[eliex]

 It's kind off interesting to see the different variations of how the GTVA ever managed to get back to SOL - although it's not canon.
So thinking, I just wanted to address this properly - because if the jump node between Delta Serpentis and Sol was severed and all humanity and vasudanity were killed well, ta-da repopulation.

But if they survived and of course had NO idea of the GTVA, as it was formed years after the destruction of the Lucifer how would they react to GTVA search parties if they even managed to construct a Knossos.

Scene 1 - Hey you betrayed us all, kill them!
Scene 2 - Hey look daddy, there some unknown strangers out there but they sure look very . . . . um, nice.
Scene 3 - Welcome home, we have all missed you!

Maybe scene three because Alpha 1 has would have managed to tell the Earth authorities about the Lucifer and also the fact that
humans aren't exactly dumb.

[S-99]

Yeah, popping back onto earths doors could very well be met with hostility and caution. Most of the terran ships have been influenced by vasudan design. It would be intelligent to go on a diplomatic mission with say orions. Now, if the gtva still had the colossus, they could just go right back to earth without having to worry about meeting hostility or not.

The other thing that is a definite is that earth is working on a to re-open the sol node. Restabilization of the node is pretty much the same principal of the knossos. Earth or the gtva would come up with similar means to re-open the node.

Either way earth would definitely be cautious as hell seeing the sol node open up for no apparent reason when it's supposed to be shut having all of these new ships they've never seen before coming through. That's why going back to earth with familiar ships like the orion (fs1 gen ships) would be a good idea so that earthlings would know that it's humans coming back through. As opposed to a hecate going through and earth being a little undeterminate on which species that ship belongs to.

[stelthxxx]

I say come through the gate with a shivan ship that is automated to piss em off then come through with orions ^_^

[Fearless Leader]

I say come through the gate with a shivan ship that is automated to piss em off then come through with orions ^_^

 
they would be like "omg! that crazy old man was right!"

[jr2]

Orions escorted by Levis with Herc Mk 1 and Ulysses escort.  Followed very closely by Hecates and modern fighters & bombers, just in case:

A) Terrans are now hostile (ala Inferno)
B) The Shivans have returned to Earth using an alternate route

[terran_emperor]

Well, I'd send remote probes through to take a look at the place...See what's going on

Then, id try sending a message and awaiting the answer

Only once i was sure that it was safe would i send big ships through.

I agree that the 1st detachment should composed of FS1 era ships...just to show that we're still alive, then the newer ships

[eliex]

 Near the end of the Freespace 1 campaign, you can see some Vasudan warships.
Unless the Terrans killed them over time or that they eventually died out on Earth there would still be Vasudans right?  

Heh, like it's as if the fates of the GTVA are bound to the Shivans! Wherever they are, somehow mysteriously they always have to make a
fight out of a GTVA/Shivan encounter.

Like the Shivans are never bored of fighting GTVA troops.

[TrashMan]

I find it unlikely hostilities would arise. After all, hte Earth was nearly destoryed and was isolated. The end of the isolatation and the re-union wiht your bretheren is something every sane person would be looking forward to

[terran_emperor]

Well, hostilities could arise, l mean look at INF R1/Sol:a History/INF:A/INF SCP(when it comes out)

[TrashMan]

I said highly unlikely, not impossible....

[terran_emperor]

Let me site you another example - Coloney wars...Now i do admit that they were sealed in sol by a Massive Civil war...but still...its an example of how an isolated group can become militaristic expansionists

[AlphaOne]

Well i for one dont go for either one! If Earth was indee perhaps attacked by shivans or if they suddenly become hostile why aler the shivans/Earth forces that you have come back knocking on theyr door??


I say no just deploy 2 or 3 GTVA warflets that should be about 6 to 9 destroyers a bu8nch of corvettes and loeads of cruisers and stuff get in start scanning the sistem like a mad man and try to make contact woth anyone there. If they are friendly then by all mean they will be happy to see the GTVA so strong if they are enemies then by all means they should start fearing the GTVA in case they get any sort of crazy ideas like gooing up agains Orions or Hattie or even Hecates.

Lol i would love to see them stupid enough to actualy try and charge the fleet with fighter/bommbers only to find them gone at the hands of the Deimos corvettes hell they wouldnt even manage to cause any significat dammage to the fighter screen of the destroyers let alone actualy get a shot at one of them!


I would love to see the look on they face :" wtf...we had a couple of dozne fighters and bommbers headed that a sec ago did we knot??? Hey hold up whose taking out our warships theyr dropping like flyes..."

"Sir we have them weird looking smaller then a destroyer class warships kicking our asses all over the place (Iceni's ) and the destroyers havent even begun to take decive action....i think we should well run......." )

[Colonol Dekker]

 Maybe scene three because Alpha 1 has would have managed to tell the Earth authorities about the Lucifer and also the fact that
humans aren't exactly dumb.

The Lucy was around for weeks before the node went down

[Hellbender]

My feeling is there is potential for both peace and conflict, depending on how events transpire. There's some interesting factors to consider here.

Terra was undisputedly the central authority of the old GTA prior to the isolation of Sol.

The Home Fleet at Sol was probably at least twice as powerful as any other GTA fleet, and likely would have been heavily reinforced just before the jump node was cut off with both Terran and Vasudan units.

The Vasudan presence is hard to predict as to how they would react to being totally isolated from their Emperor as they place enormous importance on their ultimate leader.

There is enough tidbits in the back story to suggest that Terra had an enormous production capability, not to mention a well established research and development capacity. In 30 plus years, with the fear of extintion as a motivator, you can bet that Terra would not sit idle and wait for the Destroyers to come and take out the home system.

All of this is to point out that there would probably be an enormous and advanced Terran military presence in the home system, under control of a political entity that would not recognise BETAC or any other form of GTVA governing body's authority.

As to the need to send Great War relics through the Knossos Portal, well that's a bit silly. Regardless of what era vessel enters Sol space, they are going to be challenged and their credentials checked. It would be more probable that the GTVA would send a diplomatic mission through before visiting with any warships period. An Argo transport with a small fighter escort would be the likely first contact mission.

This is to suppose that Home Fleet does not detect the reactivation of the jump node and immediately send a task force through to secure the other terminus of the subspace passage. It's really not a good idea from a military standpoint to have your only exit route left in custody of a potentially hostile force, regardless of their identification and claimed intentions.

The fluff text idea that Terra would fall apart with their isolation from the colonies is not on very firm ground IMHO. We are talking about taking a major group of the human race out of circulation and leaving them with the motivation of possible extinction as the focus of their existence. It's my belief that apart from the terminally stupid who have some rosey picture that love will be their shield from the evil doers, the sane majority will jump on the military's side. Read a little history from the World War One and World War Two periods if you have doubts.

The biggest joker in the deck is good old fashioned human nature.

[TrashMan]

While Sol might be a political and production powerhouse, the GTVA has about 20 or so star systems and combined power of 2 races. Sol fighting against the GTVA? That would be not only terribly stupid but also suicidal.

Realisticly, Sol has no real chance in a war, it's simply outclassed in manpower, industry and versatility. It might be able to put up a good fight, but that's about it.

[Hellbender]

I wouldn't bet that Sol couldn't rough handle the GTVA under the right conditions. It took the GTVA a year and a half plus just to put down a rebellion by the NTF, and the NTF were not terribly well led or supplied with top notch troops. Bigotted malcontents rarely are capable of more than advanced bullying, and yet the GTVA acted like their drawers were around their ankles.

The GTVA also apparently learned little from the Great War. Half of their fleets or more were made up of upgraded (and that not terribly well done) relics. Their modern units do not really seem to be enormous improvements on the older ships.

They lost a destroyer and other capitol ships just trying to take down a single Shivan Ravana - that they comfortably outnumbered!

Evidence also suggests that the Terran side of the GTVA was not strongly cohesive. It is more than likely that several of the colonies would ally with Terra against the other colonies.

The GTA spent decades secure in the knowledge that their greatest enemy had been defeated. Sol did not. For all it knew, for the isolation time, the Shivans had conquered and destroyed the colonies. They would have spent their time building up and advancing their military, unlike the GTVA which had the luxury of complacency.

Then we have the Vasudans. They would most likely refuse to get involved in what they would view as a purely internal Terran matter, unless they felt threatened enough to come in on one side or the other. I don't think that it would be assured what side they would support either - they have had numerous differences with the Terran part of their alliance. They may also feel that Terra has a legitimate claim to GTA authority. The Vasudan Empire has a strong history of supporting their own centralization of government, and may feel that the colonies are behaving wrongly by not accepting the 'rightful' rulership of Terra.

[karajorma]

While Sol might be a political and production powerhouse, the GTVA has about 20 or so star systems and combined power of 2 races. Sol fighting against the GTVA? That would be not only terribly stupid but also suicidal.

Realisticly, Sol has no real chance in a war, it's simply outclassed in manpower, industry and versatility. It might be able to put up a good fight, but that's about it.

I wouldn't bank on that. The relationship between Sol and the rest of the systems of the GTA was never made clear. It could be that Sol was simply the most powerful of a relatively equal alliance of star systems. Or it could be that Sol was the powerhouse of the GTA with the others merely being colonies.

I seem to remember reading that Subspace was only discovered somewhere between 30-50 years before the start of the Great War but I can't remember where now. If true that probably wouldn't be enough time for the colonies to reach anywhere near the power of Sol.

Ten years after the end of The Great War the Luyten New Alliance was a major power. Luyten was uninhabited at the time of the great war. If a system can go from nothing to regional superpower in 10 years it doesn't say much for the power of the other regions. Yes some of that is going to be due to the rest of the former GTA falling apart after the disconnection from Earth but it's a pretty big stretch of the imagination to believe that powerhouse systems of the GTA could fall that far that fast.

Besides it only shows that if Sol didn't fall apart it would have a massive head start over the other former GTA regardless.

So yes, not only do I believe it's plausible that Sol could have the might to take on the GTVA and fight a protracted war similar to that the NTF did. You're the one who always likes to claim that a proper defence can hold any node, are you now going to claim that Sol couldn't hold their node against the GTVA using the techniques you're constantly claiming are so effective?

But I doubt that a defensive war is all Sol is capable of, I'll go further and say it's not unreasonable to say that if it came to a war they might be able to wipe out the GTVA fleet - especially if the Vasudans didn't get into it.

[AlphaOne]

well the thing is that you are posibli right! I mean look at the GTVA i mean they had to rebuild most of theyr industry shipyard facilaties develop the colonies set up new research stations the works ! And i must admit that they did a fenomenal job at it......well....the vasudans mostly .

Anyway Sol had more then 30 years at its disposal to do nothing but sit around and develop new technologies new weapons new everithing. Also since thry did not have to do much rebuilding in fact no rebuilding at all one might say you can rest asured they could very well not only be on equal footing with the GTVA but also ahead in many ways to the GTVA .

I remember reading somewhere that altough colonies were established outside of Sol sistem for some time before the end of the great war they were in no means anywhere near close to rival Sol . I clearly remember that it said somewhere that Sol was the powerhouse of the GTA with most of the shypyards research and mining operations beeing done there.

Whyle mining and research as well as some shypyards were obviously created outside of the Sol sistem they were but a mere shadow when compared to the power of Sol. Also remember that once the node to Sol was sealed the GTVA had to stop production of the Prometious cannon since the gasses and material needed for the Prometeus could not be found on any other GTVA sistem.

This sugests to me that while Sol was just one sistem they could of supplied close to 80% or more of the total resources needed for the war effort agains the vasudans duriong the great war.

This also leads me to the folowing question:

Exactly how many Orion class destroyers were stationed in Sol at the time of the Lucifer disaster ?? Well i for one have no idea but im willing to bet a lot of them. Also there is the posibilaty that some vasudan fleets would of been stationed in Sol sistem at the time of the Lucifers destruction in order to help protect the terran homeworld and peovide assistance with an eventual evacuation.

[TrashMan]

1. To blockade a node you have to know a node is there in the first place and have time to organize it.
The Sol-DS node collapsed. Earth ships would have no reason to blockade that part of space for 40 years or so.
If the GTVA opens the node and immediately send a large force trough they would secure a beachead, even if for some strange reason Sol had a small blockade there.

2. GTA vs. PVN led to a 14-year long war. That's Earth + all of it's colonies vs. Vasuda and it's colonies. Now we have Earth vs. everyone else. You really think they can match that? Obviously the GTVA built new ships and weapons so it's doing quite OK and has enough infrastructure.

3. Even assuming Earth faired excellently, IIRC the 1st fleet was stationed there (1-2 Destroyers). While Earth certanly didn't say still neither did the GTVA. There's also a question of how many ships would Earth build, since it's only one system. There's only a fixed numbers that is can support, or even more important - that it's willing to support. There's usually 1 fleet per system, and I kinda don't thing Earth will have 20+ destroyers at any point, especially after 40 years of no outside threat.

4. GTVA has terrans and vasudans working together on a large scale and also studying shivan tech. There are only several vasudan on Earth at best, and I doubt any of them are scientists. Regardless, the GTVA research potential is surely greater, even if Earth has the Lucy debris. It's not like GTVA hasn't captures and scanned a lot of newer shivan craft.

5. GTVA has node-collapsing ability. Earth wouldn't be able to make any credible attack under threat of a renewed isolation.

[Tantalus53]

There was a collapsed node in Beta Aquilae that collapsed before the Delta serpentis one did, correct?

Any one else think that because Beta Aquilae is the capital, the GTVA would build the knosses in its stronghold and capital system?