[General Battuta]

I thought this might help answer a few common questions.

Strategy and Tactics

The Size of the Terran Fleet
Ten NTF destroyers are mentioned in FreeSpace 2. (All are destroyed.) We know that Bosch took most of the Sixth Fleet over to the NTF, then gathered defectors from the neighboring systems - which we can impute as the Seventh, Eighth, and maybe Ninth fleets. Bosch had access to shipyards and any mothballed or recently decommissioned hulls (we know from dialogue in FS2 that some Great War era Orions were being decommissioned.) This gives us a realistic NTF fleet size of ~10-13 destroyers. This was adequate to present a strategic threat to the GTVA on the defensive.

By assuming that Bosch did not gather the whole strength of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th fleets but did secure the majority, and that some of his strength came from yards and mothballs, we can divide ~12 destroyers across 3 or 4 fleets to get a density of 3-4 destroyers per fleet.

The range of canonical fleet names, from Second to Twelfth, supplies us with a speculative minimum full size of the Terran fleet, assuming continuity. From this value we generate a total of 33-44 destroyers as of the FS2 era, with a presumable bias towards the lower end because it's doubtful each Fleet is a full-strength formation. This jives nicely with the NTF's size of 10-13 ships and the relative threat it poses to the GTVA: the Terran GTVA would have 20-odd destroyers remaining. 10 Terran GTVA destroyers are named in FS2.

By the time of Blue Planet, the Terran fleet has expanded, but we must also account for losses during the events of FreeSpace 2.




Logistical Limits - 3-5 GTVA Destroyers in Sol
The GTVA's ability to support its forward deployed warships is canonically limited.

The 242nd will escort a supply convoy as it makes its rendezvous with the GTVA Colossus. As we prepare the Colossus for the allied counterattack, we must handle the logistics of supplying and maintaining this warship. Convoys of transports, gas miners, and freighters have been deployed for this purpose.

The Colossus is obviously an extreme case, but nonetheless, it provides an abject example of the consequences of failure to guard logistical lines:

The NTF decimated our supply convoys, forcing Command to withdraw the Colossus and postpone our offensive against Admiral Koth and the Repulse. Your convoy lost all three vessels, a dismal failure by any measure.

The news from the capital in Beta Aquilae is not good. Support for a negotiated settlement is growing in the Security Council, even with the Colossus now operational. Opponents of the Colossus program denounce the project as a monstrosity prone to logistical failure. For Admiral Petrarch and the Aquitaine, this outcome could not be more disastrous.

The GTVA's ability to sustain its forces in a system is limited, in the Starcraft 'construct additional pylons' sense, by the speed and safety with which logistical assets can reach the front lines. The Great Umbilicus into Sol, combined with captured local assets, can sustain fuel and war materiel for 3-5 destroyers. Piling additional destroyers into the system would lead to starvation and scarcity, with a concomitant net reduction in combat effectiveness. The exception comes for strategic 'surges', in which deployments are limited to the short term.

These numbers line up with the quantity of GTVA destroyers we see directly engaged in combat operations in both theaters:

Nebula
Delacroix (destroyed after deployment), Aquitaine

Psamtik, Toeris, Memphis

Capella (note that this is a friendly system, densely populated by GTVA standards, with fleet infrastructure)
Colossus, Messana, Phoenicia, Vengeance, Carthage (BP also puts the Carthage in the nebular theater), Aquitaine

Zednanreh

Civil War (note, again that this theater spans multiple fronts, but the target systems are much less friendly)
Aeneas, Aquitaine, Colossus

Psamtik, Chnum

(presumably more)

These values suggest that the GTVA is unable to sustain many destroyers in a hostile system as of FS2. Some unmentioned destroyers may be present, but the numbers line up with the BP targets.




The Size of the UEF Economy

The Terran-Vasudan War, 14 years long, began almost immediately after first contact, and given the relative density of the node network, the interval between the discovery of node travel and first contact with the Vasudans was probably not long. From this we can conclude that the Terran species has, as of BP2, probably had interstellar travel for less than 100 years. Canonical information suggests that colonization programs pushed on during the war.

Capella is a 'densely populated system' by GTVA standards, with 250 million citizens. Earth has a population of 7 billion in the 21st century. If every single system in the GTVA was populated by 250 million humans, including Vasudan systems, the total human population of the GTVA would be ~7,250,000,000, or ~7 billion.

Earth's growth has doubtless slowed, but we must also account for the fact that Sol's colonies were developed before interstellar settlement and had time to populate. It is therefore almost mathematically inevitable that Earth's population alone exceeds that of the rest of the Terran GTVA, and that Sol's infrastructure, guided by Ubuntu computational models and untouched by the post-Capella depression, outmatches the GTVA's as a whole. But Ubuntu has not militarized its economy as reliably and determinedly as the GTVA, so its raw military output may not be easily comparable.

These simple differences in magnitude explain part of the GTVA's difficulty in bringing the war to a rapid resolution, as well as the Alliance's fear of the long-term soft power of the Federation.




Active Armor, Beam Overloads, and Jump Clocks

As early as FreeSpace 1, Terran technology apparently included miniaturized shields - the FS1 Stiletto is a shielded missile. Rather than simple passive armor or even the collapsed-core molybdenum of the Capella era, Blue Planet warships use a layered ecology of defensive subsystems that can adapt and respond to defeat incoming attacks: active armor.

Armor subsystems include dispersants to defeat beam attack, conformal plasma jets to degrade shot packaging, programmable colloidal suspensions that can detect and react to kinetic impacts, layers of sophisticated ceramic and other material, shield lamina that run across and through the ship's armor, and coagulant that can reinforce and even scab over damaged sections. The effectiveness of a warship's armor varies with the power allocated, the sensors available for defensive awareness, the effectiveness of enemy ECM and targeting - since FreeSpace 1 primary weapons have used sophisticated fire control to optimize their damage, as per the FS1 Prometheus - and the warship's heat load. A warship's toughness may change dynamically over the course of a mission as the ECM environment and the ship's own power allocation vary.

Beam overloads were demonstrated by the Colossus in FreeSpace 2. They are connected to another vital area of warship systems: heat accumulation and dissipation. Heat is a major concern for FreeSpace warships, whose massive internal volume and energetic systems create vast amounts of thermal waste. Ships must pace themselves in order to avoid catastrophic accumulations. Power, too, is a major concern, and the allocation of power is a key element of yet another vital system: the warship's jump drive.

A successful jump requires two primary factors - a charged jump drive and a navigational fix. Navigational fixes require computation and sensory assets. Selecting a course through subspace requires a ship to factor the relationship between a star system's physical configuration and the turbulent, loosely coupled topology of subspace. Because subspace responds unpredictably to energetic events and responds complexly to small changes in position or mass, jump solutions decay rapidly. Additional computation and power can be expended to improve a jump's precision.

Charging a jump drive is an expensive operation, and it oftens demands enough of a warship's power to negatively impact combat performance. Commanders face a choice between a committed engagement and the ability to withdraw. A jump drive can be flashed - a planned operation in which the drive is hot-loaded through a special secondary system, usually at considerable physical and energetic cost. Flashing a jump drive is a capability limited to certain vessels, generally only in situations of military emergency. Sprint drives take this technology one step further, incorporating multiple subspace components in parallel so that the drive can be rapidly cycled. 

A ship can also make a crash jump - a jump without a complete navigational solution, or with a rough navigational solution but an incomplete charge. These jumps are hazardous, both because subspace trajectories are often distorted by concentrations of mass and because an incorrectly calculated or executed jump can cause enormous structural strain.

Any warship commander fighting her ship faces a nearly zero-sum choice between four priorities: engaging the enemy, powering defensive systems, charging the jump drive, and dissipating waste heat.

The Shivans

Nagari
One of the primary referents for the Nagari process is the FS1 outro, where Alpha 1 has explicitly experienced all the Ancient monologues, and then describes additional knowledge of Shivans even beyond what's described in those monologues ('the Shivans can rebuild them'.) It's very odd that Alpha 1 has access to this information, since the Ancients are only linked to the Shivans in 'Reaching the Zenith', and the information isn't decoded until before 'Clash of the Titans', immediately before the race to stop the Lucifer. It's possible that Alpha 1's fighter carried copies of these Ancient recordings and that he (canonically he) watched them once reaching Earth, and that these records also described the Shivans rebuilding collapsed nodes. BP takes another tack, however, sticking to the canonical chronology of the Ancient cutscenes, and connecting Alpha 1's odd experiences to Lieutenant Ash, ETAK, and the Hammer of Light.

The Ancients

The FS1 Ancient cutscenes make it explicit that the Ancients expanded into space before discovering subspace: in fact, they filled up every accessible system. This implies a subluminal empire of vast extent, perhaps achieved through methods like seedships, von Neumann probes, or slowboat colonies. The Ancients may well have filled up the Milky Way - or at least some fraction - before going superluminal: they have literally nowhere else to go. On the other hand, some of the wording implies they still had chunks of the Milky Way to reach via subspace.

When they discovered subspace, the Ancients then made first contact and immediately began a program of xenocide, destroying at least one species within months. Contact with the Shivans followed sometime (?) thereafter. The Ancient empire at its peak spanned multiple galaxies - subspace gave them the galaxy and the universe.

The ramifications for Ancient culture are enormous: they must have existed for thousands of years as spacefarers before discovering subspace, but once they did xenocide was instantaneous and apparently inevitable. Subluminal colonies imply heterogeneity. One wonders what happened to those Ancients who were not on the colony that discovered subspace: were they assimilated into the expanding empire, or targeted and purged? What kind of mindset could drive this species?

[MatthTheGeek]

The FS1 Ancient cutscenes make it explicit that the Ancients expanded into space before discovering subspace: in fact, they filled up every accessible system.

We've already talked about this. You're assuming your own litteral-ish interpretation of the Ancients is "explicit" enough, when the canonicity of half the stuff in FS1 is already debatable, let alone vague transcriptions from long-gone aliens.

[General Battuta]

This thread's a great place for discussion, but these are the Blue Planet interpretations of the available canonical information.

Updated with info on Sol's population and economics.

[InsaneBaron]

The commentary on the Ancients cutscenes raises an interesting question. If Alpha 1 is picking these visions up via Nagari, who's transmitting them? Are they simply "residual signals" from the Ancients themselves? Is some other power deliberately sending him these messages?

[General Battuta]

Updated with information on warship systems.

[QuakeIV]

The commentary on the Ancients cutscenes raises an interesting question. If Alpha 1 is picking these visions up via Nagari, who's transmitting them? Are they simply "residual signals" from the Ancients themselves? Is some other power deliberately sending him these messages?

Perhaps an entity along the lines of ken.  Some anima probing around and transmitting information at things to see what happens.  [/blatant conjecture]

[InsaneBaron]

Perhaps the Vishnans did it themselves?

There's been a theory proposed, I forget by who, that the "main" FS universe could be an experiment. The Vishnans told the Shivans: "Ok, in this universe, we want the Humans to survive so we can experiment with creating a utopian society that could eventually yield us a replacement for the Brahmans. Oh, and could you isolate Sol here?"

The Shivans then "let" the Humans succeed at Good Luck (or at least gave the Humans a good chance).

To this end, either Vishnu or Shiva may have given "hints" to one Terran pilot. Not only would this have helped the Humans survive... remember that Alpha 1 ended up in Sol. His insights appear to have helped Mandho and the elders organize Ubuntu- in fact, he seems to have been among the founders of the Fedayeen.

[General Battuta]

I should add the weird canonical fact that jump nodes do not seem to obey classical orbital behavior! You can deduce this by comparing the position of the nodes in 'High Noon' to later missions featuring the same nodes.

[-Norbert-]

To this end, either Vishnu or Shiva may have given "hints" to one Terran pilot. Not only would this have helped the Humans survive... remember that Alpha 1 ended up in Sol. His insights appear to have helped Mandho and the elders organize Ubuntu- in fact, he seems to have been among the founders of the Fedayeen.

If that was the case, they'd have to do more than only send Alpha 1 those "cutscenes", since the information about Shivan shields not working came not from the visions, but from the data-archive that the Vasudans scientists found on some planet (was it Aldebaran?).

They'd have to at the very least also manipulate someone into going to that place and maybe they were even the ones who put the data there to begin with, along with enough other clues to make sure that the Terrans and Vasuands would be able to translate it.

[Rhys]

I should add the weird canonical fact that jump nodes do not seem to obey classical orbital behavior! You can deduce this by comparing the position of the nodes in 'High Noon' to later missions featuring the same nodes.

Theoretically, could a jump node could have the possibility of being within a planet for a short period of time? A destroyer could jump into a planet and explode from either crushing gravity or just falling to the ground and exploding. Fun.

[headdie]

I should add the weird canonical fact that jump nodes do not seem to obey classical orbital behavior! You can deduce this by comparing the position of the nodes in 'High Noon' to later missions featuring the same nodes.

you stated in the section about the realities of jump drives that subspace has its own laws which are only loosely related to our interpretation of space, Extrapolating this to the Inter system scale I imagine that this effect is greatly magnified.

Additionally with some speculation you could think of jump nodes as regions rather than points with one or perhaps more optimal points within that region (marked with the node marker) though in this scenario Missions like FS1's Exodus would need examining

[AdmiralRalwood]

To this end, either Vishnu or Shiva may have given "hints" to one Terran pilot. Not only would this have helped the Humans survive... remember that Alpha 1 ended up in Sol. His insights appear to have helped Mandho and the elders organize Ubuntu- in fact, he seems to have been among the founders of the Fedayeen.

If that was the case, they'd have to do more than only send Alpha 1 those "cutscenes", since the information about Shivan shields not working came not from the visions, but from the data-archive that the Vasudans scientists found on some planet (was it Aldebaran?).

First, it was Altair. Secondly, the knowledge came from both:

In subspace, they cannot use their shields. And into subspace they can be tracked.

Perhaps the Vishnans did it themselves?

There's been a theory proposed, I forget by who, that the "main" FS universe could be an experiment. The Vishnans told the Shivans: "Ok, in this universe, we want the Humans to survive so we can experiment with creating a utopian society that could eventually yield us a replacement for the Brahmans. Oh, and could you isolate Sol here?"

The Shivans then "let" the Humans succeed at Good Luck (or at least gave the Humans a good chance).

To this end, either Vishnu or Shiva may have given "hints" to one Terran pilot. Not only would this have helped the Humans survive... remember that Alpha 1 ended up in Sol. His insights appear to have helped Mandho and the elders organize Ubuntu- in fact, he seems to have been among the founders of the Fedayeen.

I don't know how likely this is, but it may be worth keeping in mind this exchange from UT2:

Spoiler:

Laporte: "Why didn't the Lucifer abandon its attack once we allied with the Vasudans?"
Ken: "There is no consideration for good intentions in the Shivan protocol. Strength earns survival. We defeated the Lucifer through cooperation, and so the Lucifer achieved its mission."
Shivan Node: "external heuristic injection: mandate node severance fallback. force binary isolation/extinction outcome"
Laporte: "External heuristic injection...? What's external to the Shivans?"

[Gee1337]

I've not read through all the posts but as some food for thought regarding heat disappation...

As we all know, energy cannot be used but only transformed from one form to another. So, we have the heat energy given off by beam weapons overloading. Why not convert the heat energy, into kinetic energy to turn a dynamo which can in turn transfer the kinetic energy back into electrical energy to power the jump drives, or to provide more power to other systems. (whether this is realistic/possible... perhaps someone could shed some light here)

As a thought for the above, maybe the UEF could take the above principle as it reverse engineers parts of the Carthage and the logistics ship that were captured, and put the above theory into practice for a new UEF Super Destroyer which could turn the tide of battle against the GTVA.

Discuss!

[headdie]

I've not read through all the posts but as some food for thought regarding heat disappation...

As we all know, energy cannot be used but only transformed from one form to another. So, we have the heat energy given off by beam weapons overloading. Why not convert the heat energy, into kinetic energy to turn a dynamo which can in turn transfer the kinetic energy back into electrical energy to power the jump drives, or to provide more power to other systems. (whether this is realistic/possible... perhaps someone could shed some light here)

As a thought for the above, maybe the UEF could take the above principle as it reverse engineers parts of the Carthage and the logistics ship that were captured, and put the above theory into practice for a new UEF Super Destroyer which could turn the tide of battle against the GTVA.

Discuss!

As a concept it is sexy as hell, I mean you have a solution that not only fixes your heat management issues but also provides a way of feeding energy back into the system which skirts very close to Deus Ex machina territory, but like Deus Ex machina when you start to examine it closely its a little too perfect, especially when it meets reality

firstly it is impossible to convert energy 100% and most processes involve heat as the largest component of waste energy

Secondly you are not just needing to manage the big stuff like weapons but also the little stuff like the soft squidgy things that walk around you 2 km long warship which individually produce a relatively small amount of heat but as an overall body distributed through the ship produce a lot of heat and the same will go with the electronics they carry, heating their food and all the little lights and subsystems that are found throughout the ship.

Thirdly how much space do you dedicate to this process?  Mechanical processes like dynamos tend to be big if you want to work with significant energy values, in addition to the size you are also dealing with a huge chunk of weight which then affects the ships ability to change velocity/heading.

[-Norbert-]

I imagine there's also a limit of how much heat you can "catch" with such a system each second and that overcharging your guns easily produced more heat than any such generator could handle.

[AdmiralRalwood]

It's called a "Brownian ratchet" and it doesn't work (if it did, it would violate thermodynamics).

[headdie]

A Brownian Ratchet calls for the entire system to be at the same thermal energy level which is not the case here, leaving aside Primary hotspots such as Reactor, Engines, weapons, machine shops, food storage/preperation areas and areas of signifgicant electronic activity which would need significant cooling but areas of the ship which maintain above mean crew density would provide secondary hotspots in addition, the reason these areas would maintain mean temperature would be through the climate control of the life support system, the central points of this system would be the points where heat conversion would be most efficient given that the gathered thermal energy would be significantly higher than the mean value.

[An4ximandros]

The paragraphs speaking about the ancients sound an awful lot like the Gaian Effort. Specifically, Kostadin Cell. They also sound like the GTVA, seeking to subvert the Federation into more of itself.

All of these also sound close to a cancer, including the inability to preserve its host. The Gaians were dependent on Mars and Earth's resources, which Kostadin had no qualms about annihilating once they became independent of the Federation Aid programs, the GTVA will be on Sol's if they prevail; but after the war, with the massive loss of assets and resources brought about by the scorched earth protocols enacted by both sides, will there be enough to left to keep the GTVA going? Even if, Human migration and growth will ensure its expansion.

It looks heavily as if the Shivans are there prevent dangerous homogeneous growth. While the Vishnans try to preserve favorable "mutations" for the time panontic function is restored, perhaps to increase the resilience of the new creators to preserve their existence?

I could probably formulate this better...but I am tired =d

In any case; Yay for more Battuta posts!

[Soulrheever]

Nothing says the "Brownian Ratchet" system would have to be "perfect". It could very easily operate at a realistic level without violating any laws of thermodynamics or being "OP". Just think of it like regenerative braking systems in electric cars: it doesn't completely eliminate the heat problem, but it does alleviate a portion of the strain and makes use of (some) of the excess energy.

Of course, such heat capture/transfer system would undoubtedly be expensive, complicated, and bulky... so it probably wouldn't be cost effective for any sort of mass-produced warship, especially considering how much the strategic nature of warfare is shifting towards faster, more high-performance craft rather than the behemoth tanks of the old days.

[Gee1337]

I understand that not all the energy could be captured, as that is a physical impossibilty. But as previously said, a large portion could potentially be captured and fed back into critical systems.

I've thought about the dynamics of how this would work and some kind of super conductive material would be required for the process to actually transfer the energy from one portion of the ship to the other, therefore meaning that the framework for super conductors would need to be extracting the heat from the beam weapon(s) to another part of the ship where that heat can be transferred to back into the power system (hence the suggestion of a dynamo). The way I see it, a reservoir of water would be needed to turn the dynamo, then the steam (haha... steam powered spaceships ) would then need to be condensated back into water, which could be done via the natural environment of space (why use machinery to cool things when you have a sub zero environment to do it for you). The condensated water would then feed back into the reservoir to replace the water which has been boiled.

The expense about such a solution might not actually be that high. Basic piping could do the job of transferring the water around the ship. The most expensive part would be the thermal super conductors as I imagine you would be using an expensive/rare element to transfer the heat (I presume something metallic).

But wait a moment, this is science fiction, so lets throw another element into the mix! So, rather than using thermal super conductors, why could the human race not have advance to the point where they can use use... "thermal hyper conductors"... which could be a metal compound or even an alloy used to transfer vast amounts of heat very quickly, composed of elements/materials that we in the 21st Century are not even aware of?!