SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread V

[fgalkin]

Outlawing slavery and then kinda sorta looking the other way is not the same thing as proudly supporting it in vein of Pendleton, last I checked.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Look, Phfor pretty much dropped the get go before the game even really started on its full swing, so we will never know will we? And honestly, since when have states been entirely consistent with their policies publicly and under the table? Do I honestly have to quote modern examples? The Pfhor as it is are galactic pariahs or at least pariahs in their neighbourhood and I highly doubt they would want a precedent to be set.

Phfor official policy is that slavery is banned. Phfor unofficial policy is that it's okay as long as it's kept quiet. Neither of these positions are like those of Pendleton. Your appeals to "well, we'll never know" are pointless when we have a fairly detailed wiki about them.

And you doubt that they would want what precedent to be set? Phfors making allies with other nations?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Phfor official policy is that slavery is banned. Phfor unofficial policy is that it's okay as long as it's kept quiet. Neither of these positions are like those of Pendleton. Your appeals to "well, we'll never know" are pointless when we have a fairly detailed wiki about them.

And your empty suppositions are any better?

And you doubt that they would want what precedent to be set? Phfors making allies with other nations?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

How about allied nations punishing nations that indulge in slavery?

[fgalkin]

Phfor official policy is that slavery is banned. Phfor unofficial policy is that it's okay as long as it's kept quiet. Neither of these positions are like those of Pendleton. Your appeals to "well, we'll never know" are pointless when we have a fairly detailed wiki about them.

And your empty suppositions are any better?

At least they're based on something other than appeals to ignorance, so yes, they are better.

And you doubt that they would want what precedent to be set? Phfors making allies with other nations?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

How about allied nations punishing nations that indulge in slavery?

Oh, you're talking about the Pendleton thing?

Yes, they would get into a war with a half dozen nations over a shitworld on the other side of the galaxy that is in the middle of inaccessible shoals because of its support for an institution they themselves have banned. They would do this, despite the precedent existing for a long time (this was, after all the TWELFTH battle of Pendleton), and them actually beating back the invasion force not actually changing anything (since the precedent is for slavery being a casus belli, regardless if they're win or not). When did they get a diploma from the CN School of Foreign Affairs, again?

EDIT: Anyways, this is a pointless conversation. The Phfors have been abandoned, and they can be whatever we want them to be as they're essentially an NPC state now.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

At least they're based on something other than appeals to ignorance, so yes, they are better.

Appeals to my ignorance my fucking arse, like yours doesn't.

Oh, you're talking about the Pendleton thing?

Yes, they would get into a war with a half dozen nations over a shitworld on the other side of the galaxy that is in the middle of inaccessible shoals because of its support for an institution they themselves have banned. They would do this, despite the precedent existing for a long time (this was, after all the TWELFTH battle of Pendleton), and them actually beating back the invasion force not actually changing anything (since the precedent is for slavery being a casus belli, regardless if they're win or not). When did they get a diploma from the CN School of Foreign Affairs, again?

Didn't stop the COllectors from siding with them. As story arcs go by, that was stupid but hey...

EDIT: Anyways, this is a pointless conversation. The Phfors have been abandoned, and they can be whatever we want them to be as they're essentially an NPC state now.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Tell you what. THe next time you butt in and try to "suppose" something about an empire not bordering your nation but rather others, perhaps you should just shut the fuck up and let the real neighbours haggle it out among themselves how best to do it and then present it to the mods, hmm?

[Simon_Jester]

Unless you want to rewrite a part of the Pfhor narrative, be my guest. Last I checked, they are a fairly insular empire, styling themselves as a larger version of Astaria/Pendleton.

In fact, realisticly speaking, I would have seen the Pfhor siding with Pendleton and going as far as aiding their idealogically similar brethen but hey...

How is it realistic for the Pfhor to commit suicide against a large coalition of powers by aiding a random shitworld that has little potential to aid their nation as a nation?

The fact that slavery is de facto legal among the Pfhor (while be being de jure outlawed) does not mean that slavery is some kind of fetish among the Pfhor. It's not their national identity; it's just something they happen to do. The Pfhor economy does not depend on the slave trade, they have plenty of industries other than the slave trade, et cetera.

So there is no real Pfhor "ideological" commitment to the institution of slavery. Nothing that would motivate them committing what would amount to self-immolation over Pendleton by provoking a fight with the Coalition that includes two states well within striking distance of them.

[Shroom Man 777]

Pollux, the Pfhor player, and I have exchanged PMs in the past of good Bragulan-Pfhor relations before the earth opened up and swallowed him into oblivions.

Also, yes, the Bragulans would ally with a slave-owning race of basterds to secure its security over the perfidious human nations all around it. They even ally with the Spice-addicted mutated Sassanids, fer mua'dib's sake!

So stop being so grumpies, uou Fgalkins and Fingolfinss and Fingalfinkins and Fginlofkins and whatevers!

[Shroom Man 777]

If they enslave Bragulans? Would that not be an insult to Bragulanity?

Yes, but to be fair, Bragulans also enslave, torture, and generally brutalize themselves. So insult can be overlooked on temporary basis.

But the Bragulans do it to themselves. Horrors of horrors if other xenos do it on them!

Case in point: the Tau.

All Bragulans who exit the confines of Bragspace without authorization of the border space police are thus guilty of instantaneous treason, as the abandonment of Mother Bragule and the Imperator Byzon is among the worst crimes a Bragulan can commit.

Also, it is in keeping with the doctrines of Byzonism that all space outside Bragspace is filled with all manner of horrendous alien perfidiousities, so wayward traitor-bears who get themselves enslaved by Pfhor get their just desserts, as far as Bragule is concerned.

I doubt the Pfhor are stupid enough to venture into Bragspace to kidnap Brags, so the ones they get must be the escapee-traitors! Hell, I bet the IBGV could coordinate with the Pfhor. Any Bragulans who escape the BSE and fly past the endless space minefields end up falsely believing themselves to be outside Imperial jurisdiction and rejoice, only to get themselves enslaved by the Pfhor (who are vectored to the runaway Brags' coordinates by the IBGV).

[Siege]

EDIT: @ Siege: I stand corrected about the Sock Puppet issue, but they DID send a fleet to you in both the Monolith and the Chamarran incidents. 2/2 is a small sample size, but it's the only one we've got, so far.

That's fair enough. The explanation for Cevaukian involvement in the Chamarran incident was that (1) the actions of the Chamarran stealth ship at Shin-Hokkaido imperiled the Nightfall Overfleet as much as it did the rest of the allied fleet contingent and (2) the Chamarrans were sending a sizeable fleet that would be skirting Cevaukian space, so they probably had even more to worry about than the Sovereignty itself.

The idea Moby and I were operating from initially is that the Sovereignty and the Ascendancy formed out of pretty much the same kind of lawless frontier banditry, and that along the edges of USS / CA space it's difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins, but whereas the core worlds of the Circuit are comparable to those of the Sovereignty its fringes remain plagued by warlords, crime rings, corruption, Pfhor raiders and other difficulties that tie down its fleets. They're two sides of the same coin, and kind of involved with each other's internal affairs, but both governments still very much have their own priorities (be they wild space/the Bragulans for the USS or internal trouble/the Pfhor for the CA). I've been meaning to write bits about this but you know how it goes... Not enough time, etc.

[Shroom Man 777]

I wish Thanas at least allowed me to write his guys as a bunch of deformed Spice-addicted blue-eyed guys ruled by an Emperor who has turned into a giant sandworm, and attended to by a Lincoln Omaha or whatever.

[Simon_Jester]

I doubt the Pfhor are stupid enough to venture into Bragspace to kidnap Brags, so the ones they get must be the escapee-traitors! Hell, I bet the IBGV could coordinate with the Pfhor. Any Bragulans who escape the BSE and fly past the endless space minefields end up falsely believing themselves to be outside Imperial jurisdiction and rejoice, only to get themselves enslaved by the Pfhor (who are vectored to the runaway Brags' coordinates by the IBGV).

The Bragulans might even buy the Bragslaves back reward the Pfhor slavers bounty hunters for capturing the refugees traitors!

I wish Thanas at least allowed me to write his guys as a bunch of deformed Spice-addicted blue-eyed guys ruled by an Emperor who has turned into a giant sandworm, and attended to by a Lincoln Omaha or whatever.

No one's stopping you, you know. You could just start picking on Sassanids like you always used to pick on Shinra...

[Beowulf]

Also, I note from that list that a few players would seem to have expanded their navy out of proportion to their total GDP, putting something like 5% of overall costs into ground troops; there are expectations that you'll plow a certain percentage of your budget into ground forces, after all. Highest profile offenders seem to be Tianguo and the Cevaucians- especially the Cevaucians, and I'd call their player to task for this if he actually bothered to show up. But Tianguo is a serious problem child on this front. If we're going to neglect ground forces in a war, then those players need to be reined in by act of mod in the event that they try to use their bulked-up navy to justify pushing others around.

I'll note that Fima pulled his numbers from the wiki, which may represent approximate current time status of forces, not beginning of game. This has the effect of skewing the numbers for nations which have updated their numbers to reflect partial build updates. In my case, this is on the order of 2000 pt difference. It's still a bit outsized compared to most at just less than 58k pts (not counting the gunboat swarm). As a percentage of GDP, it's similar to Shinra, Hiigara, Federated Ascendancy, Iduran Confederation, and the Commune at 87-91%. This isn't significantly greater than the median, around 79%. If one declines to count the Type 20 corvettes, which are fluffily utilized for customs, border patrol and the like, the warfleet/GDP drops down to ~84%, which puts it about 1/3 down the utilization ranking (though still in the top quartile of absolute size). The true outliers are the bottom quartile, at around 66% of GDP being for their fleet. 3 of the 7 k-zone nations fall into this region, though that may be in part due to mis-categorization of the Space Marine's ships. I haven't checked Fima's numbers. The USS isn't far out of the bottom quartile either.

[Simon_Jester]

I'll note that Fima pulled his numbers from the wiki, which may represent approximate current time status of forces, not beginning of game. This has the effect of skewing the numbers for nations which have updated their numbers to reflect partial build updates.

Ah, I see. In my case, my wiki updates to the order of battle are separate from the January 1 order of battle, which simplifies matters a bit. But yeah, that would explain a lot.

[DarthShady]

If you think that's bad, look at the poor Karlacks. For a massive swarm of OM NOM NOMs, they've definitely been hit with the nerf stick repeatedly.

When one looks at it like that, you do have a point. I might have made a mistake in refusing to use my mod privileges, although I did have reasons for that back when the game was starting. Anyway the balance has been kept so far, and I don't foresee any major problems in keeping that up in the future.

Unless Fin decides to launch that final crusade of his.

[RogueIce]

I think one thing about the balance of power in the K-Zone is that the Wiki is, essentially, OOC information in a lot of ways. For example, we all know the MEH Fleet and it's composition from looking at the Wiki, but in-game I'm treating it as an unknown: hence Beo's recent deployment of stealth units over there for some recon, as well as discussions I've had with others concerning same.

So yeah, while looking at the Wiki and the NCPs and GDPs we can say "man those guys are a little underpowered" IC the other nations may not know this little factoid. And even if it is known it's easy enough to invent a reason or two why somebody can't just use the full force of their mighty Spacefleet to crush the infidels.

So yeah, it does bring up an interesting question of how much of what's on the Wiki can be 'known' or not by any other powers IC, since we use it as a place for fluff, OOBs and some history collection depending on how much time people care to invest in it. For myself, I did go out of my way to notate on my Special Intelligence Division page that it is top secret and information there is for purely OOC benefit, but I don't think anyone wants to micromanage their pages that much (I sure don't; I did it for SID because it was a small little stub page anyway).

So TL;DR version: yeah OOC we may know that the Karlacks and Brags may be a bit underpowered if you just add fleet totals, but that doesn't mean the USS or IoM know this, or at least know it with enough certainty to commit to an all-out attack.

And of course as Simon said: shit can happen. There is that too. And the K-Zone players seems cool enough (with each other, at least ) to not go with curbstomping anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the shoals of Wild Space are almost perfect terrain for the kind of asymmetric naval dickery we're seeing at Zebes; Zokolova's fighting a combined force of roughly 15000-18000 points with something like 6000-7000 on her own side, and is in a good position to inflict horribly disproportionate losses on them.

That's not so much by tactics, though the defensive terrain advantage of fighting in shoals helps. It's also a question of superior intelligence, in the military and conventional senses. She's making creative use of maskirovka, has good operational security, and knows a lot about her enemies... while her opponents are being quite straightforward*, have poor operational security (there are probably journos wandering around their H-11 fleet anchorage, for one), and know almost nothing really important about their enemies.

None of those advantages are measurable in terms of points; all of them make a difference in warfare.

So when thinking "why doesn't the guy with a 5:4 advantage in ships press that advantage?" we have to remember that it's equally possible for, say, the Bragulans to pull a Zokolova on someone. If the Sovvies or Byzantines get sloppy, they could wind up losing their naval superiority "in an afternoon."

*This is mostly because they still think of the opposition as a relatively weak 'rogue state' organization compared to a real national navy, or did until the Battle of Zebes actually happened at any rate. Most of the senior Coalition officers at Zebes would fight smarter and more carefully in a full-up war than they do against a bunch of pirates. Most.

[Siege]

There's also the fact to consider that deep down inside I don't think the Sovs or the Brags really want a full-blown war. There's a lot of blustering going on, and both sides do a lot of daydreaming about vanquishing the Eternal Enemy and all that good stuf... But neither side has forgotten the ridiculous levels of destruction and bloodshed of the First Bragulan War, and I strongly doubt anyone really feels eager to repeat the experience. Posturing and the occasional flare-up in Wild Space is one thing, a total war that would leave even the winner easy pickings for whoever comes after, that's something else.

The Imps may be slightly more gung-ho about it, but considering they actually talk to the Brags I doubt it's that much different for them. And even the Aspects of the Karlack Swarm know that it's just not a good idea to throw caution to the wind. Generally speaking I would say that the inhabitants of the K-Zone are more eager to start shooting than most of the rest of the galaxy, but even we are not without restraint and consideration... For given values of restraint and consideration, of course .

[fgalkin]

Appeals to my ignorance my fucking arse, like yours doesn't.

Of course it doesn't. Do you even know what an appeal to ignorance is? You should, after how many years on SDN?

Didn't stop the COllectors from siding with them. As story arcs go by, that was stupid but hey...

Except the Collectors are a) not constrained by shoals b) don't care about precedents c) are not very good at diplomacy and may not have realized the consequences of their actions d) actually were getting something out of the deal. Oh look, it's nothing like your scenario at all.

Tell you what. THe next time you butt in and try to "suppose" something about an empire not bordering your nation but rather others, perhaps you should just shut the fuck up and let the real neighbours haggle it out among themselves how best to do it and then present it to the mods, hmm?

Tell you what, this is still SDN and when someone says a stupid thing, they usually get called on it. It's happened to CN before, and it happened to you now. Especially considering that Shroom had just pretty much confirmed everything I said. So, perhaps you should have taken your own advice and shut the fuck up.

I'll note that Fima pulled his numbers from the wiki, which may represent approximate current time status of forces, not beginning of game. This has the effect of skewing the numbers for nations which have updated their numbers to reflect partial build updates. In my case, this is on the order of 2000 pt difference. It's still a bit outsized compared to most at just less than 58k pts (not counting the gunboat swarm). As a percentage of GDP, it's similar to Shinra, Hiigara, Federated Ascendancy, Iduran Confederation, and the Commune at 87-91%. This isn't significantly greater than the median, around 79%. If one declines to count the Type 20 corvettes, which are fluffily utilized for customs, border patrol and the like, the warfleet/GDP drops down to ~84%, which puts it about 1/3 down the utilization ranking (though still in the top quartile of absolute size). The true outliers are the bottom quartile, at around 66% of GDP being for their fleet. 3 of the 7 k-zone nations fall into this region, though that may be in part due to mis-categorization of the Space Marine's ships. I haven't checked Fima's numbers. The USS isn't far out of the bottom quartile either.

That is true, I used what you put up on the wiki, but that is the only thing I've had. If you have numbers from the beginning of the year, send them to me and I'll update the spreadsheet.

And I categorized Astartes warships as part of the fleet because they can still be used for naval action. I have done the same thing to everyone's assault/landing/whatever you call it ships because they free up true warships to be used elsewhere. And no, I tend to count even the customs corvettes as part of the fleet for the same reason. Besides, their role is taken by dedicated warships in other nations, so they have to be included in the count when making rough estimates of how many forces that nation can send away to fight.

Ah, I see. In my case, my wiki updates to the order of battle are separate from the January 1 order of battle, which simplifies matters a bit. But yeah, that would explain a lot.

I've noticed (and I did the same thing for myself). I've used the fleet at game start for Umerian fleet totals.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Force Lord]

Just to let you know, I've created a page for my nation's navy with ORBATs for 3400 and 3401, as well as my ship construction so far.

[Simon_Jester]

And I categorized Astartes warships as part of the fleet because they can still be used for naval action. I have done the same thing to everyone's assault/landing/whatever you call it ships because they free up true warships to be used elsewhere. And no, I tend to count even the customs corvettes as part of the fleet for the same reason. Besides, their role is taken by dedicated warships in other nations, so they have to be included in the count when making rough estimates of how many forces that nation can send away to fight.

Dealing with me that would be a good choice. Umeria fields customs cutters along with other types. They're navalized enough to fight, carry llight nuclear-tipped missiles, and have uniquely powerful high-resolution sensors, so cutter wings do find useful things to do with them now and then.

Trying to divide up all the fleets in the game by 'offensive' and 'defensive' components would be a ridiculously exhaustive task, and in many cases a pointless one because a nominally defensive fleet can be raided for units to support an offensive- so far, of the three noticeable battles Umerian forces have participated in, two of them involved ships drawn entirely from our 'defensive' system control groups.

That said:

Appeals to my ignorance my fucking arse, like yours doesn't.

Of course it doesn't. Do you even know what an appeal to ignorance is? You should, after how many years on SDN?

Didn't stop the COllectors from siding with them. As story arcs go by, that was stupid but hey...

Except the Collectors are a) not constrained by shoals b) don't care about precedents c) are not very good at diplomacy and may not have realized the consequences of their actions d) actually were getting something out of the deal. Oh look, it's nothing like your scenario at all.

Tell you what. THe next time you butt in and try to "suppose" something about an empire not bordering your nation but rather others, perhaps you should just shut the fuck up and let the real neighbours haggle it out among themselves how best to do it and then present it to the mods, hmm?

Tell you what, this is still SDN and when someone says a stupid thing, they usually get called on it. It's happened to CN before, and it happened to you now. Especially considering that Shroom had just pretty much confirmed everything I said. So, perhaps you should have taken your own advice and shut the fuck up.

For crying out loud, will you two- both of you- please knock it off?

You've gone back and forth for the better part of a page now about who does and doesn't know how much about Pfhor policies, and at this point does it really matter? It's just pointless chest-beating about who's stupider and who's more fallacious and "Neener neener my argument is better reasoned than yours!"

Regardless of which of you I agree with on the subject- or if I agree with either of you- it's gone on too long and with too much vitriol for anyone's interests to be served by keeping it up.

[fgalkin]

And I categorized Astartes warships as part of the fleet because they can still be used for naval action. I have done the same thing to everyone's assault/landing/whatever you call it ships because they free up true warships to be used elsewhere. And no, I tend to count even the customs corvettes as part of the fleet for the same reason. Besides, their role is taken by dedicated warships in other nations, so they have to be included in the count when making rough estimates of how many forces that nation can send away to fight.

Dealing with me that would be a good choice. Umeria fields customs cutters along with other types. They're navalized enough to fight, carry llight nuclear-tipped missiles, and have uniquely powerful high-resolution sensors, so cutter wings do find useful things to do with them now and then.

Trying to divide up all the fleets in the game by 'offensive' and 'defensive' components would be a ridiculously exhaustive task, and in many cases a pointless one because a nominally defensive fleet can be raided for units to support an offensive- so far, of the three noticeable battles Umerian forces have participated in, two of them involved ships drawn entirely from our 'defensive' system control groups.

Exactly. I mean, as of right now, the Lost's "offensive" fleet is slightly over 20k points. Including just that would have been a gross misrepresentation of our actual warfighting capabilities, though.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, yes, there are indeed things worse than being a Living Brick as my most recent post shows

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Darkevilme]

Okay. Can we have a role call as to what stealth ships are active in MEH space? cause i'm losing track and at this rate we're gonna outnumber the actual military vessels we're all looking at.

Chamarran assets:
x12 Blade packs(six ships each). (only a few of which are operating in the danger zones at any given time, the rest have withdrawn to areas nearby having completed probe seeding of the area) Each pack has a stealthed supply tender.

Lost assets:
x1 stealthed satellite repair ship???

Tianguo assets:
x1 stealth carrier with stealthed parasite craft

Eoghan assets:
???

Byzantine assets:
1 ship of no doubt impressive appearance.

Who am i missing on this list?

[fgalkin]

I will do another post on our actual stealth operations in MEH space later.

Currently, we have a Type I Stealth Ship (65 pts) and its complement of 20 spy probes in there.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Agent Sorchus]

I have 14 of my $70 Heavy Frigates on various special operations of which observing the MeH is one, and a secondary one at that. (All of them from project Jaeger 3400 construction, because the rest of the formations they are going to be attached to aren't completed yet). Monitoring the Ork Waagh is another secondary goal, maybe even a little higher priority than the Meh. Shroom alone knows about the primary mission.

[Akhlut]

Okay. Can we have a role call as to what stealth ships are active in MEH space? cause i'm losing track and at this rate we're gonna outnumber the actual military vessels we're all looking at.

Chamarran assets:
x12 Blade packs(six ships each). (only a few of which are operating in the danger zones at any given time, the rest have withdrawn to areas nearby having completed probe seeding of the area) Each pack has a stealthed supply tender.

Lost assets:
x1 stealthed satellite repair ship???

Tianguo assets:
x1 stealth carrier with stealthed parasite craft

Eoghan assets:
???

Byzantine assets:
1 ship of no doubt impressive appearance.

Who am i missing on this list?

Trailing the Ork ships attacking MEH is a single stealth ship from an auxiliary intelligence agency composed of humans. It is from the New Space Army and is christened the Turtles All the Way Down.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Okay. Can we have a role call as to what stealth ships are active in MEH space? cause i'm losing track and at this rate we're gonna outnumber the actual military vessels we're all looking at.

Chamarran assets:
x12 Blade packs(six ships each). (only a few of which are operating in the danger zones at any given time, the rest have withdrawn to areas nearby having completed probe seeding of the area) Each pack has a stealthed supply tender.

Lost assets:
x1 stealthed satellite repair ship???

Tianguo assets:
x1 stealth carrier with stealthed parasite craft

Eoghan assets:
???

Byzantine assets:
1 ship of no doubt impressive appearance.

Who am i missing on this list?

4 75pt corvettes outfitted for Stealth work. Probes used minimally to avoid detection through gravitational waves.