Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: SaltyWaffles on September 29, 2012, 05:57:25 pm
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The Rift (tech entry) implies that a major point of criticism/division between the Vasudans and Terrans is that the Tevs focused so much resources and effort into the Sol Gate project instead of preparing for another Shivan incursion.
Makes sense, yes, but there seems to be one piece missing from the picture--what have the Vasudans done with their resources and effort to prepare for another Shivan incursion? I ask this because there are a lot of conflicting signs about this dynamic--the Tevs have the TEI, an entire new generation of ships and fighters, the Balor, new beam weapons and pulse weapons, etc.--but the Vasudans have only shown or been mentioned to have pulse turrets of their own and a less combat-oriented logistics vessel class, despite having a much stronger economy/culture, etc.
Now, it's completely reasonable for the Shepsakaf and its group's ships to merely be an older, non-frontline unit. Heck, just look at the Meridian's battlegroup--same thing. But--and correct me if I'm wrong--there hasn't been any mention for Vasudan advancements or major preparations beyond 'reforming the Medjai' (until more is known, it's hard to figure out what that exactly means in practical terms).
The Tevs could also make the argument that, by bringing Sol back into the GTVA, they'd gain a massive industrial/resource/population/morale boost, for the entire GTVA. They could also say that the huge gains in scientific and technological progress in the field of subspace are major benefits for defending against the Shivans in themselves. Given this, alongside the TEI and its overt successes, I'm a tad confused about the dynamic expressed in The Rift. The cultural divide makes sense and adds up just fine, but the military aspect doesn't quite add up to me.
If I'm stupidly overlooking some points/info/implications, feel free to copy-paste and make me facepalm at my derping.
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The Sol jump gate was enormously expensive, and the project combined with the Capella refugee situation sent the Terran half of the GTVA spiraling into a depression that by many indications could have been entirely avoided with some more prudent use of resources. That'd get a wag of my finger toward the Terran half of the GTVA if I were the Vasudans, most definitely.
EDIT: expensive, not effective.
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I am sure the BP team can give a more indepth answer but the short form is that the Vasudans invested heavily in their economic recovery after the NTF and Capella where as the Terrans got hung up on the idea of returning home which took up a signifficant proportion of their economy and so for a second time the Terran economic recovery was dramatically slower than theirs which in it's own way hindered theirs slightly.
Now I am at a loss to parts of your post which seem to imply the Vasudans have not made any advancement in their military tech when we have seen to my mind only two Vasudan ships in the entirety of BP, one the brand new logistics vessle mirroring the Terrans and a Hatshepsut which was noticibly better than the Hecate that the Terrans are still sticking on the front lines, in short we have not seen enough to comment either way and the Vasudan line up was probably still very fluid until significantly into the WiH pt2 development process. lets face it the UEF ship seen at the end of AoA has vertually nothing to do with it's WiH incarnation so we know that they will make changes to things when they are not firmly established and lets face it both Vasudan ships have sofar only been seen in heavily scripted set pieces with minimal combat involvment so are open to change by the team should they wish to.
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I am sure the BP team can give a more indepth answer but the short form is that the Vasudans invested heavily in their economic recovery after the NTF and Capella where as the Terrans got hung up on the idea of returning home which took up a signifficant proportion of their economy and so for a second time the Terran economic recovery was dramatically slower than theirs which in it's own way hindered theirs slightly.
Now I am at a loss to parts of your post which seem to imply the Vasudans have not made any advancement in their military tech when we have seen to my mind only two Vasudan ships in the entirety of BP, one the brand new logistics vessle mirroring the Terrans and a Hatshepsut which was noticibly better than the Hecate that the Terrans are still sticking on the front lines, in short we have not seen enough to comment either way and the Vasudan line up was probably still very fluid until significantly into the WiH pt2 development process. lets face it the UEF ship seen at the end of AoA has vertually nothing to do with it's WiH incarnation so we know that they will make changes to things when they are not firmly established and lets face it both Vasudan ships have sofar only been seen in heavily scripted set pieces with minimal combat involvment so are open to change by the team should they wish to.
Indeed, yes--the Shepsakaf and its small battlegroup is hardly any indication of Vasudan state-of-the-art tech/ships. It's more like, 'hey, despite the depression and focusing so much on the Sol Gate project, the Tevs launched the TEI and built an entire new generation of warships and fighters that are awesome, so if the Vasudans weren't hampered by either of those and supposedly focused more on being more prepared for another Shivan incursion, why haven't we heard much of anything about what the 'zods did with their stuff?'
As for the Vasudan logistics vessel--it is indeed an impressive ship, but its fuel refinery component over the Anemoi's (medical? limited carrier-capacity?) component means it's very fragile, even when compared to the Anemoi. If operating in hostile territory, that's certainly a concern worth noting. Still, it's an awesome ship (and it has mini-mechas with freaking swords! The ultimate answer to boarding parties).
I guess what I'm getting at is, 'where is the mention that Vasudans developed their own next-gen ships and have a fleet that's twice the size of the Tevs' or something along those lines.
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The Vasudans probably either ran their own review or borrowed the Terran effectiveness reports.
As for why direct information on Vasudan military modernisation was not included in the AoA or WiH tech rooms? as it wasn't directly related to either campaign the team could have forgot to include it, but perhaps more likely didnt want to until they finalised the Vasudan lineup of ships and weapons to give them as much flexibility as possible during the mod's development.
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The Vasudans developed their own next-gen ships and have a fleet that's twice the size of the Tevs'
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The Vasudans developed their own next-gen ships and have a fleet that's twice the size of the Tevs'
Awesome :). Confusion cleared up.
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:blah:
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Didn't they say during the diplomatic mission in Age O' Aqua that the Vasudans designed all the TEI ships?
Plus there is that little problem of there being little Vasudan ship models the team can use for their fleet since 90% of Zodian stuff is outdated (The Newet can be seen as a step forward regarding that, but it still is one ship.)
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The Vasudans developed their own next-gen ships and have a fleet that's twice the size of the Tevs'
Awesome :). Confusion cleared up.
Actually, I think he just told you what you wanted to hear.
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We have a pretty good idea of what we're going to do for the sprawling badass Vasudan military when we get there, but it hasn't been important to our story or modpack or filesize or word counts yet.
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Didn't they say during the diplomatic mission in Age O' Aqua that the Vasudans designed all the TEI ships?
Plus there is that little problem of there being little Vasudan ship models the team can use for their fleet since 90% of Zodian stuff is outdated (The Newet can be seen as a step forward regarding that, but it still is one ship.)
Also when hunting the duke, the wingmen make it sound as if at least the Hyperions reactors were made by the Vasudans ("You can say what you want about the Vasudans, but they know how to build a reactor" or something like that). Either way I got more of a feeling that the Vasudan and Human scientists cooperated, when building the TEI ships rather than the Vasudans donig all the designing and building.
I wonder if the same holds true for the Vasudan ships as well, that they incorporate design decisions and technology from their Terran allies.
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Actual quote :
"Amazing. Your ships truly are as beautiful as Iwakura has told."
"You can thank the Vasudans for that. They've been instrumental in designing our current generation of ships since the Second Shivan Incursion."
I'd like people to stop doing vague quoting from memory alone and actually look into the files for accuracy.
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Interesting "instrumental in designing" does not mean they did it all. Vasudans tend to be better at power and propulsion design (both of which are critical to good warship design) while terrans are normally better at weapons and hull design (we shall ignore the Hecate)
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Hm...but the Vasudan beams are better in my opinion.
Sure, the Tev beams(the green ones) do more damage, but the Zod beams recharge faster...so...
Taking into account, that the Zods are better with reactors and the stuff and that, unlike the Tevs aren't wasting ressources for that stupid gate one could think, that their advance in waponry is far beyoind that of the Tevs, plus, they can lean back and watch how the Tevs are doing, adjusting their own tech and if they want, charge in and finish the Feds...
But I'm pretty sure Mat will stomp me for that post...
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Possible colour scheme change for fish lovers too?
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It's hard to make big changes to Vasudan ships textures when still keeping them recognizable as Vasudan. There will most likely be some changes, but not as drastic as for Terrans.
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I'd like people to stop doing vague quoting from memory alone and actually look into the files for accuracy.
Did you ever consider the possibility that people don't have the time to search through the files everytime they want to post something here, or that they might post from a computer on which they don't even have FS installed?
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It is better to delay your comment than to post something bogus.
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It is better to delay your comment than to post something bogus.
Except for those countless times when you waste around half an hour crafting a thoroughly well-thought and well-fundamented reply just to find that for some stupid and inane reason they locked the thread just when you were getting ready to post.
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It is better to delay your comment than to post something bogus.
Except for those countless times when you waste around half an hour crafting a thoroughly well-thought and well-fundamented reply just to find that for some stupid and inane reason they locked the thread just when you were getting ready to post.
never had that problem and probably because such threads tend to be flame/troll bait so I try to avoid replying to them
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Actual quote :
"Amazing. Your ships truly are as beautiful as Iwakura has told."
"You can thank the Vasudans for that. They've been instrumental in designing our current generation of ships since the Second Shivan Incursion."
I'd like people to stop doing vague quoting from memory alone and actually look into the files for accuracy.
and i'd like people to stop getting angry over idiotic things. the rest of us aren't obsessed enough to spend that much effort to get the exact wording when we know the overall message already.
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So, back to topic...
The zod fleet is two times the size of the Tevs...
Would they still use something like fusion mortars?
Maybe...gattling fusion mortars ;7
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Matt, I can't believe you are that kind of fan. *sigh*
As for this topic: How could we go about re-texturing Vasudans and giving them new schemes? Maybe something based on the skins of animals of Egypt or it's mythology?
And how about making the Vasudan armor have an electrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum) or polished Limestone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limestone) look in some parts?
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Maybe, more neon orange / green trim?
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Maybe, more neon orange / green trim?
let loose the boy racers
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The Vasudans developed their own next-gen ships and have a fleet that's twice the size of the Tevs'
Awesome :). Confusion cleared up.
Actually, I think he just told you what you wanted to hear.
I thought he was just giving a 'sure, why not' kind of answer. My bad.
Look, if the actual answer is more along the lines of 'the zods have truly made some big military gains, even in proportion to the Tevs, but we don't really want to give details about it at this time', that's fine; I'd just like to clear up a small, general ambiguity that was on my mind. Really not trying to make a big deal about this...
and i'd like people to stop getting angry over idiotic things. the rest of us aren't obsessed enough to spend that much effort to get the exact wording when we know the overall message already.
Just to clarify, the reason I brought this up in the first place is because it seemed to me like there was a little confusion in the overall message, not the exact wording. If the big picture was 'Tevs focused on Sol Gate project, Zods focused on building up military and preparing for Shivan Incursion 3, Zods criticizing Tevs for dumping massive resources and effort into going home rather than better military preparations', then what--even in general terms--did the Vasudans do better to prepare/build up their military? While the Tevs show off an entire new generation of awesome ships, fighters, and weapons, all we see or hear about is Khonsu reforming the Medjai (which we don't really know much about in the first place) and a handful of older Vasudan ships (except for a single Vasudan counterpart to a logistics ship already fielded by the Tevs, which nearly blew up from collateral damage of a failed boarding attempt). The Shepsakaf crash-jumps out of dodge the moment a few wings of Scimitars show up, and in Sunglare the only Vasudan cruiser seen is an Aten class.
This, again, does not do anything wrong; just in the context of lacking any info or demonstration of Vasudan military development (sans Tarawet) beyond 'they did stuff' it can get a little perplexing.
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We haven't shown new Vasudan units because we didn't have to. As was pointed out, we prefer to leave things open for as long as possible; if we had introduced some new units that were found to be insufficient for our needs, we'd have to retcon them or something. So we decided to just intro one new ship, and not worry about what kind of new fighters, Corvettes or Destroyers the zods have built until we have to feature them in the story.
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You do realise that the war in Sol is still, at this point, a mostly Terran war, yes? The Vasudans provide support but, perhaps at the order of Khonsu II, are probably not permitted to make themselves very prominent in the Sol theatre.
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Yes we all know that, but that doesn't stop us from being curious ;)
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The Sol jump gate was enormously expensive, and the project combined with the Capella refugee situation sent the Terran half of the GTVA spiraling into a depression that by many indications could have been entirely avoided with some more prudent use of resources. That'd get a wag of my finger toward the Terran half of the GTVA if I were the Vasudans, most definitely.
EDIT: expensive, not effective.
So I take it that the authors of the BP canon are anything but Keynesians :).
I'm somewhat with Krugman on this issue. Making a huge investment on the Sol jump gate actually avoids a depression, not the other way around. What you could argue is that by investing in guns and not "butter", that the quality of life is not being developed and researched when it could (should) be.
EDIT: However, the canonized argument that the destruction of Cappella and a number of very important jump nodes brought down the human economy to shambles is very realistic. The Sol Gate should be thus viewed as an economic medicine, a way to bring the economy up to speed again (see World War 2 and how it stopped the Great Depression).
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To exaggerage a picture, imagine it this way:
The GTVA had a limited amount of building material. Instead of using those materials for building houses and infrastructure for the refugees, they hogged it all up and build the sol gate with it, leaving the capella survivours sitting in the street reduced to begging.
Or on a more serious note, instead of first taking care of the ruined economy and integrating the refugees, the GTVA immediately pumped everything that wasn't used for rebuilding the fleet into the portal project, almost completely ignoring the economic troubles and trying (and succeding) to make the people forget about the troubles as well, by copious amounts of propaganda promising utopia once the portal was finished and opened.
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the problem with the gate project is that only creates significant jobs while it is under construction, where as a shipyard will employ a similar number until such time as that yard is no longer viable and between the fleet rebuild and the TEI that will be a long time indeed. Basically the Terrans were relying on a "quick fix" cultural and economic revival provided by the return to Earth and the system's manufacturing base which is a questionable decission in the cold light of day and proven to a certain extent by the UEF war, when investing in larger shipyards, new ships, rebuilt infrastructure (which I accept is needed for the gate project as well) and public services, while would have a less dramatic effect would be more likely to work both short and long term. Also now the Terrans not only are behind the Vasudans in ship numbers but they will also be hampered by rebuilding the Sol infrastructure, civil discontent from the radically different policies compared to the UEF and rebuilding the Sol fleet into something that fits into the GTVA order of battle.
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@Norbert
That's not really a realistical portrayal of a military spending spree. The economy of a whole economic system does not play like a domestic economy. There's no such thing as "limited amount of building material" in the GTVA universe. The economy is mostly one of people (usage of work hours in exactly *what*). If the economy needs more material, you put more people mining it up. Those people get paid, those people will spend what they earned, the economy booms.
Again, there's a lot of misinformation on how economies work. An amazing historical example of how this works is exactly Germany in the 1930s. An economy deeply in shambles (hyperinflation anyone?), rises up in few years to become the most powerful economy in the world, threatening every other nation worldwide. If your idea had any resemblance to reality, it should have been the other way around: the military investments made by the nazis should have tanked, not boomed, their economy.
Same thing happened with the US. The great depression ended in 1938-1940.
@headdie,
That idea is much better. However, as a "fix", the sol jump gate was a very long term one. According to Keynes (and I am not saying he's "definitely" right), once you kickstart the economy it goes on its own. The problem right now is a political one, an ideological one. A problem of a system being confronted with a much more pleasant system in Sol but one also that you deem as *wrong*.
A very interesting setup. I like BP's setup quite a lot.
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@Norbert
That's not really a realistical portrayal of a military spending spree. The economy of a whole economic system does not play like a domestic economy. There's no such thing as "limited amount of building material" in the GTVA universe. The economy is mostly one of people (usage of work hours in exactly *what*). If the economy needs more material, you put more people mining it up. Those people get paid, those people will spend what they earned, the economy booms.
Again, there's a lot of misinformation on how economies work. An amazing historical example of how this works is exactly Germany in the 1930s. An economy deeply in shambles (hyperinflation anyone?), rises up in few years to become the most powerful economy in the world, threatening every other nation worldwide. If your idea had any resemblance to reality, it should have been the other way around: the military investments made by the nazis should have tanked, not boomed, their economy.
Same thing happened with the US. The great depression ended in 1938-1940.
@headdie,
That idea is much better. However, as a "fix", the sol jump gate was a very long term one. According to Keynes (and I am not saying he's "definitely" right), once you kickstart the economy it goes on its own. The problem right now is a political one, an ideological one. A problem of a system being confronted with a much more pleasant system in Sol but one also that you deem as *wrong*.
A very interesting setup. I like BP's setup quite a lot.
The issue with put more people on mining is that to our knowlage the FS universe is not all that different to the here and now with private companies running virtualy everything so yes there might be demand for resources but if the extra can't be obtained economicaly then it wont happen, also it takes physical infrastructure to gather, transport and process materials, all of which takes time to build up, usually in the order of months or more, then there is the training for the new workers. Also have you have to have the money to pay the person at the coal face for them to dig the coal, it might be worth asking the Russians about that one.
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Again, we are talking past each other. The problem of a Depression is one of extreme unemployment, which creates poverty, lack of demand, further unemployment, finantial instability, deflation and so on. If you are the political leader and just say "Look, we are in bad shape, so I'm just gonna take command of the economy and tell you to get all your **** together and make this Sol Jump Gate work", then you will end the problem of unemployment in one go. People won't waste their time watching the clocks go by and instead make themselves into the economic system.
Then, you will have more people demanding more goods (because they are paid), and the whole economy booms.
This is very clean and well known economics. The very basic problem of all of this is the "command economy" status of it. It becomes "fascistic" and dictatorial. The culture is currupted into a very simplistic system of hierarchy instead of one of anarchical liberalism where anyone can do whatever the hell they want. The Sol system is one version of the latter. It is thus very appealing to the masses behind the iron curtain of the jump gate.
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I think you underestimate just how terrible the 2nd incursion was.
Capella was one of the major economies in the GTVA. With it gone, many other systems would have suffered greatly, because they can no longer import from and export to Capella. Companies ago out of business and jobs are lost en-mass. On top of that you have millions of refugees evacuated from Capella.
The costs from getting from one end of the GTVA to the other have also increased, due to the lost major trafic artery through Capella, raising the prices of the transported goods, putting even more preassure on the faltering economy and very likely costing even more people their jobs.
The fleet buildup and the portal project might be able to catch a part of those factors, but that by itself just isn't enough to turn the tide, even with the necessary support infrastructure for the project.
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Just a fancy option about the increased time in travel: Since all nodes of Capella are gone, including the one to Gamma Draconis and pretending there was enough money to built two more gates...would it help somehow if ships can travel through Capella, plus you have a Nebula to work with and an empty system in case the Shivans waltz in once again?
I know...won't happen but still...
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I think you underestimate just how terrible the 2nd incursion was.
Capella was one of the major economies in the GTVA. With it gone, many other systems would have suffered greatly, because they can no longer import from and export to Capella. Companies ago out of business and jobs are lost en-mass. On top of that you have millions of refugees evacuated from Capella.
Why are you repeating what I said? Look all this is very good material, but you are missing the point. After World War 1, Germany was devastated. And still they were asked to make reparations that were, for all purposes, a call to make Germans complete slaves to the rest of the world.
After the huge hyperinflation in the 30s, the german economy was basically "resetted". That's how bad it was.
Are you underestimating the status of the Europe post WW1?
The fleet buildup and the portal project might be able to catch a part of those factors, but that by itself just isn't enough to turn the tide, even with the necessary support infrastructure for the project.
The misunderstanding is not one of saying that the economy post-Cappella is worse than before. Of course it is, and for many many years. The misunderstanding is in the statement that the Sol Jump Gate created an economic problem. No, it did not. It was the medicine for the huge depression. Could have it been better? Yes of course. "Public works" could have been better, but we are dismissing here the human factor. For these things to work they have to be very consensual and inspiring. World Wars work. Lacking those, you can use the longing for your lost home to build a massive huge gate, and in the process boom the economy.
As I see it, that was an amazing insightful decision that saved the human's economy. And probably, the Vasudan's economy as well.
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I actually find it quite interesting that we are talking about this considering that the global economy is currently in recovery from a recession, which while not a brutal as what we have witnessed in 20th century it was still bad enough that in the UK at least it perminantly reshape the banking sector with a significant number of the big players either going bust or being bought out by rivals and many bailed out by the government, not to mention high profile national companies going down as well, and this is nothing compared to what the GTVA would be facing, the recent wars in the real world have not contributed like the NTF rebellion would have which decemated the economies of at least 3 star systems and damaged others, not to mention the impact of the total loss of Capella would have brough. Bringing up Germany is useful a point of comparison, when the Berlin wall came down, Germany was reunited which caused a serious problem in that East Germany was economicaly mauled in the process of comunism and the region reverting to capitalism to the point that even today the region is still struggling to recover decades later and that is an area of one of the most prosperous nations in Europe.
The misunderstanding is not one of saying that the economy post-Cappella is worse than before. Of course it is, and for many many years. The misunderstanding is in the statement that the Sol Jump Gate created an economic problem. No, it did not. It was the medicine for the huge depression. Could have it been better? Yes of course. "Public works" could have been better, but we are dismissing here the human factor. For these things to work they have to be very consensual and inspiring. World Wars work. Lacking those, you can use the longing for your lost home to build a massive huge gate, and in the process boom the economy.
As I see it, that was an amazing insightful decision that saved the human's economy. And probably, the Vasudan's economy as well.
We are not saying the Gate caused a problem just that it has hampered recovery and was perhaps a project better suited for a later date or taken at a slower pace to allow other areas of the Terran economy more space to recover.
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We are not saying the Gate caused a problem just that it has hampered recovery and was perhaps a project better suited for a later date or taken at a slower pace to allow other areas of the Terran economy more space to recover.
That's the thing: I completely disagree with that assessment. If the problem of the economy is one of Depression (as in depicted in BP canon), the Sol Jump Gate is the perfect economy kickstarter you can possibly have. As I have argued, there is no "hampered recovery" in this project. That's the very idea that I am arguing against.
Bringing up Germany is useful a point of comparison, when the Berlin wall came down, Germany was reunited which caused a serious problem in that East Germany was economicaly mauled in the process of comunism and the region reverting to capitalism to the point that even today the region is still struggling to recover decades later and that is an area of one of the most prosperous nations in Europe.
That's a *whole* different beast. And the best analogy to what happened in Germany in 1990s BPversewise, is exactly the reunion of the GTVA space (to which I would compare to the East side, militaristic, command-economy-like) to the Sol space (to which I would compare to the more liberal West side). The berlin wall stopped Easterners to flee to the more liberal westside. The irony in BP is that it was the command-economy that decided to build the gate that linked the two economies, and now they realize the danger to their own regime.
The Berlin wall fell peacefully. In BP, not so peacefully.
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The problem, as I see it, wasn't that they build the portal, but that they concentrated on it so much that they ignored or overlooked the other problems, so while it helped to mitigate the problems, it is the reason why the high ups didn't adress other problems.
Without the portal, they might have been forced to adress those and it would likely have worked out better (just look at the Vasudans). Of course if they had adressed those problems in addition to building the portal (maybe at a slower pace?) it would have been the best, but that obviously didn't happen.
As for the WW1 example: Just because Germany managed it, doesn't mean it's either easy or a sure way. Take North Korea for example. That country has one of the largest militaries in the world, but just look at how bad the population has it. Building up the military ALONE is not enough to make a strong economy with wealthy, well fed people. And from what little we know, it looks as if the GTVA did just that.... build up the military and the portal to the exclusion of everything else.
I guess you could say they build the kickstarter, but then failed to follow up on it, which let the economy drop back into the dirt.
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We are not saying the Gate caused a problem just that it has hampered recovery and was perhaps a project better suited for a later date or taken at a slower pace to allow other areas of the Terran economy more space to recover.
That's the thing: I completely disagree with that assessment. If the problem of the economy is one of Depression (as in depicted in BP canon), the Sol Jump Gate is the perfect economy kickstarter you can possibly have. As I have argued, there is no "hampered recovery" in this project. That's the very idea that I am arguing against.
short term yes, but we are now 18+ months past that point and compared to what it took to build it, maintaining it will probably be a fraction of the effort/materials, so the work force required to build it then have to find work elsewhere undoing the economic good it did, where as a ship yard which I imagine would take something on the order of the same time and effort to construct then uses similar skill sets and probably similar resource/effort levels used in its construction to operate so is a more long term solution. also each of the ships produced need to be crewed and maintained which again takes time and materials so the economic effect of that ship yard is then multiplied relative to each ship it builds.
edit
better wording
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Norbert,
Yeah, that makes some sense.
The whole "there was a war and after it there was a massive depression" still doesn't ring true though.
I've never seen historically a case where after a war a massive depression occurred. Even countries in complete shambles (and remember, GTVA was not "in shambles" except for Capella) do not experience "depression". They experience a massive recession in GDP output in that precise moment, and then there's this massive recovery happening (especially if you have millions of Capella people entering the rest of the economy).
One could argue that the military build up was necessary to prevent hundreds of millions of refugees' resources to be wasted in slams, unemployment, and poverty camps...
@headdie,
Thing is, under a Keynesian viewpoint that assessment is irrelevant. Let's put some imaginary numbers to help us out debating this further.
Imagine that before Capella, the total GDP output of the human side of the GTVA was 10.000 gazilladollars. After Capella, it went down to 7.000 gazilladollars, massive social issues, violence up the charts and so on.
Now imagine that you, to work out all these social problems, unemployment and give the people a vision to hope for you decide to build the Sol Gate. This creates employment, social peace, stability in the face of chaos. This project takes a massive 2.000 gazilladollars per year. That's 28% of the economy right there. I'm probably exagerating here, this figure is ludicrous, but let's have it.
Now, you are absolutely right saying "Now imagine this 28%, when the gate is finished, wiped out from the economy, we have the problem again". No, because the economy starts to inflate and expand. 18 years with a 5% increase in nominal gazilladollars (I would imagine a far more speedy recovery but let's have this small number instead), you'll end up with an economy worth 17.000 gazilladollars. The percentage of the sol jump gate is now much lower in its percentage (11%).
You don't have to destroy it entirely too. You can do what the british did post world war 2: start the NHS.
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I've never seen historically a case where after a war a massive depression occurred.
Historically speaking, humanity has not met an Outside Context Problem on the scale of the Shivans before (with apologies to Iain Banks) Sure, we had our own minor OCPs in history, but those were different in so far as they could be reasoned with.
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I've never seen historically a case where after a war a massive depression occurred.
Historically speaking, humanity has not met an Outside Context Problem on the scale of the Shivans before (with apologies to Iain Banks) Sure, we had our own minor OCPs in history, but those were different in so far as they could be reasoned with.
Right, I don't see the argurment in what you are writing, perhaps just the beginning of it*. We can say that, for instance in post-capella GTVA universe, there were no Shivans lying around making all kinds of post-war chaotic ramblings in the rest of the GTVA space. The rest of the space, and specially planets, was nearly untouched.
Take Germany post WW2 for instance. 2 million german women raped by the alliance soldiers (mostly Russian). All cities carpet-bombed, everything burned.
*We could discuss the psychological ramifications of the existence of a doomsday species on the brink of destroying the entirety of GTVA in another single encounter. That's also interesting. But wouldn't Vasudans experience the same thing then?
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Norbert,
Yeah, that makes some sense.
The whole "there was a war and after it there was a massive depression" still doesn't ring true though.
I've never seen historically a case where after a war a massive depression occurred. Even countries in complete shambles (and remember, GTVA was not "in shambles" except for Capella) do not experience "depression". They experience a massive recession in GDP output in that precise moment, and then there's this massive recovery happening (especially if you have millions of Capella people entering the rest of the economy).
One could argue that the military build up was necessary to prevent hundreds of millions of refugees' resources to be wasted in slams, unemployment, and poverty camps...
@headdie,
Thing is, under a Keynesian viewpoint that assessment is irrelevant. Let's put some imaginary numbers to help us out debating this further.
Imagine that before Capella, the total GDP output of the human side of the GTVA was 10.000 gazilladollars. After Capella, it went down to 7.000 gazilladollars, massive social issues, violence up the charts and so on.
Now imagine that you, to work out all these social problems, unemployment and give the people a vision to hope for you decide to build the Sol Gate. This creates employment, social peace, stability in the face of chaos. This project takes a massive 2.000 gazilladollars per year. That's 28% of the economy right there. I'm probably exagerating here, this figure is ludicrous, but let's have it.
Now, you are absolutely right saying "Now imagine this 28%, when the gate is finished, wiped out from the economy, we have the problem again". No, because the economy starts to inflate and expand. 18 years with a 5% increase in nominal gazilladollars (I would imagine a far more speedy recovery but let's have this small number instead), you'll end up with an economy worth 17.000 gazilladollars. The percentage of the sol jump gate is now much lower in its percentage (11%).
You don't have to destroy it entirely too. You can do what the british did post world war 2: start the NHS.
thats why I say it is a short term benefit, yes 18 years is a long time and while a shipyard might have reduced effect because it dosnt have the same boost to the populations state of mind but a shipyard lasts as long as their are orders which is potentially hundreds of years or more, not only that but each ship built has it's own small influence, tiny in its own but it adds up.
So yes the gate is a better kickstart but it's long term impact is limited.
The gate also has other forseable problems though such as the UEF war, now there was no real way to assess the likelyhood or form this would take beforehand but a war has always been a potential outcome of renewed contact, in this case the gate then harms the economy in lost lives, destroyed ships, damaged infrastructue (which while minimised has not been totaly avoided), destroyed homes, etc and the cost of rebuilding. Another fair probability outcome would be one in which the system has shot itself to pieces in which case you have the potential for a large population with little space fairing infrastructure and limited industrial base remaining which again would in effect undo the economic benefit
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While the gate might be a good economic investment in the short run, I don't see it as much of an engine-builder in and of itself in the long run. Unless it enables some new kind of trade or commerce or other interaction (ha) it's just a big monument.
It sounds absurd to say that, since clearly the gate isn't just a big monument, but my point is that it's not quite the same as putting the same amount of money into generalized corporate and infrastructure development.
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Well, for one thing, the GTVA now has their own Knossos which can presumably be moved. Even given the risks of exploration in a Shivan-infested universe, there are still canonical unstable nodes which it could be moved to.
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While the gate might be a good economic investment in the short run, I don't see it as much of an engine-builder in and of itself in the long run. Unless it enables some new kind of trade or commerce or other interaction (ha) it's just a big monument.
It sounds absurd to say that, since clearly the gate isn't just a big monument, but my point is that it's not quite the same as putting the same amount of money into generalized corporate and infrastructure development.
But wasn't that the whole point? By bridging the two economies, a vast potential wealth would unleash by the sudden communication of two very distinct but advanced civilizations that had a lot of different technologies and advances to share and thus improve each side dramatically.
The Sol Gate was the ultimate infrastructure. It wasn't like building pyramids.
However, there is a point to be made regarding pyramids and white elephants in general. While better to use those resources in "useful things", one should remember that there is much more in economics than just "spending stuff in the right things". If the purpose was nothing but to build a pyramid that would take whole swaths of otherwise unemployed people out of the streets, (and then redistributing money to those people), that would alone already been a giant positive for the whole economy.
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Counterpoint: The GTA's economy was Earth. The economic collapse postwar resulted from losing Earth; the Vasudans stepped in to take its place during Reconstruction, which is why their economy recovered much quicker than the Terran one despite suffering effectively identical calamities. Reconnecting Earth to the GTVA's economy stands a chance of undoing much of what the Vasudans have gained.
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Counterpoint: The GTA's economy was Earth. The economic collapse postwar resulted from losing Earth; the Vasudans stepped in to take its place during Reconstruction, which is why their economy recovered much quicker than the Terran one despite suffering effectively identical calamities. Reconnecting Earth to the GTVA's economy stands a chance of undoing much of what the Vasudans have gained.
Undo what exactly? How can connecting two economies be negative?
I don't agree with your first sentences, but I'm more interested in your last and what makes you think that joining Sol's economy with the GTVA systems will "undo" what the Vasudans "have gained"? It seems to me that the Vasudans would probably lose "some" power, but would be an immense beneficiary of economic improvements (and thus its government would be praised by its constituency).
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Most of the Terran population of the GTVA wants to get back to Earth. Earth's economy is regulated by economic models which simply cannot handle that happening. Reconnection stands to collapse the UEF's economy, and leave the GTVA's maintained only by a few frontier types.
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Undo what exactly? How can connecting two economies be negative?
Ask...I dunno, Japan? Hooking their economy up to other people's has had disastrous effects several times in their history.
I don't agree with your first sentences, but I'm more interested in your last and what makes you think that joining Sol's economy with the GTVA systems will "undo" what the Vasudans "have gained"?
Earth, and Sol in general, are completely self-sufficient for both staple goods and luxuries. They've had to be. There is no export market there for Vasudan goods. However the machinery that was built up to support the GTA is probably still existent in some form, raw materials and infrastructure to process them doesn't simply vanish, so Earth can export things to other Terran or even Vasudan worlds and will be in direct competition with Vasudans to do so, without offering a market for the Vasudans to exploit.
More competition without possibility of gain. They can hold the line while probably increasing costs, and this is the best-case outcome.
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Well that seems rather one-sided bleak fearmongering... you sure you aren't forgetting about positive things that can come up with the opening up of closed frontiers? I know little of Japan's history, but I'd wonder where Japan would be right now without the globalized economy, so.
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There is a lot of really cool analysis in this thread. I do think we're missing an important ideological/philosophical dimension, though. The Vasudans lost their homeworld and were better for it; in the game theory sense it forced them to toss the steering wheel out the window and really commit to a strategy of decentralized strength. They may view the Terran preoccupation with re-centering themselves as a major blunder. Or Petrarch might be right and they're on some level bitter.
I don't think one side is clearly right or wrong - they'd both have persuasive arguments about whether this was or wasn't a worthwhile investment.
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Well that seems rather one-sided bleak fearmongering... you sure you aren't forgetting about positive things that can come up with the opening up of closed frontiers?
Well, the alternative is the people on the other side of the frontier, who lost the war, get screwed. So somebody in Vasudanland is going to be worried either way. There's also the possibility you end up with nearly all the Terrans living in a huge ghetto in Sol, and I'm pretty sure that's not going to go well for people who export from out-system in the end.
I'm not really offering my view, but rather one that could be adopted by otherwise reasonable Vasudans about the issue. There are dozens of ways this could damage the Vasudan economy, even the simple need to rebuild Sol after the war could do it, to no gain or a loss. Most of the good outcomes require a degree of enlightenment and a desire to not screw people that does not typically exist in the corporate mindset, much less following an active and long war.
I know little of Japan's history, but I'd wonder where Japan would be right now without the globalized economy, so.
Japan's economic involvement with the rest of the world nearly opened with becoming an enfeebled protectorate of the US, from which they were only saved by the American Civil War, and ultimately they saved themselves from the fate of most of Asia during the 19th century and the early part of the 20th at the cost of being dependent on foreign imports of arms and material to build arms. This resulted in the Russo-Japanese War, which nearly bankrupted them, and the Second World War, which wiped their economy out, nearly destroyed the Japanese state, and they did become an enfeebled protectorate of the US for a time. They were set on the road to recovery by supporting the US in the Korean War, but ultimately went down again to delayed effects of the US economic crash in the seventies and eighties. Whether the country has recovered from that is a subject of debate inside Japan, even nearly a generation after the crash.
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There is a lot of really cool analysis in this thread. I do think we're missing an important ideological/philosophical dimension, though. The Vasudans lost their homeworld and were better for it; in the game theory sense it forced them to toss the steering wheel out the window and really commit to a strategy of decentralized strength. They may view the Terran preoccupation with re-centering themselves as a major blunder. Or Petrarch might be right and they're on some level bitter.
I don't think one side is clearly right or wrong - they'd both have persuasive arguments about whether this was or wasn't a worthwhile investment.
Hm. Personally, I have to ponder about the relevancy of those issues... not quite sure.
Well, the alternative is the people on the other side of the frontier, who lost the war, get screwed. So somebody in Vasudanland is going to be worried either way. There's also the possibility you end up with nearly all the Terrans living in a huge ghetto in Sol, and I'm pretty sure that's not going to go well for people who export from out-system in the end.
I'm not really offering my view, but rather one that could be adopted by otherwise reasonable Vasudans about the issue. There are dozens of ways this could damage the Vasudan economy, even the simple need to rebuild Sol after the war could do it, to no gain or a loss. Most of the good outcomes require a degree of enlightenment and a desire to not screw people that does not typically exist in the corporate mindset, much less following an active and long war.
Ah. Right. I was not arguing from the point of view of already knowing there would be a massive war between Sol and the rest of the terran systems. When the decision of building the gate was made, this was not the scenario put in place I believe.
The decision to battle Sol was made after the gate was already completed, and so it is an independent strategic move. One wonders what would the humans have decided had they known in advance they would have had to battle Sol... would they have been cynical enough to build it anyway in order to try to conquer Sol?
Japan's economic involvement with the rest of the world nearly opened with becoming an enfeebled protectorate of the US, from which they were only saved by the American Civil War, and ultimately they saved themselves from the fate of most of Asia during the 19th century and the early part of the 20th at the cost of being dependent on foreign imports of arms and material to build arms. This resulted in the Russo-Japanese War, which nearly bankrupted them, and the Second World War, which wiped their economy out, nearly destroyed the Japanese state, and they did become an enfeebled protectorate of the US for a time. They were set on the road to recovery by supporting the US in the Korean War, but ultimately went down again to delayed effects of the US economic crash in the seventies and eighties. Whether the country has recovered from that is a subject of debate inside Japan, even nearly a generation after the crash.
I wouldn't place so much faith in an analysis that concludes that Japan's openness to the world was bad because they had wars. Let me put it this way: I wouldn't mind being a japanese right now.
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There's also a powerful political imperative for gate construction. The Petrarch Doctrine exists as a way to keep the GTVA population united (again, remember, this government has been in power for less than 50 years, and it has to deal with preexisting loyalties not just to Earth but to the local power blocs that reigned during reconstruction), and in a very real sense the gate project had to exist simply as a totem to keep everything else ticking. It's a symbol of the GTVA can help you.
The Vasudans also doubtless made the case that on a sociopolitical level pinning the stability of the Terran half of the GTVA on a project with an uncertain outcome was a short-range patch and an ill-considered gamble. Again, the problem of centralization: by focusing loyalty as well as infrastructure on Sol the Terrans made themselves dependent on Sol. This was not a progressive move towards the Vasudan ideal of a society prepared to absorb enormous shocks, a society adapted to distributed existence across the node network.
e: NGTM1R also brought up the 'Sol ghetto' scenario which is a definite fear among GTVA policymakers. They are very into demographic dynamic analysis.
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Luis: Considering my analysis of their history was economic and what those wars ultimately did to it (bad things), and then in the end they've crashed and arguably haven't recovered over the last twenty years...
(Plus if you really think it's just "they had wars" you have no idea of the marks that World War 2 left on the country's psyche. It's difficult to comprehend for a non-Japanese just how deeply scarred the Japanese are regarding it and hence we have trouble understanding why they can't look directly and fairly at their own involvement in it.)
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I wouldn't place so much faith in an analysis that concludes that Japan's openness to the world was bad because they had wars. Let me put it this way: I wouldn't mind being a japanese right now.
It was bad for them because initially it forced them to be dependant on forign imports for even basic raw materials which automatically puts them at a disadvantage cost wise and puts the country at the mercy of supply availability of the rest of the world for even basic materials like Iron, a situation that continues today, the only way to break the situation was to aquire territory rich in resources, something only the desperate would do voulenteraly, especialy in the age when they were looking to do so leaving a war to grab land being the only remaining option. WWII seriously screwed them over in the end and while a good deal of that was their own fault it dosnt change the results.
so basically Japan always has been and remains especially vulnerable to economic preasure, especially in regards to material availability.
as for Battuta's post on the ideological/philosophical dimension, that is basically about Vasudan psychology and that is something that cant be ignored when talking about economics as psychology governs how people react to the idea of and go about trade between one and another, economics being the structure behind and measure of trade.
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Yes, I am deeply interested in Battuta's suggestion, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm just unsure on how to follow that train of thought right now.
However, I have to part ways when I see arguments for radical proteccionism taken as factual... I couldn't disagree more with the kind of parochial vision of the world that such arguments are implying.
Every country in the world has some kind of economic pressure from the outside. The fact that such pressures have caused wars is not, to my humble opinion, a product of globalization, but rather of deeply flawed politics by previous japanese generations.
EDIT: A loose analogy (to a personal scale) would be to say that to meet new people is "bad" because there are probably assholes out there, or you can pick up a fight, or be killed or whatever. Well, ok, I'm still confident that meeting new people is a very positive thing.
EDIT:
(Plus if you really think it's just "they had wars" you have no idea of the marks that World War 2 left on the country's psyche. It's difficult to comprehend for a non-Japanese just how deeply scarred the Japanese are regarding it and hence we have trouble understanding why they can't look directly and fairly at their own involvement in it.)
I said previously that I have ignorance on Japan's history, and I do not have the presumption to know all these things you mention. I can recognize these scars you mention on their art, manga, movies and so on, but those are merely shadows or hints of something really deep (what I mean to say you is that I do believe you).
However, despite the horrors of the wars, to blame globalization is still, from my point of view, unwarranted... not to say that things "can't **** up". Yeah, they can and probably do.
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the point I think you are missing is that Japan was trying to become an industrialised nation, problem is that the land they sit on has very little in the way of raw resources, where as one country might be able to export an excess of Iron and import copper to cover a shortfall, Japan has to import virtually _everything_ making them more vulnerable than most be a good margin, it is why they have had to become good a producing electronics and other high technology items, otherwise they would have nothing to export, and no exports means no money for imports and so on.
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So your point is that in order to be competitive with the rest of the world they had to reinvent themselves and actually contribute something new and original to the world economy, then get to become the third largest economy of the world while doing so, amazingly wealthy... and... well I fail to see the downside. headdie, I'm somewhat lost in this discussion right now...
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So your point is that in order to be competitive with the rest of the world they had to reinvent themselves and actually contribute something new and original to the world economy, then get to become the third largest economy of the world while doing so, amazingly wealthy... and... well I fail to see the downside. headdie, I'm somewhat lost in this discussion right now...
basically if Japan starts pissing people off, they are screwed, also they have to stay ahead of the development curve which is no easy feat in itself and a situation that only takes a small change in luck, a eurica moment in America, Germany or any number of other developed nations and it all changes.
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Isn't that also true in the opposite direction? Basically what I am getting from you is the observation that reality is fragile and things change.
That is an important observation, I'm not trying to diminish it btw. I think that exact fear was the driving force behind the Tev's incursion in Sol, and perhaps, dare I hypothesize, the main reason why Vasudans are now helping them.
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Right I am starting to loose track here, so we agree large economies are ultimately fragile, I think?
So we have the GTVA, their economy is basically doing ok, the Vasudans are doing markedly better then the Terrans and the Vasudans place at least some of the blaim for that at the door of the Portal Project?
so as I understand it the on topic debate revolves around how much impact the Portal Project has had on the Terran economy and the effects, potential and realised, traveling through have and will have on the Terran economy?
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I am not sure we can qualify the economy of the Tevs as "good".
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I never said good, I said ok, meaning nothing is particularly wrong, but could be doing better
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While they're having difficulties, I don't think those difficulties are very economy-related by this point. The Capella depression is almost certainly over. The Sol gate is finished, which means resources and funding formerly allocated to that can now go elsewhere. I'm sure the war is a part of that, but how big a part, we don't know.
It's not the UEF economy, but it's doing alright.
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Yes, so we could shift the discussion towards what Battuta was implying, a more "psychohistorian" analysis of the relationship between tevs and vasudans.
The Vasudans also doubtless made the case that on a sociopolitical level pinning the stability of the Terran half of the GTVA on a project with an uncertain outcome was a short-range patch and an ill-considered gamble. Again, the problem of centralization: by focusing loyalty as well as infrastructure on Sol the Terrans made themselves dependent on Sol. This was not a progressive move towards the Vasudan ideal of a society prepared to absorb enormous shocks, a society adapted to distributed existence across the node network.
So the next few words are rambling a bit, disorganized. Read them at your peril.
I'm interested in the last sentence and the ideology embebbed in it. So according to canon by Battuta, the destruction of Vasuda Prime had an effect on vasudan society of an "ordered anarchyzation", decentralization, (deregulation? for sure), liberalization? and so on. However, there is one leader, the emperor and so on. I am still unsure (ignorant) about all this vasudan structure, I can't capture it in my mind just yet.
The Tev's seem to me rather simple: a militaristic dictatorship that focused the economy in the building up of 1) a gate towards Sol and 2) a competent fleet (with all the social, political, etc. objectives outlined in Battuta's comments and mine as well). They are obsessed, while the Vasudans are at "peace" with the loss of their home planet. Vasudans may well be deeply jealous of terrans, etc.
However, it is the Tevs' that are willing to gamble something and it is the Vasudans who are afraid of the consequences?! Hm. I really don't know where to place Vasudan's thinking in all of this. Perhaps they are just annoyed at the whole shebang, and that's the whole story, but I doubt it. The main reason for doubting this is: it doesn't make for a good plot.
A good plot has interesting, provoking characters. And I do not see Battuta et al wasting the potential here :).
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However, it is the Tevs' that are willing to gamble something and it is the Vasudans who are afraid of the consequences?! Hm. I really don't know where to place Vasudan's thinking in all of this. Perhaps they are just annoyed at the whole shebang, and that's the whole story, but I doubt it. The main reason for doubting this is: it doesn't make for a good plot.
The Zods are afraid of the consequences because they need the Terrans in good shape to face the great peril they have been preparing for for the past 18 years (the whole Jester thing) while the Terrans were so busy going home.
Even if Terran crap in Sol doesn't affect them directly and even if the Zods already have twice the fleet size of the Tevs, they definitely want them at their side, not with a broken fleet, not with a broken economy and definitely not stuck in a potential civil war (not the Sol war, but the one that might explode in Tev home systems if the Sol war goes for too long, the one that would make the NTF insurgency pale in comparison).
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Right...
So is there any special projection from the part of the Tev's or the Zod's in their psychohistorian megacomputers that are generating scenarios in which this political chaos in the tev's space is avoided by the inclusion of the Zod's in the battle against Sol?
One is forced to think that given the existence of these powerful scenario predictors, any big decision such as the inclusion of Vasudan forces in Sol is being strongly analysed by all camps (even by the Elders?). So how are the obvious problems of rising racism towards the Vasudans being countered? This gets into very problematic analysis from the moment the Zods take a more center stage.
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A central factor in free market economies is confidence. Consumers need to have confidence in the future of their careers and the market. Investors - this is huge - need to be able to expect predictable behavior both from central banks and from corporations. A pessimistic populace leads to pessimistic investment and pessimistic investment constrains economic development.
The Vasudans visualize history as a space occupied by the living and the dead, a symbol already written but not completely uncovered. Their economics are in no small part driven by a deep-set pragmatism: a people born in sorrow, die in sorrow. What came before drives what will be, and if that can be understood, that understanding will be accounted for in the future. Consider how this worldview might contribute to their resilience, their ability to swallow enormous blows and leverage them into growth.
Vasudan simulation and projection is driven by the desire to understand and catalogue history yet to come.
The Tevs are still the Lost Generation. They are haunted by past glory and past failure and now their leaders fence themselves in carefully planned, coldly calculated probability trees and gamed scenarios, hunting for ways to avoid catastrophe, willing to pay great prices to achieve success. They view economic and political and military strategy as a pathfinding exercise defined by accepting calculated risks and selecting good payoffs. Contrast with the deepset Vasudan pragmatism this machinery of selective injury, this embrace of extremes: if that is what it takes, then that is what we must do. It's pragmatism of a different order, not 'this is how the process will go' but 'this is where we can strike to make a difference'. It's a more volatile kind of foresight.
Tev simulation and projection is driven by the desire to avert catastrophe at any cost.
The Ubuntu simulation program is driven by a teological desire to garden and shape behavior. Where the Vasudans describe the shape of the historical equation and the Tevs work at a program of life support and damage control, the UEF government concerns itself with building feedback loops that drive humanity towards a destination. Understanding enables gentle intervention. Economic policy leverages incentives and behaviors, less top-down than the Tev calculus but without the Vasudan trust in the stalwart faith of the individual. The Vasudans trust themselves to be robust cogs in a byzantine machine; the Ubuntu program instead tries to rework the individual cog to improve the function of the whole, and back again in a cycle.
Ubuntu simulation and projection is driven by the careful control of a sandboxed system towards a definite end.
Luis Dias brings up the excellent question of how each approach handles escalating complexity and escalating uncertainty. The Vasudans believe that everything is certain in the end; they are comfortable with intricacy, in their language and conduct and politics, but they do not see intricacy or complexity as fearful. They lack the human heuristic of risk aversion.
The Tevs attempt to clamp variables aggressively to control complexity. They view a situation spiraling out of control as the worst possible outcome, because the consequences are so huge. They will pay extensive and dramatic prices for agency in a situation: burning nodes, employing military force, initiating massive projects to drive the economy.
Ubuntu attempts to compass escalating complexity by bootstrapping its own ability to simulate complexity. Risk aversion is tackled by embedding the individual investor or agent in a system which appears to comprehend and manage risk as a whole, even if the individual cannot grasp that whole.
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i love beepee
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That is great clarification and commentary, thanks.
Was kinda wondering on the origins of the very psychohistorian concept per se, and how in that story a whole new empire was designed using a technique of converging temporal points of crisis into very specific and defined situations that would be "manageable" by the designer of the plan himself. This technique was very effective until a very far away point in time.
I bring this up because of the neat contrast you place between the love of intricacy by the Zods and the sheer risk aversion by the Humans in so doing. It makes me wonder how much of a difference that will render in the way the Zod's actions (if they do believe in agency) are structured.
It can point to two different ways: Either to a much more nuanced and comprehensive, complex web of actions that are all pointed toward their own (also rich and complex) purposes, a very pseudo-omniscient take on every single systemic problem, and so on; or to a much less alien concept of just "managing complexity".
Ubuntu seems much more deontologically inclined, trying to come up with general "laws" of complexity that may work in every scale or event, creating processes that by themselves assure that further events may align with their purposes. "Soft Power". More subtle, more idealistic, more subversive. Also seems slower and vulnerable to a quick change of events (say a 180 shift in the Tev's strategy in the war*)
Battuta has exposed in the above a really cool characterization that will inform how WiH2 will play out with each faction acting and reacting according to their own projections that stem from their own worldviews. The most interesting part is how the "new" alliance between the Vasudans and the Tevs will work out along the plot. Although in FS and FS2 there was next to zero opportunity to showcase how the differences in them affect the story, the tactics and so on, here we have a great potential of complete what-the-hell-is-gonna-happen-in-the-next-two-minutes dynamic in that Alliance as we play along.
* Note how deep the vulnerability was exposed: the very philosophy of Ubuntu was placed in check with the creation of the Wargods in response to a drastic change in the Tev's tactics of a blitzkrieg kind of a war.
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This thread is now officially beyond my mere English level.
Carry on.
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This thread is now officially beyond my mere English level.
Carry on.
I am English and that isn't helping much lol, I can understand the basics of what is being said but has gone beyond my ability to form a reasoned discussion point
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Luis Dias made a good post.
tl;dr: due to differing viewpoints and methods of prediction, everyone has competing predictive models for what's going to happen so come WiH R2 or BP3 nobody's going to know what the hell is going on.
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This thread is close to a major breakthrough that could synthesize some of the battle-to-battle tactical themes with the broader mythology much sooner than we expected.
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This thread is close to a major breakthrough that could synthesize some of the battle-to-battle tactical themes with the broader mythology much sooner than we expected.
So in other words you BP ppl are going to raid the hell out of this thread for ideas :p ;)
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If they are good enough I'm sure they will. Why wouldn't they?
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We've had everything mapped out for years now, the answers to every question and the connections between every scrap of the mythology. We're not going to pull a Lost or BSG.
Not that you guys aren't brilliant, but we're not at a point where we need more ideas.
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rofl obviously. All we have here are obscure diagonal attempts at trying to figure out what you already established eons ago.
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No you guys are awesome :(
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NEW TRINITY CONFIRMED:
UEF---GTA---VI
BRAHAMAS-SHIVANS-VISHNANS
:P
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I can't tell you how glad I am to hear that Battuta. I'd much rather have BP's eventual ending be reminiscent of Babylon 5 instead of Battlestar Galactica in terms of coherency.
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SO I WAS thinking about the Vasudans while driving home, and some interesting things came about spuriously.
The first idea that knocked my head was the notion that there's a very big shift happening in Vasudaland. When the GTVA was finally able to destroy the Lucifer, a similar shift happened. This race that had a very decentralized structure and which, to Battuta's words, relishes in the complexities, appointed an emperor, centralizing the power structure to one single Vasudan, thus simplifying it. I wonder if this change has anything to do with the relationship with the humans, who were themselves always at the brink of desintegration, as a means of countering this centrifugal pressure.
Now however, there are two very different human structures to which the Vasudans have to deal with. The whole problem has increased in complexity and uncertainty. Not only the Ubuntu is an amazing structure in itself that poses lots of ideological problems to the tevs, you also have to take into account Jupiter, Mars, the Nagari incidents, Nabirasul and so on.
Not that the Vasudans like the situation, they'd rather not have the terrans be having a civil war, however this is exactly the kind of sea they are just so fond of swimming: complexity. Thus we can already imagine their kind of strategy in the whole issue: rich, decentralized, double-play, tinkering in this planet in one way, in another event the other way. To an outsider who is unaware of Vasudan culture, he would characterize it as mischievous, misleading bull****. A closer inspection however reveals a much more nuanced, nobler purpose.
The Tevs will do exactly the opposite: to turn the complex into simple. In order to do so, they will try to make the situations converge to single meaningful events to win the war. Batman gambits, Steele-like Delenda Ests. While the Zods try to play the entire battlefields of the chess board, the meta-chess and the anti-meta-chesses, the Tevs gamble everything in the Black Swan fat tail events they know they can create and fool others into them.
Ubuntu has, until now, tried too hard to make inceptions of ideas into the minds of their enemies (it is precisely this danger that made the Tevs proclaim war on them in the first place). Some of this has back fired. The apparent inability of their armed forces to deal with the Tevs forced the hand of a splinter group the Wargods to adopt the metaphysics of the Tevs, however without sufficient cunning and experience they failed miserably at the hands of a better player. The Wargods are necessarily wrong. It is the "duty" of the protagonist in WiH2 to understand this failure and that the "secret weapon" of the UEFs is precisely its own metaphysical game style which will only show how it is an amazing strategy at the very end of the arc.
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BP, I am intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
So then.... how do the Shivans handle information processing and risk management and future prediction? :nervous:
I kind of feel like they don't really "plan" or "predict" at all, they just.... go. Comparisons to hive insects are played out and too terrestrial really. I'd say they operate even more fundamentally. Not like bees or ants more like.... crystal growth or something. They just build and travel and conquer in the only way they can, fitting into some larger pattern devised long ago and ingrained into every facet of the species. I wonder if they did it to themselves or if it was the Vishnans or someone else entirely. Or if I'm completely off my rocker.
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There has been some absolutely cracking discussion going on. I am well pleased. :D
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If it was mentined in the backstory it must have slipped my mind, but how much power does the Vasudan Emperor actually have?
Does he have absolute power (like a benevolent dictator so to say)? Is he mostly a figurehead with very little actual political power, beyond his ability to influence the actual government (like the Elders)? Or is he something in between?
And what other political structures do the Vasudans have? Surely the Emperor can't just manage every day-to-day task of a multi system interstellar Empire all by himself.
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If it was mentined in the backstory it must have slipped my mind, but how much power does the Vasudan Emperor actually have?
Does he have absolute power (like a benevolent dictator so to say)? Is he mostly a figurehead with very little actual political power, beyond his ability to influence the actual government (like the Elders)? Or is he something in between?
And what other political structures do the Vasudans have? Surely the Emperor can't just manage every day-to-day task of a multi system interstellar Empire all by himself.
Khonsu dissolved the PVE and was one of the biggest driving forces during the Reconstruction and creation of the GTVA.
You'd need a huge amount of power to do any of the three, so he probably isn't a figurehead.
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Plus Khonsu is in charge of the Medjai.
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So then.... how do the Shivans handle information processing and risk management and future prediction? :nervous:
I kind of feel like they don't really "plan" or "predict" at all, they just.... go. Comparisons to hive insects are played out and too terrestrial really. I'd say they operate even more fundamentally. Not like bees or ants more like.... crystal growth or something. They just build and travel and conquer in the only way they can, fitting into some larger pattern devised long ago and ingrained into every facet of the species.
The shivans are somewhat of a blank slate where one can imagine a multitude of different ideas about them. Your idea is very intriguing, and someone else can think about Neumann probes (both of which seem to align with the idea of the Shivans not even be sentient, some kind of space zombies that are more powerful than everything else). My fascination with the shivans is about its very mystery which enables everyone who has contact with them to totally freak out and make all kinds of scare-stories (like zombifying them) that mankind has always done to whatever it was once "exotic" (and now is seen as mundane and / or silly).
(This is why I was slightly disappointed with the BP:aquarius portrayal of them, having them actually "talk" demoted their mystery to me...)
But your quote made me remember another quote (taking the theme of linking BP to Batman analogies):
Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just... *do* things.
I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself.
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!
I just love quoting that guy. Probably too OT though, sorry about that.
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The way I see it, the Shivans act on brute force to force someone down the path they desire, Capella was an ultimate example of that, they wanted to force the GTA into a dictatorship so they had a strong command structure, and in fact, the GTA became a more effective, calculating and brute military, an example would be the glass cannon flotilla (Serker), something only the Shivans used to have (Liliths, Rakhsahas), they now use more swarm tactics with their fighters as well, with older models (and their pilots and future AI/RC refits of older craft) being an expendable resource and ships like the Titan and Raynor working as the carrier and warships halves of Shivan Juggernauts (respectively.)
The Vasudans with their look at time as being constant (with their ancestors essentially living with them) resemble the Vishnans (Masters of Past, Present and Future) and their "elevated" and long term look at things brings them even closer to them.
Lastly the UEF seems like it could replace the lost Brhamans, remember how they reconstructed a chaotic Sol into the Federation? they built an infrastructure that made Sol self sustainable and they even have Kuiper Colonies allied with them (though not all, as shown by the GEF)
I am certain the above points can be much thoroughly expanded by reading the released lore, sadly I don't have the time right now. :sigh:
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If it was mentined in the backstory it must have slipped my mind, but how much power does the Vasudan Emperor actually have?
Does he have absolute power (like a benevolent dictator so to say)? Is he mostly a figurehead with very little actual political power, beyond his ability to influence the actual government (like the Elders)? Or is he something in between?
And what other political structures do the Vasudans have? Surely the Emperor can't just manage every day-to-day task of a multi system interstellar Empire all by himself.
Khonsu dissolved the PVE and was one of the biggest driving forces during the Reconstruction and creation of the GTVA.
You'd need a huge amount of power to do any of the three, so he probably isn't a figurehead.
He dissolved the old parliament, but did he replace it with anything? Is there an elected council, ruling beneath him, or is it a strickt hierarchy, with regents or governers below him? And so on and so forth....
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So there's the idea that the mortal trinity is in sync with the "immortal" trinity. I dislike that idea a lot, for it turns every character into a puppet under the hands of playful gods. Well, that is, unless the writers know their stuff and go the way of Job, which would be nice (off-character though).
The problem is that in that scenario, the Tevs did not arrive at their own conclusions by themselves, they did so because the Shivans tinkered them into doing so. The Feds have no responsibility at all on the metaphysics of their ideologies, they just serve the Brahmans, and the Zods are just mindless Vishnan followers.
However that question introduces the whole notion of the galactic Gods (the trinity) and how they mess up the relationship between the Zods, the Tevs and the Feds. I fear this "Gods" angle because then it is quite difficult any analysis, any "projection". Everything can be deus ex machinaed at any time by a single God. No matter how strange the wars between the three factions is, everything is suddenly simplified by the appearance of a Shivan Juggernaught fleet (and I guess that's the reason why An4ximandros made the comparison between the Shivans to the Tevs here).
This double scale stuff (small ant war being an analogy to the gods war) always stuck me as in bad taste, but this is completely personal (I also disliked the whole Babylon 5 mythology, although I appreciate the series).
SO I WONDER, apart from this simple B5 analogical stuff, is it possible for us to analyse these relationships in a more interesting, assymetrical, dynamical fashion?
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I'm also in camp asymmetry. The Shivans strike me as far too alien for any of the 'young' factions to provide an easy analogy even at the level of civilization-wide cognition.
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I'm also in camp asymmetry. The Shivans strike me as far too alien for any of the 'young' factions to provide an easy analogy even at the level of civilization-wide cognition.
I actually prefer my Shivans to be ominous and nuking everything in their path. Attempts to "humanize," or put the Shivans into a human context is a hard gamble, something that made reading the fluff about the GTVA's take on the Vishnans entertaining.
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I don't think my Shivan theory up there really precludes sentience. IRL we can observe and predict large scale patterns of behavior in humanity and we're all still sentient individuals (I think... :nervous:). So I think the Shivans aren't necessarily mindless automatons, but they've either engineered their own psyches or had them engineered by someone else in order to give rise to specific large scale patterns of behavior. Like how that secret Nara texture batman text talks about the Shivans being inefficient at the tactical level, but unstoppable at the galactic level, but to what end.... who knows.
This is actually starting to sound kind of UEF, what with their love of feedback loops and things that bootstrap themselves up so they get their desired outcome sort of emergently. And the UEF also has at least one of their pilots being contacted by a Shivan-assimilated guy...
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I'm going to laugh so hard, if it turns out that the containers in the shape of "Bosch" are just the mission designer messing with people who load the mission up in FRED.
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I'm going to laugh so hard, if it turns out that the containers in the shape of "Bosch" are just the mission designer messing with people who load the mission up in FRED.
Careful, you're going to give Darius and Battuta potentially dangerous ideas...
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We are Carl, resistance is futile!
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/thumb/Shivans_-_Color.jpg/350px-Shivans_-_Color.jpg)
*Ahem*
I do believe we should go back to the Vasudans now.
I can personally see the whole gate shcism as a cultural thing since, to them, Vasuda is still inhabited by their people, so they don't understand the human obsession with trying to go back to their womb.
And Petrarch saying they were just pissy because they couldn't go back to it was certainly a low blow.
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I was a bit dubious of how Petrarch went from being the measured, long-winded droner he is in FS2 to slinging insults at the Vasudans.
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He was stressed and mad.
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Did you remember Congress and Obama in 2011 during the gridlock?
I was a bit dubious of how Petrarch went from being the measured, long-winded droner he is in FS2 to slinging insults at the Vasudans.
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Speaking of the Vasudans, what exactly was the Medjai again? Is it the Emperor's personal fleet or something?
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While Vasudan contractors continued to build warships for the Terrans, and Vasudan engineers and tacticians worked closely with Terran friends on the design of a new generation of warships and weapons to counter the Shivan threat, the GTVA military began to segregate. Khonsu II reinstated the Medjai, a close-knit band of military leaders and admirals who reported directly to him. The Medjai began an ambitious restructuring of the Vasudan military in order to create a totally self-sufficient and powerful force capable of power projection, sustained counter-insurgency operations, and node denial.
From BP Fiction : The Rift (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_intelligence_data#The_Rift.2C_Parts_1_and_2).
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So it's kind of like the Vasudan version of the U.S. Joint Chiefs?
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As I understand it, it's like a combination of that and the Waffen-SS, just without the mass murder and other assorted war crimes.
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While Vasudan contractors continued to build warships for the Terrans, and Vasudan engineers and tacticians worked closely with Terran friends on the design of a new generation of warships and weapons to counter the Shivan threat, the GTVA military began to segregate. Khonsu II reinstated the Medjai, a close-knit band of military leaders and admirals who reported directly to him. The Medjai began an ambitious restructuring of the Vasudan military in order to create a totally self-sufficient and powerful force capable of power projection, sustained counter-insurgency operations, and node denial.
From BP Fiction : The Rift (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_intelligence_data#The_Rift.2C_Parts_1_and_2).
D'oh. Yeah, this would be the little bit of fiction that I kind of forgot about, as mentioned in the OP. My bad; it is a fairly detailed mention about the Vasudan side of the GTVA that just avoids giving game-related specifics (like new ships/craft/weapons, etc).
Though on one bit I'm a little confused on the wording--so Vasudan contractors are doing the actual construction of many Terran ships, if I understand correctly, but are they designing their own generation of new ships, or are the seen and known ones of AoA and WiHp1 simply common/joint designs between Terrans and Vasudans? Did the Terrans contribute significantly to the Vasudan's next generation of warships and their designs? And why, exactly, are Vasudan contractors building most Terran warships? Wouldn't that kind of thing be an economic, cultural, and political boon to the Terrans? How exactly would Titans be icons of Terran pride if they were built by Vasudans? I understand the reasoning for Vasudans building a good portion of Terran ships, at least for a while after Capella, but I'm curious about the more recent dynamic.
Okay, as a side note: can I mention how awesome it is that there's a high-level intellectual debate about hypothetical sociocultural economics situations using various economic philosophies and talk about the specifics of historical and theoretical economical dynamics to figure it out? Feels like a testament to the awesomeness of BP's overall worldbuilding and emotional interest/investment.
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Vasudans contractors and engineers are collaborating in designing Terran warships. They do not build them, as in Terran warships are built from Terran shipyards, in Terran territory, for the Terran fleet, for Terran interests, and crewed by Terrans.
Vasudans will have their own new-gen ship designs, not necessarily made with the same imperatives, requirements and design philosophy as the Terran ones, perhaps with or without the collaboration of Terran engineers and contractors. You won't see Chimeraes or Nyxes in the Imperium fleet. You may see stuff way more awesome than that, built and crewed by Vasudans for Vasudans.
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Vasudans contractors and engineers are collaborating in designing Terran warships. They do not build them, as in Terran warships are built from Terran shipyards, in Terran territory, for the Terran fleet, for Terran interests, and crewed by Terrans.
While Vasudan contractors continued to build warships for the Terrans,
I'm a little confused here...
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You would, yes.
Vasudan technology has been implemented in Terran ships ever since the start of the Alliance, so they do build ships for the Terrans in that sense.
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Terran - Vasudan hybrid technology started with shield tech and the Interceptor missile which combined a Terran warhead with a Vasudan engine, though I think the most notable Great War era colab was the Ulysses/Toth project where they worked together to produce a basic framework that was then adapted to fit each species need.
Going into FS2 the trend continues though not so much mention is made with only the Deimos and Colly specifically mentioning collaboration, though you can bet there was cooperation in other designs.
So yes the Vasudans and Terrans often work together usually with the Vasudans focusing on power and propulsion which they are *really* good at compared to terrans and we bring our love of blowing **** up and related design experience to arm the craft with each species building their own hulls.
while everything else is probably done in house you will probably find there is a lot of exchange of components with most of core weapon components built in Terran Space and shipped to the Vasudans when they need them and reactors and engines going the other way.
Now given the economic themes we have seen to day I would not be surprised to find that the Terrans are not able to keep up with Vasudan weaponry demands, meaning they are having to do more of the heavy lifting on that side of the agreement than they should be having to.
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Maybe this article could be changed to "build ship components for the Terrans" rather than mentioning whole ships.
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Vasudans contractors and engineers are collaborating in designing Terran warships. They do not build them, as in Terran warships are built from Terran shipyards, in Terran territory, for the Terran fleet, for Terran interests, and crewed by Terrans.
While Vasudan contractors continued to build warships for the Terrans,
I'm a little confused here...
Point taken, I think that part is indeed confusing. I heavily doubt Vasudans actually build ships for the Terrans at all, but they would collaborate in designing the ships, and perhaps constructing some specific spare parts for assembly by Terran shipmakers.
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For the record, I checked the weapon comparison table.
Apart from the BVas, the vasudan beams are better...while the TEI beams are worlds apart from their ancenstors, will the new vasudan beams be still better?
Or maybe multipurpose beams being able to switch between slashing and direct fire?
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I think it would be interesting if, as a result of rushing through beam technology around the time of FS2 (hence why their beams were often better than the Shivan ones), their beam technology peaked earlier, so they'd still be using their FS2 beams and modified TEI beams (with shorter recharge but less per-pulse damage).
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Maybe this article could be changed to "build ship components for the Terrans" rather than mentioning whole ships.
It can be split too.
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When I wrote "this article" I meant the Techroom entry and the corresponding text on the homepage, not the thread in the forum.
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For the record, I checked the weapon comparison table.
Apart from the BVas, the vasudan beams are better...while the TEI beams are worlds apart from their ancenstors, will the new vasudan beams be still better?
Or maybe multipurpose beams being able to switch between slashing and direct fire?
Keep in mind that, while Vasudan beams are statistically better, they are much more difficult to mount (or are simply rarer); consider that an SGreen is mounted on a Leviathan, along with four AAAfs and a Fusion Mortar, while the Mentu (Zods' new cruiser design) mounts no beams or anti-ship weaponry at all. The SVas is only found (as a single turret) on the Hatshepsut destroyer class. The Sobek mounts two VSlash's, but the Deimos mounts four TerSlash's. The Orion--a T-V War design that is older than even the Typhon--mounts three BGreens and three TerSlash's, while the Typhon struggles to mount two BVas's, and the Hatshepsut just has three BVas's and an SVas (though it does have five Fusion Mortars).
The Hecate, despite being a fleet carrier design, has a BGreen and four TerSlash's.
Point is, while the HBlue might be leagues better than the MBlue, when the HBlue is found only in a single turret on a single class of destroyer, the MBlue is mounted as a battery weapon in corvettes and destroyers alike, and three MBlue's outperform an HBlue in everything except range.
EDIT: Hatsheptsut has 3 BVas's. Duh. Dunno why my brain slipped there. As far as placement goes, you can only fire all three at the same target if said target is a good distance (but not more than 4km) above the Hatshepsut. Head on, only one BVas can fire, but with a little maneuvering you can get another BVas and the SVas in there relatively quickly. The third BVas is rear-mounted.
The Fusion Mortars are rather iffy as far as reliable firepower goes. They have a max range of 2km, a very slow velocity of 100 m/s, and each individually does something like 100 damage. Assuming the target is maneuvering (which it really should be), it's far from reliably accurate, and its damage output is very slow and gradual over time. Also, 2km of range before you can even start firing is rather tiny, especially for a destroyer that would have difficulty closing to that distance on a target at its flank.
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I think it's BP canon (and maybe FS canon) that green beams were specifically designed for backwards compatibility, so it would be possible to retrofit them on the Great War cruisers and the Orion. The Typhon, which is as old a design as the Orion, had serious problems with power grid overloads if multiple Vasudan beam cannons were put on it, according to its description. I'm pretty sure this is the main reason why Vasudan beams were better than Terran ones in FS2.
Just look at the Mjolnir if you want a Terran beam not designed for backwards compatibility.
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And despite it not having a beam atz all, the tech description says the Mentu should have one, guess it's a balancing reason, 'cause the Mentu with a beam cannon is...a beast.
And what are you trying to tell me Salty? The Hecate is crap, think we all agree that a Sobek can take it down, the heavy beam is usually the first thing to blow up, it's companion slasher following close by...and then? A slasher in the back...wow...
The Sobek it designed to be always on the attack, the Deimos is a multipurpose Corvette...
And still the Zods fared better in the second incursion and dealt with brushfire and other stuff after Capella.
Given the fact that the Zods now focus on node denial...what kind of capship would be good for that?
Long range artillery beams?
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And despite it not having a beam atz all, the tech description says the Mentu should have one, guess it's a balancing reason, 'cause the Mentu with a beam cannon is...a beast.
And what are you trying to tell me Salty? The Hecate is crap, think we all agree that a Sobek can take it down, the heavy beam is usually the first thing to blow up, it's companion slasher following close by...and then? A slasher in the back...wow...
The Sobek it designed to be always on the attack, the Deimos is a multipurpose Corvette...
And still the Zods fared better in the second incursion and dealt with brushfire and other stuff after Capella.
Given the fact that the Zods now focus on node denial...what kind of capship would be good for that?
Long range artillery beams?
Well yeah, but the tech description for the Orion says it has dozens of turrets. It has something like 16.
The Deimos may be multipurpose, but the Sobek has enough field of fire and maneuverability to serve pretty well in most roles, too. The main difference is that the Deimos spreads its firepower out in both fields of fire and beam output, giving it a more flexible capability but less concentrated firepower. But in general, four TerSlash's definitely beat two VSlash's (consider the advantages in likelihood to take out subsystems and turrets, rate of fire, and greater difficulty in disarming beams due to having four spread out targets rather than two adjacent ones). The Sobek's main advantage is that it's smaller; at only slightly larger than a Sanctus, it's a better anti-ship combatant than a Deimos in most cases, with pretty good point defenses and durability, making it a well-rounded design that is more suited for anti-ship combat and offensive or interception action than the Deimos, which is better suited for anti-craft combat and all-around anti-ship combat. Frankly, the Deimos' only real flaw in its design is that its dorsal turrets are purely blob turrets; if one or two were STerPulse's, or even just flaks of some kind (balanced out by swapping one or two of the under-turrets with blobs, perhaps), it would be an extremely well rounded vessel. Honestly, the Deimos/Sobek pair is my favorite ship combo; the only one that comes close is perhaps the Chimera/Diomedes. They are both excellent ships that are flexible and versatile while covering each other's slight shortcomings in major areas perfectly. The Sobek is exactly the right kind of ship needed to complement the Deimos's in WiH--while the Deimos's are excellent general combatants and have the essential strength in point defense against UEF craft and warheads, they have trouble bringing the kind of firepower needed for quickly grinding a frigate down with slash beams, which is where the Sobek excels. And since the Sobek is itself pretty good in the point defense department, on top of being offensively oriented, small, and relatively nimble, it's a more fearsome pair than the dreaded Chimera/Bellerophon (mainly due to the fact that you could have three Deimos/Sobek pairs for every Chimera/Bellerophon pair, and the beams on the latter are very vulnerable to defanging attacks).
The Hecate's absurdly large and fragile emitters are the bigger problem, not their output. Not great for a destroyer, yes, but considering the Hecate is more of a fleet carrier, it is somewhat forgivable. The Hatshepsut's hangar capacity is about as much as a Raynor's (size-wize), where the Hecate has something like double that.
I thought the Terrans were the ones dealing with brushfire wars and stuff after Capella? And they handled them quite well, if the tech entries for the Pegasus, Hecate, and Perseus are any indication.
As for the Hecate versus a Sobek scenario...look, if the BGreen gets even a single shot off on the Sobek, that corvette is in deep trouble. Add in a few hits from TerSlash's, and it's down a big chunk of its health in the opening salvo. The real game-changer, though, is when the Hecate sorties four wings of bombers and blows the crap out of the corvette in under a minute. To put it one way, a missile destroyer would generally not fare well against a supercarrier because the supercarrier could sortie several wings of strike craft to drive off or destroy the missile destroyer well before said destroyer got in range (or could get enough missiles past the point defenses of the supercarrier and its escorts).
The Hecate isn't meant to operate alone; Severanti's blunder in Post Meridian was that he had a pitifully small escort group and then sent his only corvette out to charge two Karunas and several wings of fighters with minimal support. Had the Meridian had another two or three Deimos corvettes in that screen, and kept his fleet together and made a single, collected stand, he would either have escaped with minor damage to his ships or driven off the UEF attack. Sending his strike craft out to attack the UEF strike force piecemeal was also a big mistake.
The Hecate bombed the crap out of Luna. LUNA. One of humanity's biggest colonies, right on the doorstep of Earth, and heavily guarded by Home Fleet. With strikecraft alone, no less, showing the sheer power of the Hecate--where Severanti's Deimos escorts beyond the Juarez were during Post Meridian is a good question; they were essential in covering his destroyer's main weakness.
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Severanti was in the process of being replaced. I think he just took all the ships he was able to assemble and made this one desperate attack quickly before he was no longer able to organize anything meaningfull.
The other ships were probably already sent of to somewhere else under Steels command.
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Severanti was in the process of being replaced. I think he just took all the ships he was able to assemble and made this one desperate attack quickly before he was no longer able to organize anything meaningfull.
The other ships were probably already sent of to somewhere else under Steels command.
I can't see that happening, really...why would Steele take away essential escort corvettes from a Hecate that isn't even under his command? And why then, right after the blitz? Why would he need that kind of backup when he's already got his whole fleet at Europa? It just leaves the Meridian open to an easy, lethal counterstrike whether or not it moves out to bomb Luna.
And Severanti would definitely be able to get more than one Deimos escort for an operation like that. I can't imagine Steele wouldn't allow two more Deimos corvettes to back him up when notified about the operation--even if he didn't approve of the strike, leaving a Hecate wide open like that after bombing Luna would be a huge risk for losing an entire destroyer with minimal enemy fleet losses. Hell, if Steele coordinated with Severanti even a little, he could just have Serkr or perhaps the Atreus ready to shock-jump the counterstrike force; lending the Meridian an AWACS would be more than worth that opportunity.
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In an head on approach and with your average AI...a Sobek will win.
The Bgreen has the range, sure, but it is dangerously exposed...I run a mission several times, playing with angles and all the stuff.
Head on, the Bgreen fires once, but the first or second salvo of the Vslash finishs that problem pretty quickly...
Sure it has bomber escort, but if we take those into account too...then there would be escorts on both sides and trust me, an angry Hati and Mentus with beams...wipe the floor....
A Typhon has 30 wings, the wiki talks about 60 - 180 Strikecraft, the Hecate 150+, the Hati is stated has having as much or more than a Typhon...
Hm...
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I'm lost. What are we trying to discuss here again ?
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Terran-Vasudan relations I think.
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Severanti was in the process of being replaced. I think he just took all the ships he was able to assemble and made this one desperate attack quickly before he was no longer able to organize anything meaningfull.
The other ships were probably already sent of to somewhere else under Steels command.
[...] Hell, if Steele coordinated with Severanti even a little,[...]
And here we have the core of the difference between our viewpoints.
I was under the impression that GTVA high command took Severantis command away and gave it over to Steele. But before he got shipped back to Delta Serpentis, Severanti somehow was able to scrounge together an attackforce and go for Luna, without Steels approval and/or knowledge.
There is of course also the possibility that they had a shared command and that Steele let Severanti run into the wall face-first to make sure Severanti was pulled back from Sol leaving Steele in full charge. Such behaviour would fit right in with the way he manipulated the Vasudans.
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No. Severanti was still in command of the Sol theatre until Post Meridian. Steele was just sent there as reinforcements, under the command of Severanti.
I refer you to Post Meridian's debriefing:
You should all be very proud. While we were unable to destroy the Meridian, our strike succeeded in forcing the destroyer to withdraw. Intelligence tells us that the Meridian has pulled back to Delta Serpentis. Better yet, the General Assembly is so displeased with Admiral Severanti's blunder here that they've relieved him of command and placed Steele in control of the Sol theatre.
This victory has important strategic ramifications. The GTVA is unlikely to take such bold action in the future without ensuring that additional destroyers are available for reinforcement. The more forces the GTVA holds back to reinforce endangered destroyers, the fewer ships they'll have attacking on the front line.
Incidentally, Admiral Calder of the Jovian Rim Fleet happens to disagree with this assessment. Now that Admiral Severanti is no longer in the Terran theater, Calder contends that Admiral Steele of the GTD Atreus will have free reign to use more aggressive tactics. If the Jovian's right, we should all brace for worse to come.
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Severanti was in the process of being replaced. I think he just took all the ships he was able to assemble and made this one desperate attack quickly before he was no longer able to organize anything meaningfull.
The other ships were probably already sent of to somewhere else under Steels command.
[...] Hell, if Steele coordinated with Severanti even a little,[...]
And here we have the core of the difference between our viewpoints.
I was under the impression that GTVA high command took Severantis command away and gave it over to Steele. But before he got shipped back to Delta Serpentis, Severanti somehow was able to scrounge together an attackforce and go for Luna, without Steels approval and/or knowledge.
There is of course also the possibility that they had a shared command and that Steele let Severanti run into the wall face-first to make sure Severanti was pulled back from Sol leaving Steele in full charge. Such behaviour would fit right in with the way he manipulated the Vasudans.
That's not exactly what happened. GTVA Command sent Steele and his BG to Sol to reinforce Severanti. Using these forces, Severanti was able to capture Artemis Station (Yes, Steele was the point man there, but he was acting under Severanti's orders), but this only reinforced the stress Severanti was under. After all, he was under increasing pressure to end the war quickly and decisively; a change of strategy he, as a rather cautious commander, was fundamentally uncomfortable with. Nevertheless, he tried to pursue an aggressive strategy, but due to his inexperience in executing high risk, high reward operations, he got his ass handed to him, thus causing GTVA High Command to recall him.
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So anyone place bets on how probable it is we see Steele really pissed off at a Vasudan general?
I'd place it at 90%.
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Yeah...but what does he need a general for?
He simply cannot afford to rage at a zod admiral, 'cause he need their support, wether he wants it or not.
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I still place a 90% chance of us seeing Steele being pissed off at a zod general in WiH2. The rest of the thread should have given you enough clues on why this is entirely plausible at least.
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You get it, that a general has no command over space assets, do you?
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Generals are Army. Foot soldiers and tanks on the ground. They don't command warships.
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US Air Force uses army ranks. Your argument is invalid.
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Gah
Military is too damn complicated.
Anyway, I haven't seen anything about why Steele would be pissed at Zods. If anything, THEY would be pissed at HIM for lying to them during Deals in Shadow. Not that they have to find about that in the first place.
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Anyway, I haven't seen anything about why Steele would be pissed at Zods. If anything, THEY would be pissed at HIM for lying to them during Deals in Shadow. Not that they have to find about that in the first place.
Not yet, no.
But considering the differences in how both species deal with crisis like this, I am placing a bet contingent on future unseen events.
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So? Space ships are usually Navy, a fleet, so an Admiral is in charge, plus, the Zods had Admirals in FS2.
And don't bring the marines in^^
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Here is an interesting spin, what happens if the Vasudan Admiral is Medjai, which personally I think is very likely given how events seem to be playing out. I ask because if they are Medjai I would expect the Emperor demand the Vasudan Admiral have access to everything which would make future manipulations and covering up existing acts a lot harder for Steele. Even if the Tevs manage to deny the Vasudans total access I would have thought it would raise the Emperor's suspicions a little, probably enough to ask the Admiral to try and find out what is being hidden. Might make for an interesting plot dynamic if any of that is the case.
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Recamai is Medjai. He says so.
"This is Admiral Recamai of the Medjai. I see Admiral Steele's warnings were well founded."
Khonsu's been painted as a pragmatist in the fiction. He seems to be aware that the UEF is more culturally compatible with the Vasudans, but he also knows that the GTVA Terran are better allies if/when the Shivans come back, which is why he's reluctant to commit to a side. It does seem as though he's gone with the historical allies, which does make sense.
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Recamai is Medjai. He says so.
"This is Admiral Recamai of the Medjai. I see Admiral Steele's warnings were well founded."
That was the admiral dispatched to investigate the possibilities of UEF contact, possibly was in region anyway to watch over the Logistics effort, there has been nothing to say that this will be the Admiral leading the combat force for WiH pt2.
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Well, he's already there. Wouldn't make much sense to send one battlegroup/destroyer, only to replace it a week or two later. I'd expect the Vasudans would have the foresight to fully arm a battlegroup headed into a warzone, even if it's on a diplomatic mission.
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I too believe the exact same military ranking structure we have today will be used 300 years from now, just as our current ranking structure is unchanged from that of 300 years ago.
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Well, he's already there. Wouldn't make much sense to send one battlegroup/destroyer, only to replace it a week or two later. I'd expect the Vasudans would have the foresight to fully arm a battlegroup headed into a warzone, even if it's on a diplomatic mission.
possibly, but as I say the admiral was dispatched for a specific reason, In a group like the Medjai you are in because:
1) you excel at what you do
2) you are utterly loyal to the Emperor
3) you bring a certain skill, to the group.
Good Battle Group commanders are as common as destroyers, military officers who can excel at interspecies relationships on the other hand is probably pretty rare, also I find it hard to believe the Emperor will have completely fallen for Steele's play, to save a logistics ship on the off chance of luring out a Vasudan official/officer to kill/kidnap them is a bit far fetched even by Terrans standards, especially as even a Terran can work out that acts that would likely start a war with a second group when you are already losing one is a bad idea, so the fact that the Admiral that was dispatched seems to have fallen hook line and sinker for the party line would suggest they are not the right person for the job.
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Recamai is Medjai. He says so.
"This is Admiral Recamai of the Medjai. I see Admiral Steele's warnings were well founded."
That was the admiral dispatched to investigate the possibilities of UEF contact, possibly was in region anyway to watch over the Logistics effort, there has been nothing to say that this will be the Admiral leading the combat force for WiH pt2.
What combat force ? The only force the Zods are willing to deploy so far is the logistics escort. The Imperium still wasn't at war with the UEF as of the end of WiH1.
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Recamai is Medjai. He says so.
"This is Admiral Recamai of the Medjai. I see Admiral Steele's warnings were well founded."
That was the admiral dispatched to investigate the possibilities of UEF contact, possibly was in region anyway to watch over the Logistics effort, there has been nothing to say that this will be the Admiral leading the combat force for WiH pt2.
What combat force ? The only force the Zods are willing to deploy so far is the logistics escort. The Imperium still wasn't at war with the UEF as of the end of WiH1.
My understanding was that the Vasudans are stepping up their activity in Sol to include frontline combat.
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So? Space ships are usually Navy, a fleet, so an Admiral is in charge, plus, the Zods had Admirals in FS2.
And don't bring the marines in^^
Someone hasn't been watching Stargate.
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So? Space ships are usually Navy, a fleet, so an Admiral is in charge, plus, the Zods had Admirals in FS2.
And don't bring the marines in^^
Someone hasn't been watching Stargate.
Good thing, too. Stargate is terrible with regards to military parlance.
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Recamai is Medjai. He says so.
"This is Admiral Recamai of the Medjai. I see Admiral Steele's warnings were well founded."
That was the admiral dispatched to investigate the possibilities of UEF contact, possibly was in region anyway to watch over the Logistics effort, there has been nothing to say that this will be the Admiral leading the combat force for WiH pt2.
What combat force ? The only force the Zods are willing to deploy so far is the logistics escort. The Imperium still wasn't at war with the UEF as of the end of WiH1.
My understanding was that the Vasudans are stepping up their activity in Sol to include frontline combat.
Are they? I got the impression that they were going to be more active, but not in that kind of manner. It seemed like an open possibility in the future, but in the mean time I felt like the likely outcome was merely a more decisive--but defensive--role (like keeping guard over the node with the Shepsakaf and his battlegroup, freeing up a Tev destroyer, or maybe keeping guard over Artemis station or something). Possibly increased logistics support (with a modest escort to guard them), too.
Well, he's already there. Wouldn't make much sense to send one battlegroup/destroyer, only to replace it a week or two later. I'd expect the Vasudans would have the foresight to fully arm a battlegroup headed into a warzone, even if it's on a diplomatic mission.
possibly, but as I say the admiral was dispatched for a specific reason, In a group like the Medjai you are in because:
1) you excel at what you do
2) you are utterly loyal to the Emperor
3) you bring a certain skill, to the group.
Good Battle Group commanders are as common as destroyers, military officers who can excel at interspecies relationships on the other hand is probably pretty rare, also I find it hard to believe the Emperor will have completely fallen for Steele's play, to save a logistics ship on the off chance of luring out a Vasudan official/officer to kill/kidnap them is a bit far fetched even by Terrans standards, especially as even a Terran can work out that acts that would likely start a war with a second group when you are already losing one is a bad idea, so the fact that the Admiral that was dispatched seems to have fallen hook line and sinker for the party line would suggest they are not the right person for the job.
I don't think that was the intended ploy; the ploy was to make the Vasudans believe that the UEF delegation was trying to frame the Tevs for assassinating a nonviolent, peaceful diplomat on a diplomatic mission to the Vasudans. The implication being that the UEF was trying to subvert and destabilize the alliance between the Zods and the Tevs to help their side in the war.
With the Gef raiding party, IIRC they showed up after the Zod admiral rejected the UEF's protest that the Tevs had assassinated the Elder/diplomatic delegation and believed the UEF to be the guilty party, which would mean that a quick follow-up attempt (or a deniable one) to disable, board, and capture the Shepsakaf might not seem too out of place. Still wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, though; really makes me wonder why Steele did it when all it served to do was add a very suspicious element to an otherwise convincing story.
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even if that's the case there will in all likelihood be a Vasudan Admiral in charge and given the situation in Sol, even from what the Terrans are passing on it is turbulent enough that you want a highly capable one in charge, probably one prepared to look beyond what information the Terran's are feeding them.
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So? Space ships are usually Navy, a fleet, so an Admiral is in charge, plus, the Zods had Admirals in FS2.
And don't bring the marines in^^
Someone hasn't been watching Stargate.
Lol, Stargate...it is contradicting itself more than once and yes, I know that their X-whatever cruisers are under command of the airforce.
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Still wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, though; really makes me wonder why Steele did it when all it served to do was add a very suspicious element to an otherwise convincing story.
Perhaps Steele is someone who understands Vasudans very well? As far as I've been able to understand, the Zods are not the kinds of people who are willing to bet too much in single bluffs like the Tevs are. If that's the case, then it is conceivable that despite understanding the human techniques of bluffing and cheating, they are not that good at the game. They will understand if you try to bluff them (a pathetic race if they couldn't), however when you enter a zone of double bluffs, triple negatives and so on, their BS detector maybe just isn't able to cope very well.
The kind of reasoning I'm using here is like one of RTS balancing races and so on, as if we could fine tune every "race" characteristic in order for them to have differentiations but still balancing themselves out. In this kind of reasoning, the Zods would have the advantage over Terrans of belonging in a different "time frame", being able to cope better with long-term crisis and so on, but the Tevs would be much better at very short term bursts of crisis, being able to foresee, plan and act much better these kinds of bluffs, double bluffs, all kinds of tricks and so on.
Note however, I don't like this "kind of reasoning". RTSes are fun but utterly unreal and ridiculous. I never bought this kind of perfect equilibrium of tribes. Some will be superior to others and that's just life.
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There's some insight into this in Conversations
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Vasudans are glaciers. Terrans are wildfires (but more focused).
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There's some insight into this in Conversations
Right.
It was an expert on lies who said that any lie requires cooperation from the lied to. I guess this was just an example of the same thing.
edit: http://blog.ted.com/2011/10/13/how-to-spot-a-liar-pamela-meyer/
It makes the Zods too human though.
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There's some insight into this in Conversations
Indeed, the whole 'they want to believe us' bit is important. However, it doesn't really explain why it was even done in the first place--it just makes it much less convincing without much gain, and isn't even a necessary element to the gambit.
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It makes the Zods too human though.
Their culture has become more and more Terran as the two species grew closer, and even though that change kind of reverted itself as the relation between the two species became frosty, I'm pretty sure someone like Steele has enough of an understanding of the species to pull off something like that.
For reference, see (BP fiction, The Rift (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_intelligence_data#The_Rift.2C_Parts_1_and_2))
In the Capellan era, the GTVA had been on the verge of becoming a truly integrated society. The ‘frog calls’ of Vasudan intercom chatter were becoming a welcome sound on Terran destroyers, and Vasudan society in general had begun a sharp turn away from ritualized, formulaic protocols and towards a more Terran model. These social changes reversed themselves with startling rapidity, born out of growing Terran pessimism and the (ironically reversed) Vasudan perception that the Terrans had become backwards-looking, superstitious, and hidebound.
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It makes the Zods too human though.
...I'm pretty sure someone like Steele has enough of an understanding of the species to pull off something like that.
That's what I said previously:
Perhaps Steele is someone who understands Vasudans very well? As far as I've been able to understand, the Zods are not the kinds of people who are willing to bet too much in single bluffs like the Tevs are. If that's the case, then it is conceivable that despite understanding the human techniques of bluffing and cheating, they are not that good at the game. They will understand if you try to bluff them (a pathetic race if they couldn't), however when you enter a zone of double bluffs, triple negatives and so on, their BS detector maybe just isn't able to cope very well.
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Steele had time in advance to prime the Vasudans with the expectation that the UEF were planning to move against them. Vasudan politics have historically been extraordinarily byzantine, sometimes to a self-destructive and paralytic extent, and this expectation is transmitted by avenues as diverse as the childhood stories of a Vasudan youth and the scenarios gamed out during military leadership training. At the same time, the Vasudans are perfectly capable of simple cost/benefit analysis, and it can't have escaped them that the capture of a Hatshepsut destroyer is a long-odds gamble with a comparatively narrow payoff compared to the risk of angering the Vasudans. Steele, in turn, must have known that the Vasudans would scrutinize UEF motives for the attack carefully.
The question the Vasudans face is whether the UEF operation should be taken at face value, whether it was a botched attempt driven by desperation, or whether someone is playing a deeper game. They do have the outcome of the Pesedjet operation to look back on - an event that played right into the UEF's hands.
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Steele had time in advance to prime the Vasudans with the expectation that the UEF were planning to move against them. Vasudan politics have historically been extraordinarily byzantine, sometimes to a self-destructive and paralytic extent, and this expectation is transmitted by avenues as diverse as the childhood stories of a Vasudan youth and the scenarios gamed out during military leadership training. At the same time, the Vasudans are perfectly capable of simple cost/benefit analysis, and it can't have escaped them that the capture of a Hatshepsut destroyer is a long-odds gamble with a comparatively narrow payoff compared to the risk of angering the Vasudans. Steele, in turn, must have known that the Vasudans would scrutinize UEF motives for the attack carefully.
The question the Vasudans face is whether the UEF operation should be taken at face value, whether it was a botched attempt driven by desperation, or whether someone is playing a deeper game. They do have the outcome of the Pesedjet operation to look back on - an event that played right into the UEF's hands.
Personally I believe Khonsu II is very much capable of that level of thinking but it depends a lot on the information he is given as to if he has the opportunity to make that call.
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Very complex and simple at the same time. I like that angle.
Another one came to mind, probably too off-topic but I just wanted to put it out of my stupid mind.
It's a stupid obvious reference, but the sentiment it echoed in my heart makes me want to spill it out here, and it is the thematics between Kotuzov and Napoleon in you-know-what-book. The latter super-Steely fashionwise, insightful, clever, arrogant, quick and sleazy. The former, an old wise man who knows "better", who is aware of the complexities of the world, aware of how chaotic and filled with unforeseen consequences all actions really are, how amusingly numb, patient and probably downright incompetent, but at some deep, strange level, turned competent due to his wisdom. So much not unlike the Elders.
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The question the Vasudans face is whether the UEF operation should be taken at face value, whether it was a botched attempt driven by desperation, or whether someone is playing a deeper game. They do have the outcome of the Pesedjet operation to look back on - an event that played right into the UEF's hands.
And if they ever have doubts, the investigations would most likely be carried over by GTVI - which has every interest into playing Steele's game.
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This may or may not be wholly relevant to the current thread, but a number of people in other threads have said/suggested Admiral Recamai did seem a little too quick/eager to believe Steele's story.
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He wanted to believe! :P
No really, in conversations from WIH "they" mention their allies wanted to believe them.
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I have a theory where the Admiral actually believed Steele because he's kind of the warmonger type and is trying to find every reason to trigger a war with the UEF. It is merely a theory that fits more or less well with the rest of the BP fluff.
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That is also something that I thought.
Recently (during reading this thread) I also got two more ideas though.
1) Maybe the Admiral can't really wrap his head around Steele betraying his trusted allies, shortly after they finally agreed to give logistical support to his forces.
While it is unlikely that the UEF would try what they were accused of, it's (usually) also unlikely that someone would intentionally facilitate an attack on an ally and blame the enemy for it.
2) The Admiral is just playing along for now, while he secretly tries to uncover the truth of the matter, behind the scenes. This might make a very nice sub-plot for spinn-off mini campaign or a piece of backstory.
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I have a theory where the Admiral actually believed Steele because he's kind of the warmonger type and is trying to find every reason to trigger a war with the UEF. It is merely a theory that fits more or less well with the rest of the BP fluff.
Even though apparently most of the Vasudans don't want this war and have sympathies for the UEF, I would imagine there would be some Vasudans that are exceptions to that 'rule' (even in high places) that do want to go to war with the UEF...whether they're just trigger happy and looking for a fight or they don't like the UEF or whether they feel they should be supporting their GTVA Terran allies.
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Or they agree with the Tev point of view that this war should end sooner rather than later, even if that requires Vasudan involvement.
There's a lot of politics going on behind the scenes. Much like Terran, some Zods just can't stand politics and would rather do it their own way.
Not necessarily a behaviour you'd expect from a member of the Medjai though, whose loyalty to the Emperor and his decisions probably go above the rest.
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But are the Medjai not also advisors to the Emperor?
That would mean they are trained to think for themselfs, even though they usually don't act on it without approval.
If the Admiral is convinced that the Emperor made an error, that might be his way of providing Khonsu with a chance to change his decree without losing face.
Is it really disloyal to "save someone from his own mistakes" so to say?
I'm not saying Khonsu made a mistake, just that the Admiral could be interpreting it this way.
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That's usually the job of the Court Jester.
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That's usually the job of the Court Jester.
What you did there, I see it.
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He did what?
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Someone's not been paying enough attention to the techroom.