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ECSNorway Wrote:BA: All in favor of partnership. I can see demilled VF-1's being a popular civilian item in mid-late Season 2. Fast, versatile, and cool.
YT-hull freighters... yeah, those'll sell like hotcakes, especially to Warsies who don't already have one. 
Now I just have to figure out a way to fit the VF-9 Cutlass into my timeline somewhere, because it's cool.
I've already settled on the VF-14 Vampire as an export model built by an eventual Gwynedd-based competitor of SBA... VF-9 might be their early product. If you want the -17 it's yours, at the appropriate point in the timeline. Awesome. VF-9 looks like a cut-down version of the VF-4. Perhaps the two are to each other what the F-16 is to the F/A-18?
Also, which version of the -14? The M3 or the Macross 7 PLUS? Because the M3 version didn't have much grace to it... uglier than the -17 by far. That, and the 7 PLUS version's battroid mode looks even more medieval than the VF-4's.... all beefy and executioner-esque. The thing is like Drago facing down Rocky when he says "Ey vill break yew."
robkelk Wrote:Dartz Wrote:The price of peace is eternal vigilance.
The Boskone never stop thinking of ways to attack our way of life, and neither should we That doesn't require an arms race, though. Eh. Mostly prototypes and proof-of-concept models. (See BAT's all-but-non-existant Hustler-class.) When the time comes for it, the big shiny button that makes the birdies come out will be waiting.
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The M7 PLUS VF-14 drawings have the same problem as its Varauta cousins - the arms and legs are bulked up by about 30% using anime magic. Even so, the Drachenjaeger and Skate 3d models I made using similar transformations (gallery viewable at this username on imageshack, or search the OPF forum here for my posts about them) also look pretty fierce, I think.
Gnarlycurl designed mecha tend to be mushtech one offs, relatively low-quirk but handcrafted. The designs could undoubtedly be adapted for Ben's
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automat with only moderate hassle, but he's got his own for that. Though if the HA-5 Harlequin "Beamhell" armor's gravitic laserdoodle beam bender unit was mass produceable, missiles would become obsolete...
The VF-9 was General Galaxy's first success, cheaper and more agile in atmo than the VF-4, so it would fit the role you suggest. Are these competitors of yours going to make a black rainbow their critical path to a Macross-y galaxy?
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
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Proposal, to help Mal avoid an aneurysm:
Somebody notices after the end of the Boskone War that some folks are still arming. This state of affairs is debated on the SMOF-ML for a few months, with the Warsies and Roughriders leading the pro-armament side and the Trekkies and VVS leading the disarmament side. The Senshi and StellviaCorp find themselves playing peacemaker more often than not. (One Humourist reported after the fact that the heat generated by the disagreement was enough to melt Europa.)
A resolution is presented and passed at AlphaCon to have the factions stand down from a war footing. Each group is allowed to keep a number of armed mobile assets, based on population. (For example, StellviaCorp's permitted "armed fleet" is two ships: the president's yacht and the Gagarin-class ship under construction at the time.) Point-defense weaponry is not included in this agreement. Excess "offensive assets" must be mothballed, seconded or sold to Great Justice, seconded or sold to the Space Patrol, or seconded or sold to the Sammies. Weapons of mass destruction (specifically including kaboomite, at Noah Scott's request) are outlawed for private ownership. Only Great Justice is permitted to possess WMDs; anyone else found guilty of possessing them is to be sentenced to a minimum of ten-years' hard labor at Azkaban.
The Space Patrol and Great Justice quickly find themselves the owners-of-record of a substantial fraction of the Warsies', Gearheads', Roughriders', and Dorsai's fleets. GJ also finds itself the owner of the process and equipment to create kaboomite.
A resolution is presented and passed at BubbleCon regarding the development of new armed-ship designs: While any faction is permitted to design a new ship, the actual building of such a ship is permitted only in two cases: to replace a previously-destroyed armed ship, or to sell to Great Justice or the Space Patrol. Such construction is to take place at an authorized shipyard - Utopia Planitia, Kuat Drive Yards, Bristol, BAT, and a few other shipyards (no more than a half-dozen, and none at L5) make the list.
Thoughts? Debate? Brickbats?
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Rob: I'm not so sure we want to be quite as specific as that in limitations (you KNOW somebody's going to claim an Executor as one of their 'two armed ships' permitted if we do).... But a general agreement to avoid an arms race would certainly be a good thing. I've posted my own plans before and they haven't elicited comment, so I'm not sure if they're quite such a shock as all that...
OTOH, the buildup schedule I posted earlier is based on the Candleverse timeline, with an imminent threat and a serious enemy turning up. Without that, in the 'Fenspace Mainline', GSS would maintain the VF-4 for a much longer period as their standard fighter craft before looking into more advanced craft.
(In addition, the squadron count I listed is actually cut down from what it would have been during the Boskone War, the squadrons lost in the Battle of Serenity would not have been rebuilt.)
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I was going by some earlier posts in this thread when I suggested limiting assets by population. Maybe we should limit weapons systems rather than ships...?
And all bets are off during wartime, of course - a military buildup is expected when there's actually an enemy to fight.
(And now I have to go elsewhere. Logging off, back tomorrow.)
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
As long as its not linear to the population size... otherwise either the Trekkies are hopefully overgunned or everyone else is not allowed more than one ship. 
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At it's most basic, I see the limitations on Offence and Defence as such.
Defence: If Great Justice or the Space Patrol can not get through it, it's illegal.
Offence: If you can breach the maximum Defence allowed and you're not Great Justice/Space Patrol, it's illegal.
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I would think peer pressure would be a decent enough driver to keep from getting into an arms race.
Even if it isn't so much an arms race in the traditional sort..... it's really not a military-style race as I see it but two compnaies seeking to outcompete each other, and stocking their own slight militaries with the latest thing to drum up sales and act as advertising for the 'civilian' model. And most of the results are being sold to individual users who find the ideaof swanning around in a Veritich to be fun.... but don't want the hassle of building it themselves. A few settlements might have a squadron.
While there're plenty of people who'll find the idea cool, equaly as many will refuse to deal with them..... and no fan is an island capable of operating on their own out there. If you alienate people by arming up too much you're going to have trouble getting supplies and deliveries made.
And, frankly, Someone is going to bring the argument up that forcing individuals to not have inferior technology to the space patrol means there's no hedge against anyone in the patrol going rogue, or whatever. There're some places that aren't going to play ball with those restrictions on a matter of principal, and what do we do about that? Do we waltz on in their and make them? Or leave them be and be a toothless tiger. Either one opens a pandora's box that could be disastrous,
Simple, public declaration of munitions, and then letting the public make their own choices about who to deal with.... that's the only real workable option. Let people's reputations carry it forward.
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I think Dartz's suggestion there sounds like the best so far... and note that for my part, the heavy weapons specifically belong to GJ and stay locked up in the armory unless actually needed or authorised for a live fire exercise vs. drones, even the mounted lasers on the GJ VFs are usually in training/lasertag mode on peacetime patrols unless ordered to go weapons-hot, and the VF-4's 12 conformal missiles are replaced by aerodynamic fairings.
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In general, Jeph Antilles of the JMC stayed clear of the public discussions of the military build up versus draw down arguments... but it is known he did a private business tour of several key settlements around the times that the discussions were occurring... and rather less known that he had some reasonable (and occasionally unreasonable enough to be shouting matches) private discussions with certain SMOFs at those settlements regarding what various JMC captains had been hearing in bars and arcades related to uneasiness among the general Fen regarding the current military hardware stockpiles.
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I'm still trying to come up with inoffensive ways to put my opinion of not having weapons available if controlled, and personnel trained and regularly practised in their use and maintenaince. I'm not having much luck, beyond quoting song lyrics and ebonicisms, which tend to be more agressive than I want to convey.
Still...
From the Macross M3 opening - "We don't want to hurt nobody, we don't want to fight you now, but if you want to try... Well let's go. Let's go! It's showtime!"
Also in character f/WC
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I'm perfectly willing to draw down. Most Roughrider equipment and personnel can just be cycled through Great Justice on a regular period, and that should keep them looking very reasonable in the long run. BAT will just continue to R&D and not really build unless GJ takes them up on an offer for an upgrade. In this way we'll have quite a few one-offs, like the previously mentioned Hustlers. Of course, pretty sure that it would have to be at cost since Ben doesn't want to attract too much bad attention in that regard. He'll be happy enough to do it anyhow seeing as it's for the greater good. He'll make his modest earnings off the sales to civilian Fen.
Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:At it's most basic, I see the limitations on Offence and Defence as such.
Defence: If Great Justice or the Space Patrol can not get through it, it's illegal.
Offence: If you can breach the maximum Defence allowed and you're not Great Justice/Space Patrol, it's illegal. Limits on Offence, not a problem, Limits on Defence, I could argue that is against the spirit of Fenspace, and isn't directly a risk to others. In principle, here is always a way around a defence, anyhow?
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Military development ialso nherently drives civilian tech advancement. Many of the technologies used for flight and sensor systems are just as relevant for search and rescue duties as they are for search and destroy. A high speed engine ensures the space-ambulance gets to its location faster. Medical advancements benefit all.
Many of these technologies developed for war can be used quite happily in peacetime. Many of the technologies developed for GJ still save lives in peace....
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It drives civilian tech advancement, but that's not the only thing that can drive civilian tech advancement.
Quick comments while I'm thinking about it... agree with rob's wrinkle on design, and maybe something in there about allowing, say, single prototypes as design articles too, and not counting them until they're capable of loading live hardware, though obviously that's fiddly with some designs and I'm just throwing it out there. Also very much yes with Cobalt bringing up rotating stuff to the scrapyard or to being severely demilled if factions want to introduce new classes of stuff. Part of my thought with leasing stuff to GJ instead of outright selling it (at least at first) is to get the factions making the stuff to eat part of the maintenance (etc) costs... less of a drain on the Convention (possibly) and encourages, over the long term, stuff that Works and requires less resources to keep working, thus being less of a drain on the Convention, and also sort of a subtle encouragement to scale back production and development that results in expensive prototypes and the like.
For "what gets retained for factions personal use"... maybe by tonnage?
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KJ Wrote:It drives civilian tech advancement, but that's not the only thing that can drive civilian tech advancement.
Quick comments while I'm thinking about it... agree with rob's wrinkle on design, and maybe something in there about allowing, say, single prototypes as design articles too, and not counting them until they're capable of loading live hardware, though obviously that's fiddly with some designs and I'm just throwing it out there. Also very much yes with Cobalt bringing up rotating stuff to the scrapyard or to being severely demilled if factions want to introduce new classes of stuff. Part of my thought with leasing stuff to GJ instead of outright selling it (at least at first) is to get the factions making the stuff to eat part of the maintenance (etc) costs... less of a drain on the Convention (possibly) and encourages, over the long term, stuff that Works and requires less resources to keep working, thus being less of a drain on the Convention, and also sort of a subtle encouragement to scale back production and development that results in expensive prototypes and the like.
For "what gets retained for factions personal use"... maybe by tonnage?
Tonnage might be awkward. Can StellviaCorp claim 85% of the tonnage flown by the Artemis Foundation? If they can, they're suddenly allowed an armed fleet that's larger than the Sammies' fleet, simply because Artemis has so many probes and survey ships out there.
I like the "prototype is part of the design phase" idea.
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Tonnage can also be turned against you. Yes, you're allowed 3,000 tonnes of military hardware. Are you going to use it all on a few big ships, or have a lot of fighters or drones? What about self-guided missiles? Is troop hardware also included in that limitation?
The rules-laywers and actual laywers will have a field day arguing all this out.
I too like the 'prototype is part of the design phase' idea. However, in practical terms that means two prototypes, one for usage test, one for stress test. Unless you use one to get an idea of its limits, then stress test it to destrunction and build a new one.
robkelk Wrote:A resolution is presented and passed at BubbleCon regarding the development of new armed-ship designs: While any faction is permitted to design a new ship, the actual building of such a ship is permitted only in two cases: to replace a previously-destroyed armed ship, or to sell to Great Justice or the Space Patrol. Such construction is to take place at an authorized shipyard - Utopia Planitia, Kuat Drive Yards, Bristol, BAT, and a few other shipyards (no more than a half-dozen, and none at L5) make the list.
The "only at an authorized Shipyard" would make this an absolute "when hell freeze over" thing for CI.
Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:Tonnage can also be turned against you. Yes, you're allowed 3,000 tonnes of military hardware. Are you going to use it all on a few big ships, or have a lot of fighters or drones? What about self-guided missiles? Is troop hardware also included in that limitation?
The rules-laywers and actual laywers will have a field day arguing all this out.
Hmm... Jenga is fully mobile (including FTL)... and CI prefers to build small drones
Quote:I too like the 'prototype is part of the design phase' idea. However, in practical terms that means two prototypes, one for usage test, one for stress test. Unless you use one to get an idea of its limits, then stress test it to destrunction and build a new one.
On the other side, people might begin to build "lots of project variants, each with two prototypes"...
better count working prototypes as a full ship... if you wreck it during a stress test, you can build another one.
Tonnage was a thought... maybe not the best. It would be irritating to have someone build a 1:1 scale Death Star as their allotted strategic arm though.
Prototypes... no, one, with sufficient wording to prevent the "no, hey, this is a different model it doesn't count!" thing. I mean we're in a META thread, we can discuss the desired result while leaving it to IC attornies to hash out details, heh heh. Stress testing you can do of individual components, while prototypes would be more for validation of capabilities, testing tooling, whatever... or you can break it if you want, but you don't get a new one until it's scrapped.
I'm not sure how to do the authorized shipyard thing, as being exclusionary sort of rubs me the wrong way, but at the same time it really would be nice to monitor. Maybe something along the line of people who intend to build stuff of this scale notify the appropriate folks and allow occasional visitors to see what's up.
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The Convention tends to run more off of Not Being Dicks than it does laying down specific rules and numbers and specifying stuff.
Some of us would prefer to keep it that way.
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The more rules the Convention sets, the easier they are to break.
Even the "no defense GJ cannot break" is useless... because if someone build a defense that even the combined power of the "Fen military" cannot break, you cannot enforce the rule anyways.
Boskone Prime was a heavily armed space fortress... it was still takes down by the Fen. So building something like Boskone Prime would be okay?
I would suggest not limiting defense at all. Because any static defense can be overcome with time.
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I think we're back to "Don't be a jerk, and don't wave too many guns around or people will get nervous and won't do business with you. And if that doesn't stop you, if you make the Patrol or even GJ Come Over There, you won't like what happens. So play nice and don't make us come over there."
You know, the Wulfenbach method of governance.
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*venkman voice*
I l LIKE this plan. Its a good plan!
*/venkman voice*
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
ClassicDrogn Wrote:I think we're back to "Don't be a jerk, and don't wave too many guns around or people will get nervous and won't do business with you. And if that doesn't stop you, if you make the Patrol or even GJ Come Over There, you won't like what happens. So play nice and don't make us come over there."
You know, the Wulfenbach method of governance. Sounds good.
I've always been in favour of "speak softly and carry a big stick" - Teddy Roosevelt?
You have to watch out for those 'harmless' nice little old men and women, who are carrying a stick...
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