Granger at Diyu - SPOILER

An idle shipyard is temptation irresistible.
Commander Granger doesn't seem one to twiddle her thumbs when she is left in charge of the ship yard at Diyu / Yuxi. An extra FTLC might come in handy, even if not full speed. She could use the complex to build singularity manifolds, missiles, and Hauptman-drive drones. Better to have too much than not enough.
In chapter 21, we learn that Golbniu Alpha (the mine station) has 5 times the mass of Ishtar, and was fitted with a low powered civilian grade Fasset drive which could move the entire station across the star system.
This implies that New Dublin has the technology and tools to build a (low powered, i.e cheap) Fasset drive. If we assume that Granger has some ability to repair her Fasset drives, it is tempting to speculate that she might add one or more FTLC's to her command.
The yard at Diyu is highly automated, so spending some technicians to build a set of singularity manifolds for an FTLC is plausible. Callum estimated thousands of hours to build mil-spec. If it takes 2,700 hours to build a manifold, that would be 112.5 days. About the round trip time to New Dublin (8 weeks each way). Granger could have one (or many) ready before anyone would return. If Granger upgraded each of her parasite crews to FTLC, she could staff 8 FTLC's.
The adventure at Alramal identified 2500 manifolds. These were able to outfit 40 – 50 FTLC's. So they need 50 – 60 manifolds for each FTLC. Try 60 for an estimate. The yard is huge, big enough to build 50 FTLC, 300 Battleships, and 300 Battlecruisers, in parallel. If she could build 480 manifolds in parallel, Granger could build enough for 8 FTLC's.
Callum also mentioned that commercial were half price, i.e take less time, craftsmanship than mil-spec. (A Fasset drive on Golbniu Alpha implies it can be even cheaper?) If the time to build a singularity manifold is much more than 2,700 hours, it would make sense to build a set of commercial manifolds. Start one set of commercial, and a set (sets?) of mil-spec.

I started out with the idea of several civilian grade FTLC, but the more I looked at the numbers (mostly the long time before anyone should come) the better it looked. A round trip (New Dublin to Diyu) is 16 weeks. Diyu was closer to Federation than League space. So Granger expects someone from New Dublin before anyone from the League.
League ships Bailong & Sun Bin lost their Fasset drives in the battle at New Dublin. If one or both can be repaired, they would make a good start on sending staff to Diyu.
A ship yard that can build 50 FTLC (& parasites) fleets would be a huge prize. The Free Worlds Alliance needs this fighting strength to secceed from the Federation and not get crushed immediately. A good way to defend the 40 FTLC's and their parasites at Diyu is to staff the yard and build.

Lego2Gpa wrote:An idle shipyard is temptation irresistible.
Commander Granger doesn't seem one to twiddle her thumbs when she is left in charge of the ship yard at Diyu / Yuxi. An extra FTLC might come in handy, even if not full speed. She could use the complex to build singularity manifolds, missiles, and Hauptman-drive drones. Better to have too much than not enough.
In chapter 21, we learn that Golbniu Alpha (the mine station) has 5 times the mass of Ishtar, and was fitted with a low powered civilian grade Fasset drive which could move the entire station across the star system.
This implies that New Dublin has the technology and tools to build a (low powered, i.e cheap) Fasset drive. If we assume that Granger has some ability to repair her Fasset drives, it is tempting to speculate that she might add one or more FTLC's to her command.

Not necessarily. That Fasset drive core, especially the singularity manifolds, may have been acquired from a supplier elsewhere in the Federation. There is such a thing as civilian shipping and therefore there must be a supplier for all those merchants. It's exactly the kind of thing the central government in Olympia would NOT want the fringe to be making. If they can become self-sufficient in trade and could conceive of making the jump to warships, it would give them all the wrong ideas.

Moreover, if even the pirates beyond the Blue Line have Fasset drives, it mustn't be too difficult to acquire them. And yet it must be difficult to make them, especially military drives. If it weren't, then the Rish wouldn't have had to supply the League with components.

The yard at Diyu is highly automated, so spending some technicians to build a set of singularity manifolds for an FTLC is plausible. Callum estimated thousands of hours to build mil-spec. If it takes 2,700 hours to build a manifold, that would be 112.5 days. About the round trip time to New Dublin (8 weeks each way). Granger could have one (or many) ready before anyone would return. If Granger upgraded each of her parasite crews to FTLC, she could staff 8 FTLC's.

That assumes that Diyu has the materials and tools available to make them. And we know for a fact that something is missing there. You may be right that it was simply resource allocation: concentrate the Diyu capabilities on the hardware and import the singularity manifolds from elsewhere. This would be something the Rish could have insisted on, since it kept the League dependent on them.

But I doubt it. Given enough tools, time, and resources, you can use the tools to make the other tools you need for other things you need. But we don't know what material supplies are required to make singularity manifolds. That may be something that isn't available at Diyu and the nearest mine for it is at impractical distance, not to mention you'd need a mining ship and transport (assuming it's something you mine). For example, it could be that to make a singularity, you need a singularity (a black hole), so you need to send ships to a BH system to do something there.

The adventure at Alramal identified 2500 manifolds. These were able to outfit 40 – 50 FTLC's. So they need 50 – 60 manifolds for each FTLC. Try 60 for an estimate. The yard is huge, big enough to build 50 FTLC, 300 Battleships, and 300 Battlecruisers, in parallel. If she could build 480 manifolds in parallel, Granger could build enough for 8 FTLC's.
Callum also mentioned that commercial were half price, i.e take less time, craftsmanship than mil-spec. (A Fasset drive on Golbniu Alpha implies it can be even cheaper?) If the time to build a singularity manifold is much more than 2,700 hours, it would make sense to build a set of commercial manifolds. Start one set of commercial, and a set (sets?) of mil-spec.

Military ships with civilian-grade drives are a possibility.

A ship yard that can build 50 FTLC (& parasites) fleets would be a huge prize. The Free Worlds Alliance needs this fighting strength to secceed from the Federation and not get crushed immediately. A good way to defend the 40 FTLC's and their parasites at Diyu is to staff the yard and build.

No doubt.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Lego2Gpa wrote:An idle shipyard is temptation irresistible.
Commander Granger doesn't seem one to twiddle her thumbs when she is left in charge of the ship yard at Diyu / Yuxi. An extra FTLC might come in handy, even if not full speed. She could use the complex to build singularity manifolds, missiles, and Hauptman-drive drones. Better to have too much than not enough.
In chapter 21, we learn that Golbniu Alpha (the mine station) has 5 times the mass of Ishtar, and was fitted with a low powered civilian grade Fasset drive which could move the entire station across the star system.
This implies that New Dublin has the technology and tools to build a (low powered, i.e cheap) Fasset drive. If we assume that Granger has some ability to repair her Fasset drives, it is tempting to speculate that she might add one or more FTLC's to her command.

Not necessarily. That Fasset drive core, especially the singularity manifolds, may have been acquired from a supplier elsewhere in the Federation. There is such a thing as civilian shipping and therefore there must be a supplier for all those merchants. It's exactly the kind of thing the central government in Olympia would NOT want the fringe to be making. If they can become self-sufficient in trade and could conceive of making the jump to warships, it would give them all the wrong ideas.

Moreover, if even the pirates beyond the Blue Line have Fasset drives, it mustn't be too difficult to acquire them. And yet it must be difficult to make them, especially military drives. If it weren't, then the Rish wouldn't have had to supply the League with components.

The yard at Diyu is highly automated, so spending some technicians to build a set of singularity manifolds for an FTLC is plausible. Callum estimated thousands of hours to build mil-spec. If it takes 2,700 hours to build a manifold, that would be 112.5 days. About the round trip time to New Dublin (8 weeks each way). Granger could have one (or many) ready before anyone would return. If Granger upgraded each of her parasite crews to FTLC, she could staff 8 FTLC's.

That assumes that Diyu has the materials and tools available to make them. And we know for a fact that something is missing there. You may be right that it was simply resource allocation: concentrate the Diyu capabilities on the hardware and import the singularity manifolds from elsewhere. This would be something the Rish could have insisted on, since it kept the League dependent on them.

But I doubt it. Given enough tools, time, and resources, you can use the tools to make the other tools you need for other things you need. But we don't know what material supplies are required to make singularity manifolds. That may be something that isn't available at Diyu and the nearest mine for it is at impractical distance, not to mention you'd need a mining ship and transport (assuming it's something you mine). For example, it could be that to make a singularity, you need a singularity (a black hole), so you need to send ships to a BH system to do something there.

The adventure at Alramal identified 2500 manifolds. These were able to outfit 40 – 50 FTLC's. So they need 50 – 60 manifolds for each FTLC. Try 60 for an estimate. The yard is huge, big enough to build 50 FTLC, 300 Battleships, and 300 Battlecruisers, in parallel. If she could build 480 manifolds in parallel, Granger could build enough for 8 FTLC's.
Callum also mentioned that commercial were half price, i.e take less time, craftsmanship than mil-spec. (A Fasset drive on Golbniu Alpha implies it can be even cheaper?) If the time to build a singularity manifold is much more than 2,700 hours, it would make sense to build a set of commercial manifolds. Start one set of commercial, and a set (sets?) of mil-spec.

Military ships with civilian-grade drives are a possibility.

A ship yard that can build 50 FTLC (& parasites) fleets would be a huge prize. The Free Worlds Alliance needs this fighting strength to secceed from the Federation and not get crushed immediately. A good way to defend the 40 FTLC's and their parasites at Diyu is to staff the yard and build.

No doubt.

I would expect that the tall pole in building singularity manifolds is in the exotic matter required. Military drives require even more exotic matter than commercial units. Pace Callum, there's no evidence that the Diyu yard has the capacity of building singularity manifolds at all, never mind the thousands required for the fifty FTLCs waiting for them.

In chapter 39, Xing's two crippled ships are repaired by the yard. They have some ability to work with / repair manifolds.
"My senior engineer’s been doing a virtual tour of the yard capabilities here. No manifolds, thanks to you, but unless their Fasset drives are damaged a lot more badly than it looks like they are, they could probably plug in new nodes—enough to get them up to a decent turn of speed in wormhole space, anyway—in only two or three weeks. You’d recoup all that time just on the way back to New Dublin.”

Easy assumption is that the Rish built the manifolds because the League was limited. And Rish manifolds are better.

Lego2Gpa wrote:An idle shipyard is temptation irresistible.
Snip ....
A ship yard that can build 50 FTLC (& parasites) fleets would be a huge prize. The Free Worlds Alliance needs this fighting strength to secceed from the Federation and not get crushed immediately. A good way to defend the 40 FTLC's and their parasites at Diyu is to staff the yard and build.

Having his own shipyard to play with might be attractive to Vyom, rather than the management role that his mother and grandfather seem to have laid out for him. Even if it is way out in the middle of nowhere, in what is actually Alliance claimed space.