Thursday, April 26, 2018

More Trouble with Tons

As we all know, 2136 is the year the High Republic threw off the heavy yoke of the Pure Earth. But many have forgotten the tyrannical and inefficient International Standards Organization. And ISO Standard 668. Two more than the number of the Beast. Standard shipping containers. Earther standards, keeping the spacer down.

During the great Exodus, millions of humans left Earth for new homes in space. They brought with them millions of shipping containers. Containers full of stuff: food, survival equipment, the kid’s toys, you name it. Containers they converted to shelters across a hundred worlds and more.
Obviously, no old-fashioned Pure Earth Government standard shipping containers would do. The Freight handling experts of the High Republic convened committees, considered and argued, and in time produced dense, turgid, confusing Standard Documents. The Standard Document was prayed over, preyed over, blessed, and found good.

The High Republic Standard Organization Sealed Stackable Shipping Containers (HRSO-SSSC) were lighter than the old earthling steel ISO containers. More resistant to weather. Insulated. Chemical resistant, impact resistant, meteor and radiation resistant. Not only were there refrigerated reefer versions, some were vacuum sealed or had full life support.

The HRSO-SSSC standard spread into the GPR. (Even though it was a Capitalist trick.) And into the Mercantile League (Suitably renamed to disguise their Statist origin.) The Azzurich Imperium even extended the standard, specifying armored ‘Leader Boxes’ to keep the Beast encaged. In time the Terran Union and the UFP adopted the Standard as well. The future history of freight shipping was the history of the HRSO-SSSC!

A HRSO-SSSC basic type 1 unit was 30 cubic meters. That became the basis of shipping planning and charges, and later of modular living and working space. For billing purposes, an empty unit had a Tare weight of one ton. (They could easily contain 30 tons of cargo.) In time, 30 cubic meters became known as a “Ton” of space. The rule of thumb: for each colonist, passenger, or crew, allocate a ‘ton’ of living and working space. (Unless you were under-resourced. Or a Ranan.)

Because nobody but a Standards committee member was going to say HRSO-SSSCU, type 1 equivalent. Much less ‘High Republic Standard Organization Sealed Stackable Shipping Container Unit.’ There wasn’t enough air to waste on that mouthful!





Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Trillions For Defense…

Federation Starfleet keeps its ships busy. Patrolling colonies, scouting threats, supporting police, survey, and contact, training with System Defense Forces, disaster relief, – the missions are endless. Throwing training and routine maintenance and it’s no wonder the tax burden is so enormous.

I expect the Federation’s biggest warships, the Concordant Battlestars, are held in strategic reserve. Assigned guard duty. They’re docked at bases, or in deep space ghost orbits, cruising at low TsIa in critical systems. They only leave the home systems for war or gunship diplomacy. Times when the Federation needs to get nasty and darken somebody else’s sky. With collapsium clad dragons.

There are sound strategic reasons why Battlestars stay close to home. The Home Systems are at the center of the Federation areas of influence. The ships can be sent anywhere in Federation Outworlds at need. But the big planets like having big guards. Budget committees like having heavy metal guarding their legislative offices. Starforce pays close attention to public demands.

Many of Starforce's best and brightest avoid capital ship duty, preferring the dash of destroyer duty and the important cruiser missions. But it’s a waste to reserve such expensive assets strictly as a fleet in being. Starships are meant for the stars. Warships can’t prevent or deter wars if potential enemies can ignore them. The outworlds also need to see where their taxes went.

Starfleet strategist worry. That’s their job. On the edges of known space, the Starkaad slept fitfully, and Korrillians ravaged. Someday, perhaps soon, there would be violent conflict. Those Star nations outnumbered the UFP, even as the Federation outnumbered their historic GPR and Azzie foes. Elsewhere, Bugs buzzed about. The Ranan and Hissss’t are perpetual threats. Along with The Rulanthu and other, even nastier potential and real foes. Those Star nations need constant reminders: Don’t Annoy the Union.

In the 26 teens, Starfleet began a new program, sending out a few Capital Ships to show the flag. Detach Battlestar and Battleship divisions from defensive duty, set them to cruising about the known worlds and beyond.Remind the colonies what protects them. Remind threats to stay polite. To go boldly where no Battlestar had flown before.

In 2017 Federation services organized an Operational Group – what we’d call a task force. It would be built around a Battlestar Administrative Pair (call it a Division), their escorts and scout couriers. The capital ships selected were battlestars, fleet cruisers, and destroyers. Selected ships were new, but built on the old, versatile ‘Expeditionary’ pattern. Each carries ground combat troops, assault boats, and fighters. Embarked on the capital ships were selected Space Marines or Planetary units forming a marine Operation Group subdivision. Assault craft to transport the marines into battle. And 300 Starfighters to screen and defend the big ships and troops. Make a hell-a-nice Guard day flyover.

Battlestar Division 555 were given this outreach patrol mission. Social Justice Warrior and Responsible (1)  finished acceptance trials, the latest out of Solar shipyards. They had a veteran cadre, still integrating and training up new crews.

The heavy metal was accompanied by the veteran Cruiser Division 1212, Fleet Cruisers Heimdall and Loki. Built as flagships, heavy arms and armor, fast and tough. Originally identical, they’d been customized, outfitted and manned for different, complementary duties.

Heimdall is the eye and the shield of the OG. Less armor than a battleship, but faster, harder to hit. An enhanced sensor package, equal to a Survey Battlecruiser. Heimdall’s captain liked getting in close and hitting her targets with megabolts and starbombers. Heimdall carried armored cavalry and bombers; more heavy metal.

Loki is a sneak and sniper. Working with Heimdall, Loki held back, used passive sensors and forwarded target info to hit her foes. Loki carried a Special Forces battalion, stealthships, and more classified covert action assets.

Operational Force Summers were the escorts. Twelve destroyers from the 1524 Destroyer Administrative Team. Should be all eighteen, but Starfleet never has enough destroyers. The rest of the DAT were on detached service or refitting and repairing. Summers was the Destroyer Leader, her sistership Katniss was on detached service. Eleven line Destroyers followed Summers. Faith, Swan, Leia, Padme, Ray, Natasha, Alice, Mulan, Wanda, Sonya, and Heidi. Glorious Names of ancient lineage in the High Republic and Union space navies. Earlier ships with these names had fought and won dozens of desperate battles.

Forty-eight Scout couriers were attached. The fleet train was Heavy Repair Ship Shade, three massive Replenishment ships and four Fleet tug/tow boats. A half-dozen corvettes escorted the fatties.

The Op Force carried an entire Starfighter force. And a division of Space Marines and Commandos. Attachments from other services: IPA, Survey, Contact and Diplomatic Service, BRINT, Security, Health, Ecology, and PSI Corp.

January 2, 2618, they left lunar orbit, passed Starbase Spectre in a review, and thence into the big dark.

(1) They almost named Responsible as‘Herald of Free Enterprise’. A homage to the UFP’s sometime allies the Mercantile League. But some spoilsport looked up that name other before she was launched. Not a happy history. Might embarrass or offend Augusta.















Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Trillion Credits of Space Opera

Back in the day, Traveller supported wargame style play. One supplement in this line was Trillion Credit Squadron. Players designed their own fleets, using the High Guard big ship rules. Then they lined them up, got out the ship combat rules. Then slugged it out. It was the only way to find out who was the best designer and fleet commander.

The results were very interesting. Douglas Lenat ran hundreds of simulations using an AI Program .The fleet he created won the national contest two years running. Look it up.

Space Opera’s shipbuilding rules never included the ‘secret’ military design rules. In their absence, we can use published examples. (And indulge in the time-honored Gamer Pastime: Make Shit Up)
Eight sample fleet lines were published in Seldon’s guides 2 and 3. The compendiums had Stats for Destroyers, Cruisers, and other space warships. In the fiction, Battleships designed according to each fleet’s capabilities and cultural preferences. Four more or less human cultures, four more or less alien cultures.

Every Starnation’s culture was reflected in their ship designs. The UFP built the best ships they could; the expense was no object. In comparison, the Mercantile League kept a close eye on the bottom line. Both had to protect hundreds of allies and colonies scattered over hundreds of lightyears. The oppressive Azurich Imperium built big nasty attack ships manned by their relatively few chosen crews. Azzie ships were not designed to defend broad areas of space, but for destruction.
The Galactic People’s republic had more manpower. They built many cheaper ships to utilize this advantage.

Each ship classification came in several varieties t different levels of technological sophistication. Each ship had a price, fixed to the ‘hard’ credit of the Federation and League banks. Prices ranged from a few megacredits for cheap starfighters, to hundreds of Billions for ttop of the line Battlestars.
Zoe the cat and I spent a productive Sunday afternoon perusing the Starships of War for Space Opera. I started a spreadsheet of ship statistics, intending to do some "Trillion Credit Squadron" fun. My spreadsheet model lists out the classes and their prices. I can pick and choose and compare. Like fantasy yacht wishlist shopping on-line, only with nova guns.

Start with the most expensive ships in the books, Federation Concordant Battlestars. Over a kilometer long, a crew of thousands. Carries thousands of marines, hundreds of fighters. Cargo capacity of tens of thousands of standard twenty-foot shipping containers. Big bad mama-jammers.

Each Battlestar mounts over two dozen of the most powerful ship to ship weapons, with armor and shields to match. A Battlestar can wreck a destroyer in less than five minutes. UFP Battlestars are not super-fast, but they can cross between stars faster than GPR or Imperial battleships.

With a trillion credits we can afford three Battlestars. And we get change. Nearly a hundred billion left over to buy full fighter groups, ten destroyers, and thirty scout/couriers. That’ll make some pirate lord or galactic tyrant soil their pants.

Or what the heck, let's stock up on destroyers. For a trillion, we can get 200 destroyers, ten destroyer leaders, and full fighter load outs – nearly 1,700 fighters. They’re lifting over 38,000 Space Marines.
A trillion credits of Fleet corvettes and Scouts yields 2,400 ships. None of their guns will even scratch the Battlestars’ paint. But they can launch ten times as many missiles as the Battlestar’s fighter groups. And they can be spread across thousands of systems.












Sunday, April 22, 2018