Jonathan_S wrote:I wouldn't be surprised very if Masada had managed to steal that tech -- they had people deeply buried in various parts of Grayson government and it'd be surprising if they didn't have any in shipbuilding or the military. So if they'd wanted to steal it they probably could have.Maldorian wrote:
If the Grayson Compensator was invented after the slit up with Masada, the Masadians would still have the tec. Masada and Grayson were at war for qa long time. I bet Masada get one of the Grayson Compensators in their hands.
The big difference would be, that the knowledge of the Compensator wouldn´t be common technical knowlege, but somewere buried in an archiv with a topic like "matching Grayson Compensator with Compensators delivered by the silesians".
With other words: If Masada had the Compensator tec at the first travel to masada and used them to today = good chance to get that tec.
If the tec is buried somewere in a database unused = very low chance to get the data.
Though remember that even as late as when Honor arrived in Yeltsin the Grayson compensators were less effective than those of the wider galaxy. They had more development potential - but at their current state of development they weren't as good. So while Masada would definitely need compensator technology they don't have to steal Grayson's in particular for their military to remain competitive. (And make no mistake, failing to match Grayson's acquisition of wedge and compensator tech would put Masada's navy at a fatal disadvantage)
Now stealing it from Grayson might still have been their approach; since they were even more isolated than Grayson they might not have had any other source.
OTOH Masada is also more ruthless so they might have gotten the tech through means Grayson wouldn't stoop to. (Say killing off the entire crew of a visiting freighter in order to steal its tech and reverse engineer it for military purposes). Without knowing we don't know Masada is a potential source of the tech. Though if they are they're still under pretty tight Manticoran control; so going after the tech there is still potentially risky. But more importantly the Grayson compensator still took a couple of years of research from Manticore before realizing even the first improvements. Assuming your researchers were as good and Manticore's you'd still be almost 20 years behind the curve. If possible you'd want to get your hands on something more recent so you don't have to redo 2 decades of R&D
Assuming, of course, you knew that the Grayson compensator was the key to unlocking Advanced Comps, and know the History of Grayspn/Masada enough to look there for it.
We know in 1906, Haven had it's eve on Masada for part 2 of Stalking Horse - and no mention was made of the Grayson compensator. One would have thought that if the secret origin of the Manty compensator was known, capturing a Masadian ship - any ship, even a slow, intersystem ore boat still in use working for the Masadian system infrastructure, would be a principle target for Stalking Horse, or a later deep raid... but it was never mentioned. So perhaps, no one knows the true origins of the technology, or that Masada might still have it....