Galactic Empire vs Confederation

[jamsy42]

Note: The Galactic Empire I'm am speaking of is the one of the Foundation novels at its height and the Confederation is the one of the Night's Dawn Trilogy at around 2600.

Let's say a Confederation experiment into different quantum states causes a rift to be opened into a moderately industrialized Imperial star system about halfway between Terminus and Trantor. The Empire wants to get their hands on some voidhawks and things deteriorate from there.

The Confederation does not have access to the Alchemist!

[General Mung Beans]

I haven't heard of the Night's Dawn trilogy. Without spoiling it could you please give a brief (few sentences) summary

[jamsy42]

Okay well the confederation is a loose alliance made to stop the use of antimatter and to keep the peace between systems. It has roughly 9000 ftl-capable warships plus additional ones pledged in a time of crisis. The ships carry combat wasps, as their main weapons, which are basically smaller autonomous drones armed with nukes, conventional missiles and lasers. They are capable of accelerating at 20-30 Gs{up to 50 using antimatter}. Voidhawks are basically living ships telepathically linked to their captains. These ships are capable of superior acceleration and maneuverability. Several thousand of them exist and they all belong to a faction that eagerly supports the Confederation.

[Stormin]

In the Night's Dawn books antimatter is damn scary stuff, in Star Wars it's considered a lightly flavored spice you put on your breakfast eggs.
Confederation is a hard-ish sci-fi civilization, they make a hell of a lot better use of what they have than Star Wars ever will but they simply don't have enough magic tech or industrial capability to win.


Edit: For example, one of the Confederation's most important space stations was completely fucked up by a ranged detonation of a small enough chunk of antimatter that it and it's containment system was hidden inside a man's body.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

In the Night's Dawn books antimatter is damn scary stuff, in Star Wars it's considered a lightly flavored spice you put on your breakfast eggs.
Confederation is a hard-ish sci-fi civilization, they make a hell of a lot better use of what they have than Star Wars ever will but they simply don't have enough magic tech or industrial capability to win.


Edit: For example, one of the Confederation's most important space stations was completely fucked up by a ranged detonation of a small enough chunk of antimatter that it and it's containment system was hidden inside a man's body.

And that would matter if this matchup was with the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, and not the one from the Foundation novels.

Reading is important.

[jamsy42]

Note: The galactic empire in this post is the foundation one, sorry that it isn't clear in the subject.

Anyways the point that the Confederation has inferior industrial capacity to the Galactic Empire{either one} is valid. The empire has the resources of an entire galaxy while the Confederation has about 813 systems. Plus sheer numbers might tip things towards the empire as they have quintillions of citizens opposed to mere billions.

[Stormin]

Note: The galactic empire in this post is the foundation one, sorry that it isn't clear in the subject.

Anyways the point that the Confederation has inferior industrial capacity to the Galactic Empire{either one} is valid. The empire has the resources of an entire galaxy while the Confederation has about 813 systems. Plus sheer numbers might tip things towards the empire as they have quintillions of citizens opposed to mere billions.

Bah, too tired while posting. Sorry. The same applies to the foundation galactic empire though, they have pretty close to the same level of tech as the Star Wars empire.


Another anchor for the Confederation is that a LOT of the worlds are going to be a drain on their war making capability. The major systems are in fixed locations and those produce a huge proportion of the ships and it would not take long at all for the less able systems to sell out their suppliers in exchange for their own survival.
Adamist ships are numerous but many of them are very old, few are probably built each year and they just keep remaining in service. Edenist ships and Blackhawks can only be made at a fixed rate since they are bred in special locations rather than constructed. How quickly could the Adamists speed up production before their major shipyards are hit?

[Jalinth]

Which Galactic Empire are we discussing? The one that was dying or the one that the Foundation would grow into after a millenia or so and with the "guidance" of the 2nd foundation?

[Murazor]

Going with the Trantorian Empire of which we actually know some stuff, since the Second Empire is a complete enigma (including whether it ever comes into existence or not).

1- The Trantorian Empire has roughly twenty five million worlds/systems. That means nearly three thousand Trantorian worlds per enemy warship, according to the info provided in post three of the thread. We have a number of different statements about population, from an absolute low end of twenty five quadrillions to single digit quintillions.

2- Here are some possible industrial output figures I extrapolated long ago from the novel Foundation.

INDUSTRY.

There are two ways to calculate the industrial power of the Galactic Empire. Both provide highly impressive results:

-Anacreontian militarization.

The battlecruiser Wienis had half the volume of the Anacreontian fleet. That fleet was more or less built from scratch in the roughly thirty years that followed the emancipation of Anacreon from the Empire. Note that this was not wartime production and that the Foundation hadn't yet completely rebuilt the Imperial energy production network.

The Wienis was two miles in length. Although we don't know anything about its volume (other than all descriptions of Imperial warships suggesting that they are massive and colossal), I have used the volume of eight Imperial Star Destroyers (ISD), which should be an adequate benchmark within an order of magnitude in either direction.

9E7 m^3 * 8 = 7.2E8 m^3
7.2E8 m^3 * 2 = 1.44E9 m^3 (estimated production over thirty years)
1.44E9 m^3 / 30 = 4.8E7 m^3 (estimated yearly production)

Now, Anacreon was just a small fraction of the Galactic Empire.

Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire's heyday was rising rapidly with the increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation.

From Foundation/The Mayors (6).

Using the Anacreontian figures for the Empire in a per planet and per capita basis we get that:

Estimated Galactic Empire production (per planet): 4.8E7 m^3 * 800,000 (Anacreon is estimated to have ~30 planets) = 3.84E13 m^3 (~425,000 ISD sized warships a year).
Estimated Galactic Empire production (per capita): 4.8E7 m^3 * 5.25E7 (Galactic population/Anacreontian population) = 2.52E15 m^3 (~2,800,000 ISD sized warships a year).

-Trantor's deconstruction:

After the Great Sack, one thing that kept Trantor going was its enormous supply of metal. It was a great mine, supplying half a hundred worlds with cheap alloy steel, aluminum, titanium, copper, magnesium - returning, in this way, what it had collected over thousands of years; depleting its supplies at a rate hundreds of times faster than the original rate of accumulation.
There were still enormous metal supplies available, but they were underground and harder to obtain. The Hamish farmers (who never called themselves "Trantorians," a term they considered ill-omened and which the Second Foundationers therefore reserved for themselves) had grown reluctant to deal with the metal any further. Superstition, undoubtedly.
Foolish of them. The metal that remained underground might well be poisoning the soil and further lowering its fertility. And yet, on the other hand, the population was thinly spread and the land supported them. And there were some sales of metal, always.

From Foundation's Edge.

The Great Sack happened in the 260-270 of the Foundational Era. By the time of the passage (498), all metal had been removed from the surface of the planet. The volume of Trantor's cityscape is around 2E8 km^3. Supposing that only half of it was removed (vast underground reserves), we have 1E8 km^3 removed over less than two and a half centuries. This means that roughly 4E5 km^3 were removed every year, a fifth of the volume of the first Death Star. And this staggering amount of material was consumed by the industry of only half a hundred worlds (less than a 0,001% of the Milky Way), after the collapse of the Imperial economy.

3- I vaguely recall a quote about Trantor having ten thousand warships in its home fleet. There is definitely something about a plebeian representative of the Emperor having the authority to summon hundreds of ships for use against the Foundation and this was with the Empire already reduced to just the Core Worlds.

[Mayabird]

I'm curious about the number you got for for the volume of the Trantor cityscape. How'd you calculate it? I don't remember seeing very many numbers in the books about how large it was, but I remember one line mentioning that only the exposed crust was covered with city and the planet still had large uncovered oceans.

[Murazor]

I'm curious about the number you got for for the volume of the Trantor cityscape. How'd you calculate it? I don't remember seeing very many numbers in the books about how large it was, but I remember one line mentioning that only the exposed crust was covered with city and the planet still had large uncovered oceans.

The figures are there.

Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate.
All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a
single city. The population, at its height, was well in excess of forty
billions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the
administrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few for
the complications of the task. (It is to be remembered that the
impossibility of proper administration of the Galactic Empire under the
uninspired leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor in
the Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the
produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor....

Same book, same chapter gives us...

"I know. But most of the time it was just getting up to ground level.
Trantor is tunneled over a mile down. It's like an iceberg. Nine-tenths of
it is out of sight. It even works itself out a few miles into the sub-ocean
soil at the shorelines. In fact, we're down so low that we can make use of
the temperature difference between ground level and a couple of miles under
to supply us with all the energy we need. Did you know that?"

That gives us 7.5E7 EDIT: cubic miles that is roughly equal to the 2E8 cubic kilometers I mention in my old calcs, though I think that I got the thickness figure from the Seldon prequels back then. However, even if we go with the iceberg analogy and suppose that only 1/10th of the material was removed from Trantor, that only changes my results by a factor of five. Big, but still accurate within an order of magnitude (which is what I was aiming for).

[Bakustra]

I have an issue with using the Wienis to determine industrial output. We don't know how much of the ship had to be refitted by the Foundation. So they could have spent two years refurbishing the insides and repairing minor leaks, or torn it apart and performed a complete rebuild. Similarly, most of the Anacreonian fleet would have been in place before the Zeonian revolt, and probably was built over a period of decades, depending.

Of course, I have no issues with the Trantor figures. In fact, they're probably somewhat low, given that the lowest levels are "two or three" miles down and the city extends out into the continental shelf. However, it's quite possible that at least some of it was used for trade, which means that the number of worlds using it for their industry is quite probably higher than a hundred or so.

[Murazor]

I have an issue with using the Wienis to determine industrial output. We don't know how much of the ship had to be refitted by the Foundation. So they could have spent two years refurbishing the insides and repairing minor leaks, or torn it apart and performed a complete rebuild. Similarly, most of the Anacreonian fleet would have been in place before the Zeonian revolt, and probably was built over a period of decades, depending.

No, no.

I think that I don't make my methodology here clear enough.

I don't use the Wienis itself as the indicator of industrial output (the works required to repair it were relatively minor), but as a benchmark, since we know both its length and the volume relationship with the rest of the Anacreontian fleet which we are given in a rather infamous quote.

"It's a ship! They could build in those days. Its cubic capacity is half
again that of the entire Anacreonian navy. It's got nuclear blasts capable
of blowing up a planet, and a shield that could take a Q-beam without
working up radiation. Too much of a good thing, Hardin –"

Bolded for emphasis. As for the Anacreonian navy, it is heavily implied that pretty much everything they have is new construction following the Foundation reactivating their atomic economies with whatever they had from before the Zeonian revolt being negligible.

"But it amounts to the same thing. He's foaming at the mouth with eagerness
to attack the Foundation. He scarcely troubles to conceal it. And he's in a
position to do it, too, from the standpoint of armament. The old king built
up a magnificent navy, and Wienis hasn't been sleeping the last two years.
In fact, the tax on Temple property was originally intended for further
armament, and when that fell through he increased the income tax twice."

As for the timeframe of decades, I already consider it. The figures I give were calculated using a time period of thirty years for the Anacreonian military build-up.

[Bakustra]

I have an issue with using the Wienis to determine industrial output. We don't know how much of the ship had to be refitted by the Foundation. So they could have spent two years refurbishing the insides and repairing minor leaks, or torn it apart and performed a complete rebuild. Similarly, most of the Anacreonian fleet would have been in place before the Zeonian revolt, and probably was built over a period of decades, depending.

No, no.

I think that I don't make my methodology here clear enough.

I don't use the Wienis itself as the indicator of industrial output (the works required to repair it were relatively minor), but as a benchmark, since we know both its length and the volume relationship with the rest of the Anacreontian fleet which we are given in a rather infamous quote.

"It's a ship! They could build in those days. Its cubic capacity is half
again that of the entire Anacreonian navy. It's got nuclear blasts capable
of blowing up a planet, and a shield that could take a Q-beam without
working up radiation. Too much of a good thing, Hardin –"

Bolded for emphasis. As for the Anacreonian navy, it is heavily implied that pretty much everything they have is new construction following the Foundation reactivating their atomic economies with whatever they had from before the Zeonian revolt being negligible.

"But it amounts to the same thing. He's foaming at the mouth with eagerness
to attack the Foundation. He scarcely troubles to conceal it. And he's in a
position to do it, too, from the standpoint of armament. The old king built
up a magnificent navy, and Wienis hasn't been sleeping the last two years.
In fact, the tax on Temple property was originally intended for further
armament, and when that fell through he increased the income tax twice."

As for the timeframe of decades, I already consider it. The figures I give were calculated using a time period of thirty years for the Anacreonian military build-up.

I had forgotten that quote. I have no further complaints.

[Mayabird]

I'm curious about the number you got for for the volume of the Trantor cityscape. How'd you calculate it? I don't remember seeing very many numbers in the books about how large it was, but I remember one line mentioning that only the exposed crust was covered with city and the planet still had large uncovered oceans.

The figures are there.

I'd forgotten about those figures. It's been a while since I'd read the books and I don't have access to them right now. Quick back of the envelope calc says that the land surface figure must take into account ocean surface too, so I'm satisfied. Thanks a bunch!

[Murazor]

I'd forgotten about those figures. It's been a while since I'd read the books and I don't have access to them right now. Quick back of the envelope calc says that the land surface figure must take into account ocean surface too, so I'm satisfied. Thanks a bunch!

No problem.

In any case, here is how I see things with the information that has been presented (or I've found) about the Confederation so far.

HOLDINGS

Trantorian Empire: 25,000,000 worlds.
Confederation: 862 solar systems.

POPULATION

Trantorian Empire: Twenty five quadrillion (2.5E16) subjects, minimum. Other statements point to figures approaching the quintillion (1E18).
Confederation: Earth is described as the political and economic center of the Confederation with a population of thirty five billions (3.5E10). If we rather generously suppose that there is twice this many people in each Confederation star system, we get a global population of no more than sixty trillions (6E13).

STANDING FLEET

Trantorian Empire:Found the damn quote that gives us a number of ships for its home fleet.

The connections with the Outer Worlds, from which Trantor obtained the resources it required, depended upon its thousand spaceports, its ten thousand warships, its hundred thousand merchant ships, its million space freighters.

So... ten thousand warships just in the capital planet, with substantial assets scattered through the provinces all over the galaxy.

Confederation: Nine thousand FTL capable vessels, total, with the possibility of providing more in case of war.

FTL

From what I read in Wikipedia, Foundationverse hyperdrives and Confederation ZTTs seem to have roughly similar mechanics, though without knowing the possible limitations of ZTTs (range, influence of gravity wells) it is difficult to say whether either side holds an advantage here.

In short, the Confederation faces a numerical disadvantage of several orders of magnitude and their technology doesn't appear to give them any significant advantage over Trantorian forces. Unless they have something very exotic and/or powerful that hasn't been mentioned yet, they get their clocks cleaned.

[jamsy42]

Found some details for the confederation: 861 adamist planets, 8000+ Edenist habitats and one Edenist planet{Atlantis}, 5 independent habitats and several thousand independent asteroids.

Fleet size: 9000 ZTT warships + more promised, 1000-1300 voidhawks and 1000 support craft. Added to this are the individual planetary navies{Kulu has a couple thousand, New California about 800}