. And that one missile that was fired - it just cost every member of the pirate crew $3000.

And Pirates can only flourish where a number of things are favorable to them. You can almost think of it like a fire triangle; remove any component (fuel, oxygen, or heat) and the fire dies.

Pirates need:
1) sufficient valuable prey to consistently turn a profit
2) sufficiently safe areas to lay in wait for that prey (normally in normal space in the periphery of star systems)
3) sufficiently non-existent or slow reaction times to enable them to capture and escape with their prey
4) systems willing to turn a blind eye to fencing of the pirated cargo and ships
5) businessmen willing to finance the piracy
6) arms merchants willing to provide ammo and yard maintenance/repair

Take any of those away and piracy in that area will rapidly die. Even a few squadrons of old-style LACs were enough to make 2 & 3 problematic for Pirates. Sure the pirates would almost always be able to run from the LACs. But while running they're not grabbing prey, or having the time to capture ships and cargo.

I suspect that in most of the League systems, even if they don't have much of a SDF, piracy won't be much of an issue because potential pirates will be missing out on the support side of those requirements. That League or Shell worlds; even ones that left the League aren't likely to become havens of support for pirates. And most verge worlds don't get enough traffic to make it cost effective for pirates to try to hunt there even if there's no system defenders to try to chase them off.

Silesia was a special case, the perfect storm of weak corrupt central government, combined with enough economic power to generate sufficient trade to prey upon; topped off with a balance of power of the surrounding systems that kept any of them from stepping in an ending the long festering situation. That combination is probably quite rare in the universe - so most places won't have that kind of piracy problem.

([i]Unless the Malign artificially creates a piracy/covert commerce raiding threat[i] then they don't need to worry about economic viability they just need to produce the fear and concerns about safety that they can then exploit. If they go down that route then systems will need defenses must closer to the anti-raiding levels you discussed)

And as we later found out, the other great source of "Piracy" in the Verge was the SLN pretending to be pirates, creating artificial situations which, in turn, pushed their targets into the hands of a protectful OFS. Under Case Buccaneer, Frontier Fleet created the piracy they were chasing. The one verge system that had it's orbitals denuded by "Pirate Dan" (IIRC), which caused the planet to enter the protection deals with the transstellars and the SLN was probably one of those cases. True pirates work in anonymity, they slink in and out unnoticed - if they stick their heads up and get on anyone's radar, they get hammered by the forces that be.

kzt wrote:A freighter alone, without 6 million tons of aircars, is worth several billion. So you don't need to consistently turn a profit, you just need to get lucky once. Assume cargo is 1 million aircars you can just about give away for $10,000 each, you have just made 62 billion or so. Assume owner gets half, and divide by the 200 crew. Each gets $155 million.

How many trips are you going to sign up for after that?

I'm fairly certain that due to the bribes and layers of cutouts and fences, the pirates only see pennies on the dollar. Nothing in the cargo will be sold at anything near full price; most ships will be parted out and the hull scrapped - or else heavily modified so it cannot be easily identified and sold under cost to someone willing to take the risk with a bargain craft with bad papers.

But you are right, even at 1 penny on the dollar, each average pirate should see 1.5 million - enough to make anyone comfortable for awhile, even if they are not smart about it.

Theemile wrote:
And as we later found out, the other great source of "Piracy" in the Verge was the SLN pretending to be pirates, creating artificial situations which, in turn, pushed their targets into the hands of a protectful OFS. Under Case Buccaneer, Frontier Fleet created the piracy they were chasing. The one verge system that had it's orbitals denuded by "Pirate Dan" (IIRC), which caused the planet to enter the protection deals with the transstellars and the SLN was probably one of those cases. True pirates work in anonymity, they slink in and out unnoticed - if they stick their heads up and get on anyone's radar, they get hammered by the forces that be.

The SLN wont be picking any fights for at least a decade or two while they try to catch up technologically and rebuild their confidence. The last thing they would want to do is provoke the GA to go back and dismantle the League and the SLN.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:A freighter alone, without 6 million tons of aircars, is worth several billion. So you don't need to consistently turn a profit, you just need to get lucky once. Assume cargo is 1 million aircars you can just about give away for $10,000 each, you have just made 62 billion or so. Assume owner gets half, and divide by the 200 crew. Each gets $155 million.

How many trips are you going to sign up for after that?

I'm fairly certain that due to the bribes and layers of cutouts and fences, the pirates only see pennies on the dollar. Nothing in the cargo will be sold at anything near full price; most ships will be parted out and the hull scrapped - or else heavily modified so it cannot be easily identified and sold under cost to someone willing to take the risk with a bargain craft with bad papers.

But you are right, even at 1 penny on the dollar, each average pirate should see 1.5 million - enough to make anyone comfortable for awhile, even if they are not smart about it.

If you no longer have the protection of the League allowing someone to support piracy in any way shape or form from your system is a sure way to bring down the GA, and everyone of your neighbours for a visit. I don't think most core/shell worlds will want to bring about a tit for tat game with the rest of the newly independent systems, the GA and the League even if they weren't worried about retaliation. Besides I suspect that most core/shell worlds can quickly scrape enough ships and semi-trained manpower to man a few hastily build LAC's even if they are obsolete compared to what the GA has or is willing to provide.

Then there is the verge where piracy might be a problem but once LAC's make an appearance piracy would die down due to the lack of repair facilities, difficulty of acquiring weapons and low as of yet traffic and low value of goods. By the time the verge becomes a significant target for pirates most if not all systems should be multiple LAC squadrons and at the very least multiple DD's/CL's and CA's.

Sigs wrote:
Then there is the verge where piracy might be a problem but once LAC's make an appearance piracy would die down due to the lack of repair facilities, difficulty of acquiring weapons and low as of yet traffic and low value of goods. By the time the verge becomes a significant target for pirates most if not all systems should be multiple LAC squadrons and at the very least multiple DD's/CL's and CA's.

I think you overestimate how easy it is to spot them. A single missile pod is all you need. You can lose a Nimitz class CVN in the dark corners of a freighter hold. Hiding a missile pod is trivial.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:
Then there is the verge where piracy might be a problem but once LAC's make an appearance piracy would die down due to the lack of repair facilities, difficulty of acquiring weapons and low as of yet traffic and low value of goods. By the time the verge becomes a significant target for pirates most if not all systems should be multiple LAC squadrons and at the very least multiple DD's/CL's and CA's.

I think you overestimate how easy it is to spot them. A single missile pod is all you need. You can lose a Nimitz class CVN in the dark corners of a freighter hold. Hiding a missile pod is trivial.

Ok so what would one mmissile pod or even a dozen accomplish? The Pirates may destroy a handful of LAC's and will earn the rath of the GA and a dozen or more real, modern warships which will hunt down the pirates and take them out. All the while they likely didnt capture anything that was worth all that much and couldent sell it for anything close to market price even if it was worth something.

Pirates dont want battles because even if they take out 2 or 3 LAC's in the initial salvo if those LAC's reply in kind and damage the pirate ship so it cant escape into hyper and it has nowhere to go and it's options are fight the remainder of the SDF which could be 10 or more LAC's, surrender or trying to run from the LACs in the hopes of making repairs and getting out of there.

I use the missile pod to shoot freighters. I don't need a fire control system, and freighters dont have ECM or sidewalls and basically can’t manuver. I stick it out with a tractor and bam, i got me a freighter. Or it blows up and maybe the next one will be smarter.

I need to go some place i park the missle pod some where or just blow it up. No evidence of my being a pirate, just got me a really good deal on a million new aircars i’ll sell you at 75% off wholesale. Then maybe i’ll just abandon my ship and go relax on my new estate.

This thread has wandered like a grav wave, and I don't have Warshawski sails so here's my dodging thoughts:

1: MAlign, the real enemy, is a three phase operation (subterfuge & corruption, individual world recruitment, and Massive Multisystem Overpower "Renaissance" Protection Gambit (MMORPG). The counter to the first insidious thrust is treecats giving hints to the human assistant questioning world-level bureaucrats.
2: Non-military hulls (freighters) and non-military production were not (IIRC) damaged, so consumer and industrial goods should be as abundant after OB as before .:. the income of the Kingdom/Empire by manufacture, shipping and selling should still be considerable. I see Klaus et amici building hulls to sell stuff from Talbott to Midgard/Matapan/Asgard/Andermani empire/SL etc. I see an economic boom.
3: ALL manufacture of ALL goods throughout the RH can now move via Trevor's to ALL the termini as profitably as can Manticoran goods. This means the appetite of the SL can be fed through MWHJ and Erewhon, without pre-war or during-war limitations. I see a financial boom here.

Remember: most of the SL citizens and worlds could care less about the military/political events amongst neo-barb fringe worlds so long as they can get the best chocolate at the best price. Outside of the bureaucrats directly and indirectly affected, the military embarrassment is irrelevant to most SL citizens and worlds.

TheMadPenguin wrote:2: Non-military hulls (freighters) and non-military production were not (IIRC) damaged, so consumer and industrial goods should be as abundant after OB as before .:. the income of the Kingdom/Empire by manufacture, shipping and selling should still be considerable. I see Klaus et amici building hulls to sell stuff from Talbott to Midgard/Matapan/Asgard/Andermani empire/SL etc. I see an economic boom.

I thought that we had the word from RFC that Oyster Bay eliminated almost all production, including non-military goods, in the Manticore system!?

tlb wrote:I thought that we had the word from RFC that Oyster Bay eliminated almost all production, including non-military goods, in the Manticore system!?

It varies by when David discussed it. Originally they were down to basically HS shop classes for industrial plant is the SKM. (OK, not quite...) To quote David: "It's as if instead of destroying obsolete battleships at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had somehow managed to blow up every manufacturing plant in the continental United States and kill the entire workforce from every one of those plants. The steel mills are still there. The coal mines and the oil wells, the iron mines and the farms, but Ford, GM, the New York Navy Yard, Bethlehem Steel's shipbuilding facilities, Northrop, Grumman, North American, Boeing -- all of them and their competitors -- and everyone who worked in their plants are simply… gone. And the only way to reconstitute the capacity that's been lost is to regenerate the slaughtered workforce as well as the physical plant."


Then this was retconed to all military and the great majority of non-miltary manufacturing. But at no point has he said Manticore can manufacture anything for export until they rebuild their facilities.

I personally think that David is cheating a lot here. Essentially the situation is this:
All the investments that the SKM has spend the last few centuries building is GONE. That is decades of GSP gone poof. These presumably are insured, so either the entire SKM insurance industry and the banking system goes bankrupt or they refuse to pay for anything.

Which kind of makes it hard to rebuild.

All the expert manufacturing engineers, most design engineers and virtually every hands-on person involved in manufacturing is dead. Any critical information that wasn't written down and was shared insider data is gone. All the design tools and resources are gone. It will take 4 years to train more engineers, and somehow I doubt they have the instructors/facilites to train 50X to usual class size. It will probably take more like 10 years to produce the experienced people you rely on to keep things working and solve issues as they arise.

The SKM has cleverly invested it's great wealth out of system, investing in the highly productive economies and companies. Who they are at war with, so they can't get that money and can't count on ever getting access to it.

The SEM merchant fleet has been recalled from 95% of human space that has an economy that is worth sending an 8MT ship to. Every RMM ship in the SL also lost their enormous bond posted to assure delivery, on the order of several billion per ship. The operating costs and notes on those ships still have to be paid, which is hard with 2000% overcapacity in the parts of human space they have access to. So most every merchant shipping interest goes bankrupt. Every financial service firm that predominately services this industry goes bankrupt when every loan stops performing.

The export and financial industries mostly service the SL, who they are at war with and hence, even before they got all blowed up, they have greatly reduced trade.

The mining and other resource production industries exist, but they have no customers. So they basically shut down, lay off 95% of their employees and try to avoid going bankrupt.

So essentially there is no money coming into the SKM, waves of mass bankrupcies and most of the surviving workforce is going to get laid off.

So basically they are seriously screwed, and there isn't any obvious way out besides plot.

Note that the RMN continues to operate as if they have a full logistics capability. There is no concern with node wear, drone usage rates or generally any sign that the RMN in the field has any concern about the fact that all their factories got blowed up.