More Spess Fluff

[Owen]

Maybe some more fluff on ATLAS itself on the wiki? I'm keen to convert one of my spessmen over to their way of thinking but have no info....other then the stuff on the forums...

 

Yeah, that would be a really cool thing to add. At the moment I am pretty sure that the only thing that is about Atlas on the forums right now is just telling us how many seats it has in the Sol Alliance. So yeah, that would be something I would like.

[rrrrrr]

Add an explanation as to how the Hegemony could afford to build an extremely large warship. Also add in an explanation as to how they can afford or even find enough fuel to move, enough crew to staff and how it would defend against literally anything.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Add an explanation as to how the Hegemony could afford to build an extremely large warship. Also add in an explanation as to how they can afford or even find enough fuel to move, enough crew to staff and how it would defend against literally anything.

 

Giving factions' access to the resources of space really throws our regular sense of scale out the window. In Star Wars, they can build two death stars, which are the size of our moon, despite the government being embroiled in a civil war and plagued by insurrection, and this isn't questioned because it seems consistent with the universe it's set in. And in Star Wars, the Force Awakens,

they build their huge ass cannon that eats entire stars that is bigger than 5 Death Stars put together despite apparently only having like 2 star destroyers and a handful of systems.

 

In our universe, mining asteroids yields more crap than we know what to do with. There's just so much stuff. So much stuff.

It's not a question of resources, it's a question of logistics and manpower, and where the investment of the resources is put.

The Sol Alliance is the most powerful human faction in the galaxy, and their economy is extremely volatile. They have an extremely large fleet, but it's spread out so much that it's suffering the later Roman problem of being thinned out and slow to respond. The Alliance is very much a vestigial empire and has been decaying for a hundred years.

The Hegemony, on the other hand, are upstarts. Their ability to afford the Super Dreadnaught comes from the technology they've stolen from humanity during the course of the antag contest, as well as the fact they have their first orbital industry. So all the plasteel, metal, and glass that is being sold to them by Haesphestus is going to the factories in space which themselves are spitting out smaller ships.

But the dreadnaught itself is a very large investment. It's the only ship of its class that they can afford to build, even with their decision to invest it there instead of like, terraforming their shitty radioactive home planet.

They've decommissioned a lot of the ships in their navy (which are Unathi raiders that heeded the call of vassalage in exchange for officially sanctioned booty) and are planning on tossing those guys into the dreadnaught. They've just started mining asteroids, and their empire is new and small, so it's ambitious and with lots of potential that you could see totally destroyed by giving your own agency in the Antag Contest more Power to thwart their goals.

Or, in shorter terms, the Unathi are very much a Rising Empire.

[rrrrrr]

My other question is how carding an AI would lead to massive warships.

For real though - literally what would stop Jargon and Sol from teaming up and just.. throwing a couple of nukes at it? The thing probably takes half a year to turn and I doubt any defense systems it has installed could stop all of them.

Basically, why is the Hegemony making a debatably poor choice despite getting close to winning?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

My other question is how carding an AI would lead to massive warships.

For real though - literally what would stop Jargon and Sol from teaming up and just.. throwing a couple of nukes at it? The thing probably takes half a year to turn and I doubt any defense systems it has installed could stop all of them.

Basically, why is the Hegemony making a debatably poor choice despite getting close to winning?

 

1) I apologize if this wasn't fully explained in the posts. The carded AI's are given new laws and put in the orbital factories - I would hope we can agree that a huge factory runs super efficiently with an AI managing all of it, including lawed borgs to do more hands-on tasks.

2) Why would the Sol Alliance and Jargon Federation illegally violate the sovereignty of another country for building a warship? What justification would there be to use nuclear weapons in orbit of an inhabited planet, destroying their infrastructure, industry, and definitely causing collateral damage? This would be a totally bizarre decision. It would be like the US dropping a nuke on a drydock in Mexico because it was being used to build a battleship from plans stolen from the US.

I'll expand on this more to explain the status-quo of humanity. The Sol Alliance is not the only human government - it is surrounded by hundreds of independent human space-nations in the 'frontier'. These are intentionally vague to allow players almost any sort of background they want, as long as it's reasonable. These space-nations trace their history back to the First Insterstellar War, which was sparked because the Sol Alliance made rash decisions that really harmed the sense of sovereignty and self-determination that the former member-systems had - basically, the Sol Alliance "overreached" and there was a push-back.

Suddenly waltzing into an independent system, destroying the infrasctuture and navy with nuclear weapons, then waltzing out while the admirals high-five would throw everyone else in the galaxy into an absolutely massive fit and it would probably obliterate any hope of peaceful co-existence with anyone that isn't the Skrell. And I can garuntee you that the Unathi wouldn't just let that go - the Alliance would either have to keep coming in and blowing shit up, sustain an extended blockade/occupation of the system, or just nuke the lizards from orbit. None of these decisions are able to be done because of economic, political, and moral reasons.

Also the Alliance fleet is absolutely massive, but so is the territory. There are hundreds and hundreds of star systems that need to be defended. It's like Siberia, if Siberia were riddled with bandits and angry independent siberian countries. Also in this metaphor Siberia exists in a vacuum. Also there are aliens living in it. And space-ships. This is a bad metaphor.

Everytime they bluespace 20 ships out of a system to join up with another 20 ships to go shoot at some lizards, the systems left behind are immediately attacked by pirates. These systems are understandably rather upset that their protective fleet left them behind to go off and shoot at things they can't even see, and would much rather prefer that the fleet stays so they can remain unpillaged.

3) It's better for player engagement and initiative to have a multi-polar setting. If the Sol Alliance curb-stomped all enemies and had no feasible opposition, the antag contest wouldn't be possible at all - nor would any attempt at canonizing antagonist actions. This was the status-quo before the start of my tenure, actually, and it made me very determined to change circumstances for the better - IE more or less where we are now.

[rrrrrr]

You seem to have completely missed the point of my post. I'm not saying Jargon and the Alliance should nuke the ship because, let's face it, people are probably starving to death because the Hegemony is putting far too many resources towards building an impractical warship that currently serves no purpose other than looking cool.. I'm saying that when it comes down to it, it's stupid. It's pointless.

Having the Hegemony modernize would be far more interesting in my opinion - at the very least, it'd be more interesting than them building the fucking death star.

[Mofo1995]

But don't the Unathi put a really strong emphasis on warfare even to the point that it's impractical? I could be wrong, but if their society is so focused on battle then I'm willing to buy that they might build a big stupid super ship rather rather than feeding their peasants.

[Guest]

This is honestly not the place to discuss this. The point of this topics to ask for updates, not debate if or not current choices are complete shit. So yes, I suggest you forward your issues directly to the lore team or another topic.

[canon35]

Maybe more fluff on asteroid mining? Incidents in space?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

For real though - literally what would stop Jargon and Sol from teaming up and just.. throwing a couple of nukes at it?

You seem to have completely missed the point of my post. I'm not saying Jargon and the Alliance should nuke the ship

 

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people are probably starving to death because the Hegemony is putting far too many resources towards building an impractical warship that currently serves no purpose other than looking cool.. I'm saying that when it comes down to it, it's stupid. It's pointless.

Having the Hegemony modernize would be far more interesting in my opinion - at the very least, it'd be more interesting than them building the fucking death star.

 

You must be extremely dissatisfied with our world IRL, given that "spending money on expensive military gadgets while people starve" is something sadly extremely commonplace in our species.

The Unathi are already modernizing - they've been modernizing since they first met Humanity. Modernization is not something that happens overnight. They're already doing what you are suggesting - the orbital factories are pumping out actual merchant ships to let the unathi make mad shekels by trading and Haesphestus Industries is making bank by investing in all this in turn.

 

But don't the Unathi put a really strong emphasis on warfare even to the point that it's impractical? I could be wrong, but if their society is so focused on battle then I'm willing to buy that they might build a big stupid super ship rather rather than feeding their peasants.

 

More or less. Collectively, Unathi want to be in control of their own destiny, and be seen as strong in their own right. Victory in battle is a great way to do this, but I've been trying to subvert the "brute warrior culture" sci-fi trope, so they just have a different outlook on warfare while being roughly as violent as humanity ever is.

I mean, minus the nuclear holocaust. We haven't had one of those yet.

Anyway this is derailing the thread, but I wanted to address you one last time.

 

Maybe more fluff on asteroid mining? Incidents in space?

 

A good one! There's a lot more we could be doing with this. I'll prod the lore team for these.