[RFC] Material Defenders Faction Profile

[Gideon020]

-INFORMATION STRIPPED PENDING FULL REWRITE-

[robkelk]

Hmmmmmmmm...

As long as the rumour about a nuke remains nothing but a rumour (ref. "kaboomite") and you're willing to accept that the group is going to be seen by a large percentage of Fen as "outlaw," I have no problem with this group.

One bit: I'm not saying "don't do this," but I am asking why you're putting facilities on Oberon, Titania, and Triton, even if they are meant to be misdirection for other facilities. There's nobody else in the Uranian subsystem, and most folks who want privacy go further out (as you did with the Sedna base).
--
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

[HRogge]

Four comments without going into details.

1) I suggest you skip the nukes... I see no way to integrate this into the Fenspace context. Rumors about a nuke maybe, but no "nuclear self destruct on every freighter/base".

2) If they are known for "shoot first, ask question later", even against Space Patrol and Great Justice the MDs will be considered criminals in Fenspace. Forget about doing business in the Saturn system after the Warsies moved to Mimas. I am pretty sure they will keep their backyard clear.

3) There is no asteroid field dense enough you need special nav-beacons to get through it. Without ship sensors, you will not even be able to see the neighbor asteroids while standing on one, even in dense regions.

4) Don't pretend everyone else (including Great Justice) is stupid. If you produce military stuff AND ship it around to unknown places in automated transports, these automated transports will also be checked upon from time to time to see how much stuff you really have.

[Bob Schroeck]

Just emphasizing HRogge's third point: asteroid fields like the one you see in The Empire Strikes Back just plain don't exist. Because space is big and asteroids are small. A good, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, comparison: it's like the Mojave desert -- sure there are lots of cactus, but it's not like you have to change the direction you're walking every minute or so to avoid them. In fact, you're more likely to run into a cactus in the Mojave than you are to run into an asteroid in an asteroid belt.

(I always thought that whole sequence, as spectacular as it was, was terribly silly, because that asteroid belt was more densely packed with rocks than the neighborhood of Alderaan immediately after it blew up.)

As for HRogge's other points, well, I'm inclined to agree with him and Rob on the nukes. And as for the others, well, the MDs are setting themselves up as outlaws -- and not noble, fun Robin Hood outlaws but dangerous, shoot-on-sight outlaws.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[HRogge]

Fun fact about the Hildas family from Wikipedia...

there are more than a thousand objects known in the Hildas family... distributed in a triangle around the sun with a similar orbit than Saturn.

Good luck with "mining" this area with armed beacons.

[Gideon020]

Lot of useful feedback, and I'll start on the edits now.

[Gideon020]

Seriously, thanks for the feedback so far, having extra eyes is always useful for improvement. I've made some edits, but I might have missed more.

[robkelk]

As for HRogge's other points, well, I'm inclined to agree with him and Rob on the nukes.

Expanding on this: I set up kaboomite specifically to keep nukes out of the setting, by making it impossible to find easily-accessible fissionables in Fenspace until such time as there was a government strong enough to patrol them. So people can talk about nukes all they want, but nobody actually has any.

And as for the others, well, the MDs are setting themselves up as outlaws -- and not noble, fun Robin Hood outlaws but dangerous, shoot-on-sight outlaws.

That might be what Gideon020 wants, though. The way I read the writeup, these guys are more Angel Eyes than they are Tuco ... (There's no way they could possibly be Blondie.)
--
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

[Dartz]

Some of these may even have been the mercenaries used by the United Belt Alliance to do its dirty work....

Not familiar with the source material myself, however.. so can't make that much of a judgement. The nuclear weapons are a rather large no-no, however.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Gideon020]

Nukes have already been downgraded to conventional explosive suicide charges.

[Gideon020]

-INFORMATION STRIPPED PENDING FULL REWRITE-
 

[HRogge]

The second email description sounds little bit more sane (I skipped over the tech part)... if they keep their triggerhappy nature, especially if they think about shooting Space Patrol or GJ ships/members, they will have to keep their business outside the places in Fenspace with higher amount of law enforcement (Venus, Earth/Moon system, Mars, Saturn).

----

Interesting question... can you "claim" an asteroid in Fenspace without having a ship/base there?

[robkelk]

So, how do the Material Defenders get along with the Baileys, the Dorsai, and the Roughriders? (Well, poorly, some combination thereof?)
--
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

[Gideon020]

-INFORMATION STRIPPED PENDING FULL REWRITE-

[HRogge]

As for MD's being triggerhappy, that varies from pilot to pilot but is massively dictated by the circumstances of a contract. If a client wants a facility guarded against any non-MD or non-client vessels until a client vessel arrives or they have contacted the client beforehand, then they will certainly go as far as to fire warning shots at Star Patrol or GJ who don't agree to contact the client on Clearinghouse

That is what (in my opinion) pushes them from a "respected but hard" group of mercs to a group of outlaws/rogues. Space Patrol and GJ are the cops/military of the Fenspace Convention.

Starting a fight with the police is considered "bad"... starting a fight with the military is considered stupid at best (and Darwin Award worthy at worst ^^).

[Gideon020]

As for MD's being triggerhappy, that varies from pilot to pilot but is massively dictated by the circumstances of a contract. If a client wants a facility guarded against any non-MD or non-client vessels until a client vessel arrives or they have contacted the client beforehand, then they will certainly go as far as to fire warning shots at Star Patrol or GJ who don't agree to contact the client on Clearinghouse

That is what (in my opinion) pushes them from a "respected but hard" group of mercs to a group of outlaws/rogues. Space Patrol and GJ are the cops/military of the Fenspace Convention.

Starting a fight with the police is considered "bad"... starting a fight with the military is considered stupid at best (and Darwin Award worthy at worst ^^).

They don't start fights with the military or police forces. Certainly they'll fire warning shots but that's just it, warning shots. The Material Defenders know they can't fight GJ or Star Patrol and if the ship presses regardless of the warning shots, they have to back off. I'll edit that bit to be clearer.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

On the latest article I have some comments:

1) You're going to have to rewrite or scrap the Mercury Missiles. M Fnord has placed a 'No relativistic KE weapons' rule here. As the one who caused him to issue said rule, I remember it clearly. There's also the fact that as written, they're WMDs. I have no problem with them being extremely fast, but no nuke levels of KE.

(The 'handwave' is that speed drive fields don't work as well in gravity fields because it overrides its own spacetime distortion. This means when drive fields interact the impacting object vastly slows down to a more sane relative speed. This isn't instantaneous, so for the big KKVs this usually gives an impact speed to 60-80 KPS (because they've got more engine); for your missiles? Maybe 15 KPS max?)

2)On a theoretical note: There are going to be 'Dane companies who don't use/trust the Fen claim registries and use a 'Dane claim registry (which might be a bit slow to update). What if two claimants arrive to plant beacons with legal authority, and one has MD hired? My feel is that MD would go with the contract and force the second party off. THAT'S going to cause trouble.

3) I don't see any mother-ships in the Ship Class section. Unless they have there owe FTL coms system, none of the ships seem big enough to mount an Interwave set. I can get than for the guided missiles (although it seems overkill at the combat ranges MD likely operate at).

4) IIRC, the Descent type ships are still fighter sized. I can get tunnels being big enough to fit digging machinery, but that still much smaller than the Descent ships. Given how much your packing into the ships, I don't see how they can bee that small.

[HRogge]

They don't start fights with the military or police forces. Certainly they'll fire warning shots but that's just it, warning shots. The Material Defenders know they can't fight GJ or Star Patrol and if the ship presses regardless of the warning shots, they have to back off. I'll edit that bit to be clearer.

Whats the point of firing the warning shot? Its just getting them into trouble for nearly no gain.

(edit)
just to explain this a little bit further... the MD is presenting the "tough guy" picture.

Making their standard mode giving a warning at Police/Military and then always back down ruins this a little bit. ^^

[Dartz]

On the other hand, there're bound to be those with the idea that sticking a beacon on an asteroid and calling it 'yours' while doing nothing at all with it is terribly imperialistic. Or something.

It's not hard to send an automatic probe out to drop beacons... regardless as to the content of the asteroid. Claim them quick before anyone else can get up off their arse and actually survey them, in that way denying them to the competition. In general, the concept of possesion of asteroids should be limited to those who're actually using them.

As opposed to those who just don't want their competitors to use them first, and will survey them later. Just look at how modern patent law is evolving if you don't think that's going to happen.

There is a far larger potential for conflict than just conflicting claims. In Fenspace, such beacons would only really be honoured as far as the person placing them would be respected by Space at large. Start putting too many down without doing anything with them, and people start ignoring them.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

They don't start fights with the military or police forces. Certainly they'll fire warning shots but that's just it, warning shots. The Material Defenders know they can't fight GJ or Star Patrol and if the ship presses regardless of the warning shots, they have to back off. I'll edit that bit to be clearer.

Whats the point of firing the warning shot? Its just getting them into trouble for nearly no gain.

(edit)
just to explain this a little bit further... the MD is presenting the "tough guy" picture.

Making their standard mode giving a warning at Police/Military and then always back down ruins this a little bit. ^^

They won't have the chance to back down.

Consider what would happen if you stood outside your front door and fired a "warning shot" at a police car that was driving up your laneway.

Now consider what would happen if you stood outside your front door and fired a "warning shot" at a LAAV that was driving up your laneway.

Either way, somebody is probably going to have to call your next-of-kin, and it would be your own fault for opening fire.

If this is the MD's standard operating procedure, then, yes, they're Boskos.
--
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

[HRogge]

They won't have the chance to back down.

Consider what would happen if you stood outside your front door and fired a "warning shot" at a police car that was driving up your laneway.

Maybe you survive and spend quite some time in prison... maybe...

Now consider what would happen if you stood outside your front door and fired a "warning shot" at a LAAV that was driving up your laneway.

Congratulation, you just won a Darwin Award!

[robkelk]

On the other hand, there're bound to be those with the idea that sticking a beacon on an asteroid and calling it 'yours' while doing nothing at all with it is terribly imperialistic. Or something.

It's not hard to send an automatic probe out to drop beacons... regardless as to the content of the asteroid. Claim them quick before anyone else can get up off their arse and actually survey them, in that way denying them to the competition. In general, the concept of possesion of asteroids should be limited to those who're actually using them.

As opposed to those who just don't want their competitors to use them first, and will survey them later. Just look at how modern patent law is evolving if you don't think that's going to happen.

There is a far larger potential for conflict than just conflicting claims. In Fenspace, such beacons would only really be honoured as far as the person placing them would be respected by Space at large. Start putting too many down without doing anything with them, and people start ignoring them.

Consider the list of asteroids in the wiki. Only one of those listed has a marker beacon instead of a presence, and that claim is only respected because it's backed up by some of the biggest names in the Convention. And the list on the wiki was valid as of Season 1; who knows what's changed in the half-decade since then?

(Aside: Must remember to update the wiki.)
--
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

[Dartz]

My point was, so far all that's needed to claim an asteroid as your own is sticking down a beacon. While Yayoi's is respected because she is, and because it's only the one.... in theory there's nothing stopping any commercial entity from going out there and spamming marker beacons with the sole aim of claiming ownership of the common resource before their competitors manage to do it. It takes weeks to days to survey a rock and determine if it's actually commercially viable, but only minutes to flyby one with a remote drone and drop a marker on it.

The natural business strategy therefore is to claim as much as possible, - especially if claiming is cheap - and survey at your leisure rather than rushing to survey and then claim the rocks you know are good. There's no real cost to claiming, or sitting on a claim. There may however, be a catastrophic cost if you don't claim fast enough.

Actually useful asteroids are not that inexhaustible a resource.

I'm sure the convention registry has dispute resolution mechanisms, or such things as adverse possession or squatters rights. (Hey, it's your own fault for not policing your claim or doing anything with it).
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[LynnInDenver]

Dartz wrote:

---

My point was, so far all that's needed to claim an asteroid as your own is sticking down a beacon. While Yayoi's is respected because she is, and because it's only the one.... in theory there's nothing stopping any commercial entity from going out there and spamming marker beacons with the sole aim of claiming ownership of the common resource before their competitors manage to do it. It takes weeks to days to survey a rock and determine if it's actually commercially viable, but only minutes to flyby one with a remote drone and drop a marker on it.

The natural business strategy therefore is to claim as much as possible, - especially if claiming is cheap - and survey at your leisure rather than rushing to survey and then claim the rocks you know are good. There's no real cost to claiming, or sitting on a claim. There may however, be a catastrophic cost if you don't claim fast enough.

Actually useful asteroids are not that inexhaustible a resource.

I'm sure the convention registry has dispute resolution mechanisms, or such things as adverse possession or squatters rights. (Hey, it's your own fault for not policing your claim or doing anything with it).

Odds are good that it wouldn't take very long a period of beacon spamming before the convention would tweak the rules to require a full survey be logged and mining operation scheduled for a beacon claim to stick. Plus, beacon spamming likely couldn't be done with significant levels of Fen help, most of them likely still keep tabs on the patent law mess dirtside, and still have to deal with spam getting through their email filters.I would also add onto the pile indicating that "fire a warning shot" is a bad idea... we're still not that far out of the Boskonian War, by all rights, and there are still isolated pockets of boskonians that will turn to violence when the Patrol gets too close with their sticks... anyone who fires a warning shot, even if a warning message is broadcast with sufficient time to allow turning back, would be treated as a Boskonian threat and eliminated. And any Danelaw company hiring a group for security that would do such actions would find itself rapidly unwelcome in Fenspace.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[HRogge]

I would also add onto the pile indicating that "fire a warning shot" is a bad idea... we're still not that far out of the Boskonian War, by all rights, and there are still isolated pockets of boskonians that will turn to violence when the Patrol gets too close with their sticks... anyone who fires a warning shot, even if a warning message is broadcast with sufficient time to allow turning back, would be treated as a Boskonian threat and eliminated. And any Danelaw company hiring a group for security that would do such actions would find itself rapidly unwelcome in Fenspace.

Something like this?