[Black Wolf]

I've been thinking about this lately from a couple of perspectives, primarily my on again, off again desire to write a novel (In terms of length, I know it could never be published) set across the course of the end of the TV war, the Great War and the immediate post war reconstruction. I have a vague idea about the kind of story I want to tell, and I think that that period in history would be fascinating, but to do so properly requires an understanding of the T-V War that we were never given in FS1 or 2. Essentially, I'm wondering what type of war it was, and what it would have been like to live through. I've got my own theory (which I'll describe here) but I'd like to hear other people's opinions too.

Anyway, the TV War. I'm ignoring any history created by Eishtmo or the TV War people and focussing solely on canon data, and drawing my own conclusions, so we don't know much about it - in fact, with the exception of a few tantalizing clues, we know hardly anything beyond the very broad strokes. It was a war between the Terrans and Vasudans that lasted 14 years and was still causing major casualties right up until the Shivans interrupted in 2335 (Operation Thresher killing over 500 pilots). We also know that big battles were taking place (Gulnara and Talania) with enough significance to alter design specs on cruisers, but spaced far enough apart that ships built between them were noticably different. OTherswise, we're given almost no information about the nature of the war.

I figure, then that the TV War was a sort of hybrid cold/hot war. Mostly, it involved building up the fleet and fortifying nodes. There would have been two major types of battles - firstly, you'd have your blockade run type, where one species would make a run on the other's node, either through the node (where each end was held by a different species) or from across the system (where each species held at least one entry point into a system). These would have been major, intensive efforts utilizing lots of capships and fighters with high casualty rates but major potential strategic gains. The aims would have been either to completely control the node by wiping out the opposition, or distract them long enough to slip some kind of force behind enemy lines (be they a recon or intelligence unit or a combat unit who would harass the other side from behind the lines).

The other type would be a system-wide battle, where each species had an entry point into a system, neither were strong enough for an assault on the others beachhead at the node, so they were jockeying for strategic position within the system. These would have been more variable, either being short and vicious or long and drawn out. A lot probably started short and vicious, but became drawn out battles of attrition if no clear victor could be determined in the first few days or weeks.

I suspect Operation Thresher was probably a Terran node assault in a contested system (Antares) followed by a Vasudan counterattack. That would explain the battle lasting two days and the high casualty rate among pilots (more than 5 times the fighter complement of an Orion).

In between these battles though, there would have been long periods of relative inactivity outside of the directly contested systems. Forces behind the lines would have been a constant threat, harassing shipping and collecting intelligence, but there probably would have been months of these minor harassment skirmishes followed by periods of intense activity whenever one fleet or the other reached critical mass and was able to contemplate another node assault, a lot like trench warfare in WW1 (with the node assaults the equivalent of going 'Over the Top').

Ground combat I'm a bit less certain of. I'm not sure whether it would have occurred as a consequence of a system changing hands (i.e. the Terrans, for example, capture a system from the Vasudans, gain dominance over space, then send troops in to eliminate ground forces) or if planets would have been attacked as a priority in the first days of an invasion. I guess this depends a lot on whether fighters were deploying from ground bases and whether the planets were part of a distributed supply network, or supplies came in on long chains from homeworlds and colonies safely behind the lines.

So, what would this have been like to live through? I'm not really certain. I mean, most of us have been living through a war for the past 8 years (if we happen to live in countries who've committed troops to Afghanistan or Iraq) without it really affecting our daily lives. The battles are very far away, and fought by professional armies, so there's been no war rationing or war level taxation or draft. This has some parallels with what you'd expect from the TV War - a technologically advanced war would need trained pilots and soldiers, negating the major benefits of a draft, plus the core systems like Earth and Vasuda prime would have been so well defended that the idea of enemy troops actually striking directly at major populations centres away from colonies would be unlikely.

However, we also know that research and development was going on, and that building combat vessels is resource intensive. This would imply a certain amount of "Total War" mentality could easily have been applied, including increased taxes to fund fleet building operations and possibly labour utilization (though like a draft, it's questionable as to how valuable unskilled labour would be in such a technologically complex area as building a starship.

So, I guess I'm drawing a conclusion that the TV War would have sat somewhere between Afghanistan and WW1 or 2 in terms of its impact on the civillian populace, perhaps somewhat akin to the Vietnam war, while the Great war would have had a much more direct impact, minimized only by its relative shortness (3 months). Kind of like if the Viet-Cong had orchestrated a 9/11 type attack, or a series of such attacks. Suddenly, civillians would have been directly affected and potentially in the firing line.

So, what am I asking for? Basically your impressions of the TV War, and how you think it would have gone down from a civillian perspective. Would it have been something that affected every citizen's daily lives, or just something that people living in the colonies and the military/military-industrial people would be really worrying about on a regular basis.



TL;DR - How do you think the question "What did you do during the war" Would be interpreted in 2336? Would it refer to just the great war, or the 14 year war in total, and would it even be the type of question you'd ask (i.e. nobody would ask any non-soldier today "What they did during the war" in reference to Afghanistan).

[Macfie]

IMO, because the 14 year war was a war of attrition I think it would have been more like WW2 from a US perspective.  This would be a battle between two species not a limited fight against insurgents.  The fighting would be far from home but would require large amounts of resources and manpower.  There would be copious amounts of propaganda and there would almost have to be a draft.  The technological advances would just require a longer training time before recruits would be sent to the field, but the base technological level of Terrans would be high.  While many countries can get by with just a professional army for small conflicts something on the scale of the TV war would require replacements for military losses that could not be handled by just volunteers.  Both the Terrans and Vasudans would try to disrupt shipping of supplies, so in addition to major offensives there would be small harassment missions like the German submarines, commerce raiders and airplanes that harassed the Atlantic convoys.  Rationing would be in effect especially as the war dragged on.  Much of the economy would be geared toward the production of material to support the war effort.  There would have to be ground combat of some sort to take and hold a system or a space station.

[MatthTheGeek]

Very interesting and well-thought little speech.

However I'm not very sure that the core systems were that unlikely to be assaulted during the T-V War. Remember that there were few defensive structures able to effectively hold a blockade during and before the FS1-era - no Mjolnir, nothing bigger than Watchdogs unable to scratch the paint of a destroyer. Which mean that blockades have to be held by a lot of capital ships and, given the inefficiency of capital-grade weaponry, with a significant fighter and bomber support. And ships able to carry fighter support were very few. I don't think either side was able to maintain that kind of blockade on many nodes at a time, meaning that only those close to the front line were actively defended.

Which means that any capital ship that successfully manage to run a blockade can potentially go quite far in enemy territory before being gunned down. Add to that the fact that you only have 4 jumps between Vasuda and Sol, and you'll see what I mean. Even if there was more than a dozen system explored at this time, the proximity between both core systems is what really makes very likely some skirmishes close to the home systems during the T-V war.

[Snail]

Your initial vision of the TV War is almost exactly how I imagined it too.

But about the front-line deal:

What started out as a show of strength and technology degenerated into a war of attrition, with both sides suffering heavy losses. Terran and Vasudan ships skirmished in remote areas of space while the politicos flapped their gums on the news.

The way I see it, there would be some heavy fighting in the systems near Sol and Vasuda (Antares, Beta Aquilae) where large, costly operations like Operation Thresher would be carried out by both sides, and skirmish-fighting in the more remote systems like Betelgeuse and the Capellan colonies.

We should also remember that by the start of FS1 the Terrans were less than 1 jump away from Vasuda at the frontline in the Antares system. I suspect Operation Thresher was an attempt to take control of the Vasuda-Antares Node, which failed but still managed to prevent the Vasudans getting supplies into Antares.

[Ace]

Very interesting and well-thought little speech.

However I'm not very sure that the core systems were that unlikely to be assaulted during the T-V War. Remember that there were few defensive structures able to effectively hold a blockade during and before the FS1-era - no Mjolnir, nothing bigger than Watchdogs unable to scratch the paint of a destroyer. Which mean that blockades have to be held by a lot of capital ships and, given the inefficiency of capital-grade weaponry, with a significant fighter and bomber support. And ships able to carry fighter support were very few. I don't think either side was able to maintain that kind of blockade on many nodes at a time, meaning that only those close to the front line were actively defended.

Which means that any capital ship that successfully manage to run a blockade can potentially go quite far in enemy territory before being gunned down. Add to that the fact that you only have 4 jumps between Vasuda and Sol, and you'll see what I mean. Even if there was more than a dozen system explored at this time, the proximity between both core systems is what really makes very likely some skirmishes close to the home systems during the T-V war.

One fault with this, systems like Ribos were mentioned to be heavily fortified. So, we may not have seen some of the heavier blockade type defenses in FS1 that were present in the period. (and useless against the Shivans)

[Topgun]

OH GOD NOT THE TELEVISION WARS!

soo brutal...

[Mongoose]

Very interesting and well-thought little speech.

However I'm not very sure that the core systems were that unlikely to be assaulted during the T-V War. Remember that there were few defensive structures able to effectively hold a blockade during and before the FS1-era - no Mjolnir, nothing bigger than Watchdogs unable to scratch the paint of a destroyer. Which mean that blockades have to be held by a lot of capital ships and, given the inefficiency of capital-grade weaponry, with a significant fighter and bomber support. And ships able to carry fighter support were very few. I don't think either side was able to maintain that kind of blockade on many nodes at a time, meaning that only those close to the front line were actively defended.

Which means that any capital ship that successfully manage to run a blockade can potentially go quite far in enemy territory before being gunned down. Add to that the fact that you only have 4 jumps between Vasuda and Sol, and you'll see what I mean. Even if there was more than a dozen system explored at this time, the proximity between both core systems is what really makes very likely some skirmishes close to the home systems during the T-V war.

I'm not so sure that would be the case.  At least based on what we see in-game during FS1, destroyers at that time were a relatively rare commodity, and the destruction of one was treated as a major defeat; in contrast, by the time of FS2, destroyers are generally more plentiful and less of a critical loss.  I could see the GTA sending a Leviathan through on a blockade run, but I couldn't see an Orion or Typhon being subjected to that sort of risk, no matter what gains could potentially be made by it.  Destroyers of that era were far more valuable as fighter carriers than direct ship-to-ship weapons.

I like all of the ideas flying around in here.  This is an era in the story that doesn't get talked about all that much, and it could use some more discussion loving.

[Narwhal]

For a war to last 14 on a very limited number of systems (look at the nodmap : only about 10 systems are strategic to go from Vasuda to Sol (ok, maybe through Debbe you can do a long turn and go back on Vasuda)), I expect several things :

1. The war was low density. No side had real objective to destroy the other side (war as a way to support an authoritarian regime ?) or no will to use tremendous ressources (see Afghanistan sure the West could nuke every single square meter - that's just not the objective), at least at the beginning, or
2. The offensive technologies (from a node to another system) were extremely poor : maybe no way to project fighters (no Destroyer for instance), maybe the first vessels capable of interjump system were too heavy and cumbersome to be any use, I don't know.
3. In 14 years, I believe there were breakthrough, but since no one was good enough to go until Sol/Vasuda, I assume that ships (at least at the beginning of the war) use a MASSIVE volume of supply, which hampers lasting breakthrough. Maybe you can take one system. Not more. This also makes strategy like "I do a fake attacks to let some assets slip through and attack from behind unlikely, since there is the supply problem.
4. The war accelerated in the final years : 500 deathes seems like nothing to us or to a shivan war, remember that a Cruiser down is more than 500 deathes. Yet, it is unusual enough to be mentioned in the first briefing.

Thesis 1,2,4 are supported IMO by the arrival of the Shivan. I have the rather common assumption that Shivans are attracted by massive subspace usage. The fact that they haven't been attracted earlier could mean that there were few subspace jumps => Few attacks => Trench war. I have this system, don't attack it.

Finally, I don't believe in skirmishes (EDIT : except at the beginning as an "escalation", and at the end) . It is very easy to hold a system, very hard to attack a new one. Once you hold a system, you can probably blockade the node then clean the system. This situation is NOT adapted to "skirmishes". The way I see it, there is a large battle from time to time, when one side tries to force a blockade, and then a long period without any battle, for several monthes. Except at the end of the TV War, of course.

As a conclusion, this was IMHO far from a total war, more like Yugoslavia / Afghanistan for the average American and even better European guy. Some people are fighting far awau, in a war that cannot be won but that no one imagine losing either, with important ressources committed but not a full economy. I take as a proof the discontinuation of the Leviathan when the war was considered almost finished : I don't imagine this kind of behaviour in a total war (see WWI / WWII, where munition were produced until the last day).

[Topgun]

I always thought of the T-V war as a series of skirmishes that escalated into an all out galactic war.

[SpardaSon21]

Isn't it mentioned that both governments were nearly at a point of collapse at the time of the Shivan arrival?

[Eishtmo]

Anyway, the TV War. I'm ignoring any history created by Eishtmo or the TV War people and focussing solely on canon data, and drawing my own conclusions, so we don't know much about it - in fact, with the exception of a few tantalizing clues, we know hardly anything beyond the very broad strokes.

Finally, someone else that's willing to take a crack at this.  I developed most of the 14 Year War stuff for story and campaign development, so much of it is less than trustworthy on the subject.  Still, this doesn't mean I can't reevaluate much of it.

Anyway, let's discuss some of the issues:

One fault with this, systems like Ribos were mentioned to be heavily fortified. So, we may not have seen some of the heavier blockade type defenses in FS1 that were present in the period. (and useless against the Shivans)

Tombaugh Station was said to be a "fortress," which could mean that it just had a lot of ships, perhaps even an Orion, hanging around.  There's no comments about the rest of the system, which could have had anything.

Much of the economy would be geared toward the production of material to support the war effort. 

This seems relevant as it is commented that the war was putting severe economic strain on the GTA, and likely the PVE as well.  So there was a signficant amount of resources going into the war, especially in the later years.

However I'm not very sure that the core systems were that unlikely to be assaulted during the T-V War. Remember that there were few defensive structures able to effectively hold a blockade during and before the FS1-era - no Mjolnir, nothing bigger than Watchdogs unable to scratch the paint of a destroyer. Which mean that blockades have to be held by a lot of capital ships and, given the inefficiency of capital-grade weaponry, with a significant fighter and bomber support. And ships able to carry fighter support were very few. I don't think either side was able to maintain that kind of blockade on many nodes at a time, meaning that only those close to the front line were actively defended.

Which means that any capital ship that successfully manage to run a blockade can potentially go quite far in enemy territory before being gunned down. Add to that the fact that you only have 4 jumps between Vasuda and Sol, and you'll see what I mean. Even if there was more than a dozen system explored at this time, the proximity between both core systems is what really makes very likely some skirmishes close to the home systems during the T-V war.

There are a lot of questions brought up here.  Couple this with the almost complete lack of a Vasudan destroyer for most of the war, and the Orion possibly being in service for nearly the entire thing, one has to wonder how the Vasudans prevented the conquest of their systems early on. 

The obvious point is one Mongoose made:  Destroyers are rare.  There are 6 named Orions in FS1 and Silent Threat (Galatea, Bastion, Amadaus, Intrepid, Krios and Soyakaze) and 4 Typhons (Pinnacle, Hope, Prophecy and Anvil).  Two other Terran destroyers, Eisenhower and Goliath, are named, but not specifically identifed as Orions, and then there's the Orion from FS2's opening cutscene which was explicately stated to NOT be the Galatea, nor is it any of the other named Orions, so that brings us up to 7 active Orions.  The Shivans, likewise, have only 3 named destroyers (Eva, Tantalas and Lucifer), and then there's the Hades, which is another issue entirely.

So the GTA has 7 destroyers, two of which are close enough to each other to exchange pilots for a single mission early in the war.  They did outnumber the Vasudans, but after the Vega Engagement, were less likely to do so (even 3 years later).  So why not just go balls out and invade Vasuda itself?

The thought leads me to one small statement when talking about the Shivans: 

Oddly enough, the Shivans don't seem to be interested in taking control of any planets in the systems, or gathering natural resources. Instead they seem to be focused on controlling individual jump nodes.

If taking and holding nodes were a normal part of the 14 Year War, why would this be considered odd?  Maybe it's simply referencing the planetary conquest angle, but I think it's about the nodes.  The conclusion I have is that it WAS considered odd, and that most of the war WASN'T about the nodes at all.  Sure, they WERE important, they were bottlenecks and while taking control of a specific ones was important, it wasn't the focus of the work.  Remember, there were Vasudans in Ross 128, a system that, relative to the frontlines, was BEHIND Sol itself.

With this in mind, I think we might safely conclude that the 14 Year War wasn't much of a space war, it was almost exclusively a GROUND war, fighting over planets.  The fleet's job was to help cover ground operations, escorting transports to planets and between the systems.  Assulting nodes, destroyer vs destroyer engagements, grand scale fighter battles were NOT what the fleet did normally.  Operation Thresher doesn't counter this, it actually provides evidence for it as it seems to have been poorly planned and cost far more than expected.

The Shivan invasion, purely a fleet action, seems to have caught the GTA and PVE flatfooted and unprepared.  Sure, we can say it's  because of the tech gap and the Lucifer, but the losses quickly mount and it's only by luck that they survive the war at all.  Hell, they didn't even have a decent space bomb until AFTER the Shivans appear.  It also explains the dramatic change in the character of the fleet between FS1 and FS2, where fleet combat becomes MORE important than ever before.  Beam weapons are developed, flak guns, ships specializing in anti-capital ship warfare and new classes of space bombs appear.  Reaction to the Shivans, yes, but why not have this kind of thing as a reaction to the Vasudans more than 40 years ago?

I'm going to say because it was a completely different kind of war, a ground war, and the fleet was just kind of watching over the war and particpating on a limited level.  Gulnara and Talania could have been major ground battles, not space battles.  And what of the Vega Engagement?  That's such an odd name, isn't it?  Engagement.  Why not say "Battle of Vega?"  Answer:  It wasn't considered a battle at all, it was a fleet action, and a exceptionally rare one at that.  It just resulted in a horrific loss.  Perhaps it was the first destroyer vs destroyer fight the GTA and PVE ever fought!

It's a different thought at least.

[Solatar]

This is an interesting discussion, and I like where it's going. 

While the player is fighting the Vasudans in FS1, the engagements are very small.  This may be mostly due to the fact that it's the beginning of the campaign, but even during the relatively intense "Small Deadly Space" mission, there weren't huge wings of Vasudan fighters spawning.  At that point, fighting may have been on a smaller scale.  A wing of fighters might get in a skirmish with another wing, and hell...if the Zods lose 2 out of 4 pilots, they may just retreat (I think it's mostly gameplay reasons that all fights are fights to the death of the last man).

[TrashMan]

The war accelerated in the final years : 500 deathes seems like nothing to us or to a shivan war, remember that a Cruiser down is more than 500 deathes. Yet, it is unusual enough to be mentioned in the first briefing.

500 PILOT deaths.
Pilots are far harder to replace and train than other military personel.

Ground pounders? 500 lost is nothing.
Ship crew? 500 is again, almost nothing.

[Narwhal]

The war accelerated in the final years : 500 deathes seems like nothing to us or to a shivan war, remember that a Cruiser down is more than 500 deathes. Yet, it is unusual enough to be mentioned in the first briefing.

500 PILOT deaths.
Pilots are far harder to replace and train than other military personel.

You got a point. I knew this, but reading the briefing again it is obvious that the important information is that they are pilots, not only "deathes".

[MatthTheGeek]

However I'm not very sure that the core systems were that unlikely to be assaulted during the T-V War. Remember that there were few defensive structures able to effectively hold a blockade during and before the FS1-era - no Mjolnir, nothing bigger than Watchdogs unable to scratch the paint of a destroyer. Which mean that blockades have to be held by a lot of capital ships and, given the inefficiency of capital-grade weaponry, with a significant fighter and bomber support. And ships able to carry fighter support were very few. I don't think either side was able to maintain that kind of blockade on many nodes at a time, meaning that only those close to the front line were actively defended.

Which means that any capital ship that successfully manage to run a blockade can potentially go quite far in enemy territory before being gunned down. Add to that the fact that you only have 4 jumps between Vasuda and Sol, and you'll see what I mean. Even if there was more than a dozen system explored at this time, the proximity between both core systems is what really makes very likely some skirmishes close to the home systems during the T-V war.

There are a lot of questions brought up here.  Couple this with the almost complete lack of a Vasudan destroyer for most of the war, and the Orion possibly being in service for nearly the entire thing, one has to wonder how the Vasudans prevented the conquest of their systems early on.  

The obvious point is one Mongoose made:  Destroyers are rare.  There are 6 named Orions in FS1 and Silent Threat (Galatea, Bastion, Amadaus, Intrepid, Krios and Soyakaze) and 4 Typhons (Pinnacle, Hope, Prophecy and Anvil).  Two other Terran destroyers, Eisenhower and Goliath, are named, but not specifically identifed as Orions, and then there's the Orion from FS2's opening cutscene which was explicately stated to NOT be the Galatea, nor is it any of the other named Orions, so that brings us up to 7 active Orions.  The Shivans, likewise, have only 3 named destroyers (Eva, Tantalas and Lucifer), and then there's the Hades, which is another issue entirely.

So the GTA has 7 destroyers, two of which are close enough to each other to exchange pilots for a single mission early in the war.  They did outnumber the Vasudans, but after the Vega Engagement, were less likely to do so (even 3 years later).  So why not just go balls out and invade Vasuda itself?

Few destroyers, yes. But still something bothers me : there were Vasudans in Ross 128, far behind enemy lines. How did they went here ? Fighters didn't have inter-system jump drives before the end of FS1, so either they were carried by a capital ship (and the only canon ships at this era able to carry fighters are destroyers), or they were build on site, which is quite unlikely. We can still suppose the existence of a non-canon unfeatured Vasudan light carrier or something like that, but still, that would be quite odd.

The thought leads me to one small statement when talking about the Shivans:  

Oddly enough, the Shivans don't seem to be interested in taking control of any planets in the systems, or gathering natural resources. Instead they seem to be focused on controlling individual jump nodes.

If taking and holding nodes were a normal part of the 14 Year War, why would this be considered odd?  Maybe it's simply referencing the planetary conquest angle, but I think it's about the nodes.  The conclusion I have is that it WAS considered odd, and that most of the war WASN'T about the nodes at all.  Sure, they WERE important, they were bottlenecks and while taking control of a specific ones was important, it wasn't the focus of the work.  Remember, there were Vasudans in Ross 128, a system that, relative to the frontlines, was BEHIND Sol itself.

With this in mind, I think we might safely conclude that the 14 Year War wasn't much of a space war, it was almost exclusively a GROUND war, fighting over planets.  The fleet's job was to help cover ground operations, escorting transports to planets and between the systems.  Assulting nodes, destroyer vs destroyer engagements, grand scale fighter battles were NOT what the fleet did normally.  Operation Thresher doesn't counter this, it actually provides evidence for it as it seems to have been poorly planned and cost far more than expected.

The Shivan invasion, purely a fleet action, seems to have caught the GTA and PVE flatfooted and unprepared.  Sure, we can say it's  because of the tech gap and the Lucifer, but the losses quickly mount and it's only by luck that they survive the war at all.  Hell, they didn't even have a decent space bomb until AFTER the Shivans appear.  It also explains the dramatic change in the character of the fleet between FS1 and FS2, where fleet combat becomes MORE important than ever before.  Beam weapons are developed, flak guns, ships specializing in anti-capital ship warfare and new classes of space bombs appear.  Reaction to the Shivans, yes, but why not have this kind of thing as a reaction to the Vasudans more than 40 years ago?

I'm going to say because it was a completely different kind of war, a ground war, and the fleet was just kind of watching over the war and particpating on a limited level.  Gulnara and Talania could have been major ground battles, not space battles.  And what of the Vega Engagement?  That's such an odd name, isn't it?  Engagement.  Why not say "Battle of Vega?"  Answer:  It wasn't considered a battle at all, it was a fleet action, and a exceptionally rare one at that.  It just resulted in a horrific loss.  Perhaps it was the first destroyer vs destroyer fight the GTA and PVE ever fought!

It's a different thought at least.

Ground war. Interesting point of vue for a space-sim . I think the thing that GTA/PVN found odd was the fact that Shivans focused entirely on nodes, yes, but mainly because they didn't even try to take advantage of natural resources in the systems they controlled. If the T-V wars was something close to a trench war, the main advantage of gaining ground on the enemy was to gain control of the resources on the areas newly controlled (think planets, gas giants, asteroids, whatever), and the fact the Shivans didn't do that was what surprised them. And that's in fact an asset in the Shivan strategy because that makes less rear-guard operations to defend.

And about the bomb thing, I think hard to believe that there were no bombs before FS1. The fact they aren't featured doesn't mean that there weren't any at all. It's obvious, but the Angel is canonically known to exist not far before FS1 but isn't featured. On the other hand, both GTA and PVN had bombers before the Shivan incursion (Athena, Amun, Osiris, and nothing canonically says that the Medusa wasn't already in service too) and I don't see why they would be called "bombers" if they can't carry anything bigger than Furies. On the other hand, Amun are know to have destroyed 3 Orion during the T-V War. How do you expect them to do so without bombs ?

And if the GTA/PVN were caught unprepared by the Shivan invasion, that's not only because they expected more ground actions, but mainly for the same reason the France fell that quickly before the German advance at the very beginning of WW2 : unexpected warfare tactics. France prepared themselves for a WW1-like war, building the Maginot line, and were smashed by the flank attack and the swiftness of the Blitzkrieg. If we consider the T-V war like a trench war, then the Shivans aggressive tactics, attacking without warning on all fronts, using uncharted jump nodes and the inter-system jump ability of their fighters to attack deeper in allied-controlled systems, are truly tactics the GTA/PVN wasn't prepared for at all.

So "ground war" is an interesting hypothesis, but I think it's a bit far from the space-sim point of vue and that we can explains things staying closer to space warfare.

[Eishtmo]

So "ground war" is an interesting hypothesis, but I think it's a bit far from the space-sim point of vue and that we can explains things staying closer to space warfare.

You won't see me defend it to much, really.  It was something fun to find evidence for, providing a completely different perspective on a war we know so little about.

Which doesn't mean that some of the elements of this doesn't have merit, and in thinking harder about it, perhaps there is a viable 'ground war' hypothesis.

The core issue with the 14 Year War is that we have no evidence that the Vasudans had a destroyer before 2333, nearly 12 YEARS after the war started, and we have some evidence that the Orion existed before that, perhaps from as early as the begining of the war.  So how did the Vasudan navy manage to hold the GTA to a standstill for so long?

Maybe they didn't.  We know Gulnara was a signficant enough defeat for the PVN that the GTA felt they no longer needed the Leviathan.  Perhaps, the Vasudan fleet was all but destroyed in that battle.  Then why didn't the GTA win?  I suppose it comes down to what you consider "winning" to be.

Let's go back to that statement about the Shivans:

Oddly enough, the Shivans don't seem to be interested in taking control of any planets in the systems, or gathering natural resources. Instead they seem to be focused on controlling individual jump nodes.

Taking planets and gathering resources.  This might have been the entire mission of the GTA.  Securing Terran colonies, taking planets with valuable resources and making sure trade routes are secure.  "Winning" the war might have simply been forcing the Vasudans to the negotiation table to ensure these factors.  Destroying the Vasudan navy may have been what they were looking for.

But more signficantly, the GTA how has fleet superiority over the Vasudans, so they can do what they want.  And what do they want?  To secure Terran colonies, taking planets with valuable resources and making sure trade routes are secure.  There's no incentive to invade Vasuda (Vasuda Prime is implied to be resource poor) so they don't.  Instead, they focus on valuable worlds and the war drags on.  The Orions oversee these operations, and the Leviathans only return to production when the Vasudans manage to scrape enough of a force together to win at Talania.

After that, perhaps the Vasudan fleet laid low.  The fighting reverted to ground combat.  And ground combat must have been hell. Harbingers were originally designed for planetary bombardment after all.  The Terrans, feeling they had the Vasudan fleet in hand, simply didn't bother to improve their fleet any, they didn't even build any proper bombers short of the Athena.

Which brings us to the bombers.  If there were no space bombs, why were there bombers?  Well, maybe they weren't supposed to go after capital ships originally, they were designed to go after planetary targets.  We kind of ignore the possiblity, mostly because it does seem rather silly, but given the possible extent of ground combat, it seems likely that the GTA and PVE had to use their ships in the atmosphere of planets.  And the best way to deliver a 5000 MT bomb?  Drop it from a bomber, perhaps a fighter bomber from low orbit.  Doesn't need an engine for it at all, freefall works very well.  Who knows.

So maybe the Vasudans spent this time developing the first generation anti-destroyer weapons and tactics, loaded them up on the first Typhon and sent it into Vega where they obliterated the 4th fleet.  The GTA began pushing heir own development cycle for weapons culminating in the Tsunami (the Harbinger was developed specifically for the Lucifer, I believe).

In other words, the last two years of the 14 Year War were far different than the first 12.  For most of the war, the GTA had fleet superiority and basically ran ground operations.  Only in the last two years do the Vasudans finally provide a credible fleet threat, changing much of how the war was fought.

That seems to cover most of the holes, except for one:

But still something bothers me : there were Vasudans in Ross 128, far behind enemy lines. How did they went here ? Fighters didn't have inter-system jump drives before the end of FS1, so either they were carried by a capital ship (and the only canon ships at this era able to carry fighters are destroyers), or they were build on site, which is quite unlikely. We can still suppose the existence of a non-canon unfeatured Vasudan light carrier or something like that, but still, that would be quite odd.

If my idea holds, then yeah, the Vasudans build them on their colonies within each system, mostly to cover their ground forces.  It was also the only way they could usually keep up the pressure on the Terrans in any given fight.

For my more traditional layout, I've always figured that Vasudans actually built small manufacturing bases in every system they entered to maintain fleet numbers.  They would be hidden in asteroid fields, disguised as one (possibly Bosch's insperation) and cranking out fighters at a slow, but steady rate.  I call these bases Tutankhamun Production Bases, but usually I just nickname them "Tut Huts."  Just my idea on that.

[Kosh]

It seems to me that the first half of the TV war was more about manuevering than anything else, until eventually it turned into static war of attrition (world war one in space), although in the last 2 years of the war the rate of attrition on both sides was increased dramatically.

I could see the GTA sending a Leviathan through on a blockade run, but I couldn't see an Orion or Typhon being subjected to that sort of risk, no matter what gains could potentially be made by it.  Destroyers of that era were far more valuable as fighter carriers than direct ship-to-ship weapons.

Maybe not. Blockades didn't carry the same weight in FS1 because both capital ships and bombers were far far less dangerous. There were no Helios bombs, no Cyclops bombs, no Mjolnirs, no BGreens. An Orion had 100,000 hitpoints, a Typhon has 120,000 , and without heavy beams or powerful bombs neither of these would be easy to take down.

We can still suppose the existence of a non-canon unfeatured Vasudan light carrier or something like that, but still, that would be quite odd.

We also know that Terrans and Vasudans had different advantages over one another. Terrans were better at weapons, Vasudans were better at propulsion. It is pretty clear to me that the Vasudans had intersystem drives on fighters, we did see Vasudan fighters using jump nodes on several occations in FS1, and I dont think that was an oversight. It explains how the Vasudans were in Ross 128 and no doubt many other Terran systems far behind the front lines, and also how they were able to hold on for so long despite Terran advantages in the beginning of the conflict. We should consider that Terran propulsion tech was in general significantly inferior to the Vasudans (see the differences between the Valkyrie and the Horus in terms of specs).

As for why they didn't give that tech to the Terrans before the end. They didn't at the beginning of the Great War because there was still significant amounts of mistrust between them. At about the middle most of their systems were conquered, their homeworld was about to be torched and no doubt a siginificant portion of their research infrastructure. We should also consider that Terran and Vasudan drive systems are sophisticated machines that have completely different designs, meaning that it takes time to reverse engineer how it works. That is why the Terrans didn't finish developing it until  the very end of FS1.

[MatthTheGeek]

A lot of interesting assumptions here. I'm still reluctant to think that the Vasudans had no destroyer before the Typhon, and that the GTA had the upper on most of their space battles. I think an hypothesis we can make here is that contrary to GTA, Vasudans had proper bombs before the Great War. Remember what I said about the Amun destroying 3 Orions, which is highly unlikely without bombs. On the other hand the only bomber which is known to be used before FS1 is the Athena, and and it can't carry anything bigger than Phoenix-sized payload (Phoenix didn't even exist during the T-V Wars). So even with smaller fleets, much less efficient cruisers, and if we even admit they didn't have destroyers, it is absolutely believable that their bomber superiority enabled them to evenly fight the GTA. Especially when they can cover them with swarms of Anubis.

The Tuts Huts is also interesting, but a little far-fetched, don't you think ? How do you expect them to supply those bases ?
I also like the idea of Vasudans already having inter-system jumps for their fighters, but I don't really believe in it. Actually I don't see an Anubis having enough power output to sustain that kind of jump. Anyway with what I said above, slipping a Typhon through Terran blockades would be much more likely than slipping Orions behind Vasudans lines, but given the rarity of destroyers, it's not a credible option either. I think however that modified Vasudan freighters could carry fighters through nodes, or carry fighter parts, in order for them to be deployed/build behind enemy lines. And make those freighters run blockades would be pretty easy if you can distract the blockade ships with a good old big Typhon

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I'd view the idea of Vasudans having intersystem fighter drives before their use at the end of the campaign as being extremely far-fetched.  The command briefing when it was introduced seemed to state in no uncertain terms that neither Terrans or Vasudans had been able to pull it off before then.  I think one can explain away the Vasudan ships apparently using intersystem nodes in a mission like Exodus by using some handwavium and stating that their vibrations were somehow "synced" with the freighters they were escorting...or, to use the far more likely out-of-universe explanation, that the mission designer at forgot that they weren't supposed to be jumping in like that.

[IronBeer]

*Harrumph*
Since most of what I was going to say has been fairly well-covered, I would simply propose that for a proper analysis of the TV war, some extrapolations and assumptions may need to be made. The biggest assumption would be the existence and usage of weapons and vessels that never actually show up in-game. The "old Angel scout fighter" and whatever ordinance Vasudan bombers were slinging easily come to mind, as does the Vasudans' precursor to the Typhon (which, admittedly, may be the Aten, of all things...)

One other thing- would it be too much of a stretch to consider Cardinal Spear as shedding some light on the war?