2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok then, forget about it. Thanks for the information though.

[Steve]

IIRC, wasn't whaling a big thing in Champa, with major cultural meaning to it? Banning it should probably lead to quite a lot of dissent, maybe even an attempt to kill the ban in legislature?

[madd0ct0r]

yup. it will. but it's not been officially announced yet

[Steve]

Hell, a new election might lead to a party that outright withdraws the ban.

[madd0ct0r]

I would direct you to consider the leader of the opposition, Nigelli Farhat

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... A#p3852416

A long time in the politcal wilderness, some grumbled he was too comfortable as the government's goad. He was certainly happy to use his position, equal to that of a minister, to direct development money towards his home districts, but he'd also challenged the Goverment hard over suspected immigrant abuses in San Dorado, after rumours had leaked of Champans being charged double for the return trip at the end of their two year work visa. Emigrant policy was still the center plank of his manifesto, but he had recently taking to tilting at windmills, in particular "this loopy idea that we can cover Champa in ugly disgusting ghastly windmills and that somehow our future energy needs will come from that." Without significant reserves of anything except peat, he'd been relying on nuclear energy to quash the greens, whilst also funnelling construction money through his constituents. The doomed reactor had sparked a bitter round of debate in Champa, with mobs demonstrating outside the remaining ThorR and ThorQ sites but remaining wary of 'invisible radiation worms eating you from the inside' as one talk show host had put it.

I've been planning this for a while. we've got green protestors against the reactors (and any proposed new ones) while the country is starved of power. Nigelli's populist stichk is based on immigration, and the Rhenian offer will kick his party right where it dosen't want it. Whaling is hugely important, but not in a nationalist way like for Japan or the nordics. Whaling is strongly tied to a powerful church, but it is the products, not the act that is loaded with meaning. Two more days to clear the remmnets of the last job while I start the new job, and I'll be writing properly again.

[Simon_Jester]

Ok then, forget about it. Thanks for the information though.

I wouldn't say "forget about it," I'd say "think about it." It's not obviously a superior choice, but what evidence there is in real life suggests that someone could do it without shooting themselves in the foot... IF they had a large enough maritime nuclear-industrial establishment.

Cruise ships and aircraft carriers are also extremely expensive ships optimized for a very specific role and business model that is entirely different from moving massive amounts of containers or oil around. And the fleets they are in can make do with a handful of such ships, whereas to shift cargo around at the national economy scale you need dozens or more ships.

My point is not that it's impossible to bring a ship up to 30 knots, it's that it's economically pointless to do so for a cargo vessel. The gain in speed is far outweighed by the costs, or else we'd be seeing faster ships already. It's a Concorde versus 747 issue: yes the supersonic jet is faster, but the trade-offs it has to make to attain that speed are so massive that it's not economical to use them for anything but showboating.

It'll be the same for nuclear freighters. Yes you can build them, obviously, and you can then boast that they'll get your cargo across the ocean at 25 knots or whatever, but I see no economic benefit to this whatsoever.

Well, at that point it comes down to details. Making freighters faster can pay off (a big part of why steamships finally managed to displace sailing ships in the late 1800s; improved steam engines made them actually significantly faster than sail over the long haul). But it doesn't pay off indefinitely, as you accurately point out.

So, is a nuclear freighter that cruises at 20 knots going to outperform a diesel freighter that cruises at 10-15 knots? Maybe, and maybe it won't matter. It depends.

In a lot of cases, things that 'turned out' uneconomical did so because of specific details about how the times worked. Change the context and you change the incentive.

So rather than categorically say "this is a great idea everyone should do it" or "this is a stupid idea no one should do it," my inclination would be to say "swings and roundabouts" and leave it at that, and let E_F play around with the things if he wants.

I hope I didn't somehow give the impression that I thought nuclear cargo ships were inherently superior.

This is only true if you manage to create a ship capable of moving just as much cargo as a regular freighter. If your nuclear tanker goes twice as fast as my ULCC but can only carry a few hundred thousand barrels of oil whilst my crude carrier shifts two million, your speed advantage just evaporated. Unless you're running your nuclear freighters on the tramp trade or something, but then we're well off into crazyland IMO.

Also, steel and diesel and the people to run them are cheap, whereas you'll need to fit and maintain a reactor, requiring nuke techs, expensive safety measures and spare parts on each and every one of your nuclear ships. Which inevitably means that each of your nuclear ships will be more expensive to build and operate than my regular two-stroke diesel engined ships. And we're talking dozens of ships here, if you want to make a dent in the global shipping market. These costs start to add up. And to what advantage? What are you moving that can't wait a few more days for a regular ship to make the trip?

None of what you say is false. On the other hand there are other advantages to nuclear freighters that I perhaps didn't dwell on, such as not needing to stop and take on more fuel, being insensitive to shocks in the price of fuel. The need for highly trained personnel and specialized infrastructure is an issue, on the other hand that issue becomes smaller with economies of scale. So if a country like Orion methodically builds up a whole fleet of nuclear freighters and the infrastructure to service same, it might find them easier and cheaper to maintain than the one-off prototypes that exist in real life.

Also, some nations will most likely refuse entry to nuke ships either on principle or require huge safety inspections.

Possibly, but nobody did in real life, and fear of all things nuclear is in my honest opinion likely to be less in a world where nuclear weapons do not exist. Granted that there have been catastrophic events like Orange Terrace and Thor-P3. But without the lingering shadow cast by the atomic bomb, it is more likely that these risks will be viewed in proportion to their size (i.e. like the potential for a very nasty and deadly chemical/oil spill).

So while huge safety inspections may be required, it seems relatively unlikely that large numbers of countries will become so fanatical about being nuclear free zones that they would bar the freighters. Also, Orion seems to have a pretty good nuclear industry and might well find it not-too-hard to comply with a strict nuclear safety regime. I may have said words against E_F during other events in the game, but this is exactly the sort of thing his country would specialize in.

[Thanas]

Possibly, but nobody did in real life,

New Zealand did and Japan refused entry to ships carrying nuclear waste.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm sorry, that was stupid of me. I knew that. I even thought about New Zealand's ban on nuclear ships docking there while I was writing. And yet my brain hiccuped. No excuse.

Acknowledging the hit, I would like to point out:

1) Japan has been specifically traumatized by having been hit by nuclear bombs; their sensitivity to and concern about atomic energy and atomic weapons has been a major vein in their post-WWII politics. This is illustrated in their fiction.

2) New Zealand's anti-nuclear politics was driven in large part by the "no bombs south of the Line" sentiment which was, again, the product of nuclear testing and Cold War fears. Moreover, with good reason the no-nuclear-ship ban was seen as a ban on warships. Because at the time of the ban there were four non-military nuclear powered vessels in existence... and all of them were Russian icebreakers that New Zealand would never conceivably see.

So if you remove the Cold War fear of nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation, and the prospect of having nuclear weapons in and around your country making you a target for the enemy's nuclear weapons in case of World War Three... I honestly don't think such bans would be common, although they might exist in a few places, especially after Thor-P3 earlier this year.

[Orange Terrace would not have had quite as much effect as Chernobyl, mostly because the effects were almost entirely limited to Umerian soil due to prevailing winds. It would probably have had more effect than Three Mile Island, though. I cannot speak to other nuclear accidents since I know nothing of them]

[Thanas]

Well, I'm just browsing through the official reports of the German ship Otto Hahn and the captain basically writes that docking was always a lot of extra hassle. I agree that it would be unlikely, however there probably would be a lot of the extra regulations in place that would drive up costs.

[Simon_Jester]

One point that must be made is that in real life a nuclear civilian ship is this freak of nature. It's a regulatory one-off requiring procedures no one even knows because they apply only to that one ship.

If someone actually committed to building dozens of the things (perhaps for political reasons) it seems likely that the infrastructure to receive them in port, or at least in certain ports, would evolve a bit in response.

Sort of like how the US Navy has a streamlined procedure for handling nuclear reactors in its own bases. They have so many nuclear ships that it becomes a matter of routine to deal with them, rather than "OH MY GOD A SHIP POWERED BY FORSAKEN ORPHANS AND CHERNOBYL IS COMING TO OUR VERY DOORSTEP WHATEVER SHALL WE DO!?"

[Siege]

San Dorado disallows nuclear ships to travel up the Slate or Blacker without explicit permission from the mayor. Such vessels are allowed to dock only at a handful of specialized harbors in North Ward. Because I don't want someone to half-ass their reactor maintenance and accidentally blow fallout over the biggest oil refinery on the continent. Or all over Downtown. Our real estate is too valuable to risk. Take your toys elsewhere.

[Simon_Jester]

A reasonable position for them to take, given how immensely crowded and dense San Dorado is. A very logical play for a nation with that particular strategic situation.

Although I really don't want to discourage E_F from doing something he genuinely believes is cool. Accept limitations on it, sure, have it only happen in certain times and places, sure. But if we're killing it dead because of... um, not sure what... that would be unfair.

[Siege]

Indeed. Like I said, I don't think it's impossible to build nuclear cargo ships, I just don't see the point. But if he or anybody else wants them, go right ahead.

[madd0ct0r]

really big, really heavy, really urgent stuff. We have planes dedicated to flying parts of other planes around the world, and that sounds just as mad.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well that's certainly been informative. I will probably announce a government study looking into a wider use of nuclear ships, perhaps because we consider the earlier handful of prototypes we built to have been successful enough to warrant further study. As Simon said (heh), nuclear power and technology is Orion's hat, so it makes sense for us to at least explore it.

[madd0ct0r]

you could make a killing if carbon tax credits become available for imported fruit and veg.

[Simon_Jester]

Whatever clawed horror is in that crate should be thankful; the Umerians have a nasty habit of using Antarctica as a bombing range. Pity we can't nuke the site from orbit for you, but some things just don't work out that way.

Although I can't shake the feeling that I should be brushing up on my copy of Who Goes There? by John Campbell. That, or privately working out the origins of Umerian mad science from SDNW4/5 in self defense.

[Thanas]

Just to make sure in case anybody thinks we still have a taskforce in Champan waters - we don't. It was not doing anything sensible except for wasting money, so it was of course withdrawn to normal duties.

[Steve]

I figure most task forces have withdrawn and the air bridge and such shut down due to no major pressing needs anymore.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yup, my task force is long gone, as is Underwood's.

Ooo fun a border skirmish.

On another note, Thanas and I are still working on our big Treaty post, it should be up soon but work has been kicking me in the head these last two days.

[RogueIce]

1. The final response to the RFP comes in from a local Hawai’ian design firm.
Proposals from the various yards include:
San Dorado (Trimaran), Cascadia (BCGN), Comradestan (Undefined), Umeria (Two KDX-3s!), Jiangnan (CGVN), & Dalian (Super CGBLN+), Rielly Hawai’i (CVG), Rhenland (Arsenal Ship).

I sent you one as well.

It was for either Burke Flight III Level 3s (more of what you already have, basically) or an upgraded CGBL.

[TimothyC]

So, before I start working on RIMPAC, who all is sending naval detachments?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I figured I'd send some.

[Simon_Jester]

Umeria is sending Skylark's battlegroup (E_F, you've met them) and a pair of nuclear submarines (only one person aboard which has interacted with you).

[Steve]

Cascadia will assemble a JOG consisting of the Cascadia AOG and the Defiant CVBG for the Hawaii RIMPAC exercises.