[META] [RFC] Militarization around the 2022 period

[robkelk]

Output's not a bad way of looking at it, I was drifting towards a more object-oriented classification but I can see output making sense. My only worry would be an ICly concern of some chucklefuck pulling the "every spaceship is a kinetic warhead bloo bloo" thing, but enh. I can see rotating excess strategic & non-strategic capability into $GJ; it'd keep the military-industrial complex at least a little happy though they may request some sort of quid-pro-quo if they keep producing (capitalists *eyeroll*).

Unless somebody's going to start up a military-industrial zaibatsu that does everything from "mine the ores" to "launch the torpedoes," somebody's going to have to trade things or cash along the way. And equipment upkeep isn't free.

Population was pretty much the only metric that makes sense to me in terms of limits hard or soft, since we've got factions that have maybe a hundred people who've got entire air armies worth of strategic hardware. If nothing else that level of toy collecting needs to go, so forcing hoarders to scrap their stuff or rotate it into $GJ until they grow another thousand people or whatever makes sense to me.

I can only think of one such faction, and it's an "author's preserve." If we strike the word "air" from your first sentence, then I can think of a second such group.

As for the group that isn't air-based, we can do what we like with the Dorsai. I'd suggest incorporating it into $GJ as Company/Division/Brigade #1 (exact term depends on just how big they are - we've never said), with headquarters and training facilities on 334 Chicago. Their "Convention Security" arm can be spun off into an elite unit in $GJ's MPs, the Space Patrol's Section 2, or a small mercenary force contracted to the Convention; I'd recommend the latter so that it doesn't look like the Convention (the legislature) has any direct "hands-on" control over even a part of the military or the police. (If the convention becomes a permanent body with a permanent meeting location, then the remaining Dorsai can become permanently hired by them to protect that location.)

As for the Roughriders... I see three options, and BA's going to have to make the final decision:

• incorporating them into $GJ as Wing #1 (which removes their autonomy)
  
• stripping them down to something sane for a private mercenary force (with excess assets either scrapped or purchased and maintained by $GJ)
  
• leaving the Convention, and possibly the Solar System, altogether (which would make them Boskonian by definition, like the Turnerites)
  

If there's another option, add it to the list... but I can't imagine what it might be. I can't see any perfect solution here.
--
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