Long, Long followup here... sorry for the bulk 8-(
Hans and I are basically arguing over what happens as the Civil War
tapers off into the Hard Times and the new night. My opinion is that
due to continuing action by the main combatants in the wars (Lucan
vs. Dulinor for the most part) the planets won't have an opportunity
to get their feet underneath them. Given that from all appearances
most of the factions were still fighting (with what they had available)
as late as the end of Hard Times's timeline, and that they have large
safe areas to provide continuing materiel for the wars, I doubt that
worlds in war zones will ever really be able to get back on their
feet.
The central argument isn't over wether GDW is right or wrong.
I agree that they're being silly expecting us to believe that 5 billion
people can't pay 1Cr each for a couple of starships for local defense.
What I do believe is that it's likely that the situation of devastatedw
war zones following the civil war is likely, that it will result in
massive disruption and loss of space capability, and that recovery
will not start until the wars are more over than they are now.
Tens of subsectors of "black war" areas are not going to recover on
their own; you can't rebuild high tech civilization locally if it's
been obliterated. I don't think that recovery will be all that fast
in the other damaged areas, either. And it hasn't started yet.
>Read the rest of my article. I'm talking about recovery. 'Hard Times'
>states that the Black War is over, ground to a halt through exhaustion.
There seems to be some confusion about when the black wars end and
the recovery (or long night, in the other direction) begins. My reading
of Hard Times indicates that as of the end of it's timeframe, Dulinor
and Lucan were still shooting at each other as energetically as they could
keep doing sustainably. The "recovery" won't start until they stop
drafting everyone/taxing everyone/pressing starships into service to
support the war.
>>Imagine a subsector at war. We have two sides fighting, evenly matched,
>And right here your example breaks down. The likelihood of the two
>sides being evenly matched is very small. I'm not saying that the
>scenario you presents cannot come to pass, but it will not come to
>pass all over the Outlands and Wilds. And of course, if one side is
>significantly stronger then it can destroy the smaller side, but my
>argument is that the stronger side will then be a light in the dark,
>so for your argument you have a chance the two sides must be roughly
>equal. OK, let's assume they are.
The central area fighting was between two closely matched opponents
for most of the war. This explains where all the merchants went
(destroyed). I didn't say that it applied once the war stops (if it
does).
>>with one BatRon, two CruRons, and a hundred or so miscelanous
>>smaller vessels and escorts.
>
>Hold it! Where are my system defense forces? I insist on my system
>defence forces. Lots and lots of system defense forces. Remember my
>example? The first thing you do is build non-jumpships enough to
>defend against whatever number of jumpships your opponent have. Not
>forgetting planetbound or orbital meson gun batteries. Cost a less
>than even a battlerider, much less a battleship, so you can have a
>lot more of them defending than your opponent can have ships to attack
>you with. If he builds nothing but jumpships you can build a more than
>adequate defense fleet and still have a little left over for a small
>raiding force. If he also builds some defense forces you can have more
>jumpships. What you'll most likely have is both sides having a balanced
>force. Since we stipulated that they are evenly matched, neither side can
>hope to defeat the opponent. They can destroy his colonies, but why? All
>you achieve is getting your own colonies destroyed in retaliation.
Ok, you've built system defense forces. Congratulations; Lucan's commander
on site says "Hey, Neat, A bunch of SDB's I can Use!" and they're his now.
Don't think it will happen? It's alluded to several times in Hard Times
and various Challenge articles. Great way to keep the local system
defense forces down.
>>This is a common problem; you're caught between conflicting goals of
>>concentration of force for offensive goals and protecting worlds,
>>which requires a spread out force. It gets even worse when you play
>>this on a larger scale; if the bad guys get past the strategic front
>>lines, then they're in a whole subsector you were treating as safe,
>>and they have weeks of time to go raid before you can move strategic
>>reserves around.
>
>Sure, once you begin having opposing polities with more than one high-
>population planet in each, once one side can muster enough offensive
>power to overwhelm the defenses of opposing high-population worlds,
>you get problems. They are more likely to result in one side defeating
>the other than in both sides destroying each other. The chance that
>_all_ high-population planets on _both_ sides getting scragged is
>not big.
Over ten years, with safe home areas and a large central disputed
reigon, I can only see the disputed areas being more or less destroyed.
>>And it's not that difficult to get past someone's lines; space tends
>>to be Porous, if you have fuel support (or convenient poorly defended
>>gas giants).
>
>Yes. Much like naval conflicts during the Napoleonic Wars. The problems
>involved were well-nigh identical. Loose contact with an enemy force
>and you could spend disproportionate forces trying to intercept them.
>You should try and read a few books about it and see how they coped.
I have. The analogy is really quite poor; the sea is a continum, whereas
deep space with jump capable starships is discrete. Worse, it's
difficult to sail past an enemy and miss him, but easy to jump
past him as he's going to where you came from... If I want to
push past an enemy force, it's trivially easy. I've done a bunch of
game simulations with this; I never was stopped (and never was able
to stop) penetrations of rear areas unless there was favorable
terrain. Doing so while simultaneously protecting your own home
area is more difficult, but can be done if you get the oponnent
thinking defensively.
[telling a naval architect and historian to go read about the
Napoleonic Wars at sea indeed 8-P 8-) ]
>>The only strong position in a war like this is the one strong world
>>with several weaker worlds within easy jump distance, with no
>>further-away defensive needs.
>
>Which is exactly the situation I was talking about. Not that it's the
>only one. If the two sides are evenly matched then the chances are
>that each of the main worlds on both sides will have defenses strong
>enough to withstand the otther side's attack force.
That's great, if that world survives the onset of Hard Times, which
it looks like few really have. If it's left trashed and defenseless
when the war grinds down, it'd better get its feet under itself FAST.
And from the look of Hard Times, the war isn't really quite over in
the real areas of conflict.
>>And even there you run the risk of misguessing on concentrating force.
>>The bad guys only need to outnumber you in one place at one time to win
>>in the end, because if they can do it once a year to 10% of your merchants,
>>you lose in 10 years.
>
>Here you're completely wrong. If by 'bad guys' you mean my equal-in-
>strength rival then even if he destroys all my colonies I still have
>my mainworld. As Wildstar pointed out, trade is not all that important
>to a high-population world. If by 'bad guys' you mean pirates then I
>1) have enough strength to defend against them at all my colonies, and
>2) only have to stave them off for a year or two until their ships
>break down.
They only have to find one hi-tech world that can and will maintain
them to threaten a quarter of a sector effectively. Buying pirates
off by supporting them might look very good for some worlds as things
go to hell...
>>I'm not going to defend the three or four order of magnitude drop in
>>military force that the Hard Times have brought on, nor of Merchant
>>activity. Personally, one and a half to two orders of magnitude is
>>justifiable. More is silly. But (and this is an important but) we'd
>>still be in the same mess with a one and a half order of magnitude
>You're mixing up war with an equal enemy and defense against piracy.
>Pirates may survive, they may even prosper under some circumstances
>(I think they would do quite well during the Hard Times), but they
>will never become a serious threat to the economic welfare of a high-
>population world, much less (as GDW insists) be the cause of their
>destruction. The whole concept is a contradiction in terms.
But that's what's happening; as the wars continue to sweep back and
forth across the frontier and outland regions, planets are alternatively
exposed to piracy and what's left of main-fleet actions. Little
planets fold up and die under this; big ones get very badly stomped.
Every time you think you're getting ahead, Dulinor makes another
thrust into the region and your defense forces either get
blown to bits by his fleet or they get drafted by Lucan to help
stave off this latest assault...
>And then, say that the pirates can destroy a polity. Answer me this:
>Who's maintaining the pirates' ships? Who's going to destroy their base
>if they're so powerful? And wouldn't their base then become a center of
>recovery? I have no quarrel with then concept of a lot of dirty deeds
>and carnage during the Hard Times, but the concept that the whole
>Imperium will kilkenny itself is ludicrous.
Ok, we get some centers of recovery. _After_ the wars grind down.
That hasn't happened yet, and doesn't look like it will happen soon.
- -george