For portal completion time, story sources mention 5 - 15 years. Ultimately it's just a bunch of speculation. There is no solid completion schedule given in canon, just guesses.
The thing that concerns me about the current force levels of the GTVA is the fact that they'd invested so much in their super battlewagon, the Colossus. There is a tendency among people, especially politicians to overestimate the ability of "ultimate weapons" and neglect the rest of their military assets. It is my feeling that this may have been the attitude prevalent in GTVA leadership up until the time of the destruction of the Colossus.
I personally feel that had not so many eggs been placed in the Colossus basket that the resources and personell might have been put to good use in other areas. The Shivans would possibly have faced a much stronger regular fleet that what they did. The Sathanas juggernaut class, while undeniably powerful, proved somewhat vulnerable to coordinated bomber and capitol ship strikes. A more numerous GTVA standard capitol ship fleet might have been able to exploit this with better results.
I personally think that had more of the corvette and destroyer classes been available, the Sathanas fleet may not have rolled over the GTVA quite so easily, although to what extent is arguable. I don't think a successful blockade of the Gamma Draconis - Capella node would be impossible, at least in the short term while the system was evacuated and the meson ships were prepared.
This point does however make sense. It also gives a good indication that the GTVA's conventional unit strength was likely given lower priority, even downsized from Great War levels. This is a very common attitude amongst politicians once the immediate need for large well trained and equipped military passes. Almost immediatly after the present danger has passed they are busy snipping and paring away at their military, no matter what possible threat may be on the horizon. It is this which leads me to belive that the GTVA might not be as powerful in comparison to Sol as the more willfully stubborn forumites would like to assume.
Another part of the equation is the home system is totally cut off from the colonies. No traffic, no communication. They have no idea if the Shivans are no longer a threat or if they are waiting for the reestablishment of the jump node to finish off the Terran species they've possibly made extinct in the rest of the colonies.
It's quite logical to suppose that the Sol system would have gone into a steady plan of warship construction and development that would have lasted well beyond the Great War and likely continued up until the reopening of the subspace node. That the Terran fleet is possibly more numerous and advanced than anything the GTVA has in its inventory, is not that big a stretch of the imagination.
Also, Sol had full access to all Shivan and Vasudan research before the node collapsed. I doubt that quantity obtained by the GTVA since is any big change.
Depending on a lot of factors, the home system could easily become hostile to the GTVA. An easy to envision scenario would have the GTVA threaten to close the Knossos portal or restrict its use should Sol refuse to agree to some item of petty import to the GTVA. I have no doubt that the Sol system would take measures to prevent that from happening very quickly. A tense situation that could quite easily spill over into open hostilities.
@Alpha : Don't take this the wrong way, but I figured out why your spelling and grammar is so terrible. You just bounce around all over the place like the bunny in your sig, as fast as you can.
I'm going to give you some friendly advice here. When you are trying to make a point in a debate you need to take care with your words. He who gets his thoughts down the fastest is not going to be he who conveys his ideas if they are unreadable. If you have something you want to say, and you believe your opinion is worth giving, you need to take the time to look after your spelling and grammar. That is, at least if you want to have your opinion respected enough to be read. Most folks will not make the effort to read more than a sentence or two of your replies because they are very difficult to translate into English. If something is worth saying, take the time to say it right.
