“Bracket them with two missiles.” = “shot across the bow”? I guess they are going for a different message than “gunports open”. At least the Minbari were trying NOT to start something. These bozos hear “Any attempt … will be considered an act of war!” and decide to double down. Oh, well, play stupid games; win stupid prizes. Or as Forrest put it so well, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Guess these folks never invented dynamite. The “Pride” is small but packs a punch.
Oh, and about the earlier remarks about relative tech levels. Nothing breeds complacency like peace. While some human cultures place a premium on innovation and technological advancement, others do not. Wittness China. Everything had to fit within the tao. I find it easy to imagine the culture on Lamia to be very conservative and not allowing change. As for the other, non-human “core worlds”, perhaps they’re more akin to Turtledove’s The Race. In any case warm up the popcorn cause it bodes to get “interesting”.
Once again, historically speaking, technology never improved unless their was an economical or technological driver that provided a compelling reason.
You could compare this environment to the Dutch East India company. With a Royal license starting in the 1600’s, they had their own ports and their own converted Merchant ships, the “EastIndiamen” vessels.
While not a battle vessel per se’ being a large vessel with 50 odd cannons made them a very hard nut to crack.
More so when the next best Privateer or Pirate vessel was a converted Frigate or Corvette.
Even though these things could have two dozen cannon aboard, finding two dozen well trained gun crew, plus the required ordnance, Hollywood aside, was a tall order.
This compared to the “EastIndiamen” vessels, which were manned by “retired” Royal Marines and their ilk, whose skill at arms was legendary.
So even with a mediocre, former marine gun crew, they were still highly dangerous targets.
Then of course, the attendant Naval vessels were all Man-O-War class, where 120 Guns was common. As was the 120 well trained Gun crew, backed by a full compliment of Armed Marines and ordnance.
So even if you came across an “EastIndiamen” (two or more vessels) convoy, without a Naval escort, the odds weren’t in your favor.
Then of course, if you did manage to successfully ambush a cargo vessel, and overcome the armed crew, you still had to kill or maroon their crew, as your Frigate wasn’t going to hold the contents of a merchant vessel, much less, contain a fifty to a hundred angry captured crew.
That then led to another problem, which was disposing of your ill gotten gains without attracting attention.
Like an increase of the presence of the Man-O-War class, and you and your crew being hung, or simply blown out of the water, once found.
As for the Privateers and Pirates, there was little if any incentive to go much beyond a frigate, as you had to man the vessel, both with Sailors and Fighting crew and supplies and ordance. No small order, again, all Hollywood fiction aside.
In this scenario with the Dragon Nation however, you have a new Nation State with an incentive to use well crewed and resourced Frigate Class vessels, but with a Battle punch that equals or exceeds the Man-O-War class, while maintaining the Maneuverability of the lighter and faster class of vessel.
This would also be the start of an Arms race, if you let it get that far.
Hence the Dragon Nation building up the defense capability of their new trading partners, from the outset.
This then creates the environment for Détente with the core worlds.
The reason for the Core worlds looming reconsideration is that any direct or indirect warfare would be met with retaliation against their vessels away from port.
That gets expensive and problematic very quickly.
The English Man-O-War class and the English Privateers used against the Spanish and the French is the prime example here.
The cost of freight increased, the routes and trade products decreased, and both Merchant vessels and Naval vessels were “lost” or captured.
Then when it came to War, the Spanish and the French lost. Which is a discussion for another time.
So, food for thought.
As for relative tech levels, you don’t need overwhelming technology and/or social improvements if you can engage in a Guerilla style warfare with slight advances in Technology.
The Core world could, if they had to fight more, have developed quite deadly Rail Gun weaponry, or Plasma weaponry, or similar technology, both of which are being developed now by the USA.
Advance that Technology by a few thousand years and you would have fairly effective Defensive and Offensive capability.
However, missing from the equation is a need to spend the time and resource, if your already of the belief that your current status is such that you can suppress any up and coming threats with simple Ballistic or HyperSupersonic Missile style technology.
Which as noted, is effectively range limited.
Finally, I give you a quote from Mr Rumsfeld;
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
The ones we don’t know we don’t know.
And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.
Now expand that philosophy out to the Core worlds and remove the concepts of “Free”, “Democratic” and “Meritorious” and introduce the concepts of Authoritarian, Corrupt and Incompetent.
Then we get back to the Red Queen problem. The Core Worlds stopped moving forward, as they have had no compelling reason to do so.
Now Core world, meet the unknown unknowns. The Dragon empire.
Of course young and hungry (and in the case of the Cats also scrappy) doesn’t at all mean invincible. They don’t call ’em “dreadnaughts” for nothing. I would expect such vessels to be the maximum size practical for wormhole transport and armed – and ARMORED – to the hilt. The other races don’t have the grav-based technology but, IIRC, the Empire damned near didn’t. IMS, King hired some Russian physicists who literally stumbled onto the basic grav technology. Such accidents are referred to as “black swan events” and are utterly unpredictable. I suspect that the effect involves something very subtle at the quantum level that ordinarily would not be pursued. But that does not mean that the horned folk and other “core worlds folk” don’t know how to mine their own asteroid belts for tungsten and thus armor their warships with several feet of such armor. Come to think of it, I’m not all that sure how effective a ten or even hundred pound block of sand at .1%C would be against 10 feet of tungsten armor.
(Note: I was going to post the weights and armor thickness in metric but for some reason I cannot get anything from the menu screen to run. Avast did an update push last night and suddenly part of my Win10 isn’t working. Apologies to you folks who do not think in English measurements. I get to do a reboot. Damnit!)
With all due respect, your overthinking it.
The first assumption here is that the The Core Worlds have a current opponent that can breach such Armour?
Again, yes, is the opposing capability there?
Although, once again, I hark back to the the Ancient Greeks with their Thermophile engine, did they or the Ancient Romans make any good use of it? So, that was a NO, then?
Once more, we are back to what is theoretically capable, even with a working example, as opposed to what actually happened.
Again, even more so, we are shown that regardless of the Civilization, and any advance in any field, any advance in any civilization is not equally advanced in all fields.
Much less, made good, or for that matter, any use of.
At length, I repeat myself, Ancient Greeks with their Thermophile engine, example Numero Uno.
As history has proven, just those advances that require attention, and can be justified, with the appropriate resource, will get attention.
However, some technologies, for whatever reason, regardless of their importance, will sadly fade into history as once again, I repeat, there is no BURNING need to expend resource or wealth, much less, explore any perceived benefit.
We can dispense with Socialism, and it’s ilk, as they would never reach the stars, much less any level of civilized society with advanced technology.
Clearly, Socialism and its alternatives are little more than a barbaric death cult that will, as history has proven, will eat itself, then collapse back into some form of regional, feudalistic Warlord dominated uncivilized and primitive tribal group.
The likes of Antifa and their ilk comes to mind.
So, we are then left with Authoritarian and meritorious forms of Government that could reach Kardashev scale Level one, or better.
That also leaves a lot of wriggle room, as to how various societies and the mores would be structured and their outcomes achieved, or not.
Also, consider that a Kardashev scale is theoretical, as different societies won’t land in the same ball park, just roughly achieve a similar Technology level, by various means, with regard to Energy Capability and deployment.
So, with that in mind, other than the Core Worlds should be able to achieve roughly equal outcomes in their respective Energy outcomes, by whatever means they arrive at, things such as Medical achievements, Social achievements, Agricultural achievements and Wealth management, social constructs and social logistics, or the lack, thereof, are all up in the air.
The incorrect assumption here, in my humble opinion, is equating the current achievements of Earth, in any and all fields of human endeavor, over all of the nations on earth, and them mistakenly extrapolating those achievements, to any ordinarily citizens beneficence, out for another Ten Thousand years.
So, God like power, NO.
Some achievement, or more likely, variations of the current theme, in Medical management, Energy usage, maybe Governance, Wealth management and other fields, yes, I’ll buy into that, with caveats.
To the benefit of all citizens, no, I can’t but into that.
As for being highly advanced and Technology and Socially superior to all other civilizations on al other worlds , NO, can’t buy into that, either.
Different, yes, superior, well, you would have to think carefully on that aspect. History is simply against you.
This is why I’ve always felt the Federation model in Star Trek would never really work. This incentive to improve and advance doesn’t exist in that structure, with replicators, and homogenous cultures and ideas, there really isn’t an incentive to advance and improve… At least u til the Mongols show up, as happened to Rome. It seems we, as humans, need conflict and competition to stimulate advances, both culturally and technologically.
Being fat and happy makers you cattle. Having adversaries and competition makes you tigers…
Lacking the Lir’s godlike power I expect Capt Chardis to respond by tossing a couple of charges of “kitty litter” at the dreadnaught. Ten pounds of plain beach sand at .1% of C has an ungodly amount of kenetic energy on it. I did the calculation once and – IIRC – an individual sand grain at .1% of C has the kenetic energy equivalent to a POUND of TNT!
I wonder if the Cats use scented kitty litter. 😉
“Bracket them with two missiles.” = “shot across the bow”? I guess they are going for a different message than “gunports open”. At least the Minbari were trying NOT to start something. These bozos hear “Any attempt … will be considered an act of war!” and decide to double down. Oh, well, play stupid games; win stupid prizes. Or as Forrest put it so well, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Guess these folks never invented dynamite. The “Pride” is small but packs a punch.
Oh, and about the earlier remarks about relative tech levels. Nothing breeds complacency like peace. While some human cultures place a premium on innovation and technological advancement, others do not. Wittness China. Everything had to fit within the tao. I find it easy to imagine the culture on Lamia to be very conservative and not allowing change. As for the other, non-human “core worlds”, perhaps they’re more akin to Turtledove’s The Race. In any case warm up the popcorn cause it bodes to get “interesting”.
Bill,
Once again, historically speaking, technology never improved unless their was an economical or technological driver that provided a compelling reason.
You could compare this environment to the Dutch East India company. With a Royal license starting in the 1600’s, they had their own ports and their own converted Merchant ships, the “EastIndiamen” vessels.
While not a battle vessel per se’ being a large vessel with 50 odd cannons made them a very hard nut to crack.
More so when the next best Privateer or Pirate vessel was a converted Frigate or Corvette.
Even though these things could have two dozen cannon aboard, finding two dozen well trained gun crew, plus the required ordnance, Hollywood aside, was a tall order.
This compared to the “EastIndiamen” vessels, which were manned by “retired” Royal Marines and their ilk, whose skill at arms was legendary.
So even with a mediocre, former marine gun crew, they were still highly dangerous targets.
Then of course, the attendant Naval vessels were all Man-O-War class, where 120 Guns was common. As was the 120 well trained Gun crew, backed by a full compliment of Armed Marines and ordnance.
So even if you came across an “EastIndiamen” (two or more vessels) convoy, without a Naval escort, the odds weren’t in your favor.
Then of course, if you did manage to successfully ambush a cargo vessel, and overcome the armed crew, you still had to kill or maroon their crew, as your Frigate wasn’t going to hold the contents of a merchant vessel, much less, contain a fifty to a hundred angry captured crew.
That then led to another problem, which was disposing of your ill gotten gains without attracting attention.
Like an increase of the presence of the Man-O-War class, and you and your crew being hung, or simply blown out of the water, once found.
As for the Privateers and Pirates, there was little if any incentive to go much beyond a frigate, as you had to man the vessel, both with Sailors and Fighting crew and supplies and ordance. No small order, again, all Hollywood fiction aside.
In this scenario with the Dragon Nation however, you have a new Nation State with an incentive to use well crewed and resourced Frigate Class vessels, but with a Battle punch that equals or exceeds the Man-O-War class, while maintaining the Maneuverability of the lighter and faster class of vessel.
This would also be the start of an Arms race, if you let it get that far.
Hence the Dragon Nation building up the defense capability of their new trading partners, from the outset.
This then creates the environment for Détente with the core worlds.
The reason for the Core worlds looming reconsideration is that any direct or indirect warfare would be met with retaliation against their vessels away from port.
That gets expensive and problematic very quickly.
The English Man-O-War class and the English Privateers used against the Spanish and the French is the prime example here.
The cost of freight increased, the routes and trade products decreased, and both Merchant vessels and Naval vessels were “lost” or captured.
Then when it came to War, the Spanish and the French lost. Which is a discussion for another time.
So, food for thought.
As for relative tech levels, you don’t need overwhelming technology and/or social improvements if you can engage in a Guerilla style warfare with slight advances in Technology.
The Core world could, if they had to fight more, have developed quite deadly Rail Gun weaponry, or Plasma weaponry, or similar technology, both of which are being developed now by the USA.
Advance that Technology by a few thousand years and you would have fairly effective Defensive and Offensive capability.
However, missing from the equation is a need to spend the time and resource, if your already of the belief that your current status is such that you can suppress any up and coming threats with simple Ballistic or HyperSupersonic Missile style technology.
Which as noted, is effectively range limited.
Finally, I give you a quote from Mr Rumsfeld;
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
The ones we don’t know we don’t know.
And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.
Now expand that philosophy out to the Core worlds and remove the concepts of “Free”, “Democratic” and “Meritorious” and introduce the concepts of Authoritarian, Corrupt and Incompetent.
Then we get back to the Red Queen problem. The Core Worlds stopped moving forward, as they have had no compelling reason to do so.
Now Core world, meet the unknown unknowns. The Dragon empire.
Thank you, iain. Again.
Young and hungry meets old and complacent.
Of course young and hungry (and in the case of the Cats also scrappy) doesn’t at all mean invincible. They don’t call ’em “dreadnaughts” for nothing. I would expect such vessels to be the maximum size practical for wormhole transport and armed – and ARMORED – to the hilt. The other races don’t have the grav-based technology but, IIRC, the Empire damned near didn’t. IMS, King hired some Russian physicists who literally stumbled onto the basic grav technology. Such accidents are referred to as “black swan events” and are utterly unpredictable. I suspect that the effect involves something very subtle at the quantum level that ordinarily would not be pursued. But that does not mean that the horned folk and other “core worlds folk” don’t know how to mine their own asteroid belts for tungsten and thus armor their warships with several feet of such armor. Come to think of it, I’m not all that sure how effective a ten or even hundred pound block of sand at .1%C would be against 10 feet of tungsten armor.
(Note: I was going to post the weights and armor thickness in metric but for some reason I cannot get anything from the menu screen to run. Avast did an update push last night and suddenly part of my Win10 isn’t working. Apologies to you folks who do not think in English measurements. I get to do a reboot. Damnit!)
Bill,
With all due respect, your overthinking it.
The first assumption here is that the The Core Worlds have a current opponent that can breach such Armour?
Again, yes, is the opposing capability there?
Although, once again, I hark back to the the Ancient Greeks with their Thermophile engine, did they or the Ancient Romans make any good use of it? So, that was a NO, then?
Once more, we are back to what is theoretically capable, even with a working example, as opposed to what actually happened.
Again, even more so, we are shown that regardless of the Civilization, and any advance in any field, any advance in any civilization is not equally advanced in all fields.
Much less, made good, or for that matter, any use of.
At length, I repeat myself, Ancient Greeks with their Thermophile engine, example Numero Uno.
As history has proven, just those advances that require attention, and can be justified, with the appropriate resource, will get attention.
However, some technologies, for whatever reason, regardless of their importance, will sadly fade into history as once again, I repeat, there is no BURNING need to expend resource or wealth, much less, explore any perceived benefit.
We can dispense with Socialism, and it’s ilk, as they would never reach the stars, much less any level of civilized society with advanced technology.
Clearly, Socialism and its alternatives are little more than a barbaric death cult that will, as history has proven, will eat itself, then collapse back into some form of regional, feudalistic Warlord dominated uncivilized and primitive tribal group.
The likes of Antifa and their ilk comes to mind.
So, we are then left with Authoritarian and meritorious forms of Government that could reach Kardashev scale Level one, or better.
That also leaves a lot of wriggle room, as to how various societies and the mores would be structured and their outcomes achieved, or not.
Also, consider that a Kardashev scale is theoretical, as different societies won’t land in the same ball park, just roughly achieve a similar Technology level, by various means, with regard to Energy Capability and deployment.
So, with that in mind, other than the Core Worlds should be able to achieve roughly equal outcomes in their respective Energy outcomes, by whatever means they arrive at, things such as Medical achievements, Social achievements, Agricultural achievements and Wealth management, social constructs and social logistics, or the lack, thereof, are all up in the air.
The incorrect assumption here, in my humble opinion, is equating the current achievements of Earth, in any and all fields of human endeavor, over all of the nations on earth, and them mistakenly extrapolating those achievements, to any ordinarily citizens beneficence, out for another Ten Thousand years.
So, God like power, NO.
Some achievement, or more likely, variations of the current theme, in Medical management, Energy usage, maybe Governance, Wealth management and other fields, yes, I’ll buy into that, with caveats.
To the benefit of all citizens, no, I can’t but into that.
As for being highly advanced and Technology and Socially superior to all other civilizations on al other worlds , NO, can’t buy into that, either.
Different, yes, superior, well, you would have to think carefully on that aspect. History is simply against you.
This is why I’ve always felt the Federation model in Star Trek would never really work. This incentive to improve and advance doesn’t exist in that structure, with replicators, and homogenous cultures and ideas, there really isn’t an incentive to advance and improve… At least u til the Mongols show up, as happened to Rome. It seems we, as humans, need conflict and competition to stimulate advances, both culturally and technologically.
Being fat and happy makers you cattle. Having adversaries and competition makes you tigers…
In other words, they’re going to win the Darwin Award
‘obey my commands or be destroyed.’
The Lir response: ‘Shut down their weapons and engines. Allow for minimum life support. Let them drift in the dark and cold for a few hours.’
Backup possibility (If the Lir were seriously Pissed): ‘Vaporize their entire fleet. Reintegrate. Ask them if them if they wish to try again.’
I’m trying to not make the Empire too powerful. Bill and I have already discussed this.
There would be no story without reasonable conflict.
The Lir are not involved in this. Not even there, per you 😉
Just saying what their approach would be.
Lacking the Lir’s godlike power I expect Capt Chardis to respond by tossing a couple of charges of “kitty litter” at the dreadnaught. Ten pounds of plain beach sand at .1% of C has an ungodly amount of kenetic energy on it. I did the calculation once and – IIRC – an individual sand grain at .1% of C has the kenetic energy equivalent to a POUND of TNT!
I wonder if the Cats use scented kitty litter. 😉
She will be remembered in history for her famous quote:
“I love the smell of kitty litter in the morning.
It smells like… victory.”
Play on Apocalypse Now quote, L.C. Kilgore (Robert Duval) Good one
In other words, they’re going to win the Darwin Award