The Solarian National Armory + Zavod-Alliance Relations Change

[Pope Dave The 3th]

Lore Impact: Small

Species: Human

Short Description: Creates the Solarian National Armory, an Alliance-owned state weapons manufacturer created from some of the shiny bits yoinked from Zavodskoi and Hephaestus under the Industrial Reclamation Mandate. Also updates the Zavod-Alliance relations blurb to reflect that they were not in fact immune to being nationalized. 

How will this be reflected on-station?: Alliance weapons may now have shiny new manufacturer stamps, and Zavod reps may join NanoTrasen in bitching about being kicked out of Sol.

Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: It gives the Alliance a new source of guns, and removes the frankly very silly plot armor previously enjoyed by Zavodskoi in regards to the SCA.

Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team?: Yep.

Long Description:

Solarian National Armory:

Originally founded as the Solarian State Armory during the Alliance’s Hegemonic Era, the Armory was one of the many independent arms companies absorbed into Zavodskoi Interstellar during the Crash of 2260 and subsequent Interstellar War. There, the brand would languish for over two centuries before being abruptly restored to the Alliance by the Industrial Reclamation Mandate of 2463. Renamed to the Solarian National Armory, the now state-owned enterprise would experience an ironic twist of its former history, being granted many of the assets seized from Zavodskoi by the Solarian Corporate Authority, along with a smaller quantity of Hephasteus facilities. Backed by the full financial power of the Alliance, the SNA has seen its portfolio rapidly expand from its Hegemonic incarnation, and is now responsible for producing everything from infantry small arms to starship-grade naval guns.

Much of the SNA’s production comes courtesy of three partially-reactivated Hephaestus Superfactory stations secured by the SCA in the opening months of its mandate. Though unable to match the raw productive capability of Hephaestus’s fully operational facilities, several years of intensive study, jury-rigging, and experimentation has seen all of the facilities restored to around 50% operating capacity (a number which continues to grow as the stations’ new custodians learn their charges). Entirely dedicated to the production of military armaments, the combined output of the three stations is capable of fully equipping multiple Solarian mechanized divisions in under a month, a quality which swiftly endeared the initiative to the Solarian general staff.


Zavod-Alliance relations blurb: 

Prior to the Solarian Corporate Authority's establishment and the mass nationalisation of corporate assets, Necropolis Industries was one of the primary weapon suppliers to the Solarian Armed Forces. In the SCA’s wake, however, Zavodskoi saw its Solarian holdings positively gutted by an Alliance seeking to secure strategic autonomy in its weapons production. Nearly all of Zavodskoi’s Alliance assets have since been transferred to Solarian-controlled companies, such as the Solarian National Armory, the San Colette Interstellar Arms Company, and the Visegrad Armaments Cooperative, among several others. While Zavodskoi still maintains a small presence within the Solarian Alliance, it is a far cry from the influence it held a mere decade prior.

[triogenix]

As of now I am heavily against this. I am fine with the idea that the Alliance is seeking autonomy in arms production/defense, and I'm also fine with Zavodskoi getting booted out of the Alliance. I not okay with this reading like the alliance just snapped its fingers and had no adverse effects from completely removing a megacorporation from a market it dominates. We are a megacorporate setting - for better and for worse - and this feels as though it's in a completely different setting instead. However, I don't just want to shoot down the idea, so I will point out some additions that may make me change my mind.

1. You need to have there be a tangible, explicit drawback to not having Zavodskoi manufacture their arms and weapons anymore. In other pieces of lore my go to has been just - Zavodskoi makes the most advanced stuff - so not using Zavodskoi means using less advanced stuff. However, given how intertwined the Solarian Military and Zavodskoi should have been before the reclamation mandate, I'd like to see alot more, I.E, things like loss of expertise/brain drain, difficulty with supply chains (stuff needs resources to be built), possibly corruption, and more.

2. The amount nationalized needs to correlate to the difficulties experienced by the Alliance. Zavodskoi was gutted and basically has zero presence in the alliance now? That's fine, but the alliance difficulties need to be so severe that they can't viably fill the gap for years (not just however long it's been since nationalization).

3. You're neglecting all the other war equipment Zavodskoi makes - AIs of all types, radios, EW and ECM equipment, Radars, Exofighters, Armored Vehicles, Scanners, Drones, body armor, hardsuits, cyber warfare shit, and countless other pieces of equipment necessary for the advanced battlefields of the 2460s. All this stuff mentioned is incredibly difficult to manufacture, requiring workers with expertise, extremely convoluted and long supply chains, extremely advanced manufacturing centers (think what TSMC uses to make their chips), and extensive industrial knowledge that makes the things I first mentioned look simple in comparison. Zavodskoi has all of this - how does the SNA also magically have this?

In conclusion, right now, this reads to me like it's not taking place in the same setting as everything else, and everything is working out perfectly with little to no flaws despite how many there should be. As long as it reads that way to me, I will not accept this application or allow it to be accepted.

P.S: I assume you didn't know, but megacorporate lore, such as Zavodskoi, like a large chuck of this, falls under the authority of the Loremasters. So this application should really say; Species: Human and Loremasters. But that's not obvious - I might change the format for applications given that.

Edited 14 hours ago by triogenix

[Pope Dave The 3th]

Retracting this for now. Trio's comments are valid, and I'll refresh this into a full rundown of the Alliance's post-Reclamation military-industrial situation rather than just a one-off.