The Federation vs the Commonwealth

[Vendetta]

Is Hamilton a good author? I've not read any of his stuff before. If there is a decent British Sci-Fi author out there, I would be most interested, heh.

He's alright.

Tends towards indulging his personal sexual fantasies on page a bit too often, which gets repetitive, but the SF is good.

[Lazarus]

Hamilton's my favourite Sci-Fi author so I'd recommend Night's Dawn or the Commonwealth Saga to anyone. Fallen Dragon is a brilliant read too if you're looking for something shorter.

In terms of comparison to the Federation, the one and only thing the Feds have in their favour is their number of ships. This is Hard Sci-Fi v Soft Sci-Fi, so it's generally a massacre in favour of Hard but the ship numbers make this slightly more interesting. In every field the Commonwealth is massively more advanced, it's larger, everyone in it is immortal leading to an exponentially large population... It's industrial capacity is also as good as might be expected when it gets going, but the research capacity is what's truly astounding. From never even building a starship before they start cranking them out in bigger and better forms in such a way that the ships are obsolete even while they're being built. From never even considering the idea of destroying a star, they produce a starbuster superweapon in a matter of a year or two. As far as I'm aware, the Feds have needed such a weapon for hundreds of years but haven't managed to produce one.

[frogcurry]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Commonwealth had the ability to seed a wormhole to any planet it knew the location of. One recon trip in a ship, or one captured Fed. vessel with an accurate stellar database onboard, and they can start multiple simultaneous invasions by wormhole. The space navy disadvantage is largely superfulous.

Plus it was normal to the Commonwealth for very rich individuals to have inbuilt weaponry and shields. Effectively every rich person in one of their cities is equivalent to a well armoured but poorly trained soldier, and thats the civilians.

Am I confusing my books, or was there also a neutral, rather disinterested civilisation of space-cows in that story?

[Luzifer's right hand]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Commonwealth had the ability to seed a wormhole to any planet it knew the location of. One recon trip in a ship, or one captured Fed. vessel with an accurate stellar database onboard, and they can start multiple simultaneous invasions by wormhole. The space navy disadvantage is largely superfulous.

There range is limited by the energy required IIRC, that's why the sent ships to Dyson Alpa which is 750 light years from the edge of Commonwealth space(~1000 light years from Earth). MorningLightMountain had to build a staging point between Dyson Alpha and Commonwealth space to reach it with wormholes.

Am I confusing my books, or was there also a neutral, rather disinterested civilisation of space-cows in that story?

There are neutral aliens in the Commonwealth Saga, the elf-like Silfen which are space hippies and the Raiel which are tentacle monsters.
The Tyrathca from the Night's Dawn Trilogy look a little like horses IIRC.

[Lazarus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Commonwealth had the ability to seed a wormhole to any planet it knew the location of. One recon trip in a ship, or one captured Fed. vessel with an accurate stellar database onboard, and they can start multiple simultaneous invasions by wormhole. The space navy disadvantage is largely superfulous.

Good point, I guess a single one of their ships equipped with Quantum Busters is essentially a long range superweapon, able to annihilate any planetary system in range. Forget invasion, given the production capacity of the Commonwealth they could probably threaten every Fed system with destruction pretty rapidly. I don't see how there's any conceivable way for the Feds to win, I mean system-destroying firepower is on the level of the Sun Crusher from SW (although of course everything else is probably of lower power but much greater sophistication).

On another note, does SW have matter => energy technology?

[Vanas]

IIRC, the Galaxy Gun did that, though I think it was a giant technobabble event, like a planet-killing phaser.

[Minischoles]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Commonwealth had the ability to seed a wormhole to any planet it knew the location of. One recon trip in a ship, or one captured Fed. vessel with an accurate stellar database onboard, and they can start multiple simultaneous invasions by wormhole. The space navy disadvantage is largely superfulous.

Plus it was normal to the Commonwealth for very rich individuals to have inbuilt weaponry and shields. Effectively every rich person in one of their cities is equivalent to a well armoured but poorly trained soldier, and thats the civilians.

Am I confusing my books, or was there also a neutral, rather disinterested civilisation of space-cows in that story?

Yeah they can get a wormhole anywhere, but generally getting it within the system was considered pretty accurate, and until they build anchoring machinery in place the wormhole can't be put accurately, plus it has a short range.

Not just rich people, but they can upgrade just about anyone with instant weapons tech, stuff way above the kind of capabilities Star Trek has, directed energy weapons capable of piercing shields, pocket nukes, AA missiles as well as heavy camo technology. And this was all pre-transcendency, in the latest books much of the richer people have become Highers (basically immortal, self repairing, most don't even have a body anymore they exist in a Quantum state surronding earth) they have completely self aware machines and entities, as well as ships capable of insane speeds.